Villainess 4: Janet’s Haunted Escapade

Red Pill 17: Intruders, Intrigues

It was now ten minutes past 5:00 p.m. After letting DeeDee’s words stew in her mind, Janet remembered to ask DeeDee about the automatic writing that Baron Underwood had pointed out in her class notebook, but the landlady of Elba House beat her to the punch and said, blinking the light of DeeDee’s lamp from the ceiling with her voice, “Miss Marionette, if you’ll allow it, I want to speak with Lady Fleming in private.”

“Why so?” DeeDee said.

“You showed me all of those profile books,” the landlady said, “but I want to hear Lady Fleming’s side. Oh, and take care of those intruders I mentioned.”

“The maid and butler?” DeeDee said.

“Yes,” the landlady said. “Just don’t rough them up too much. I don’t want another incident bringing more attention to this house, if you can help it.”

“I’ll be as civil as I can,” DeeDee said, and the opening and closing of a door resounded through the audio of the lamp.

“Ah, I think I’ve found the right set,” the landlady said, and there was a snap of fingers that flickered DeeDee’s big lamp overhead again, and there appeared a long conference table and a dozen chairs (five on either side and one at either end) in the middle of the room between the display cases, crowding up against Janet and Baron Underwood standing by the smaller display case showing the swords and knives and other artifacts. “Okay, it’s a bit big for the space, but if we move the shelves a bit, it’ll be perfect.”

Then the large display case and the three smaller display cases all moved a few feet closer to the walls on either side of the dorm room, giving ample room for Janet and Baron Underwood to move freely about. This got the three statuettes complaining, starting up a fuss about objects getting moved about like that, while the four busts on the same bookshelf were trying and failing to calm them down.

All the while, Janet wondered who this landlady was and said, “How did you do that?”

“Oh, sorry for startling you,” the landlady said. “Since I’m the landlady of Elba House, I have complete control over its contents.”

“That’s outrageous!” April said.

“You don’t have control over us!” May added.

“We are DeeDee’s possessions,” June added, “not yours!”

Then Janet heard DeeDee’s footfalls in the hallway outside of the double doors and saw Sir Abram and John Day looking down the hall and waving their hands. Then Janet saw DeeDee appear in the doorway, saying to John Day, “John, stand guard over this room.”

“Will do, Miss Marionette,” John said with a bow of his head.

DeeDee then said to Sir Abram, “Sir Abram, accompany Lady Fleming to Lady Graves’ office upstairs.”

“Will do, Miss Marionette,” Sir Abram said with a bow of his helmeted head.

Then DeeDee looked into the room at Baron Underwood and said, “Professor Underwood, two heads are better than one. Will you help me with the intruders?”

“All right, I will,” he said, heading for the double doors before pausing at the threshold, because that’s when April and May and June all complained to DeeDee, saying that this crazy landlady forcefully moved the display cases without DeeDee’s permission.

DeeDee breathed out a sigh as if she had been dealing with similar complaints from the statuettes for the umpteenth time and said, “This is Elba House, not my shop. We’re tenants in Lady Graves’ domain, so she has the ultimate authority in this place. As such, we must follow her rules here: that means you, me, and the others residing here are subject to those rules. Is that clear?”

The three statuettes nodded.

“Good,” DeeDee said, then to the landlady: “Thank you for heeding my requests, Celeste.”

“You’re welcome,” the landlady said, blinking the big lamp once again.

“Behave, you three,” DeeDee said.

“We will,” the three statuettes said in unison.

Only then did DeeDee and Baron Underwood leave the room, walking down the hall towards the half-turn stairs, where their footfalls echoed away, while Janet’s seven clones stayed put and watched over things.

With that, Sir Abram said, “Time to go, Lady Fleming.”

So Janet stepped out past the double doors and looked to her left down the hallway, where two rows of wall sconces lit up the hallway with blue ghost flames towards another set of half-turn stairs at the end of it. Janet gulped down her qualms, wondering what kind of person the landlady of Elba House was, and accompanied the suit of armor with the floorboards creaking under their footfalls and up the half-turn stairs.

