Work Text:
Ellis Haley
Felicity Marrow was a murderer. At least, that’s all I could gather from the girls at our school. When I arrived here a week ago, it hadn’t been 15 minutes before I was swarmed by other students. They all wanted to know what Dolloway house I was in, who my roommates were, what classes I would take, the usual girl gossip. They really just wanted to snoop, to find out what Ellis Haley could possibly be doing here. Everyone wants to know what I’m doing here, except Felicity Marrow. The problem was that I had come here for her, or rather, for her story.
When I ask around about her, everyone says that last year at Dalloway, Felicity Marrow had killed her girlfriend. Now, at the beginning of her senior year, she was back at school. I had seen her arrive, watching as she moved into the room beside mine. She was a Godwin girl —the building that housed the supposed witches of the school— and she hadn’t left her bedroom in the two days she had been here. While she hadn’t made any attempt to say hello, the other girls at Godwin house had strolled in and out of my room, constantly asking what i wanted for dinner, if i would join them for coffee and a puzzle downstairs, or to tell me that they had read and loved my book, and other flattery I didn’t find necessary. Still, I had been nice, helping to make dinner and solving puzzles with the younger Godwin girls. It felt like time that I could have spent writing, but I was here to get Felicity’s story, write my book, and get back to my home, so I couldn’t write until I met her, got a feel for her. If I could finish school in the process, then great, but I was determined to get this book written and get out before something peculiarly Dalloway happened.
Felicity Marrow
Everyone stares, everyone whispers when I arrive at Dalloway. I stare up at Godwin house, my backpack and suitcase in hand, and am flooded with the memories of last year. So much went wrong, and now everyone hates me here. They thought I was a murderer, that what had happened was my fault, and that I had killed Alex. It wasn’t true, none of it was true, but how was I supposed to prove that it hadn’t been my fault?
Upon arriving for my final year at Dolloway, I had stopped in to see the housemistress, who had been weary. As I settled into my room, I cried while being reminded of Alex. Earlier today, when I sat my bluetooth speaker on top of my dresser, I was pulled into a memory from last year, remembering when Alex and I would lazily sit on my carpet, reading books and listening to the soft sounds of jazz coming from the speaker. Tears had come back to my eyes. But my fingers had been quick to steal them away, just in case anyone came into my room. I remembered the words of my therapist, Dr. Ortega, when she had said that “grief would tie itself to the small things, that I’d be living my life as normal and then a bit of music or the cut of a girl’s smile would remind me of her and it would all flood back in.” I had taken it with a grain of salt, thinking that I would be stronger than Dr. Ortega assumed. I was taking my medication, and I should have been fine, and I decided that I would call her in the morning. I perched on the edge of my bed now, refraining from unpacking, and studying my room as if it would change if I looked away for too long. I studied the weathered wooden dresser, the worn yellowed paint on the walls, and the cracked windowsill me and Alex had carved our initials on sometime in the previous years. I was almost pulled back into another memory, but a sharp knock on the door had me spinning around to see who opened the door.
The girl in my doorway stood with her chin held high, clearing her throat with a rude tone. I glanced up, opening my mouth before I could process what I was doing, and cleared my throat back, before saying, “Can I help you?” I watched as she bit her lip, the mask of confidence faltering for a moment before the girl re-applied it.
“Hi,” the confident girl said, giving a crooked smile that you would see on a child. “I’m in the room nextdoor, I just thought I should introduce my--”
“You can stop now,” I said, my patience used up. “I don’t need you to sympathize over me like everyone else. I know you’re new here, so you’ve probably heard enough about me by now--” I trailed off, not having anything else to say, and not quite wanting to say anything else either. I waited for her to leave, her head hung in defeat like the other girls who I’d caught being nosy. This week had been an annoyance, but with any luck it would get better as the year dragged on. I only had to get through this final year, and that’d be it. I could do something, I could do nothing, it wouldn’t matter. I pulled myself out of the spiral, only to realize that the girl was still standing in my doorway, a small smile waiting on her lips.
“Do you need anything?” I asked, hoping that she’d say no, but curious as to what else she might say.
“I do, actually,” she replied. “I’m writing my next book, and I need your help with some of the, uhm, immersion for it. I’m a method writer, and I’ve heard that you have some of the skills I need in order to write my book.”
“Skills?” I inquired, wondering what ‘skills’ this random girl thought I had. I watched her hesitate, then take a step closer.
