The Screaming Season

  “I see the shrink right after dinner. Then we can get to work.”

  Bingo. “Okay.”

  She pressed her teeth together in a rictus grin, indicating her unease. “I’ve been wondering something. Have you ever worried that Celia might make her presence known while you’re talking to him?”

  “Yes, I have,” I answered frankly. “But he seems to soothe her.”

  “Soothe.” She drummed her nails on the table again. “There is nothing soothing about any of this.”

  “I agree. And may I say, thanks for that.” I looked at the bag. “How did you find out about all this? How did you learn how to call Belle?”

  “I’ll save that for another time,” she said coyly. “Suffice to say, I couldn’t find anything about uncalling. Believe me, I have looked.”

  “I want to see all of it. After the party.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Sure.”

  ALONE. IN MY ROOM.

  Dressed in sweats for bed, I kept the light on. I decided that tomorrow, I’d ask for more lamps. There were too many dark corners.

  I dug out my knitting needles and my prized Casbah yarn in shades of purple and plum. I could knit and stare at the same time. And stab an intruder, if it came to that. As I got to work, the knitting soothed me. I had missed the clack of the needles, the sensation of the rich wool, creating something out of nothing for someone I cared about.

  “Memmy?” I called out. “Can you hear me? Can you come to me?”

  No answer. No geraniums.

  I started to doze. Shaking myself awake, I kept knitting, planning some socks for Heather. My back was stiff, my shoulder blades pinched together. Claire was right: I was crazy to stay in this room. The shadows moved, shifted; creaks made me jump.

  “Memmy, come to me,” I said again.

  Come to me

  Come to me

  Come to me

  Come to me

  Come to me

  Get her. Hold her down. Silence her.

  I’m coming to you

  I’m coming to you

  I’m coming to you

  I’m coming to you

  Something was scratching against the other side of the wall. The floorboards in the corridor were creaking. Someone was opening my door. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream.

  I couldn’t wake up.

  I’m here.

  TWENTY-TWO

  BREAKFAST WAS AWKWARD. Julie didn’t show. I woke up with a neck ache and a headache, having fallen asleep knitting. Claire, Ida, Elvis, and Marica all had headaches too.

  “We all have hangovers,” Marica confessed, rubbing her forehead. “Please don’t be hurt. Julie was so upset that we broke out a few bottles of Cristal. I went to your room to share with you, but you were out.”

  “Yeah, about hangovers,” I said, feeling even more awkward. “There’s going to be a party tonight. Everyone’s invited. Including Julie.”

  Claire did a double take. I had never thrown a party before. In fact, given my somewhat anti-social stance, it was out of character for me to even attend a party. I figured I might as well get it all out and over with.

  “I have a co-hostess. Mandy.”

  More consternation. Claire spread her palm on my forehead as if to check for a fever but quickly lifted it when I winced from pain.

  “But you hate Mandy,” Elvis said.

  “We’re both in therapy now.”

  I got up to fetch myself more coffee. As I was filling my cup, Mandy and her crew pushed through the entrance, faces all pinched and surly, yet everyone was dressed in the best. Mandy had on a stylish pastel-pink sweater and butt-clinging jeans, but they somehow didn’t look right on her. Frizz stuck out from a massive bun updo of hair extensions that had to be one of those cool “anti-hair” looks that I didn’t understand. The total effect was that Mandy looked as exhausted and disheveled as on the night of the Troy stunt.

  She came straight for me. I held my mug in both hands, waiting. Heads turned. From a distance, Lara glared.

  “Bad night,” Mandy said under her breath. “Nightmares. Or whatever. And I kept waking up. I thought someone was in my room. I didn’t find anyone.”

  “I had a similar night,” I murmured.

  We shared a look. Then she wrapped her hand over the crown of her head. Her bruises were changing from purple to sickly green. “And I’ve got the worst headache.”

  “Do you want to cancel the party?”

  “No way.”

  “Okay.” I drank my coffee. “Watch what you say to Dr. Morehouse. I’d skip telling him. . . everything.”

