Possessions (5 page)

“Our parents, and the people they know . . . you can make connections that will get you anything you want.”

She searched my face. “I don’t know why you showed up so late. How you got in, no offense. Maybe somebody dropped. Someone I don’t know.”

Someone unimportant
.
Someone beneath your radar
, I filled in, but I was listening.

“So . . . you need to make an effort.” She took a breath. “And here’s the dealio, Lindsay. I’m good to know, but Mandy Winters is even better.”

Whoa
. I had not expected that.

“It’s
incredible
that Mandy Winters is here.” She searched my face. “Her parents know presidents and kings. And rock stars. Mandy had lunch at the White House two days before she showed up here.”

“Wow,” I said. Julie was right: the stratosphere of rich.

Sensing that she had my attention, Kiyoko leaned toward me. “She has a driver. She can ask her father for the
jet
. Her mother got her old boyfriend into Harvard on a phone call.”

“Yeah, and got him booted when they broke up,” Shayna declared, swinging her head around from a chair nearby.

“She did not,” Kiyoko said, but her voice was less firm.

“Whatever. She’s another rich you-know-what, but I can’t say it because my father is a rabbi.”

Shayna stretched her arms overhead and dropped them to her sides. “So, Lindsay, hi. Scholarship, huh?” She gave me a fakey wink. “Don’t freak. Everybody knows. Everybody knows everything. Including why Mandy’s here instead of that so-posh school in London.” She wrinkled her nose. “Marlwood is significantly closer to home. San Francisco.”

“We don’t know that,” Kiyoko said quickly.

“Mandy Winters and her brother Miles were found in bed in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House. Together.” Shayna snorted and rolled her eyes. “So they sent Mandy here, in case they feel like checking in on her. And they sent Miles back to rehab.
Again
.”

“That is not true,” Kiyoko whispered, as she touched the corner of her mouth.

A chime sounded. I jerked. Kiyoko reached into her bag with a shaking hand and took out a bookmark, laying it over the page and smoothing it as if it were very precious and valuable. Smoothing it again. It was made of red cardboard with raised black lettering and a pentagram.
RUNES,
it read.
San Francisco’s Premier Occult Bookshop.
I thought again of the weird ritual I’d seen her doing this morning with Mandy and that other girl, Lara. Were they some kind of coven? Cult?

She pressed the book closed and started packing up. She was one of the most elegant people I’d ever seen, but kind of robotic.

“That was the dismissal bell,” Shayna told me.

“Thanks,” I shot back, and got to my feet. She moved out of my way, and I scuttled back to my chair. There was a lot of energy in the room, and some laughter. My fellow students were moving to the rhythm of academia and their already-established friendships. I wondered how many of them had been to boarding school before. And how many of them were dying to be friends with Mandy Winters.

I met my dorm mates
at dinner. They were all very nice: Ida, who was Iranian; and Claire, very tanned—her mom owned half of Maui; and Julie of course. And April and Leslie, our soccer jocks. Haley wanted to study opera, but for some reason, everyone called her Elvis. And last was Maria del Carmen, who went by Marica. She was wearing huge emerald earrings, despite the fact that the Marlwood booklet had said to leave valuables at home.

Their interest in me totally peaked when they found out I was going to Jessel to watch a movie. Julie was especially wide-eyed, and I wanted to tell her so many things that I had learned the hard way. Such as: avoid the home of the cool girl. Avoid it like the plague.

“I’ll steal you a souvenir,” I promised her, and she blinked, looking a tad hurt.

Before I knew it, we had left the commons and my dorm mates were forking right, toward Grose, while I started down the hill, toward Jessel. Elvis was singing “Blue Hawaii” at the top of her lungs. Marica’s emeralds glittered in the light.

I walked alone through the falling darkness and the blowsy white, past more silent horse heads, to Jessel’s front porch. I could see myself in the leaded glass windowpanes of the door as I knocked and folded my arms, trying to look casual. But in the dark, with only moonlight shining on my skin, my reflection looked like a ghost.

