The Silent Scream (8 page)

No, that wasn’t right. There was something weird …

Jess walked the length of the hallway, avoiding the mud, her eyes on the floor. The weird thing about the footprints, she realized, was that they began in the middle of the hall, some distance from where the hallway
began.
They didn’t start in a place that made sense, like at the threshold to one of the rooms, as if someone had entered the hallway wearing muddy shoes.

Frowning, she followed the prints to where they curved, suddenly, into …
her
room. The muddy footprints ended just inside her door. But when she searched the room with her eyes, she found no one there.

It was as if the person in mud-covered shoes had been dropped from the sky, walked to her room, and then had been snatched skyward again.

Well, that was ridiculous!

Jess studied the oozed prints. Whoever had made such a disgusting mess could, she thought, have slipped out of the muddy shoes when he or she saw what was happening and guiltily carried the shoes back into their bedroom in stocking feet.

But if the shoes had been put
on
in one of the bedrooms, there would be telltale evidence leading from that room. And there wasn’t.

And even more disconcerting—why did the footprints lead to her room before they mysteriously stopped?

The front door slammed.

Jess ran to the top of the stairs and called, “Who is it? Ian, is that you?”

“No, it’s me, Linda.” Footsteps running up the stairs. “And I’m in a rush.” Linda came racing up the stairs, her cheeks flushed, her yellow-green hair windblown. “I’ve got a meet in two hours, and I’ve got
four
hours of history research to do. Yuck, what’s that?” She had reached the top of the stairs, and her mouth turned down in disgust as she surveyed the damage.

“Mud.”

“Well, I
know
it’s mud.” Linda eyed the trail of footprints. “What a mess! Where’d it come from? It hasn’t rained lately.”

“It’s probably always muddy down by the creek.” But Jess was trying to figure out how someone could come into the house with muddy shoes but deposit that mud only in the upstairs hall. How had they missed the stairs, and the front hall? “Linda, isn’t there something weird about these footprints?”

Linda carefully stepped around the mud. “Weird? Weird how?”

“Well, they start in the middle of the hallway.”

Linda shot Jess an exasperated look. “Jess, I really don’t have time for this. They’re just
footprints,
for pete’s sake. Someone slipped a pair of muddy shoes on out in the hall and took them off again when they saw what a mess they were making.”

“I thought of that. But then the prints would come from downstairs or out of one of the bedrooms, wouldn’t they?”

Linda groaned. “Do we have to make a major case out of this? Listen, Jess, I’ve got to get busy. I know I should help you clean this up, but I just can’t. Don’t be mad, okay? Get Trucker to help.” She hurried on down the hall and went into her room, closing the door.

This mess doesn’t make any sense, Jess thought as she began cleaning it up. She couldn’t walk away and leave it there.

But strangest of all, as she scrubbed, it looked like the footprints were fading on their own. The last half-dozen or so clumps of mud seemed to disappear by themselves.

Did mud fade when it dried?

Jess didn’t think so.

Strange.

Jess shook her head. Why was she worrying so much about a bunch of footprints? There simply must have been fewer footprints than she’d thought at first, that’s all.

When she had finished and the floor was shiny again, she went to her own room to study for a while and maybe take a nap.

Jess awoke with a start, her heart pounding fiercely. How long had she slept? Hours? And what had awakened her?

Faint noises from below told her she wasn’t alone in the house. But the noises weren’t loud enough to have awakened her. So what had?

Jess lifted her head, her eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness. Had a book fallen from the desk? Had a breeze blown shut her open closet door?

Jess peered into the darkness, exploring …

The desk was against the window with everything on it in place as she had left it. The closet door was still slightly ajar. It hadn’t slammed shut with a bang.

Then what … ?

Something moving on the wall opposite the foot of her bed caught her attention. Something … moving …

Jess gasped in horror and instinctively yanked the purple bedspread up to her chest in a protective motion. She sat perfectly still, her eyes making round O’s of disbelief as she stared in shocked silence.

The wall in front of her moved with the clear, unmistakable shadow of a body swinging back and forth from the light fixture.

J
ESS’S EYES REMAINED GLUED
to the shadow swinging on the wall opposite the foot of her bed.

