The Mailkeeper

Lunch hour at Blackthorne Academy brought none of the relaxed atmosphere or lively chatter typically found among students their age. It was merely a tense, two-hour lull stretched thin between rigorous classes, where every activity unfolded under the silent supervision of the cold eyes of the disciplinary staff.

The academy's central library was housed in the West Wing, where soaring Gothic stone arches sank into dim, murky light. The smell of damp paper and decaying leather bookbindings blended with the scent of floor wax, creating a heavy, suffocating atmosphere. Dark oak bookshelves stretching all the way to the ceiling stood in long, continuous rows like barriers, carving the space into dark, solitary mazes.

Tucked away behind the furthest corner of the library, right beside the narrow passage leading to the ancient archives, was Abner Pike's workstation.

The old mailkeeper and head librarian sat behind an oak counter stripped of its polish. A man in his sixties with a slight hunch, he wore a dull brown vest caked in paper dust. His clouded eyes, framed by thousands of deep-set wrinkles, were constantly hidden behind a pair of reading glasses resting far down the bridge of his nose.

Under the dim, sallow yellow glow of the desk lamp, Pike's thin, vein-riddled, freckled hands were leisurely smoothing bill after bill of paper money. He counted cash with a chilling level of meticulous, seasoned skill. Crinkled dollar bills were pressed flat and neatly stacked into a locked iron box.

As Cassian slowly approached the counter, old man Pike didn't bother to look up. He used his elbow to lightly nudge the bottom drawer of his desk open.

Inside the drawer lined with black felt, ten old flip phones—the burner kind using prepaid SIM cards that left no call logs—lay neatly arranged like miniature coffins. The screens of a few occasionally flickered with a pale blue light before dying down again.

"A dollar a minute," Pike's raspy voice came out, sounding like two pieces of rotting wood rubbing together. "No bargaining. No credit. One second over gets rounded up to the next minute."

Cassian stood leaning his back against the edge of the wooden counter, his gray eyes quickly scanning the surrounding space to make sure no gray cloaks from the Student Council were lurking nearby. He reached into his pants pocket, pulling out a stack of loose bills still bearing their original folds.

Cassian laid five of the crispest one-dollar bills flat on the desk, his gaze blunt and harsh: "Five minutes."

Pike stopped counting his cash, his clouded eyes slowly looking up. He scrutinized Cassian's thin face, skimming past the lingering bruise on his forehead and the injury wrapped tight with a handkerchief on his palm.

He scooped up the stack of cash, stuffed it quickly into his vest pocket, and spoke casually: "The freshman kid from Room 104... Who are you calling in such a rush? A girlfriend back home?"

"Not a girlfriend," Cassian answered curtly, his facial muscles tensing.

Pike curled his lip, exposing a row of teeth yellowed by tobacco tar: "In this place, five dollars can buy a pack of fine cigarettes or half a nice cheese sandwich down in the kitchen. You sure you want to throw away five dollars just to hear a few beeps over a wire?"

Cassian gripped the edge of the wooden desk tight, a dark, gloomy fire igniting in his eyes: "My mom is in the intensive care unit after an accident. I need to know if she's alive or dead."

The words came out bluntly, stripped of any flair, yet carrying a choked-back pain that was barely held together.

The desk fell into a long silence. Old man Pike froze. The mocking smirk on his dry, cracked lips slowly faded. He stared intently into Cassian's unwavering eyes, then lowered his head, a soft sigh reeking of tobacco escaping his frail chest.

He reached into the drawer, selected the black phone with the strongest signal, and slid it toward Cassian.

"Three minutes," Pike said, his voice dropping a register. "I'm giving you exactly three minutes. Dial."

Cassian's hand trembled as he picked up the cold plastic phone. Reaching into his cloak pocket, he pulled out the crumpled slip of paper soaked in sweat all the way from Iowa, quickly dialing the direct line to the Mercy Hospital ICU.

He pressed the phone tight against his ear, holding his breath.

Beep... Beep... Beep...

Each long dial tone drove into Cassian's eardrums like a knife strike. His chest heaved, his heart pounding erratically as if trying to leap out of his chest.

"Hello? Mercy Hospital Intensive Care Unit."

The familiar voice rang through the speaker! It was indeed Dana—the young nurse who had looked after him two days ago.

"Nurse Dana... It—it's me, Cassian!" Cassian whispered rapidly, his faint voice cracking with emotion.

The line went silent for a brief beat before Dana took a deep breath. She recognized his voice instantly, but her tone turned guarded, dodging hospital monitoring protocols: "Cassian? Where are you? Is... everything okay?"

