Where Sleeping Girls Lie

Sade is climbing down a balcony to leave a party thrown by the boys of Hawking House at Alfred Nobel Academy. She hurries to the car where her friend is waiting, surprised to see tears on Sade’s cheeks. When she asks what happened, Sade stammers, “he’s dead.”

On a Monday five weeks before the party, Sade Hussein arrives at Alfred Nobel Academy to start her third year of high school. Miss Blackburn, the school’s matron, is waiting for Sade. She mispronounces Sade’s name, and the girl corrects her before remembering that teachers on television “rarely seemed to like being told they were wrong” (4); she is used to the tutors who taught her at home. Miss Blackburn scolds Sade for being four weeks late for the start of term. She wonders aloud how Sade’s parents let her arrive in such a condition, and Sade interrupts her to say that her parents are both dead; her mother died by suicide when Sade was 10, and her father died of a heart attack just a few days before Sade’s new school year was meant to start.

ANA is beautiful, but something about the school feels “too flawless.” Sade grew up with wealth and luxury, and she knows that it comes “with an abundance of secrets” (7). Inside, she is sorted into Turing House, and Miss Blackburn informs Sade that she will have a house brother and sister to help her settle in. Sade’s house sister is also her roommate, Elizabeth Wang. When Miss Blackburn introduces Sade to Elizabeth, she looks for a moment “as if she had seen a ghost” (9). She recovers quickly, however, and invites Sade on a tour of the school.

On the way to the dorms, they pass a statue of “an old white guy” that Elizabeth introduces as John Fisher, the school’s founder, and jokes he would have “hate[d] [her] guts since he was not that fond of women or people of color” (10). Next, they pass the Newton Sports Center. Sade is distracted by “a year-old memory” (10), seeing a lifeless girl floating in the water, as she asks Elizabeth if there is a pool. Elizabeth informs her that Alfred Nobel Academy is famous for its swim team. At Turing House, Elizabeth’s phone pings, and she grimaces as she checks it. As she and Sade approach their shared room, Elizabeth freezes, staring at a dead rat on the doormat. She throws the animal’s body away and tries to shake off the incident while Sade watches in shock.

At lunch, they are joined by a pink-haired boy, who Elizabeth introduces as Baz, short for Basil. Baz asks Sade about herself. She shares a “half-truth,” telling Baz and Elizabeth that she was homeschooled before ANA because her father traveled a lot for work. Baz asks if she has had “the real tour of the school yet” and starts to share gossip about different groups of students who are having lunch (17). He points out the theater students and the swim team and tells her about the school’s famous Hawking parties, “essentially high school frat parties” with exclusive guest lists (18). Three girls walk into the cafeteria and immediately capture Sade’s attention, especially a beautiful, brown-skinned blond. Baz tells Sade the girls are called the “Unholy Trinity”; Juliette de Silva is the goalie of the girls’ lacrosse team, April Owens is the group’s “leader” and Elizabeth’s former roommate, and the blond who caught Sade’s eye is deputy head girl Persephone Stuart. Elizabeth asks to change the subject, and Sade wonders what happened between her and April when they were roommates.

Sade sometimes experiences panic attacks; she starts to feel the tightening in her chest and a voice in her head whispers that coming to ANA was a mistake. Baz and Elizabeth notice that she looks strange, but she tells them nothing is wrong and agrees to go to the greenhouse with Elizabeth while Baz leaves for rowing practice.

Elizabeth lost her position as president of the biology club after a “rumor” that she killed the club’s hamster, but she still has the keys to the greenhouse and goes there to be alone and water the plants. Sitting together on the roof, and Elizabeth tells Sade that her mother was Baz’s grandmother’s nurse. They grew up together like siblings. Sade admits she “had someone like that” (27), but they passed away. There is an awkwardness between her and Elizabeth; Sade wonders if she can “sense that she [is] a bad omen” and wants to “escape” (27), but instead, Elizabeth admits she knows how lonely that must be and tells Sade that she has two new friends in her and Baz. Sade isn’t sure she “deserves” them, but she is determined to try and “be normal.” She and Elizabeth shake on their new friendship, but then Elizabeth’s phone pings again. In an instant, Elizabeth’s smile and familiarity are gone. She tells Sade she has to pick up some homework, and Sade heads off to reception to find her dorm key and welcome packet. However, she suspects that something is wrong with Elizabeth.

