We need to talk about Tom
Chapter 12: We Need To Talk About Tom
13th May 1938
Billy Stubbs has been crying all day.
At first I felt bad but now I want to stuff his flour sack teddy bear into his mouth to shut him up. He's been crying buckets all day, his rabbit, Mopsy disappeared. Nobody knows where it went. Amy and Dennis accused me and Lucy of doing something to it. Eric accused Margaret of using it in her stew for dinner that night. I don't think it was Margaret and it wasn't us either.
Tom has been very quiet lately. He and Billy had an argument the day before, now Mopsy is missing. Everyone is scared to say anything to Tom. I don't want to point fingers but Tom is not saying anything to me either.
Poor Billy.
They found his rabbit.
Poor Mopsy.
They found the little rabbit hanging by the rafters.
At least Robbie found him instead of Billy. It was around bedtime. Robbie claims if someone went up to the top floor earlier in the day, the rabbit could've been saved but no one did.
I wonder how it got up there.
Cordelia stared at the diary entry in front of her for an hour. Dinner had ended three hours ago but the search for Mopsy carried on. The letters and words were in her handwriting but the date and events were all wrong but most of all, she didn’t even recall writing those words. Those words had appeared like the other entries, without any cause or reasoning. She was sure she was going mad.
Quickly, she shoved the diary back into its hiding spot and came out of her room. The second and bottom floor were filled with children scouring for one single rabbit. Each too busy to look at another.
“Mopsy!” Lucy shouted, dropping to the floor and tilting her head to the side to look under a bookshelf on the second floor.
Across the hall, a few other children were shouting that stupid rabbit’s name. “Mopsy!” They shouted. “Mopsy where are you?” They yelled out as if a silly rabbit could even answer their calls.
Cordelia pretended to search the curtains near the stairs while keeping an eye on the others. What was supposed to be a search until lunch had taken more time than anticipated. The search was momentarily called off for lunch and dinner, much to Billy’s anger. He had cried and cried that he didn’t want to abandon his poor rabbit for a meal he didn’t have any appetite for, only to be told to shut up by the twins and Fran who were really starting to dislike Billy and Cordelia didn’t blame them.
“Mopsy!” They cried out again as Cordelia pulled the curtains on the setting sun. The sky outside had darkened already and the clock downstairs screamed loudly signalling the change in time. “Mopsy! Where are you!”
Everyone was so busy searching for that damned rabbit that no one even noticed her. Cordelia slipped away unnoticed. Her footsteps were light and barely audible as she climbed up the steps to the third floor almost in a trance-like state. Nobody followed her. Nobody noticed her.
The third floor was dark, not one light or lantern was lit. Tom was the only one on the entire floor and he was inside his room. The darkness was a little terrifying and moonlight shone through the small window by the stairs, illuminating the third floor the tiniest bit. Shadows stretched out on the floor menacingly with long tendrils swaying with the clouds covering and uncovering the moonlight.
Momentarily, Cordelia’s fear broke her through her trance but when she finally landed on the third floor, her mind went blank. She couldn’t even remember what happened next but all she remembered was standing underneath the rafters in front of the large stained glass window and looking up.
Wide-eyed and almost curious, she looked up. Something was hanging by the rafters. A small creature, struggling against its restraints as it was hanged by its neck. The clouds parted and the moonlight shone through once more. The light from the moon and welding of the windows casted a web-like shadow on her as she tilted her head to the side.
Her blue eyes narrowed in on the pale ribbon holding the creature by its neck. The ribbon came undone and the creature fell down but Cordelia caught it before it could hit the floor. She was holding Mopsy close to her chest. The poor rabbit silently cried as it nestled close to her chest. She held it close and hurried downstairs when she heard Tom’s door open.
She didn’t even care to pick up the ribbon that was previously hanging Mopsy. She just wanted to leave. Her hands were cold, her heart was hammering against her chest. She was scared, terrified even. She knew the culprit behind Mopsy’s disappearance and subsequent hanging but she didn’t even want to think about it. She closed her eyes as shoved her suspicions to the back of her mind.
