The Moth Diaries

by Rachel Klein

I need to see her. Who knows what she’ll be like now, with the blood of so many other people in her body. No longer Lucy. I tried to imagine what that must feel like. Your blood is such a personal, intimate thing. Now she’s being kept alive by other people’s blood.

  February 23

  When can I see Lucy? That’s all I want to know.

  February 24

  Every day it’s the same: I can’t see Lucy. I don’t need to ask anymore. When Mrs. Halton sees me waiting in her sitting room, she just shakes her head and says, “Not yet. You just have to be patient.”

  “But when am I going to be able to see her?”

  “Soon, I hope. She’s getting a little stronger each day.”

  February 25

  I’m beginning to give up on the idea of seeing Lucy again before vacation. I know for sure that she isn’t coming back to school. She’s going straight home from the hospital. I would have to go to her house, with her father and the dog. I don’t know if I could stand that.

  February 26

  I stare at the blank page, and I leave it blank. No news. No new thoughts. My journal has abandoned me when I need it most. I have no desire to write.

  February 27

  I can’t be patient any longer. I haven’t thought about anything but Lucy for ten days. I have to see her.

  February 28

  Maybe I should just go to the hospital and try to sneak into Lucy’s room. I don’t think Mrs. Halton is ever going to let me visit her.

  MARCH

  March 1

  I want to kill Mrs. Halton. The old witch. The next time I see her, I’m going to put my hands around her neck and squeeze until her eyes turn white. All this time, when I’ve been begging her to see Lucy, she’s been letting Ernessa visit her. I overheard Kiki at breakfast this morning telling Claire and Sofia that Lucy was much better. I asked Kiki how she knew. It was obvious she’d made a mistake letting me overhear this.

  “I don’t know,” said Kiki. “I just heard.”

  Then Sofia said, “Oh, stop it. Ernessa told her. She visited Lucy in the hospital.”

  Kiki had to come out with it: Ernessa had been there several times last week because she was, as Mrs. Halton puts it, “Lucy’s very special friend.” What does Mrs. Halton know about anything?

  “She makes Mrs. Halton feel sorry for her,” I said. “That’s why she’s allowed to do whatever she wants. Mrs. Halton lets her get away with everything. My father died too. Has everybody forgotten that?” I shouted the last words. They all understand that kind of manipulation. I was so embarrassed that I ran up to my room and slammed the door behind me. I sat on my bed and cried.

  March 2

  It’s too late to see Lucy, ever.

  I don’t think I can cry anymore. There are no tears left.

  When Mrs. Halton came out to check on us at quiet hour, I was waiting for her outside her sitting room. At first she tried to deny that anyone had been allowed to see Lucy, but when I said that I knew Ernessa had been to the hospital, she admitted that Ernessa had visited, but only twice, and very briefly each time. “Lucy asked for her.” She said it in a very mean way. She knew she was hurting my feelings. When I insisted that she allow me to see Lucy, she said, “If we must continue this conversation, come into my room.”

  She closed the door behind us. “It is not appropriate for you to talk to me in this tone of voice,” she said. “These things do not depend on you.”

  I told her that she was dishonest and I intended to speak to Miss Rood about it.

  “There’s no point in doing that,” she said. “I wouldn’t have told you this because I was sparing your feelings, and I know how emotional you are, but Lucy has taken a turn for the worse. She’s very, very ill. The doctors don’t think she’ll last the next few days, she’s so weak. The school is extremely concerned.”

  “Then I need to see her one last time. To say good-bye. It’s absolutely necessary,” I shouted.

  “Out of the question. Only family members can visit her.”

  She actually smiled as she told me this.

  I picked up her porcelain shepherdess from the table, the one with a pink dress and long blond hair and a crook in her hand, and before Mrs. Halton had a chance to ask me what I was doing, I threw it on the floor in front of the door. We both watched it explode into pieces while the head, still intact, rolled to the edge of the rug. I would have thrown everything on the table after it, but Mrs. Halton grabbed my arm, twisted it, and shouted, “You disrespectful girl! I should have you expelled!”

  I turned and ran out of her room and down the corridor. I’ve been crying for the past three hours. I didn’t come down for dinner. I don’t care if I get into more trouble. Mrs. Halton hasn’t come looking for me. She’s staying away. She thinks I’m going to talk to Miss Rood.

  Ernessa is killing Lucy. She wants to turn her into something like her, to consume her completely. Killing means nothing to her. It’s just a means to an end. Death is where she’s taking her. And Mrs. Halton is holding the door open.

  March 3

  Lucy is lying on her bed in the hospital. She no longer has the strength to lift her hand or to raise her eyelid, but that doesn’t matter because she has no reason to do it. She no longer cares. She is perfectly calm. She is ready.

  I’m waiting to hear that Lucy has died. I haven’t heard anything. Maybe Mrs. Halton only told me that to torment me, to play a sick joke on me. Lucy must still be alive; otherwise we would have heard something. Someone would find out. They can’t keep that secret from us.

  March 4

  I haven’t been punished for smashing the stupid shepherdess. When I pass Mrs. Halton in the corridor, she looks away. She knows I know. She’s afraid to meet my gaze.

