“Umm…” Maylin glanced at me, then stared back at the road. “She actually does seem stretched a little thin. Or just, like…disinterested.”
“Is her mom okay?” I asked with a sinking feeling.
At the end of our freshman year, Alex’s mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had gotten intensive treatment and was okay now, but we both knew that her family worried about the cancer returning.
“I feel like she would have told me if it was that.”
“But one of us should ask, just to be sure. Alex might not offer information like that if you don’t ask her. And she might need our help.”
“She might not want our help,” Maylin said. “The thing is, I think she’s getting help from somebody else.”
I hesitated, curling another sour straw into my mouth and chewing it as quietly as I could.
The thing about Maylin was that it was easy to get information out of her. But I didn’t feel comfortable digging for dirt about Alex.
“I think she’s going to a therapist or something,” Maylin said conspiratorially.
I kept chewing, looking out the window, unsure if I wanted her to go on.
Even as firsties, when Alex and I didn’t necessarily like each other very much, we’d respected each other’s privacy. Neither of us came from the cushiest of backgrounds, like some of the other girls. We didn’t ask each other too many questions, and we gave each other some silent slack. I wasn’t sure I wanted to mess with that.
“She had her laptop open on her desk the other day,” Maylin continued. “And I saw that she had looked up therapists in Derby.”
“Derby?” I said. Derby was twenty minutes from Windham-Farnswood. But there was an occasional school shuttle to the shopping center there. “Can’t she…use one of the school counselors?”
Maylin shrugged. “I’ve heard they’re all pretty lame.”
“There’s one named Brenda who’s okay,” I offered. “She talked to me the day after Taylor died. I was still kind of in shock, so I don’t remember it that well. And I didn’t follow up like she wanted me to. But she wasn’t…terrible. It would be kind of like Alex, though, to want to talk to someone entirely off campus.”
“I guess,” Maylin admitted.
Not that it was any of our business.
“Maybe none of this would be an issue,” I said, “if you stopped looking at the shit on her desk.”
I opened a bag of chips and offered them to her. My words had maybe come out a little harsher than I intended.
“Well, I can’t unsee the stuff now.” Maylin kept one hand on the wheel but buried the other in the chip bag. “I’m not a bad person for worrying about a friend.”
No,” I said. “You’re not.”
I wondered silently how Alex could afford a private therapist. It seemed unlikely that she could. Maybe Maylin had misread what she’d seen on Alex’s desk. Unless it was a list of private providers that the school had relationships with—for kids who needed some sort of specialist. I thought about Alex cramming in the chocolate ice cream and peanut butter last night, then leaving dinner before the rest of us. Bulimia? I doubted it. But it was possible.
“That might even be why she seemed eager to get rid of us today,” Maylin continued. “Maybe she’s taking the shopping shuttle today for an appointment and doesn’t want to have to talk about it.”
Maylin scowled at the road in front of her. My phone chirped and I looked at it. I was startled to see a text from Lily Bruno, finally responding from a few days ago:
Hi Haley. Hope all is well at Windham? Sure, we can connect sometime. I don’t really like to talk about it, but I understand if you feel like you need to.
I wasn’t sure how to reply. Lily wasn’t offering a particular time. She was going to leave it at “sometime,” seemed like, and force me to press the issue.
Are you free tonight? I texted.
“But how many therapists do you know that work on Saturdays?” Maylin asked before adding, “So maybe she just wanted to get rid of me in a general sort of way.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t worry about it until we have a chance to talk to her about things,” I mumbled.
Maylin was quiet for a moment.
“Put the address in the GPS, would you?” she said.
As I did what Maylin had asked, I heard my phone chirp again.
Yes, Lily had written back.
* * *
The New Moon Wellness Emporium had an impressive storefront—with a moon and stars on its overhead sign and white Christmas lights snaking around the tiers of displayed goods in the windows.
Maylin had begged off at a clothing boutique a few doors down, as I’d kind of been hoping she would. She had also caught sight of a cute coffee and pastry shop she thought she’d like to try, and we’d promised to text each other in a half hour or so.
A bell on the door jangled as I entered the Emporium. Once the door was shut, I was enveloped in the sounds of flute music and water trickling—and clashing smells of cloves and lavender. The slender, gray-haired woman at the desk near the back didn’t look up immediately. She was pulling some cloth-wrapped items out of a box. As I got closer, I saw that they were probably soaps.
“Hi,” I said, approaching her. My palms were sweating.
I’d been expecting someone wearing a long floral muumuu, or maybe an organic hemp sack dress. This lady had on jeans and a pink sweater with little fake pearls studding the sleeves.
When she looked up, I asked, “Are you Kathleen?”
“Yes.” The woman put a soap to her nose and took a long sniff. “I am.”
“I wrote to you about Saturday appointments.”
“Oh! I see. What can I help you with, honey?”
“I…um…thought I might get a couple of candles for my mother. And…I had another question for you.”
I could feel my pulse quicken as I heard the words leave my mouth. I wasn’t used to confronting people.
