Author's Note / Content Warning

This story contains mature and potentially disturbing themes and morally grey behaviour. Reader discretion is advised.

**


It's on every screen.

Televisions murmuring in living rooms. Radios crackling on kitchen counters. The big displays bolted above train platforms and propped in shop windows, playing to no one and everyone at once. Different cities. Different languages. The same story looping across all of them.
Today, the notorious serial killer stands trial.

Everyone's on it.

＊

The courtroom is bigger than a courtroom should be, the ceiling too high, the air too heavy, settling over the rows of people who came to see a monster.
In the middle of all that space stands a small, frail figure.
Three judges face her: one at the centre, one to either side.
"Mira Graves, you have heard the charges contained in the indictment. How do you plead to the charges of murder—guilty or not guilty?"
A woman. Small. Frail. Almost disappointingly ordinary for someone the world has spent months calling a monster. Her eyes are empty. She looks less like a defendant than like someone who wandered into the wrong room and hasn't yet realised it. 
From the side, she isn't frightening at all. Just an ordinary woman.

The kind you'd pass on the street and forget before the next corner.
Then she turns her head.
Not to the judges.
Not to the gallery.
To you.
Slowly. Almost lazily, as though she'd known you were there the entire time.
Those vacant eyes finally settle on something.
You.
Her mouth curves. Just slightly. A little smirk, the first living thing her face has done since she entered the courtroom.
"Let me tell you what actually happened.”

**

My name's Mira, and I was thirty-two when I died.

I'd lived a quiet life. People always said that like it was a compliment.

What they really meant was that I was a pushover, and they weren't exactly wrong.

I wasn't normal by society's standards. I was always shy, always quiet. The thought of becoming the centre of attention terrified me because attention meant people staring, mocking and laughing at me.

I was insecure, and instead of fighting it, I drowned in it.

Growing up, I decided it was safer to live in the shadows of people who shone more brightly than I did. I told myself it didn't bother me. Being invisible seemed like the easiest way to have a quiet, ordinary life.

Oh, little did I know.

People still noticed me whenever it was convenient for them.

At school, if nobody wanted to do a chore, someone would shout my name and claim I'd volunteered. If nobody wanted to solve a problem on the board, they would tell the teacher that I did.

And the teacher, either stupid or simply choosing to turn a blind eye, would go along with it.

Even after becoming an adult...At work, I became everyone's personal rubbish bin. They dumped their unfinished tasks on my desk, then went home while I stayed behind to finish them.

You might be wondering why I never said anything.

I wanted to.

I just couldn't handle confrontation. The words would form perfectly inside my head, but the moment I tried to speak, they became trapped somewhere in my throat.

I did kill those people at least ten times in my imagination, though.

That brought me some comfort.

**

It was raining the night it happened.

I'd decided to walk home instead of catching the bus. I still don't know why.

Maybe it was fate.

Maybe this was where my story was always meant to begin.

As I approached home, I saw two drunks fighting outside the off-licence near my flat.

One was throwing punches. The other was mostly missing them. People walked past without looking, which was exactly what I intended to do.

I lowered my head and stepped off the pavement to go around them.

Then one of them bolted.

Straight at me.

He crashed into my shoulder hard enough to knock me backwards. Something punched beneath my ribs.

For a second, I thought he'd hit me.

Then he pulled away and ran.

I watched him disappear around the corner before looking down at myself. There was a tear in my coat. Something dark was spreading through the fabric underneath it.

Oh.

The bastard had stabbed me.

I pressed my hand against my stomach and lowered myself onto the wet pavement.

When I pulled my hand back, my palm was red.

I didn't even know him.

There was no dramatic music. No slow motion. My life didn't flash before my eyes. There was only the rain hitting my face and the warmth spreading down my side.

I really must be a joke to go out like this.

Not an illness. Not a car accident. Not even someone who wanted me dead.

Just a drunk who couldn't run in a straight line.

By then, I couldn't feel my fingers properly. The streetlights above me blurred, stretching into pale streaks across the rain.

