The Name In The Dark

The diary wasn't mine. 

Yet there it sat in my locker—number 317, assigned just ten minutes ago—propped against the standard-issue Blackthorn Academy textbooks like an uninvited guest. Its leather cover was dark, cracked with age, the colour of dried blood under the flickering fluorescent bulb overhead. A tarnished brass clasp, shaped like a coiled serpent eating its own tail, held it shut. It felt wrong, ancient and heavy amidst the smell of new paint and nervous potential that filled the hallway. 

My fingers, trembling slightly, brushed against the clasp. It was cold, unnaturally so, leeching warmth from my skin. Maybe it was just nerves. First day jitters at a school where the ivy on the walls probably cost more than my entire life savings scraped together from foster care stipends and part-time jobs. Don't mess this up, Elara. 

The clasp was stiff. I had to wedge a fingernail under the serpent's head to pry it open. It gave with a soft, grating click, and the edge of the metal bit sharp against my thumb cuticle. A tiny bead of ruby-red blood welled up. "Damn it," I muttered, shaking my hand instinctively. A single drop spattered onto the diary's worn spine, dark against dark, before I could wipe it away on my regulation grey skirt. Probably stained it. Great start. 

I pulled the diary out. It felt heavier than it looked. Taking a deep breath, steeling myself against whatever prank this was—some rich kid's idea of welcoming the new charity case—I opened it to the first page. 

The paper was thick, yellowed parchment, brittle at the edges. And on it, penned in brown, flaking ink that looked centuries old, were five words: 

'Welcome to Blackthorn, Elara Veyne.' 

Ice flooded my veins. 

Not just Elara. Elara Veyne. 

My name. My full name. The name buried deep, the one tied to faded memories of a mother I barely knew, the one I never, ever used. The one I'd painstakingly scrubbed from every official document I could when I aged out of the system. At Blackthorn, I was just Elara Jones, deliberately generic, blessedly anonymous. Or I was supposed to be. 

How?

The single word pulsed in my mind. No one here knew that name. Not the admissions office, not the stern-faced bursar, not the overly cheerful student guide who'd shown me around this morning, pointing out the glorious, sun-drenched West Wing where the 'legacy' students resided, and the starker, shadowed East Wing where scholarship kids like me were housed. "Curfew's strict in the East Wing," she'd chirped. "Lights out at ten. Keeps everyone focused!" 

Focused or contained? 

I slammed the diary shut, the sound echoing slightly in the emptying corridor. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. This wasn't a prank. This was… something else. Something that knew me. 

My hands shook so badly the diary slipped. The sound of it hitting the linoleum floor was like a gunshot in the sudden quiet. I snatched it back up, clutching it tight. It felt faintly warm now, where my blood had touched it. Or was I imagining that? 

Stuffing it deep into my backpack, beneath my history textbook and the welcome packet full of rules I was already terrified of breaking, felt like hiding a live coal. I needed to get out, get air, escape the sudden claustrophobia of the hallway with its endless rows of identical blue lockers. 

Pushing through the heavy oak doors at the end of the corridor, I stumbled out onto the manicured grounds. Blackthorn Academy sprawled before me – gothic spires piercing a steel-grey sky, old trees guarding secrets in their shadows, immaculate lawns stretching like velvet carpets. It was beautiful, imposing, everything I'd dreamed of. A chance. A real future. 

But the diary in my bag felt like lead weight, pulling me down.

I wandered aimlessly, trying to slow my breathing, ending up near the edge of the woods that bordered the campus. A high, wrought-iron fence marked the boundary. Near an old, gnarled oak tree whose roots buckled the earth, I saw movement. 

It was a woman, dressed in the drab, functional uniform of the groundskeeping staff. Older, weathered face, grey hair pulled back severely. She was digging, turning over dark soil with rhythmic, economical movements of a small trowel. Marlena, I thought her name was, mentioned briefly during the tour – "looks after the grounds like they were her own." 

She seemed absorbed in her task. Curious, despite the unease still thrumming through me, I watched from behind the trunk of another tree. What was she planting this late in the season? 

She knelt, placing something small and lumpy into the shallow hole. It looked like… bundled rags? Maybe burying a small animal, a bird or a squirrel? Old schools had odd traditions. I tried to rationalize it, tried to push down the prickle of fear crawling up my spine. 

Then, Marlena paused. Slowly, deliberately, she looked up, her eyes finding mine across the distance. They were pale, washed-out grey, and utterly devoid of expression. No surprise, no annoyance. Just… seeing. Like she'd known I was there all along. 

My breath hitched. I ducked back behind the tree, heart pounding anew. That look. It hadn't been hostile, not exactly. It had been… flat. Empty. More unsettling than anger. 

Get a grip, Elara. It's just a groundskeeper. It's just a weird old diary. It's just first-day paranoia.

I forced myself to step back out, to walk away casually, heading back towards the imposing stone facade of the East Wing. But I couldn't resist one last glance over my shoulder. 

Marlena was smoothing the earth over the hole now. The angle was different, the late afternoon light catching the disturbed soil. And I saw it clearly for just a second before she patted it flat. 

What she'd placed in the ground hadn't been rags. 

The groundskeeper wasn't burying clothes. She was burying fingers.