I look at him to let him know he’s hurt me, and then I take off after Sandy.
hurry up the bleachers out of the gym, and to the trail. I wobble in my high heels, so I kick them off and hike up my gown. My heart pumps blood through my body, making me warmer than a girl should be on a cold winter evening.
The door to Hamilton Hall opens easily, and I’m greeted with dark air. I slow my pace, because now that I’m here, I don’t want to be. My panting breath is the only thing I can hear, and that’s not good, as it makes me too aware of who else might be breathing, or not, in this desolate building. Then the door sighs shut, and I clasp my hand to my mouth to stifle my cry.
I can’t, I think. I can’t, I can’t.
You have to, responds a deeper part of me.
I gather myself together and enter the stairwell. One flight, two flights, three flights. My muscles burn.
“Sandy?” I say when I emerge on the third floor. My voice echoes. “I’m here, okay?”
Nothing.
I walk down the hall, all the way to the heavy door that leads to the unrenovated wing. I push on the metal bar, and the door opens unto utter black and tomblike silence.
“Sandy?”
From farther in I hear what sounds like a match being struck, and my muscles seize.
She’s here.
I edge deeper into the hall, releasing the metal door only when I can no longer cling to it and still step forward. When it shuts behind me, I’m in a darkness that’s darker than anything I’ve experienced, darker even than the pigeon coop on a moonless night.
My eyes slowly begin to adjust, and I can begin to make out the numbers on the doors. Three-oh-seven, three-oh-nine, three-eleven. I don’t know how my legs manage to keep moving, because I’m woozy and my skin is covered in sweat. My heart is a trapped bird flapping at my rib cage.
Three-thirteen. Here it is. The room that called to me the first time I was here, the room that hummed with sorrows and secrets and please, won’t you please come inside?
And when I didn’t, a blast of rage sucked my breath away.
This time, the way has been made easy. The dove carved into the door is gone, as is the key that lay behind it. Sandy has the key; the dove is at home in my satchel. I wish I’d brought it with me. If only I’d brought it with me.
Only, what protection could it offer me here?
None. I am on my own.
The door to Liliana’s room is cracked open, and through the narrow gap, I see the flickering light of a candle. I enter a sort of altered consciousness in which I’m still insanely scared, but there’s nothing I can do about it, so I step out of myself, almost, as I step into the room.
Sandy looks up. She’s kneeling by a large white candle, which rests on a cinder-block table. Arranged in a circle around the candle are—what are they?! Unblinking eyes in mummified corpses? Exactly what dark art is Sandy dabbling in?
Oh. Not mummies, but Sandy’s cat figurines. Amongst the cats is a multitude of other odds and ends: barrettes, ribbons, a necklace boasting a shiny gold teddy bear.
On the floor, resting on a folded cloth, is a kitchen knife with a gleaming blade.
Oh, God.
Sandy smiles. “So, what do you think?”
“I think . . .” I pause, aware that I need to choose my words carefully. “I think it’s . . . very symmetrical. Um, good job, Sandy.”
“Not ‘Sandy,’” she says sharply. “Lurl.” She rotates her head to relieve her stress, then brings back her smile. “And thank you. I agree.”
She pushes herself up with a grunt, then brushes past me and shuts the door. It happens before I can react. I’ve never liked enclosed spaces. I especially don’t like enclosed spaces right now.
“Well, I’m so glad you’re here,” Sandy says, as if we’re at a dinner party. “Now we can begin.”
I try to think what to do. Why does she have a knife? The shine of its blade makes it hard to do anything but breathe in shallow pants.
“Shall we proceed, then?” Sandy walks to the back of the room and squats by a cat carrier, obscured until now by the murky gloom. As Sandy unlatches the wire door, Regular growls.
“Now, now, you should get to be part of it too,” Sandy says. She has to reach in and pull Regular out, and in doing so she exposes Regular’s underbelly. Peeking through Regular’s sparse fur are two rows of rosy nipples, protruding so noticeably they look grotesque.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I say foolishly.
Sandy giggles, and the little hairs on my arms stand up. “Bliss, you’re so adorable. I just love you.”
