The Institute (5 page)

“Allira?” The
front door swings open and there stands Ebbodine’s mum looking
tired and weary, she obviously hasn’t slept in days. I run up the
porch stairs and throw my arms around her.

“I am so
sorry!” Words cannot express how sorry I am. I start to tear up and
I know there is no way I can hold them back. “I only found out this
morning, I can’t believe it.”

“Neither can I
Allira, neither can I.” She notices that I’m not alone, “Who’s
this?” she asks, looking at Drew.

“This is Drew,
he goes to school with us. I am really sorry I haven’t come by
sooner but I only found out this morning. Is there any news about
what could have happened to her?” Please say yes, please say
yes.

“Not yet honey.
There are still a few more theories the police are working on,” she
says.

“Theories?”
Drew asks. Maybe he really is desperate for a distraction.

“Well there are
three. Come inside and we can talk about it over a cup of tea.”

We follow her
in and take a seat at their dining room table; a table I have sat
and had many meals at over the last three years. It feels so weird
not having Ebb here with me. Her mum starts talking while she makes
the tea.

“The first one
is she has gone to the Institute.” She looks back at me with
curious eyes, like she is awaiting my response. “But by the look on
your face Allira, you don’t know of any defect Ebbodine might
have?”

I shake my head
in response, “No, she wasn’t Defective. Well, she never talked to
me about it anyway.”

“Me either, but
you know how teenagers are with keeping secrets from their parents,
I thought she might have just been hiding it from me,” she sighs.
“I’m sure if Ebbodine did have a defect she would have told you,” I
try to reassure her.

I don’t think
Ebb is Defective anyway, someone who loves so much drama, always
attracting attention to herself would not be Defective. It’s the
ones who lay low and are practically invisible you should be
suspicious of, like my brother. Surely she doesn’t have a
defect.

“The second
theory?” I ask, as she places a cup of tea down in front of me.

“She has just
run off for some week-long, party escapade. I love my daughter,
don’t get me wrong, but it does sound like something she would do.
Plus I have to hope for this option because I don’t like where the
other two lead.”

“What’s the
last one?” I ask.

I want to say
that Ebbodine would never go on a week-long ‘party escapade’
without me, or without telling her mum where she is going to be,
even if where she says she is going is a lie. But if her mum wants
to hold on to the hope that Ebbodine will walk in the door any
moment hung over and sleep deprived, I don’t want to be the one to
deflate that hope.

She puts the
tea down in front of us and grabs hold of my hand, “I don’t want to
tell you the third option, it’s too horrific. You of all people
know what it’s like.”

I know exactly
what the third theory is. I don’t want to lose another person that
way.

“They think it
could be what happened to my mother don’t they?” I whisper. I don’t
really know if I want to know the answer to this.

“What happened
to your mother Allira?” Drew asks with real concern on his face. I
don’t want to respond, I’m already struggling with the fact
Ebbodine is gone, I don’t need to be thinking about my mother at a
time like this.

“She was
murdered. She was never found, but the official report says
suspected homicide,” I say without emotion. A look of sympathy
crosses his face. I know that look because of all the times I have
seen it when people find out what happened. That’s why I don’t like
to talk about her much.

“By the look of
it, she’s not the only one either,” Ebbodine’s mum tells us.

I narrow my
eyes at her. What does she mean? She stands up and walks over to a
stack of folders sitting on the kitchen bench and brings it back
over to me. She flips them open and what is inside takes my breath
away.

“What is this?”
I ask.

“The police
gave these to me to see if I recognise anyone, to see if any of
them could have a link to Ebbodine. Other than Hall, there wasn’t
anyone I recognised.”

“Hall is in
here?” I ask. That surprises me, the rumours at school were that he
was at the Institute. Ebb’s mum doesn’t answer, just nods her
head.

