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.”
Serenity | BeforeI sit in the middle of my bedroom, in the centre of a circle of thirteen scented candles in pretty glass jars. They’re all vanilla, Mom’s favourite scent. Technically, they are hers. Dad bought them as their twentieth wedding anniversary gift. But I need them tonight.“How long will it take?” Naomi asks nervously, fiddling with her hair.She sits opposite me, her auburn hair sitting in her shoulder, pulled away from the flames. Her hair reaches to her waist in long, natural waves most girls have to achieve with curlers. In the recent weeks, her slender frame has become dangerously skinny and her dark eyes are shadowed with exhaust.I shrug. “Depends on what you give me.”On her lap sits a blue football jersey with the number sixty-eight printed on the back. His parents gave in his second jersey for the school to put on display, giving his first one to Naomi. It’s soft and still smells like grass and soap.“So are you, like, a witch?”I shrug once again. “I’m not real
Zaire | AfterWe sit in Room Seven, an empty classroom. It’s not a room I particularly like to be in. It was our Year Seven and Eight Maths classroom, so immediately associated with bad memories. Usually, I strangely love Maths. But the teacher I had those two years made me want to drive a knife through the subject. I have similar feelings towards Shakespeare. Only, I want to resurrect him with Charlotte’s coven of witchcraft practicing highlighters just to kill him all over again.“How did you become friends?” he asks. “If you remember.”“Dad thought I was lonely. Her mum thought she was lonely. They brought us together for a play date and we were stuck with each other, I guess.”“Just best friends?” Davidson raises an eyebrow.“Boys and girls can be friends, you know,” I snap. “It’s the twenty-first century.”“Did she have a boyfriend?”“As far as I know, she didn’t.”“Did she want to have one?” he questions. “Anyone she was interested in?”“Leo Forrest. He’s in our class.” I pause.
Serenity | After“What do you think of… Leo?” Natalia asks as we move through the dining hall in House.“Which one’s he?” I ask.“The dark one with the Edgar Allen Poe.” She jerks her head to a boy reading while systematically putting forkfuls of pasta into his mouth.“He’s cute,” I giggle. “Let me guess, he’s claimed by some crazy boarding school girl.”“Naw, we don’t do that,” she laughs. “But he is sorta off limits. Anyway, you get to meet Zaire tonight. He’s the one with Fall Out Boy.”Sitting at the table I’ve eaten breakfast and lunch at today is a boy with dark hair and headphones. He’s one of the guys who was sitting on the stage with the rest of the important people in assembly this morning. If my memory serves right, he’s the youngest prefect in history.“How come he wasn’t at breakfast or lunch?”“Because he has all these prefect duties which means he gets to have lunch with the Fantastic Four.” She sits down. “He also got to miss form, the lucky bastard.”“Who are the Fant
Zaire | BeforeThey look like us. Mr Oriel, Mr Cezanne, Mr Forrest and Mr Salvatore all sit together and they look like us. I don’t know where the women are, Natalia took them off about an hour ago and they are a no-show for lunch. My father is still in Paris, arriving in two days. It’s the earliest he could arrange the trip for. I try not to resent the fact that the parents of all my friends got here within twenty-four hours of her death and mine couldn’t. His absence is abundantly obvious to me, a gap between Nick Cezanne and Matteo Salvatore.“This is creepy,” Leo says, also staring at the table of fathers. “Is he still carving that headstone?”Matteo Salvatore arrived while carving Charlotte’s details into a slab of stone with a marble angle on the top. Raffiel gets the talent with woodwork from him. Mr and Mrs Cezanne insisted he didn’t have to, but he insisted that he did.“If I could do this when I was eighteen, I can do this now,” he said stubbornly. “The workshop still here?
Serenity | AfterThe days begin to become more bearable. A routine is established and I follow it like everyone else. Wake up, get ready for school, eat breakfast, go to school, eat lunch, finish school, do homework, do some kind of activity, go to bed, do it all again.So it’s a shock when Saturday comes and the alarm stays silent. Natalia is awake too, on her phone in bed. Her dark hair is fanned out across the pillow, black against the white and pink of the pillowcase.“Cool,” I answer. “Um, I kind of wanted to ask you something.”“Shoot.” She shuts up and runs a hand through her hair like a comb.“Remember that girl you told me about? Your old roommate? Was her name Charlotte?” The words tumble out quickly.“Yeah,” she says. “Her name was Charlotte. Why?”“Just wondering. She’s very popular online.”Natalia doesn’t reply for a minute. “Serenity, I kind of don’t want to talk about this anymore. Can you ask someone else if you want to know more?”“Of course,” I say quickly. “Anyone
Zaire | BeforeIt doesn’t take long for me to stop thinking of her as Charlotte and start thinking of her as Charlotte’s body.Charlotte’s body is laid out on a long table in the Assembly Hall, flat on her back. She looks exactly as she had on the beach when we had found her about four hours ago. Back when she was Charlotte and not Charlotte’s body.She had been lying half in the sea and half out. Her hair was swaying in the water as the waves lapped around her. Sand clung to her damp legs, something she would never have allowed. She was always the image of perfection, like a model in a glossy magazine. She was on her front but her head was tilted to one side, her lips tinged an unnatural blue.It had taken me only a second to realise what had happened. She had drowned. Charlotte, the star swimmer who had taught me to swim when we were five, had drowned.Everyone else who had been there is asleep now. Only I had refused to go to sleep, not wanting the image of Charlotte’s tangled hair
Serenity | AfterI might be able to drown in all this rain.It taps relentlessly on the windows and the sound makes me cringe though nobody else seems to be bothered. Nobody else in this hall seems to be bothered by the thundering rain or the fact that everyone is tracking water and mud into the hall. They’re used to it. But I see rain so rarely that it’s shocking to see so much so fast.I’ve been sat here for about half an hour where the teacher told me to, ignored by everyone else. Younger kids are brought in by exhausted looking teachers and older kids, older students stroll in and yell to their friends. Even the youngest class have already made alliances— the girls with the shiniest shoes and the most innocent looks are trailed by several wannabes. It’s the same with the boys, except they value different things in their role model.“Hi,” a voice says suddenly to my left. “So sorry for leaving you here for so long. Raelynn just happened to lose the goddamn list.”The voice belongs