“I’ve heard what happened, my Lady,” Sir Abram said. “How’s your ankle?”

“It’s not that bad anymore,” Janet said. “Say, have you met the landlady of this house before?”

“No, but I’ve heard of her,” he said. “She’s Lady Celeste Graves, a former student of Lassen Academy and a long-time friend of Miss Marionette.”

“What have you heard?” Janet said.

“Not much,” Sir Abram said, “but I heard she was murdered in this dorm house before her graduation, but that’s after my time. If you want to know more about her, ask Miss Marionette, and she might tell you.”

Janet was about to ask him something else but refrained from doing so, choosing to keep her thoughts to herself about the reason such a personage wanted to speak to her. Then, upon clearing the top step and reaching the third floor of the central hallway, Janet noticed a giant hitodama of blue flickering flame floating beside the open double doors at the end of the hall. It brightened at their approach, and its flickering wisp pointed towards the inside of the room, making the lighted wall sconces flicker and blink.

“Ah,” Sir Abram said, “it seems Lady Graves is expecting you. I’ll wait outside, my Lady.”

“Thanks,” Janet said.

And just as they reached the open double doors, the hitodama disappeared, and the same voice that Janet had heard through DeeDee’s lantern downstairs now issued from inside the room, saying, “Come in and have a seat.”

Sir Abram stood by the doorway, so Janet gulped down her qualms again and entered a musty room full of bookshelves, stuffed with leather-bound tomes, surrounding an old desk and its seated occupant that stopped Janet in her tracks. This woman could have given Miss Edgeworth a hard time over a century ago, when Lassen Academy’s uniform for women still emphasized their bodily silhouettes with fluttery gowns. As such, dressed in a short-waisted gown and a Spencer jacket and a capote atop her head, from which dark brown unruly locks of hair jumped at Janet’s approach like snakes, Lady Graves smiled up at a gaping Janet as the spectral landlady pulled her locks down from their threatening postures behind her shoulders.

“Don’t mind my hair,” Lady Graves said. “It’s just been a while since I’ve met a scion of the living world. Have a seat,” and she waved at the other chair.

So Janet approached her and sat down, still eyeing the little locks of hair that seemed to peak back at her from behind the girl’s waist. “Um,” she said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but was your hair always like that?”

“Trust me,” Lady Graves said, “my hair was much worse when I was alive. They’ve mellowed out since my passing.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Janet said.

“Good,” Lady Graves said and pulled a drawer from her desk and took out an obsidian mirror, which manifested a moving image of DeeDee confronting a maid and a butler, both of them with their hands tied behind their backs on a bench beneath the gazebo in the middle of a formal garden behind Elba House. Baron Underwood was standing aside, a pale-faced shadow of his already-nervous self, looking on DeeDee chewing out the hapless maid and butler like a domineering madam of the house.

“Who are they?” Janet said.

“Whoever they are,” Lady Graves said, “they’re taken care of,” and she placed the mirror, face up, on the desk and folded her hands over it. “That’s one thing out of the way.”

“Are they spying on this house?”

“Maybe,” Lady Graves said.

“But why?”

“Beats me,” Lady Graves said with a shrug of her shoulders, “but let’s leave that aside. Do you know why I’ve asked you to be here?”

Janet shook her head.

“You’re here,” Lady Graves said, “because I’ve chosen you, Lady Fleming, to become a saintess candidate.”

“You can’t be serious!” Janet said.

“Oh, but I am,” she said.

“I refuse.”

“Why so?” she said.

“I don’t want to get dragged into the same mess,” Janet said, “that got my mother killed!”

“Yes, I’ve heard that much from DeeDee,” Lady Graves said, “but I’ve chosen you nonetheless.”

“Why me?” Janet said.

“Because DeeDee told me about Rosalie Edgeworth,” Lady Graves said, folding her hands over her desk, “although it took some convincing, along with her other demands. It wasn’t until she had me review the contents of those profile books, especially yours, that I relented.” Then she paused before saying, “I’ve never heard of a saintess candidate having more than two affinities, one major and one minor, let alone four major affinities at once, but this woman . . .”

