Seline’s absence was never announced. It arrived quietly, the way dusk settles over the school grounds—first a shadow, then a chill, then the realization that something essential has slipped away.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmZdozVw8mT
She still showed up for roll call, still answered questions in class, still laughed at the right moments when Shiko nudged her under the table. But there was a thinning, a transparency to her presence. She no longer lingered after prep, no longer joined Kim and the others on their slow walks beneath the jacarandas. She stopped borrowing books, stopped sharing her notes. When she spoke, her voice was softer, as if she was careful not to disturb something fragile inside her.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWdFOiJi8dw
Kim noticed first, but said nothing. She understood the need for silence, for space. The wall had taught all of them that. But even Shiko, who believed every rift could be mended with a joke or a story, found herself hesitating before calling Seline’s name.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWvwEot0ysD
Sometimes, Seline could be seen near the wall—not close enough to break the new rules, but close enough for the wind to catch her skirt, for her gaze to linger on the cracks where the mortar had crumbled. She would stand there, hands in her pockets, not moving, not searching, just…waiting. For what, no one could say.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4MEmhGNi3D
The others speculated. Some said she was hiding something; others whispered she was simply tired of fighting the current. But Kim, watching from a distance, wondered if Seline was listening for something only she could hear—a message from the past, or a warning about what was coming.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyzFBBNs2AD
The wall, once a place of daring and laughter, had become a line of demarcation. Seline, it seemed, was drifting to the other side—not in body, but in spirit. The cracks in the stone had begun to mirror the cracks in their friendship.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5CGLVHQ5Ps
And in the hush that followed, Kim realized: sometimes, the most dangerous secrets are the ones you keep from those who know you best.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG3yFS5wuMg
The prefects’ room was quieter than usual, the air heavy with the memory of last term’s betrayals and the new, watchful regime Naomi now commanded. Sunlight slanted across the battered table where June waited, the old silver badge resting in her palm, its edges dulled by years of anxious fidgeting.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5psh8aWn3a
Naomi entered with her usual composure, her eyes cool and unreadable. She didn’t sit. She simply stood across from June, hands folded, the silence between them thick with history.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa2Q6t0KRuh
June looked down at the badge. It had once meant belonging—authority, trust, a place in something larger than herself. Now, under Naomi’s rule, it was something else: a token, a bargaining chip, maybe even a confession.
Naomi used to be just another face in the corridor—a shadow trailing after June and the real prefects, always eager, always watching. Now, she stood at the center, the new authority, the “Order” incarnate, dishing out ultimatums as if she hadn’t once begged June for a seat at the table.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5m2iwLNcCe
June rolled the silver badge between her fingers, feeling its familiar weight. Once, it had been a symbol of her own power, her place at the heart of the Order’s machinery. She’d enforced the rules, kept the secrets, made the Order run smooth—until Mercy’s spectacular implosion ruined everything. Now, thanks to that disaster, June was stuck babysitting junior girls like Kim and that insufferable Seline, who fancied herself a journalist just because she could string a few sentences together. All to bring Mercy down. All to prove her loyalty to a new regime she didn’t respect.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsy9g46zidm
Now Naomi wanted the badge—wanted June’s submission, her public pledge of loyalty. As if June were just another lackey, grateful for scraps. As if the badge meant more in Naomi’s hand than it ever had in June’s.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYlidDBV4Iy
Fine. June would play along. She would bow her head, hand over the silver, let Naomi bask in her little victory. She would be the good servant, the model of obedience. Let Naomi believe she’d won.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz660qN1Jpw
But in the background, June was already making her moves. The Order was never about badges or titles—it was about who controlled the secrets, who pulled the strings. Naomi was just a little girl playing at big girls’ games, making up new rules and thinking that made her safe. She didn’t see the cracks forming, didn’t sense the old power shifting beneath her feet.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM2T6kIDCDQ
June would get her Order back. She would take it from the inside, quietly, methodically, the way real power always worked. And when the time came, not even Naomi’s new rules—or Mercy’s ghost—would save her.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3y18Ww3lt2
Let Naomi have her moment. June would have the last word.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5O8hKeweVI
She held it out, her voice steady but low. “I want you to have it. Not because I deserve it, but because I know what it means now. I know what it costs.”51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYkYy2STP2c
Naomi’s eyes flickered, just for a moment. She took the badge, weighing it in her palm as if testing its truth. “You know the rules have changed,” she said quietly. “This isn’t the old Order. There are no second chances for sentiment.”51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCkFcxmiHr1
June nodded. “I’m not asking for sentiment. I’m asking for a place.”51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZmOGLC1z7k
For a moment, neither spoke. The badge lay between them, gleaming dully in the late afternoon light—a silent contract, a pledge, a surrender.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡToCFHGgx7T
Naomi finally closed her fingers around it. “Prove you can keep secrets this time,” she said. “And maybe you’ll earn your way back.”51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4X5vL07J7f
June nodded again, relief and uncertainty warring in her chest. The badge was gone, but the game was not over. Not yet.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqB9nGVTWng
Outside, the wall stood silent, its cracks deepening, its secrets waiting for the next hand to reach through.
