I Quit Teaching Because Of This Terrifying Incident. I’ve Never Told Anyone About It Until Now.

But when I asked whatever happened to that bible they found, he looked sternly at me and said, “Don’t talk about that. I shouldn’t have told you.”

I assured him that I had not and would not relay that information to anyone else, but I’m not sure if that’s what he was getting at.

Turns out Manny wasn’t the only employee at our school who talked about the discovery in the basement. The news spread throughout the school like a line of dominoes with the attendant gossip even reaching the staffroom by that afternoon. I don’t want to say too much here because the subject of the gossip and her family’s history is well known in our community. Suffice it to say, a student at our school went notoriously missing during a volleyball tournament hosted by our school. This was way before my time, but even I had heard of the event as a general missing persons case in our city and had seen her face plastered on newspapers all over town. A few months after the student’s disappearance, one of our school engineers was arrested on separate charges related to misconduct with minors. I don’t know what happened to him after his dismissal and imprisonment.

But I found the gossip distasteful for one major reason: The missing girl’s younger sister attended our school. I had not met the girl, but it was announced at the beginning of the year at a staff meeting as she was an incoming freshman. The school counsellor had gravely warned of possible triggers to avoid in classroom discussions of our school’s history, especially during Orientation Week. The staff generally regarded our school as one big family, and we were going to protect this child. And for the sake of clarity while respecting the family’s privacy, I’m going to call her Amy Waller.

The next day, I found myself at my desk later than usual. It was just after five o’clock and with it being late February, it was already quite dark. My classroom was on the third floor, and there was a large oak tree outside one of my windows facing east. The exterior school lights automatically turned on at dusk, so when the tree suddenly lit up, it jolted me out of my grading stupor. I was hungry, so I quickly gathered my things and walked down the stairs and down the long back corridor towards the staff lot.

That’s when I first saw Amy Waller. I had just reached the main floor and turned the corner into the hall. It was long and narrow with windows all along the north side. And standing at the opposite end, in profile, was a tiny waif of a girl. She stood at the entrance to the taped off basement. Her long, straight black hair obscured her face at first. But as I approached, she turned towards me and that’s when I saw her eyes. They looked just like her older sister’s, just like the face I had seen in the papers and on the evening news so many years before.

My heart immediately sank for her. She must have been so young when her sister disappeared, yet here she was standing by the stairs leading down to the site where rumours grew of grisly deeds and macabre rituals.