Echo School

* 2015
* 1915

**Echo School** was a school that formerly served the town of Echo. It closed down around 1980, and from then on students from Echo were bused to Payton. It appears in its heyday in The Smoke Room and as a dilapidated ruin in Echo.

## Description

Echo School is a two-story brick building, with a basement and about thirty rooms inside. The first floor housed Echo Elementary School and Echo Junior High School, and the second floor held Echo High School.

The building is dilapidated by 2015, with clouded, smashed windows. The front door is barricaded by a thin piece of plywood, with a small, rusted tin 'No Trespassing' sign hanging from it. The field in front of the school is seemingly still in use, as there is a white soccer goal.

In 1915, the school looks much more pristine and the grounds are well-kept. There is also a large observatory dome affixed to its roof.

## History

The original Echo School was built in the early 1900s. According to Gretchen Byrnes, the school's headmistress in 1915, semi-annual Picture Day picnics have been held at Echo School for the previous thirty-two years, meaning the school or its precursor has occupied the site since at least 1883. In 1910, the school secured a large grant from the governor to construct an observatory and began offering astronomy classes to its students.

The building was later torn down and rebuilt in the 1950s.

Echo's population dwindled and Echo School closed sometime after 1980, with too few students remaining to keep it functional. From then on, children living in Echo were bused to schools in nearby Payton. After the school was was abandoned, it became a rite of passage among local teenagers to sneak in at night and draw graffiti. According to Carl Hendricks, the building was never demolished because the town had plans to turn it into a museum.

# The Smoke Room

#### Murdoch's Route

Murdoch is regularly hired to take the yearbook photos for Echo School, and he heads there in advance of Picture Day with Samuel to distribute order forms to each class. Sam observes an English class taught by Holly, who reads aloud a passage from *Macbeth* and asks Blithe, one of her students, about its meaning. He also meets Dahlia, the school librarian who also maintains the observatory, and Gretchen, the headmistress.

Sam returns to the school on Picture Day to help Murdoch and talks with Blithe and her friend Melissa outside. The atmosphere at Echo School is festive, with a large cookout taking place in the schoolyard, and the grounds are crowded with students and parents.

Later in the route, Sam is invited to visit the observatory by Dahlia and again encounters Blithe there. Blithe eventually hires Sam to help her track down Melissa, who has disappeared, and reveals that four other girls and two boys from Echo School have gone missing in the previous month.

A dream from Melissa's perspective later shows her and Blithe in their English class, studying *Jane Eyre* with Holly.

# Echo

#### Flynn's Route

On Wednesday, Chase visits the school to gather B-roll footage for his project. Just as he is about to leave, he spots what he describes as a ram's horn inside one of the second-story windows. A voice compels him to investigate, but Chase only manages to open the front door before deciding to leave.

#### TJ's Route

On Thursday night, Chase, Carl, and TJ break into the school in search of a letter that they believe has been left by their deceased childhood friend Sydney Bronson as part of a treasure hunt that he created when he was alive. In Room 301, they find it in a small toolbox left on a windowsill.

## Notable Individuals

### Faculty

* Dahlia Byrnes (c. 1915) - Librarian, astronomy teacher
* Gretchen Byrnes (c. 1915) - Headmistress
* Holly Byrnes (c. 1915) - English teacher

#### Students

* Mary Applegate (c. 1915)
* Melissa Boike (c. 1915)
* Blithe Washington (c. 1915)
* Bailey Freeman (c. 1915)
* Unnamed bobcat (c. 1954)

## Trivia

* When Chase looks through the documents kept in Echo's town hall during Flynn's route, there are no records of Echo School.
* Students from Echo High's Class of 1959 made a rock bench inscribed with their class year and left it overlooking Echo Canyon. Chase and TJ sit together on the bench after their hike to the canyon in TJ's route, and rest there with Jenna during her route when the three hike together.
* By the events of Echo in 2015, Dahlia's observatory is completely absent from the roof of Echo School. The reasons for its removal are currently unknown, but it was presumably demolished during the remodeling in the 1950s.