Page 87 of Breaking the Dark

Jessica smiles tightly and pulls her plastic ID card from the pocket of her backpack.

The young man eyes it with one eyebrow slightly raised and his cheeks sucked in. “And who did you say you were working on behalf of?” he says, handing it back.

“I’m doing some investigations on behalf of the British police.”

The eyebrow rises again, and she can see a small pulse of excitement popping at his temples. “Let me see what I can do.” He gets up and knocks gently on the nearby door, and Jessica hears murmuring for a moment before the young man reappears and says in a very reverent tone of voice, “Mr. Henri has exactly twelve minutes.”

Jessica echoes his reverence by lowering her head and saying, “Thank you so much.” The young man buzzes her through into the lobby and leads her toward the office.

In his office, Mr. Henri sits to the right of a large vase of fresh pink roses, a half-eaten cake in a cardboard box behind him.

“It’s my birthday today,” he says with a soft French accent. “Lots of fuss. You know how it is.”

Jessica doesn’t know how it is, but nods and smiles. “Happy birthday,” she says.

Mr. Henri nods, almost apologetically, and then says, “What can I do for you, Miss Jones?”

“Well, sir, I was hired by Amber Randall some weeks ago. She was worried about her twins, and I know that you called her in recently to talk about some concerns of your own, so I wanted to touch base as part of an investigation I’m doing with some other interested parties, including the British police.”

“Wow,” says Mr. Henri, stroking the edges of his tie and leaning back into his chair. “Wow, this seems bigger than I would’ve thought….”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. So tell me, I know you were concerned about them, about some kind of a cult? And I know that your investigation didn’t uncover anything, but I wondered if you could share with me a little bit about what was happening here at that time? What sort of behaviors you were seeing?”

“Well, yes, it was very bizarre. It built up quite slowly. Last semester the twins, they were quite, I suppose you might say, average students. Well liked, but not popular. Good grades but not exceptional. And then when they returned from the summer vacation there was this kind of, I don’t know how you’d say, a rock star aura about them. They looked very polished, very glossy. They became very, very popular, and then, well, it seemed that those who were not inculcated into this new hot clique were very put out, and I had a lot of complaints and suggestions of strange things happening.”

“What kind of strange things?”

“A kind of trance state that some of the children were in, an obsession with songs and movies from the eighties, there was a song they all kept singing, it was called ‘Perfect Skin,’ I think. These children became more and more, well, obnoxious, I must say. Less and less engaged with school life, with the rough and tumble, just walked around staring blankly at the world, issuing this word…”

“Miranda?”

“Yes!” He looks at her in surprise. “Miranda. But then, it all seemed to stop.”

“How long ago did it stop?”

“I’d say around the same time that Mrs. Randall came in to talk to me. Everything went back to normal after her visit. And I did wonder if maybe I’d imagined it? Or if it was one of those, what do they call them? A social contagion? Or in French we would say folie à plusieurs. But”—he claps his hands together softly—“now the children are just children again. They are listening to their terrible rap music and staring at their phones, and they are spotty, and they are plain, and they are bad at math.” He sighs, sadly, but then he breaks into a broad smile. “And I am so happy to have them back to normal. Is there anything I can help you with, for your investigation?”

“No,” says Jessica. “But thank you. I’m so grateful for your time and your insight.”

“It’s my pleasure. And here…” He turns to the cake in its box behind him and cuts off a slice, wraps it in a paper napkin decorated with brightly colored birthday graphics, and hands it to her. “It’s gluten free, but it’s pretty good.”

She takes the cake from his hand and smiles. “Great,” she says. “Thanks. And enjoy the rest of your day.”

“Fifty-two,” he says with a sad smile. “I never thought I’d be this old.”

THIRTY-FOUR

JESSICA DOESN’T LEAVE the school immediately. With eyes on the cameras angled from nearly every corner of the building, she cuts a crisscross path through the corridors of the school, pretending to be looking for a bathroom. It’s a small school, especially compared to the sprawling high school in Queens she attended, but still big enough for her not to draw attention to herself. A few students eye her curiously as she passes, and she wonders which of them were under the influence of the twins, and how. Or was it, as Mr. Henri suggested, a case of social contagion? Of the other children seeing the impact that Fox and Lark were having on the school population and simply imitating them?

She peers through windows as she goes, until she sees Lark sliding her books into her bag as her lesson draws to a close. Jessica stands back from the door and waits for her to emerge and then follows her discreetly at a distance until she turns a corner toward the lockers and then she picks up her stride.

“Lark.”

“Oh!” The girl jumps. “Er, hi.” She looks around herself. “What are you doing here?”

“I was just talking to your principal about a few things.”

“Right. I mean, how come?”

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