The Screaming Season

by Nancy Holder

  I jerked and raised my oar out of the water. “Where?” I cried, half rising.

  “Stay down.” She raised her oar too and pointed at the stern. “Eleven o’clock, on your side. See it?”

  I stared hard. Fog rolled toward us, obscuring the moonlight, making it harder to see. I craned my neck as my heart jackhammered against my ribs. The water was obsidian shadow against ebony depths with no variation, except . . .

  “Wait. Yeah,” I said under my breath. “I see it.”

  A streak in the water, streaming straight at the boat. Reflexively, I lifted my feet and swallowed, hard.

  Mandy shrieked with laughter.

  “Psych!”

  Livid, I balled my fist and socked her on the arm.

  “Ow, ow!” she shouted. “Child abuse! Child abuse!”

  “Shut up!” I hissed. “Oh, my God, Mandy!”

  “I’m sorry.” Chortling, she rubbed her shoulder. “It was just . . . there. Waiting to be done. It would have been a waste of a good prank not to have done it.”

  “What is it with you and pranking?” I asked, clenching my jaw. “Some kind of fetish?”

  “I don’t know. It’s sick.” She sighed and picked up her oar. “I first contacted you-know-who as a prank.”

  “And that went well.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “It did, for a while.”

  The bottom of the boat made a scraping sound; we’d reached the other side of the lake. I was so relived I nearly wet my pants. Without waiting for my orders, I jumped out and dragged the boat farther onto land. I couldn’t wait to get out of the boat. I’d give anything to hitch a car ride back.

  “Come on,” Mandy said, putting on her cap as we doubled over and crawled from the loamy earth into a stand of pine trees. Beyond that, there was a crumbling stone wall, very picturesque. Mandy led the way along it, then stepped over a ruined heap of rubble. A well-worn trail through wild grasses proved the popularity of our route.

  “Voila,” she said.

  Across a vast lawn dotted with semicircular benches of white marble, brick walkways, and a large fountain sprawled a three-story white and brick colonial-style building. It was topped with a rotunda, like the White House, and white columns held up an overhang that sheltered the entrance. The glass doors formed a panorama window, and through it, ferns in marble urns flanked a reception desk that looked like it belonged in a posh hotel.

  “Sacrebleu, it’s so cheerful,” I said.

  “Whisper, tea leaf.”

  She gestured for me to follow her as she darted to the right, feet crunching on white gravel. There was no fog on their ground. We ran past brick walls covered with ivy, turned left into an alley, and exploded out of the darkness onto what appeared to be a soccer field. Overhead lights beamed down on lush grass; Mandy skirted the yellow circles, zooming along the perimeter. She was a blur of black, like a cat.

  It had occurred to me when we’d left Marlwood that if Mandy and I had a fight, I’d have to get back to campus on my own. But now, as we cruised the warren of miniature alleys and identical brick buildings, I knew I would have to stay on her good side. Short of a GPS or ghostly intervention, I would never find my way out of Lakewood alone.

  About midway down our sixth or seventh alley, Mandy screeched to a halt and put one of her boots on the rung of a ladder obscured by ivy. It clanged. She giggled and began climbing like Spider-Man. I knew I was supposed to follow, and I wondered if Miles had been wrong about my physical condition. I was winded, and my lungs hurt. It seemed to me that my pneumonia had been real enough.

  With hardly any pauses, Mandy rocketed all the way to the top of the three-story building. Then she hung over the side of the building, calling sotto voce for me to hurry up. I was wheezing. I made the mistake—only once—of looking down, and even though I had farther to go up than down, a rush of vertigo hit me.

  Mandy kept gesturing at me and I finally made it up. As I swung my leg over the wall on the roof, sweat congealed into ice and I shivered. But Mandy was already headed for a door. She squatted beside it, pulled out a loose brick, and showed me a swipe card inside a plastic bag. She ran it through the door’s card reader and the lock yielded with a click.

  I held the door open while she put the key back in the bag and replaced the brick. I’d have been happier if we’d kept it. Then Mandy scooted around me and headed down a pitchblack staircase. I could hardly hear her footfalls. Stealth Mandy.

