The Evil Within

  The door shut behind me, and I stood alone in the swimming pool room. The pool lights were on, sending waves of ghostly white illumination through the steaming turquoise water. I thought of Shayna, catatonic. Of Charlotte, chubby and naked like a pathetic cupid, humiliated by the girl now currently dancing in Troy’s arms.

  She’s so evil, I thought, as the tears slid down my face. She really is.

  It was cold, and I was afraid to get too close to the water. I didn’t want to see Celia, for her to tell me she’d told me so. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have trusted him.

  “I should get my head examined,” I said aloud. Bad joke, bitter Fartgirl. I wanted to be done with triangles and Celia and Belle, but I was fairly certain it wasn’t really up to me. Maybe that was the real secret—I had unfinished business to resolve before I could really be Lindsay 2.0—a normal girl with a nice boyfriend.

  Maybe he was breaking up with her. Maybe this dance was their last, and I had jumped to conclusions.

  But how long did it take to say, “It’s over”? Jane had given us a little seminar. Key points: You had to go straight for the jugular. You couldn’t try to let them down easy; it was confusing and left too much open to interpretation. The longer Troy hemmed and hawed, the less likely it was that he would pull it off.

  It didn’t matter, or so I told myself. I would never die for love, even if it felt like dying.

  I smoothed back my hair. I was stuck in the pool room, unless I bit the bullet and went back to the dance. Maybe it would be easier just to kill her.

  “That’s just a joke,” I said, so Celia wouldn’t get her hopes up. Then I cleared my throat. “And don’t you think this whole joke’s over? Can’t you leave me? After Kiyoko died, the spirit who possessed her moved into Julie. There’s been some shifting around, yes? I’m not the right one, Celia. Go find someone else.”

  “You’re the perfect one,” she replied. “I couldn’t have chosen better.”

  “You didn’t choose,” I argued, blinking because somehow, I had walked to the edge of the pool, and I was staring down at Celia. Her eyes were brown. There was color in her cheeks. She was taking on a life of her own. “I brought you into myself by accident.”

  “No. It was meant to be,” Celia responded, and I moved away from the water. The person most in need of an exorcism was me. Maybe I should just leave now and find somewhere quiet, see if I could make it work.

  Coldness poured through me and the icy-hand sensation on the back of my neck made me gasp. After all this time, it was always a shock. The image of Celia crawling inside me bloomed in my mind and I whirled around . . .

  . . . And saw a shimmer of whiteness hanging in the air. I jumped away from it, and it hung, unmoving. As I backed away, it thickened and took on a shape—a person shape, my shape, only taller. Like in my cell phone picture; like in my nightmares.

  My nightmares: I had forgotten one of them, only jerked awake each time I dreamed it:

  I couldn’t move, and it was coming, and it was here. I was panting, screaming, clawing. Sweat rolled off me. The back of my neck was cold but my forehead . . . my forehead, oh God. I couldn’t move and it was crawling toward the bed; one hand was on the mattress oh—

  Come to me, come to me, come to me, come to me, come to me. It was on my chest, it was pressing down—

  I shouted. I was sprawled on the cement floor, clutching my hand to my out-of-rhythm heart, furiously knocking against my ribs.

  Let me out.

  Let her in.

  Let me out.

  Let her in.

  Let me out.

  Let her in.

  I was swamped with cold as it gushed over my skin and rushed into my brain; and I whispered her name, protesting: “Celia, Celia, Celia.”

  Trembling, I opened my eyes and stared at the red thread on my wrist. It would be much easier to go crazy, then and there. A birthday breakdown—tempting, enticing—and then none of it would be up to me. But I took deep breaths of chlorine-scented air and forced myself to sit up on the hard concrete floor. No white shape. With a hard swallow, I stepped out of my heels, gathered up the hem of my long dress, and awkwardly stood. Because of the way the light wavered on the surface of the pool, the whole blue room looked like it was tilting.

  Then the door from the main gym crashed open, slamming hard against the plaster wall. Troy burst into the room, stumbling backward.

  I braced myself for the fireworks, expecting Mandy next, but instead, Spider charged over the threshold. He was wearing a tux, and his face was a mask of rage as he took a swing at Troy.