My only real regret was that I'd wasted all of it being quiet and 'good'.

I'd listened every time someone told me to behave, forgive and let things go. I'd allowed people to hurt me because fighting back would have made me difficult.

And this was what it had bought me.

Thirty-two years of swallowing my anger, only to bleed out beside a bin because two idiots couldn't handle their alcohol.

If I'd known my life would end like this, I would've done things differently.

A laugh slipped out of me. It came out weaker than I expected.

I'd finally grown a backbone and had about thirty seconds left to use i—

Everything went dark.

Something struck the back of my head.

I jerked upright.

Laughter broke out around me.

My cheek had been stuck to a page. I peeled it away slowly, blinking at the blue lines and the damp patch I'd left behind.

"Mira."

I looked up.

A woman stood at the front of the room with a piece of chalk in her hand. She wore a long brown skirt, a cream blouse and the sort of a disappointed expression.

Behind her, written across the blackboard, was a list of multiplication problems.

Blackboard.

Not a whiteboard.

Not a screen.

An actual blackboard.

"Mira," the woman repeated. "Would you like to tell the class why my lesson is interrupting your sleep?"

The children laughed again.

There were children sitting all around me.

I stared at the nearest one. A boy with a runny nose was grinning at me over his shoulder. Beside him, a girl had glittery butterfly clips scattered through her hair.

My heart began to beat harder.

I knew this room.

And the woman standing in front of the blackboard.

Mrs Wilson.

I lowered my eyes to the desk.

My hands were resting on an open exercise book.

They were tiny.

I turned them over. Small palms. Short fingers. Ink smudged along the side of one hand.

Someone whispered behind me.

"Maybe she's gone stupid."

More laughter.

I knew that voice too.

Rachel Saunders.

A cold feeling spread through my stomach.

Mrs Wilson placed the chalk down. "Well?"

I opened my mouth, but my voice didn't come out.

What was I supposed to say?

Sorry, Miss. I was stabbed to death and apparently woke up during maths?

"I'm sorry," I managed.

The voice that came out was high and thin.

Mrs Wilson watched me for a moment. Perhaps something in my face concerned her because her expression softened slightly.

"Are you feeling unwell?"

"I don't know."

That earned another ripple of laughter.

Mrs Wilson sighed. "Go and wash your face. Then come straight back."

I pushed my chair away and stood.

The room shifted around me. Every desk looked too large. The children seemed normal, which meant I was the same size as them.

Someone stuck out a foot as I walked past.

I saw it in time and stepped over it.

Rachel looked up at me, disappointment briefly crossing her face.

There she was.

Rachel had made my childhood miserable. She'd taken my things, spread rumours about me and taught the rest of the class that hurting me came without consequences.

Looking at her now, I expected to feel fear.

Instead, I felt nothing.

She was just a child.

A nasty one.

Rachel leaned towards the girl sitting beside her and whispered, "Freak."

I stopped.

Her smile widened, waiting for me to lower my head and hurry away.

I looked directly at her.

Rachel's smile faltered.

I continued walking.

The corridor outside was empty. Colourful paintings were pinned along the walls, most of them crooked. I passed a display made from paper flowers and found the girls' toilets near the stairs.

Inside, I gripped the edge of a sink and raised my head.

A child stared back at me.

Round cheeks. Wide eyes. Messy dark hair tied into a ponytail.

I touched my face.

The reflection did the same.

I pulled at my cheek. Pinched my arm.

"What the fuck?"

My tiny voice bounced around the toilets.

I covered my mouth.

That sounded deeply wrong coming from a child.

I searched the room for anything with a date on it, but there was nothing except a faded handwashing poster. I checked the pockets of my cardigan and found a folded piece of paper.

Monday, 24 February 2003.

I read it twice.

Then a third time.

Two thousand and three.

I had been thirty-two. If I'd gone back twenty-three years, that made me—

"Nine."

I was nine years old.

I stared at myself until my eyes began to sting.

