Possessions (20 page)

We decided
that the first night of break was too soon. I half-expected Mandy to reappear, and bust us flat for breaking and entering, and we agreed we had to be careful. So the next day, we began our recon, sitting in my room and studying Jessel. I made the observation that there might be security cameras we didn’t know about. Maybe they had something to do with the improved cell phone reception around the building.

Next we went on a long walk, circling Jessel, then heading down to the lake where we called each other on our cells until we figured out where our signals went weak. Lots of bars along a wide swath of shore, but the best reception was on the grounds of Jessel itself.

Jessel, which was located lower than Grose. I would have expected the opposite effect. Which worried me about going in there.

We watched TV with Ms. Krige that night; then after she went to bed, we sat in the dark, studying Jessel’s many windows. The shades were drawn. There was no porch light. Rose had brought a flashlight and some extra clothes with her; she dressed in black, including a black ski mask, which she pulled over her face as soon as we left my dorm. I had on my army jacket and some jeans, my boots. My only concession to stealth was my black knitted cap, pulled tightly over my hair. And my gloves. We both wore those.

We scurried through the slushy wet and made our way silently onto the porch. We both took off our shoes and tied the laces together, and slung them over our shoulders. She unlocked the door. It swung open, no melodramatic creak, no ghostly laughter. No faces. I gazed into the darkened room, seeing nothing but black on black, hearing nothing but our breathing. Jessel was a building. It was bricks and wood and glass.

I walked over the threshold in my stocking feet. Rose shut the door and turned on her flashlight. The hardwood floor was highly waxed and I saw . . . I saw . . .
It’s just me
, I thought, flinching at the blurred face in the wood, captured in the filmy glare.

A floorboard creaked. I gasped, and Rose elbowed my side.

“That was me. Jeez. Chill.” She cupped her hand over the beam so that only a thin, watery film of light played over the floor. The dimmest outlines of furniture swam in the shadows; it was like being in a shipwreck.

Rose headed for the stairs. I looked up at the balcony, seeing nothing but Christmas decorations—of course—and followed close behind her. Her body heat reassured me.

I looked back over my shoulder once, twice; I thought I saw a sliver of light around the jamb of the front door and tried to remember if I had heard it click shut.

We reached the top of the stairs, our backs to the balcony. Mandy’s door was to our right. I had never been in her room, ever.

“It’s probably locked,” I said.

“No locks at Marlwood,” she reminded me.

“But it’s
Mandy’s
room.”

Rose turned the knob and we were in, shoulder to shoulder in the pitch-black. The drapes were closed.

“You’re so pessimistic,” Rose chided me.

Wordlessly, she swept a low yellow arc. Mandy’s incredible room was revealed in blurs and smears of light: the canopy bed, the gilded nightstands, the ornate desk cluttered with gold frames of photographs. Her drapes were damask; I’d never seen them from this side before. She had ropes of necklaces draped one over another like pirate treasure; she’d just left them out. Half-open drawers revealed sweaters and scarves, gloves, knitted hats, a digital camera, another digital camera, an autographed picture of Prince Harry that said
Thank you, Amanda!

Then Rose’s flashlight hit a three-foot-tall portrait of a girl with a deformed face; half her flesh was eaten away. My throat clamped down over a scream.
Picture
, I told my panicking brain.
Damaged picture.

It was a photograph, tea-colored like the ones on the mantel, and half-covered with mold. The frame it rested in looked like shellacked shredded wheat. The girl’s hair was black, and she was wearing a wide-brimmed hat adorned with large feathers and roses. Her eyes were dark and wide, and her chin was tucked in slightly, as if she were gazing at something that frightened her.

As if she had seen a ghost.

I jumped back and Rose snorted.

“That’s pretty much what I did. The picture’s rotted. It’s from the
attic
.” She said the word with undisguised eagerness.

The beam hit a faded rectangular cardboard box with OUIJA! COMMUNICATE WITH THE SPIRITS! in faded letters on the top. A cartoon drawing of a scary-looking man with intense, dark eyes glared up at us. He reminded me of the white face with the dark eyes, and I looked away.

