"Of course, but nothing nice," he said. He sat back on his spot, shifting his weight. He pushed a stack of thick textbooks behind him to get more comfortable. "It was inherited by John Dexter III, a lifelong bachelor—spare us your commentary, Mr. Perkins—from his father. Dexter decided to take in orphans after World War I."
"The first few years went by without remark. He made the children work from sun up to sun down, in the farm behind the orphanage, to help with their keep. That wasn't unusual for the time period, although onlookers said that the orphans looked miserable."
"Dexter had no hired help, even though he'd inherited his father's sizable fortune. He alone cared for the children, cooked for them, disciplined them. He was firm in the belief that children need a sturdy work ethic drilled into them when they're young."
"Bring out the paddle, wha-cha!" Alex shouted from the back row. Warwick rolled his eyes.
"Will you shut up already?" Ambrose Slaughter barked from his seat by the window. He went back to laying his golden head on his arms over a stack of books.
He had either drifted away or been excised from the core popular group since Henry arrived, and he didn't seem too happy about it. No one wanted to pay attention to his tales of false bravado or stories of bedding head cheerleader anymore.
"Now, now, no arguing or story time is over," Warwick said sternly.
He picked up a red dry erase marker and started transferring it from hand to hand. Everyone in class was silent now, even Henry, entranced by the story. I looked out the windows. The wind had picked up, blowing dead brown leaves across the aging grass.
"Then the rumors started, as they do in small towns," Warwick continued, his gray eyes glinting. "These were no ordinary rumors, however. They said horrible things were happening at the orphanage. Children were starved and beaten, and Dexter was using them for ritual sacrifice. Feeding the blood to the earth, to rekindle the evil beneath the town."
I shivered, unable to stop myself. "But why?"
"Something he read in a book, or so I heard," Warwick said, clearing his throat. "He believed he could gain great power from the rituals, power to rule the entire town, and beyond. To bring Hell on Earth."
"And that is why we should never read. Books are evil," Alex joked.
"Why am I not surprised that that is your interpretation?" Warwick said, scowling.
Alex kept silent, despite the snickering of his buddies.
Warwick peered back at me, like he'd just remembered I'd asked the question in the first place. "Why the particular interest in Dexter, Ariel?"
I felt caught, as if in a secret, though I didn't know why it would matter to Warwick. Still, I tried to play the interest off.
"They're going to have a haunted house there this year," I said. I didn't know how to explain my dream or my attraction to the building itself. If I did, everyone would think I was a ghost-obsessed loser.
He frowned. "That's a surprise. The building is falling apart. It's one of the oldest standing structures in town. Last I heard, the town board was talking about condemnation, but no one could determine who held the deed."
The thought rushed through my head that maybe I'd imagined the sign. I didn't know where the paranoia was coming from.
"I saw the sign, too," a girl in the back chimed, reassuring me. "I've always wanted to go to a really scary haunted house."
"I know you like spooky movies, Ariel, but the orphanage is dangerous," Warwick said to me. I felt a little embarrassed that he'd made it so personal in front of the whole class. "Rickety floors, ceilings collapsing. A boy of ten sneaked in there years ago and wasn't found until he'd been reduced to a skeleton. No one's been there much since the seances in the fifties, but—"
"Seances?" I repeated.
"Oh, yes." Once again he became swept up in his own story. "Because of the paranormal nature of the place, people would even go to Dexter to dispel ghosts that were clinging to them, ghosts haunting their own houses. Which brings me back to my original point—"
"Could a seance cleanse you if a ghost was attached to you?" I interrupted again, not wanting him to move on. I knew other people were staring at me, but at the moment, it no longer mattered.
"That's what many believed," he replied vaguely.
"If ghosts existed. Which they don't," Henry muttered, loud enough for me to hear. I blushed as laughter started up around me again. It could have been kindergarten, kids listening to the big bad wolf story and pretending we weren't afraid.
