In Too Deep

Chapter 17

I spent all day and stayed up all night searching through the files from Mr Jackson’s computer and my eyes felt heavy from lack of sleep. My desk was covered in wrappers from all of the unhealthy snacks I had consumed during the course of the night. What can I say? Chocolate helps.

The book has been extremely hard to read, it’s all in Latin which is not my strong point, and so many of the pages have faded with age which didn’t help matters, so I tried to focus more on the files. At least they were in English.

I took a moment to clear up and stretch out my legs and arms. Too many of the files had somehow corrupted during the download, undoubtedly this was a failsafe set up on Mr Jackson’s computer. My laptop didn’t have the power I needed in order to recover these files. But I knew someone who did. I took out my phone.

“Hello Freya, are you ok?” Smithy answered on the second ring. He sounded concerned, probably caused by how early on a Sunday I was ringing him.

“Hey, yeah I’m fine but I need to ask a favour.” I answered.

“Anything, what do you need?” He asked, I knew I could count on him.

“I need to use one of the computers at the police station.” There was a slight pause whilst he thought over what I was asking him.

“Ok that’s fine, head over whenever you’re ready.” He said.

“Thanks Smithy, I’ll be there soon.” I hung up the phone.

I got changed out of the clothes I had spent all night in, had a quick shower, and threw my laptop and hard drive in to a bag.

I hid the book in a safe place, and cast a spell to keep it secure. Whatever secrets it held, I knew it was important, and I didn’t want to risk it being found by the wrong person, or any person really. I couldn’t exactly explain how I was in possession of it. I transported myself to the station and found Smithy in his office.

“You got here fast.” Smithy stated with a knowing smile, but didn’t question me on it, he never did. “Are you going to tell me why you need access to a police computer?” He asked. I thought about it for a moment.

“Maybe if I find something.” I said with a cheeky smile. He couldn’t help but smile back.

“Am I going to regret allowing you to do this?” Smithy asked. I again needed to think for a moment about that question.

“Do you usually regret helping me?” I felt answering his question with one of my own was my best option here.

“That usually depends on the outcome.” He waved me towards the direction of the computer room. “Let me know if you need any help, but if not then I’ll stay out of the way.”

“Thank you Smithy.” He was always so understanding.

I headed down the hall to the computer room, which to my luck was almost empty. I chose the computer that was furthest away from anyone else in the room, so they wouldn’t accidently see what I was about to attempt to do. I took out my hard drive and used the police computer’s decryption software to try and gain access to the blocked files.

The computer was going to need some time to process the files so I started sorting through the files I could already access.

This didn’t exactly provide me with the information I wanted however, there’s a reason why these files were so easily accessible, they were just the standard, boring things you’d expect for an educational facility. I began focussing on Mr Jackson’s two email addresses, surely that would provide something substantial.

The first email account was what you’d expect from a head master, this didn’t necessarily confirm anything for me, this could just be a dummy email in case humans ever got suspicious.

After two hours the police computer finally finished its work on the files, it didn’t manage to recover everything, but it did get me access to a lot of the files, including access to the other emails. I copied all of the recovered files back on to my hard drive and packed up my things, closing down the police computer as I went.

This was going to take too long if I tried to do all of this by myself. I headed back to Smithy’s office and knocked on the door. He was alone and he waved me in, shutting the door behind me.

“What can I help with?” He correctly guessed the reason for my visit to his office.

“Slight confession.” I began. “I downloaded some files and emails off of Mr Jackson’s computer yesterday in his office. I needed your police computer to decrypt some of the files, but it’s going to take me days to get through all of this without any help.” I explained.

“Have you found anything useful so far?” He asked me.

“No, it’s taken me this long just to get through the files I could access originally.” I told Smithy.

“I’m guessing they were easily accessible for a reason?” He asked, I nodded. “Ok, let’s take a look together and see what we can find out.” Smithy said.

We spent hours searching through the remaining files and emails, taking note of anything we thought might lead to something. I found one email between Mr Jackson and who I assume was a parent that seemed a little odd.

“Smithy look at this, this seems to be part of an argument between them.” I showed him what I was referring to. The email from the parent, whose name is Andrea Joles, read:

But how do you know for sure? I’m not going to risk the safety of my son on some whim of yours. I need concrete proof that she is who you think she is before I allow my family to be involved.

I found Mr Jackson’s reply in the email thread.

I have proof, the book explains it all. She is the one.

His response was brief, and I could almost hear his voice in my head as I was reading it. I kept scrolling through to find Andrea’s response again.

None of us can read that, and it doesn’t prove it’s actually her, you could end up harming an innocent girl for nothing. Find me something else or we’re out.

“Freya, I hate to say it. But I think they’re talking about you.” Smithy said to me, I nodded, I figured as much too.

Just remember our agreement, you’re part of this whether you like it or not.

Mr Jackson’s threat was evident in that one sentence, there were no more replies after that.

“The book, it seems to all come back to that book.” I said and Smithy nodded.

“Did you get it?” He asked.

“Yes. How did you know the book was in there?” I asked, thinking back to yesterday when I was hiding in Mr Jackson’s office.

“We found it years ago and put a very discrete tracking spell on it, it’s virtually undetectable. We lost possession of the book about a year ago and have not been able to reclaim it. So I thank you for that.” He told me.

“Why is it so important?” I asked.

“I’m not entirely sure, we didn’t have it for very long, it took us a while to make out the writing, it has faded with time.” He said.

“Yeah I found that too. All I’ve found so far is a bunch of spells, some I’ve never even heard of before.” I told Smithy.

“That is as far as we got also, but according to those emails they seem to think it has something to do with you Freya.” Smithy told me.

“I have no idea why.” What could this old piece of text have to do with me? I could tell my silence was worrying Smithy.

“Freya, I’ll protect you, we’ll figure this out together.” He said reassuringly, I nodded. “Perhaps you should stay here tonight, I don’t like the idea of you staying in that place alone when they clearly have plans to hurt you. Especially now that we’ve found out female students seem to mysteriously die at Fair Lake.” Smithy added, I shook my head.

“No, Lucas and Violet get back this evening, I can’t leave them alone there.” Smithy nodded reluctantly.

“If you want to leave the files here I can keep going through them to see if I can dig anything else up.” He offered.

“That would be a great help thank you. I’ll take another look at the book and see if I can decipher any more of it.” I told him.

“Ok but make sure you get some rest too, you look exhausted.” He looked at me, worry clear in his eyes.

“Thanks, staying up all night will do that to you.” He looked even more concerned now, but didn’t question me on it. I left the hard drive containing the files with Smithy and headed back to my room.