The North Tower was the killer. I was sure of it.
The sleepwalking and the unconscious lure could have been explained away, could have been rationalised with science and psychology, but this? A ruby in my throat? There was no other explanation; that supernatural pulse had dug in its claws.
After seeing the ruby in the dim light of the dorm, it took a while for the fear to really build. At first there was a sense of disbelief, of there’s-no-way-this-is-actually-happening, the kind of existential denial you’d feel watching a loved one die in a horrible accident. My brain shut down to protect itself. Instead of worrying about what the ruby meant, I changed into a fresh pair of pyjamas, shoved the filthy, sodden pair into the laundry hamper, splashed some warm, soapy water over my face and climbed back into bed as if nothing especially untoward had happened.
It was only then, lying in the silence with my pulse beating raggedly in my temples, my heart fluttering fiercely, that the pain and fear really sank in. The ruby felt like it had burrowed deep, too deep, as though it had roots wrapping around my windpipe. My lungs tightened, my breathing coming in shallow rasps, tears tingling at my ears as denial slowly lowered its veil.
Stifling a sob, I tossed the duvet back off me, tugged on my dad’s old fleece, stuffed my feet into grubby trainers and slipped out of the dorm. The hallways were deserted as I made my way to the communal bathrooms, squinting against the harsh glare of the fluorescent strip lighting. I pulled the half zip of the fleece all the way up to my chin.
The bathroom was too warm and overly damp but empty.
I unzipped my fleece and had to stifle a gasp. In the stark strip lights of the bathroom, it looked so much worse. The area around the ruby was pink and angry, flecked with little specks of dried blood. As I swallowed, the ruby rose and fell around the lump of emotion in my throat. The room fuzzed around me as my vision blurred, and I had to grip the side of the sink to steady myself. Years of hockey meant blood didn’t scare me, but there was something so perverse, sowrongabout the way the ruby looked and felt. As I thought as much, its roots gripped around my windpipe ever tighter, and it was all I could do not to cry out.
The pain was worse when I looked at it head-on. There was stinging around the wound and a kind of bone-deep ache; a panic-inducing sensation of being impaled on something sharp and metallic.
Gripping one hand even tighter around the lip of the sink, I got as close to the mirror as I could. Then, with my free hand, I pinched the gem between my thumb and forefinger – and pulled.
It was only the slightest tug, a tentative attempt at extraction, but the shrieking pain bent me at the waist.
The agony was visceral, and almost . . .sentient. Like the ruby was hurting too, and sharing the pain with me.
Whimpering like a wounded animal, I clapped a hand around my mouth and ran back to the dorm.
Now the panic was real. It had climbed inside me; pulled on my skin like a jacket.
What did this mean? Would I be the North Tower’s next victim?
None of the original victims were reported as having rubies lodged in their throats. None of the autopsies would’ve missed such a thing.
Unless the police were keeping it from the public; the kind of detail that would sort the liars and attention-seekers from the genuine leads.
By the time I finally managed to drift off, pink dawn light glowed behind the curtains.
As I slept, I dreamed things that felt less like dreams and more like memories. They were just fleeting glimpses, mostly: ageing, sun-spotted hands illuminating a manuscript with a tiny paintbrush; those same hands digging a hole in a wooded glade; a faceless body falling from a great height, the black folds of their habit flung skyward like a cape.
I woke the next morning having slept in jagged fits and starts, the ruby in my throat burning red hot.
Dimly aware of Alice saying something and then leaving, I stared at the ceiling in an exhausted trance, palm resting on the ruby as it rose and fell with my breath. I was afraid; deathly afraid.
After lying there for what could have been one hour or seven, I turned on my side and reached down my bunk for the magnifying mirror, hoping beyond all rationality that the ruby might have disappeared; that maybe I’d hallucinated the whole thing, like the weird dreams I’d had, and that the thing I felt through the skin of my palm was just a regular pimple.
Of course, nothing had changed. The area around it was a little less pink, but it was still firmly rooted just above my clavicle, glimmering a vicious red in the greyish daylight.
There was something about the size, shape and blood-red hue of the ruby that looked familiar, and with a sickening lurch, I realised where I’d seen it before.
I was still wearing my fleece from the trip to the bathroom, so I tugged on my flared jeans and some trainers and headed out. The sun was high in the sky and the air was enjoying a final late-September burst of warmth, but I still felt cold to my core. On the cobbled walkway I passed Jen and Mei from the hockey team, smiling hello, but I could barely bring myself to lift a hand in a half-hearted wave.
As I rounded the corner to the statue of Sister Maria, my worst suspicions were confirmed.
One of her rosary beads was missing.
The one right at the centre of her throat.
These were rosary beads that many a desperate thief had tried to extract over the centuries; the rosary beads that were said to be held there by some greater force.
And somehow, by that same greater force, one was now embedded in my neck.