By now she’d worked out that the School was staffed by only a handful of people: the director (whom she’d only seen once, on the day she was hired), Nurse Braun, two orderlies who performed all kinds of chores, the cook, and the kitchen maid, Marie, Magdalena’s roommate. Marie never spoke, and in all the long evenings Magdalena had so far spent reading in her room, Marie had given her nothing more than a couple of shy, vaguely fretful glances. Magdalena had given up on trying to talk to her and now limited herself to greeting her in the morning, and wishing her goodnight when the lights were switched off.

Not many people would have been able to adapt to life in such an isolated place; more importantly, employment at the School depended on a trait that few possessed: discretion. You had to be willing to maintain a certain reserve for the rest of your life.

It had been a particularly difficult time for Magdalena’s family, but then her aunt had found her this job.

“The School has high hopes for you. Do not disappoint it,” said Nurse Braun as she ascended the worn steps of the main staircase. She was walking ahead of Magdalena, her body stiff, her shoulders straight like the arms of the crucified Christ who watched them from the mezzanine floor. The crimson sunset filtered through a rose window, engraving the Christ’s sorrowful face and setting alight the blood that spilled out of his pierced ribcage. The crown of thorns on his head cast a bloated, twisted shadow on the plastered wall.

Like the tentacles of some monstrous beast, thought Magdalena, burrowing into her wool cardigan.

Nurse Braun always spoke of the School as a living, sentient being, as if its walls had eyes and ears: the School listened, and it passed judgment. Magdalena had been alarmed to hear her speak in this manner.

They reached the first floor where the Hive was located. It was so silent that it might as well have been empty. Their bodies carved through the air as if it hadn’t been disturbed for centuries and had absorbed in that endless time the lives and stories of all those that had previously passed through it. Magdalena could feel its weight on her breastbone, on her throat. It squeezed around her until there was almost no room left for her to breathe.

“Observe, record, forget.”

Those words meant that nothing that happened inside the School must ever be known beyond its confines. Nurse Braun had explained to her that she might occasionally witness practices she might deem bizarre. She must study their effects and meticulously record them in the notebook she’d received with her uniform.

Afterwards, she must forget it all. Every single thing.

Magdalena saw her take a bunch of keys from the pocket of her uniform, insert one into the keyhole, and pause.