The Screaming Season

by Nancy Holder

  “Lindsay,” she said. “We should call someone.”

  Miles pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and toyed with it. “I’m not a bad guy, like the Marlwood Stalker. Lindsay knows that.”

  Julie looked at me, eyes wide with astonishment. When Miles smiled more brightly, she glanced nervously over at him, then back at me.

  “I do not know that,” I replied.

  “Neither do I,” Julie said. She shifted her weight again.

  “Look.” Miles cocked his head. “If I really wanted to do something evil to her, would I actually come to your room?”

  She huffed. Someone had attacked Julie at the beach house last fall, and we still didn’t know who. There were strict rules about boys on campus, but the rules didn’t apply to the Winterses. I wasn’t sure they even knew what rules were.

  I gave Julie a little wave, telling her not to even bother with him. Obviously freaking, she crossed to her closet and pulled out some dark brown wool trousers, a wide belt, and a purple top, then a beautiful brown and gold brocade jacket. From her dresser she palmed what I imagined was some underwear, a bra, and some socks. She also grabbed her makeup bag. Throwing me one more questioning look, she left.

  “How’s Mandy?” I asked him as soon as we were alone.

  “Oh, God.” He slumped and walked to my window. From there he looked down at Jessel, the last rays of the sun etching his profile into the glass. “How is she? Well, she’s been better.”

  He lifted his hands and rested them on the top of the white head. Jerking, he glanced down at it, then ran his hands down along the sides to the temples.

  “Let’s see . . . ”

  He picked up the head and carried it toward me. I fought to hide my revulsion. He tapped a marked-off section above the forehead marked with a large 7.

  “She has contusions of the 7. Bruises,” he said. Raising his hands, he caressed the 7, then moved along the left and right sides of the head toward the temples, marked 11 and 12. “And some scrapes at the undecim and the duodecem. Not bad or deep, but painful.” Then he led with the back of his hand, allowing his fingernails to glide over the lips. “A tiny cut here. Just a nick.”

  He ran his thumb along the outside line of the upper lip. It was sickening to realize he was fondling the head like some huge weird love object while he was talking about his own sister. His outrage at my comment at the roadhouse seemed even more off given how much he was baiting me.

  He carried the head over to my bed and sat down, his back pushed up against the wall, and cradled it on his lap. He tapped the forehead. “Right there at the bull’s-eye. That was where Abernathy would aim the ice pick sometimes. But he also went through the eye socket. A few wiggles, taps of the hammer . . . ” He set the head on the nightstand and tsk-tsked.

  “Why do you do it?” I asked him. “Work so hard at acting like a freak?”

  He grunted. “Did you do group therapy when you had your breakdown? You have that same sort of confrontational style.”

  “What happened to Mandy?” I asked him. “Did you beat her up?”

  “What?” He whipped his head toward me.

  I waited. He folded his arms across his chest and frowned at me. A silence grew between us. After a few seconds, he unfolded his arms and chewed on his lower lip.

  “I thought you knew what happened to her,” he said. “She won’t tell me. But she wants to see you. Alone.”

  I jerked, startled. “Why?”

  He lowered his head and looked up at me through his lashes. “You two have so much in common, no?” His voice shook. “And she and I . . . don’t.”

  He sounded jealous, as though there had been a rift in their force. I didn’t understand him. I trusted him less. “Why are you acting so weird? Are you actually saying you’re jealous that you aren’t possessed? Were you in her room last night?” I asked.

  His surprise seemed genuine as he shook his head.

  “Excuse me, are you asking me why I’m upset? Have you completely forgotten what’s happened to us in the last twenty-four hours? Have you seen my sister? She’s hurt.”

  I didn’t stop to point out that upset and weird were not synonyms.

  “There was a guy in her room last night. I thought it might have been you.”

  A beat. “A guy?” He looked astonished.

  “And today she’s got contusions of the seven,” I said.

  A red flush washed up his neck and spread across his face. He pushed up off my bed, straightening, feeling in his pockets as if he were assuring himself that he had something. What? A gun?