The clear outline of long hair, thick and curly, swung out behind the shadowed figure.

Giselle … it had to be her. The girl Ian had told them about, the girl Milo knew, the dead sister of Avery McKendrick, the one who had hanged herself in Jess’s room.

Jess opened her mouth and screamed, a high, shrill sound that carried out of her room and into the hall.

Trucker, in the kitchen drinking a glass of milk, heard the sound and dropped the cardboard container. Thin, white liquid became a snowy river spreading across the faded linoleum.

Milo, his nose deep in a volume of poetry, jerked upright on his bed, tilting his head, waiting to see if the sound came again.

Linda, lost in a blissful dream about Milo, was rudely dragged awake by the scream.

Ian, reading at his desk by the window, jumped to his feet and raced to the door, long hair flying out behind him.

Jon had slipped out of the house earlier and was partying at a friend’s house.

Cath, exhausted from pulling the all-nighter to rewrite her missing paper, had, like Jess, decided to take a nap. Wrapped cocoonlike in a quilt, she slept blissfully on, hearing nothing.

Ian was the first to arrive in Jess’s room. He was followed quickly by Milo and Linda. They found Jess sitting up in bed, scrunched up against the headboard, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. They flew open when Ian arrived and flipped on the light switch.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, striding to her bedside.

Without answering, Jess opened her eyes and focused her gaze on the wall. There was nothing there. No swaying shadow. Only tiny sprigs of lilac on a background of white.

The trio gathered around her bed, all wanting to know why she had screamed.

The first thing she said was, “You turned on the light.”

Ian nodded. “Right. It was dark in here.”

“And it went away.”

He leaned over the bed. “What? What went away?”

“
She
did … Giselle.” Jess couldn’t stop shaking.

Linda grabbed the folded quilt from the foot of the bed and draped it around Jess’s shoulders. Then she sat down on the bed and asked, “You had a dream about that girl?”

Jess shook her head no. “It wasn’t a dream. I woke up and there she was, hanging … hanging….” Remembering, her breath caught in her throat and her words died.

Linda glanced up at Milo. “She was dreaming,” she said. “Ian,” she accused, “you never should have told her about that girl. How would
you
like to go to bed in a room where someone committed suicide? No wonder poor Jess had a nasty nightmare.”

“No, I … It wasn’t a nightmare! It was real. And maybe the scream I heard that first night was real, too.”

“Scream?” Ian asked. “What scream?”

“Someone screamed, the first night we were here. It woke me up. But no one else heard it, so I decided I’d been dreaming. That’s why I didn’t say anything about it. But now …”

No one said anything. But the three exchanged dubious glances.

“And you,” Linda scolded Milo, “you shouldn’t have made that dumb joke about the house being haunted.”

“You’re right,” he agreed, looking contrite. “I shouldn’t have. Sorry, Jess.”

“It wasn’t a dream,” Jess repeated. “Look, turn off the light. You’ll see for yourselves.”

No one moved.

“Turn it
off
!”

Shaking his head, Ian moved to the light switch. The room returned to total darkness.

Jess stared in disbelief at the bare wall. There was no shadow … there was nothing.

“I don’t see anything,” Ian said, and turned the light back on.

“It was
there
!” Jess cried, tears of frustration stinging her eyelids. “I
saw
it! She had long hair … she was hanging there …”

“Oh, Jess, don’t,” Linda said softly. “You’ll give us all nightmares. Listen, the best thing to do when you have a bad dream is get up and get really awake, right? That party starts in half an hour, anyway, and you’re still going, aren’t you? It’ll get your mind off your dream.”

Jess struggled with the idea that what she had seen was a dream. A dream? But …

No, they were right. How could it have been anything else
but
a dream? They all looked so concerned. She was upsetting everyone and making Ian and Milo feel guilty over—
what
? After all, she couldn’t
really
have seen that girl hanging in her room, could she? Not a girl who had died last spring. Not possible. So she hadn’t heard the scream, either. That, too, was not possible.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Get her mind off it, that was the answer. She had forgotten about the party, but it would be a perfect escape. “Of course I’m going,” she said firmly. “Sorry I got everyone all rattled. It was just so
real
…”

Linda looked relieved. “Great. You get dressed. Meet you downstairs. Should I wake Cath up? She’s napping, too. Her light isn’t on.”