A sharp pain shot through the left side of her head and she had to stop to catch her breath. The pain was excruciating. Strange images flashed into her head as she keeled over in pain. Her breathing grew laboured as she struggled to keep her eyes open. Mopsy nestled even closer to her, trying to keep her warm as her body temperature dropped.
“Cordelia?” Mrs Cole stared down at her, wide-eyed and shocked. "What on earth—" She cut herself off once she noted how pale Cordelia was and the shivering Mopsy in her lap. "Don't sit on the floor, child." She got down to the floor and grabbed Cordelia, carefully dragging her to her office.
Cordelia was all but thrown inside as Mrs Cole stood outside for a moment, looking side to side before promptly closing the door as she walked in. The old matron stalked towards her desk, looking under it for something while Cordelia checked the walls. A faded green wallpaper with scratched up brown branches stretched across the walls, slithering around like a snake. Cordelia peered closely at each section of the wall before taking a seat, Mopsy still cradled close to her chest.
On the other hand, Mrs Cole had yet to finish her own inspection. Only when she was satisfied with her search, did the old matron take her seat but she was only there for a moment before she left the room once more. Mrs Cole returned with a trolley containing a single teacup and a glass of warm milk.
Instantly, Cordelia’s face shifted and she moved her head away from the warm milk. The smell of warm milk was nauseating to her and she preferred it cold, no matter what the weather was. Mrs Cole let out an amused laugh before clearing her throat and taking a sip of her tea.
“I suspect you and I need to have a little chat.” Mrs Cole began, sipping her tea slowly while motioning for Cordelia to take the milk. Cordelia merely touched it and drew her hand back. “Don’t be a child, you have to get over your dislikes one day.”
She only stared at the matron and took the glass of milk. The glass grew cold at her touch and the old matron stiffened when she noticed the warm puffs of air dissipate in seconds. The milk had turned cold just as Cordelia liked. “I found Mopsy…” Cordelia began after her parched throat was no longer parched.
“I can see that.” Mrs Cole answered stiffly, reaching for her prayer beads on her desk. “W-where was she? And why did you look so—”
“Afraid?” Cordelia finished for her. Her eyes were unfocused and her grip on Mopsy tightened causing the poor rabbit distress. Cordelia held on tight to the rabbit and sharply breathed out. “I found Mopsy.” She repeated in a daze. “She was hanging from…the rafters on the third floor. There was…” She swallowed her tears and shakily reached for the cold glass of milk, drinking it all in one go. “There was an old ribbon wrapped around Mopsy’s throat. I think…I think it was Amy’s.”
Mrs Cole’s eyes widened as she nodded along. The old matron struggled to breathe for a second. Cordelia’s fear was suffocating her and she had never seen the girl so afraid and so lost. When she had arrived at Wool’s, she was this lost and afraid and Mrs Cole wondered what had the girl seen or thought about that had struck such fear into her heart.
The old matron cleared her throat and sipped some of her warm tea. The warm liquid went through her throat and warmed up her insides, giving her courage to speak. “D-do you believe it was Amy who had done this to Mopsy?” She questioned, not really believing it to be true. Amy or even Dennis for the matter had been eerily quiet and shut off since the trip to the beach a few years ago. “Because I don’t. Amy—we’ve seen the state of Amelia, she wouldn’t.”
“It wasn’t Amy, Mrs Cole.” Cordelia confirmed. “Amy complained about that ribbon going missing a few years back.” She remembered it quite vividly in fact but only because Amy had put up such a fuss about it, even trying to steal Cordelia’s pale green ribbon as retaliation when Cordelia had nothing to do with the theft. “I know Amy didn’t do it. Some framed her. Mopsy was on the third floor. Only Lucy, Robbie and…” She struggled for a second to say his name but managed to spit it out. “Tom stay on the third floor. Lucy has been by my side or playing with the others all day and she wouldn’t do such a thing. Robbie was doing yard work in the morning with the twins. He wouldn’t do that either. That le—”
Before Cordelia could finish, the old matron got up and hurried to lock the door. She double-locked it, even putting up the latch before turning back to Cordelia with reddened eyes and sweaty face. Mrs Cole was afraid. Her rosary beads in her hand, she breathed out tiredly and hovered over to her. She placed a trembling hand over Cordelia’s shoulder and pulled her close. “We need to talk about Tom, don’t we?” Cordelia nodded. Mrs Cole pulled away and stared sharply at her. “This stays between the two of us and only the two of us.” Her fingers pressed onto Cordelia’s flesh harshly as she let out a gasp of pain and nodded with tears in her eyes. “You would be right to think it was Tom who did it because it was.”
