I felt for Stella’s paper inside my jeans pocket. I’d folded it over so many times in the last two days that it was the size and density of a bullet, and I could swallow it in one gulp if I had to. I filled my mouth with saliva in case it came to that.

Cory’s eyes strayed back to the computer screen. He tapped a pencil against his teeth and scribbled a note. Was that all right then? Permission granted? I backed out, and he didn’t look up again.

Walls had ears at Byrne Hall; the closest I ever came to feeling alone was in the bathroom. I perched on the edge of the tub, took the paper from my pocket, and unfolded it for the hundredth time. It had grown soft and silent with much handling.

I still took a deep breath every time I turned the drawing over.

Stella Maria Lyell

Stella Maria Lyell

Stella Maria Lyell

My scalp prickled, and I was scared to raise my eyes in case I found her standing in front of me. It was an impossible piece of paper with an impossible message. Supernatural, I’d have said, if I’d dared to believe in ghosts.

“Everything all right in there?”

The door handle rattled and I leapt to my feet, knocking a cake of soap into the bath.

“Coming!”

I flushed the toilet, ran the taps, folded the piece of paper and bundled it back in my pocket. I couldn’t go on like this, just reading her name over and over again. It was time I made something happen.

“Won’t be a second.”

Cory didn’t answer, but he used the silence to let me know he was waiting.

At first I thought the word revenge was too heavy for someone like me; that I’d never be able to carry it off; that it had too many connotations of Shakespeare, and mobsters, and histrionic hand-wringing. But it’s funny how quickly words lose their mystique when you turn them over often enough in your mind. It’s a bit like chewing gum: after the initial zing you’re left with a flavourless lump and you hardly notice it anymore, but you keep chewing all the same. Only a few hours after the discovery of Stella’s note, I could lie in the bath whispering vows of vengeance under my breath without feeling actorly at all.