The Broken Girls

by Simone St. James

  “I only have an hour, I’m afraid,” Anthony said. “Shall we start with the main building?”

  “Of course.” As they started walking, Fiona pulled out her pocket MP3 recorder. “Do you mind if I record what you tell me? It helps to make the quotes more accurate.”

  Anthony briefly glanced down at the recorder, then away again. “If you like.” An electric security console had been installed on the main door, and he punched in a code. The console beeped, and he opened the door.

  “You’ve worked fast,” Fiona commented, thumbing on the recorder. “I noticed the new fencing and the electric gate as well.”

  “Security was our first measure. We don’t want the local kids treating this place as a free hotel room anymore.” He had walked into the main hall and stopped. Fiona stopped, too.

  It was a massive space, musty and dim, lit only by the cloudy sunlight coming through the windows. The ceiling rose three stories high; the floor was paneled in wood of a chocolate color so dark it was nearly black. In front of them rose a staircase, sweeping up to a landing on the second floor and another landing on the third, lined with intricate wood railings, the balconies on the upper floors spinning away from either side of the staircase like a spider’s web, fading back into the darkness. There was no sound but a silent hush and the rustle of a bird’s wings somewhere in the rafters. The smell was mildewy like wet wood, underlain with something faintly rotten.

  “Oh, my God,” Fiona murmured.

  “You are now looking at the main hall,” Anthony Eden said. She was beginning to see that his manner was more than stodgy politeness—he didn’t want to be here. Likely his mother had made him do this. “The building dates from 1919, and all of the wood is original. Much of it cannot be saved, of course, but we plan to restore the original wood wherever we can.”

  “Is that even possible?” Fiona asked, raising her camera and snapping a shot.

  “The wood experts arrive next week. There is a drainage problem on the east side of the property, so we’ve had to focus on that this first week, to halt the progress of the damp in all of the buildings.”

  The staircase, as old as it was, had held, and they climbed it to the second floor, where Eden led her down a hallway littered with debris. “This was a functioning girls’ boarding school until it closed in 1979,” he said, beginning his tour guide speech. “We intend to restore it to its previous condition and reopen it to students again.”

  “Girls only?” Fiona asked.

  “That is the intent. My mother believes that girls should be given their own chance at a better education in order to give them a start in the world.”

  They entered a classroom. “This still has desks in it,” Fiona said.

  “Yes. Most of the rooms in these buildings still contain the original furniture. The school was nearly bankrupt by the time it closed, and it was mostly abandoned as the owners tried to sell off the land.”

  Fiona moved into the classroom. The desks were solid wood, very old. Most of them had words and names scratched into them by generations of girls. The blackboard was still here, covered in unreadable chalk scrawls, and there were birds’ nests in the rafters. Plaster had fallen from the ceiling over time onto the floor. A poster on one wall, faded, its edges curled, depicted a line drawing of a row of happy, rosy-cheeked girls in uniforms sitting at desks, with the caption GOOD GIRLS MAKE GOOD MOTHERS!

  Fiona took more shots. It smelled less musty in here than it had downstairs, but there were other smells—rotten wood and something coppery, possibly from the old pipes in the walls. Fiona moved closer to the blackboard, stepping around the empty chairs and desks. There were layers of scrawls on it—graffiti from the kids who had wandered in here. Names. Swearwords and crude drawings. There were crumbs of smashed chalk on the floor. But the blackboard was filmed over and cloudy, coated with dust mixed with old chalk dust, as if no one had been here in years.

  Fiona took a few more pictures and turned to the windows. Two of the panes were cracked and broken, the sills rotted through where rain and snow had come in. The third window was intact.

  “Let’s move on,” Anthony Eden said behind her. He was still in the doorway; he hadn’t come into the room. Fiona turned, and the sunlight coming through the intact window illuminated the writing on it, etched into the grime coating the glass, the lettering thin and spidery.