This couldn't be real. People didn't die and wake up in their childhood bodies. That happened in the stories I read when I wanted to escape my own miserable life.

Maybe I was in hospital. Maybe this was the final nonsense produced by my dying brain.

But the sink felt cold beneath my fingers. My cheek still carried the faint imprint of my exercise book. Somewhere down the corridor, a teacher shouted at someone to stop running.

It all felt real.

A laugh escaped me.

I quickly pressed both hands over my mouth, but another one followed. It wasn't happiness. Not exactly. It was disbelief mixed with something dangerously close to hysteria.

I looked into the mirror again.

Nine years old.

Twenty-three years of mistakes waiting ahead of me.

Everything that had broken me either hadn't happened yet or had only just begun..

A bell rang before I could think any further.

The corridor erupted with noise. Doors opened, children shouted and shoes hammered against the floor.

I dried my hands on my cardigan and returned to the classroom.

Rachel watched me as I entered. Someone had drawn a crooked pig across the open page of my exercise book.

Underneath it, they had written my name.

I stood beside the desk, looking down at it.

I remembered this.

Not the exact drawing, perhaps, but hundreds just like it. I remembered pretending not to care. I remembered waiting until I got home to cry because crying at school only made them laugh harder.

Rachel covered her mouth, but I could see her shoulders shaking.

Nine-year-old Mira would have erased it, pretending like it's nothing.

I simply tore the page out.

I folded it carefully and slipped it into my cardigan pocket.

Rachel stopped laughing.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

I didn't bother responding.

Mrs Wilson called for everyone to settle down before Rachel could respond. She seemed annoyed being ignored by me.

I sat through the rest of the day without hearing much of what was taught. I was too busy watching people I hadn't thought about in years.

Some looked exactly as I remembered. Others were strangers whose faces had disappeared from my memory long ago.

Nobody knew what had happened to me.

Nobody knew that the quiet girl sitting among them had already lived, died and returned.

The final bell rang.

Children rushed around me, shoving books into bags and discussing television programmes I hadn't heard mentioned in decades.

Rachel passed my desk.

Her shoulder struck mine deliberately.

"Freak," she whispered again.

I turned my head and watched her walk away.

Last time, I had spent years being afraid of her.

That was almost funny now. I sigh and leave the classroom.

Outside, parents crowded around the school gates. Cars I hadn't seen in years lined the street.

I stood there for several minutes, trying to remember the way home.

The route returned in pieces.

Past the corner shop. Left at the crossing. Through the narrow path between the houses.

Then I saw my childhood home.

I stopped at the gate.

The house looked smaller than it did in my memories.

Mum and Dad would be inside.

The thought tightened something in my chest.

I wasn't ready to see them. My relationship with them was neither bad nor good, but still, i wasn't ready.

My hand shook as I reached for the gate.

Before I could touch it, the front door opened.

A girl stood in the doorway wearing an oversized T-shirt, her dark hair pulled into a messy ponytail.

I couldn't move. I could only stand there and stare at her.

She frowned at me.

"Why are you standing outside ?"

That voice.

"Anna?"

Her frown deepened. "Who else would it be?"

My schoolbag slipped from my hand.

My sister was alive.

Anna was alive.

She stood in the doorway, frowning at me, completely unaware that I had already watched her disappear from my life once before.

*“Are you going to stand there all day?”*

I continued staring at her. Same dark hair. Same impatient voice. She was fourteen years old again.

Before I could think better of it, I crossed the distance between us and threw my arms around her. Anna stumbled backwards beneath my weight.

*“What the—Mira!”*

I held on tighter, burying my face against her. She went stiff in my arms, her hands hovering awkwardly at her sides.

*“What is wrong with you?”*

*“I missed you.”*

*“You saw me this morning.”*

Not exactly.

As far as I was concerned, she had been dead for more than half my life. I had spent years learning to exist in a world without her, and now she was standing here, complaining because I had hugged her for a few seconds too long.

Anna eventually pushed me away and examined my face.