Mary followed at a distance, her steps measured, her gaze sharp. She was not following out of suspicion alone. For Mary, every encounter was a test: of loyalty, of discipline, of the new order she had been summoned to impose. She watched the girls—June, with her restless ambition barely masked by obedience; Naomi, with her quiet authority and the unmistakable air of someone who had learned to play the long game.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9VJvVgdESI
Each was driven by a different hunger. June, by the need to reclaim what she had lost, to prove that she could bend even the new rules to her will. Naomi, by the thrill of command, the satisfaction of having outlasted her rivals and inherited the machinery of the Order. And Mary, by the weight of responsibility—by the knowledge that her success or failure would be measured not in headlines, but in the quiet compliance of girls like these.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5QjNU1o5n0
As June approached Naomi, badge in hand, Mary paused just out of sight, listening. She understood that discipline was not enforced in assemblies or written in handbooks. It was negotiated in moments like this—quiet, tense, and invisible to most. She watched as June extended the badge, as Naomi accepted it with a nod that was both command and acceptance.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnJiyXy8Q78
Mary turned away, satisfied for now. She knew the real struggle was only beginning. For all her speeches about order and obedience, she understood: the wall was not the only thing that divided this school. There were other boundaries—of loyalty, of ambition, of secrets still hidden in the cracks. And she would have to navigate them all, just as these girls did, each driven by her own motive, each playing a part in a story the wall itself was still learning to tell.
**********51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsq6LX9Q5zn
Jabari’s authority came with privileges, but also with obligations that bored him. Jabari didn’t like being summoned by the principal’s secretary, but he hid it well. He expected another speech about discipline or a request to mediate a prefect squabble. Instead, she handed him a typed memo, stamped and signed by the principal himself. The request was simple—routine, on the surface:51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVBhGrcCD2e
“The Board wants a list of all past student presidents for the centenary. You’re the only one who can get it right, Jabari.”51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMCagKD3RIT
He nodded, accepting the task with the calm of someone who knew how to keep school and Order business separate. The archives were his domain, after all. No one would question the Head of Students reviewing old registers.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpDJrvf86MP
But Jabari’s real work was in the margins. He knew the Order’s true history—at least, the parts he was trusted with. The official records were a fiction, a public face. The Order’s story was hidden in the gaps: missing names, erased notes, years where the wall’s shadow fell thickest.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOG1vMvArN4
The archives were cold and windowless, dust motes swirling in the shaft of light from the corridor. Jabari moved his team with purpose, scanning the old registers, the prefects’ ledgers, the council minutes. They made notes, cross-checked years, filled in the blanks where they could. But it was the absences that drew his eye—the years when a name should have appeared, but didn’t. The gaps that no one ever explained.
