The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall (10 page)

I focused back on Eliza. “Eloping?” I asked. “You were going to get married? How old were—are you?”

“Seventeen,” Eliza said. “Yes, I was eager to be married. The alternative was sitting around and watching my mother do needlepoint and gossip about her friends. It was bound to happen eventually, and I wanted it to be on my terms.”

“Oh,” I said, trying to imagine a life with such a narrow scope.

“You didn’t plan to get married, then?” Eliza asked.

“Well, I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Maybe someday, down the road. People don’t really get married that young anymore. I mean, my parents would have had a conniption if I’d ever talked about marrying my boyfriend.”

Eliza and Florence exchanged a glance. “Boyfriend?” Eliza asked, sounding intrigued. “What was he like? What was he called?”

“
Ex
-boyfriend,” I said, correcting myself. “His name was Landon. He was cute and smart. And I thought he loved me, but apparently not.”

Florence sighed dramatically.
“Men.”

Eliza leaned forward. “Did you love him?”

I shrugged. “I thought I did.”

“Did he make you feel more alive, every time you were near him?” she asked suddenly. “Is that what it felt like?”

“Honestly?” I said. “No. Not really. Mostly I felt sort of nervous, like he was too good for me.”

Both Eliza and Florence frowned.

“I don’t know,” I said, wishing I had an answer that made me sound slightly less pathetic. “I liked being around him, and we always got along. But somehow I did always feel sort of … smaller.”

Saying it out loud made me realize that it was true.

“What about you?” I asked Florence. “Have you ever been in love?”

Her eyes glazed over. “Oh, yes, I was in love. I
love
being in love.”

“Florence is like a fairy-tale princess,” Eliza said. “She spends a lot of time sitting in the parlor, reading poetry, and waiting for Prince Charming to show up.”

“Old habits die hard,” Florence said. “That’s how I spent my teenage years … sitting around lookin’ pretty, trying to catch a man good enough for my mama.”

“Prince Charming’s not coming here,” I said. The only man we had access to was Theo, stuck outside. And something inside me went cold at the thought of Florence turning her considerable wiles on him.

“Don’t I know it,” Florence said. “I’m so sick of women I could spit. Present company excluded, of course.”

We all laughed a little, and I began to feel like they were warming up to me.

“Did it work, when you were alive?” I asked. “Did you catch a man?”

“Well, lots of boys came calling on me, of course. But none of them really got my attention. Then there was one who was different from the others.” Florence leaned back and stared at the carved plaster ceiling. “He set my very soul on fire. I would have done anything for him. The problem is … he married someone else.”

“Oh dear,” Eliza said.

“
Oh dear
is right,” Florence said. “Talk about a troubled woman.”

Then we all laughed, harder this time.

I sat back, contemplating whether what Landon and I had had was even real. It certainly paled in comparison to Eliza’s aliveness and Florence’s fiery soul.

Maybe that was why he was the one I missed the least.

“Will you tell me more about what it was like to live here?” I asked, still curious. I tried to imagine Eliza arriving and being shown into the wardress’s office. My eyes traveled instinctively to her wrist. “Like, why …” I trailed off, not sure if the question would offend her.

“My jingle bells?” Eliza’s voice darkened. “I kept trying to get away—I was quite good at it, actually; I’d learned how to pick locks from my older brother, Ernest. Eventually they strapped the bells on. Completely mortifying. I’m like a cat. A naughty cat.”

“They’re not so bad,” I lied.

“You know, my family never came back for me,” Eliza said, looking at the floor. “Not even to visit.”

“That’s pretty harsh,” I said.

She thought for a moment before speaking again. “Yes, I do think it is. What about you? What was your life like? Aside from the fact that your family doesn’t like one another.”

I flushed, annoyed. “We do like each other; it’s just … complicated. Different from when you guys were alive. Families don’t always get along.”

“That’s not different,” Florence said with a small laugh. “That’s the way it’s been since Cain and Abel.”

“What’s different, I think, is that everyone seemed so
rude
,” Eliza said. “The way you treated each other.”

“We weren’t always like that,” I protested. “I was having a really bad day.” Which was a bit of an understatement.

No one spoke for a long time, and when I glanced back over at Florence, she was gone. Eliza was beginning to fade, too.

“How do you do that?” I asked. “Fade in and out.”

“It’s not just us,” she said. “You do it as well. It’s like … when you’re alive, you can walk into a room and not attract any notice. And then you say hello or spill your drink, and people notice you. For ghosts, it’s a bit like that, only you fade in and out.”

“So you can’t always see me, even when we’re in the same room?”

“Not always,” Eliza said. “But I should warn you, I
hate
surprises. So don’t creep up behind me.”