“He looks like that Munch painting called
The Scream
,” Rose said. “That’s the very Ouija board we used to contact Gilda, the spirit Mandy was trying to call up.”

The flashlight washed over a tall bookcase. “Let’s see . . .
Haunted Houses of Northern California. Demonic Possession. Beyond the Grave.
She’s got hobbies, our Mandy.” She clicked her teeth. “We could be here all night, you know?”

She was right. And I was beginning to wonder why we were here. What had we hoped to accomplish? To find out “the truth” about Mandy. But what could we find? A bottle of pills marked ILLEGAL DESIGNER DRUG, DILATES PUPILS? MASTER PLAN TO SCARE LINDSAY? Her rocket launcher?

Rose walked toward the center of the room. I followed; her flashlight washed over my stockinged feet like a searchlight.

“Oh ho,” she said. She came up to me and dropped to her knees, reaching beneath the satin coverlet over the bed.

She pulled out a dark wood trunk with shiny brass fittings. It made a sliding noise against the wood floor, and I worried about telltale scratches.

Is it the trunk from the attic?
I wondered.

“Come here,” Rose urged, patting the floor. I was afraid to sit; I felt more vulnerable. “No one’s here,” she insisted.

Remaining standing, I took a breath as she handed me the flashlight and ran her gloved hands along the trunk. She handed me her shoes, too. Then she pushed her finger under the brass lock in the center, and grunted.

“Okay, well,” I said. “That’s that.”

“Hold on.” She grinned at me and reached into her pocket, bringing out a small plastic case and flipping it open to reveal several five-or-six-inch-long pieces of black metal that looked like screwdrivers. As I watched, she selected two and crammed one of them into the keyhole.

“What are you doing?” I whispered. But I knew. She was picking the lock.

“I had a boyfriend once,” she muttered, by way of explaining how she knew what she was doing.

“You can’t. She’ll know,” I protested.

But it was too late. There was a click.

“Did you break it?” I asked her.

She didn’t answer. Instead she lifted the lid. She put the tools back in her plastic case and handed that to me, too. I didn’t want to take them.

Julie
, I reminded myself.
I’m doing this for her. And, maybe, for Kiyoko, too.

The first thing on top was a piece of silky white material, and then another one . . . I realized they were underwear . . . and then Rose whistled, and when I saw what else was in the trunk, my mouth dropped open in shock.

twenty-two

Inside was a photograph
of Mandy and a guy who looked almost exactly like her, only older—white-blond hair, dark blue eyes, and the same slightly cruel smile. He had to be Miles. She had on a fire engine-red bikini, and he was wearing slim boardshorts that left very little to the imagination. Their arms were coiled around each other, and her boobs were pressed against his chest.

“Houston, we have liftoff.” Rose handed me another photograph. This one was of the guy only, lounging in a pair of baggy pajama bottoms, smiling seductively at the camera. “Holy moly, who took these?”

Another picture: Miles standing behind Mandy, with his arms around her.

And then
another
one of them . . . kissing, eyes closed, in ecstasy. Mandy and Miles were kissing each other in a rumpled four-poster bed. There were handcuffs on the poster above her head.

Oh my God, what if it’s the Lincoln Bedroom?

“Maybe it’s an automatic,” she said. “Camera, I mean.” Then she started laughing. I just stared. She went through the rest as I watched. “The rest are more of the same,” she muttered, disappointed. Then she put them back, in the order in which we’d taken them out, and laid the underwear back on top. She clicked the lock shut. Did something. Tested it. Smiled at me.

“It’s not broken?” I asked.

She pushed the trunk back under the bed. “She’ll never know,” she promised me.

She turned to me with glittering eyes. “You mentioned something about the attic. Several times.”

“But—”

“Come on.”

We left Mandy’s room. The air felt thick as mud as we tiptoed to the balcony in the darkness. I scanned for the front door, detecting a matte grayishness that I guessed might be the leaded window in the door. Then we turned around and faced the hall, where Kiyoko’s and Lara’s rooms were located. Sangeeta and Alis shared on the other side of the hall.

We went down the hall. The doors were closed, and Rose slowed down, gazing at me with an impish grin.