  “I’ll kill him.”

  “I didn’t see who it was,” I said quickly. “Don’t jump to conclusions.”

  In a fury, he headed for the door. “Oh, please.”

  “Miles, don’t.” I got up and followed him. He kept going. I reached out and tugged on his sleeve. “Don’t.”

  He shook me off. “Why not ? He charmed you too. Mr. Charming, stringing everyone along, so tortured and niceynice-nice, confusing her, hurting her.”

  I reached out and tugged again. “Miles, wait! Stop!”

  He whirled on me. “Why? Why should I?”

  A high-pitched scream shattered the fury between us. It came from down the hall, toward the front door. We looked at each other, then bolted out of the room, racing like one person toward the sound.

  FOURTEEN

  I STOPPED THINKING as I ran in the direction of the scream. I operated on pure adrenaline, my only aim to help whoever was screaming. I pushed around Miles in the narrow hall; he bashed against the wall, sending bad art flying, the frames clattering on the hardwood floor. If he yelled, I didn’t hear him.

  I was all about the scream.

  Wheeling left, I burst into a room to find Claire on her knees, doubling over, making retching sounds. I fell to the floor beside her, cupping the sides of her head and bending low to peer into her face.

  Her eyes were bulging and she was gagging. In case she was choking, I formed a fist and pounded on her back. She shook her head wildly.

  “Get me out of here, oh, God,” she whispered.

  Miles took both her hands and urged her to her feet. I stood too, trailing after her as Miles dragged her out of the room. She was hiccuping and crying, and her free hand was around her wrist. At first I thought she was trying to get free of him, but then I saw that she was clinging to him. I followed, gazing back into the room. Once we were out, I shut the door.

  “Ms. Krige!” I shouted.

  “She’s not here,” Miles said. He pulled Claire down the hall, toward our front door, then stopped and bent his knees so he could look into her eyes. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  Claire couldn’t stop shaking. I wanted to get her some cold water or find her a place to sit down, but as I moved, she let go of Miles and grabbed onto my forearm. Her eyes were enormous and pleading. She was shaking, and tears were cascading down her face. When I tried to speak, her fingernails dug painfully into my skin.

  I walked her toward the door. Miles held it open and we burst out onto our porch. Claire practically propelled me down the path that led to Academy Quad. I gave Miles a stern look to back off and he slowed, then stopped, and Claire and I kept on going without him.

  She leaned forward and made more heaving noises. Then she groped for me, as if she were blind. I held her tightly.

  “Claire, you have to tell me what’s wrong,” I insisted. She was sagging against me. My back was spasming from the effort of trying to keep her from sliding into a puddle beside us. “Tell me now.”

  “G-ghost,” she whispered. She choked back another scream. “In my room.”

  I caught my breath. Before I could say anything, she went on in a rush. “Dr. Morehouse said it’s because I’m too stressed, but I really saw it. It wasn’t just a—a dream.” She grabbed at my shoulders as if she were going to climb up my body. “Lindsay, it was . . . ” She shut her eyes.

  I pried her hands off my shoulders and gave them
a squeeze. She wept hard, each sob a sharp contraction of her stomach. I glanced up at Miles, who was loitering about thirty feet away, watching us closely. My gaze drifted past him to Grose, my dorm. I couldn’t see into Claire’s room—it was on the opposite side of the hall, the windowless side—and at the moment, I was glad I couldn’t.

  Then I looked over my shoulder at Jessel. My line of sight led directly into Mandy’s turret room. The curtains were open, and she was staring down at us. The white bandage looked like a ski headband. In the dim light, I couldn’t make out her expression. Then she moved away, disappearing from view.

  A ghost. In Grose. That someone else had seen. More proof.

  There was another long silence between us. As Claire cried, my mind raced. Thunder rumbled and I glanced up. Gray clouds were scudding across the sky, smothering the last of the sunlight and casting us in nickel-plated shadow. A sharp wind schussed, stinging my face, and I shivered.

  That seemed to trigger something in Claire. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and exhaled sharply.