Sitting in
front of me is a stack of missing person reports and all I can
think about is my mother. When she vanished, Shilah and I didn’t
understand that she wasn’t coming back. We didn’t understand where
she had gone. As a nine year old, I had some understanding that she
was dead but like any child, I still had hope. I remember Dad
telling me to stay strong for Shilah. I wanted to tell him I didn’t
quite understand myself about what was going on but I didn’t know
how. I took it a little too seriously, not allowing myself to break
down, not allowing myself to grieve, Dad needed me to protect
Shilah. I didn’t have any closure. I guess I didn’t really accept
her death until we held a funeral for her a year after she went
missing. That was when I really began to understand that she wasn’t
coming back but without a body we had to say goodbye to an empty
casket, so I guess I still don’t have complete closure.

Surely there
hasn’t been some crazy killer out there for over eight years
picking off people one by one? That’s the impression I get from the
files sitting in front of me. I still can’t believe what I am
seeing, I run my fingers down the sides of the files and briefly
count how many there are: eighteen.

“Eighteen
people?” I say disbelievingly.

“From this area
alone” replies Ebb’s mum.

I stare blankly
at the files in front of me. Do I really want to look at these?

“Are you okay?”
I feel Drew’s hand on my back and I can feel the tears welling up
in my eyes again. I’m using all the strength I have to squash them
back down; I swear I’ve been like a fountain the past two weeks.
The warmth of his hand gives me comfort.

“I don’t know
how to answer that question because to be honest, I don’t
know.”

I wonder if
this is how Dad felt when he had discovered mum had first gone
missing. He was working night shifts in the city at the time as a
janitor and he returned home one morning to find Mum not in her
bed. Shilah and I were still sound asleep in ours.

Drew leans over
and puts his arm around my shoulders. His embrace is so calming,
just like the night after his car accident.

“Why are there
so many? What does it mean?” I ask Ebb’s mum, as I pull the files
closer.

“Well it means
that there’s a good possibility that it’s happening again,” she
replies as if I should know what she is talking about.

“What’s
happening again?” asks Drew. I’m glad I’m not the only one that was
confused by what she said.

“Look at the
dates Allira,” she says pointing to the files.

Upon closer
inspection I realise the files are divided into groups, each have a
year on the top right corner. Some of these files date back to
twenty years ago. As I’m quickly going through them I realise,
clusters of people go missing every couple of years. It’s not a
continuous flow of disappearing people, they all disappear within a
year of each other and then nothing – it just stops – until a
couple of years later when it starts again.

I come across
the group from the year my mother went missing. Will her file be in
here? She is technically still missing I guess, but do I want to
look at it? I’m staring at the files and I don’t know what to do.
I’m about to start looking for hers when Ebbodine’s mum reaches for
my hand.

“It’s not in
there, it was one of the first files I looked at. I can give it to
you, if you really want, but I don’t think there will be anything
in there that will help how you’re feeling right now,” she
says.

She’s probably
right but curiosity is getting the better of me. I have to see that
file. My face must say it all because without even asking for it,
she hands me my mother’s file.

“Is it okay if
I take this home with me?” I want to read it, but in my own time
and when I can be by myself.

“Sure sweetie.
But I need it back by tomorrow morning, that’s when the police are
coming back to collect them.”

Mum was already
gone when we moved to this town so she never met Ebbodine or her
family but everyone knows of her disappearance, especially Ebb. I
would tell her stories of my mother all the time. She’s really the
only person I have spoken to about my mum. But now another thought
crosses my mind. While Ebbodine may not have known my mother, she
is friends with me. Is she linked to my mother enough to bring any
sort of investigation upon our family?

I put my mum’s
file in my bag to take home and read later. It’s hard for me not to
read it right here and now but I really do want to be alone to do
it.

Ebbodine’s mum
answers the phone as Drew and I continue to look over the files in
front of us but I don’t recognise anyone until we get near the
bottom of the pile, the most recent disappearances.

I don’t know if
reading these is going to be helpful to me at all but it’s keeping
my hands and my mind busy so I just keep reading.