“You knew.” Cordelia breathed out. Her chest felt tight and the pain in her head grew tenfold. The pain was throbbing wildly, she felt it harder to breath and Mopsy burying herself into her chest didn’t quite help. “Then why—” She wetted her dry lips and tried to steady her breathing. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
“I only suspected him. I always suspect because this is his true nature.”
Cordelia shook her head in disbelief. She knew Tom had a sadistic side to him but she always chalked it up to him trying to survive in a place like Wool’s. “It’s not in his nature. He was just trying to survive.”
“There is a difference between survival and this, Cordelia. Stealing for a reason is one thing but he started to take even when he didn’t need to, he used…to do worse things before your arrival.”
“And you didn’t stop him? You were supposed to watch over us.”
“I can’t.” Mrs Cole got up and turned away. She couldn’t look at Cordelia and face the truth, she had indeed failed Tom and the other children. “You know why. I’m sure you do. There is something odd about him—something so…wicked—may God forgive me for saying this but that child is not an ordinary one and neither are you.”
Cordelia’s face paled and her eyes widened. “Wh-what do you mean? I’m just like anyone else.”
“You’re more ordinary than Tom but you cannot fool me, Cordelia. I know and God knows that you two are not ordinary children—yet he…he is much darker than you can imagine. I suspect it was him behind whatever happened to Amelia and Dennis.” The old matron clasped up her hands in a praying position, her rosary beads pressing into her skin as she held on tight. “He seems innocent, doesn’t he? He had you fooled, had everyone fooled but I always saw through him. Don’t ask him why I didn’t stop him because even you couldn’t stop him and he cares for you.”
“Tom doesn’t care for me.”
Mrs Cole’s eyes flicked to hers and she let out a bitter laugh, scaring the young girl. “Oh you naive child, you see everything but what is in front of you. Of course, the devil is good at hiding.”
“Are you calling Tom the devil?” Cordelia sat up and pain made her sway in her step. “He was just wrong about this and we can still help him.”
“Then you do it.” The old matron's raspy voice whispered to her. “I will not.”
“Because you’re afraid?” Cordelia questioned. Her quiet girlish voice sounded so pathetic to her own ears that she winced at the sound of it. “You shouldn’t be afraid. My father used to say that our fears were hardly real and we shouldn’t let them stop us from living.”
Nodding her head, Mrs Cole brought the rosary beads close to her face, almost kissing it. “And where is your father now?” Cordelia’s heart dropped and she slammed her hands into the table, dropping Mopsy on the floor. How could Mrs Cole say something like that? “Listen to me child, fear is our mind telling us what we need to stay away from to live. Without it, we are doomed. You may not understand me now but you will one day so I can only ask you…to look away from whatever Tom is doing.”
What?
Look away?
Ignore what he was doing, even if it was hurting people. She couldn’t believe her ears but the old matron seemed clear in what she had said. “Look away? Then what about the people he hurts?”
“It is not our problem.” Mrs Cole mumbled out before getting up and coming around over to her. She took Cordelia’s face into hers and lightly brushed her sweaty hair out of her face. “Listen to me child, this is for your own good. Don’t get too close to him and…” She drew in a sharp breath and looked down at the rosary beads in her hand. “Look away.”
“Look away?” Cordelia echoed back as another wave of pain shot through her. She looked away from Mrs Cole, her gaze hitting the mirror to her side. In the reflection, she didn’t see herself but that woman from her dreams. Her sad blue eyes stared at Cordelia in despair before she disappeared.
“Don’t ever talk about Tom.” Mrs Cole let go, her warm hand leaving her face and leaving her cold as she was before. “I mean it.” The old matron carried on. “Your uncle promised he’d be back for you.” Cordelia had almost forgotten about her uncle’s promise. “When he comes back—I suspect it will be in a few years or so—leave with him and forget about Wool’s and…Tom.”
