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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOBaib2h8aF
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9o6P9ZY5b7
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkd1NFyKZMU
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRQPqMPS17a
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS0PYhmzdG9
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzP4EDqQS9F
And in the hush that followed, Kim realized: sometimes, the most dangerous secrets are the ones you keep from those who know you best.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9XT3fcqRwJ
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkdAslHDGD3
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7xSXZaBkiM
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcNz896PHh0
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE6jd1PQVeh
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO6MfkMU9Vp
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8fdzqdoc9n
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI1cgoXa0cO
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡezmJ1uwAtL
Let Naomi have her moment. June would have the last word.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhzDuQQL9vP
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.”79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKPWkxJ5bfR
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.”79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNphbJ7bA9Z
June nodded. “I’m not asking for sentiment. I’m asking for a place.”79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyCYXoQUAmA
For a moment, neither spoke. The badge lay between them, gleaming dully in the late afternoon light—a silent contract, a pledge, a surrender.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGhzbEmMFMi
Naomi finally closed her fingers around it. “Prove you can keep secrets this time,” she said. “And maybe you’ll earn your way back.”79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPSRAQYwx2d
June nodded again, relief and uncertainty warring in her chest. The badge was gone, but the game was not over. Not yet.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjxbNWkZgAS
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEnqEmeNsIG
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGlIBNZ1VYR
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJXqgogYFKR
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.
**********79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlCmg9IT85s
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:79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTegRllw0iv
“The Board wants a list of all past student presidents for the centenary. You’re the only one who can get it right, Jabari.”79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIrreOfk81p
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmfG5dOZPa7
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡguRkybqlrv
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.
79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHlWqTPtWK5
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8rD7I1PGyd
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrsQV6glSM9
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:79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSK1XPIbpSo
“Under the third stone from the left, by the old bell,79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3bpAPnFB1O
Names are written that never rang.”79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjhKLb77Ug0
No signature. Just a faint, penciled winged sandal in the corner.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjqJkqvtlma
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmI3JEfqgQ3
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.
**********79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXhLuGDpzOK
Shiko wasn’t looking for secrets, just a distraction from the endless lists and warnings that now defined school life.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoHZLRmPEPU
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQB7f9Fx8KW
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9yE5qCL4PF
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsuGM6T7AxB
No dividing line.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0b6vJqlUfu
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.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU4SpDH9Q0i
And there—drawn in a thin, wavering blue—was a single curved line: a water channel. She traced it with her fingertip.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1NxwsgB4bB
It began near the old well, cut under the current wall, and ended by the overgrown banana grove at the lake’s edge.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4dYTVGNf8y
A link. Hidden in plain sight.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrRt80Nnzuw
A forgotten artery that ran beneath everything that had been built to separate.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5FQavetWNg
Her breath caught. She leaned closer.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtBDkVoDZaJ
In the margin, someone had scrawled in tidy, slanted hand:79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXL4ZX14VSi
“Access via maintenance hatch — old bell tower.”79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhLviIRJbLu
Shiko looked up. No one was watching. No one would believe her—not yet.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPMMgS0Qe3N
She didn’t dare steal the map. So she bent low and studied it, tracing every angle until it etched itself into memory.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡySUPpFYcbQ
She folded the map, slipped it back where she found it, and pressed her palms flat on the desk to steady herself.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBTipuNnytC
The wall wasn't sealed. It had never been.
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“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.”79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6TVcrwJYKk
Shiko stiffened. “You’re sure?”79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVJHM3d7iEX
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.”79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV2GkIKkAcS
Shiko blinked slowly. “They weren’t watching the boys.”79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvAEAQq4UrH
“They were watching you.”79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw1SzIoxfP1
Silence thickened between them.79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb9i8YAUhD5
“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?”79Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyy1UZr4RtB
Shiko looked at her. “Then we’ve just disrupted something bigger than both schools.”