Her words drifted off, so Janet waited for her to continue, but when Lady Graves didn’t, Janet said, “Do you know something I don’t?”

Lady Graves averted her eyes from Janet’s stare, as if she was rolling something heavy through her mind, while the slithering locks of her hair capered and leered at Janet behind Lady Graves’ shoulders. Then she looked back up at Janet with a flash of her purple eyes and said, “Lady Fleming, after reviewing the profiles of your clones, I’ve noticed that none of them were ever chosen as saintess candidates, even though your mother used to be one.”

“Was it because of that vixen?”

“If you mean Miss Edgeworth, yes,” Lady Graves said. “I used to be a saintess candidate myself, like your mother, and I’ve heard that she died giving birth to you. I asked DeeDee for your mother’s profile book, so I could check how she died.”

“How did she die?” Janet said.

Lady Graves bit down on her lower lip and averted her eyes again, and after a pause she said, “DeeDee couldn’t bear to let you read it from your mother’s profile book, so she had me read it, and it’s heavy stuff, let me tell you. Are you sure you’re ready to hear it?”

And for the third time in Elba House, Janet gulped down her qualms but nodded her head, anyway.

“Your mother, Marchioness Fleming,” she said, “was accused of practicing witchcraft with a coven of witches while she was nine months pregnant with you. Her parents Duke Bartleby and Duchess Bartleby and her husband Marquess Fleming and later Prince Conner Blaise and Princess Rubella Blaise all petitioned the High Court for her immediate release, but she was refused bail and interrogated for four days straight.”

In wide-eyed horror, Janet cupped her hands over her gaping mouth and said, “Oh my God!”

At this point, Lady Graves said, “You can imagine the amount of stress she was put under, in addition to the strain of her pregnancy. After the fourth day of questioning, she was led back to her cell, where she had contractions—”

Tears welled up from Janet’s eyes and trailed down her cheeks, which she wiped with the sleeve of her bolero.

“I’m so sorry,” Lady Graves said. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Tell me,” Janet said.

“Are you sure?”

“Just tell me already!” Janet said with trembling lips, thinking back to her father’s reluctance to tell her anything connected to her mother, save for her name, Marchioness Rowena Fleming. Then she thought about the entry in her mother’s profile book that DeeDee made her read, the one about her mother meeting a coven of witches on the week she married Marquess Fleming. She wiped away her tears again and prepared her nerves with a flash of her red eyes and said, “Please, whatever it is, I have to know.”

“But—”

“Please,” Janet said.

So Lady Graves nodded and said, “When your mother gave birth to you, she was hemorrhaging too much blood, and you were stillborn at birth.” Then she reached out and grabbed Janet’s trembling hands with her own and said, “Lady Fleming, DeeDee pitied you and brought you back from the dead, but she couldn’t do the same for your mother. She had lost too much blood,” and she got up from her chair and passed through her desk and hugged the crying puddle of tears in her spectral arms, rubbing circles around Janet’s back and saying it’s all right, that she could just keep on crying as much as she needed to and that Big Sister Celeste was going to wait for her.

And Janet did just that.

Time passed, and when Janet had had enough of tears, she wiped them away with her sleeve again and sniffled, taking a deep breath and looking back at her host’s face and wiping her nose with her sleeve.

“How are you feeling?” Lady Graves said.

“Like hell,” Janet said.

Again Lady Graves bit down on her lower lip again.

“Who accused my mother?” Janet said.

But Lady Graves stayed silent.

“Was it the royal family?”

“No,” Lady Graves said, “though Marquess Fleming initially thought so. That’s why Prince Conner Blaise and Princess Rubella Blaise both petitioned the High Court when they heard about her imprisonment, but on finding out she died in prison, the Blaise royal family launched an investigation.”

“What did they find out?”

“Long story short,” Lady Graves said, “the political enemies of your maternal family, the Bartleby house, capitalized on your mother’s infamy during her time at Lassen Academy. They spread rumors about your mother’s infidelity, claiming that your father married her while she was pregnant to keep the scandal quiet. But then— . . .”