*“Did something happen at school?”*

*“No.”*

*“Then why are you acting weird?”*

*“I’m not acting weird.”*

Her eyes narrowed. *“You’re hugging me.”*

Apparently, that was evidence enough.

She picked up the schoolbag I had dropped and shoved it against my chest. *“Come inside.”*

I followed her into the house, still watching her as though she might disappear if I looked away for too long.

The smell of cooking reached me first. Mum was moving between the cooker and the counter, preparing dinner. She glanced over when we entered, then looked towards the clock.

*“You’re late.”*

I followed her gaze. It was four minutes past four.

*“Sorry.”*

*“Shoes off. Both of you.”*

Anna kicked hers aside. Mum looked down at them, then slowly back at her.

Anna sighed and returned to place them properly beside the door.

Everything was so painfully familiar that I felt like an intruder inside my own memory. The narrow hallway, Dad’s coat hanging beside the stairs, the familiar sounds drifting in from the kitchen—I remembered all of it.

You never realised you were seeing something for the last time while it was happening. Ordinary things disappeared quietly, and it was only afterwards that you understood how much they had meant.

*“Mira?”*

I looked up. Mum was watching me now.

*“What?”*

*“Wash your hands.”*

*“Right.”*

I escaped upstairs before she could study me any further.

My bedroom looked exactly as I remembered it. Clothes lay across the floor, books had been stacked wherever they would fit, and uncapped pens rolled around the desk. Half the wardrobe appeared to have collapsed onto my bed.

Apparently, nine-year-old me had been a slob.

I closed the door and leaned against it. For the first time since waking up in the classroom, I was completely alone, and the silence finally gave reality the chance to catch up with me.

I had died. I had travelled twenty-three years into the past and awakened inside the body of a child. Tomorrow morning, I would be expected to put on my uniform, attend school and behave as though none of that had happened.

I sat at my desk, pulled out a notebook and opened it to a blank page.

Right. Let’s establish what I knew.

The year was 2003. I was nine years old, and Anna was fourteen.

In my first life, she never made it much further than that.

Someone had blackmailed her. Nasty rumours followed, spreading through her school faster than she could control them. She never managed to tell us what was happening. Maybe she had been ashamed. Maybe she was frightened that we wouldn’t believe her—or that telling us would only make everything worse.

Instead, she convinced herself that there was only one way out.

She took her own life.

After that, our family was never the same. My parents withdrew into themselves, each trapped inside their own grief. The house became quiet, but not the peaceful kind. It was the sort of quiet that reminded you, every moment of every day, that somebody was missing.

And I had lost the only real friend I’d ever had.

Anna had been the one person who could make me laugh and forget how miserable my childhood was. One summer, when a group of bullies cornered me in the park, she had even charged into them and beaten up two before an adult managed to intervene.

She had always protected me.

But when she needed someone to protect her, I hadn’t even known she was in danger.

Her death pushed me into a depression I never truly escaped. I continued living in the technical sense—I woke up, went to work and moved through each day—but some part of me had died with her.

Now everything that had destroyed us was still waiting to happen.

I wrote **Anna** at the top of the page and pressed the pen down until the ink began bleeding through the paper. Then I stopped.

I knew how her story ended, but knowing the ending wasn’t the same as knowing how to prevent it. Back then, I had been too young and too frightened to understand what was happening to her.

This time, I would pay attention.

This time, she wouldn’t have to face it alone.

A knock sounded against my door, and I immediately closed the notebook. Anna entered without waiting for permission.

*Typical Anna.*

*“Mira, Mum’s been calling you to come down for dinner.”*

She left the door open behind her and disappeared down the hallway. I remained seated, looking at the closed notebook beneath my hands as another realisation began to settle over me.

Anna wasn’t the only thing waiting for me in 2003.

There were people I had spent years avoiding and even longer fearing. People who had once seemed enormous simply because I had been too small to recognise how insignificant they really were.

I thought about Rachel’s face and the way her smile had vanished the moment I looked her in the eye.

I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling.