“He has no one.” Cordelia mumbled out, remembering how lonely he was before she started speaking to him. Always eating alone and spending all his time alone, he was alone. “I can’t just—”
“You must.” The old matron cut her off. Her eyes wild, she quietly tried to make her understand what she meant. “You don’t understand him the way I do.”
She had no choice but to agree half-heartedly, torn on what to do. She wholeheartedly believed that if Tom was left unchecked like Mrs Cole had done for so long, he’d eventually become worse and he might even start ki—pain shot through head once more as she doubled in pain and fell to the floor.
Footsteps were heard as both Mopsy and Mrs Cole came around to check on her. She felt Mrs Cole’s hands on her hand asking her if she was alright but she couldn’t find the words to answer her. Her head ached so bad it felt as if her head was being bashed again and again against a sharp cold rock.
“You need to stop—please—people—are—dying!” The broken voice of the woman from her dreams cried out from somewhere, deafening her. “Please! Listen to me! This isn’t right!”
Cordelia gasped out in pain as she clutched her head tightly. Her fingers dug into her scalp and she drew closer to the floor. “Don’t!” A man hissed out. “Don’t tell me to stop! You don’t know what it’s like to be me! To be ignored and left aside by everyone! I have the blo—I’m destine—I—”
She couldn’t stop herself as a shriek of pain escaped her, alarming the entire house. She gasped in pain before falling to the floor and Mrs Cole couldn’t even stop her as she rolled around on the floor, tears streaming down her face.
“Cordelia!” Mrs Cole screamed her name while shaking her. It was gentle at first but Mrs Cole’s movements eventually grew rough as she tried her best to rouse her from her fit. “Cordelia! Wake up! Come on child, hear me!”
But Cordelia couldn’t hear her at all.
How could she?
The voices screaming in her mind were far too loud for her to hear anything else. The couple kept screaming and shouting at one another, their words jumbled up and she was losing sense of the world. She did manage to gain some sense to notice Mrs Cole had unlocked the door and ran out to get help as a small crowd of children were forming near her office.
“Robbie! Martha! Margaret! Anyone! I need help!” The old matron called out, panic laced in her voice. Everyone she called hurried to her, struggling to get through the crowd. “Give them space!” She all but screamed.
Cordelia shut her eyes as another wave of pain hit her and her form contorted in pain. Her back stretched over the floor and her arms wide as she clawed desperately at the wooden floor. She let out another piercing scream, trying her best to hold on. Weakly, she opened her eyes and looked towards the door where Martha and Robbie were scrambling to get medical supplies for her. She didn’t need medicine, she needed the voices to stop.
“Why do you always have to go against everything I say?” The man seemed so frustrated from the sound of his voice. “I’m doing this for us—you know what they say about us, don’t you?”
“Don’t you dare make this about me, I know you well.” The woman was angry, furious. Her voice pounded against Cordelia’s skull, drilling a hole into it and she wanted to curl up into a ball to make it all stop. “What were you thinking? This-this isn’t right. Do you know what you’ve done?”
“I’m on my way to becoming the greatest and beating death.”
She didn’t want to listen anymore. She just wanted it all to stop. The argument carried on, many arguments overlapping on top of one another.
The door to Mrs Cole’s office had been shut once more. A silent click was heard and the door swung open and Tom ran inside.
“I’m begging you, stop this before it’s too late.” The woman cried out as did Cordelia as she kept on trying to fight the pain. “Please—Tom!”
Cordelia gasped awake as her eyes were wide open. She let out pained breaths, gaining some sense of the world back and she could hear Mrs Cole scold Tom in the background. Tom ignored the old matron and hurried to her side.
His hands were cold, deathly cold but she was colder for once. He grabbed her face in his hands and dragged them across her face, checking her state. He caressed her face and patted her hand in a very un-Tom-like fashion before letting out a pained breath. “W-why is she so cold?” She heard Tom asking Martha. His voice was strangely shaky as he let go of her face to grab her almost blue hands.
“We don’t know.” She heard Martha say as Cordelia let out another gasp of pain before she started to claw at her ears. She didn’t want to hear anymore. “Hold her down!” Martha yelled as Tom was brushed aside while Margaret and Robbie grabbed her hands tight stopping her from trying to hurt herself.
