“Where's- what's Maine? Who’s C?” said Theresa, voice rising.

“I don't know- I don't know! What do we do!” Charlie wailed,

“Shut up we'll figure it out,” James said, annoyed, 

“No we won’t!” Cried Annie.

“Quiet, quiet. Maine's in America, though I have no clue who C is.” I muttered, “if we took a train I believe it'd take a few days just to get to the states, not including the transitions or boats.”

“A few days just to get to the states?” Annie Whined. “That's gonna take us ages! And boats? Boats could sink and we could die! How long will it take with all those!”

“It will take as long as it takes,” I told her. “Just don't complain, we have no other options other than waiting here for God knows what will happen to us all alone.”

This, of course, sent her into a fit which took ages and a few of us to calm her down from, but after soothing Annie, we all agreed to pack our things -after calming Annie down-, then we thought it was best to go to sleep. Everyone was too scared to even go in the room we all slept in, so we decided to just sleep in the parlor. Some of them clung to pillows, blankets, or other people, though I was so tired and overwhelmed, and didn't want to be near them, and found a pillow and blanket and just slept on one of the couches. 

When we woke we checked and double checked we had everything we needed. We changed into our lounging clothes and then began to walk to the train station. It wasn't that long of a walk, ten or fifteen minutes, but when we got there everyone sat down on the wood branches, exhausted. James went to the ticket booth to buy us all tickets, and the rest of us sat anxiously waiting. The train would come at eight thirty and leave at eight forty five. In theory, not counting getting on and off trains and boats, we would be there at one in the morning, which was unfortunate to say the least, because we had nowhere to sleep, though I suppose we could find a -hopefully not haunted this time- hotel. The train across seas to Maine eventually arrived on time and we all got on. We split into two groups, because each booth only sat four people. James, Finn, Theresa, and Beth sat together in one booth. And Annie, Charlie, Liam, and I sat in the other. I was so, so tired. I barely slept last night with the nightmares Charlie had, causing him to wake up screaming. 

I let my thoughts wander, thinking about Miss. Seymour's death, and the man who killed her we were now trying to find. I also wondered how we would find him at all. America was a new and unknown place to us, having all lived in England our whole lives, we were now in a place that could be dangerous and unsafe. Were people different there? Would they act badly towards us? I didn't know how we would manage. We knew nobody in America except this C, and the person we always looked to for guidance was dead. I didn't know what to do. I felt a hand on my shoulder, though I didn't pay attention to who it was, as I didn't pay attention to who I sat with either, I just sat there, my head leaned against the window with my eyes closed. I vaguely heard Charlie whining to Liam, telling him, “why did we do this, we’re gonna die, there's no point, we'll be dead.”

I suppose I fell asleep at some point, because I awoke to James shaking me and telling me we needed to get on the next train. It was twelve pm, that meant we had twelve more hours. I tried not to worry but I was still worried about what would happen once in America.  

“Do you think it will get easier once we find him? Once we’re in America?” Asked Annie, sounding more hopeful than before.

“No,” I said, sounding hopeless. “It will get harder once we find him, and most likely, harder after that.” 

It was true, and I didn't want to lie to her, even if it was to make her feel better. It wouldn’t get easier for us, we needed to face it probably wouldn't for quite a while.

“Then why are we doing it?” She said, her voice was shaking, and so was the rest of her.

“Because,” I muttered, “we need to know who did that to Miss. Seymour, you know that. And we'll be okay, we’ve been through things and survived, so we’ll do the same now.”

“It’s stupid to do, we’ll just die too, like Charlie said.” She mumbled.

I bit my lip, I would not cry, though with how hopeless her voice sounded, I wanted to.

She went silent after that as well, either too scared to talk, or asleep given the late hour.

I crossed my arms on the table separating the seats and put my head down, even though I wasn’t planning on sleeping. I hated to admit it, but I was scared as the rest of them, hearing Annie’s fear and Charlie’s frequent notions of us all dying. I tried not to think about it. I shouldn’t be worrying about America, America would be easy enough I should be worrying about that man. I wish I wasn't as scared, because I wanted him to pay, I wanted revenge for what he did to Miss. Seymor, I couldn’t get the image of her on the ground, dead, out of my head. Eventually, after what felt like ages, we made it to the next station. By that time I had started to contemplate why we were doing this at all.

“Ugh finally, that took FOREVER,” groaned Annie, 

“It was just a day, I promise you.” I said reassuringly.

We did manage to find a hotel -not haunted this time, yay!- willing to let us in at practically two in the morning. We split into groups of four because each room only had two beds, James, Liam, Finn, and Charlie went to one, and me, Beth, Theresa, and Annie went into the other. Once in the room, we practically collapsed onto the beds, not caring others would probably have to share with each other. We were all dead tired, none of us having slept since the last train we were on. 

I knew we were somewhere in Maine, but I didn't know exactly where. I sometimes would hear cars and horses outside but not frequently given the late hour. Though it felt odd to not be in the same room as the others, yet I was so tired that when I laid down I fell asleep almost immediately. When I woke up Annie, Theresa, and Beth were still asleep. It was early, only seven, though I doubted I could go back to sleep. I got up and changed into a clean pair of clothes I packed, and tried to tame my hair, it was easier now it was so short. The cut in my hand throbbed, I had cut it when cooking for the others before we left, and the bandage was blood soaked, so I decided to replace that as well. When Annie woke up she was confused where she was until I told her, when Beth and Theresa woke up they were complaining of being hungry, saying that we haven't eaten for at least a day and half. 

Once the others woke up they came to the room that me and the other girls slept in, we ate some of the food we had packed and talked about what to do now. 

“I wanna kill that man. Make him sorry.” Said Finn, sounding angry.

“No,” I scolded. “Killing him won’t help us, we need to know why he killed her.”

I saw him cross his arms, frowning like a little kid, though he said nothing more.

“If we’re going to do this we can’t start with violence.” I told them. “We need to act strategically, and we can’t do anything unplanned or unnecessary.”

“But why? Why can't we do anything unplanned or random?” Theresa whined.

“Because,” said James. “If we do anything stupid then we could die like Charlie has been saying.”

We were confused. All of us. We didn't know what to do, we just desperately wanted Miss Seymour back, we wanted our headmistress to tell us what to do or that everything would be fine, but everything would not be fine. That man, we needed to find him, we had to find him. We have to know why that happened. 

“But maybe we really are just hopeless!” Annie yelled. “We have no clue who this man even is or what he looks like, we’ve never been in america since seven hours ago, and we don't know what to do!”

She looked utterly helpless, and she, like all of us, probably was. 

 “No need to get all pouty already,” I told her. “We can do it, we just gotta make the right choices, and preferably, not get ourselves killed in the process. You with me?”

There were a few yesses, but most just nodded in agreement. Everyone else agreed, aside from Annie, given she was too young to understand much of what has happened these past few days.