“Then what?” Janet asked.

“They made up a bunch of poppycock,” she continued, “about your mother cavorting with rogue witches and fomenting a revolution against the royal family.”

That’s when it came together in her mind, the rumors and the slander and the red herring, so Janet took a deep breath and said, “They slandered my mother to cover up their own plans of a coup d’état.”

“Exactly,” Lady Graves said.

“Who are they, anyway?” Janet said.

“That’s where I come in,” Lady Graves said and passed back through her desk and sat on her chair. “Just like your mother, I got caught up in someone else’s intrigue and was slandered to Hell and back. The only difference was that the means used against your mother were far more subtle, while I was set up and then murdered in this house before my graduation from the Academy. In both instances, the perpetrators belonged to the same family, the fallen viscount house of Dorian.”

Janet searched through the cabinet of her mind, but nothing came up concerning the name, so she said, “Were their names wiped from the registry?”

Lady Graves nodded and said, “The Dorians were part of the aristocratic faction before my time, but they were a declining house while I was alive.”

“Why was that?” Janet said.

“Since their magic affinities were in decline after their founding,” Lady Graves said, “they began using underhanded means, which eventually isolated them from the rest of the aristocratic faction by the time I was born. So they relied on foreign backers to keep them going.”

“I see,” Janet said.

“Back then,” Lady Graves continued, “when I became a saintess candidate at this Academy, a rival candidate appeared from the Dorian house, Lady Lilian Dorian, the only daughter of Viscount Dorian. That bitch made my life a living hell, spreading rumors about me, having her lackeys spy on me and harass me almost every week, getting me into trouble multiple times a month for three Godforsaken years, even stealing my fiancé with her lies, and nobody outside of my family would listen to me!

“That’s when I suspected, that’s when my parents suspected,” she added, “that Lady Lilian had no affinity at all, but her crooked family must have bribed her way into the saintess selection process: that, or she blackmailed her way in. Either way, I had my father, Count Graves, appeal to the royal family for an investigation into the dealings of those damn Dorians, but my unfaithful fiancé vetoed all our appeals, saying that I was using my family’s influence to tamper with the saintess selection process, and broke our engagement a week before the graduation ceremony. Then— . . .”

She stopped again, but knowing her previous statements, Janet filled in the rest and said, “You were set up?”

“Yes,” she said. “Since I couldn’t rely on the royal family anymore, I had my father appeal to the ducal house of Woodberry, but since Duke Woodberry had just been married at the time, my father’s attempt to approach him was construed as me seeking another woman’s husband.”

“That’s crazy!” Janet said.

“I know,” she said.

“How could they even think that?” Janet said. “Are they really that stupid?”

“Stupid enough to fall for their ruse, yes,” Lady Graves said. “After that, my former peers shamed me as a slut, and all the newspapers at the time dragged my parents’ names through the mud, and I was to be confined to my dorm till the graduation ceremony was over. My God, it was so humiliating!”

Janet gulped down her qualms over the one question left hanging and said, “Then you were murdered?”

Again Lady Graves nodded and said, “Two royal guards led me to Elba House and followed me to my dorm, where I walked in, but they entered inside with me, and that’s when I knew. So I bolted through the double doors as they were about to close them, but they tripped me up in the hallway and strangled me in front of the other maids and students. Everyone ran out of the house and screamed for help, but I had lost consciousness at that point. When those guards were later apprehended, they confessed to being bribed with the promise of becoming nobles themselves in another kingdom, the Schrader Kingdom. And when asked who was behind it all, they said the Dorians were, and that began their final downfall as a noble house. Before the Dorians could flee across the border, they and their lackeys were all arrested and executed, including Lady Dorian, who cursed the royal family as she and her family were burned at the stake.”

Again Janet cupped her hands over her gaping mouth, then said, “What happened to your family?”

Only then did Lady Graves begin to shed tears, wiping them away as she said, “My parents committed suicide, and my remaining family members left the kingdom.”