*Surely a woman in her thirties couldn’t still be afraid of a group of children.*

*Right?*

＊

The following morning, I woke before everyone else.

My body was still half-asleep when I reached the kitchen. Before I properly registered what I was doing, I had already boiled the kettle and made myself a cup of black coffee.

I stared at it, then at the doorway, then back at the coffee.

*Old habits died hard, apparently.*

I took a quick sip before anyone could walk in. A nine-year-old drinking black coffee first thing in the morning wasn’t exactly a common sight.

It was terrible.

I drank it anyway.

By the time Mum came downstairs, the mug had been washed, dried and returned to the cupboard. She packed our lunches while Anna rushed around complaining that she couldn’t find one of her schoolbooks.

For several minutes, I simply watched them. This had once been ordinary, and I hadn’t known how badly I would miss it.

*“Mira.”*

Mum placed my lunch on the table. *“You’ll be late.”*

I picked up my bag and followed Anna outside. When we reached the point where our routes separated, she stopped and looked down at me.

*“Try not to be weird today.”*

*“I’ll do my best.”*

She narrowed her eyes, apparently trying to decide whether I was being sarcastic. I smiled and walked away before she could reach a conclusion.

The school no longer looked intimidating when I approached it. It was only an old building filled with children who had once convinced me that they controlled my entire world.

When I entered the classroom, several people looked towards me, and the whispering began almost immediately. I ignored them and continued towards my desk.

Then I saw my chair.

Something pale and sticky had been spread across the seat.

Glue.

I looked towards the clock. The register hadn’t even started yet.

*Seriously? This early in the morning?*

I turned slowly towards the class. The whispering stopped, although several smug smiles remained. Some children lowered their heads and pretended to be interested in their books, while others watched openly, waiting to see what I would do.

Yesterday, Rachel had called me a freak. Today, somebody had covered my chair in glue.

The old Mira would have stayed silent. She would have cleaned the chair before the teacher arrived and spent the rest of the day wondering what she had done to deserve it.

But that girl wasn’t here anymore.

I left my schoolbag beside the desk and walked to the front of the classroom. Once I reached the board, I turned around and surveyed the children watching me.

Time to play my favourite game.

*“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe…”*

My finger travelled slowly from one child to another. A few of the remaining smiles disappeared.

*“Catch a tiger by the toe…”*

My finger stopped on a girl seated near the windows.

She hadn’t done it.

I knew that.

But when she realised I was pointing at her, her face twisted with disgust. There was no fear in her expression and certainly no guilt.

Only disgust.

As if she couldn’t believe *I*, of all people, had dared to single her out.

I walked towards her. She glanced around the classroom, waiting for someone to laugh or step in and remind me of my place.

Nobody did.

I stopped beside her desk, and she looked up at me with that same expression.

I raised my hand and struck her across the cheek.

***Slap.***

The sound cracked through the classroom.

She slipped from her chair and landed on the floor. For one stunned second, nobody moved. Then the entire room erupted.

*“What the hell?”*

*“She didn’t even do anything!”*

*“Why did you hit her?”*

I froze.

*She didn’t do anything?*

Slowly, I looked around the classroom. They were horrified. One girl had covered her mouth with both hands, while another stared at me as though I had done something unthinkable.

My gaze dropped to the girl on the floor. She was crying, one hand pressed against her reddening cheek.

So they could feel sorry for her.

When somebody put glue on my chair, they had laughed. When I was humiliated, they watched as though my suffering were entertainment.

But one slap, and suddenly everyone had developed a conscience.

A quiet laugh escaped me.

Several children recoiled.

*So I really had been the joke.*

I had always known. Having it confirmed still hurt.

I looked down at the crying girl. *“Sorry.”*

She flinched.

I smiled. *“Wrong place, wrong time.”*

The classroom fell silent, but it wasn’t the awkward silence from before. This felt different—heavier. I could see it in their faces.

Fear.

There was no laughter now. No whispering. Not even a poorly concealed smile.

I turned away and walked back towards the front of the classroom. Nobody made a sound as my shoes tapped against the floor.