“Fair enough,” I said. I was starting to think she found me just tolerable, which was a big step up from before. Her next words floored me.

“What color was the smoke?”

I looked up at her, startled.

“The smoke you saw before you jumped—I mean, fell,” she said. “What did it look like?”

“It was dark, practically black,” I said.

“And it was almost … shiny?” she asked. “Like a piece of oiled metal?”

I nodded and saw a gleam of recognition in her eye. I waited for her to say more, to tell me why she’d asked. But instead, she nodded curtly and disappeared.

*  *  *

I was worn out, too, but I felt stubbornly determined to accomplish
something
. So I went through the hall door and down the dark corridor, illuminating it with the pale blue glow that emanated from my body. I’d been through every door except the one at the far end—the visiting parlor—so that was where I headed.

The room was large and gracious-looking, with wood floors and a fancy sofa against one wall. Apart from the superintendent’s apartment and the lobby, it was the nicest room I’d seen in the house, which made sense, considering it was for visitors.

There was a large bookcase against one wall, and I let my eyes drift across the authors’ names embossed in gold on the spines—Byron, Tennyson, Dickinson, and a whole row of dark green texts with gleaming silver spines—
The Selected Works of Lord Lindley
. I tried to remember the last book I’d read as a living person, and cringed as I realized it had been the Cliffs-Notes of something my teacher had assigned at the very end of the school year. Maybe someday I’d be able to pick up and read these books. Maybe even today.

I bet for something as noble as poetry, I’ll be able to touch the books,
I thought. Eyes closed, I slowly reached my hand toward the shelves.

Nope. My fingers went right through the spines of the first three volumes of Lindley. I slumped in disappointment.

Then a distant sound caught in my ear, a faraway rumble …

I perked up. I knew that sound.

It was a car.

I ran back to the lobby, where Florence had reappeared on the sofa. She gazed dreamily out at the grounds.

“Someone’s here!” I said, racing to the window.

“That happens from time to time,” she said, waving her hand languidly.

Off in the distance, kicking up snow as it came up the driveway, was a silver SUV.

Despite her blasé pretense, Florence came and stood next to me. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know,” I said breathlessly. But an impossible hope grew in my heart—

It’s my family.

I ran through the front door and down the snowy steps just as the car reached the circular drive in front of the house. The glare of the sun on the windshield obscured the faces of the people in the front seat, so I ran around to get a better look at my dad.

But when I saw the person behind the wheel, I stopped short.

The driver of the car wasn’t my father.

It was Landon.

I
stood staring at Landon’s face so intently that it took me a moment to notice who was sitting in the front passenger seat.

Nic.

“Oh!” I cried, and the word ended in a choked sob.

“Who is it?” Theo had materialized next to me. He stared into the car, shading his eyes with one hand.

“My best friend,” I said, trying and failing to keep my composure. Tears streamed down my cheeks, though I couldn’t pinpoint which emotion had motivated them. “She came. She didn’t forget me.”

Theo frowned in Landon’s direction. “And who’s he?”

“That’s … nobody,” I said. “He’s not important.”

I ran up to Nic as she got out of the car and threw my arms around her in a bear hug, even though she couldn’t know I was doing it.

“Nic, I’m so happy you’re here!” I spoke loudly, as if she were hard of hearing. On the off chance that she could understand me, I was going to make sure I said everything I’d ever wished I could go back and say. “I’ve missed you! I love you! Thank you for not forgetting about me!”

But she didn’t seem to hear my words, and she definitely didn’t take comfort from them.

She stared up at the house like it was something horrible, a cavern filled with angry dragons, and shrank into her thick winter jacket. Seeing her so miserable took the happy wind right out of my sails.

Landon came around the car, looking more than a little uncomfortable. When he touched Nic’s arm to get her attention, she practically jumped out of her skin.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “You don’t have to.”

She swallowed back her tears and wiped her nose with a tissue. For a girl who usually went around looking like a Hollywood starlet, with dark Renaissance-princess hair and perfect white teeth, Nic was the world’s ugliest cryer. Her nose went tomato red, her skin got all splotchy, her eyes squinched up, and her lips pulled back. It was a sight to behold, the perfect representation of who she was—over-the-top, emotional, big, blustery, and completely the most loving and lovable human being on the planet.

“I do have to,” she snuffled, a steel rod of resoluteness in her voice. “I
do
. I owe it to her.”

Landon sighed and stuck his hands in the pockets of his preppy navy-blue corduroy peacoat. “All right. But remember, we can leave anytime.”

She nodded and went up the stairs toward the entrance.

