A.J. Rivers
The Girl In The Manor
Prologue
Mary noticed the man as soon as he walked into the bus station. There was something about him that didn’t look like he fit in with the rest of the people milling around the cavernous open space. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was. The passengers, families, and friends gathering at the different gates, waiting in the rows of metal chairs, and moving in and out of the bank of glass doors along the front of the building covered a full range of people. Like a microcosm of the city around them. Suits and sleek satchels, jeans and baggy t-shirts, grungy backpacks sitting beside expensive matching luggage. All kinds of passengers took advantage of the fleet of buses that traveled from the city hub. He didn’t stand out against them.
Yet, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. There was something about him. Something that wouldn’t let go of her attention. But Mary didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad one. She watched him walk into the station and waited for him to glance around in that way most people do when they come into a crowded space like the station. Even when they know where they are and where they are going, most people take a few seconds to evaluate their surroundings. But not this man. He walked in and kept his eyes locked directly ahead of him. He didn’t even seem to notice the people moving around him as he crossed the high shine-polished linoleum floor. Rather than him navigating around people and finding his path, the crowd parted for him and his determined stride.
He wasn’t carrying any luggage. Not even a small bag over his shoulder. He wore tailored charcoal pants and a white button-up tucked in and rolled to his elbows. The belt and matching shoes looked expensive, even from the distance. But she couldn’t decipher the look on his face. It was intense and stiff, but that wasn’t all that different from many of the other people rushing to get to the next bus or juggling little children traveling with them. This is the part of travel that rarely creates relaxed, happy people. This man looked driven to get through the room, focused directly ahead of him. Mary watched him until he disappeared around a corner. Part of her wanted to follow him, but she stopped herself. That would be letting her curiosity go too far.
She pulled out her phone and turned on the camera to record the room around her.
“Here it is, folks. The majestic bus station. Perhaps not the most elegant of transportation, but we’ll say I’m doing something good for the environment by joining up with the masses for the trip rather than driving myself. We’ll just keep that it’s super cheap as a secret between us.”
Mary turned the camera to herself and smiled into it before turning off the screen. It was the fourth snippet of video she had made since the morning before, when she woke up with the urge to go on a trip. Her tripod made it possible to record her packing her bags while she talked to her audience about not knowing where she was going to end up. Another clip followed her as she drove to the bus station, and her third accompanied her as she walked through the parking lot and inside. She still hadn’t decided where she would end up or how long she was going to stay. The income she was building up from her vlogs would fund whatever adventure she ended up on, but it had to be something worth watching.
She made her way closer to the board announcing the departures and scanned the various options for where to go. The calendar had just barely ticked over to September, and the weather wasn’t yet cool enough to really justify an escape to Florida. Mary also didn’t think she could bear that many hours on a bus. Her family made that road trip once when she was younger, and that had been challenging enough. Stuffing herself into a carpet seat and being cozy with a stranger for several hours longer than that old school road trip wasn’t appealing. New York was too much of a cliché. The beach didn’t seem far enough away. She finally settled on Baltimore, figuring she could get good footage out of touring the harbor and opened her phone to buy her ticket.
Done with the purchase, Mary headed for the information desk to get a luggage tag for her bag. This was only the third trip she chronicled for her channel, but she wanted to keep up the tradition of getting a luggage tag each time. Maybe she would turn them into a scrapbook. Or maybe they would all end up in the bottom drawer of her nightstand. Either way, she was going to continue on.
She dug through her bag in search of lip balm as she stepped into the line. She took out her phone and held it up as she waited for the person in front of her to finish.
“On my way to Baltimore!” she said. “It’s been years since I’ve been there, and I’m sure I’ll find a lot of new things. I actually don’t remember anything from my last trip except for my sister singing that song from Hairspray about twelve times during the day. And maybe the aquarium. I think that was Baltimore. Well, we’ll find out. It’s only about a three-hour ride, so I’ll be there in plenty of time to find a hotel and get some exploring in today. What do you think I should have for dinner? Hmmm…”
The person in front of her finished talking, and she turned to the desk. It wasn’t until she turned away with several luggage tags in her hand that she realized she had been standing right behind the man she watched walk into the station. He disappeared into the back of the station again, and Mary went to the chairs to wait the hour until her bus left.
Her wait would last less than five minutes.
The impossibly bright blast tore through the station, screams faint behind the aftermath of the deafening sound. Shards of fractured linoleum and hot metal rained down on Mary, where she sprawled on the floor. Beneath her, pinned against what remained of the broken floor, her phone continued to record. It drew in the chaos, chronicling the screams. Her body blocked it from the smoke and flames, but the sounds of terror wore on in the darkness.
Chapter One
Three years ago
The ground swirled beneath her as she looked over the edge of the tower. It was so far down. Further than she thought when she first scrambled out the window and onto the narrow ledge. She dropped down to the stone floor, pulling her knees up to her chest. The cold of the stones soaked through the thin fabric of her dress on her back and into the bones of her spine. It protruded from her skin, raising up in defined ridges like a prehistoric creature preserved in mud. Her body was worn as thin as the dress she’d been wearing for the last six months.
Breath rattled in her lungs. Her insides might have turned to stone as cold as the tower behind her. But when she leaned her forehead down to her knees and parted her dry, cracked lips to let out her breath, it felt warm on her face. She wrapped her arms tightly around her head to create a dark hollow where her eyes could hide. She breathed again. The warmth was proof she was still alive. No matter what they did. No matter how hard they tried. She was still alive.
But that wouldn’t last for long if she didn’t move. She didn’t have much time until they realized she wasn’t in the tiny room where they left her. As soon as the smell of bleach wasn’t strong enough, or one called out for her and she didn’t immediately appear in front of them, they would discover she was gone. The memory of their voices slid down her back between the ripples of her spine and the cold tower wall.
Sister Abigail. Sister Abigail. Sister Abigail.
She wanted to peel that name away, to scrub it from her skin, to excise it from her being. They inflicted it on her. They crafted her into its image. It brought her to her feet and standing on the ledge again. The ground didn’t seem so far now. Just a breath. That’s all it would take to reach it.