“Can I tell you guys something?” Jessa said quietly to Maggie and Flynn.

“‘course,” Flynn nodded.

“You’d better be quick, though,” Maggie warned. “Mr Fletcher’s probably going to arrive soon.”

“Actually, he’s the one I want to talk about.”

“What about him?”

“Do you think he’s been acting strange lately?”

“He’s seemed a bit distant, but that’s about it.”

“He came over to see us yesterday, and he looked rough.”

“How?”

“He was all tired and stressed. He said he’s been involved with the Emmeline case.”

“That’s bound to be putting extra stress on him,” Maggie said.

“Yes. But it made me think, why is he helping?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what does he have to contribute? He’s new here, so he barely knew Emmeline.”

“Well, we know he was the last person in school to see her,” said Flynn.

“Right, but how can they be drawing that out for so long? He started acting funny the day Emmeline disappeared, and he’s continued to be weird for the past two weeks. What’s going on?”

Before Maggie or Flynn could reply, Mrs Sullivan, the English teacher from down the corridor, scuttled into the room.

“So sorry, everyone! I was supposed to take your register this morning, but I got held up in a meeting. Is everyone here? Good. Off you go, then!”

“Excuse me, Mrs Sullivan?” Jessa spoke up before the muddled young teacher had time to hurry out of the room again, “Where’s Mr Fletcher?”

“He’s stuck in traffic. Not to worry!” And with that, she left.

The rest of the class filtered out of the room and made their way down the hallway, but Jessa held Maggie and Flynn back.

“What’s wrong?” Maggie asked.

“He’s not stuck in traffic, he stayed over at our house last night,” Jessa whispered. “There’s no way there’s traffic in between my house and here.”

“Maybe he went somewhere else this morning?” Flynn suggested. “Don’t he and Audrey go to the gym in the morning?”

“Yeah, they do, but… I don’t know. It feels like something weird is happening.”

“What is it you’re worried about?” Flynn asked.

Jessa shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s just a feeling. I can’t describe it.”

“Come on,” Maggie urged, “we’re going to be late to French! I’m sure everything’s fine. He’ll probably be back soon.”

Jessa couldn’t concentrate at all during French. Maggie made a point of shooting Jessa her most disapproving of glares whenever she noticed Jessa didn’t have her textbook open to the right page, or when she wasn’t copying anything from the board. She remained preoccupied during break time and didn’t even finish her bag of spicy tortilla chips.

When the bell rang at 11:10, the three friends packed away their refreshments and walked back up the stairs to the East Wing corridor, returning to their form room for a Parapsych History lesson.

Jessa looked over at Mr Fletcher’s desk. He wasn’t there. In his place was Mrs Reid, the other History teacher.

Jessa’s stomach flopped.

“Mr Fletcher isn’t able to make it in today, so I’ll be covering him for your Parapsych History lesson, and we’ll just carry on from where you were last week.” Mrs Reid’s grey curly hair bobbed as she spoke.

“I logged into Mr Fletcher’s class notes, and I saw you’ve been learning about Medieval times and the Parapsych-hunts. Very gruesome stuff, wasn’t it? Fascinating, though, don’t you think? Anyway, please open your books to page 57, and start reading the section titled ‘Heresy and Mind Control: Parapsychs vs. Witches.’”

Flynn grinned over at Jessa before diving in over his textbook. She admired how much he’d come to enjoy history, but she certainly didn’t feel the same way. No amount of jazzed up titles could trick Jessa Baxter into enjoying reading about the late middle ages.

“So what have we learned so far in this chapter?” Mrs Reid asked the class.

Maggie raised her hand.

“Yes, Maggie.”

“When the Christian Age took hold, there was an intense dissidence between the Catholic side and the Protestant side, so it was a very tumultuous time. Beliefs in witchcraft were thought of as superstition, which was a punishable offence. Unfortunately, they couldn’t tell the difference between witchcraft and parapsychism at that point, so a lot of people who we now believe were actually parapsychs, were tried and even executed as witches.”

“Very good, Maggie! Would anyone else like to share anything they’ve learned? What else was happening in Europe that contributed to this timeline events?”

Maggie’s hand was in the air again.

“I suppose it started with the Romans…”

Jessa zoned out. Nothing they were discussing in the lesson seemed important. She couldn’t shake the feeling of unease. The day seemed endless.