  She grabbed my coffee and took a sip. “I’m not an idiot.”

  “Yeah, you kind of are.” I took my coffee back. “Because this is all your doing.”

  I turned on my heel and stomped over to my table. They’d been watching my every move.

  “By the way, it’s a full-moon party. Not like the book. Like the moon, moon.”

  They gaped at me. I grabbed a piece of toast and left. I didn’t want to answer questions. I didn’t want people to stare at me and dissect how I’d gotten so lucky as to become the new best friend of Mandy Winters.

  I lurched through the day, trying hard to be friendly when the least cool among us cautiously approached me to confirm that yes, even they were invited to our party. I could see them cringing, bracing themselves for rejection or to be humiliated via some superprank that we’d punked them into signing up for. Mandy hadn’t pulled any mean-girl shenanigans since we’d returned from break, so we were overdue for something massive. They didn’t realize that she’d already pulled the cruelest prank in the short history of our school—allowing the dead to haunt us. And for some, to possess us.

  “Wow, you’re having the party in the operating theater,” Charlotte Davidson said to me in PE as we sat on a bench in the gym. The rest of the class was getting ready for fitness tests. I was excused because of my pneumonia and my head injury. I didn’t know what Charlotte’s excuse was.

  “Well, you know what they say. You have to get back on the horse,” I told her. She didn’t know what to make of that, so she smiled and nodded at me.

  “You’re invited,” I added, and she relaxed. I realized then that the comment about the operating theater was merely her opening gambit, her way of making sure that she could come.

  I was embarrassed that our stupid party meant so much. I took it out on Charlotte by ignoring her for the rest of the class. As we watched the class do push-ups and sit-ups, looks were cast my way. I knew I had newly acquired social clout only because I was Mandy’s co-conspirator, and it made me mad because the same girls who feared and respected Mandy were the ones who had given her the power over them in the first place. In a way, Mandy possessed each one of them.

  My surly behavior was so evident that during free period, Mandy took me aside in the statue garden to lecture me. The stone-faced statues observed me like judge and jury as she gave me the evil eye.

  “No one will want to come if you don’t at least act like you want them to come.”

  “And miss a Mandy Winters production?” I scoffed.

  “Yes. They’ll be too scared. Of you.”

  I nodded and hung my head. She was right.

  “Remember, we’re doing this for a reason. An important reason.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m actually glad I’m going to see Dr. Morehouse,” she said. “I need a break.” She tapped her forehead carefully, checking her fingertips, maybe for makeup. “Someone’s watching me. I can feel it.”

  “Mandy, people are always watching you. You’re Mandy Winters. Maybe it’s Miles.”

  “No, I’d know.” She moved her shoulders. “We have a twin thing.”

  “WE HAVE A twin thing,” she told Dr. Morehouse. “And I—I worry about him all the time.” She was weeping. I knew what she was doing, using Miles as the cover story to explain why she was so upset.

  “Family issues can be very trying,” Dr. Morehouse said
.

  I had sat down to dinner with my dorm mates—including Julie, who was avoiding me—when I’d noticed that Mandy wasn’t at her table. Since we were co-hosting the party, it wasn’t considered odd when I’d asked the princesses of Jessel where she was. It turned out that Dr. Morehouse had rescheduled her appointment.

  “They should be finishing up about now,” Alis had informed me.

  “Great. I’ll go wait for her,” I’d said, and flew up the hill as fast as I could.

  Breathless, I snuck into the storage room and crawled into the dumbwaiter. I really, really wanted to know what Mandy had to say to Dr. Morehouse.

  “So, we’ll meet as agreed,” Dr. Morehouse said. “I have exactly what you need to make all the pain go away.”

  “I won’t have to wait too long?” she asked anxiously.

  “No, I should have it by later tonight.”

  No way, I thought angrily. She’s getting the shortcut!

  Typical. Typical that the wealthy got what the poor did not. Waves of fury surged through me for all the shortcuts my mother had been denied and for the free ride that Mandy was getting again. I tried to calm down; it didn’t matter. And I should be glad that one of us would have an easier path. I clenched my jaw and forced myself to be quiet. But my fists were clenched. It was always so easy for her.