  GOOD

  NIGHT

  GIRL

  Fiona frowned at it. The words were fresh, the letters in the glass clear, not clouded over like the blackboard was. It had been written with something scratchy, like a fingernail.

  “Miss Sheridan?” Eden said.

  Fiona stared at the words for a long moment. Had someone been in here today? Had they gotten past the new locks? Who would come all the way here, bother to break in, to write graffiti like that? Why Good Night Girl? It made her think of Deb, lying on the field outside, her shirt and bra ripped open, the wind blowing over her unseeing face.

  “Miss Sheridan.” Anthony Eden broke into her thoughts. “We really should move on.”

  Tearing her gaze from the window, she followed him out of the room. They toured another classroom, and another. Except for the damage—water had run down the walls in one room, and a section of wall was crumbling in another—it was as if those girls had left yesterday, just stood up and walked away. Fiona paused at another broken window and looked out over the view of the common and the grounds beyond. “What’s that out there?” she asked.

  Eden was in the doorway, impatient to leave again. His face had gone pale, and as Fiona watched, he pulled a large handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead. He glanced past her shoulder at the construction equipment that was moving busily in the distance. “That is the crew hired to deal with the drainage problem. They need to dig up an old well, from what I understand. I think we have the idea of the classrooms, don’t we? Let’s move to the dining hall.”

  She followed him down the corridor again. “Mr. Eden—”

  “Anthony, please.” His voice was tense.

  “All right, thank you. I’m Fiona. Anthony, how long do you see the restoration taking?”

  He was walking quickly toward the stairs, barely waiting for her. “It may take some time, especially to repair the fallen-in ceilings. But we are prepared to do it properly.”

  “This restoration was all your mother’s idea?”

  A definite chill at that. “Yes, it was.”

  “I wonder if I could interview her.”

  “Unfortunately, that won’t be possible. My mother doesn’t wish to speak with journalists.”

  We’ll see about that, Fiona thought. They had descended the stairs and he turned left, taking her through the atrium. No way was she going to be deterred from interviewing the mysterious Margaret Eden. “Why not?” Fiona asked. “Is your mother ill?”

  “My mother is in perfect health. She does not wish to answer questions from reporters, that’s all.”

  Fiona kept at it. “Why did she choose Idlewild? Was she a student here?”

  “No. My mother is from Connecticut. My father is from Maryland.”

  “Your father was an investor,” Fiona said. “Was this one of his projects? Your mother is carrying it on now—is that it?”

  They had reached a back door, and Eden turned to face her. Some of the paleness had left his face, but the flush that replaced it was no healthier. “Not even close,” he said. “In fact, my father did not approve of this project at all, and forbade my mother from attempting it. He said it would lose money. It’s only now that he’s died that my mother has gone ahead.”

  So that was it, then. Anthony was on his father’s side on this, and disapproved of his mother’s going against her husband’s wishes. It explained why he looked so pained to be here, so eager to keep moving. She tried for a little softening. “I’m very sorry about your fa
ther,” she said.

  He stayed stiff for a second. “Thank you, Fiona.” Then he turned and opened the back door, leading her out into the common.

  The cold air slapped her in the face, dispersing the close, damp smells she’d been inhaling inside. The sunlight, even in its indirect, clouded-over form, made her blink after the dimness. What the hell, she wondered, would possess Margaret Eden, a woman who was not local, to be so determined to sink her money into Idlewild Hall?

  They crossed the common. In Idlewild’s heyday, this would have been a manicured green spot, made for strolling and studying in the soft grass. Now it was harsh and overgrown, the grass flattened and going brown as winter approached. The wind bit Fiona’s legs through her jeans.

  They were behind the main building, thankfully facing away from the sharp-toothed mouth of the front facade. To the left, a gloomy building of gray stone and broody windows sat silent. “What is that?” she asked Anthony.

  He glanced over briefly. “That is the teachers’ hall. It was flooded, I’m afraid, and I can’t give you a tour because the floors are too rotted and dangerous. The dining hall got off more lightly, so we can go inside.”