“Sure. What kind of candles does your mom like?”
I glanced quickly around the shop to see if we were alone. It appeared we were. And it occurred to me that I wanted to get the awkward part over with before Maylin might decide to come looking for me early.
“Umm…I don’t have a question about the candles.” The words tumbled out. “I was wondering if you have ever been to Windham-Farnswood Academy in Heathsburg. If you’ve ever worked there or…anything like that? Like, um, in 1986?”
Kathleen’s mouth went slack. She stared at me.
“Windham…yes. But…” Kathleen leaned against the stool behind her desk. She didn’t look angry. “How did you know that, honey?”
“I…um…I saw a picture of you and your husband in an old dorm photo. But…you were a houseparent? With your husband? And you went by different names then?”
“Yes. Ex-husband.” Kathleen smiled a little. “In the ’80s. For six months. Long time ago. Ron’s been gone for many years now. Where did you come from, honey? Are you local?”
“No. I drove here this morning from Windham. Or, my friend drove me. I’m a student there. Can I just ask…Did you and Ronald go to Windham knowing that Dearborn was haunted? Is that why you were there? Or was that just a coincidence? And why were you using different names?”
“That’s a lot of questions at once. What’s your name?”
“Haley.”
“Haley. It was a long time ago, as I said.”
Kathleen reached out and touched one of the sets of wind chimes hanging next to her counter. They bonged gently.
“But can you explain why you were there?” I asked.
Kathleen rubbed the back of her neck and smiled. “Oh dear. Do you want to sit down?”
“I’m not sure,” I said flatly.
“Okay, then. How about some water?”
“I’m okay,
” I said.
“Did someone at the school tell you about this?” Kathleen asked.
“Not really. I heard something from an older alumna. Not something for sure, it was just like a rumor.”
“Okay.” Kathleen gazed at me, the sides of her mouth tightening. “And you drove all this way to confirm an old rumor?”
Kathleen didn’t wait for me to answer. She took a glass from under the desk and drew water from the water cooler against the wall.
“I don’t use little paper cups,” she said. “But I keep these glasses clean for customers.”
I nodded and she watched me take a sip.
“I had a friend…a year older than me,” I said. “Last year she died. In the Dearborn building. Well, she jumped and died, I mean.”
Kathleen murmured “Oh no” under her breath, but I kept talking. Surrounded by flute music and gentle smells, I suddenly felt compelled to confess.
“I don’t know exactly what happened,” I said. “But I think there’s something wrong with the building. Something maybe made her do it. I don’t know how to explain. But I’m wondering what you and your husband were doing there and what you thought of the building.”
Kathleen put up one finger to signal me to stop talking. Then she walked to the front of the store and turned the Open sign to Closed.
“I’m sorry to hear about your friend,” she said. “I really am so sorry.”
“Thanks. Can you tell me anything about what you were doing at that dorm?” I asked. “You were using different names. Were you hiding from the school that you guys were…ghost hunters?”
Kathleen shook her head. “The school hired us. Or rather, the headmistress did. No one else knew. Just her.”
I hesitated, taking this in. “So she knew you were ghost hunters?”
“No. We studied parapsychological phenomena. We never called ourselves ghost hunters. We weren’t advocates of ‘hunting’ anything. Mrs. Bradford wanted the dorm to be studied…diagnosed, in a sense. She hired Ron because she understood he took a very careful, hands-off approach. That he considered himself primarily an observer, and avoided sensationalism.”
“None of the girls knew who you were?”
“Not at the time. A few years later, Ron was on TV more. So I imagine a few girls from that senior class probably saw him and noticed a resemblance. He told me he got a letter once, inquiring, which he didn’t respond to because he didn’t want to get the headmistress in trouble. But you’re the first person who’s come and asked me.”
“So the headmistress at the time…She hired you and Ronald.” I had to repeat this to help it sink in.
“Yes. Her name was Betty Bradford. She’s dead now, I imagine.”
I nodded, stunned silent for a moment. I’d heard the name before. There were some funny stories about the Betty Bradford era of the school. She was a spinster who fancied herself an Emily Dickinson type. Supposedly she left baskets of muffins or cookies for students on the dormitory doorsteps. She had a bunch of dogs, and would always bring a chronically barking beagle to stuffy school functions.
“Did you find what she hired you for?” I asked.
“She was concerned about the building.” Kathleen pulled another bar of soap from her box and sniffed it. “She’d been a student herself and knew girls who’d had frightening experiences there. And the year before we came, there was a serious incident….A student who thought the place was haunted had a mental breakdown. Betty was concerned about things escalating. She’d read our names in an article about poltergeists and poltergeist study, and she contacted us and proposed we come and study the place.”
“Disguised as houseparents?” I said, thinking back to the dorm photo of the Darkinses with the girls.
“Not disguised…” Kathleen put down the soap on her counter. “Just doing two different jobs at once.”
“What did you think of the place? Was anything done? A blessing, an exorcism? A ghostbusting of any kind?”