  Celia loved David Abernathy, the young doctor. And he said he loved her. But Belle had set her cap for him, and she tortured Celia, pushing her head under the ice water in the great tub, shrieking at her to give him up. Screaming, “He is mine!” And as Celia ran down the lane, every inch of her body burning, she knew that Belle had been right. He had loved the beautiful, wealthy Belle and used the poor one, Celia Reaves, used her and cast her aside.

  Murdered her . . .

  “God,” I whispered aloud, wiping my forehead. I was shaking so hard the dumbwaiter jittered. If I didn’t shut up, I would give myself away.

  “I’ll be there,” Mandy promised.

  There was silence. And then he said, “Good girl.”

  GOOD GIRL, I told myself as I got myself under control. I waited for Mandy to leave and lingered to see if Dr. Morehouse had another appointment. But he got up from the desk and went out the door. So I waited some more, to give him time to leave the admin building without running into me.

  The sky was darkening with heavy clouds; the wind slapped at me and made the trees shake as I walked past them. The shadows shifted on the horse heads, and I jerked when I noticed that every fourth head was wearing a tiny Irish hat. Shiny, oversized shamrocks were fluttering from the trees of Academy Quad. In the midst of all the craziness, someone had started decorating the campus for St. Patrick’s Day. Marlwood did things in a big way.

  I went over to Jessel and knocked on the kitchen door. Lara grudgingly let me in. Her short red hair needed a trim—why did I even notice these things?—and her boyish prep clothes in tans and blues hung on her. She’d been losing weight. Without saying a single word to me, she loaded my arms with a heavy cardboard box—probably the heaviest one in the batch. Bottles clanked. Three things were forbidden on Marlwood soil—boys, booze, and cheating. Oh, well.

  I had a thought. Setting down the box, I said, “Mandy wants me to go down into the basement. She’s got another Ouija board down there. For the party.”

  “All her stuff is stored in the attic,” Lara argued, but I just stood there. Lara had never liked me. I was sure that now she liked me even less. I had direct Mandy access without going through her.

  “Whatever,” she said. She unfolded the flaps of the box she had handed me and put in a stack of paper plates. Probably just to add to the weight.

  I sauntered out of the kitchen and walked into the living room. The foyer of Jessel was stupendous, with a twentyfoot cathedral ceiling dominated by an oversized cut-crystal chandelier just dying to fall and crush me to death. Directly across the room, a varnished oak staircase ran along the brick wall, leading to the balcony that hung over the back half of the room. The bedrooms were upstairs. I was itching to go up and have a look at Mandy’s. It was probably locked, and I thought Lara might balk if I tried to go into the forbidden zone.

  I made a point of not looking at the fireplace mantel to my right. A trio of photographs of Belle and two other girls sat behind votive candles. Mandy had been caught talking to them a couple of times, and it had freaked out the others, but not too much. After all, she held séances, too.

  I walked down the hall to the laundry room, grabbed a flashlight from a basket of them next to a container of detergent, and opened the door that led to the basement. It was as dank and dark as I recalled it. I flicked on the light, scanning the walls for a light switch, and found a rusty chain connected to a bulb dangling above my head. That didn’t seem up to Marlwood standards, but I pulled it anyway. Watery light pierced the gloom.

  I started down a flight of worn stone steps. And then I paused. Going down here alone wasn’t a good idea. There were other girls in the house, sure, but if something happened to me, they might not ever know. If I fell, or if someone put a hand over my mouth . . .

  I felt the coldness of Celia wash across the back of my neck. She was urging me to keep going. Either my instincts had been right, or Celia had whispered the idea into my mind.

  “Of course, you’re evil,” I said aloud.

  I heard her laughter echoing around me as I walked down the stairs. Angry, sad laughter, more like wailing, and I remembered the horrible things the Marlwood Stalker had done. The things Celia might have done, while existing inside me.

