Gilda Joyce: The Ladies of the Lake (7 page)
Read Gilda Joyce: The Ladies of the Lake Online
Authors: Jennifer Allison
Dear Dad,
Because this school is so small, a bunch of the same girls are in almost all of my classes. I have to admit that a few of them are already becoming irksome.
Always notices when the teacher spells something wrong on the blackboard. Drives everyone crazy because her hand shoots up to answer every question the teacher asks. Then, after she’s just finished giving a five-minute lecture, she raises her hand AGAIN!
Amelia’s best friend from junior high, and the one who keeps calling Mr. Panté “Mr. Panty” by mistake. Her cell phone goes off almost every day in class, and then the teacher gives her a detention. She must
have about fifty detentions already, and it’s only the first week of school.
Britney, Lauren, and Ashley went to junior high together. I think of them as “the Triplets” because they all wear matching ribbons in their long hair and have faces with weirdly similar features, as if they’re actually related. They’re always passing notes and looking as if they’re sharing some big, secret joke that’s just killing them because it’s so hilarious. Then, when the teacher reprimands them, they do a really bad job of acting as if they were just asking each other “a question about the material.” That’s the oldest trick in the book, and it never works. Just ask me and Wendy!
Stands out because her hair is dyed blue and really spiky. She also wears leather cuff bracelets and a necklace covered in pointy metal studs. There were a bunch of kids who look like her at my old school, but at Our Lady of Sorrows she looks freakish because her spiky hair and jewelry are definitely against the uniform
policy. How can she get away with that stuff? Maybe her parents donated money to the school or something.
The potential for real friends at Our Lady of Sorrows looks dubious. On the positive side, a dearth of close friends will make it easier for me to stay undercover and on-task with my psychic investigation.
I just overheard Mom gabbing on the phone about Brad:
“I don’t want to speak too soon, Lucy,” she said, “but I think he’s pretty wonderful. He took me to the most fabulous dinner the other night, and he brought me flowers for no reason at all! He’s just so generous, and he’s fantastic with the kids, too! Did I tell you how he helped Gilda get into this wonderful private school? And now he’s even looking for a car for Stephen. Can you believe
that?”
Dad, I’m trying not to barf.
I
swear he’s wearing eyeliner today,” Britney whispered.
“He is not,” said Ashley.
“I’m serious. Just look.”
Mr. Panté paused to glance behind him, causing “the Triplets” to fall apart with laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Mr. Panté asked. “Actually, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“We find you amusing,” said Britney coyly.
“I’m glad someone finds me entertaining.”
Mr. Panté stood aside to let the three girls walk in front of him, then fell back into step on the path next to Gilda.
He must be sick of listening to their cackling
, Gilda thought. As she walked next to her teacher, Gilda felt nervous. She tried to think of something interesting to say, but it seemed that her brain had suddenly turned to potatoes.
Listening to the rushing of wind in the trees combined with the shouts and yelps of girls playing lacrosse on fields behind the school, Gilda had to admit that she felt happy to be at Our Lady of Sorrows, heading toward Mermaid Lake for a poetry discussion, instead of inside a stuffy classroom. Besides, she
was hoping for an opportunity to snoop around the bridge dedicated to Dolores Lambert.
“So, Gilda, what are you reading these days?” Mr. Panté asked.
Gilda’s “get to know you” questionnaire highlighted the numerous tides she had read in addition to her regular schoolwork. She knew Mr. Panté hoped she would say something like “Chekhov’s
Collected Plays
“ but the truth was that she had recently reread
The Master Psychic’s Handbook
for the fourth time in a row and then started another book by psychic Balthazar Frobenius entitled
Ghost Encounters
. There was also the disappointing thriller called
Nun’s Dungeon
that she had read to help get into the mood to attend a Catholic girls’ school.
“I was just about to start
War and Peace
,” said Gilda, embellishing the truth, “but then this book called
Nun’s Dungeon
caught my eye.”
Mr. Panté nodded and frowned. “Not familiar with that one.”
“It wasn’t as good as I thought it would be,” Gilda admitted.
“So you’re a fan of the Gothic.”
“I guess.”
“The uncanny.”
“You mean, ghost stories?”
“All that wonderful spooky stuff with treacherous staircases and mysterious strangers,” said Mr. Panté, waving his hand as if drawing an exuberant picture in the air. “Ghosts, moody atmospheres, that sort of thing.”
“Like Our Lady of Sorrows?”
Mr. Panté chuckled. “You have a quick wit.”
Somehow, the backs of the Triplets’ heads seemed to smirk.
“You should read the words of writers like Edgar Allan Poe.”
“Okay.” Gilda felt paranoid as she noticed Ashley glancing behind slyly, then immediately whispering something to Britney.
They hate the fact that Mr. Panté is talking to me
.
Mr. Panté led the class to a grassy spot by the edge of the lake Across the sparkling water, the ruins looked melancholy in the sunlight, and Gilda felt a familiar light-headed sensation combined with a tickling in her left ear.
I can’t put my finger on it, but something isn’t right about this place
.
“Let’s talk about poetry,” said Mr. Panté. “Any favorite poems? Things you like or dislike?”