  “You bastard!” Spider shouted, and Troy ducked away. Spider’s words slurred; he had been drinking.

  Dressed in a fuchsia gown with bronze criss-crosses across the bodice and a bronze half-jacket, Julie appeared behind Spider, crying, trying to grab his arm. It didn’t seem to register to Spider as he swung again, staggering from the momentum, spreading his legs wide to keep from going down.

  “Lindsay!” Julie cried. “Lindsay, help!” She ran toward me, her gold high heels clattering on the cement. “Stop them!”

  She ran into my arms, hugging me, then took my hand and dragged me toward Troy and Spider, just as Spider’s right fist connected with Troy’s chin. I heard a crack as Troy’s head jerked backward; he clutched his jaw and wobbled out of Spider’s reach.

  “Oh my God, oh my God,” Julie choked out.

  “Stay back. Stay away from them,” I told her, yanking on her arm. “Why is he doing this?”

  “I told him,” she said, “about th-the attack. And he thinks Troy is the one who . . . the guy,” she said. She looked as if she were about to throw up.

  “What?”

  I could barely hear her over the yelling and the music as the door opened again. Mandy, Lara, Charlotte, and Rose rushed in, and everyone froze for an instant, like in an opera, staring at Troy and Spider. Lara was wearing a tux, and Rose had on a black satin top with white ruffles and a wide black skirt stretched over half a dozen fifties-style black petticoats with black lace hems showing. Black footless tights and ballerina flats finished off her prom beatnik look.

  Charlotte’s black dress was elegant and boring. All the colorful streaks had vanished from her hair. More boring.

  Troy wasn’t hitting back; he was trying to deflect Spider’s attack without hurting him. But Spider was going crazy, pummeling the air, battering Troy, and Julie burst into more tears.

  “I didn’t touch her at the party!” Troy yelled.

  “You’re a liar!” Spider shouted, landing another punch, this one on Troy’s chest. Troy grabbed Spider’s arm and pushed him backward. Spider was drunk enough that he lost his balance and staggered, barely staying on his feet.

  “Spider, I would never do that,” Troy replied, stepping forward and shoving Spider hard. Julie’s fingers dug into my shoulder and I winced but kept quiet; then Spider swayed for a couple of seconds and landed hard on his butt. The wind was knocked out of him and he groaned, loudly.

  Troy was panting, his face tight, red, and angry. I looked from him to Mandy. She went white, and her eyes welled.

  “What’s going on?” Lara shouted.

  “Troy tried to rape Julie at that party at the lake house,” Spider announced. “And I have proof.”

  The girls gasped and looked at each other, then at Julie, and then at Troy, who stood with his hands balled at his sides, staring in disbelief.

  “That’s insane,” Mandy said, coming up beside Troy. She took his hand as though she were trying to keep him calm. “He was with me the whole time.” Her cheeks glowed bright pink. She was lying. I suddenly felt a cold wash of certainty. “He didn’t leave me alone for one second, right, Lara?”

  But I remembered seeing Mandy and Lara return to Jessel after the séance, the night I’d gone to find Rose, the night Julie was attacked. Mandy was lying. Troy had no alibi.

  Fingering her black cummerbund, Lara nodded hard. She kept nodding, as if the more she did it, the tru
er the lie would be.

  “Charlotte? You saw him. Couldn’t keep his hands off me,” Mandy pressed, her voice shrill. Lara stood beside Mandy and crossed her arms like a bar bouncer. On Mandy’s other side, Troy clenched his jaw. He looked furious. He looked . . . like someone else.

  Charlotte stared at them both, her forehead wrinkled with confusion. She glanced over at the pool, as if remembering what Mandy had done to her.

  “I don’t remem . . . ” Charlotte began, but she wasn’t brave enough to go through with it. “Oh, yeah, right. He came back and hung out with us. Yeah,” she said.

  Mandy looked as if she wanted to hit her for her less than halfhearted attempt at backing her up. I wondered if Charlotte was doing it on purpose, so we would know she was being badgered into it.