She stands and kicks shut the door of Regular’s carrier so that Regular can’t retreat. Regular, who has a swollen abdomen and yet still manages to appear half-starved, crouches and flicks her tail.
I press one finger to my forehead, pushing hard at the spot between my eyebrows. “Sandy . . .”
“Lurl.”
Fine, whatever.
“Lurl,” I say. “The only reason I’m here is because of . . . you know. Sarah Lynn and Lawrence. You said you wouldn’t tell if I came here, and here I am. So you’re not going to tell, right?”
She blinks and smiles.
“I mean . . . why do you even care who she goes out with?”
“I don’t,” she says.
“Then why . . .?”
She rolls her eyes in a horrible imitation of embarrassed modesty, as if I’m teasing her on purpose. “You’re the one I care about, silly.”
She unclasps her purse and draws out a jeweled box. Like a happy hostess, she says, “We need this and the knife, and then we’re all set. All the crucial elements. Have you decided where you want to do it?”
My blood pressure drops. “Where I want to do what?”
“Make the cut.”
“The . . . cut?”
“For the offering, you noodle. Or would you rather I do it? I’ll be gentle like I promised. We won’t want to overuse any one spot, of course, but for tonight—since it’s special . . .” She swallows, almost as if she’s nervous. “The inner thigh, do you think?”
My legs clamp involuntarily.
Sandy, raising her eyebrows to confirm, lifts the knife.
“Um . . . y-yes,” I stutter. Breathe, I tell myself. Don’t faint. “But first . . . can I . . .” I gesture at her hands. She’s got the knife in one, the box holding the relic in the other. The “other” is the one I want.
“May I please . . .?”
Sandy is delighted. “Of course!” She readily hands me the box, and though I reel from the fury of Liliana’s outrage, Sandy doesn’t seem to feel it. She switches from one foot to another as if she’s got to pee.
“Go on, open it,” she says.
I sway from the tumult of vying impulses: flee, stay, faint, throw up.
My hand shakes. I haven’t heard Liliana’s voice in so long, and it’s strong, so strong!
Her words are a frenzied torrent. I open the box. The relic is dark and shriveled, and when I tip it into my palm, the attached hairs seem to caress me. Bile rises in my throat.
“Now put it back,” Sandy says, her good eye twitching. Liliana is getting through to her at last. “I just wanted you to see it. Put it back now.”
I close my fingers around the relic and shake my head.
“Give it to me, Bliss.” She comes closer, and her face is enormous. Is it growing? Her arm whips out and she grips my wrist. “Don’t be naughty.”
“Sandy, you’re hurting me,” I say. I try to twist free, and her grip tightens.
“Give it to me!” she commands.
I splay my fingers, and the relic skitters across the floor. “Get it, Regular!” I shriek. “Yum-yum! Treat!”
Regular pounces, and Sandy flings me away.
“Noooo!” she cries, lunging for her cat. But it’s too late. Regular gulps down the relic in a graceless, jerking swallow, and a disjointed part of my brain thinks, Should have fed her more often, you silly noodle.
&
nbsp; Sandy kneels and pounds Regular’s back. She thrusts her fingers into Regular’s jaws.
“Spit it out, spit it out!” she repeats. Her voice is high and thin. “Spit it out, you bad cat!”
Regular’s ears press back, and a butterscotch paw snakes out and rakes Sandy’s forearm, right across her scabbed-over scratch. Blood bubbles up, and Regular squirms free and attacks. She gnaws at Sandy’s flesh as if she hasn’t eaten for days.
Outraged, Sandy flings Regular off of her. Regular hits the wall and slides to the floor, and Sandy turns to me. She rises to her feet.
“Oh, shit,” I say. I dart to the door, but Sandy is as quick as a quarterback and as strong as an ox. She grabs the back of my gown as I struggle with the old-fashioned latch. “Sandy, let go!”
“I said call me Lurl the Pearl!” she bellows.
At last I manage the latch. The door flies open, and we both tumble backward. I hear the sound of ripping fabric. When we land, I sink into Sandy’s soft stomach. I smell her rank sweat. Regular darts for the corridor, and Sandy rolls out from under me and grabs Regular beneath the ribs.