  I can’t ask her about Lucy. All I can do is wait.

  March 5

  I waited for her for a long time. I skipped breakfast. I was afraid I would miss her. The other girls on the corridor came and went while I stood silently by my doorway. No one said a word to me. The bells for assembly rang, and she still didn’t appear. She’s the kind of person who leaves everything to the last minute, even past the last minute, and manages to get to assembly or dinner or classes just before the door shuts.

  When her door opened and she walked out, I was surprised to see her, even though I had been waiting for her for an hour.

  She looked at me as she pulled the door closed behind her. “You overslept?” she asked.

  “Why her?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer me. “Why not Kiki or Carol or Betsy?”

  “I could ask you the same question,” she said.

  “Because she’s my friend.”

  “If she’s your friend, why are you standing here, waiting for me?”

  “You and Mrs. Halton are trying to keep me away from her.”

  “Mrs. Halton? What can she possibly do? Lock you up and throw away the key?”

  “I’m already in enough trouble with her.”

  “No one is stopping you. You can do whatever you want.”

  Ernessa started to walk down the corridor. “What does she look like?” I called after her. My voice was so desperate I could no longer recognize it.

  “It’s time for assembly. I’m already late. So are you.”

  She continued to walk away. I ran after her and grabbed her arm. I wanted to make her stay and answer my question. She always comes and goes exactly as she pleases. No one can make her do a thing she doesn’t want to do. She flung me away. I hit the wall so hard that I couldn’t breathe for a moment. She pushed up the sleeve of her sweater and showed me her arm. “Look what you’ve done,” she shouted.

  I could see the imprint of my hand on her forearm, as if I’d grabbed onto clay rather than flesh. The skin was red and swollen. The sight of what I had done made me sick.

  She made it to assembly, but I didn’t go. I’m going to be in so much trouble.

  March 6

  March 7

  March 8

  I j
ust talked to Lucy! If someone can talk to the dead, that’s what I did. She sounded like someone far, far away. Mrs. Halton wasn’t lying about one thing. She was really sick, and the doctors did think she was going to die. Her heart and lungs were filled with fluid, and they had to drain them. She had a breathing tube down her throat until yesterday. Even today, on the phone, she could barely speak.

  Carol called me to the phone. She had a queer look on her face when I passed her in the corridor. I thought, this is probably my mother, calling to tell me that she won’t be able to pick me up on Friday. I don’t want to talk to her, to pretend. I picked up the black receiver, lying on its side on the telephone table like a little animal.

  “Hi, it’s me,” came the voice through the telephone lines. I had to strain to hear her, and she had to rest between each word to catch her breath. Her voice was different. I couldn’t recognize it. I kept staring at the telephone, in disbelief, convinced it could communicate with the spirit world. I realized that I had already begun to think of Lucy as dead, even though she hadn’t died. The thought came to me that I could call my father on this little black telephone.

  Really? I kept thinking. Really?

  “I wanted to visit you,” I said, “but Mrs. Halton wouldn’t let me. She let Ernessa, but she wouldn’t let me.”

  “Ernessa hasn’t come. For a while,” said Lucy.

  “You don’t sound like Lucy.”

  “It’s too hard to breathe. Force the air into my lungs. The doctors think I’m a miracle.”

  “Well, they would, considering the fact that they couldn’t figure out what was the matter with you in the first place.”

  “I miss you. I miss school,” said Lucy.

  “You sound so far away.”

  “I am so far away. Tell me I can come back.”

  There was a long silence, broken only by Lucy’s harsh breathing.

  “Were you scared?” I asked.

  “Only at first,” said Lucy. “I got used to it.”

  She needs me to pack a bag and collect her schoolbooks and try to get her homework assignments. Her mother’s coming to get her stuff tomorrow or the next day. She’s being transferred to another hospital near her home at the end of the week, if she continues to get better.

  “In an ambulance. The whole way,” she said. “Do you think they’ll keep the siren on?”

  She didn’t call Ernessa and ask her to get her things together. I feel like telling that to Mrs. Halton.

  I’ve already told everyone that Lucy’s much better. We’re all so happy about it.

  March 11

  I don’t have time to write now. It’s ten o’clock, and I still have lots of homework to do, and I have to pack for tomorrow. I’ll be able to catch up over vacation.

  March 12

  Spring vacation. I’m home. I’m tired.

  I got so behind in all my classes and had to spend the last week working all the time.

  Lucy’s mother came on Tuesday to pick up her stuff. Until I saw her, I wasn’t sure that I had really talked to Lucy. She gave me a big hug. Lucy is much stronger. It was hard for her mother to believe that a week ago the doctors said she was about to die. She was taking Lucy away on Wednesday, and she thought Lucy might only have to stay in the hospital for a few days before going home. She’s going to try to do all her schoolwork over the vacation. And then she’s coming back to school, if she’s completely recovered. Now they think it was a virus and the body got rid of it by itself.

  I told her that I begged my corridor teacher to let me see Lucy, but she refused.

  “Lucy was really too sick to see anyone,” said her mother.

  “But Ernessa was allowed,” I replied.