“I’m sorry,” Janet said.

“It’s all in the past, Lady Fleming, so let it be,” the landlady said. “After my death, the royal family issued many reforms to prevent the infiltration of spies into Lassen Academy, creating the Student Commons Town to vet all students and staff before entering the school. In addition, they established the current curfew for all students and posted guards at the entrance of every dorm house, except for Elba House out of respect for me.”

“That’s why nobody comes here?”

Lady Graves nodded and added, “As for the saintess selection process, they’ve developed the current magic aptitude test to keep track of every student’s affinity and prevent any repeat of their blunders during my saintess candidacy. And a few decades later, I was canonized as Saint Celeste Graves, the patroness and protector of all saintess candidates. I’ve been in charge of choosing future saintess candidates ever since, which brings me to your situation, Lady Fleming.”

“Let me guess,” Janet said. “Does it have anything to do with that vixen?”

“It does, actually,” Lady Graves said. “After DeeDee showed me the entries in your profile book detailing the deaths of your clones, I asked for Miss Edgeworth’s profile book—”

“—but it’s missing,” Janet said.

“Indeed,” she said, unfolding her hands over the mirror on her desk. “So DeeDee had me bring out my mirror and pointed her out through the reflection. This is the crazy part, Lady Fleming. When I saw Miss Edgeworth for the first time today, I thought she was Lady Dorian.”

“No way!”

“I’m not kidding,” Lady Graves said. “They looked so much alike that I asked DeeDee to find me Lady Dorian’s profile book, so I could check if they’re really two people.”

“And?” Janet said.

“She couldn’t find that book either.”

“Wait,” Janet said, “there are two missing books?”

Lady Graves nodded and said, “Based on what DeeDee’s shown me, I think Lady Dorian has been impersonating Miss Edgeworth this whole time.”

That’s when Janet remembered the start of Period 1 this morning, in which her suicide double said something about someone else taking Rosalie’s place, so she said, “Do you think the real Miss Edgeworth is missing?”

“Or dead,” she said.

But Janet said, “How do you know?”

“I don’t,” she said, “but this is Lady Dorian we’re up against. For all I know, for all we know, the real Miss Edgeworth could be dead.”

At her words, Janet rolled yet another possibility through her head and said, “Then do you think Lady Dorian was behind what happened to my mother?”

“That I don’t know,” Lady Graves said. “Until we find both profile books, we won’t know for sure.”

Janet leaned back in her chair, putting her hands to her face for a time before looking back at her host when Lady Graves called out to Sir Abram, saying, “Sir Abram of the Gate, are you still there?”

Janet turned in her chair and saw the sentient suit of armor peering at them through the doorway, who said, “I’m here, my Lady, but how do you know my name?”

“DeeDee talks about you whenever she visits me,” Lady Graves said. “Could you be a dear and close those doors for a bit? I need to show Lady Fleming something important.”

“Will do, my Lady,” Sir Abram said and closed the double doors shut. “How’s that?”

“That’s good,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

Janet turned around in her seat and said, “What else are you showing me?”

“This,” Lady Graves said and slid the obsidian mirror across the desk towards her. “Take it and look into it and then tell me what you see.”

She did as she was told, holding it up to her face, but she only saw the faint outlines and said, “Am I supposed to see something?”

“Yes,” Lady Graves said. “Look past your reflection and tell me what you see. It might take some time, but tell me what you see when you recognize something other than your face. I’ll wait for you.”

She did as she was told, looking into the black depths of the mirror and letting the contours of her face merge into the fluid shapes of moving outlines within its dark reflection. “I’m not sure,” Janet said, “but I see something moving.”

“Can you make out what it is?”

“I don’t know,” Janet said. “What am I seeing?”

“Take your time,” Lady Graves said. “There’s no rush.”

So Janet took her time, focusing on the moving outlines in the dark reflection as if she was scrying into it, searching for any semblance of anything under its shimmering surface, till the outlines solidified into another face that seemed similar to her own for some reason. Yet the longer she peered at this other face, the more she detected the difference in the hue of the reflection’s eyes and her own like that of a red morning and a blue morning. And the longer she looked, the more her heart fluttered at something familiar without knowing why, till she heard Lady Graves say something.