I was about to knock again when the door creaked open. Mandy, not Kiyoko, stood in the doorway, in her ebony sweater and trousers. She had swapped out her more stylish city boots for hiking boots.

As for the rest of her, if she’d had to make an effort to look gorgeous, it didn’t show. Her white-blonde hair had been rearranged into a sleek ponytail held in place with a jet clasp; and her skin was flawless. Mandy was the kind of girl who would become a beautiful woman and stop aging at some point. She would always look great, and she would moisturize with stuff that cost a thousand dollars for a quarter ounce and make sure she got plenty of sleep by hiring other people to run her errands and organize her fabulous life.

“Oh, hi,” she said, as if we knew each other.

Surrounded by shadows, her head seemed to float by itself. She took in my appearance; the right half of her mouth drew up in a smile as she cocked her head, gazing at me as if there were something wrong, like I had food caught between my teeth or something.

“Hi,” I replied, since it was such a startlingly original thing to say.

“You have amazing eyelashes. We’re opening wine. Are you good with red?”

“Sure,” I said, even though wine was forbidden. Maybe they were bribing their housemother to keep quiet, or maybe they were really good at sneaking around. But more likely, the rules just didn’t apply.

“A girl after my own heart,” Mandy approved. “You’ve got potential.”

I really don’t
, I wanted to tell her.
I don’t care about coming to your dorm. I don’t care if you notice me, or if you can change my life with all your money and your connections.

But my cheeks warmed at the compliment.

Then she opened the door wide. Beyond her, the room was pitch-black, and for a second, I had a strange feeling that I shouldn’t go in there. Into Jessel, the most haunted dorm at Marlwood.

But I didn’t put much stock in strange feelings.

So I ignored it and walked on in.

five

Jessel.

For a moment, I just stopped and stared at the interior.
This
was a dorm? The foyer was enormous, with a cathedral ceiling that rose at least twenty feet straight up, to a larger, fancier chandelier than the one in Grose. Swags of black-and-silver bat decorations were wrapped around the varnished oak banister of a staircase that ran along the far right side of the room, a balcony jutting out into the space, overhanging the back of the room.

The dimly lit living room was crowded with Victorian antiques—ornate sofas upholstered in burgundy velvet with black fringes, overstuffed chairs in black and gold, elegant ferns splayed from ceramic pots, and ivory columns. I saw a half-opened cardboard box revealing what appeared to be bloody hands and feet. There were more boxes, all marked M. WINTERS, JESSEL HOUSE, MARLWOOD ACADEMY. Dozens, actually.

“We’re the haunted house,” Mandy explained. “For the Halloween carnival. What are you guys doing?”

“I don’t know,” I said.
I just got here.

“Well, the haunted house is the centerpiece of the whole carnival,” Mandy declared. “My dad gave me a budget of fifty but I said, ‘Hello? What can we do with
that
?’” Without missing a beat, she added, “You’re Lindsay Cavanaugh.”

“Yes.” Fifty
thousand? Dollars?

Kiyoko, in black pants and a sweater, was placing candles in white ceramic candleholders arranged on a grainy carved fireplace mantel. Black oil lamps flickered, etched with red roses.

“Well, it’s looking good,” I admitted.

“Oh, please. We haven’t even started,” Mandy replied, with a patronizing toss of her blonde head.

I became aware of a clock ticking as our three shadows splashed across the brick wall fireplace, joined by a fourth that crossed over mine. I turned to see Lara’s vibrant red hair tied in an expert knot with loose strands; she was rubbing her pale, freckled arms, looking cold in a dark blue cap-sleeve blouse top over a jean miniskirt.

“Lara, get the wine,” Mandy said, as Lara reached forward and moved one of the skull candleholders.

“But . . . ” Lara began, glancing at me as if to say,
In front of her?

“It’s
fine
.” Mandy picked up the candleholder. “I liked it where Kiyoko had it. Keeks has great taste.”