“I like rhyming poetry the best,” said Sheila.
Something about this response seemed to irk Mr. Panté because he sighed deeply “Can you say more about that?”
“I just like rhymes. But one thing I hate is Shakespeare, because we did that in my other school, and maybe it’s too wordy or something, but I don’t like it!”
“You’ll be pleased to know that we’ll be starting an extensive unit on Shakespeare shortly, beginning with the rather wordy play
Hamlet
.”
The girls groaned, but Gilda was secretly delighted. She had read Shakespeare’s
Macbeth
in eighth grade and remembered being very intrigued with the witches.
“I’ve already read four of Shakespeare’s plays,” said Amelia, peering through her small, round glasses. “Shakespeare writes in iambic pentameter.”
“Very true, Amelia,” said Mr. Panté. “Hold that thought for our Shakespeare unit.”
Mr. Panté asked them to open their poetry books to a poem by Emily Dickinson. “You’ll be happy to know it’s a rhyming poem, Sheila.”
My friend must be a Bird—
Because it flies!
Mortal, my friend must be,
Because it dies!
Barbs has it, like a Bee!
Ah, curious friend!
Thou puzzlest me!
“It seems to be about a bird,” said Amelia, after Mr. Panté read the poem aloud. “But maybe it was a poisoned bird, or something?”
“An interesting interpretation,” said Mr. Panté. “Anyone else have any thoughts?”
Something about the poem reminded Gilda of a friend she had had in fourth grade—a girl named Charlene, who, without warning or explanation, stopped speaking to Gilda when her other friends were around. Gilda remembered the confused, surprised feeling she had one morning when she approached Charlene and two other girls who were walking to school, and sensed that there was some secret she had missed—some mean joke at her expense. She remembered gazing down at her new, red tennis shoes—shoes that had seemed whimsical and fun only a minute before—and wondered if they were the
wrong
shoes. Maybe they were
dumb
shoes. Why else would Charlene
suddenly become best friends with girls she had made fun of only days before?
Her father told her: “If you have to keep wondering whether this girl is your friend, maybe she isn’t.” Finally, Gilda had stopped wondering and had become best friends with Wendy Choy instead.
“It’s about friendship,” said Gilda. “A really confusing, disappointing friendship.”
After class, as Mr. Panté and the other girls headed back toward the Castle House, Gilda made a bold move. She slipped away and headed in the opposite direction, toward the bridge over Mermaid Lake.
When she reached the center of the bridge, she looked down at the sparkling water beneath her. Surrounded by red-winged blackbirds perched on cattails and the soft rustling of trees under a cerulean-blue sky, she found it hard to imagine someone plunging through ice to her death. Still, there was something eerie about the sight of the ruins just across the water—something that made Gilda feel anxious despite the serenity of the scene.
There’s a powerful vibration here
, she thought.
Beneath the water, shadowy plants weaved back and forth like the flowing hair of water nymphs. Gilda glimpsed something gold beneath the water—something that moved. Was it a fish?
If you make any sound, she rises out of the water, screaming
.
Summoning all her courage, Gilda decided to take a huge risk and find out whether Miss Underhill’s warning had any basis in reality. “Hey!” she yelled. Her voice sounded small and lonely in the outdoor space.
Gilda watched the water, but nothing happened. She walked to the opposite side of the bridge, leaned over the railing, and yelled louder: “HEY, DOLORES!”
She heard a small splash—a sound that filled her with trepidation.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” said a hoarse voice behind her.
T
iara leaned against the railing of the bridge. Her studded cuff bracelets made her thin, white wrists look fragile rather than tough.
She looks like she’s wearing little bits of armor to protect herself
, Gilda thought.
How long had Tiara been watching? How had Gilda not seen her approaching?
“Mr. Panté told me to come get you,” Tiara said. “You were supposed to go back to the school after class.”
“I was just looking for something I lost on the bridge,” said Gilda, realizing this excuse sounded unlikely.
“She
will
come out, you know. But it won’t happen until you least expect it.” As Tiara spoke, something glinted in her mouth; her tongue was pierced.
Gilda had the eerie sense that some magical creature from a fairy tale had appeared from beneath the bridge to scare her.
“She doesn’t exactly jump out of the lake the way they tell you. What happens is that she haunts you
personally
. I did the same thing you just did, and now Dolores’s ghost is after me.”
There was something sly and crafty about Tiara that put Gilda
on guard. In class, she sometimes made dramatic statements just for their shock appeal. “I nearly died once,” Tiara had commented during a discussion of the poem “Death Be Not Proud.” “My fever was so high that all my hair fell out in the shower.”
“What do you mean, Dolores’s ghost is ‘after you’?” Gilda asked.
Tiara looked Gilda directly in the eye. “This morning, when I looked in the mirror, my face was all puffy and greenish white, like the face of a drowned girl. It was like I was
possessed
or something.”
Does she really mean what she says, or is she just trying to scare me
? Gilda herself had a penchant for embellishing the truth, but she found this tendency annoying when she encountered it in other people. It bugged her that she couldn’t tell whether or not Tiara was lying.
Gilda observed Tiara closely. She didn’t
appear
to be lying. “So what did you do?”