Tom ran to her once again and tried to bring her back to her senses. She took one look at him and she let out a cry of pain before her eyes rolled to the back of her head as her body went limp.
The grandfather clock in the foyer shrieked loudly, signing in another day as the clock struck midnight. Cordelia’s eyes fluttered open as she let out a soft gasp. Her vision was hazy and it was quiet, deathly quiet. She could feel her scratchy mended duvet on top of her and rough mattress underneath her.
There was fog on her mind and she couldn’t think straight. She took deep breaths as black spots danced in front of her vision. Her hair was brushed aside as she weakly opened and closed her eyes. “Cora?” Tom’s quiet and hoarse voice shakily called out to her. He sounded almost afraid.
She let out a tired sigh and tried to sit up but her limbs just didn’t want to cooperate with her. “What is…it Tom?” She asked sleepily, letting out a yawn between her words. “This better not be about another snake or something. I’m quite tired.”
Tom stared at her blankly before he let out a laugh of disbelief. She forced her eyes open to glare at him. “You’re tired…” He breathed out. “Tired?” He questioned. “D-do you not remember anything?”
“I remember I was in Mrs Cole’s office and that’s all. Did I fall asleep there?” Asked Cordelia, lifting her head up a little to look at Tom who was uncharacteristically brushing her hair. She found it unnerving much more than whenever he was up to no good. “And can you stop that? My hair’s going to get tangled.”
Immediately he stopped but he didn’t move his hands away, he kept it there, occasionally moving a few strands here and there. He didn’t answer Cordelia’s question at first and just stared at her with a difficult look. “Was that the last thing you remembered? Not the screaming and crying or…thrashing on the floor.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Nothing. Just forget about it.”
Cordelia honestly did not know what Tom was on about. She hardly remembered much from the day except looking for Mopsy…
“Mopsy!” She sprung up from her bed and looked at Tom with big eyes. “Did they find her?” There was quiet desperation in her voice that she didn’t really hide and that roused Tom’s suspicion. He narrowed his eyes at her but softened them a second later and gently pushed her back into her bed.
She fell onto her bed with a quiet thud. Her hair was scattered, exposing the small scar on her forehead she had gotten summers ago from Amy and Dennis' childish actions. Nothing remained but the scar. Tom paused and looked at her in the dim light. He scowled, glaring at the small scar on her forehead. It was barely noticeable, mostly hidden away but every time he saw it, he would glare at it as if a scar carried some unpleasant memories for him.
Without another word, he covered her forehead with her little hairs on the side, rather aggressively. He grabbed her head in his, steadying her and carefully styled her hair to cover it. "You should hide that thing."
"It's just a little scar—barely noticeable."
He frowned, his jaws clenched. "Well, I can see it and it's ugly." He spat out, turning away from her. "At least, it's not big and noticeable." He muttered out. "...But too similar."
Too similar?
She didn't know what he was muttering about as he sat down on her bed. "Robbie was the one who found Billy's rabbit." He quickly decided to change the subject.
"Robbie?" Cordelia echoed and Tom nodded. "Are you sure it was him?"
“That’s what Mrs Cole said. I hardly think she’d lie.”
No, because she’s afraid of you.
Cordelia frowned when that thought came to her. Where did that come from? It wasn’t a lie, she just never thought about it or tried to think about it. She tried to smile but she couldn’t. “Is she…”
“Is she what?”
“Is she fine?”
“As fine as she’ll be.” Said Tom, looking away at the door where a knock was hard. “You should worry about yourself first before anyone else.”
She wasn’t really listening as her eyes glazed over and faint whispers of forgotten arguments played over in her mind, too indecipherable for her to make out their words. She let out a pained breath under the watchful eye of Tom and nodded. “Yes, I’ll look out for myself.”
Tom stared at her and nervously licked his dry lips. To him, she must’ve appeared a little mad and that concerned him. That hadn’t happened before. Something alike to regret flashed on his face but it was gone as quickly as it came. “You sure you don’t remember anything.”
“Everything’s quite foggy.” She smiled innocently as she told Tom her first big lie.