“No, let her sleep.” Jess tossed the quilt aside and stood up. Her jeans looked okay, but her shirt was one giant wrinkle. “She probably wasn’t going to the party, anyway.”

When Milo and Linda left, Ian stayed behind. He stood over Jess, his dark eyebrows drawn together. “You sure that’s what you saw?” he asked. “A shadow of that girl? It couldn’t have been a tree branch?”

“Tree branches don’t have curly hair, Ian. I must have been wrong about it being real, but I wasn’t wrong about whose shadow it was. It was Giselle’s.”

“Okay. Linda’s right. I shouldn’t have told you about her. Maybe you could ask Mrs. Coates to switch your room when she gets back.”

Right. Like someone else would be willing to sleep in this room now that they all knew the truth.

She knew he was just trying to make her feel better. “Ian,” she said as he turned to leave, “Linda wasn’t right, blaming you and Milo. Everyone on campus knows about Giselle. I’m glad I heard the story from you first.”

“Yeah? You mean it?”

“I mean it. Now get out of here so I can change my clothes.”

Five minutes later, Jess left her room. The sense of relief that flooded her as she closed the door behind her made her knees weak. She would have to have such a good time at the party that she’d forget all about Giselle McKendrick. Otherwise, going back into that room when she got home would be impossible.

She did have a good time at the party. But she didn’t forget about Giselle.

The party was held in the Student Center on campus.

“This isn’t the room where they’re holding the Fall Ball,” Ian mentioned as they all arrived. “Not big enough. That’ll be in the main hall.”

But he didn’t turn to Jess then and add, “So … you want to go with me?” Instead, he smiled at her and moved away to talk to a friend he’d spotted.

Maybe he couldn’t afford tickets to the ball. They were expensive. And he’d have to rent a tux and buy a corsage …

Maybe
she
should ask
him.

But you can’t afford the tickets, either, she reminded herself. So forget about the ball and have a good time in the here and now. Tonight is
free.

She met tons of new people. The sophomores hosting the event made it their business to introduce themselves to as many freshmen as possible. Jess met several girls who hinted that she might be considered for their sororities, and she was too polite to tell them she wasn’t interested. She met several boys who bragged about their fraternities, and several people who shared her love of music and dancing. She was invited to join the chorus, work on the college newspaper, and volunteer for an adult literacy program conducted in the community by a group of sophomores and juniors.

“I wish I had time for all that,” she confided to the tall, heavyset girl with blonde hair who had mentioned the literacy program.

“Well, we hold the sessions right here on campus,” the girl, whose name tag read
BETH,
said. She smiled. “You might not even have to leave home. Which dorm are you in?”

Flushing slightly, Jess said, “I’m off-campus. At Nightingale Hall.” One of the sorority girls had wrinkled her cute little nose in distaste and disappeared quickly upon receiving this bit of information. Would Beth do the same?

No. She stayed, but a look of sympathy crossed her square, strong face. “Oh.” She hesitated, then added, “I guess you know about Giselle, then.”

Jess nodded. She didn’t want to ask, but she couldn’t help herself. “Did you know her?”

“She was in my English lit class,” Beth said. “You know, it’s strange … oh, never mind.”

“
What
?” Jess asked. If Beth knew something …

“Well, it’s just that my last memory of Giselle is so awful. I … I saw her fighting with someone on campus, the day before she died.”

“Fighting? You mean arguing?”

“No.
Fighting.
I mean, the other person was yanking on her hair, grabbing her arm, stuff like that.”

Jess gasped. “Who was she fighting with?”

Beth shrugged. “I don’t know. I was too far away. Couldn’t even tell if it was a guy or a girl.” She shrugged wide shoulders. “Whoever it was, was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Had long hair, though. Dark, I think.”

“If you were far away, how could you tell it was Giselle?”

“It was her, all right. I recognized that long, blonde hair.” Beth paused, then added, “She was really beautiful. She should have been conceited, but she wasn’t. Everyone liked her.” Her expression changed, turned bleak. “Well, I guess not
everyone.
Whoever was pushing her around that day sure didn’t like her.”