*Tap.*

*Tap.*

*Tap.*

When I reached the board, I turned to face them.

*“Listen carefully, you pathetic little parasites.”*

My voice came out strangely calm, which seemed to frighten them more than shouting would have.

*“From today onwards, I’m coming for you one by one.”*

Their expressions changed.

*“Inside school or outside school, I don’t care.”*

I climbed onto the teacher’s desk. My feet didn’t reach the floor, which probably cost me several aura points, but there was no backing out now.

*“You can come at me in groups if that makes you feel safer.”*

I smiled as my eyes travelled across the room.

*“But eventually, you’ll have to go home. And eventually, you’ll be alone.”*

A boy near the back lowered his head.

*“Unless…”*

I turned towards Rachel.

There she was, watching me from behind her desk.

I smiled directly at her. *“…you tell me who’s behind it.”*

Whispers broke out immediately. Children leaned towards one another and exchanged suspicious glances as the accusation began spreading through the room.

Rachel’s face twisted with fury. Her fists clenched beneath her desk, her jaw tightened and I could have sworn I saw a vein twitch near her temple.

The anger in her eyes might once have frightened me enough to look away.

This time, I held her gaze.

As I watched her glare at me, I found myself wondering how long it would take to make her afraid of coming to school.

The corner of my mouth lifted.

*I supposed we’d have to find out.*

The teacher entered before anyone had the chance to answer.

*“Everyone in your seats, please.”*

Chairs scraped against the floor as the class hurried to obey. Just like that, my little declaration of war came to an end.

For now.

I hopped down from the teacher’s desk and returned to my seat. Nobody said anything as I passed, although a few of them continued glaring at me. The rest suddenly found their books, pencils and empty desks incredibly interesting.

The morning dragged on until the bell finally rang for break. The classroom came alive almost immediately. Some children rushed towards the cafeteria while others pulled their chairs together and gathered in small groups, their conversations rising into a familiar wall of noise.

Nobody came near me, but that didn’t mean they had stopped watching.

I was gathering my things when a shadow fell across my desk. I looked up and found Rachel standing over me, with two girls positioned behind her like poorly trained bodyguards.

Ah.

The lackeys had arrived.

*“Follow me,”* Rachel ordered.

She turned away without waiting for an answer.

I stared at her back, mildly offended. I had stood in front of an entire classroom and declared war on them. Did she have any idea how much courage something like that required?

The least she could do was show me a little respect.

The moment she turned her back completely, I swung.

My fist connected with the side of her face. Rachel stumbled, too stunned to understand what had happened, and before she could recover, I struck her again.

Then again.

And again.

Years of anger rushed through my arms all at once—every insult, every humiliation and every morning I had woken up wishing I didn’t have to come to this place. Everything I had swallowed because I’d been too frightened to fight back finally found somewhere to go.

So I let it out.

Rachel raised her arms and tried to shield her face, but I didn’t stop. My fists struck whatever she placed in front of me—her hands, her arms, the side of her head.

*“Ugh!”*

Another hit landed.

*“Ngh…!”*

Again.

The classroom had gone completely silent. The only sounds were my unsteady breathing, the dull impact of my fists and the small noises Rachel made whenever one of them found her.

Someone ran out of the classroom.

I noticed.

I just didn’t particularly care.

He returned less than a minute later with Mrs Wilson following close behind him.

***“MIRA!”***

A hand seized my arm and dragged me backwards. I twisted around to find Mrs Wilson standing behind me, staring between Rachel and me in horror.

Rachel had curled into herself on the floor, crying with both arms raised over her face. I stood several feet away, breathing heavily, my hands still clenched into fists.

For some reason, everyone else had suddenly remembered how to behave.

*“What on earth is wrong with you?”* Mrs Wilson demanded. *“Do you have any idea how serious this is? Look at her! This behaviour is completely unaccepta—”*

*“Can we speak privately?”*

She stopped. *“What?”*

*“I’d like to speak to you privately.”*

*“Mira, now is hardly the time to start making demands.”*

*“I don’t think it’s fair to punish me without giving me the chance to explain what happened.”*

Her mouth opened, but before she could answer, I sniffed.