  They were headed for the right-hand building, this one with large windows and double doors. “The school’s buildings all look very different,” Fiona said as they picked their way over the broken path. “Do you know anything about the architecture?”

  “Almost nothing,” he replied. “There are no records still in existence of who the architects were.” He stopped on the path. “If you look here, and here”—he motioned with a black-coated arm to the roof of the main building and the roof of the dining hall—“you can see that the buildings are strangely mismatched. In fact, the southernmost windows of the dining hall provide only a view of the brick wall of the main hall. It’s a curious construction.”

  “You think it was hastily planned?”

  “I have no idea,” he said. “We’re still debating what to do. There is a garden in the wedge between the two buildings, so at least the school tried to put something there. But sunlight must be a problem. We’re not sure what they grew, or tried to grow.”

  Fiona peered into the space between the two buildings as they passed. There were the remains of an overgrown garden, tangled with weeds that were brown and wet. The sunlight hit the spot at an oblique angle, making the shadows beneath the dead leaves dark as ink. The windows from both buildings stared blankly down.

  There was an electronic keypad on the dining hall door as well, and Anthony punched in the combination. Fiona realized as she walked inside that she’d been picturing something Harry Potter–like, with high Gothic ceilings and warm candlelight. But Idlewild’s dining hall was nothing like that. The plaster ceilings were damp with rot and mold, the walls streaked with water stains so dark they looked like blood in the half-light. Heavy, scarred wooden tables lined the walls, some of them jumbled together, one turned on its side, the legs jutting out like broken bones. The sunlight coming through the uncovered windows was gray and harsh, raising every ruined detail. The classrooms had looked abandoned; this room looked postapocalyptic, as if the last thing to happen in here had been too horrifying to contemplate.

  Fiona walked slowly into the middle of the room. The hair on the back of her neck felt cold. Suddenly she didn’t want to take pictures. She didn’t want to be here at all anymore.

  She glanced at Anthony and realized he felt the same way she did. His expression was almost nauseated with distaste.

  He cleared his throat, pulling the handkerchief from his pocket again, and began to speak. “The kitchen is quite usable. The appliances will need updating, of course, and the floors and walls need repair. But the basics are there. We should be able to create a functioning cafeteria in here for the students.”

  Fiona walked to one of the windows. Did he actually think any students would want to eat in here? The thought made her queasy. The school has always been rumored to be haunted, Jamie had said. It was just an abandoned building, like a million others, but standing here, looking at this ruined room, she could easily see how the rumors had started. Where the stories had come from. If you believed in that sort of thing.

  She raised her camera to take more pictures—it was time to wrap up; she was in agreement with Anthony on that—but was distracted by motion through the window. The angle was different, but this was the same view she’d seen from the classroom in the main hall, of another building and then the construction crew digging—tearing up an old well, Anthony had said. The glass was grimy, and without thinking, Fiona curled her fingers and touched the side of her palm to it, wiping a swatch of dirt away for a clearer view. She immediately regretted touching anything in this room, and dropped her hand to her side.

  “I have another appointment,” Anthony said from the doorway. He hadn’t come fully inside any room they’d been in. “I’m sorry we couldn’t spend more time.”

  “I haven’t asked all my questions,” Fiona said, distracted by the scene at the construction site. The backhoe had stopped moving, and two men in construction helmets were standing on the green, conferring. They were joined by a third man, and then a fourth.

  “We can try to reschedule, but I’m quite busy.” He paused. “Fiona?”

  “You have a problem,” Fiona said. She pointed through the rubbed-clean streak to the scene outside. “The crew has stopped working.”

  “They may be on a designated break.”

  “No one is taking a break,” Fiona said. Now the fourth man had a phone to his ear, and a fifth man came around from the sports field, jogging in haste to join the others. There was something alarmed about his quick pace. “I think that’s your foreman,” Fiona pointed out. “They’re calling him in.”

