Charlotte Is Dead

Chapter 3

Zaire | After

Exactly six weeks and one day ago, Charlotte Brooklyn Cezanne died. Exactly six weeks and one day ago, my life fell to pieces. Exactly six weeks and one day ago, Zaire Denzel Sullivan officially went mad.

But thank God (and science) for letting me keep my good looks. For not having me look like the spiralling madman I am. Or— as Raffiel would say— mad teenager because I’m not eighteen yet. For now, I still look like Zaire. Perfect hair, not too perfect uniform, perfectly blank expression. I stand in front of the mirror in our bathroom, examining myself.

Outside, rosy streaks have coloured the skies and a pale, watery sun shines through the glass of the window in a traditional English fashion. It’s way too early for hardly anyone else to be up. At Claire Hall, you learn to cherish every minute of sleep you get. We’re not like most boarding schools which keep you so busy you can’t get a free minute to be homesick. At Claire, you cherish every moment of sleep because it’s a break from being perfect. At Claire, perfect is the norm.

I slip out of the bathroom and make my way to the main school, rucksack on my left shoulder. Technically, we aren’t meant to be in the main school before breakfast in House. But the only place I can do this is the roof of the main school.

You see, House wasn’t added until the late 1950s. Before then, all the students would sleep, eat and learn in the main school building. But as more students were enrolled, the dorms became overcrowded. So Mr Claire— in his late fifties— built House and demolished the dorm wing of the main school. I think. I didn’t pay much attention to the architectural history lessons. Anyway, his daughters had their own rooms in the towers. There were three of them, Artemis, Selene and Athena. The fourth tower was inhabited by himself and his wife, Eve. Nobody lives there anymore. But those small towers have staircases that lead up to the roof connecting them all.

It’s our meeting place. Well, it was.

I climb up Artemis’ tower and end up on a flat roof. Thirty minutes to until everyone will be getting up. Thirty minutes until I have to pull myself together and grab a cereal bar with the other prefects while setting up the ire’s assembly of the year. I slam record on the camera and start talking.

“This is Day One of Zaire’s video diary of Hell and feeling like Tony Stark,” I announce. “Too bad this isn’t an Iron Man helmet, huh? That would be sick. But then Natalia would want to borrow it all the time for her book club meetings to rub it in Vince’s face. He so has a crush on her.”

I pause. I need to let this out. I need to. Or else it’ll eat away at me and most likely end up killing me.

“I sleepwalked onto the cliff last night,” I continue. “I woke up literally just in time. Just one more centimetre and I would’ve been a goner. I feel like it’s something more than just sleepwalking for some reason. I was having this dream that there was this glowing orb thing on the beach and someone in a hood was holding it. It was really weird and creepy.”

I hesitate. Do I really want to say this? The only person who’ll ever see this is me, but still. It won’t just be a worried thought anymore. It’ll be something real.

“I think that so something terrible is going to happen,” I whisper. “I think that Charlotte dying wasn’t just a coincidence. I think there’s something so much bigger going on.”

I hit the button to stop recording and shove it into my bag, staring at the coast down below. Our school is built on a cliff, dangerous but gorgeous. The strip of beach below is called Claire Beach and you can’t go on it unless you have permission from the school since it’s technically part of the school grounds. It’s one of the things I loved most about home. But now all I can see is that night.

A torchlit night. A bloody sunset. Blaring music. More than just a tiny bit of alcohol. Cigarette smoke from the edgy Year Twelves who think they’re all that. An Charlotte washing up on the beach, dying.

My phone ringing pulls me out of my thoughts. It’s Keely, the Head Girl.

“Hey, Keely,” I say, accepting the call.

“Hey, hey, hey, Mr E!” Keely’s cheerful voice calls. “I’m in the hall already and I have better than Coco Pops bars!”

“What do you have?” I ask suspiciously, beginning to descend down the tower.

Keely doesn’t always have the best opinion on food. I once saw her crack and egg in a glass and drink it straight. Also, she thinks that Chinese takeaway from the place in the village is horrible. Hawk didn’t speak to her for a month after that little revelation. What can I say? Guy has a strong opinion on food.

“I raided Mr Gilbert’s stash yesterday, telling him he promised to eat less sugar this year,” she laughs. “Just hurry!”

“Already there,” I reply, hanging up and walking into the main hall.

Keely is there with Mr Dargan, the caretaker. She’s setting up chairs, offering Mr D a strawberry lace. Upon seeing me, she waves madly, sending the strawberry laces flying.

“What they do to you?” I ask, bending to retrieve the packet and shoving a few in my mouth.

“So, the Fantastic Four are going to do the chairs and the partition measuring,” Keely tells me. “But you can set up the stage, Ant Man.”

I roll my eyes. “You know I’m taller than you and two of your Fantastic Four, right?”