Lara huffed and sailed out of the room, disappearing through a doorway.

“I swear, you can’t get good help these days,” Mandy said. Kiyoko only half-smiled, and I didn’t smile at all.

As if by unspoken agreement, we moved from the mantel. Beneath the overhanging section, a huge plasma screen TV faced two of the overstuffed sofas and a couple of big chairs pushed together. Beyond, a panorama window revealed the stars, the mountains, and the inky blackness of Searle Lake. I knew that Lakewood Preparatory Academy for Young Men was located on the other side of the lake. Three things were forbidden on Marlwood soil: cheating, drugs and alcohol, and boys. I thought about the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House. I could totally believe that Mandy had stayed there. I wasn’t so sure about the part with her brother, Miles. It boggled my mind.

I looked around the room at the beautiful furnishings. On one of the sofas, I spotted a skein of amazing yarn, soft enough to be butter, in shades that ranged from silky white streaked with crinkle-leaf brown to burnished gourd to deep burgundy. My knitter’s fingers longed to touch it.

Lara reappeared with a silver tray bordered with silver rose-buds, containing four glasses of red wine. She set the tray down on a table kind of like the nightstand in my dorm room. She grabbed a glass. Then she walked to the panorama window and took a long, thoughtful swallow as she stared at the darkness.

“It’s cold out,” she said. “Foggy. Maybe we should call it off.”

Call what off?
I wondered.

Mandy didn’t respond. She handed me a glass and got one for herself. Clinking glasses with me, she said, “Cheers.” She sipped. “We have a little thing to do tonight. In fact, we should get to it.”

I went on red alert. A little thing? I glanced at Kiyoko, who left the mantel and walked toward the hall tree, loaded with coats and jackets.

“Lara’s right,” Mandy said. “It’s cold out. Kiyoko, get Linz a jacket, too.”

Linz.

Kiyoko nodded to show she’d heard, piling outerwear in her arms, including a large black leather jacket. Mandy said, “Ha ha, Kiyoko.”

“It was the first thing I saw,” Kiyoko said. “You never wear it anyway.”

Mandy considered. “I guess it’s okay.”

Then Kiyoko bent down and slung on a sleek navy blue backpack with
Kiyoko
embroidered on the back.

“What’s going on?” I asked, as Kiyoko handed me the black leather jacket without making eye contact. I had never felt anything so luxurious in my life—well-worn leather, lined with satin.

“It’s going to be fun,” Mandy said.

I stood my ground. “Tell me what we’re doing.”

“Kiyoko has something to do,” Mandy said. Her smile was kind and reassuring.

“I didn’t check with Mandy before I scheduled our movie. We’ll see it soon. I promise,” Kiyoko told me. Her face was pale and she touched the corner of her mouth—a nervous habit, I realized.

“Come on, Linz, we want you to be with us,” Mandy said, and I could feel the warmth radiating off her. She had charisma; I’d give her that. I tried to remind myself that she was exactly the kind of girl I should stay away from, but there was something about her . . . something I couldn’t explain, that urged me to give her a chance.

Maybe
they
could get in trouble, but I was there on scholarship. I couldn’t risk getting caught doing . . . “a little thing”—at least, not if it was against school rules. So I got ready to give them a “thanks anyway” speech as we all picked up our wine-glasses—I hadn’t touched mine—and walked down a hall and into the kitchen.

Lara grabbed the wine bottle beside a stainless steel refrigerator, unslung her mannish jacket from the back of a barstool at the white-and-green tiled breakfast bar, and slipped it on. Lara brought the bottle with us as we tiptoed out the kitchen door and down a path covered with pea gravel, Mandy and Lara first, then Kiyoko, then me. Kiyoko looked over her shoulder at me, put her index finger to her mouth, and pointed to a room jutting from beside the kitchen. Lights were on. I heard a TV.

“Housemother,” she whispered.

“We think she’s deaf,” Mandy said, her nose crinkling with pleasure as we scurried past their building.