"I'm fine! How's my mom, Nurse Dana? Has she woken up yet?" Cassian asked in a rush, his eyes burning hot as tears threatened to spill from the corners, though he forced himself to swallow them back down.

"Your mother... she hasn't woken up yet," Dana's voice dropped low, just loud enough for him to hear through the static crackle. "Her vital signs are still being monitored closely. But rest assured, her current condition is much more stable than that night. The doctor said there's no permanent brain damage."

Cassian let out a long sigh of relief, feeling as though a thousand-pound boulder had just been lifted off his chest. He leaned his back against the bookshelf, closing his eyes tight, his lips trembling.

But the relief lasted only a split second. He suddenly remembered his father Edward and Deputy Roy Burnell with that cozy, cover-up handshake from that day.

"Nurse Dana..." Cassian whispered, his voice dropping into deep suspicion. "The police... did the police come back to investigate the incident? Did they ask anything else about the bruises on my mom?"

The other end of the line fell into another terrifying, hesitant silence. The soft tap-tap of a computer keyboard sounded faintly before Dana replied in a hesitant, anxious tone: "They... they've already closed the file, Cassian. The report lists it strictly as a home accident from a slip and fall. There's no follow-up investigation."

"Just an accident?" Cassian gritted his teeth, his fingers clutching the phone tightly.

A brief sentence from Dana blew away all hope for justice. Deputy Roy Burnell had drawn a long line across his notebook page, exactly as Cassian had witnessed. They had buried the truth to protect a drunkard husband.

The suspicion and hatred inside Cassian flared up stronger than ever.

"Time's up, kid."

Old man Pike's voice cut straight through Cassian's train of thought. He tapped his thin finger sharply against the wooden desk.

Startled, Cassian spoke hastily into the phone: "Nurse Dana, I'll call back later! Please take care of my mom!"

He disconnected immediately, handing the black phone back to the mailkeeper. Cassian stood dazed for a few seconds, his chest still heaving with rapid breaths.

Pike took the phone, checking the call duration on the pale blue screen: 02:48.

Without a word, he reached into his vest pocket, pulled out two one-dollar bills, and tossed them back onto the desk toward Cassian.

Cassian looked at the two bills in confusion: "What are you doing? I gave you five dollars."

"I charge half-rates," Pike replied gruffly, pushing the two bills closer to him. "You used less than three minutes anyway. I like money, but I don't rip off a kid calling his mom in the hospital."

He cleared the papers on his desk, dropping his voice to a bare whisper while keeping his eyes glued to the stack of files: "Take the cash and get out of here. Don't tell a soul about this phone. The mailkeeper isn't a good person, kid. I'm just an old man with two ears that listen and a mouth that knows when to shut tight."

Cassian looked at the old mailkeeper with complex eyes. He slowly gathered the two dollar bills, tucking them carefully into his pants pocket alongside the slip with the ICU number. "Thank you, Mr. Pike," Cassian said softly.

Pike didn't answer, merely waving his thin hand to shoo him away like a nuisance.

In the days that followed, life at Blackthorne Academy marched on with brutal, grim discipline. But for Cassian, his goal had become clearer than ever.

Every two days, right at lunch hour, Cassian would secretly make his way to that dark corner of the library.

Old man Pike was always sitting there, silently sliding the flip phone across the oak desk. Those brief two- or three-minute calls to the Mercy Hospital ICU became Cassian's sole lifeline to the outside world, the only thing keeping him from being consumed by the madness of this academy.

"Your mom's fingers twitched slightly today," Dana whispered over the phone during his call on the sixth day.

"The doctor just reduced her sedative dosage," she reported on the eighth day.

Every tiny piece of information was an invaluable mental lifeline for Cassian. But the cost was steep.

Sitting on his straw bed in Room 104 late one weekend night, Cassian secretly pulled out his remaining cash to count under the dim light of the arched window.

Twenty dollars... ten... then five...

The meager 38 dollars he had brought from Iowa was draining away with every tick of the clock. After this afternoon's call, he had a grand total of 8 dollars left in his hand.

Cassian squeezed the remaining loose bills tight in his fist, his gaze fixed out the iron-barred window, where layers of thick autumn fog rolled in to blanket the ancient stone buildings.

Only enough for two or three more calls. Once this money ran dry, he would lose all contact with his mother, sinking into Blackthorne's darkness without a soul ever knowing. He needed to find a new way to earn money—or another path to escape the clutches of this trap.