by Nancy Holder
“You should be scared,” I blurted. “But not of me. Julie, please.” I welled up.
And then she looked at me very hard. I saw tears in her eyes, too. She said, “Mandy’s nice. And so are the other girls. But I thought that you . . . you and I . . . ” She licked her lips. “You get it. How hard it is to be at boarding school. Everything is so easy for them.”
“Julie,” I said, moving toward her.
She stiffened and turned away, as if she had said way too much—shown her vulnerable side to the wrong person. Me.
“I still think of you as my best friend,” I told her. “Please, Julie, please, listen to me.”
“Lindsay-girl, phone,” Ida said, poking her head in.
I wondered if it was my dad. The snow was coming down, and more parents were hastily readjusting their already-changed pickup plans.
I hurried to the kitchen and picked up. It was Troy. I had asked him not to call on the landline, since I didn’t want anyone to know about us.
“Lindsay, I’m doing it tonight, at the bonfire. Breaking up with her,” he said. “Meet me where I tie up my boat.”
“You can’t row,” I pleaded. I was a mash of emotions—joy, terror, dread. Hope. Fear. For him.
“Meet me at the tie-up,” he repeated. “I have to go.” The phone went dead.
“Troy?” I whispered. “Hello?”
I waited in case he called back. I dialed him.
No service.
I went back to our room to grab my cell. Julie was gone.
I raced out of Grose and caught up with her. I wanted to make a detour to Jessel’s porch to call Troy back, but I didn’t want to leave Julie again. I was afraid. I needed her, and I needed to keep track of her. Tonight was the last night anything could happen.
“Hey,” I said.
“Ida told me that was Troy on the line. Are you seeing her boyfriend behind her back?” she asked me. Her face was set with intense disapproval. “So you made up all this stuff about her?”
“Julie, no,” I said. “No, it’s not like that at all.”
She didn’t speak to me again as we walked to the dining commons with the rest of the school—a walking fashion magazine of yuletide glamour. The horse heads stared. Mandy and her girls were up ahead and I watched Julie watching them. Her eyes narrowed. Oh God, was she going to tell Mandy?
The commons were breathtaking, with silver and gold tablecloths and ice sculptures of reindeer illuminated by floodlights. The tables were set with silver plates decorated with little gold stars around the borders. Our napkins were folded into stars. Silvery confetti trailed down embroidered runners with ornate Ms entwined with more stars.
Julie stayed with our Grose table for dinner. But her attention was on Mandy’s table, and she was very quiet. When we cleared out to go back to our rooms to change for the bonfire, I lost track of her.
Nor could I find Mandy and the others.
I panicked, working my way through the moving mob, calling her name. Girls were staring at me; teachers were frowning. I was causing a scene. I didn’t care.
I ran up the hill to our dorm. Julie was in our room, already changed into a pair of jeans and boots. She was pulling on a dark green sweater over a long-underwear top; she jerked when I slammed open the door and fell against the wall, gasping for breath.
“Thank God,” I heaved, leaning forward.
“Oh my God, you are insane,” she said.
“Julie,” I said, “I’m not. I—”
And then my attention ticked to the white head. It was sitting on my bed, gazing blankly at me.
“Why did you move that?” I heard the tremor in my voice.
“What?” She looked at the head, frowned, shrugged. “I didn’t. Maybe I did. I don’t remember.”
“Julie,” I began. “Please, let me talk to you.”
She grabbed her coat and walked in front of me. “Excuse me,” she gritted her teeth, and made a point of keeping her distance as she circled around me and went into the hall. But I could hear her slow footsteps; she was waiting for me even if she didn’t want to admit it.
“I’m coming,” I said softly. I stared at the head. It stared at me.
I left the room and hurried after her. She gave me a once-over and frowned, gesturing to my clothes, my army jacket layered over my skirt.
“You can’t wear that to the bonfire.” She was practically running away from me. “Just . . . leave me alone.”
“Julie, please, please listen.” We were outside, and I saw the bonfire, burning at the entrance of Academy Quad. Above us, on a hill, the administration building was ablaze with lights.