“Oh, no you don’t,” she snarls, and this is all the distraction I need to be up and out the door and away, so far away, from Sandy’s demented rage.
As my feet slap the floor, a howl of defeat shakes the ancient walls.
he relic is gone, and I am out of that cursed room. Only I can’t fall to pieces, not yet. Can’t fall to pieces until after I find Sarah Lynn. First Sarah Lynn, then breakdown, I chant silently. First Sarah Lynn. Then breakdown.
I can’t find my high heels, but I register little pain as I hurry barefoot toward the gym.
When I reach the entrance, I rush inside and trot down the bleacher stairs. It is surreal to be stepping back into this world of swooping lights and tinsel snowflakes. As I scan the dance floor, Thelma spots me and comes over. Relief washes over me, because Thelma is so Thelma, and always will be.
“Where have you been?” she asks. She doesn’t wait for me to respond, but goes barreling on. “It’s almost nine—they’re going to announce the Snow Queen. Come on!”
“I need to talk to Sarah Lynn,” I say as she pulls me toward the freshman float.
“Nope, sorry. She’s too busy doing her final preparations.”
“Her final preparations? Doing what?”
“Stuff,” Thelma says impatiently. She points behind the giant toilet, where Sarah Lynn is being fussed over by Heather and Melissa. “She needs her hair to look good, obviously. Do you not want her hair to look good?”
She takes in my own hair, and her eyebrows shoot up. At the sight of my dress, they go up even further.
“I’ll be back,” I say. I shrug her off and make a beeline for Sarah Lynn.
She makes a sound of indignation. “Mitchell’s P.O.’ed, by the way!” she calls. “You really shouldn’t abandon your boyfriend at the Winter Dance!!!”
I keep going. Sarah Lynn, then breakdown. Sarah Lynn, then breakdown.
“Bliss!” Sarah Lynn says when she sees me. She takes in my appearance, and her eyes widen. “Omigosh, are you okay?”
“Can I talk to you?” I say. I glance at Melissa and Heather. “Alone?”
“Um . . . sure,” she says. She dismisses Melissa and Heather with a nod that says, It’s all right. They regard me suspiciously, but do as she asks.
“What happened?” Sarah Lynn asks worriedly.
“That’s what I need to tell you,” I say. “But it’s going to sound really weird. Really, really weird.”
So weird I don’t know if I can voice it, I think. But I have to.
I take a breath. “It has to do with Sandy.”
“Sandy?” she repeats, bewildered.
“Oh, gosh, where to start,” I say. I close my eyes and push my fingers to my eyelids, and spots of light pop in my brain. I let my hands fall free. “I can’t tell you everything. It’s such a mess—there’s no way. But you know she hates you, right?”
Her expression stays confused. The band is winding down, and I know I don’t have much time.
“Because of what you did to her in fifth grade,” I say. “I’m not blaming you. It was years ago. Only, Sandy . . . well, she never really forgave you.”
Sarah Lynn isn’t reacting the way I thought she would. “I’m sorry . . . what are you talking about?”
I don’t want to go on. It feels dirty, and she’s so pure. Especially tonight, in her white dress.
“In fifth grade,” I say. “When you made everyone in the class stop talking to her.”
She draws her eyebrows together. “When I . . . what?”
“And then her birthday party, how you didn’t go and how you told everyone else not to either, because you said she was—” I break off, trying to block the thought of fingers and nightgowns and inner thighs.
“Unnatural?” Sarah Lynn says in a strange tone. She does remember.
I nod.
“Bliss,” she says, “Sandy made everyone stop talking to me. At least, she tried to.”
Now I’m confused.
“I was new, and she . . . I don’t know, claimed me,” she goes on. “Which was fine for a while. But then other people started wanting to be my friends, and she didn’t like it.”
She draws her knuckles to her mouth. “She wanted me to dump them, the other girls. And when I didn’t, she pitched a fit. She said she wouldn’t come to my party unless she was the only guest.”
“Oh,” I say faintly.
“And yes, I used . . . that word,” she says. Her cheeks color. “I shouldn’t have. It was cruel. I just didn’t want to spend the night at her house anymore, that’s all.”