“I’ve heard that you know a lot of the history of Godwin house,” she lowered her voice before continuing. “And that you’ve practiced some of it. I asked around, and everyone says that they don’t have access to the occult section, but to ask you if I really need something.”
I cringed, remembering when students would come to ask me to read their fortune, or help them with their boyfriends, or other things that were immature and inconvenient. The girl must have seen the hesitation on my face because she held her hands up half-defensively, and I realized that I didn’t even know her name. I said as much, and she stared at me open-mouthed before smirking. She stuck out her hand, and said “I’m Ellis. Ellis Haley. And you’re Felicity Marrow.” Ellis took my hand, which I hadn’t even stuck out to meet, and it was my turn to be surprised. Because Ellis Haley, the Ellis Haley, was in my room, and I had just been a complete asshole to her.
Ellis Haley
This was perfect. The look of surprise plastered on Felicity’s face was priceless. The one girl that was supposed to help me hadn’t recognized me. I had a feeling that she probably put the pieces together when I introduced myself, hence her jaw being lowered to the ground. I let go of her hand before painting my face with a big smile and saying nothing before walking out the door.
At my dorm room, I sat at my desk and began to fill out a character profile for Felicity. The not-knowing-who-I-was part of our introduction gave me an amazing hook, and I had already documented the entirety of our meeting as soon as I had ran back down the hall into my room, not even . She was so much more of a personality than I had expected, although the headlines hadn’t given me much to go off of. Things like “Foul play suspected in teenager’s death” and “Witchcraft returns to Dalloway” were glorified versions of what I was looking for, and I needed the true, raw story. It looked like I wouldn’t need to work hard to get it, though. Felicity Marrow
My head spun trying to figure out what had just happened. Ellis Haley was at Dalloway. Ellis Haley the author was at Dalloway, and knew my name. This was weird, especially since she hadn’t brought up me being a killer. I assumed everyone had heard it through the grapevine, but maybe not. The same went for me, I supposed. Ellis’s arrival would have been big news, tons of gossip. If I hadn’t been holed up in my room, then I surely would have heard about it. The issue would have been finding someone willing to chat, to gossip with me, which was difficult when everyone thought I was a murderer. Lonnie, a girl who’d been in Godwin house for the last 2 years, had waved at me earlier and actually tried to be nice. I decided I would go seek her out, sighing to myself before rising from my bed and putting a sweater on over my shirt. I un-tucked the collar and left the room, the door shut firmly behind me. I cringed while realizing that my next door neighbor had her door open, and I was going to have to walk past it to get downstairs. I averted my gaze to the pictures on the walls, pictures that I'd seen a million times in the last 4 years, but it was better than making eye contact with Ellis. I walked past her door swiftly, and descended the stairs to Lonnie’s room, granted she’d kept it for the last few years. I found her door to be closed, but her name tag was on the door so I knew it was still her room. I knocked softly at first, my grip firming at the end as my fist dropped uselessly to my side. She opened her door slightly, peeking to see who had come to see her, and she smiled before opening the door wider.
“Hey Felicity, what’s up?”
I tried to be as nice as possible, not wanting to repeat the trainwreck of a conversation I’d had with Ellis. “Nothing much, How’ve you been settling into Godwin house?” She shrugged, motioning to the half-empty boxes in the corner of the room. “I’ve only been here a few days, so about as well as expected. I heard you finished unpacking, though?” She gave me another cautious smile, and I assumed that she had heard from one of the girls who had brought dinner to my room last night. I didn’t want to point out the gossip, though, so I meekly replied “Yeah, I had a lot of stuff here already, so there wasn’t a ton to unpack anyways.” I decided to feel her out, seeing if she knew that Ellis Haley was our housemate. “Did the new girl come say hello to you?”
“Ellis? Yeah she came down to play chess a few days ago, it’s cool that she’s a writer.” I stung a little to know that no one had invited me to play chess, but I kept the conversation going, making small talk with Lonnie until we ran short of things to discuss and it got awkward. She offered a small, slightly sympathetic grin, and I tried to return it. I took the lack of conversation as sign enough that it was time for me to leave, but before I could fully turn around Lonnie spoke again.
“Do you want to help me and some of the new girls make dinner?” she asked, timid, as if she was nervous for my response. I gave a small, strained smile and agreed, finally feeling like I wouldn’t be lonely this year.