  “You can’t possibly know that.”

  There was a chill of foreboding running through Fiona’s blood. She stared at the men, gathered with their heads together, their postures tense and distressed. One of them walked away into the bushes, his hand over his mouth.

  In the damp emptiness of the dining hall, Anthony’s cell phone rang.

  Fiona didn’t have to watch him answer it. It was enough to hear his voice, short at first, then growing harsh and tense. He listened for a long moment. “I’ll be there,” he said, and hung up.

  She turned around. He was drawn and still, his gaze faraway, a man in a long black cashmere coat in a ruined room. He put his hands in the pockets of his coat, and when he looked at her, his face was pale again, his expression shaken.

  “There’s been—a discovery,” he said. “I don’t— They’ve found something. It seems to be a body. In the well.”

  The breath went out of her in an exhalation as the moment froze, suspended. She felt shock, yes. Surprise. But part of her knew only acceptance. Part of her had expected nothing else.

  Of course there are bodies here. This is Idlewild Hall.

  “Take me there,” she said to him. “I can help.”

  chapter 6

  CeCe

  Barrons, Vermont

  October 1950

  She wished she weren’t always hungry. At fifteen, CeCe was hungry from morning to night, her body empty as a hollowed-out log. Idlewild fed them three meals per day, but everything CeCe ate seemed to vanish as soon as it passed her lips. It was embarrassing, not because she was fat—she wasn’t; she was round, that was all—but because it made her look forward to meals in the dining hall. No one looked forward to meals in the dining hall, because the dining hall was horrible.

  It was the supper hour, and CeCe followed Katie from the counter through the throng of girls toward a table. Even in the Idlewild uniform, Katie looked pretty. You could put a scratchy plaid skirt, a cheap white blouse, and a thick winter cardigan on her, and she still looked like Hedy Lamarr. CeCe knew that her rounder face and short dark hair were pretty enough, but she felt like a yeti next to Katie’s glamo
ur. Katie knew everything, and she was scared of nothing, which was exactly how CeCe wanted to be. Since CeCe was one of the few girls Katie didn’t hate, CeCe clung to her like glue and brought her tidbits of gossip when she found them.

  Today she had a good one, and she was excited. “Guess what I’m getting tonight,” she said in a conspiratorial voice as they slid onto a bench at one of the tables, bumping two other girls down. She leaned closer to Katie’s ear. “Pat Claiman’s copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”

  Katie stared at her, fork in midair, her dark-lashed, sultry eyes wide. Pat Claiman’s brother had smuggled her the book on Family Visit Day two months ago, and it had been passed from girl to girl ever since. Every girl at Idlewild was crazy to get her hands on it. “You’re kidding,” Katie said. “How did you do it?”

  “It wasn’t easy. I had to give Pat ten dollars.”

  Katie’s eyes went even wider. “Ten dollars? CeCe, where did you get that?”

  CeCe shrugged. “My father sends me money, you know. It was either that or read Sandra Krekly’s stack of Life magazines, but those are all two years old.”

  Today’s dinner was beef, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, and a sticky-sweet bread that CeCe thought was supposed to be corn bread, but tasted like nothing at all. Katie picked up a scoop of potatoes on her fork and put it in her mouth, her expression thoughtful. CeCe watched as Katie’s gaze roamed the room, her eyes narrowing and calculating. She always saw things going on around them that CeCe was too stupid to see. “You’ll have to read us the good parts aloud,” Katie said.

  “I can’t.” CeCe blushed. “No way. When I get to the racy bits, I’ll give the book to you.”

  “Fine, I’ll read it.” Katie tossed her hair and poked at her potatoes again. “It’s probably nothing I haven’t seen anyway.”

  This was Katie’s usual line. She came across like she was experienced with men, but CeCe was starting to notice that she never gave any details. She didn’t care. “I hear it’s juicy,” she said, trying to keep Katie strung along. “Pat says there are even bad words in it. And they do things.”