The doors were locked, of course. Nic stood back and paused, then went back down the stairs.

For a second, my heart seized—I thought they were going to get back in the car and leave. But then she started around the side of the building. I followed her.

“Good-bye, then,” Theo called to me.

“Oh, sorry—I’ll see you later!” I replied, forgetting all about him as I jogged after Nic.

“Where are you going?” Landon shouted, and for a second I had this brain hiccup where I thought he was talking to me.

“There’s supposed to be another door over here,” Nic said over her shoulder, not slowing down. I stayed close behind her, listening to the crunch of her shoes in the snow. “There should be a key under a flowerpot.”

“A key?” Landon jogged a little to catch up to us, his breath a faint mist in the cold air.

“Yeah,” she said. She stepped onto a slab of concrete and knelt to lift one of the flowerpots, revealing a tarnished key. “Janie said they left a key, in case any lawyers or realtors came by.”

Landon was quiet for a second. “Isn’t Janie a little … ?”

A little what? I waited to hear what he would say about my sister. I wanted news of my family. I wanted to hear every little detail of their lives.

“She gave me the combination to the gate lock,” Nic said. “I think she knows what she’s talking about.”

Landon shrugged and looked up toward the roof. “So are their parents going to sell this place?”

“Not yet,” she said. “But maybe someday. I mean, what else would they do with it? Janie said her dad moved out the day after Thanksgiving. They’re probably going to get divorced.”

What?
My parents were getting a divorce? I reeled at the thought. How could that be? They bickered sometimes, but in general they’d been an infuriatingly unstoppable team for my entire childhood.

“They say there are some things that break marriages apart,” Landon said quietly. “I guess losing a kid is probably one of those things.”

“It broke me apart,” Nic said softly, and I realized how selfish I’d been when I’d imagined her reaction to my death and fretted over being replaced by someone new. Losing your best friend would be something you’d never recover from. Even if you moved on, found a new college roommate, chose a new maid of honor … some tiny piece of you would always be missing. I thought of what my life would have been like if Nic died, and the bleak misery of it made my stomach ache.

Nic unlocked the door, Landon pulled it open, and they entered in silence. Then Nic went to the little table by the door and pulled a large key ring from the drawer.

“Right where Janie said it would be.” She turned to Landon and tried to hide a shiver. “Shall we?”

He nodded, unenthused.

“I think she said it was this one …” She opened the door to the main hall, and I slipped through behind them. They’d come prepared—Landon held a huge torch-style flashlight, and Nic carried a little electric camping lantern. Nic moved as if she knew exactly where she was going. I got closer and realized she was looking down at a photo of a hand-drawn map on her phone.

The labels on the map made my stomach clench. They were in Janie’s handwriting, but it seemed, to my eye, less loopy—less like the perky preteen scrawl I knew and more like the writing of a young woman. Like she’d grown up in a hurry.

The map led us to the back stairwell and up to the second-floor day room. I hadn’t been back up there since the day I died. But being with my best friend and boyfriend (all right, my
ex
) felt almost … normal.

Nic stood in the center of the day room and took in all the details, then strode ahead. Landon watched her, not quite knowing what to do or say. Her single-mindedness seemed to alarm him slightly.

“Through there,” she said, gesturing toward the ward door.

But before she could go forward, Landon blocked her path. “Are you
sure
you want to do this?”

She was silent for a long time, and then she nodded, her eyes fixed on the door.

“Delia.”

The sound of my name startled me. Eliza stood a few feet away, looking at me anxiously. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Of course I am,” I said, noticing that Nic and Landon had ventured into the ward hall. “But I have to follow them, sorry.”

“No, wait—”

But I left her behind. When I caught up to Nic and Landon, they were standing and staring at the door to Room 1.

It was crisscrossed with police tape:
CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS
.

“We don’t have to go in there,” Landon said.

“Yes, I do,” Nic said. “I really, really do. Don’t you understand? She was my best friend. And her being here was my fault. That
stupid
trip … I knew she didn’t want to go.”

“Nic, come on,” I said. “It’s nobody’s fault. I mean, if we’re going to start pointing fingers, it’s way more Landon’s fault than yours.”

She tore down the crime scene tape and went inside. Landon tried to tidy the dangling strips of yellow plastic before following her.

Though the prospect of being in that room filled me with dread, I was curious enough to go in after them.

“Delia!” Eliza’s unhappy voice echoed from the hall.

The room was mostly dark, with stripes of dusty sunlight streaming between the boards that covered the window.

Nic shivered. “It’s freezing.”

Landon shrugged off his coat and draped it over her shoulders. They looked around for a minute, and then Nic walked the perimeter of the room, trailing her fingers along the wallpaper.