The lights above started flickering. Warwick stopped, along with the rest of us, and gazed up at the light fixtures. The room went dark, and then the light returned. Like rats were chewing through the wires.
"I don't think the ghosts like your story, Wick," Henry said.
"All right guys, I think that's a sign that the sideshow is over. Time to get back to work." He hopped off the desk, back in teacher mode as he headed towards the blackboard and retrieved a piece of yellow chalk. "The fur traders were robust men..."
CHAPTER 11
THE BANGING ON my bedroom wall began again, usually when I was trying to sleep. Every time, I just lay in bed with my hands over my ears, sometimes adding a pillow over my head, trying to block the sounds out. The sounds scared me, but I was also gripped by morbid fascination. I watched the wall and listened to the thudding as it reverberated through my skull.
I dreamed again of the forest. I was running through the trees again, but I was the one being chased. Jenna was nowhere to be seen. Stormy purple slits of sky shone through the leaves above. A black shape flitted in and out of the trees beside me as I ran. I thought I heard a dog barking.
The woods faded away and I arrived before the gloomy orphanage again. I slowly crossed the blackened road to the tall gate. The gate swung open, inviting me in, as the copper symbol glowed with otherworldly power. I set a toe inside...
And woke up screaming into my pillow.
###
After Warwick's story, I couldn't get the seance idea out of my head. Maybe I could contact whatever—or whomever—was reaching out to me. All the trouble seemed to have started on my birthday, when I went to the orphanage in my dream. And it had only continued after I'd visited the place in real life.
Maybe something had followed me home.
That weekend, Theo and I sat watching a horror movie marathon, a huge bowl of cheese popcorn between us. Usually I couldn't help but comment on the bad acting or improbable situations, or stop myself from shouting with glee at the torture scenes.
But this time I was busy shuffling through my comprehensive mental catalog of scary movie plots. Bad dreams, then a poltergeist...it was escalating. I had to find a way to get rid of the spirit, or things would only get worse. They always did.
###
Theo finally got up the nerve to bring her portfolio over to Hugh. It was a leather-covered binder, brimming with paper that stuck out at awkward angles. She just kept filling up sketchbooks in class. For Theo, art seemed to be a necessity. She had to spill out drawings or she would overfill with ideas and explode.
"Hi, Ariel's dad. I finally brought this stuff," she said, clutching the binder to her chest like she'd never let it go.
"I call him Hugh. You can too. Let him look," I said, nudging her gently. The thing I'd learned about Theo was that she was shy at first, but if you could get her to open up, she was a chatterbox. It was just getting that first little fissure. She handed the portfolio over gingerly.
He spread it out across the dining room table, flipping through the loose sketches inside with care. He studied each one with such precision that the wait made Theo more anxious. She didn't take her eyes off of him, watching for any minute change in his expression.
"This is impressive work," Hugh said finally, holding up a paper with different angles of sketched hands, done in colored pencil. "Ariel told me your mom is the new art teacher at Hawthorne."
"Yeah, well, I don't really show her all that much of m
y art," Theo said, quickly brushing it off. "She might hang it on the fridge or something. I only let her flip through my sketchbook for assignments. She thinks fruit bowls are wicked edgy."
"Well, I don't dole out compliments for someone's ego," Hugh told her. Except in my case, I thought, but I kept that to myself. "You have a lot of natural talent, especially at such a young age."
"They couldn't pry the crayons out of my hands when I was a kid," Theo said. "I just never know if what I draw is good. I'm not an objective judge of my own work. It always seems to be lacking something when I'm finished."
"I'll tell you what," Hugh said, setting the sketch down and shutting the portfolio's leather cover. "How about you put together a couple of pencil studies, and I'll see if I can't find you a space on the wall at Erasmus?"
I thought Theo would have a heart attack. She put a hand to her chest, her eyes like glittering pools of green water. "Seriously?"
Hugh nodded. "In fact, I'm going over there right now to drop off some paperwork. Would you girls like to hitch a ride with me?"
Theo nodded her head furiously, a big smile plastered across her face, the pink plastic anchor around her neck jiggling.