The bonfire was ringed with huge logs and sawhorses with caution tape—not as quaint and picturesque as I had imagined it—and it rose at least fifteen feet in the air, yellow and crackling. Girls in jeans were gathering around it—girls with silk mistletoe pinned to their hair; or wearing silver garlands around their necks. Charlotte the goth wore black bat deely boppers. I saw Sangeeta in a puffy Indian-style embroidered jacket and gathered black wool pants.
Mandy stood beside her, dressed in black, like me, with a heavy parka. The fire played over her face, smudging her eyes and cheeks with deep hollows. She looked very tired. Thin.
Kiyoko had started out looking like that. Maybe the stress of channeling some Ouija board nightmare was too much for her.
I met her gaze, held it. I would not back down. I would not—
But when Mandy smiled, she looked so evil that I missed my footing, and stumbled.
Julie shot on ahead without looking back at me, and headed straight for Mandy. Mandy held out her arms like our Catholic saint, and Rose and Lara greeted Julie like a long-lost relative—like the missing sister of the girls in the photographs. Alis was there, too, wearing a backpack. I thought of Kiyoko’s backpack, filled with rope and alcohol, back on the night of her prank almost two whole months ago now.
One-two-three-four-five, not counting Julie. Maybe they couldn’t do anything with only five. Maybe Kiyoko had known that. Maybe she had meant to drown in the lake, break the curse and save Julie.
Kiyoko, I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you when I had the chance. Oh God, they’re going to do something.
I started to head toward them, just as Ehrlenbach appeared in a long black wool coat and black pants, a black knitted cap like a rotten mushroom accentuating her bony, tight face. A cheer rose up and dozens of boys in jeans and jackets loped from the direction of the parking lot by the admin building. Lakewood had arrived. The girls’ side did not greet them with the usual giddiness. Our faces were grim. Everyone was quiet, shuffling around the fire to get warm. Trying not to think of Kiyoko, lost out there, swallowed and then spit out by that awful lake.
I saw Troy in a black leather jacket and jeans, the blazing flames surrounding him like an aura. Then he turned and saw me, and his intense blue eyes startled me. I wanted to run to him and tell him what was going on. He trotted over to Mandy and brushed a casual kiss on her lips.
Julie looked around, and for a minute I thought she was looking for me. I raised my arms and waved.
“Get away,” I shouted, but my voice was lost in the roar of the bonfire. She rolled her eyes and her gaze moved over and past me; I realized she was scanning for Spider.
“Excuse me,” I said, working my way through the mob as stapled song sheets began to make the rounds. The snow fell heavily, and I saw Dr. Ehrlenbach glance up anxiously, then turn to Ms. Shelley, the receptionist, who checked her watch.
A tall guy moved in front of me, blocking my view. By the time I got around him, Julie, Troy, and the others were gone.
“Oh no,” I whispered. “No.” I fought to stay calm. They wouldn’t do anything around Troy. Julie was safe—
Unless Troy was in on it.
“Oh God, oh my God,” I gasped.
“Hey, Linz,” said a voice behind me. It was Elvis. She was holding Caspi out to me.
I blinked.
“She said
to give this to you.”
“Julie?” I blurted.
Elvis shook her head. “Mandy.”
I looked down at the unicorn. A white rope was tied around his neck, with a little folded slip of paper attached to it. As Elvis walked away, I unfolded it. The handwriting was ornate, old-fashioned.
Now. You know where.
B. J.
B.J. What? I didn’t know where.
Help me.
Yes, yes I did know.
“Belle Johnson” wanted to see me.
In the operating theater.
thirty-two
Snow fell like dirt clods and the bonfire blazed as I ran into the forest. No flashlight, in a skirt. I could hear the singing—“We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” My mind was hyper-alert, keeping track of every detail around me—the distant singing, the snowflakes, the wind. My breath.
And the ghosts of details: the odor of burning wood, and . . . other things on fire; wisping curls of vapor that looked exactly like smoke.
They’re Devil worshippers. Phantoms. Demons. Let it be a prank. Let it be a big fakeout. They’ ll laugh their heads off like they always do. Except when Kiyoko died. Oh God.