As I reach for
the last file, I immediately recognise the person’s photo, his name
escapes me but I definitely know this person from somewhere. The
file says his name is Chad Williams. I know him, I know I do, but
from where?

“Oh hey, that’s
that substitute teacher from last year. I think he’s actually Mr.
Williams’ son. That’s what I heard at school anyway,” Drew says as
he looks over my shoulder.

“I knew he
looked familiar but I couldn’t place him. I never had him for a
class last year but I must have seen him around school,” I say.

“Well he used
to go to our school too. It was before I got here but apparently he
graduated high school, went away for a year and came back as a
teacher. I remember that because Jax complained that it was weird
having a friend suddenly be your teacher,” Drew explains.

No wonder he
looked familiar.

“It says he
only went missing a week ago?” I read. I wonder if he and Ebbodine
have met the same fate. Did Ebbodine know Chad? If I recognised
him, surely she would have known who he was too. “Mrs. Marshall,
this boy, he went to school with us, he was apparently a teacher
last year too. Is that the kind of thing the police wanted to know?
Maybe they knew each other?” I call out to Ebb’s mum.

She comes over
and looks at the file, leans down and gives me a hug. “It’s exactly
the kind of thing they are looking for. Thank you Allira,” she says
with an edge of hope in her voice.

She places the
file on the bench, away from the others so as not to get them mixed
up.

Drew and I read
all of the files, except my mother’s of course; that sits in my
back pack. After we are done I thank Ebbodine’s mum for the tea and
give her another hug. Drew and I leave, wandering down the street
and back toward the train station. I can feel Drew’s eyes burning
into me. I haven’t uttered a word since we left Ebb’s house.

“Allira.” Drew
grabs my hand and stops me from walking any further. He spins me
into his arms and embraces me. “I know this is kind of random, but
I feel like I can talk to you about anything. You are the only one
who knows what I went through with Jax and I really hope you feel
the same way. I really hope you can let me help you with this. You
were there for me, I want to be here for you now.” He leans in and
hugs me and I feel like I could stay here forever.

I welcome his
arms, thank him for wanting to help me but I just feel like there
is only one other person I could share my mother’s file with, and
that is my brother.

Drew offers to
walk me home, but I don’t want Dad to see him. I may be able to get
away with ditching school because I found out Ebb was missing, but
to ditch school and be seen with a boy? I’d probably be grounded
until I was thirty-five.

I get home just
as Shilah is arriving home from school.

“I have
something you might want to see,” I say, walking up the stairs of
our porch.

“I’ve seen it,”
he replies hastily.

Oh right, of
course he has.

“Well I haven’t
looked at it yet, let’s go inside and talk.” Before I can start
heading inside, Shilah stops me.

“Allira, please
trust me when I say this. Don’t read that file, no good will come
of it. Promise me?” he pleads.

Why doesn’t he
want me to read the file? What could possibly be in there that is
so bad? It is so annoying having a brother that knows what is going
to happen before it happens, all he is doing is making me want to
read it more.

“What?! How is
it fair that you get to see it and I don’t?” I ask.

“You think I
asked to see it? Do you think I like seeing terrible things before
they happen and not having the power to stop it? I can’t stop you
from reading that file Allira, but I would have thought that by now
you would trust me when I say nothing good will come of it, nothing
at all.”

“Fine. I won’t
read it,” I say angrily. I still don’t think it’s fair that he gets
to see it and I don’t but I also know that when he says something
won’t end well, chances are, he’s right.

Dinner is
awkward to say the least. Dad doesn’t know how to comfort me over
Ebb, Shilah is still angry from whatever he has seen in that file.
I scoff my dinner down so I can go to my room. I want to be
alone.

I lie awake in
bed just trying to forget the events of today. I want a do-over. If
I go to sleep now will the day reset? Will Ebbodine be home safe
when I wake?

“Allira.
Allira!” I’m startled by a familiar voice. It’s Ebbodine, she is
lightly shaking me and as I realise what is happening, I throw my
arms around her. She’s okay!