A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(18)

She clicked the stud against her teeth and the girl in front turned and shot her an annoyed look.

Amelia sneered and smiled and the girl went back to scribbling notes, apparently taking down what the professor was saying verbatim.

So far they were a week into the term and Amelia had only taken down a handful of sentences in her brand-new notebook. Though, to be honest, she was still surprised to be there at all.

She’d shown up at the S?reté Academy the first day expecting to be turned away. Told that some mistake had been made and she didn’t belong there. Once through the door, she then expected to be ordered to remove her piercings. Not just the one through her tongue, but the ones in her nose, through her lip, her eyebrow, her cheek, all over her ears like a caterpillar. Had they known about the others, the ones they couldn’t see, she’d definitely be told to get rid of them too.

She was expecting to receive, in the weeks before the academy started, warning that dyed hair and body art would not be tolerated.

But all she’d received was a reading list and a box.

When the letter and box arrived, Amelia had locked the door to her bedroom in the rooming house where she lived, and after scanning the reading list she tore open the box.

Inside was a uniform, neatly folded. New. No one had worn it before. Amelia brought it to her face and inhaled.

It smelled of cotton and cardboard. Fresh and clean. And unexpectedly soft.

There was even a cap, with the S?reté Academy insignia on it, and some words in Latin.

Velut arbor aevo.

Amelia had slowly lowered the hat onto her spiky black hair and adjusted it. She wondered what the words meant. Well, she knew what the Latin translated into, but not what they meant.

She’d stripped down and put on the uniform. It fit. Then she stole a furtive glance in the mirror. A young woman stood there, a woman who lived in a whole different world from Amelia. One that could’ve been hers, had she turned left instead of right. Or right instead of left.

Had she spoken or remained quiet. Had she opened the door, or closed it.

She could’ve been the girl in the mirror. Shiny and neat and smiling. But she wasn’t.

As she tossed the hat on her bed, Amelia heard a footfall outside her door and her eyes zipped to the lock, making sure.

There was a sharp rap and then a sweet voice.

“Just checking to see if you got the package, ma belle.”

“Fuck off.”

There was a pause, then the footsteps receded and with them a soft chuckle.

On Amelia’s first night in the rooming house, the landlady had suddenly opened the door and peered in. Amelia had just managed to shove what she held in her hand under the bed. But not before raising the interest of the flabby landlady, who stank of smokes and beer and sweat.

“I heard noises and thought you might be sick, ma petite,” she’d said, the scent of urine, soaked into the carpet in the hallway, wafting in with her.

Her small eyes scanned the room.

Amelia had closed the door in her face, seeing the plump cracked lips, the veined and bulbous nose, the blotchy complexion. And those runny eyes. Filled with guile and plans.

Since then, Amelia had been sure to lock the door as soon as she entered, and whenever she left, even if it was a quick trip down the hall to the toilet or the shower.

Amelia despised the landlady. And she knew why. As soon as she’d walked through the door of the rooming house, Amelia had the instant and overwhelming certainty that she would never leave.

The landlady was her.

And she was the landlady.

Amelia suspected that the woman had also been young, slender, in from the country. Looking for a job in Montréal. A typing course certificate in one hand, a small suitcase in the other.

She’d taken a temporary room there, not realizing that she’d crossed a threshold. And there was no going back.

She’d never left. She’d rotted there.

And Amelia would too. It had already begun.

After four months of applying for all sorts of unskilled jobs and not getting them, Amelia began lowering her sights to just above blow jobs on rue Sainte-Catherine. Until she’d finally taken the pail the landlady held out.

That became her job. To clean the toilets. And showers. To unclog the drains, pulling out stringy hair and other things.

Some nights she sat on her knees in the men’s shower and wept into the drain. Her life, she knew then, was as good as it was going to get. At twenty, the best was behind her.

She began numbing herself with dope, bought from the ragged man down the hall in exchange for blow jobs. She’d promised herself never to stoop so low, and now she wondered how low she was going, and where the bottom might be.

So far she’d resisted crack and heroin, but only because she couldn’t afford them and wasn’t yet prepared to do what was necessary in exchange.

But finally the need to numb had overwhelmed all barriers. The weed wasn’t working anymore. In what she knew was her last act of self-respect, and recognizing how ludicrous it was, she’d showered and put on clean underwear, before going out. The point of no return was right in front of her. She would at least cross that line smelling of soap and baby powder, though she suspected the scent of stale urine followed her everywhere now, like a vestigial tail.

She walked down the stairs she’d only just scrubbed.

They were cleaner than they’d been since she’d arrived. As were the toilets and showers and carpets. The other residents began to notice and some even started cleaning themselves.