  “Dr. Morehouse says I externalize my fears,” she ventured. “That’s why I’m having the nightmares and I—I’m sleepwalking.”

  Alarm bells clanged, but I kept calm. I counted to ten before I spoke again.

  “But you were awake just now.”

  “Oh, my God, it was horrible!” she screamed. “I really saw it, I did. It was there. I don’t care what he says!” She pawed at me, as if she could climb inside me and hide.

  The way that Celia had.

  “Please, tell me what it looked like,” I said. “Because . . . I’ve seen things too.”

  She jerked as if someone had shocked her. She looked away from me and stared hard at the ground. She caught her breath again and I looked down too. She was staring into the puddle.

  My hair rose straight up. I saw nothing in the water, but that didn’t mean that there was nothing there. Something that Claire could see. Was she possessed? When she looked back at me, would I see that her eyes had turned completely black?

  I was afraid of her. But she was in such anguish that I made myself stay planted beside her. I cleared my throat.

  “Claire,” I pressed gently.

  “She was floating in the air,” Claire whispered. “She was white, everything white, except her eyes, and she had a hole in her head.”

  “A hole.” My voice was hoarse. I tried to clear it again, but my throat was so tight I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to breathe.

  “She was there,” Claire said. “He says it’s stress. He’s seeing a lot of it. Because of Kiyoko. There’s so much pressure on us, from our families . . . ” Could I confide in her? She was so terrified, torn between her own reality and what shouldn’t, couldn’t be real. Was it better to know there really were vengeful ghosts that could possess you and force you to do evil, horrible things?

  You don’t know that, I thought. You don’t know if Celia made you do anything bad.

  “I just want to scream,” Claire whispered, holding on to me. “I want to go home.”

  As I hugged her, more wind whipped up, blowing straight through me, as if I weren’t solid. Miles was scowling at the empty turret room window.

  “We’ll go get a security guard,” I suggested.

  “No.” She grabbed my hand. “They won’t see anything. You didn’t.” Squeezing so hard that my knucklebones scraped together, she searched my face. “Did you?”

  “I’ll go back and take a look,” I said, sounding far calmer than I was. “Why don’t you go somewhere where there’s people?” Night was settling around us. “The commons might be open for dinner. Or you could go to the library.”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere,” she said. “I can’t move.”

  “I’ll check it out,” I promised.

  She looked through her hair at Miles. Her face changed into a hard mask of anger. “He did it. The Winterses think it’s so funny to scare people. I’m sure it’s something he worked out with Mandy. That’s why he was in our dorm.”

  I realized then that my offer to call for help could backfire. The grown-ups didn’t know what was happening or, if they did, could never admit it. They might just get in my way.

  “Go ask Miles if they were pranking me.” Her voice was a hoarse croak. “Make him admit it.”

  I turned to go; she grabbed me hard, shaking. Her hands were like ice, but so were mine. The air was frigid. She had no jacket. Neither did I.

  “I’ll go ask him,” I told her. “Stay here.”

  I worked at her fingers; she couldn’t seem to let go. Her lips were gray, her face very white. She almost looked like a ghost herself.

  Aware that she was watching and that Mandy might have been too, I crossed back to Miles. He had just lit a cigarette. He drew in, held it, exhaled.

  “Where does Mandy want to meet me?”

  “In the conservatory.” He held out the cigarette to me. “During study period.” Smoke trailed upward, meeting the last moments of sunlight.

  He gestured with his head at Claire. “Did she really see anything? Or is that an existential question best left for the sages among us?”

  “Oh, my God, you’re so screwed up,” I said, sounding as angry as Claire. “I’ll go see Mandy on one condition.”

  He raised a brow, as if he had any power in this situation, as if he could grant favors. He took another puff on his cigarette.

  “You have to tell me right now if you did anything to Claire’s room to make her see things.”

  He frowned. I held up my hand.

  “You’re her brother. I’m sure she sent you pictures of the haunted house Jessel made for our Halloween carnival. She had help from friends at Disney, for God’s sake.”

