As she closed in on the chapel, Isa continued to call Tristan's name. Though she had no reason to think that he might be inside, the mere possibility filled her with dread. As she dashed over, she saw that the main doors had drifted open. She ran inside, and positioned herself in the doorway, looking wildly upwards for any sign that the ceiling was about to come crashing down on her head. There was no falling debris at all - the chapel ceiling looked the same as it always had. She made her decision.

"Tristan!" She surged forward and began digging through the rubble from the collapse, sure that at any moment she might find his body broken beneath a pew. The shattered stained glass from the high windows lay littered about her feet like jagged jewel-toned leaves. Deep green hymn books with the school logo emblazoned on their covers were strewn about; it looked as if someone had murdered a library. A haze of dust drifted in the air, as if some over the bricks had simply disintegrated, as opposed to falling. Desperate, she dug through hymn books and bricks and dust for a few minutes, choking and hacking as her lungs burned. Her eyes watered and stung. She continued to dig through the debris anyway, but as she overturned a splintered pew and scanned the floor, she could see that the collapse had been localized - the wall had simply fallen in, with no clear visual clue as to why. One thing, however, was clear: Tristan was not here. 

A brick or piece of plaster fell onto the piano, which was still shrouded in its black cover: a few dissonant notes reverberated through the chapel, a grim sound. She turned on her heel, and sprinted out of the building, pausing for only a split second when she heard a crack like splintering metal - the weather vane on top of the infirmary slid down the roof and clattered to the ground. She watched in disbelief as several tiles from the infirmary roof followed, each shattering into tiny pieces on the cement of the driveway below. 

What the hell was happening? This was no earthquake. Her feet were firmly planted on the ground. 

And now she was sprinting back in the direction of Peyman, only one thought keeping pace with her pounding feet: She had to find Tristan. 

She burst in through the front door of  her residence just as something shattered behind her: a window up in the dining hall had just smashed, seemingly of its own accord. She tore down the hall, and threw open the door to her bedroom. 

No one was there. 

Frantic, she checked under both beds, and in the closet. 

"Tristan! Tristan, if you're hiding from me, we have to run! Something's happening!" 

There was no answer. No footsteps in the hall, and no slamming of doors. 

She reeled, her panic deepening. "Tristan, please! Buddy, don't hide! I'm so, so sorry! I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you! I'm so sorry I left you alone! I was wrong!" 

Her faltering voice went nowhere - it was swallowed up by the carpet, and the empty rooms that surrounded her. She sprinted to the window, and looked outside - nothing. She ran from one end of the hall to the other, checking room after room for him. Calling him until her voice grew hoarse. He must have gone looking for her when she hadn't returned. Where could he be? 

She raced back into her room, and shut the door behind her. She paced the floor. Think, Isa. Where would he have gone? She stopped in her tracks, a thought half-formed.

Would he have...?

She never finished the thought, because suddenly she gasped and shrieked, startled by an abrupt and jarring noise. A noise she hadn't heard in over a month. It sounded like a scream, like a beast in pain. 

Tristan was gone - the light outside was failing. 

The payphone in the stair alcove was ringing. 

***

Although the music that emanated from Daphne's room was odd as a rule, there had been a day in earlier September that the sounds drifting down the hall had been even stranger than usual. When the singer began, Isa had become genuinely worried that Daphne was torturing a cat, and had migrated down the passage to see if perhaps she should intervene. She'd discovered her friend leaning back in her chair, her long slender legs stretched out so that her feet rested atop her desk. Daphne's eyes were closed, and she looked as though she were in some sort of blissed-out trance. 

"Dee?"

"Mmm?" Daphne didn't open her eyes. 

"Please explain the sounds I'm hearing." Isa leaned against the door frame.

Daphne opened her eyes, but didn't look at Isa. Instead, she stared thoughtfully at the ceiling. 

"You'll need to be more specific. Angie and Maya S. are fighting over a sweater across the hall, Hannah and Kyle are out on the swings, and I'm fairly certain that's Kate in the bathroom puking. She must have accidentally ingested something. Food, maybe."

Isa smiled in spite of herself. "Bat ears."

"It's a curse." Daphne brought her feet to the floor, and turned her large dark eyes on Isa, who grinned.  

"I'm referring to the wailing that appears to be coming from your speakers."

Daphne nodded, and gestured to her bed. "Sit and listen a minute." 

After another minute of listening, Isa frowned. "Cat Stevens? Phil Collins?"

Daphne's eyes closed again, though this time it was as though she were praying for strength. "I'm going to pretend you didn't just ask me that." 

"Who, then?"

"He's one of the gods of American folk-rock, Is. Songwriter for the ages." Isa's expression stayed blank, and Daphne's eyes grew incredulous. "Seriously?"

Isa shrugged. 

"Mr. Tambourine Man, Like a Rolling Stone?"

Isa shook her head. "The Rolling Stones?"

Daphne sighed, as though she'd really wanted to believe her friend's ignorance was a gag of some sort. "It's Bob Dylan. I'm doing a paper on his evolving style for my composition class."

