Sarah Benadine is Dead

Chapter XIII, Part I

On Friday, March 16, 1956, Allison Groves did not show up to her classes. Rumors circling the second year class related that she'd spent the whole night throwing up. The truth was nothing so severe: she'd simply left her dormitory at a little past eleven the night before and went down to the infirmary complaining of an upset stomach.

Of course, the real truth was even less severe than that: Allison Groves was perfectly fine.

Shannon, Caleb, Ginger, Ollie, Jared, and Dexter took a little extra time at the end of the school day to go to the infirmary to see how Allison was doing. Miss Winters had let them in with a multitude of mutterings about all the things she had to see to, most of which the group did not quite catch. Allison was awake when they came in. She was sitting up in bed, dressed in her pajamas, reading a book. Even from a distance she seemed exhausted; her eyes were surrounded by dark purple rings—a sharp contrast to an unusually pale face—and she seemed to be having trouble keeping them open. She smiled when she saw them, though, meaning she had to at least be in good spirits.

That was not exactly true, but it was a very peculiar situation Allison Groves found herself in that day.

Shannon took a seat at the foot of Allison's bed, and the others gathered around one side, looking down at her with half-smiling faces laced with uncertainty, like somewhere in the back of their minds they expected she might collapse into a fit of some kind. The rings around her eyes were worse up close. Her glasses amplified them, illustrating their full color palate.

"Tough day, huh, Al?" Caleb asked, the corner of his mouth twitching.

"It's been...long," Allison said carefully, shooting him a dirty look. "And don't call me that."

"Hope you're not contagious," Jared said.

Allison flapped her hand and made a 'pah' sound. "Miss Winters wouldn't let you in here if she thought you had anything to worry about. Besides" –Allison's voice lowered considerably and she glanced furtively at the few other occupied beds in the infirmary— "I'm not."

It was not guesswork or wishful thinking; she said the words so assuredly it could have been nothing other than pure fact. Allison looked around the room again, letting her gaze linger longer this time on each occupied bed, calculating, gathering information and making decisions that were a mystery to the six people at her bedside.

Shannon Malone thought that perhaps she saw a little of what Allison was thinking in that moment.

It's now or never.

"I'm not sick," Allison said, her voice casual but soft. She took her book—which had been lying open and face-down across her chest—marked her place with a bookmark that looked like merely a torn strip of paper, and set it on the small white table next to her bed. The words bordered on pure absurdity, at least in Shannon's opinion. When she was looking straight at Allison's pallid face and sunken eyes, it seemed absurd indeed. She had a feeling that if she touched Allison's skin it would be clammy.

"So this is just a new look you're trying out?" Dexter asked dryly, gesturing vaguely with his hands.

Allison fixed Dexter with a curiously appraising look, but Shannon wondered if it was really directed at him.

"I'm not sick," Allison said again, shrugging. She looked down and played with the crisp white bed sheet. The silence that stretched the following seconds was loaded.

"Why are you here then?" Caleb asked. His voice sounded strangely grown up, like the voice of a parent indulging their child. However, he peered at her with eyes clouded in confusion but not disbelief, something that was mirrored in all of Allison's visitors' faces.