Haunted (10 page)

If I squinted, I thought I could almost see the tiny poke of a church spire from the town, but other than that, nothing. Just a field of greenery stretching as far as the eye could see. We were remote here. Like princesses constantly spinning thread in a haunted castle the world had forgotten to tell the knights about.

I walked the top of the roof, wondering how long it would take to reach the main wing. Then I saw the hole.

It was the size of a room, and apparently somebody already knew about it, because they'd put a rusted metal grate over it. I wondered how old the grate was. Had the same people who created the modern apartment laid it down? Or was this older? It looked antique, almost like a medieval dungeon gate laid horizontally rather than vertically.

I got down and crawled on all fours to see better. I was entirely on the grille, suspended in midair. The metal pressed uncomfortably against my hands and knees as gravity weighed me down. I lowered my body fully so I was flat on my belly, my hands now useless if I needed to quickly scramble off the grate.

But the view was worth it. Although the part of the manor Steven had shown me was completely empty, this wing was furnished.

Through the hole in the roof, I could see into a hallway, part of one room, and down the landings of a grand staircase. This was a double-sided staircase and on each landing the two sets of stairs joined for a moment, then split apart again down to the next floor.

I saw brilliant-colored carpeting, the hues of exotic parrots and flora and berries. Monumental, carved bureaus hulked next to delicate, golden couches. There were marble tables, their tops swirled like ink in water, where someone could leave a punch glass, and hooks on the walls for gentlemen's hats. Jade pots stood on the floor, held by cherubim who stretched chubby arms around the bowl's circumference. I saw stuffed peacocks, their preserved, sturdy legs still holding up their bodies and their panoply of feathers. A giant hourglass stood against one wall, its sand completely run, doughy and slanted in its glass prison.

The place was brimming with lavish furnishings, and none of it seemed dusty. In fact, none of it had water damage or rot, which was odd since it lay directly under an open hole in the roof.

All of a sudden, I got the feeling someone was looking at me. I raised my head; I was alone on the roof.

I frowned, and looked down again. Somehow I hadn't previously noticed the portrait gallery. The walls held enormous oil paintings of generations of Arnauds. They were clustered in different rows and layers, a total hodgepodge of paintings that stretched nearly to the ceiling.

I turned my head, and directly beneath and to the left of me, close enough that I could reach through the bars and touch it, was the painting of Madame Arnaud, the same one that was in the book. It was almost like she was there in person, like I had turned a corner without thinking and seen her standing in the middle of the hallway.

I gave my lurching heart a moment to calm. She was crafted of oil paint—she was nothing but canvas stretched into an ornate frame. Someone had made her from pigments and a paintbrush, layering colors to get her skin to emanate that sheen, to get her eyes to flash with a glint of lead. Despite her diamond necklaces and upswept hair, her beautiful face was lined with cruelty, her head at a haughty angle.

The painting's eyes were focused slightly upward, and I was directly in the line of her gaze. Her pupils, which would have been round if she had been staring forward, were half-moons tucking under her upper eyelid. “It's just a picture,” I reminded myself. However, I didn't like the coincidence that I crawled out to the spot that was closest to her painting.

The thought arose that if the metal grate were to collapse, I would fall into the manor, the painted eyes drifting down to look at my body huddled on the floor.

Madame Arnaud's eyes focused intently on me. I returned the stare to see if she would blink. I watched her cheeks, the color so carefully planned by the artist to mimic a noblewoman's blush, to see if I saw any sign of breath.

“It's just a painting,” I told myself again.

And just to prove it, I crawled closer.

I put my arm down through the grille and touched the frame of the painting. My hand lingered on the rich gold scrolls of the frame, itself a work of art with its carved tumultuous waves. I knew that to be really brave, I would have to touch Madame Arnaud's face.

It'll be okay,
I thought. As soon as I felt the thickness of oil paint under my fingers, I would crawl off the grate and climb back down.

I looked again at the painting, at her eyes staring up at me. My hand was trembling, but I forced it to move over toward her face.
It's just a painting,
I told myself.

With a surge of energy, I brought my hand within an inch of her cheek. Madame Arnaud laughed, a breathy, ice-in-glass chime of hilarity.

I screamed and snatched my hand away, scrambling backward on the grate. Her hands came out of the frame and grabbed up through the bars, the large jeweled rings on her fingers clanging against the iron. I stood up once I had reached the roof, still screaming, and began running for the front of the wing, where I had climbed up.

I didn't care if I fell. I flung my leg over the wall and started scrambling down. I scraped my leg against the stone, and felt that dragging spike of pain that meant I'd skinned my knee. I saw the bright blood smear on the stone as I kept propelling myself down. I went so fast I punctured the air—all the molecules roiling and spinning off each other like water in a boiling kettle.

My hands were trembling and my legs just somehow lunged from ledge to ledge. It was almost like I was falling—my body took over from my brain. In disbelief, I felt my feet touch the ground again. Backing up, I leaned down to put pressure on my bleeding knee.