My bottom lip began to tremble.

Then came the tears.

Lots of them.

I rubbed at my eyes, which only made them redder. By the time my nose started running as well, even I had to admit that the performance was impressive.

Mrs Wilson stared at me.

I sniffed again.

Her eyes moved towards Rachel, still crying on the floor, then returned to me. The irritation settling across her face was almost beautiful.

*“Fine.”*

She turned to one of the other pupils and instructed her to take Rachel to the infirmary. Then she motioned for me to follow.

＊

We moved into an empty classroom where Mrs Wilson pulled out a chair and sat opposite me. I continued sniffling occasionally, just for good measure.

*“Now,”* she said, folding her hands on the table, *“would you like to explain what that was?”*

I opened my mouth, then coughed quietly.

*“My throat is dry.”*

She stared at me. *“Excuse me?”*

*“Could I have something to drink?”*

*“There’s water outside.”*

*“Something warm would be better.”*

Her eye twitched.

I sniffed again. *“Please?”*

Mrs Wilson stared at me for several long seconds before pushing herself to her feet. A few minutes later, a cup of hot chocolate from the vending machine landed on the table in front of me with considerably more force than necessary.

I wrapped both hands around it. *“Thank you.”*

She sat down again, looking noticeably less patient than before.

*“What happened?”*

I blew gently across the surface of my drink.

*“Why would you bully a girl like Rachel?”* Mrs Wilson asked. *“She’s bright, polite and one of the best students in the class. She has never caused me any trouble.”*

The cup stopped halfway to my lips.

*“…Bully?”*

I lowered it slowly and tilted my head. The tears vanished from my face as though they had never been there, leaving my expression completely empty.

*“Who’s bullying who, Mrs Wilson?”*

She stared at me for a moment before answering. *“Look at what you’ve done to her. She’s a frail little girl. How could someone like her possibly bully you?”*

I placed my drink down, stood and turned my back towards her, showing her my skirt. The glue had already hardened across the fabric, leaving a pale, ruined patch behind.

Mrs Wilson’s expression changed.

Only slightly.

*“What’s that?”*

*“Glue.”*

She leaned forward to look more closely.

*“This is the work of your frail little girl.”* I turned back towards her. *“Frail doesn’t mean innocent.”*

Mrs Wilson frowned but held my gaze. *“What exactly are you trying to say?”*

*“I’m saying that actions have reactions.”* I sat down again and reached for my drink. *“And reactions have consequences.”*

She released a weary sigh. *“Mira, perhaps Rachel was trying to joke with you. Children sometimes take jokes too far. I’m sure she didn’t intend to ruin your skirt.”*

I nodded thoughtfully. *“You’re probably right.”*

Some of the tension left her shoulders.

*“And I didn’t mean to punch her,”* I continued.

Mrs Wilson stared at me.

*“My fist just happened to meet her face.”*

***“Mira!”***

There it was.

Her voice rose as she launched into a speech about appropriate behaviour, disciplinary action and the seriousness of violence. My parents were mentioned several times, along with how disappointed they would be when they learned what I had done.

I listened patiently while she explained morality to me. Once she had exhausted herself, the room fell quiet again.

I took another sip of hot chocolate.

*“I sometimes wonder how people react to shock.”*

Mrs Wilson frowned. *“What?”*

*“Shock.”* I looked down at the cup and slowly turned it between my hands. *“Some people faint. Some freeze. Others can’t remember what happened afterwards.”*

Her expression began to change.

I raised my eyes to hers. *“Sometimes, the heart itself stops working properly. Extreme stress can weaken it so badly that it resembles a heart attack.”*

Mrs Wilson watched me carefully.

*“They call it broken heart syndrome.”*

*“What does this have to do with anything?”*

*“I’ve always wondered what something like that feels like.”* I paused, allowing the silence to settle between us. *“Unfortunately, I’ve never had anyone to ask.”*

She shifted in her chair.