After picking up her key, Sade goes to Newton Sports Center. She feels as if she is being watched, but there is nothing nearby except “the looming presence of Hawking House” (29). Newton is deserted, and Sade finds her way to the pool, which is larger and deeper than the one she used to train in daily at home. She reaches down to touch the water, seeing blood swirling in it even though she knows it isn’t real, and is startled by a voice. A boy scolds her for being in the pool area with her shoes on and teases her playfully from the water.

Sade returns just before curfew, earning a scolding from the house prefect, Jessica. Inside, Elizabeth is already asleep. Sade climbs into bed and sees a girl in a white nightgown and braids that match hers solidifying in the corner of the room. Sade sees the girl every night in her nightmares, where she holds Sade and asks her to save her, but Sade now takes comfort in the girl’s presence.

On Tuesday morning, Elizabeth is already gone when Sade wakes up. She eats breakfast alone, frustrated with the lack of halal options, and goes to see Miss Blackburn for her class schedule. Blackburn also introduces Sade to her house brother, deputy head boy August Owens, who Sade recognizes from the pool the night before.

Sade arrives late to English, and the teacher, Mr. Michaelides, is already lecturing on Macbeth. He welcomes Sade to class and asks Persephone to help her get up to speed. When they are paired up to discuss the theme of relationships in Macbeth, Sade’s partner is a redheaded boy called Francis. It quickly becomes clear that Francis is “a mess;” he is fidgety, smells of smoke, and refuses to engage with Sade. Abruptly, he claims to need the bathroom. He hurries out and doesn’t return for the rest of the lesson. Persephone is waiting for Sade after class. She tells her to meet her in the library the following day and not to be late. Sade watches her walk away, feeling intimidated.

Sade spends the time between her last class and dinner in the library, feeling overwhelmed with her homework and “the other things she needed to accomplish” (42). Back at her dorm, Baz is outside her door, looking for Elizabeth, who he hasn’t heard from all day. He tells Sade that Elizabeth sometimes “goes away for a bit” (42); he’s sure she’ll get in touch when she’s ready. Sade, however, worries that something is wrong. She gives Baz her phone number in case she hears from Elizabeth, tapping it into an old flip phone because Baz recently dunked his smartphone in tea. Sade eats dinner alone, remembering the rat on their doormat and the look on Elizabeth’s face when she saw her phone.

On Wednesday, Elizabeth is still missing, and Sade sees Miss Blackburn escorting police officers into her office.

Back in English class, she is again paired with Francis to discuss the villain of Macbeth. They are arguing over whether Lady Macbeth is the villain when Sade is summoned to the headmaster’s office. Sade explains to the police that Elizabeth was asleep when she entered their room and gone when she woke up. However, she hesitates when the officers ask if she was in bed the whole night. She often sleepwalks without remembering and, therefore, cannot confidently say what she did that night. The officers believe Elizabeth is missing and have opened a formal investigation.

The chapter closes with a diary entry titled “I sleep, I drown & disappear” (48), followed by a footnote saying the phrase is an anagram. The writer thinks that they died, but they cannot remember clearly and feel as if they are in a dark room.

After class, Sade works on English homework with Persephone and is surprised to find her “nicer” than the other times they’ve spoken. Afterward, she runs into Baz, who is clearly worried about Elizabeth. He says that he knew something was wrong the night she disappeared, but he left her alone anyway. Sade thinks that she also knew something was wrong with Elizabeth and did nothing. She hears a voice in her head blaming her for letting “her die” and hears the slap of a man’s hand.