  She’d already told me the plan. As an honor senior, Troy got his own little suite, with a sitting room, a bathroom, and a separate bedroom. And most importantly a balcony, which was how we would enter without being detected.

  Troy usually stayed up very late, at least until one, because he was a night owl with a sweet final-semester schedule that allowed him to sleep in. I could verify that much—I’d talked to him on the phone late, whenever I could get a connection.

  We went out the back door of the building to a landing. Facing us, Troy’s white balcony jutted toward us. There was a space between our landing and his of approximately two feet. All we had to do was climb up onto the rail, balance for one terrifying moment, take one giant step, then grab the white wrought-iron wall of the balcony and climb down.

  Mandy went first. She scrambled up onto the railing and opened her arms for balance. As she hovered, I looked down at the rectangle of crushed white rock below. If you fell three stories onto gravel, would you die?

  I thought of the hours of begging and demanding Celia had subjected me to, insisting that the only way I would ever be free of her was to kill Mandy Winters. I braced myself for another barrage now.

  Nothing.

  Mandy extended one leg, balancing like a gymnast. The wind picked up. I held my breath, wondering why she was taking so long. I still didn’t trust her. And now, on this crazy night, I wasn’t sure I trusted myself. I stayed back, arms folded, and waited.

  “Oh, God,” Mandy whispered.

  I gasped, running toward her, arms extended in case I had to catch her. And then, just as I reached the rail, she pushed off, cleared the space, and balanced on the balcony wall. Then she stepped gracefully down.

  She’d faked me out again.

  She gestured for me to hurry up, mouthing, “I’ll catch you.”

  The wind blew harder. A cloud crossed the moon, dimming my vision. Not sure, not sure at all.

  And then suddenly, wildly, I climbed up, stepped into thin air, and found the balcony with my Doc Marten. I fell into Mandy’s arms and she caught me. Then she lowered me to the balcony deck and kissed me on the lips.

  “Blech, Mandy,” I managed, but I was so pumped from making it across the gap alive that I smiled as I pushed her away. She put her finger to her lips, reminding me to be quiet.

  Then she crooked her finger and we tiptoed around the side of the balcony. A light beamed brightly, and I could hear Troy’s voice. He was talking to someone.

  “His bedroom,” she said.

  “This is stalkerish,” I whispered, and she nodded happily.

  We reached the window. The curtains were pulled back. A dim light shone. Mandy bent beneath the glass, staying out of range. I did too. On a silent count of three, we raised our heads.

  Mandy pointed downward. Troy’s bed was up against the wall beneath us. He sat with his back against it, wearing a white T-shirt, gray sweats, and bare feet, and he was on the phone. From my vantage point, I could see the faceplate. There was a picture of a girl with short reddish-brown hair.

  “Yeah, I got it today,” Troy said. He reached down beside himself on the bed and picked up a sheer piece of red fabric. I gaped. It was a thong. “Under my pillow, you know it.”

  “That pig,” Mandy whispered fiercely. She reached up as if to knock on the window. I grabbed her hand.

  “Not worth it,” I whispered. I was crushed. Troy was a pig. Troy. He’d just broken up with us, and he was getting underwear from another girl?

  Were all guys just one guy ? A handsome jerk w
ho pretended to like you, then cheated on you?

  While I pondered, Mandy pounded on the window, hard. I collapsed into a little ball.

  “Yeah, you!” she shouted.

  “Oh, God,” I muttered, lifting my head and resting it against the wall.

  A few seconds later, I heard a sliding glass door. Then Troy emerged, without the phone, his face a mixture of guilt, embarrassment, and anger. He was looking at Mandy. But as I got to my feet, he stared at me. He looked like a fish. If I could have laughed, I would have.

  “Hi, Thongboy,” Mandy said, stomping over to him. “So I got pushed down by the lake and I passed out, and when I woke up, the choker you gave Lindsay for her birthday was lying on the ground next to me.”

  “Oh, my God, Mandy, are you okay?” he asked, peering at her forehead. He looked at me. “What happened to you guys?”

  “I told you, I was pushed. She fell off a motor scooter. But someone jumped out so she would swerve. And we think it’s you.”