“Do you think she wished we were here with her?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Landon said. “
I
wish we’d been here.”

Nic nodded, staring at the boarded-up window. “I can’t even remember the last thing I said to her. I think I called her a loser or something.”

“That’s just what you guys did,” Landon said. “You can’t feel bad about that. What was it she always called you?”

“A weenie,” I said.

“Weenie,”
Nic said, half laughing and half crying. “She always loved Halloween because for a whole day she got to call me
Halloweenie
.”

Landon snorted, and then they dissolved into low laughter.

“I could never think of anything for
loser
,” she said. “So I just said March seventeenth was St. Loser’s Day. But it wasn’t the same.”

“Yeah, not as good,” Landon said.

Nic let out a long sigh, and the audible expression of her pain made me want to curl up and die. Again.

“Let’s go outside,” she said suddenly.

“Come on,” Landon said, scratching his chin unhappily. “Why torture yourself?”

“Because I want to. I need to see … the place where she fell.”

“But why?”

“Because if I don’t see it,” Nic said desperately, “I’ll never believe it actually happened. I’ll never believe that she’s not just hiding someplace. You know how desperate she was to get away from her parents.” Her whole face lit up. “What if she was here now? Like, hiding in the closet or something? Wouldn’t that be hilarious?”

Landon looked doubtful. “Not sure that’s the word I’d choose.”

“You know what I mean. It would just be so … so Delia. If there were a cupboard under some stairs, I’d just about put money on her being in there.”

He didn’t look convinced, but she wasn’t paying attention to him anymore.

“Come on,” she said. “There’s an exit through the kitchen.”

Apparently, Janie had learned more about the house than I knew, because her map clearly showed a door leading out through the industrial kitchen. I trailed behind them, past the shelves piled high with stacks of giant pots and pans, past the hulking ancient stoves, and out a door with a thin coating of rust covering its entire surface. From the dark kitchen, we emerged into the crisp winter air.

Nic marched to the space under the boarded-up window. The ground was covered with snow, but she nudged her boot through it, kicking the white powder out of the way, until a patch of muddy, dead earth became visible.

Then she knelt, touched her hand to her mouth in a gentle kiss, and set her fingers in the mud.

“I miss you so much, you stupid loser,” she whispered.

“You too, Weenie,” I said.

Then her pain came pouring out, flooding the air with sobs. Her sorrow seemed to cut me in two, leaving me feeling pinned and helpless, weakened by my own reflection of her feelings.

Landon leaned over to touch her shoulder, but she pushed his hand away. Her sobs were gasping, choking sounds, echoing in the cold, empty air. Gradually they subsided, and she tried to speak.

“What?” Landon asked.

“I—I said … How could she?” Nic sat herself up. She looked terrible (and I can say that because I’m her best friend). “How
could
she?” She jumped to her feet. “How could you?!” she shouted up at the window.
“How could you do this to me, Delia?!”

It took a second for the words to sink in. And then our shared sorrow melted away, leaving me feeling … angry.

“
Do
this to you?” I yelled back. “To
you
? Are you kidding? I didn’t do anything! I’m the victim here!”

“It’s okay,” Landon said, trying to grab her arm. “Nic, it’s okay. Come on, let’s go inside. You’re gonna freeze to death out here.”

Grudgingly, she let him guide her back into the kitchen and through the maze of rooms to the superintendent’s apartment, where she sat on the couch, sniffling and wiping her nose with a well-used tissue.

Landon flicked on the lights, then walked over and sat on the same couch, leaving a good-sized space between them. I hovered nearby, still hurt by her words but hungry for more conversation. I wanted to hear about my parents, my sister, the school year. I yearned for delicious, inconsequential little details—who won Homecoming Queen, what were the new trends, what books people were reading, which teachers were being extra strict this year, where our friends were applying to college. They were halfway through senior year. I wondered if Nic had to lie to her parents to be allowed to come here.

Landon fidgeted, his fingers tapping out an irregular rhythm on the arm of the couch, his eyes darting around the room. He’d always fidgeted. I wondered how many times I’d leaned against his warm chest, my eyes closed, thinking he was enjoying our time together—when really he was just looking around, wanting to be somewhere else.

“So …” he said finally. “Should we get going?”

“No,” Nic said. “Not yet.”

“Listen, you can’t do this to yourself,” he said. “You know that whatever she was going through wasn’t your fault. Any more than it was mine.”

“But what if she—”

“Delia,
come here right now
.” Eliza’s voice rang out from the opposite side of the room, urgent enough that I actually went to see what she wanted. But when I reached her, she simply shook her head. “You don’t need to see this.”