  “What a mistake,” said her mother. “I shouldn’t have let her talk me into that. Those visits were too emotionally draining for her, but Lucy kept insisting that Ernessa would help her get better. Ernessa would make her not so afraid. It was always Ernessa. I finally gave in. I didn’t want to upset her. But after each visit, Lucy would weep for hours, and then she got sicker. It was just too much. …”

  I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t any point. They can look through microscopes for viruses all they want. They won’t find any.

  We all left this week – Lucy, Ernessa, me – and it would be best if we never saw each other again, ever. I’d be willing to give up Lucy just to keep Ernessa away from her.

  I need to go to bed. I’m going to sleep for the next two weeks.

  March 13

  I have to put everything down, just in case I need to look back. … I need to leave a precise record. I can’t rely on my memory.

  For the last two nights before I came home (Wednesday and Thursday), I woke up in the middle of the night. I sat up in bed, suddenly wide awake, but when I got out of bed, I felt as if I were still lying in bed and dreaming myself moving across the room. There was a noise on the drive outside my window, of dry leaves and acorns being blown about. I looked out. Someone was walking back and forth under the windows of our suite. So this is what she does every night, I thought. She watches us sleep. I wondered why I hadn’t bothered to look outside my window before. The noise stopped when I got to the window, or I didn’t notice it anymore. She moved like an animal in a cage, ten steps in one direction, then exactly the same number in the other direction. The whole world is too small for Ernessa. She’s trapped inside it. Why did she come back to this boarding school? Here everyone is in boxes inside boxes – the iron fence, the Residence, the second floor, Mrs. Halton’s corridor, the room, the bed. Boxes for girls who are not ready to face the big world of men and sex. I know how unreal it is. I’m not a fool.

  She was making me aware of her. I almost felt sorry for her. If only she hadn’t ruined my life. I watched her pace for two nights, for hours. She moved with the same anxious energy that makes her practically inhale her cigarettes. She never slowed down. And then the sun started to come up. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, and she was gone.

  I’m sitting at my father’s desk. His books are all around me. They have the answers to her secrets.

  March 14

  She changes everyone around her. She finds out who they are and turns them into something else.

  In September, just after school started, Dora and I were kind of friendly with Ernessa. We even spent an evening together. Lucy wasn’t there. It was a Saturday night. She must have gone home for the weekend. She was going home practically every weekend then to be with her mother. I looked back through my journal, and I can’t find anything about that evening. That’s strange, because I remember quite clearly what we talked about. Ernessa asked us about Miss Bobbie, who was already on her case after two weeks of school. I said that I didn’t take her anti-Semitism in a totally negative way. I didn’t mind being excluded. It meant I was different from the rest of them.

  Ernessa laughed at me. “I don’t have your sentimental feelings about being Jewish. The religion is a burden, a cosmic joke. If Jews are chosen, it’s only for special punishment. The whole world is their graveyard. Any Jew who thinks differently is demented.”

  “Is that how you can stand to speak German?” I asked. “The language of murderers.”

  “You know some German, I think. The language of Rilke and Heine,” said Ernessa. “Of the greatest lyric poets. Besides, every language is the language of murderers. It’s only fitting that the language with the most deaths should have the most sublime poems.”

  I was shocked. I hardly knew her then. She was a girl from some strange country who had materialized out of nowhere and ended up across the hall from Lucy and me. She and I were the only real Jews in our class. I looked over at Dora. She was scowling. For her, being a Jew was just an intellectual pose. She dropped it whenever it got in her way. She unjewed herself. When Dora was around Ernessa, she needed to feel Jewish, even though Ernessa didn’t take her own Jewishness seriously. In the end, Miss Bobbie hated all three of us.

  It’s always described the same way: a long
black animal that resembles a cat, four or five feet long. The animal paces the room faster and faster as everything whirls around and grows darker. It’s like a terrifying ride in an amusement park.

  But it’s not true.

  Has anyone ever really seen a vampire?

  Can anyone stand to see it?

  Ernessa always shows herself to me in human form. And yet, I always have the sense that she’s trying to confuse me, to trick me. I felt this way when my father died. Why deceive me?

  March 15

  I am a coward. All the evidence was right in front of me last fall when Dora died, but I refused to do anything about it because I was scared. Ernessa only cares about Lucy. She doesn’t even see the rest of us. We are only annoyances. Our lives have no more value than that of a fly you swat without thinking. She wants a companion in her existence. One companion, all hers, forever.

  Remember: It is not love. It is passion. And the vampire needs the consent of the victim.

  March 16

  The books are all wrong. Most of the writers don’t believe in vampires. They’re always trying to come up with a scientific explanation for everything. It’s like writing a book about Jesus and then concluding at the end that he couldn’t possibly have existed because there was no street address for him in Nazareth. Why bother? Montague Summers even says there is “the philosophy of vampirism.” Philosophy?

  I have to figure out a way to protect Lucy. If she can just make it to the end of school, I think it will be all right. Just another three months and maybe Ernessa will give up and go back where she came from. I don’t know if I’m strong enough, or brave enough. I didn’t save Daddy.