51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBUJNYdA1Cn
Jabari and his team moved quietly through the old records room, the air thick with dust and the scent of old paper. They were supposed to be compiling a list for the principal, but the work had turned into a hunt for anomalies—missing names, odd codes, the kinds of things only Order eyes would notice.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYNlQ7nnrAv
It was Otieno, the quietest of them, who found the gap behind the cabinet. He reached in and pulled out a slim, battered notebook, its cover blank except for a faded blue thread wound around the spine.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVxJtyeFxYc
Jabari flipped it open. Most pages were blank, but near the center, a single slip of yellowed paper fluttered out. The handwriting was small, careful, and old-fashioned:51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoJDMVYoY3a
“Under the third stone from the left, by the old bell,51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkFyXkGpsMt
Names are written that never rang.”51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmKmH7CdG3Q
No signature. Just a faint, penciled winged sandal in the corner.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUhnHYCrZe3
The team exchanged glances—no one spoke. They all understood: this was not meant for teachers or prefects, not even for most students. It was a breadcrumb, left by someone who knew the game, for someone who would know how to follow.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxSNnYmhaz1
Jabari tucked the note back into the notebook and slid it into his bag. The official list would be neat, complete, and unremarkable. The real search would begin after dark.
**********51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmLIcLtesiW
Shiko wasn’t looking for secrets, just a distraction from the endless lists and warnings that now defined school life.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuXK7X8NW5b
She had volunteered to help Miss Otieno sort the oldest files—anything to escape the surveillance-laced silence of the dorms. The archives smelled of mothballs, rust, and old chalk dust. A fan turned lazily overhead. No one else had volunteered.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTjADNU7Roa
She was sorting through a battered box marked “Facilities—Historic”, scanning dull maintenance logs and ancient asset lists, when her fingers brushed something stiff and oversized. It wasn’t filed—just crumpled and tucked between folders like it had been forgotten decades ago.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR8DL5tOBpl
She tugged it free: a folded sheet, brittle at the corners, the ink faded to a watery brown. She held her breath and spread it carefully across the table.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbUmdjlYpNT
No dividing line.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3nFw4Wm28T
That was the first thing she noticed. No bold stroke separating Kisumu Girls from Kisumu Boys. Just one sprawling compound—shared gardens, merged fields, one chapel, one bell.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0oJOizKaPS
And there—drawn in a thin, wavering blue—was a single curved line: a water channel. She traced it with her fingertip.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4DmqBJ8yVD
It began near the old well, cut under the current wall, and ended by the overgrown banana grove at the lake’s edge.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡseo5ESw9j3
A link. Hidden in plain sight.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNUCrEW9yQm
A forgotten artery that ran beneath everything that had been built to separate.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2Yaq3o7UyA
Her breath caught. She leaned closer.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9JxB8v1rFR
In the margin, someone had scrawled in tidy, slanted hand:51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEFcuJLfPGC
“Access via maintenance hatch — old bell tower.”51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN9VApGZZew
Shiko looked up. No one was watching. No one would believe her—not yet.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXubVYnCXVj
She didn’t dare steal the map. So she bent low and studied it, tracing every angle until it etched itself into memory.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEXrCelwERd
She folded the map, slipped it back where she found it, and pressed her palms flat on the desk to steady herself.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRnRvovUeBp
The wall wasn't sealed. It had never been.
**********51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR7iuhMOsGv
“I saw them,” Kim said softly, fingers resting on the edge of the map. “Last term. Two boys. They crossed onto our side. I watched them scale the wall and vanish.”51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsTlWFa18e6
Shiko stiffened. “You’re sure?”51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKZLnDTlOgu
Kim nodded. “And there were girls. Not prefects. I thought they were—” She swallowed. “But they weren’t. They moved different. Like they belonged to the dark.”51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzIaBEhIEsd
Shiko blinked slowly. “They weren’t watching the boys.”51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyXJnHgh9Od
“They were watching you.”51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFISfxeGNmY
Silence thickened between them.51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEe0tiISrTf
“Shiko…” Kim’s voice cracked. “What if this tunnel isn’t a secret that was lost? What if it was never supposed to be found?”51Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnI943AomoG
Shiko looked at her. “Then we’ve just disrupted something bigger than both schools.”