“Help me,” I said aloud.
My skirt tore on the undergrowth, I fell over a tree root, got up, and stumbled over a rock. My hands were cold and bleeding. Every once in a while, my mind would explode with an image of Julie, dead, and I would start crying. I couldn’t cry. I had to get to her. I held onto Caspian as if that would keep Julie safe.
The snow was falling, tapping my head and shoulders like bony fingers. Branches yanked my hair; the icy bluster smacked my cheeks. Finally, I stopped, winded, scared, and hopeless. I didn’t know where I was.
“I’m here!” I shouted, but the noisy forest swallowed up my words. “Damn it, Mandy!”
I panted, trying to catch my breath; mixed with the smoke, I smelled blood on my face. My left ankle throbbed. Something skittered across the tip of my boot and I was too exhausted and scared even to react.
I sank to the ground and sobbed.
“Help me. Mem,” I whispered; because I hoped that whatever had been guiding me really was the one whose nickname was M-E-M-M-Y.
An owl hooted, and something inside me moved. It told me to get up. It helped me get up. I took one weak, staggering step forward. Another. I couldn’t see where I was going. I didn’t know what I was doing.
But something did.
“Memmy?” Was she there?
In the forest, I remembered something I had buried a long time ago: a memory of my mom, when she was in the hospital. We were going to visit her. My father had brought a bouquet of flowers. I got scared and told my dad I had to go the bathroom. He said to go ahead; he’d meet me in her room.
I stood paralyzed in the hall; then, ashamed, I hurried to catch up. I was concealed by the pale green curtain that stretched across the room, for privacy.
I heard my mother start to sob; she said, “Help me, Evan. I’m so scared.”
I’d reeled. If she was scared, then things were bad. Then she must have sensed I was there, because she sniffed one more time, then said in a cheerful voice, “Oh, what beautiful flowers.”
“Mem, things are so bad,” I pleaded. “If you can help me now, please, please do it.”
I let myself be moved, imagining she was holding my hand and guiding me through the darkness. If that was a lie, like the flowers, I would use it anyway.
The smoke smell grew stronger. I didn’t want to go there; I didn’t want to see the dark hulk of the operating theater. But as I staggered out of the dense stand of pines, I saw lights flickering through the holes in the walls, and I knew that they were waiting there. For me. I took a deep ragged breath.
Okay, I thought. Bring it on.
Then I remembered the other entrance, the tunnel half-buried in the ground, filled with ashes and blackened bricks. I crept around, searching for it. I saw the empty square where a door had once stood, and walked through it.
No, something protested inside me. For the love of God, no.
It wasn’t my mother. But I didn’t know what it was. I wanted to listen. I wanted to leave. But they had Julie. Whoever they were.
So I crept through the ashes, wishing I’d listened to Julie and changed into jeans. Wishing that I had never come to Marlwood. I was shaking, and I could feel myself beginning to unravel, the way I had back in San Diego. But I couldn’t; there was too much at stake.
The ashes seemed to thicken around my shoes like quick-sand, or hands. I remembered the article about the fire. Were these . . . those girls who had died . . .
I thought I heard groans, and the memories of screams. Roast her alive . . . oh God, I should have made Julie believe me. Or at least tried to tell Dr. Ehrlenbach what was going on.
Seven girls died in a fire in 1889. Somehow beyond what I could fathom, it was happening all over again. Another seven girls, another fire. I knew it—the truth rang out from inside me. But why? Why was this happening? I stumbled onward.
The door to the basement was ajar. I pushed quietly. It made no noise as I entered the basement. It was pitch-black. I stood in silence, listening, hearing my own panting, short breaths. They weren’t there. I hadn’t been to many other parts of the building. I didn’t know my way.
Above me, I heard noises. And then a shout, cut off. My hair stood on end.
Julie, I thought. Hold on. I’m coming.
I held my hands out in front of myself and took a step forward. I couldn’t see anything. There was no light anywhere. I took another step, stopped, tried to catch my breath as I trembled and my teeth chattered.
One more step. My foot touched something. I drew back with a gasp and moved to my right. Were they in the room, waiting to jump out?