  “It was spectacular,” he murmured, smiling faintly.

  “How can you smile?” I demanded. “Look at Claire. She’s losing it.”

  “How can you not smile?” he countered. “Don’t you feel more than one thing at a time? That’s what insanity is, trying to feel one way. That’s why it feels good to go crazy. Or to be addicted. It’s so much easier than feeling several things at once.”

  “You, you’re . . . ” I said. I looked away from him. “Tell Mandy I’ll meet her.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, sweeping a little bow.

  “And stay in your guest bungalow,” I ordered him. “You can’t creep around all the time. It’s scaring everyone.”

  “They should be scared. But not of me.”

  I walked past him and headed back to Grose. I didn’t want to do it; I was scared too. As I reached the door, Marica and Elvis sauntered up. One glance at me and they traded a look.

  “What’s wrong?” Elvis asked me.

  I pointed down the hill at Claire. “She thought she saw something in her room. She’s scared. I told her I’d check it out.”

  Elvis and Marica glanced in Claire’s direction. Elvis did a double take. “Hello? Marlwood Stalker? Could it by chance have been Miles in her room?”

  “Don’t think so,” I replied, hedging.

  “Oh, my God, are you insane?” Elvis stared at me, then took off back down the path toward Claire, who had moved to the center of Academy Quad, huddling against the cold. Keeping his distance, Miles was smoking. Marica stayed with me.

  “If there’s someone in her room, we should call for help,” she said reasonably.

  “Marica, she thought she saw a ghost,” I told her.

  Marica sighed. “She’s been very worried about the meeting that she had with Dr. Morehouse. She talked a little bit about the stories that Marlwood is haunted. She wants to go to Harvard, and she’s afraid they’ll think she’s too unstable.”

  She made a slicing motion across her neck. “I told her next time just to say that she is great.”

  Next time? Stories? I wondered if I had been mentioned. Lindsay Anne Cavanaugh, freak show. The weird poor girl who kept flinching at the reflections of mirrors and windows.

  “So it’s best
not to call security,” she finished.

  “Okay,” I said. “Then let’s go.”

  I was grateful that she was willing to come with me and that she didn’t ask any questions, or remind me that I had been raving about ghosts and possessions during my breakdown in the operating theater—a Valentine’s Day prank gone horribly wrong.

  Valentine’s Day was my birthday. My mom had always said I was the best valentine she could have ever asked for. That was one thing I had—my mom’s eternal love.

  We entered the dorm, striding past the little table where a figure of a saint or a shepherd or something kept watch over our incoming and outgoing mail. On the whiteboard, Ms. Krige had scrawled, Ms. Shelley ill. I am covering phones.

  I was striding down the hall, propelled by fierce emotions I couldn’t even name. Marica kept up with me. I smelled her perfume; she was always made up, even in the middle of a crisis.

  “In here,” I said, opening the door.

  As I entered Claire’s room, I was hit with the scent of geraniums. I took a step backward in surprise, bumping into Marica. She caught me by the shoulders and walked around me, looking around the room and then at me.

  The scent grew stronger. Was Memmy with us ? Had Claire actually seen my mother?

  But Memmy didn’t have a hole in her head, I thought.

  “You smell it too, don’t you?” I asked, and when she inhaled deeply, her forehead wrinkling, I knew her answer. She didn’t.

  Did I hear a sigh brush my ear?

  Did someone touch my cheek? “My perfume is awfully strong,” Marica said, apologizing.

  She wasn’t aware of the presence in the room. I didn’t know what to say or do. If it was my mom, oh, God, if it was my mom . . .

  “Lindsay?” Marica said.

  Then it was over. All I smelled was Marica’s perfume. All I sensed was her presence.

  My throat tightened, my chest constricted, and I made a show of walking around the room, calling out to Memmy in my mind, and in my heart, to come back. Marica trailed after me, tilting her chin thoughtfully as she came to Claire’s framed hideous Hawaiian art. She said nothing, only moved on, picking up a book, setting it down.