We piled into the Mazda, Theo and I riding in the backseat. As he drove, Hugh turned the local radio station on, keeping the volume low. This time of year, there were always back-to-back advertisements for haunted houses.
"Named the scariest attraction in Hell two years in a row," a gravel-voiced announcer on the current ad said, "Hell's Orphanage is back after a five year hiatus, ready to shock your socks off and claim its next victim."
"Can you turn that up?" I asked, gripping the back of the passenger seat. Hugh turned the dial.
"Discounted tickets are available online. Now through Halloween, get your scare on at the old Dexter Orphanage on Sanitarium Road."
The garbled voice was replaced by a bubbly woman talking cheerfully about toothpaste.
"That was awfully cheesy for being Hell's scariest," Hugh said. "'Get your scare on'? I come up with more frightening stuff than that in the shower. I'd disintegrate those socks." Theo snickered at Hugh's lame joke.
"I don't know, I think it sounds interesting. I talked about it with Wick today," I said. I was trying to act as nonchalant about the whole thing as possible, though I knew I was terrible at pretending. "He was telling the whole class about haunted houses in town. I haven't been to one in years," I added to Theo as I sat back.
"Me neither," she said.
"Remember when we used to go every Halloween to the one in the old cider mill?" Hugh asked, catching my eye in the rearview mirror. "You were just a little girl then, but it wasn't too scary for you. Then we would eat caramel apples and cider on the picnic tables out back and watch the sun go down."
"I do remember. That was always a lot of fun," I said fondly, smiling at the memory. I turned towards Theo, the spark of a plan igniting. "Would you be interested in going to this one?"
"Sure, that would be great," Theo agreed brightly. Her smile remained a bit too tight. She seemed very nervous about going to the gallery, even though only Hugh and Gwen would be there.
Erasmus was housed in a red brick building from the turn of the last century, looking the part of a gallery from the outside. It was at the end of a row of buildings pressed together, all painted different colors and containing different shops—a candy store, an antiques place, an abandoned ballroom from the 1950s.
Giant flowered silver molding went all the way around the barn red front door, which was open right now, as it usually was, to let in fresh air. Slender topiaries tied with orange and black bows guarded the entrance.
Theo looked up at the building with reverence, as though we were about to enter a holy temple. I thought she might cross herself.
"Come on," Hugh said casually, waving us inside.
In contrast to the Victorian exterior, the interior had modern architecture, with high ceilings and bowed archways. Windows lined the entire front side of the building, with vertical, mood-setting tan blinds.
I went to Erasmus often, accompanying Hugh when Claire was working since he didn't trust me to function by myself. There was a permanent collection of snacks in my honor in the break room.
Coming out from behind the front desk, Gwen greeted us. "Hi, Ariel. Haven't seen you in a while. Who's your friend?"
Gwen was from Louisiana, with a deep southern drawl. She always wore bright jewel tones that complimented her dark skin; today she was wearing a purple suit jacket and pale green pants. She smiled warmly at Theo.
"This is Theo. She's my next door neighbor, just moved here this past spring. She's an artist herself, actually," I explained.
Theo did her hand shaking routine with Gwen, who seemed to find it charming as her wooden bracelets clinked vigorously.
"Don't worry, I'm pretty new myself," Gwen said to Theo with a wink. "I only moved to Hell last fall, when I started working here. My family wasn't too happy that I chose to buy a house alone, instead of settling down with a husband."
She'd been an integral part at the very start of the business, although she was too modest to admit it. Hugh didn't have a good grasp of things like taxes and bills. The gallery would have run into the ground if it wasn't for Gwen.
Gwen excused herself and went back to cutting the stems shorter on a bouquet of colorful daisies. "Feel free to have a look at anything you like," she said cordially. "Hugh and I just have to talk shop."