  But Rose put her hands on her hips and bombastically shook her head. Her skirt and petticoats swayed like the plunger of a washing machine.

  “You guys ditched us,” Rose said. “You weren’t even there.”

  “You don’t even remember half of what went on,” Mandy said shrilly. “You were drunk!”

  Mandy was losing control, not the smooth I-am-Queen-of-the-World diva I knew and loathed. It occurred to me to wonder if she was handling this badly because Troy had just dumped her back inside the gym. Had he?

  “You were trashed,” Mandy said to Rose, and the look she threw at Troy blazed with fear. I didn’t know how to read it—was she afraid that he had hurt Julie? Or afraid that it was really, truly over between them?

  “He was with me,” Mandy said again, putting her arms around Troy, then easing his arms around her. Caged by her, Troy looked over her head.

  At me.

  Looked, but didn’t let go of her.

  Spider got to his feet. “Today I rowed over and Julie and I met at the lake house. To be alone.”

  To have sex, I filled in.

  “And we found Julie’s skirt,” he continued. “Someone tore it off her that night.”

  Another gasp from the girls. Julie kept crying. Her fingers were gouging my shoulder.

  Spider pointed at Troy. “It was all wadded up, on the shore. Troy’s ID bracelet was snagged on it. Then I found out that he rowed back after he dropped me off. He never mentioned it. And nobody remembers seeing him. Except Mandy, who’s lying. And Julie.”

  I looked at Julie. She blanched. “I remember a little. His eyes . . . ” She looked down. “His eyes,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Lindsay.”

  “You’re sorry, Lindsay?” Charlotte blurted. Then, “Oh.”

  The non-Grose girls looked at me with new eyes. Figuring it out. I had a thing for Mandy’s boyfriend. I was a boyfriend thief.

  “Troy?” I said.

  His lips parted in shock. He saw that I doubted him. That in my mind it was possible that he had done—or tried to do—this terrible thing to my best friend.

  Spider took a menacing step toward Troy but Mandy shifted, making a show of placing herself between them.

  “I know he didn’t do anything,” Mandy declared, staring straight at me. “I know him better than anyone in this room. He would never, ever do something like that.”

  Then and there, she won. She had declared herself. I couldn’t explain myself—that I thought he might be possessed by a hateful, murdering butcher who could do something like that. In agony, I kept silent, and Troy stared at me in disbelief.

  “Then why do I have this?” Spider yelled, and he pulled a simple ID bracelet from his pocket. “TAM. That’d be you, huh?”

  He threw it at Troy. It landed on the concrete with a clink.

  Spider’s footfalls echoed as he stomped over to Julie and me; ducking her head in abject humiliation, she let go of me and took his hand.

  Was I wrong? I made a list as I trailed after them, knowing that if I walked out the door, I would lose Troy:

  The dark eyes at dinner.

  The song.

  His inability to pick between Mandy and me.

  And now . . . this horrible accusation.

  They all pointed to one thing: He was possessed by David Abernathy. Celia was right. It was all coming to a head.

  Troy grabbed Mandy’s hand. “Come on,” he said.

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “I know what you tried to do,” she said. “I know everything.”

  Then the two of them swept from the room, back through the door into the gym.

  No one called for them to stop. I stared, open-mouthed, and then I turned and ran out the other door, the one that led directly outside, into the snow.

  “Lindsay, wait!” Julie cried, but I kept going, letting the door bang behind me. It was snowing again, and the crystal flakes stung like whips.

  I ducked down my head and walked between the topiaries, the cupid display casting red globules of light against the snowy walkways. This night. This night was beyond me. It was easier when you were positive that someone had cheated on you; when you opened your parents’ bedroom door and there he was, tucking in his shirt. It was like my late start leaping into the pressure cooker of Ivy League college apps; I was a minnow among barracudas.

  The hem of my dress was soaking wet; I gathered it up as a bone-hard sob erupted from my chest and—

  —I was in the statue garden.

  The blank marble faces of the gods and goddesses stared mutely at me. Just like Marlwood, and Troy, I had blundered in, not paying attention to where I was going, only focused on where I didn’t want to go. And now I was there, among Edwin Marlwood’s rock-hard, six-pack, semi-pornographic pantheon. It was so amazingly absurd that I began to laugh.