No one was following me.

I looked up toward the roof, expecting to see a flounce of velvet skirts as she began descending. The sky above was gray and mottled, like abandoned oatmeal.

I kept seeing that arm reaching for me, spindly and otherworldly, mobile centuries after it ought to have decayed. What if I had been slower? Would she have pulled me through the grating, like a cat tugging a mouse out from the wall?

Would she sample my blood and do me the twin disservice of insulting its taste with a winched-up face at the same time she murdered me? Would she spit it out like a wine taster but then against her better judgment reach for more?

Sweet Jesus, what I wanted to do was find my mom and howl while clutching her in a world-ending hug, but the same force that made me climb to the roof offered another suggestion.

No thank you, no thank you.
Yet somehow my obedient feet walked not toward my family, but instead to the back side of this wing.

The family cemetery was here, statues and mausoleums gleaming white among the thin black trees.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

Bethany and Phoebe,
Great job on your presentation. You provided an in-depth,
sympathetic look at this often-misunderstood disease. I know
the class especially appreciated your photocopied writing
samples from actual patients, as a way of concretely
demonstrating the “garbled thought” aspect. This was an
excellent overview, but you failed to address what happens to
those who go undiagnosed: what danger do they pose to
themselves and others? Grade: A-

 

—Ms. Avila's grade sheet

I
wandered the cemetery, looking at each monument for the name Yolande Arnaud. I wanted to prove that she had died, was deep under the earth. That stolen blood did not permit her to still draw breath into her antiquated lungs other than in troubled teens' hallucinations.

The statues' faces showed they were lost in contemplation, their marble lips just beginning to murmur. Covered with graying moss, they twisted their bodies in various postures of grief, their garments clinging to a stone hip before falling to the monumental feet.

One woman knelt on verdigris knees to lift her iron arms in misery to the skies, her hair streaming behind her as she faced eternity's wind. Another leaned against an enormous urn, draping a graceful arm across it as she mourned, pressing her cheek to its curvature. I saw life-sized weeping willow trees rendered in stone, and a marble book the size of a Saint Bernard, lying open so you could see one “page” had been torn out—the life cut short.

There were also mausoleums—small stone structures that held coffins aboveground. Each had a stained glass door flanked by dull-faced angels, either to prevent the inhabitants from leaving or to prohibit those who would disturb their rest.

While cemetery statues usually express simple grief over death, these seemed agonized. I wondered if the stone-cutters designed them to show how the Arnauds hated what one of their kind did to children. For these marble people represented Arnauds, of course—generations of brothers, sisters, who watched their elderly aunt Madame Arnaud somehow never sicken or die. They suffered the guilt she never felt.

I would jump to the sky in exultation if I could find Madame Arnaud's stone, to prove that she had died just like everyone does, like everyone expected her to.

No luck. Many Arnauds had lived in the house and died, but not one of them was named Yolande. I had worked myself into the last row of monuments at this point, and I rested my hand on the fence that enclosed the rear of the graveyard. The undergrowth flourished here, with weeds pushing their strident hands up to the sky, and I almost expected to see a butterfly wheel out of there, ochre and ethereal.

But in a moment, as the gate opened beneath the weight of my hands, I saw what the lushness was for: cover. It was to hide what I had stumbled upon.

The secret, back part of the cemetery.

I stepped through and stood with my mouth open, helpless. There were hundreds—yes,
hundreds
—of wooden tombstones in distinct rows, stretching far back. They were low to the ground. Child-sized.

Not all of the grave markers had names on them. They didn't need to. Madame Arnaud hadn't cared what a child's name was.

In horror, I read a few names that had been marked:
PATRICK AHERN . . . MATILDA SMOLEN . . . FANNY AL
-
BRIGHT. . .
I stopped. It felt too overwhelming.

Underneath each of these tombstones was the dried-out body of a child. Just a kid. Someone, a little boy, whose mother had been too scared to prevent Madame Arnaud from taking him away. A kid who sat at the organ and played a few notes, laughing, and wondered why the beautiful woman got so interested when his finger got a cut and bled, why she insisted on putting his finger in her mouth.

Their lives had been stolen from them. They had never learned what they would look like as adults. Had never seen their parents again. Their last sight, as the final ounce of blood was pulled out through Madame Arnaud's silver straw, was her terrible face, getting redder and redder with
their
blood coursing through her veins.

The mantra resonating through my head was what Eleanor had scratched into glass:
Poor little babes
.

I left the sordid children's cemetery, walking through the hidden gate and past the bleak marble statues of the Arnaud burial ground. I looked at the high back of the house rearing up, and hated its very sight. So much evil had happened here.

 

Driving with Miles again.

I sat there, watching him make decisions: where to turn right, where to turn left. He didn't acknowledge I was there. He drove faster, though, the more I stared at him. I wanted to reach over and run my fingers down the stubble on his jaw, but I imagined he would pull away. Finally, I couldn't stand it.

“Are we going to talk about what happened?” I asked.