  “What? Why?”

  We were clearly light-years ahead of him.

  “Because when I woke up, there was a red thong lying on the ground,” I deadpanned.

  Mandy whooped with impressed delight. She high-fived me as Troy stood there, sputtering.

  “Oh, my God, you’re one of those sex addicts,” Mandy said. “Or else just an immoral, horny little teenage boy.” She batted her lashes at me. “Must make you feel like a loser to know that he left you out of his harem, Lindsay.” I squawked out a protest. I’d thought we were bonding. I tried to think of an appropriately snarky comment, but I had nothing. I kept thinking about Riley and Jane, and how hurt I had been. How naive I still was. Because in all my scenarios about Troy, I had never figured him for a player.

  Because he kept telling me over and over that he wasn’t.

  “We’re coming through your crappy dive to go home,” Mandy told him. “And I’m taking everything I ever gave you. Including the pass to our suite at the ballpark.”

  “Mandy,” he said, “listen.”

  She pushed past him and walked into his suite. I followed, her unwitting, unwilling accomplice. His living room furniture was leather, with brass studs and dark bookcases crammed with lots of books. A gym bag sat in the middle of the floor and there was a sleek laptop beside it. Without missing a beat, Mandy walked to a bookcase and grabbed a hardback book. She handed it to me.

  Tantric Sex Secrets.

  Ewwww.

  His bedroom was significantly more lived in, piled with things. Jeans, T-shirts, and shoes were strewn everywhere. How many pairs of athletic shoes did one need? How many socks? There were posters on the wall, mostly forested landscapes, but there was also a large glossy picture of Emily Blunt, signed. Mandy reached up and ripped it down. She dropped it to the floor and walked over it.

  I walked around it.

  Mandy grabbed up his bomber jacket—the one he’d placed so sweetly around my shoulders more than once—and pulled open the top drawer of a dark wood dresser. She grabbed up tighty whities, socks, coins, and leather necklaces with things dangling from them and tossed them over her shoulder. She reached in and handed me a Rolex watch. A scattering of cuff links and rings that went flying like comets. And an embossed journal. And a fancy pen. A cashmere scarf.

  She picked up speed, showering his floor with his stuff.

  “Mandy,” he said.

  She flew into his closet and grabbed a black silk shirt. A snowboard. A pair of skis. She handed me the snowboard and started to pick up the skis.

  She clearly had not thought about how to get all this back to Marlwood.

  “Box the rest,” she commanded him. “Ship it to our place in San Francisco.”

  Then she led me out of the bedroom, through the living room, toward a front door. My arms were full. It didn’t matter if she took these things. He had more things. And he could buy whatever he wanted to replace the things we took.

  She was heaving with exertion as she maneuvered to open the front door without dropping the skis. I followed, wanting to die.

  “Lindsay,” he said.

  She got the door open. We were standing in a carpeted hallway with walnut paneling. She charged to the right, hoisting the skis over her shoulder. I dropped a few things. I didn’t stop to see what they were.

  I looked over my shoulder at Troy. He looked like he’d forgotten who he was. That might have been nice for him.

  We went into the elevator, went down, went out, and crossed to a side door. She opened it, blasted outside, and held it for me.

  “Have you got everything?” she asked. “Because once I shut it, we can’t get back in.”

  I nodded. We hiked back to the lake, staggering under the weight of Troy’s possessions.

  Once there, she stood at the water’s edge and threw it all in. Skis, snowboard, jacket, Rolex. Rings, coins, cuff links.

  “Some ghost is going to be very happy with all this crap,” she told me.

  And then we rowed back to Marlwood, screaming with laughter, so loudly our voices scared the birds off the water.

  EIGHTEEN

  THE NEXT MORNING, Mandy walked up to me in the breakfast line, which was such an event that people stopped talking to observe it. Mandy was haggard and pale, and she hadn’t changed her clothes. Her hair was a mess, and I didn’t think she’d even washed her face.

  Granted, we hadn’t gotten back to Marlwood until nearly after three, but we’d had at least four hours to clean up and get some sleep. And Mandy had often bragged that she thought sleeping was a waste of time. That she would sleep when she was dead, and not a minute before.

