Kitty did not sleep well the night of the murder. The tree outside the window kept tapping on the glass and she could hear rats skittering through the attic. But worse of all was the snoring. Nobody tells you that girls snore, and Kitty had not noticed it the first two nights in the orphanage, but it seemed to get louder and louder, like battle-cries of the dreaming. Once she had started to hear it, she knew she could never stop.

She had been listening to the snores, taps, and skitterings for hours before she decided to get up. And from the moment her small, naked feet touched the floor she knew something was wrong. It took her a moment to realise. No one was snoring.

“Are you guys awake?” Kitty said.

The snoring started again. It was louder than before. Amid the roars and grunts, Kitty crept to the white door – the only way in or out of the girls’ dormitory, though some of the bigger girls said there was a secret passage through which they snuck boys.

Kitty walked past the rows of beds, neatly organised like soup on a shop shelf, to the white door. She twisted the door knob. Then she rattled it, tugged it, hit it. The door was locked. Kitty had only been at the orphanage for two weeks, but she knew that no one ever locked the white door to the girls’ dormitory.

A rat skittered through the attic, and an unhappy feeling grew inside of Kitty. She knocked once on the door, trying to alert someone. She waited for a reply, the familiar sound of familiar footsteps. And she waited.

A branch tapped at the window, and the snoring grew louder.

Kitty was stuck. She could not leave the room, but she could not stay either, for the snoring was so loud and the rats kept moving and-

“Little girl, may I come in?”

Someone was in the room. Someone with a whiny voice and someone close.

“Hello little girl. I asked you a question little girl.”

Kitty turned.

The man was tall, taller than anyone Kitty had ever seen, and that made him terrifying. She was not scared by the tongue that lolled from his mouth when he spoke, nor the way his skin stretched around his head like wrapping paper, nor the knife he held. It was the height that scared her.

“Haven’t an answer, little one? That’s quite alright, I’m sure one of your friends will.” The tall man moved towards one of the beds.

“She’s not my friend.” Kitty said.

“Then you don’t mind if I do this?” And he stuck his knife into the sleeping girl’s stomach.

It was so quick that Kitty was unsure whether he had moved at all. But something had happened. The blood and the screaming made that plain.

After a moment, Kitty realised the screaming came from her and she stopped. The tall man smiled and took a step toward another bed and another sleeping, snoring figure.

“Pl-please don’t!” Kitty stammered.

“But they’re not your friends little one. Why does it matter?” The tongue lolled out with every word.

“They are! They’re all my friends, please.”

“Are you lying… little one?”

“No!” Kitty caught her voice then, and she screamed.

A giant hand closed over her mouth. It tasted like olives, she thought. And then she thought nothing.

*

“Up! Up! Everybody up!”

The shrill voice shocked Kitty awake. She was too tired to think, so she just did as the voice commanded and got out of bed.

“Morning prayers!” It was one of the nuns.

Kitty snuck into her slippers and joined the trail of drowsy girls, moving out the white door.

“You at the back, close the door behind you!”

They meant her, Kitty realised. She swung the door closed behind her, turned the key, and jogged to catch up with the trail of girls.