Here's the next installment of our Metallum Nocturne story. If you need to catch up on any of the previous episodes, click here.
Episode Forty-Five
Breaking into Mara's room wasn't going to be easy, not because it was heavily locked, but because it was in the middle of the first-year Hall and with finals the following week, the new students were always in their rooms pounding the books. If it were a normal building, a fire alarm could have gotten everyone out of the way, but Metallum Nocturne had unique wards to protect from runaway fires that might be magical. Eventually Dawn came up with the winning plan, ordering a dozen pizzas as a Hell Week break to lure them out of their rooms. Claire waited in the first-year bathrooms until she heard Dawn knocking on the doors and encouraging them to take a break with free food.
The doorways were decorated with colorful cutouts and wipe boards with saccharine messages about surviving finals like: "Don't Stress, Do Your Best, and Forget the Rest," "Doubt Kills More Dreams than Failure Ever Will," or "I Hope It's Not a Train!" The area around Mara's was filled with notes and old flowers. Some of the messages were recent, extolling how much they missed their fellow first-year. Claire felt sacrilegious breaking into a dead girl's room. Two notes fell away when she pushed through the door. She tried to stick them back up but they were old and the sticky material had become less effective. Claire set them inside on the dresser when she closed herself into the room.
She'd only known Mara peripherally. Claire was so focused on her fifth-year project, except for the mandatory Hall events, she'd rarely interacted with the first-years, so she didn't know Mara except for the things she'd learned after her death. A collage of pictures from her high school lacrosse team had a prominent place on the wall. They'd won third in state. Mara looked unbearably happy.
A corkboard was filled with more recent memories from her time in the Hall. A picture of Mara standing outside Metallum Nocturne on the day she passed the trials made Claire smile with memories of her own first day at the school. Getting into the Hundred Halls had felt like winning the lottery. The trials of magic had been terrifying and seeing how many people got knocked out had given her survivor's guilt. Stuck to the board beneath a ticket to Orpheum theater was a hand-colored heart with "LB" written in the center.
"LB?"
Claire mused on who the initials might represent. No one in the Hall had those initials that she was aware of. She took a picture of the corkboard and the other areas of personal effects before moving on. The best bet was to find a diary, but Claire wasn't sure how many people actually kept written accounts of their lives anymore, or if it was all online.
Rummaging through the dresser drawers made Claire feel like a voyeur, especially when she found a package of condoms with half the contents missing next to a partially used container of lube. A fuzzy printed out picture showed Mara lying in bed with a male arm over her breasts. She was taking a selfie with her eyes dilated, sticking her tongue half out. A small baggie of purplish powder was behind the picture. Dance Dust. Claire had heard about the drug. It was taken at raves for dancing, or before sex to enhance the pleasure.
"Not the good girl you thought she was," said Claire, staring at the picture trying to figure out who the guy was, but it was only an arm. The rest of his body was out of the picture.
Claire shoved the picture in her pocket, but left the drugs. She continued her search, digging through every nook and cranny in search of the identity of the missing male. If he was an older student, then he might have signed off on the sheet, but more than likely he was someone from outside the Hall. Someone she'd met at a party in the city.
She was checking the shelves on the wall when she heard heavy footsteps outside the door. As the handle rattled, Claire switched off the light and dove beneath the bed. Two sets of shoes entered the room.
"Has anyone been in here since...you know?"
Claire recognized the voice as the administrative head of the Hall.
"No. But I talked to their people again yesterday. I'm sure they'll be along soon enough," said one of the administrative assistants. "Do you want me to box this stuff up? Get it ready for them?"
"No," said the admin head. "The less we touch the better. It's bad enough with the trial and everything. Edward gave clear instructions not to interfere with anything. He's hoping this situation will resolve itself soon enough."
"It's a shame about Claire."
"It is, but maybe she shouldn't have signed off on the sheet."
Beneath the bed, Claire squeezed her hands into fists.
"Not just that. The whole thing with that gang and the church. I would have never thought it."
"After reading the Herald article, I understand more. She wasn't the top student she made herself out to be. I wonder if she's the one who's been dealing to the other students. What if she was trying to hide something by letting Mara die? The article said she was mixed up in a lot of shady stuff. I'm inclined to believe it now."
"What should I do about this?"
"Nothing. It looks like the way Mara left it. We can help if they want, but otherwise, best to stay away from the Blocks and not antagonize them since she might be the next mayor."
After the two admin personnel left, Claire closed her eyes and lay beneath the bed for a few minutes. Not even the people running her own Hall thought she was innocent. She half-wished she would have taken the deal with Annette, though that would do nothing for the problem with Nocturna. As she prepared to slide out from beneath the bed, she spotted a glint of glass above her. A cell phone was lodged between the mattress and the concrete wall. A lacrosse sticker on the back confirmed it was likely hers. Bringing personal effects to the foundry was forbidden since they might interfere with the electrical or magical fields used to melt the metal, so Mara wouldn't have had her phone on that that fateful day. Claire shoved the phone into her pocket and crept out of the room, checking both ways before hurrying out of the first-year area.
Dawn arrived a half-hour later. She'd stayed in the cafeteria to keep the first-years from leaving.
"Find anything?"
Claire held up the phone in one hand and the picture in the other.
"These."
"Nice. Who's the guy? Is he one of ours?" asked Dawn.
"Can't tell with barely half an arm. A heart on the wall had the initials 'LB.'"
Dawn frowned. "No one here by that name."
"Whoever it was they were intimate. Found lube, condoms, and drugs in the drawer."
"Fuck, that would flip Annette's lid. Going to give that to Lamar?"
"How? I wasn't supposed to be in her room, and attacking the dead girl? It wouldn't be a good look."
"Sucks then."
"At least she had fun this year before she died," said Claire as she lay back on her bed.
"What about the phone? Can we get into it?"
"I wasn't going to try and get locked out since I didn't find anything that would suggest her password. Besides, if her boy toy wasn't from Metallum Nocturne, it doesn't matter, since he couldn't have changed the paper."
"What are you going to do?"
Claire sat up with Mara's phone in her lap. "Get some sleep for the trial tomorrow. Maybe Elle will have learned something about our mystery signer."
"I plan on being there tomorrow. I figure you need the support."
"Thanks, Dawn." She held out the phone. "Would you give this to Elle? Maybe she knows how to get into it with her super secret reporter skills."