“Not me,” a voice drawls behind me. “Still have, like, ten centimetres to go, Ant Man.”

It’s Darren Foley, the Head Boy. Behind him are the “Fantastic Four”, who are basically just their other four prefects. I was pretty surprised to hear that Darren and Keely had picked me for their team to be honest since I didn’t think a Year Eleven could be on a Sixth Form Prefect Team. Turns out, Year Eleven is the first year you’re eligible to become a prefect.

“You’ve started a war,” I hiss to Keely with a ghost of a smile, grabbing a Winder. “What do you want on the stage?”

“The table, eight chairs and the easel Mr D brought in,” she answers. “Grab a chair, everyone.”

I set up the stage as I’ve seen previously, chewing on my Winder and listening to Fall Out Boy on my phone. The best chairs in an L shape in the far left corner, the podium in the right closest to the edge of the stage and the easel roughly in between. I roll the projector screen down and pull up Mrs Elliott’s PowerPoint. The first slide says Welcome Back! In a cursive font with a picture of Claire below.

“Keely, what’s going on this easel?” I call, grabbing a seat on the edge of the stage.

“Dunno, Elliot’s bringing something in!” she yells back. “Think it’s important ‘cause even I don’t know what it is!”

I watch everyone else finish up before the Year Sixes are ushered in by a grumpy Mrs Parsons. They’re wide eyed with messily knotted ties and uneasy alliances forming. A girl with blonde bunches leads the herd to the row of seats marked as Year Six on the end, head high. She looks like Charlotte but doesn’t at the same time. Charlotte’s hair was paler, her blue eyes darker. But she had the same head held high attitude on our first proper day. She led me and Raffiel in, fearless even when she was ten. She sees me looking and her eyes widen. She turns to her little buddy and whispers something in her ear. The other girl immediately bursts into giggles.

“Zaire, stop making them hyper,” Darren whispers as he joins me on the stage. “And for God’s sake, get up. You’re going to be the next Edward Cullen if you’re not careful.”

“Let me guess, nobody made a Darren fan club?”

We sit down in our chairs and watch the rest of the school file in. Raffiel’ dark eyes meet mine as he comes in with Hawk, Natalia and this girl I don’t recognise. He’s worried. I make a face at him and he makes one back. One that says God, we’re screwed, Denzel. And when Raffiel uses my full name, we pretty much are screwed. And this time, Charlotte won’t come along with her handy screwdriver to get us all out.

Mrs Elliot also arrives with something rectangular under a sheet that she sets on the easel before checking her PowerPoint and microphone on the podium. She signals the teachers to shush the students before starting. The assembly begins with Mrs Elliot giving her traditional welcome back bullshit speech so old I’m ninety-nine point nine nine percent sure that it was created by the Great Claire himself. She introduces us, giving me a special shout-out as being the first Year Eleven prefect in all of Claire history. I smile at that, pretending to be all chuffed.

“Yeah, we’re going to lock your photos on the school database with a password,” Darren whispers to me. “How’d you feel about SoNotEdwardCullen?”

“I feel like you’re a bit too obsessed with Robert Pattinson,” I mumble back.

“As you all know, we sadly lost a beloved member of our community last July. In loving memory of Charlotte Cezanne, her parents have donated this to the school. I am sure that it will stay as a piece of our school history in years to come.”

She pulls the sheet off the easel and a collective gasp goes around the room. For the Year Sixes to Year Tens, it’s awe. The portrait of Charlotte is as beautiful as she was, intricate and gorgeous. But for Year Elevens and above, it’s fear. I can see fear in every single one of my classmate’s eyes as they stare, gaping, at Charlotte.

Her straight blonde hair is flawless. Her eyes are dark blue-green, her lashes thick as ever. Her cheeks are flushed. She has a soft smile on her face. She isn’t the Charlotte we buried in the churchyard late July. She’s Charlotte before.

It is the Charlotte before the last half term of Year Ten. Before the heat began to intensify and ice lollies became a regular in the dining hall. Before she dyed a streak of her hair the colour of blood and refused to have Ms Parsons dye it back to her original blonde when Mr Gilbert demanded it. Before her smiles vanished and permanent scowls replaced them. Before she tore down everything that made her Charlotte.

I find myself reaching for my phone and tapping out a message without realising. Natalia gets there first though.

Natalia

It’s Charlotte before. WTF do we do???

Raffiel

Don’t say anythin

Hawk

Just stay quiet

Zaire

Nobody knows yet. It has to stay that way.

Understand?

Natalia

Understood

Hawk

Understood

Raffiel

Understood

I walk out of that assembly, head spinning and clutching the straps of my bag for support. But when someone taps me on the shoulder, I almost jump six feet in the air and scream. I turn to see a policeman staring at me.

“Zaire Denzel Sullivan? We have a few questions if you don’t mind.”