The garden was bustling with activity. For once, the sun could be seen between the slashes of grey clouds and the students had been let outside to savour the pleasant weather for as long as it lasted. It wasn't exactly warm yet, just a promise of better weather, but they'd take what they could get.

Most of the teachers and students had wandered down to sit in the grass by the pond, leaving the groundskeepers to tend to the flower beds near the house in peace. The portly groundskeeper was layering manure on the open beds while Matthew was several steps ahead, pulling up the burlap that had kept the flower beds safe during the bitter winter.

Matthew wound up the burlap in his arms and turned to put it in a nearby wheelbarrow. From behind a topiary, a hand emerged and grabbed him, pulling him behind the bush. He stumbled for a moment but quickly regained his footing and twisted out their grip, only to scoff at the sight of his 'attacker.'

"You again!" he snapped.

Millie frowned back. This was not the reception she had been expecting.

"I'm not supposed to be talking to you," Matthew warned, dropping his voice to a hiss. "If they see me talking to a student, I'll be reprimanded, or worse, lose my position—"

"I know," Millie said drily. "That's why we're hiding."

Matthew was not amused. "What do you want?"

"I need your help."

"And what makes you think I'd help you?"

"You've helped me before."

Matthew narrowed his eyes. "Not by choice."

"Please, I really do need your help. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't important."

For a moment, Matthew's dark eyes flashed across her face, studying her expression. Then his shoulders sank, and he sighed. "What do you need?"

"Well first of all, I need—"

Matthew scoffed again. "First?"

"The first thing is small, I swear."

"Fine. Out with it."

"I need you to tell me everything you saw that night."

Matthew's eyes went wide. "Oh, no, no, no. I'm not telling you any more about that. I've already said too much. You nearly fainted on me last time."

"That was just because I didn't know it was real—"

"What?" Matthew said, his face shifting. "Real?"

Millie dismissed his question with a wave of her hand. "Never mind. Can you please just tell me what you saw?"

"Maybe. What's the second thing you want?"

"It depends on the first," Millie grumbled, getting annoyed. "Now, are you going to tell me or not?"

Matthew took a moment, struggling to decide. Though it only had been a few seconds at most, to Millie, it felt as though it had stretched on for hours. She was getting impatient.

Then, finally: "Alright, alright. But not here."

He stepped back from the hedge and glanced around. The groundskeeper was busy at work; he hadn't noticed Matthew's absence.

"George!" Matthew called.

The groundskeeper put down his manure-caked shovel and looked up. "Yeah?"

"I've got to go—nature calls. I'll be back in a bit."

George's moustache bristled, but he nodded. "Go on, then. But I need your help with the retaining wall next, so don't be too long."

"I won't," Matthew promised and dipped back behind the bush.

Millie waited for Matthew to direct her where to go, but instead, Matthew took her by the wrist and pulled her away. He led her around the edge of the house to a dark, filthy corner that led to an old servant's entrance before he let her go. Her wrist burned where he had touched her, but Millie tried not to think about it.

None of the upper floors had windows that overlooked this spot at this shadowed corner of the house, so they were safe from prying eyes. Matthew turned back to her, his jaw set. His eyes were bright again like the day they had talked in the churchyard.

"Let's be quick about this," he said. "We don't got a lot of time."

Millie shivered. It was cold here, in the shadows. "Right. So... the night my friend died."

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything. Anything you can remember."

"A lot happened that night. I'm not sure where to start."

"The beginning, then. Where were you when you heard them call for you?"

Matthew crossed his arms and hung his head back, staring up at the gaps of blue in the grey sky. "George and I were locking down the house, as we do every night. We were in the basement, almost done." Absent-minded, his hand went to his belt, where a laden key ring was attached, making them jingle. "Some little nun-in-training came a'running, telling us they needed us upstairs. So George and I went. When we got there, it was like nothing I'd ever seen."

He paused and blew out a long breath, then dropped his chin to his chest, closing his eyes.

Millie wanted to press him to continue. They didn't have time for this, but she stopped herself. These memories weren't so easy to deal with. Even she wished she could blot them out of her mind forever.

And maybe she could, after she'd done right by Petra.

Then maybe one day she could remember the girl and not her death.

Fortunately, Matthew had finally mastered himself. He opened his eyes, his gaze settling on Millie.

"Then I was told to carry you. I don't know how much of that you remember. You were... in quite the state."

Millie nodded, her cheeks reddening. "And then?"

"I took you down the infirmary. After I left you there, they sent me back upstairs to collect the body—"

"She wasn't just a body," Millie snapped. "She was a person. Her name was Petra."

Matthew stared back, his gaze unwavering, but continued. "When I got back up there, the girl—Petra, I mean—had been covered in a sheet."

Millie wrapped her arms around herself, fighting off a shiver that had nothing to do with the shadow's chill. Of the few flashes she had of that night, she remembered that sheet. She could clearly see the bright white square of cloth being spread over Petra's lifeless body, instantly soaking up all that blood—

Matthew noticed her discomfort. "If this bothers you, I can stop."

"No, I need to hear every part of this."