Theo and I wandered slowly from room to room. I'd snooped around Erasmus a million times, but it was fresh through her eyes. Painted benches sat in the center of each open space, so visitors could sit and admire the treasures on the walls. Not only did Erasmus house paintings and sketches, but also sculptures, painted tiles, and more unusual fare for collectors. A short, stone potter in the shape of a medieval beast lurked in one corner.
Theo glided as if in a dream, eyes lingering on each painting. The knowledge of how much everything cost made me wince, but I knew there were many people in Hell who could afford fine art. The gallery had been doing steady business since it opened.
My thoughts kept going impatiently to the orphanage. Now that I was convinced something was haunting me, I didn't want to wait long to confront it.
"Do you girls want a snack?" Gwen offered, bringing out coffee for herself and Hugh.
"No thanks, we're good for now." I waited until she and Hugh took back up with their discussion before I turned back to Theo.
"I keep imagining one of my pictures up on these walls," Theo murmured softly. "Do you think that's being full of myself?" She searched my eyes carefully.
"Not at all. I think you should feel that way."
"I can't believe your dad really liked those sketches. I thought he'd take one look and laugh his head off."
"Is that why it took you so long to show him?"
"Yeah." She ducked her head and rubbed one toe of her sneaker on the other. We stood quietly among the paintings for a moment.
"All right, you're going to think I'm weird," I blurted.
"Don't worry, I already think you're weird," she teased. When she saw my serious look, her face became solemn. "What's up?"
We sat down on one of the benches, painted with tropical orange flowers. A tall sculpture of crushed cans stood in front of us, reaching almost to the ceiling.
I wanted Theo to know what my plans were instead of foisting them on her at the last minute. I had to make sure she was willing to go along with me, or see if she would tell me that I was crazy and possibly slap some sense into me.
"I was thinking of maybe having a seance," I said carefully. I had listened many times when Aunt Corinne told people about her beliefs, and had watched their faces become skeptical and mocking. But I didn't see that look in Theo's watchful eyes.
"Warwick was telling me about the orphanage, the one that was advertised on the radio. That it used to be a hotbed of spiritual energy or something. I thou
ght we could maybe, I don't know..." I shrugged, unable to find the explanation I was looking for. "Call it up? In the spirit of the Halloween season?"
After a second, Theo said, "For sure, sounds interesting. Count me in."
I smiled, relieved, as she started asking me about the artists of individual paintings. We ended up spending the remaining afternoon in Erasmus, drinking strong coffee diluted with flavored creamers as Gwen and Hugh walked around and planned where they were going to fit in Deborah Strait's work.
By the time we got home, the sky was deep into dark. Theo was chatting excitedly about her plans for her sketches.
"I'm going to be up all night drawing now," she said.
"Sorry." I grinned.
"Thanks," she said genuinely, putting her hand on my arm, the other hand casually holding her portfolio.
"You deserve for people to know how talented you are. You can't keep that to yourself. You'd regret it your whole life."
I watched her skip back to her house, as I leaned on the same fence that had separated us a month ago. It was funny how fast things could completely change.
###
There was one more person I wanted at the seance, even if he did think ghosts were fantasy. Henry wasn't going to make it to study that week. He was helping his father clear out old court documents from their storage unit. So I knew I had to scout him out at Hawthorne.
I found him waiting outside for the Lexus to arrive. He was leaning against a twisty oak next to the bottom of the school steps, watching the fountain burble. It was a horribly ugly fountain, shaped like a tree house with horns jutting out of it. Thornhill might as well have set their money on fire.
Henry's foot was perched up on the bumpy oak's trunk. The top button of his shirt was undone, the smooth, clear skin of his chest peeking out.
"Hi," he greeted me. I looked up at his face, embarrassed that he'd caught me ogling him. He remained unfazed, continuing, "How's Vanderlip treating you?"
"Fine." I had no idea how to bring up my plans without sounding awkward or loopy. Especially after his display in Warwick's class the other day.
"You said that ghosts aren't real. Well, do you want to go to a haunted house this weekend and prove it?" Yeah, that sounded natural. Ariel, you are so smooth. Freakin butter.