Isa nodded, too ashamed to admit that even the name didn't mean much to her. She generally just listened to whatever was popular or playing on the radio, unless she was at home. Her parents looked down on any music that wasn't classical, and only played that when they were trying to impress their friends. Most often, the house had been quiet. She listened for a minute longer, and took a stab at diplomacy. "He must grow on you, I guess?"

Daphne threw back her head and laughed. "He does, honest. And his appeal was never in his voice, anyway; it was emotive, but not pretty. He wrote some life-changing stuff, though, in terms of the poetry. And I like that anyone can sing his work, because he sang his own melodies a little differently every time he performed them."

They'd sat and listened for a bit, and Cass had eventually joined them, pressed next to Isa on the bed, both of them leaning back against the wall. Eventually the song changed, and this one had a different feel: it sounded a bit like something her Jesus-freak cousins would have sung in church. Her nose wrinkled reflexively.

"Well I'm pressing on. I'm pressing on -- pressing on to a higher calling of my Lord."

Daphne stood, her face rapt, arms extended as though to shush those around. "This one is my favourite." A choir came in behind the singer.

"Really?" Isa frowned. Daphne had never struck her as a particularly religious person. She felt mildly disappointed.

Daphne smiled at her surprise. "It's churchy, no question - but don't think about it like that, Is. The gospel choir sells the chorus, but those lyrics - those lyrics are next-level transcendent. It's about acceptance and pushing through hardship into the next thing." She began to sing along in her rich alto:

"What kind of sign they need when it all come from within -- When what's lost has been found, what's to come has already been?"

And it did grow on Isa, once she allowed it to. As she sat there and listened, and savoured the company of her friends, it was the first moment in ages that she had felt truly hopeful. Daphne's voice filled the room, and Dylan's lyrics spoke to her in a way the nasal "Baby Baby thought you were my girl" of the top forty never had. Cass hooked her foot around Isa's in a companionable sort of way, and the two of them listened to Daphne sing, eyes bright with admiration. Something inside Isa's heart swelled, and she couldn't help but wonder. 

Is this how other people feel all the time? 

And when the song finished they had played the it again, in unspoken agreement. And after the third time around, Allcott had poked his head in the open door to tell them to turn it down, no doubt dispatched by Kate or Angie or some other girl from down the hall. 

*********

Isa crept towards the stairwell as the phone continued to ring, jumping a little every time it sounded. Cautiously, she pushed the stairwell door open and stood frozen, staring at the phone. The ring had never struck her as jarring before, but now it reverberated through her body as though someone was physically shaking her. She stretched out her hand to pick up the receiver, and realized she was trembling. She held her palm in front of her face - it didn't feel as though it belonged to her, and yet it must; the plastic of the receiver was cool and smooth to the touch. She rested her hand there, the vibration of the phone moving through her. And then she gripped the receiver and brought it to her ear. 

"Hello?" Static crackled. For a moment, she could hear nothing. And then a sound began to filter in, quietly at first: there was a laugh, and she could hear more than one voice - high and girlish, vibrant and bright. Beloved. It sounded as though they were far away, in another place and time - not speaking to her, but to each other. They didn't know she was listening. They sounded happy, as though they belonged together, and would be fine. A tear trailed down her cheek unbidden, and she wiped at it, looking at her wet palm with surprise. She listened more intently. God, how she'd missed them. 

She could hear a guitar, now - still in the distance, but clearly a guitar. And then a voice she very much recognized chimed in, as though playing over top of the others. 

Shake the dust off of your feet, don't look back
Nothing now can hold you down, nothing that you lack 

I'm pressing on                                                                                                                                                                  on and on and on and on                                                                                                                                  Pressing on - you gotta keep pushing

A strange and deep calm flooded Isa's body, and banished the trembling of a moment before. She felt as though some unseen hands had gently placed a pair of glasses on her face, glasses that were crafted specifically for her, and allowed her to see clearly after months or perhaps years of peering through smudged and dusty glass. She reached down to gently touch the small key she'd hung around her neck - somehow, for no reason she could have articulated, she knew exactly what it was for. 

She listened to the voices again for a moment, holding out hope that one of them might call her name, or give some sign that they knew she was there. The music continued to play, but the voices slowly faded into the static from which they'd come. And so she hung up. 

She opened the door, and proceeded back out into the hallway, where she paused a moment to take a breath. And then she squared her shoulders and walked down the passage and around the corner. She'd expected to feel panic, to feel her heart in the mouth, or a tightening in her throat - but it wasn't to be: instead the new calm came with her, encircling her like a protective cocoon. She found she was grateful for this.

When she reached the laundry room, she hesitated for the length of an instant, and then, with a slow, purposeful and steady hand, she positioned the key in the lock, and turned it. 

And it was then that she was confronted with the reality of what she herself and no one else had done on Tuesday night as Cass and Daphne slept, and the shadows loomed large and finally suffocated her.