Back in her room, Sade sits on her bed while a team of police officers sorts through Elizabeth’s side of the room. She worries they will look through her dresser drawers, and as soon as they leave, she opens her top drawer and shifts something to the back and out of view. She decides to head to the pool, feeling both nervous and excited at the prospect of swimming again.

August is already in the pool. He challenges her to a race, and Sade wins easily, shocking the boy. He suggests she join the swim team, but Sade hesitates. Swimming “used to be her whole life” (56), but it has been a year since she trained. Unconvinced, August challenges her to see who can hold their breath the longest, and they both sink under the water. Sade opens her eyes and smiles at August but then notices blood spreading through the water. When she looks up, she sees a dead body floating above them.

Sade opens her mouth to scream, and water fills her lungs. She starts to choke and sink, but August lifts her out of the pool. Sade can still see blood spattered on the pool tiles even though she knows it is “her mind playing tricks” (58). She can’t explain to August what happened, but she convinces him she is fine.

On Thursday morning, the school calls an emergency assembly. Sade sits next to Baz, who looks tired but “weirdly happy to see her” (59), as Headmaster Webber discusses the investigation into Elizabeth’s disappearance and urges anyone with information to come forward. He assures the students that their safety is his top priority, but Baz mutters that the headmaster is more worried about losing their “parents’ money and sponsorships” (60).

Afterward, Baz confesses his worry that someone took Elizabeth, and Sade, who also has a strange feeling, assures him he isn’t being dramatic. He tells Sade that Elizabeth used to leave campus sometimes. She often visited a cat cafe in town to escape from the “cage” of school and once returned so late that she received a suspension warning. Because of this history, Baz worries that the headmaster isn’t taking her disappearance seriously. Sade wonders if Elizabeth was meeting someone in secret, but Baz is doubtful, convinced that he and Elizabeth told one another everything. Sade knows that “everyone [has] secrets” (63), but she agrees to help Baz conduct a search. She worries that she could have helped Elizabeth but failed again.

Sade eats lunch alone and is surprised when the Unholy Trinity approaches her table. April introduces herself, Juliette, and Persephone and invites Sade to have lunch with them the following day.

When classes end for the day, Sade and Baz head into town to look for Elizabeth with Miss Blackburn to chaperone. Their first stop is the cat cafe, which has a collection of desktop computers. The owner claims that he doesn’t recognize Elizabeth’s photo, telling them he would remember “a lady as beautiful as that” (70). Disgusted, Baz tells the man Elizabeth is 17, but he shrugs it off and refuses to show them any of the shop’s CCTV footage. Sade has questions about the cafe. She wonders if Elizabeth went there to use the computers and why she didn’t use the ones at school. Baz explains that all the school computers are monitored, and even students’ personal laptops and cell phones have programs installed to monitor activity.

After searching the rest of town, the two have no new information and feel discouraged. Baz begins to worry that he doesn’t know Elizabeth as well as he thought, and Sade tries to reassure him that he isn’t “a shit friend” (73). Back at school, Sade realizes she has misplaced her dorm key. Luckily, she finds a key under the doormat that looks just like her key, but she assumes the “s” must stand for “spare” and not “Sade.” In her room, though, her drawers have been opened and riffled through, and someone has tidied Elizabeth’s side of the room. On Sade’s bed is an unfamiliar wooden box.

The music box has an inscription that reads, “For my dear Elizabeth” (80), signed with the initials TG, and it is full of scraps of paper with Elizabeth’s handwriting. Sade struggles to make out the notes; one word looks like it reads “Fishermen,” but Sade can’t understand anything else. There is also a thick black envelope holding a letter addressed to Elizabeth and written in Morse code. Sade is interrupted by a knock, and Jessica scolds her for staying up past curfew. Sade tells the prefect she thinks someone was in her room, but Jessica assures her it was just the cleaning lady.