*“But now that I think about it…”* I placed my cup on the table. *“Mr Wilson might be the perfect person.”*

She froze.

I smiled.

*“Wouldn’t you agree, Mrs Wilson?”*

Her fingers tightened around the edge of the table. *“Wha—what do you mean?”*

*“You could have been more discreet.”*

The colour drained from her face.

I picked up my hot chocolate again. *“The whole world might just happen to find out about you and Mr Evans.”*

Silence.

***“What?”***

For a moment, Mrs Wilson looked genuinely frightened. Then she seemed to remember who she was.

An adult.

A teacher.

And I was only nine.

Her back straightened, and a faint, condescending smirk appeared on her face. *“And what exactly could a child like you possibly do?”*

I took another sip. *“Ruin your career.”*

The smirk disappeared.

*“Your marriage,”* I continued. *“Your reputation with the parents, your colleagues and your neighbours.”*

I lowered the cup and watched her carefully.

*“You’d be surprised how quickly people will believe a child over an adult—especially when that child knows things she shouldn’t.”*

Mrs Wilson’s face hardened. *“Are you threatening me?”*

*“I wouldn’t word it that way.”*

*“Then what would you call this?”*

*“A deal.”*

Her lips pressed together. *“What do you want?”*

*“Something simple.”* I rested both hands around the warm cup. *“Take my side.”*

Her eyebrows lifted. *“What?”*

*“Whenever something happens involving me, you defend me. It doesn’t matter who else is involved.”* I paused. *“Without making it obvious, obviously.”*

Mrs Wilson said nothing, but her hands had begun trembling beneath the table. I could almost hear the questions circling inside her head.

Who could she tell? Would anyone believe her? And, most importantly, how much did I know?

I decided to answer the last one.

*“Imagine a nine-year-old girl goes home crying,”* I said.

Her eyes returned to me.

*“She tells her parents that she saw a married woman with another man.”*

Mrs Wilson went still.

*“She tells them where she saw them, what they were doing and what they said—things a nine-year-old couldn’t possibly know unless she had been there.”*

Her lips parted, but no words came out.

I lifted my cup and took another unhurried sip.

*“So tell me, Mrs Wilson. Who do you think they’ll believe?”*

Fear had spread across her face, and she had every reason to be afraid.

The affair was real.

I already knew how it ended.

Three years from now, the truth would come out. By then, I had moved to another school, but the scandal still reached me. Everyone heard about it, mostly because Mrs Wilson’s husband wasn’t an ordinary man.

Robert Wilson was a doctor at the local hospital. A few years from now, he would come across a major motorway collision before the emergency services arrived. Several vehicles had been involved, leaving people injured and trapped inside the wreckage. He treated everyone he could reach and managed to keep one critically wounded man alive until the paramedics arrived.

Someone photographed him afterwards, kneeling beside the wreckage with rain running down his face and blood covering his clothes.

The newspapers called him a hero.

His face appeared everywhere for weeks, and suddenly people throughout the country knew the name Robert Wilson.

Then they discovered that his wife was having an affair.

And just like that, everyone knew her name too.

Robert divorced her. Photographs of Mrs Wilson standing outside their home with her belongings spread across the newspapers. Then intimate photographs of Mr Evans were leaked, with his face clearly visible.

He couldn’t endure what followed.

Mr Evans took his own life, and Mrs Wilson’s world collapsed shortly afterwards. She lost her job, her family refused to see her and no other school was willing to employ her. Eventually, she ended up homeless.

Years later, I heard that she had died from an overdose.

That was how her first life ended.

Now she was sitting across from me, her hands trembling beneath the table as she tried to understand how a nine-year-old could know something nobody else was supposed to know.

I couldn’t exactly tell her that I had already watched her life collapse once.

So I picked up my hot chocolate, took another sip and waited.

*What will you do, Mrs Wilson?*

*Will you take my hand?*

A slow smile pulled at my lips.

*Or will you fall even further this time?*