  “Linz,” she said, taking my arm and pulling me out of the line, which was annoying. I was tired and hungry. But the fear in her eyes trumped my low blood sugar. Something else had happened.

  “Someone was in my room while we were gone,” she said. “And they trashed it. My clothes are slashed. It’s like they took a hammer to my jewelry.”

  “God, Mandy. Who?” I kept my voice low. Everyone was dying to know what the great enemies Lindsay Cavanaugh and Mandy Winters were talking about in such hushed, earnest voices.

  She took a deep breath. “I locked the door. I made sure. No one else has a key.”

  I tried to keep my face neutral. Rose and I had broken into her room with ease, using Rose’s lock pick kit. Later, during a séance, Rose stole a key for me to use. We’d snuck it back, but maybe someone else had taken it without Mandy’s noticing. Her room was usually as much of a disaster as Troy’s had been.

  “Is anything missing?” Could she tell?

  “My Ouija board,” she said. “And my picture of Belle.”

  “That thing with the half-eaten face?” I said. It was so faded and moldy. I didn’t know how she slept with it in her room.

  “And Belle’s locket,” she concluded.

  I’d had Celia’s locket, but I’d lost it in the snow. The inventory made it obvious that someone else knew about the possessions. And the only person I knew who fit that description was Miles.

  “What about Miles?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral. “He carted off all that other stuff. Your research.”

  “But he just took it. He didn’t destroy my belongings. Whoever did this was . . . crazy. Really enraged.” She went even paler. Her skin was tinged with blue. And she was trembling.

  “It could be one of your coven chicks,” I whispered. “The ones you tricked into getting possessed. Or one of them while they were possessed.”

  “Yes,” she mused, showing no remorse over having done so. “That would make sense. We know it wasn’t Troy. But there’s the key issue again.”

  “Key issue. Maybe someone can pick locks.” I had to say it. She looked so scared. Now that we were frenemies, it fell on me to help her out if I could.

  “Are you going to tell security?” I asked her.

  “I don’t think so,” she said slowly. “I think we need to keep it on the down low and figure it out ourselves. There
would be too many questions that I wouldn’t be willing to answer.”

  I heard the “we.”

  “We’ve got to be careful.” She wiped her face with her hands and dropped her hands to her sides.

  I heard the second “we.” But she was right. We did have to be careful.

  Oh, my God, I thought, how is this happening?

  “Body part,” I said. “The hair in the locket.”

  “But that was David Abernathy’s hair, not Belle’s,” she said. “I still have the mourning brooch with her hair in it.”

  I remembered my wish to contact my mother. Did I have anything of hers? I’d washed her UCSD sweatshirt a million times. Maybe her fingerprints were on the framed picture of her, my dad, and me on our last family vacation. We’d gone to Vegas. She wouldn’t gamble for her life, but she’d doubled down for free drinks and potato chips.

  I had my mom’s DNA. Could I be her body part?

  “Well, it is what it is,” Mandy replied. “Later, yes?”

  “Sure,” I replied as a default, not really because I was saying yes to anything.

  As I went through the rest of the day, I got a lot of looks. Everyone knew that I loathed and despised Mandy Winters. Clearly that had changed, and a big question mark was dangling over my head. Plus, by coming to me, she had outed me to whoever had hurt her and ruined her stuff. It was possible, although not likely, that Miles and I had had a genuine accident. But Mandy had dragged me into the sights of who ever was targeting her. Maybe she’d done it on purpose, to advertise the fact that she had backup.

  Her sidekick, Emo Girl.

  I gave as many looks as I got, although I was far more discreet. If Miles hadn’t ruined Mandy’s things, who had?

  I didn’t rule out Belle. Mandy didn’t remember entertaining a male visitor, so maybe Belle had. Maybe he had wanted to punish Belle for going to see another guy, even if she had done it while hitchhiking in someone else’s body. Just as he had hitchhiked in some guy’s.

  I pondered all the pieces as I went jogging after dinner. I knew I was supposed to take a buddy for safety, but I told myself I’d stay in plain sight and stick to the main paths. I didn’t want to fend off any more questions about Mandy.