  Had she been crazy when she died, or had dying made her crazy? I waved the beam of the flashlight; it landed on boxes and pieces of furniture covered with drapes. It smelled muddy. It was cold. I glanced back to make sure the door was still open. I should have used something to keep it from shutting.

  But I knew there was another door down there. It was the one I had burst through when I had been running from the . . .

  No.

  My blood turned to ice.

  The same wheelchair that had chased me before sat squarely in the middle of the room, facing me. It was made of wood, with hinged slats for arms and feet. Upright, its wheels were rusted, but I knew it could move fast. My throat tightened and I took an involuntary step back, up one step. I didn’t want to look at it, but I was afraid to take my eyes off it. If I let down my guard, it might . . .

  Oh, my God.

  I heard the wheels squeak. Noises from the living room startled me; Lara was yelling to someone. Maybe she would come to check on me.

  Maybe she would shut me in.

  Could all this be one huge meta-prank, pulled off by Mandy with the help of half the school? The bad dreams, the visions, something she’d arranged? Anyone who had seen her haunted house knew she was capable of truly amazing special effects. The Winterses had enough money to create a theme park on the Marlwood campus, or buy their own chemical labs and create their own designer hallucinogenic drugs.

  The chair squeaked again. I heard myself whimpering. Frozen, I stared at it, caught in the beam of my flashlight. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw that something shiny and square lay on the wooden seat. My flashlight glinted off it.

  The wheelchair inched toward me. I cried out, then covered my mouth. It had never hurt me before. Maybe someone . . . someone was standing behind it, making it move. Someone I couldn’t see.

  A ghost.

  “Is someone there?” I whispered.

  The wheelchair moved again.

  I wanted to run. I thought of going to find Mandy. My heart was racing so fast that I wouldn’t have been able to count the beats.

  Before I could stop myself, I dashed forward, racing around the furniture, the boxes, a Diet Coke can. I hit the can as I passed it, sending it rolling with a rattle-rattle-rattle, and I cried out again.

  I kept my light on the chair; I shined it against the back, to see if there was a figure there—maybe the shadow man who had been in Mandy’s room
, if anybody had been in Mandy’s room.

  “Don’t move,” I said aloud. “Don’t, okay?” I stared down at the things on the seat: a cigarette lighter and three little squares.

  “Are these for me? Did you bring them for me?” I said loudly, to prove I wasn’t scared; I was in control.

  There was no response. It was as if the chair was staring at me. I could almost see a figure in it, sitting still. I could imagine empty eye sockets staring at me. A mouth, opening in a smile . . .

  . . . or a scream.

  I jumped forward, grabbed the lighter and the squares, and fled back up the stairs.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I PRACTICALLY THREW myself against the washing machine when I reached the top of the basement stairs. I slammed the door, panting, I stared at the objects in my hand. A cigarette lighter. There was some kind of crest or logo on it, but I didn’t recognize it. A red shield with three white squares and letters, two across, one down: VE RI TAS. Truth.

  Miles had found cigarettes when he’d retrieved the messenger bag. The squares looked like gum.

  “Hey,” Lara said, peering around the corner. “Time to go.”

  I stuffed the lighter and the squares into the pocket of my army jacket. I folded my arms and followed Lara back across the living room. I could hear Ms. Meyerson’s TV. She played it loudly so she could pretend she didn’t know what her charges were doing.

  “Where’s the Ouija board?” Lara asked me.

  “Couldn’t find it.”

  She smiled sourly. “I told you, all her stuff is in the attic.”

  Had Lara taken any of Mandy’s things from the attic? I followed her into the kitchen, finding Sangeeta and Alis there, loading their arms with cartons of tequila, scotch, and wine bottles. Sangeeta was dressed in purple, from a suede jacket to a short silk skirt and purple ballerina flats. Alis had on skinny jeans, a green cashmere sweater, and a belted cardigan in a darker green. Alis was munching a fancy appetizer—their freezer was always loaded with fancy boxes, and they overnighted appetizers and fancy chocolate truffles, expensive cheeses, and cans of caviar without a moment’s consideration about how much it cost.