  “Evil surrounds me,” I intoned in a mocking, bitter voice, waving my arms as I made a little circle. I walked up to the nearest statue, of some broad-chested Greek god with curls like Troy’s, reached up, and knocked on his forehead. “Hello? Jerkface? Cupid?”

  Did the statue move?

  Jumping away, I balled my fist and caught it in my other hand. Snow fell off the branches of a tall pine tree about ten yards to my left, as if someone else had shaken it, hard.

  “Hello?” I called, but my voice was swallowed up in the music.

  More snow fell—off the tree beside the first one, slightly closer to me. I took a step back, then darted behind the statue, my face pressed against his back. Had I forgotten everything there was to be afraid of?

  And then I remembered something: Troy had given his ID bracelet to Mandy when we’d come back from the break. She’d worn it a couple of times. I’d noticed, of course. Then she’d stopped wearing it.

  “Jewelry,” Celia said. “Like the lockets.”

  “No,” I said, “not like that.”

  “Like that. He’s toying with you both.” I thought of the crocheted necklace with the crescent moon.

  “No,” I whispered again. Then I remembered his “surprise.” Maybe David Abernathy was the dybbuk with unfinished business—he had never gotten to finish what he’d started—silencing the two girls he had betrayed—by drilling holes in their brains—or killing them in a fire—

  They haven’t been silenced, I realized. And he’s still setting them against each other, when they should be joining forces to bring him down.

  “Not Troy,” I whispered.

  A shadow broke from the tree and glided toward me. I couldn’t make it out; it was a black-hole blackout; darkness folding into the snow-laden night. The wind shifted, and the pine trees bobbed. The coldness on the back of my neck pressed down hard—Celia—and I waited to see if she knew what was going on. If she knew what I should do.

  The shadow drifted closer. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out a shape gliding just in front of the trees. It was a person, moving carefully, trying to sneak up on me. Was it Miles? My stalker? The Stalker?

  I licked my lips and pressed them together, knuckles white as I held onto the statue, staring at the figure; I dared him—her?—to show himself.

  Then someone raced up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder, and I screamed.

>   TWENTY-NINE

  “WHOA,” Rose said, as she and Charlotte raised their hands and took a step back. She was holding my parka, my Doc Martens, and my gloves. “It’s just us, Lindsay.”

  I checked their eyes. Normal. For the moment.

  “Oh my God, did you really try to steal Troy from Mandy?” Charlotte asked. “You’ve got a pair, woman.”

  “I think there’s someone over there,” I said, gesturing with my head. “Someone hiding.”

  “Someone making out?” Rose asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Then . . . ?” Rose prompted. “Hello? We skedaddle?”

  Rubbing my freezing hands between her cashmere mittens, she started walking with me as Charlotte trotted backward, staring at the spot I had indicated. My kneecaps ached. I had stood still so long my bones felt as if they’d begun to freeze together.

  “Do you think it’s the Stalker?” Charlotte asked me, looking anxiously over her shoulder. “Should we go tell Ehrlenbach?”

  Before I could answer, Rose said, “Yeah-huh, we should. Come on, let’s hustle it up. If there’s some psycho out there, I don’t want Ehrlenbach to miss him.”

  I went back inside the gym with them, my mind working overtime. Troy had promised me a surprise—something only I would like. Was it something to do with Mandy besides breaking up with her? Something happening to her?

  I suddenly realized I had to find them. Mandy might be in terrible danger. Of all the ironies in the world . . .

  “So are you. Don’t go,” Celia pleaded.

  And I didn’t know where to go. I hadn’t asked any questions about the surprise because it was meant to be . . . a surprise. And I’d been afraid. I didn’t want to know . . . to confirm . . . that something was wrong with him.

  That he was what was wrong.

  I felt sick. I should have asked, should have pushed.

  I had to ditch Rose and Charlotte, had to get out of there. I tapped Rose on the shoulder. “I’m going to the bathroom,” I yelled, so she could hear me.