Potenkiah, the deathgiver

Chapter 9

While Annie tried on the dress for the ball, Bridget could only think that that superfluous detail announced that she was about to say goodbye to her family. The living room at the center of the Britter's apartment was filled with laughter and chatter, while Annie paraded different outfits that Daphne Britter and Deana Obrien, Paty's mother, had ordered from the tailors. On the sofa, Paty participated actively; Bridget hadn't uttered a word, distracted by a curl of hair tangled in her fingers. She wondered if her mother and friends felt the way she did, and how they managed to act so naturally, two days away from the ball and one more away from leaving the city. They hadn't asked her opinion, either. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement to not ask questions that she was not willing to answer. They thought she was nervous and tense due to the coming change in her life, and she was, but that was not the main reason for her sadness.

Annie hopped down from the stool, circled the table, and walked past Bridget on the way to her room.

'Tragic, I don't like it,' heard Bridget, despite herself. It had happened again. She'd heard voices where there were none. Annie hadn't opened her mouth, she was sure of it; she had looked at her for a few seconds until she convinced herself that her lips had not moved at all.

With a deep sigh of resignation, Bridget leaned back on the couch and hugged a cushion. Well, that had just discarded her theory that she was the victim of a prank. She'd started doubting it when she stopped hearing the disembodied voices exclusively when she was in one of the cubicles in the digital library, where they began in the first place.

Back then, she had looked for a speaker hidden under the table. She had changed cubicles and checked, like she had done just now, that the women's lips were not moving -because all the voices she heard were female. She had not found a trace of the means, time, or motive that had made her the victim of such a bad joke, so that she could identify the culprit, unless Elisa Bandier...

That was what she'd thought when she heard them outside the cubicles, like in the classroom. Several times she'd known which arguments Annie would use during the debate competition, before she even spoke. Maybe their ideas coincided. Nevertheless, the idea that Elisa was spying on Annie, and using the information she gathered to play a prank on her, instead of using the information their debate team's benefit was incoherent. Simply irrational.

Besides, classes were over and the classroom was not the only place outside the digital library where she'd heard voices. They seemed to follow her into Annie's room, the dining room, the halls... they were clearer when she was close to someone, and when she was near a crowd she heard a buzz, like the one in a public square. Sometimes, if the room was silent, she thought she could hear entire ideas, but if the person spoke, she would hear an annoying echo.

Pluck my feathers!

She had fluttered from denial to explaining it as an overactive imagination, to her theory of a joke, to avoid thinking that something might be wrong with her, a budding madness.

As if my family leaving wasn't frustrating enough. She exchanged a bland smile with Paty, who at the moment was helping Annie tie the laces of another dress over her left wing. At least I won't have trouble finding a shrink. I could be Paty's first schizophrenic patient. The idea was already taking shape.

Bridget didn't stay to watch the end of the session. She didn't have the stomach to make trivial comments on fabrics, cuts, hairdos... She escaped to the only place where she could scream to her heart's content: the lake.

"Where are you going, Brid? It's your turn in front of the mirror," called Annie behind her.

"Let her go, she wants to be alone," said Paty, with a hint of sadness in her voice.