“No…We were there primarily to observe, and we were never sure that was what the place needed. Ron and I were a little more…agnostic than some of the paranormal investigators of our time.”
“Aren’t you a clairvoyant or something? I thought I read that on the Wikipedia page.”
Kathleen studied me for a moment and then picked at one of the little pearls on her sleeve.
“More like ‘something,’ ” she said quietly.
I hesitated. “Well…how did you feel living in that building? Did you feel like it was haunted?”
Kathleen drew herself a glass of water, pulled up a stool, and sighed before she took a drink.
“I definitely felt unsettled at times,” she admitted. “But haunted might not be the word I’d use. I felt a conflicting convergence of energies.”
“What does that mean?” I demanded. It sounded vaguely like bullshit.
“It means I couldn’t identify one distinct spirit occupying the place. And Ronald had some theories about mass hysteria, mass delusion. But they were very tentative theories, because the place and the incidents didn’t really follow any of the usual patterns of either of those things. It was a very confounding place.”
I exhaled, realizing I’d been holding my breath through her last few sentences. Conflicting convergence of energies…hysteria…delusion…a confounding place.
“Be right back,” Kathleen said.
Kathleen went into her back room for a moment and came out with a tall stool.
“Please have a seat,” she said, positioning it near her own.
“Look,” she said. “I have some things from that time that might help us both…might jog my memory, and might clarify things for you. They’re in boxes in my basement at home, though.”
“I’m not sure how long I can…” I trailed off. Maylin was expecting me to text her soon. And while this lady seemed nice, I didn’t really think it was a smart move for me to accompany her to a basement. There was a fractional chance she might boil me in a giant kettle and use my melted fat to make some kind of healing emollient.
“Well, maybe I could send you some things if I find them,” she offered. That sounded very tentative. “Although…I’m not sure I want to part with them. They’re some of the files from my and Ronald’s time there. Maybe I could make copies, but…before we figure that out, can I ask you a little bit about your friend?”
“I guess,” I said, feeling a wave of relief at the question. I knew she’d been eager to ask it, and I didn’t want to have to anticipate it any longer.
“You said she jumped from a window in Dearborn. Can I ask from what floor?”
“The fourth. The top floor. Does it matter?”
“The upper floors have a little more negative energy, I believe.”
I didn’t ask her to clarify.
“And they’re sure she jumped?” Kathleen wrapped her hands around her water glass like it was a steaming cup of coffee. “She wasn’t pushed? It wasn’t an accident with alcohol or anything like that? Were there any witnesses?”
“She was alone in her room. No one really thought she had been suicidal, but maybe she was without anyone knowing. There was also some strong weed involved. I don’t really buy any of those explanations. Especially since…”
“Since what, honey?” Kathleen coaxed.
I closed my eyes for a moment, taking in the gentle flute music. “Since now that I live there, I feel like there are signs that it was more complicated than any of that.”
“Suicide and strong weed are both complicated,” Kathleen said softly. “But…what kind of signs?”
I hesitated, listening to the flutes again—and the trickle of the little fountain. I breathed in the weird, guilty comfort of knowing I was in the presence of the sort of woman my mother usually hated.
“She was maybe hearing whispers in her roo
m right before she jumped,” I said, taking out my phone.
I showed her Thatcher’s video and told her about the open window and door last week, and then the writing on the window glass. Kathleen listened carefully but expressionlessly.
“I’m glad you found me,” she said when I was finished.
“Do you think there’s something wrong with the place that might have killed her?” I whispered.
“Well…I can’t say that. I don’t know near enough to even begin to say that. But I think you’re right to ask questions.”
Kathleen tapped her fingertips along her chin, thinking. The flutes warbled. The fountain trickled. My phone chirped and I glanced down.
Where are you? Maylin had texted. This place has killer cupcakes!!
“How about this,” Kathleen said. “I have your email address. I’ll scan what I have and send it to you by tonight. Then you won’t have to wait long for them. And then I could keep the originals, which would make me feel more comfortable.”
“That would be perfect,” I said, pocketing my phone.
“I hope it will help you. I’ll also give you my number for when you’re done reading.”
I took down her number as she dictated it to me. Before I was even finished, the phone chirped again.
You still picking out candles?? You are a very devoted daughter. The coffee place is called Common Grounds. It’s like three doors down from your candle shoppy place.
“My friend is wondering where I am,” I said. “She’s my ride home.”
“That’s fine.” Kathleen went to the front door and turned the sign to Open. “You should catch up with her. I promise I’ll send those things tonight.”
“Thanks.”
“Ron worked hard on them. It will be good to see them going to someone who finds them useful.”
My phone chirped again.
“You’d better go, sounds like,” Kathleen said.
“Yeah, I guess.” I plucked two votive candles from a display by the register. “I’ll buy these first, though.”
I needed them in case Maylin asked me what I’d bought.
Kathleen waved me away as I took out my wallet.
When All the Girls Are Sleeping Page 14