“I wonder what we would find in Lara’s room,” she said. “Or Kiyoko’s.”

I was beginning to move from nervous to panicky. Ms. Krige might check on us. Rose’s housemother might give her a call.

“Let’s go,” I said. “Let’s come back later.”

“Don’t be such a wuss. We have to at least check the attic,” she insisted.

“Then let’s do it fast.”

Rose charged noisily down the hall. I wanted to hit her. She stopped at the last door on the right, and turned to me.

“This is the turret room no one can go into,” she said, rattling the door. “And, hoohoowahaha, it
is
locked.”

She put the flashlight under her chin. “Good evening, mortals. Beyond this door, we have . . . vampires, dreaming of succulent virgins. Such sad dreams. Because there aren’t any virgins at Marlwood.”

Speak for yourself
, I wanted to say.

I thought about the books I’d seen back during that prank in the old library. The rumors that Marlwood had never been a girl’s prep school in the past, but an asylum, a reformatory for “wayward” girls. What did “wayward” even mean? And why was that book on Dr. Ehrlenbach’s desk?

“So...we’ll pick it,” Rose said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her tools. Then she bent over and examined the door. “Huh. Let’s see...” She traced the keyhole with her fingers and glanced back at her kit. “This stuff won’t work on that.”

I felt unaccountably relieved. I didn’t know why. Of course I was curious to see what was in there. Just...not tonight.

“Well, poop,” she groused. Then she shrugged and guided me to the left, and we sailed around a corner to a narrow set of wooden stairs beneath a low, angular ceiling.

“I’m betting these were for servants,” she said, as she headed up. “Or mad scientists, wahaha.”

“Anorexic mad scientists,” I said, trying to bolster my courage with my usual snarky jokes. My shoulders brushed the walls and my feet hit the hollow, uncarpeted stairs, creating echoes. I was glad we had taken off our boots. The sloping ceiling overhead made me feel claustrophobic.

“Third floor, coming up,” Rose sang as we looped around and continued up. She was enjoying every moment of this. I was terrified.

The flight of stairs ended at a plain wooden door. There were scratches down one side of it that reminded me of the cuts in Julie’s mattress. I tried to swallow, but my throat was too tight.

“Here we go. The door at the top of the stairs,” Rose said, smiling evilly at me as she put her hand on the knob.

Let it be locked
, I thought, but as with Mandy’s room, it opened on the first try.

I had a moment where I thought about turning back, but Rose entered and fanned her flashlight beam. All I saw were bright white plaster walls, brick floors, and an assortment of cardboard boxes. Very mundane. Very normal.

“Okay, let’s see what there is to see,” Rose said.

I walked inside. Then I felt the familiar sharp iciness inside my skull, as if someone had replaced my brain with a block of ice. It hurt; I staggered over to the far wall with the intention of leaning against it. But my knees gave way and I fell forward, hands outstretched, and slammed against a pile of boxes, which hit the wall.

“Lindsay!” Rose cried.

The plaster gave way; the flimsy board beneath cracked, and I fell face first into a space behind the original wall. I landed hard on my palms—I heard myself shout as the bottom section of the wall remained intact, catching me in the ribs.

Rose dropped to her knees beside me, gathering up my hair and going nose to nose with me. “Jesus, are you all right?”

“What is
that
?” I asked, grunting.

A little bit of light streamed in; I saw a hulking shape deeper in the crawl space or secret room or whatever it was. It was narrow in there, like a hallway, as narrow as the stairs had been. It took me a moment to realize that the shape within it was the silhouette of an old-fashioned wheelchair—a regular wood chair with a slatted headrest attached, and two long planks for someone’s legs. Two shorter planks were angled to create foot-rests. The wheels wore a sheen of rust, and it was swaddled in cobwebs.

“Holy crap,” Rose said.

She helped me to my feet, and threw down my boots. I stepped into them without lacing them; she did the same, and we both stepped over the jagged lip of the wall and minced toward the wheelchair. Sections of yellow-tinged wood peeked beneath streaks of dust—streaks that looked as if someone had recently tried to clean the chair with a sweep of the hand. But how? It had been on the other side of a
wall
.

“I’m seriously freaking,” Rose reported.