“What was that?” Janet said, looking up at her host.

“What do you see?” Lady Graves said.

“I see,” Janet said, peering back at the other face, “another woman in this mirror.”

“Do you recognize her?” she said.

“I’m not sure,” Janet said. “I can’t say why, but she does seem familiar.”

“When you look at her in the mirror,” Lady Graves said, “who do you think of the most?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” Janet said.

“Let your heart speak for you,” Lady Graves said.

“But I—”

“Trust in yourself,” she said, “and close your eyes.”

So Janet did as she was told and closed her eyes, and in the darkness of a self-imposed nightfall, the blurry outlines in Lady Graves’ mirror solidified into the wavy locks of auburn hair framing a face that resembled Janet’s in form and countenance. Yet in place of her father’s red eyes were the sparkling baby blues of a face she had only ever seen in the darkness just before sleep, and that only for a moment, but it was enough for Janet to drop the mirror.

It clattered to the floor, but Janet was heedless of it as her face scrunched up and tears overflowed, and the girl became yet another puddle of tears. And for a time, Janet continued to cry, but when she had had enough of tears, she wiped them away with her sleeve again, saying, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Lady Graves said.

More time passed.

When Janet had finished wiping her face, Lady Graves said, “Lady Fleming, who was it that you saw?”

With trembling lips, Janet said, “My mother.”

Lady Graves smiled and manifested her mirror back into her hand and slid the mirror back across the desk towards her, saying, “Now put your hand flat over it.”

Janet did so. “Like this?”

“Perfect,” Lady Graves said and placed her own hand over Janet’s and then whispered an incantation, and another mirror manifested in midair above their hands. And in that floating mirror was a green and smoky luminescence that came into focus and solidified into a large glowing lamp. “What do you see here?”

“DeeDee’s lamp,” Janet said.

Then she turned the mirror around that showed a night sky and the image of a smiling Marchioness Fleming waving back at Janet, then smiled and said, “You’ve got your mother’s looks. You’ll become quite a fetch when you grow up.”

“Gee, thanks,” Janet said.

Silence reigned.

“Is she really in there?” Janet said.

“No,” Lady Graves said. “The image you see is but a manifestation of her magic.”

“What does that mean?” Janet said.

“It means you have two major affinities,” Lady Graves said. “The aether affinity from DeeDee when she brought you back from the dead, and the darkness affinity from your mother who gave birth to you.”

“Wait a minute,” Janet said, thinking back to the magic aptitude test during lunch and the holograms representing the elemental affinities. “If I have two affinities, then why did Father Robinson’s test only confirm one?”

“That test was designed to single out your dominant affinity,” she said, “which conforms to the circumstances surrounding a person’s birth, and yours were extraordinary. Marchioness Fleming gave birth to you in prison after being subjected to days of interrogation, and since you came out stillborn, DeeDee granted you a contract with her to save your life. DeeDee explained this to me as I’m explaining it to you now, and you’re not alone in this. Your clones were born under the same circumstances as you were, so let me ask you, Lady Fleming: Have you ever experienced any visions?”

Janet nodded that she had.

“Did those visions,” she added, “have anything to do with what could have happened to you?”

Again Janet nodded.

“How many visions have you experienced so far?”

At first, Janet remembered the vision she had in the women’s bathroom yesterday morning in which she jumped to her death after Rosalie had set her up and Prince Blaise had rebuked her, but then she remembered this morning’s vision of Prince Blaise grabbing her arm and hurting her in the hallway during Homeroom 2 after another of Rosalie’s setups. So she said, “There was one yesterday and another one this morning.”

“DeeDee also talked about them,” Lady Graves said. “Those visions came from your clones’ memories.”

Janet nodded and said, “DeeDee told me last night.”

“Then did she also tell you,” Lady Graves added, “about residual hauntings?”

Janet nodded again and said, “She said I was susceptible to their influence, because I suppress my emotions.”

