The Book of Miranda | gxg | ❖

(3) Leander Loves Angels

I quickly confirm that scouting the layout of Melliford Academy is going to take me the rest of the evening if I'm lucky. Two hours if I'm not. I follow the student dorm wing to its end first, and find nothing but dorms, more dorms, the student common room, a few more dorms, and a separate room with more carrel desks for studying. The wing ends at a blank wall. Here, a set of tall, stained-glass lancet windows features scenes I can only assume are biblical—they're swarming with angels. I'm allergic to piety, so I turn around and retrace my steps.

A minute's walk takes me back to the start of the dorm wing, where I'm met with a four-way intersection. Melliford Academy is laid out in a cross shape. Behind me are the student dorms; ahead, another hallway of identical dimensions. To my left stretches the cross's lower portion. The school's central hall is built like a cathedral, with ceilings that soar easily four stories to my father's favorite rib vaults overhead. Along its sides, two stories up, run identical lines of archways. A balcony of sorts, or a second floor. I don't see stairs, but that's what I'm exploring for.

To my right is the lobby and front entrance, which continues to admit a steady stream of students and their progenitors. After checking in, each family is subjected to a short walk no doubt meant to impress them by the time they reach me here. The stretch of hall from the lobby to the intersection features plush carpet, wooden benches carved like church pews for casual seating, and more stained-glass windows. More angels. Whoever designed this place's decor either had an angel fetish, or had just figured out how to make wings out of psychedelic glass and felt like flaunting their prowess everywhere.

I head down the cross's other arm next. This wing proves filled with classrooms. Their doors are locked, but marked with plaques itemizing the subjects taught in them: Mathematics, Linguistics, Economics, Natural History, Astronomy, and more. Rich-people subjects for rich-people kids. I stare down the Linguistics door and hate my parents all the more intensely. I'm sure that room is packed with books, and I'm sure I'll be required to read them. My casual thought of throwing myself in a lake this morning returns. Maybe I can swim across it and escape these school grounds. Not that I've confirmed the existence of a lake here. I haven't been outside yet.

There's no staircase in the classroom wing, either. I reach its end to find another blank wall with more stained glass. More angels loom dark in the absence of sunlight through their gaudy panes. There are doors along the walls, each solid wood and nearly identical to the classroom ones. These, though, lack signage. I stroll to the first one, check for hall monitors, and test the handle. It opens.

The room beyond the door is the kind you'd expect to find in a church crypt, which I'm not yet convinced this place isn't. At very least, I'm not ruing out possibilities. Stout pillars splay upwards to support a ceiling pocked with rib vaults like cavities in a monumental molar. Windows grace the far wall. Arched ones like my room has, with deep sills and affable views of bright green lawn and garden outside. The floor of the room is stone. The walls are stone, the roof is stone, and if I was to bet money on the pillars, I'd win that bet for sure. I edge a little further inside.

There's nothing in here. No desks or tables, no chairs or shelves or decor. The windows' cheerful sunshine does about as much to warm the place as lighting a match in my aunt's cold cellar where she stored all her cheeses. I let the door moan shut behind me. With its thump, utter silence falls over the room.

This is quite peaceful, actually. The door's thick wood arrests all sound from its other side. The twaddle of the student common room is swallowed without a trace, along with the click of shoes on stone, the interjections of students finding their rooms, and the resonant echoes through the school's cavernous interior. In their place, I hear birds. I leave the door and steal across to the windows. They have latches, so I wrestle one open. A warm September breeze wafts over me. A nearby bush is packed with sparrows, which chatter like an extended family when someone brings up the economy. Ornate flowers crowd the rest of the garden below. Their perfume is heady. I breathe deeply as another breeze washes sun-kissed air off the lawn and ruffles my hair. This would be a nice place to hide away.