On the dance floor, people are clapping. The song has come to an end. Sarah Lynn rises on her toes and peeks around the float, then looks back at me. She furrows her brow.
“But, Bliss, I don’t understand what that has to do with . . . why you’re such a mess,” she says.
The emcee’s voice booms from the mike. “Let’s hear it for the Handsome Devils!” he says, and the clapping builds in intensity.
Sarah Lynn’s eyes dart in the direction of the stage. “Oh, dear. Can we finish this later?” she asks. “It’s just . . . I’m supposed to be out there. I really do have to go.” She touches my arm in apology, then starts for the dance floor.
I shake myself out of my stupor. “No, Sarah Lynn, wait!”
She turns.
“I got it all wrong,” I say. “Or a lot of it, anyway. But Sandy is sick. Like, crazy sick.” I speak the next part fast. “And now she’s mad at me—really, really mad—and I’m afraid she’s going to take it out on you.” I swallow. “She knows about you and Lawrence. She’s threatening to tell people.”
“Is that what you’re worried about?” Sarah Lynn says, astonished. To my surprise, her features soften. “Oh, Bliss.”
Over the mike, the emcee jovially asks everyone to settle down. “And now, ladies and gents, it’s time to crown our Snow Queen. Snow Princesses, please take your seats on your thrones.”
Heather is fast-walking around the back of the float. “Sarah Lynn, get out here,” she whispers urgently.
“This has been the most perfect night of my life,” Sarah Lynn tells me earnestly. “What Lawrence and I have . . . it’s love, Bliss. And once people see that, maybe they’ll understand. There’s a chance, don’t you think?”
“Sarah Lynn,” Heather hisses. She beckons insistently from several yards away.
“After all, you accept us, and so does Mitchell,” Sarah Lynn goes on. “And I told Heather and Melissa, because I just couldn’t keep it a secret anymore.”
“You did?”
“They weren’t thrilled, but they’ll come around.” To Heather, she calls, “I’m coming, I’m coming!”
I’m still not fully caught up, but the heaviness within me is lifting. “So . . . you don’t care if Sandy tells?”
“Let her!” she says, laughing. “I’m in love with Lawrence, and he’s
in love with me. The till-death-do-us-part kind of love—and I know that sounds starry-eyed and naïve, but I mean every word of it.”
She gives me an impulsive embrace, then runs on light feet to Heather.
“You’re a good friend, Bliss,” she calls, looking over her shoulder as Heather propels her toward the front of the float. She laughs again, perhaps at the way she’s being hurried along, or perhaps at my expression. “Don’t worry!”
azed, I walk out from behind the float and merge into the crowd. Everyone’s arranged according to class year, so I find a spot at the back of the freshman contingent. Sarah Lynn is perched on the tank of our giant toilet rather than on the seat, because although it is a throne, Thelma decided it was too crass for Sarah Lynn to appear to be actually, well, pooping. She holds the plunger-slash-scepter in one hand and a roll of toilet paper in the other. She glows.
From way up front, Thelma cups her hands around her mouth and yells, “Go, Sarah Lynn! Go, freshmen!”
Sarah Lynn smiles and flings the toilet paper toward the crowd, and the crowd laughs and claps.
The emcee starts in on a corny speech about the royal Crestview tradition, and I search for Mitchell, knowing he’s got to be up there somewhere. But I can’t find him.
“Did you know that witches were once thought to have a third teat?” comes a whisper that stirs my hair.
My body goes rigid. No. No, no, no. I don’t even turn around for fear of what I’ll see: Sandy, in her ripped dress, with skin hanging in shreds from her cat scratch and her one good eyeball swimming in the socket.
“The witch would allow her familiar to suckle from this teat,” she goes on, “and in this way, a sacred bond was formed between the two.”
My mind is in revolt, because why is she back again? She’s like the zombie in a horror movie that refuses to die.
“I don’t have a third teat,” she confesses. “But after you left, and I was so”—she pauses theatrically—“disappointed . . .”
“Go away,” I say.
She chuckles softly, and her breath smells of lemons. “It got me thinking. Regular has teats—why shouldn’t the transfer work both ways?”