“There you go,” Lady Graves said. “When you inherited your mother’s affinity at birth, you also inherited her turbulent emotional state after she died giving birth to you,” and she took her hand off of Janet’s over the obsidian mirror, dissipating the floating mirror between them and placing the obsidian one back inside the drawer. “And on top of that, you’ve been raised to suppress your emotions and conform to standards that your former fiancé has never been subject to. In other words,” she added, “you were born to fail in a world that tears you down. It’s happened to me, to your mother, and to your clones, but I’ll do everything in my power to prevent that from happening to you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Janet nodded without speaking, speechless at another woman’s declaration of trust in her, and started sniffling again and wiping her nose with her sleeve. She wanted to say something to her benefactor yet was afraid that her words would turn to gibberish the moment she spoke, so she looked down at her hands and squinted back her tears.

So Lady Graves reached across the desk and held onto Janet’s trembling hands and said, “Lady Fleming, please don’t keep it bottled up. Outside you may be a ruined daughter or a jilted fiancée or even a villainess, but in this house you’re safe. In this house, you can throw tantrums or mope or cry or complain, or you can be silly or kind or carefree. Whatever it is, you can be yourself here, even if it’s just for a while. And if you need someone to talk to, I’m here. I’m serious now: I’m literally always here.”

Then Janet burst into a fountain of tears, so Lady Graves got up and passed through her desk and hugged Janet once again like a guardian angel. And for a time, Janet cried away her worries and let them fall onto her benefactor’s clothes, and even Lady Graves’ snake-like locks started hugging themselves around Janet’s shoulders in commiseration. And for the first time in Lady Graves’ dorm, after crying an exorcism of tears, Janet said, “Thank you so much, Lady Graves.”

“We’re no longer strangers, Lady Fleming,” her benefactor said. “Just call me Celeste.”

So Janet let go and said, “Then call me Janet.”

Lady Graves smiled. “Will do, Janet.”

Then there came three knocks on the double doors, and a voice said from the other side, “Are you done talking?”

“Yes, we’re done, DeeDee,” Lady Graves said. “You can have Sir Abram open the doors.”

And when Sir Abram opened the double doors, Janet came rushing out and glomped DeeDee in a suffocating bear hug, squishing DeeDee’s gasping face against her breasts, till DeeDee was gasping out something.

“Oh!” Janet said, letting go. “Sorry about that.”

“What’s gotten into you?” DeeDee said, huffing and puffing.

“Celeste told me everything.”

“Did she now?” DeeDee said, looking past Janet towards Lady Graves waving back at her with a smile on her face and her hair fluttering in wavy locks behind her shoulders, then to Janet: “You’re not angry, are you?”

“Not after what you’ve done for me,” Janet said.

DeeDee looked up at Janet and smiled, saying, “You’re welcome, Janet,” and she held her hand. “Let’s go.”

So Janet followed her savior with Sir Abram walking behind her down the third-floor hallway towards the half-turn stairs, passing the flickering lights of the wall sconces amidst the echoes of their footfalls on creaking floorboards.

“Are the intruders gone?”

“Baron Underwood’s taking care of it,” DeeDee said, “but there’s something else that came up.”

“What is it?” Janet said.

DeeDee said, “One of your clones will fill you in, but tell me: are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Janet lied.

DeeDee slowed before the top of the stairs and looked up at Janet with her gleaming green eyes and moé face and said, “Nobody’s ever ‘fine’ after finding out what you’ve found out today. How are you really feeling?”

So Janet deflated somewhat, following DeeDee down the stairs, and decided to be true to herself and said, “I’m fucking exhausted.”

DeeDee and Sir Abram filled the stairwell with laughter, and Janet thought she heard other voices joining in from the empty dorms on reaching the second floor. And at first, she thought they were occupied, but none of the double doors seemed to stir, except for the open dorm room in the middle of the hallway that had three of Janet’s clones waving at her.

“Hey there!” one clone hollered.

“We’ve got news!” another clone added.

“You won’t believe what I saw!” another clone said.

To Be Continued