"If you insist," Matthew said with a grim smile. "They had a stretcher out, and they wanted me and George to put her body on it, sheet and all. It was difficult. Everything was... wet. We managed it, though. We got her body on, but the sheet fell back and—" he took a shaking breath, "—that's when I saw her throat."

Millie flinched, the slash in Petra's flesh ever vivid in her memory.

"Did they say anything about it?"

Matthew shook his head. "They just covered her up again and directed us downstairs. They led us to a room down there, a room I've never seen, and unlocked the door for us. It was cold, some kind of store room. It had table that had been cleared, and we were told to put the body—the girl, I mean, Petra—on it, so we did."

"And then?"

"The nuns shooed us off. Told us they'd handle it from here."

Millie scowled. "Handle it?"

Matthew shrugged. "I figured they'd know what to do, so I left them to it."

"They said nothing about what happened to her?"

Matthew gave his head another shake.

"Did they say it was an accident?"

"What?" Matthew said, his eyes going wide, brighter than ever. "Having her throat cut like that... How could that have been an accident?"

"That's what they told me," Millie said. She dropped her gaze to her feet, toeing at the dirt as she tried to shift through the thousand twisted threads in her head. "But if it wasn't an accident, that means... That means... It was murder."

Millie flicked her eyes up to meet his. She hadn't even admitted the possibility to herself. Maybe in the first horrible moments after finding Petra's body, but things had gotten so tangled up since then. But it was undeniable. There was something suspicious about Petra's death, and now Miss Brodie's.

What else could it be, but...

"Murder?" Matthew breathed.

"You said it yourself," she said, staring at him. "It couldn't have been an accident."

Matthew stared back, then averted his eyes and tightened his jaw as if he had to clamp it shut to resist the urge to say more. He didn't seem convinced.

Something from the last assembly stirred in her memory, something the girls in the row ahead had said about Miss Brodie. That Miss Brodie, distraught from the news in her letter, had gone up on the roof and—

Was that what they all believed?

That Miss Brodie died by suicide?

That Petra did too?

That Petra did this to herself?

A horrible image flashed through her mind. 

Petra was at the top of the stairs late at night, drawing a blade across her own throat. Blood poured from the wound, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she collapsed where she stood.

No.

No. That couldn't be true.

"It wasn't suicide," Millie said firmly. "It couldn't be. Petra would never do such a thing—"

Matthew just shook his head. "But if it was a murder, the sisters and the school would've said something, they would've done something. There would've been an investigation—"

"Maybe, maybe not," Millie said, anger coursing through her now. "Not if they're trying to cover it up."

Matthew looked almost bemused as though he was entertaining a delusional fool. "And why would they do such a thing?"

"Who knows," Millie said, her voice sharp. This is exactly what she feared—that if she shared her concerns that they'd think she'd gone mad. "There are a thousand reasons. Maybe they're trying to avoid a scandal, or maybe they're trying to protect the person who did it! Either way, I'm not going to rest until I figure out what really happened to Petra—"

Matthew just shook his head. "These aren't questions for me or you to ask."

The memory of Sister Marion's aged face, twisted in fury, flitted into her mind.

"Questions that are not for you to ask!" she had shouted.

A swell of heat climbed her neck, her anger spreading. "Why not? Why shouldn't I ask these questions? Something sinister is happening at this school and everyone is pretending like nothing happened! Why shouldn't I know the truth about what happened my friend?"

"Because we're not police," Matthew said, sounding exasperated now. But his eyes were still bright and sharp. "We're not detectives. We have to leave it to the authorities. The Mother Superior has called them, and I believe they've already come by—"

"And they only know the story, the lies that the Mother Superior has told them!" Millie said, cutting him off. "If I could just tell them the truth, then maybe—"

"And how are you going to do that?" Matthew said, cutting her off, too. "They're off in the village. How are you going to get there?"

Millie just stared at him. Matthew eyed her back, detecting something in her stare.

"That was the second part of you needed my help for, wasn't it?" Matthew said.

Millie shifted her eyes.

Matthew let out an incredulous laugh and shook his head.

"That's impossible."

"Maybe. But I have to try. For Petra."

Matthew just continued to shake his head. "And if you get there, what are you going to tell them?"

"What I saw, what you saw."

"And what will that prove?"

Another surge of rage shot through her. "You really think that Petra would kill herself by cutting her own throat?"

Matthew paused. In a moment, his whole face changed. His expression was inscrutable. He looked uncertain as ever, but there was something else there, something... intense.

"And who would believe us?" he said, his voice low. "I'm a lowly servant, and you're just a school girl. Who would believe us over them? We have no proof."

Millie pressed her lips together. He still sounded unsure, but his use of 'us' was not lost on her.

Did he believe her?

Would he help her?

Even if he would, what he had said wasn't wrong—they didn't have any proof of their claims.

"I don't know what you want from me," Matthew said, rubbing at his face. He just looked tired now. "If we don't have proof, nothing we say will have any weight, so you should really just drop it. Now, if you don't mind, I have to get back to work."

He went to brush past her, shoving his hands into his pockets, jingling the keys at his belt.

Millie went still. His keys.

"Wait," Millie said. "I know where we can get some proof."