Another step. Footsteps, overhead. They grew fainter.
I shuffled forward, the hair on the back of my neck prickling. Suddenly, I was certain that I wasn’t alone in the dark room. I could feel that coldness against the back of my neck and I had to bite down hard on my lower lip to keep from crying out. I hunched my shoulders together; the coldness remained, like a frozen hand.
Kiyoko? I thought. Is that you?
Help me. The voice answered inside my head. I remember the figure I had seen in the tunnel at Jessel. Was she with me now?
I picked up speed, moving blindly. I had no idea how I kept making myself move forward.
Show me, I said.
I felt a coldness on my neck, and this time, I moved to the left.
I began to panic. Was something—someone—controlling me? I was so unbearably scared. I had to breathe. I couldn’t. Yellow dots swam in front of my eyes.
The pressure increased. I wanted to raise my hand and touch my neck but I couldn’t; I didn’t dare. I walked forward, kept walking. How, I didn’t know.
Because I have to, I thought. Because Julie needs me.
And my racing mind pulled in the last thing Jane had said to me. It was a fluke; after my breakdown, I hadn’t gone anywhere, done anything. I stayed away from everyone. But one night, I had finally left my house and gone running in the park, to get the oxygen in and the adrenaline down, and I’d stopped to stretch.
Jane had stepped from the shadows. She’d looked at me, didn’t say hello, or say sorry—none of that. Her lip had curled back in a sneer and she’d said, “I can’t believe you bailed, Lindsay. You should have fought for Riley, if you liked him so much.”
My mouth had dropped open. I just stared at her. I was stunned by her unbelievable gall.
“Having a breakdown is just a convenient way to bail,” she’d gone on. “Everyone feels sorry for you, and you get to give up.”
I couldn’t bail now. I couldn’t fall apart. So I finally forced myself to breathe and let the thing guide me though the black hole of the basement.
I pushed on yet another door. It swung open.
I shook my head. I didn’t want to go through any more doors, any closed spaces. I began
to freeze up. I couldn’t move. I shook so hard the bones in my head ached.
No. I could do this. I could.
Okay, I thought, and started walking.
A horrible stench hit me—smoke and cooked, rotting meat. Dead things. I blinked back tears and hugged myself. I wanted to stop so many times.
I thought I heard more groans as I stepped through more ashes.
I stretched out my hands into empty space. I lifted my foot.
Stairs.
I began to climb through the blackness, bracing myself each time I took another step, thinking that I would collide with someone, or someone would jump at me and push me down to the bottom.
I could almost hear voices, but I didn’t know if they were inside my head. Echoes and echoes of echoes, laughter. Through the smoke and kerosene, I smelled blood, and urine, and the terrible metallic odor of sheer fear. After I reached the top of the stairs, I stepped on something hard that cracked beneath my shoe, like bone. I bit the inside of my cheek and tried to breathe through my nose.
I did hear voices, and saw the bloom of light ahead of me. I had no idea how I kept going; more light flared against a black, shattered wall far ahead of me. I started going down at an angle; there was more light and I was able to make out my surroundings. I was walking onto a smashed sort of balcony littered with curved rods of metal and slats of rotted wood. It was like the horseshoe lecture hall for my lit class, only instead of individual desks in rows of semicircles, there were three balconies, and they had at one time ringed the entire the building.
Snow sprinkled down on me; I looked up, to see sections of the wall that had fallen in. The moon glowed overhead, until it disappeared from view.
And then I saw a silhouette against the blue moonlight and faint yellow lamplight. It was a girl’s face, and she was turned away from me. I knew that face so well.
Julie.
She began to turn toward me, and I ducked down behind a pile of debris and peered over the side of it. I didn’t know why, but in the next instant, I was glad I had: she wasn’t alone. Mandy’s head appeared beside her, as the glowing skeleton I had seen in the turret room floated over her living body. Its shroud-gown flapped in the real wind, and snowflakes fell on flowing dark hair that whipped around her like tattered sails on a tall ship. The shape of her head reminded me of Julie’s white head in our room.