“You mean . . . the kiss?”

“Yeah. The kiss.”

He was silent a long time, so long that I turned my head to the window and said, “Never mind. You know what? Just pull over and I'll get out. I can walk home.”

“No! I'm sorry, I'm trying to figure out what to say. And it's hard.”

“It's not hard. You're not into me. It's fine! No big deal. Just pull over.”

“That's not it,” he said. “I
am
into you.” He paused.
“Quite.”

I sat there, not looking at him. My heart was racing. I waited.

“The problem is, I have a girlfriend.”

I blinked. Of course.
Of course
a guy this handsome wouldn't be free. But then he shouldn't have been kissing me . . . which was exactly what he'd said at the time.

“I keep trying to break up with her,” he said.

“Trying?” I rolled my eyes even though I was still looking out the window and he couldn't see me.

“Yeah. Trying. But it's like she's always doing something, or on the way somewhere else. She won't stop and talk to me.”

“Sure,” I said.

“No, really,” he said. “It's not an excuse. I want to break it off, but I don't want to just shout it out to her. I want to sit down and do it nicely.”

Somewhat grudgingly, I nodded. I managed to turn my head and look at him. He took his eyes off the road for a second to give me an apologetic smile.

“So that's where I'm at. I'm not free, but I will be soon.”

“Well, let me know when you manage it,” I said.

“I will,” he promised.

I sucked in a heady amount of air at how the expression on his face made me feel when he glanced over again. I trembled while his eyes remained locked on mine.

“Oh my God, look at the road,” I said. “I don't want to crash!”

He gave a funny smile and looked away. I felt cold without the heat of his gaze and regretted saying anything.

“It's cool that you're being faithful to her until you can break it off,” I admitted.

“I try my best not to be an asshole,” he said. We both cracked up. His laugh was warm and low and made me want to say brilliantly witty things for the rest of my life to get him to make that sound.

“It's a true burden in life, isn't it? Not being an asshole?”

“It's like . . . so . . .
hard,
” he said.

“I'm working on downgrading myself from bitch to witch.”

He laughed. “Never. No one could ever use those words for you.”

“You haven't seen me in action,” I said.

“I've seen you.”

My stomach flip-flopped at that one. Okay, so this was not so bad. He liked me. He even liked me “quite,” in all the wonderful Britishness of that word. Soon I'd be kissing him for all I was worth, burrowing my fingers into that beautiful, black hair. I'd take my time and lick a slow trail down his neck into the hollow near his clavicle.

I took a few deep breaths to calm down a little. I tucked my hair behind my ears and faced front again.

Soon we approached the bridge, the one he always turned left after. “Hey, turn right,” I said. “I want to see those wildflowers over there.”

“Next time,” he said.

How many times had we driven this same stretch? I wasn't seeing much of England, but I had memorized every curve and pitch of this road. I rolled down the window and inhaled the dulled air . . . there was a pungency to the atmosphere back home that I missed. The sharp smell of eucalyptus . . . something indefinable in the ocean-meets-city aroma. California.

California. My family. My
sister
.

“Oh my God,” I said. “Madame Arnaud left me more pages. She wants me to . . . she wants . . . Miles, we have to get back.”

His jaw dropped as he whipped his head around to look at me.

“We keep forgetting,” he said.

I clapped my hands to either side of my face. Why the
hell
did I even care about kissing this guy, when my sister was in danger? “Drive back right now,” I said. “I'm such a jerk. If anything happens to her . . .”

He did a U-turn, scraping the car against the brambles that lined the narrow roadway.

And then: we were there. But not where I wanted.

Frustrated, I hit my palm against my thigh. We were standing in the Arnaud cemetery, his car nowhere to be seen. “Dammit!” I shouted. “I want to be inside. Did we walk here?”

Miles shook his head.

“I'm so tired of this!” I yelled. “Who is doing this to us?”

“It's all right,” he said. “We'll go inside. Stay cool.”

“I can't,” I sobbed miserably. “It's my sister. It's my freaking sister and I can't even get my act together enough to help her.”

“It's not your fault,” he said. “It's just . . .”

“What?”

“Just how the world is operating, isn't it?”

I stared at him, and my panic left as quickly as it had arisen. “No,” I said. “This is not how the world works. There's something
wrong
. There's something pushing me and pulling me, and I don't have any control.”

He nodded, although his face remained confused. “I don't know why,” he said. “But I'll help you with your sister. We're close at least. Let's find our way back into the manor.”

I started toward the main cemetery gate, but he didn't come with me. “A shortcut?” he asked. His hand was on the ivy-covered gate.

“You don't want to go in there,” I started to say. But I stopped myself. He needed to know.

He stepped through, and I watched his face as his mind was blown. His cheekbones, already so prominent, went into high relief as his jaw slackened in disbelief. His eyes, normally heavy lidded and sensual, went wide as a child's.

I hated the perfect spacing between the rows of small wooden markers, because it looked like someone had been methodical about planning them. Weeds grew as tall as the markers, but there was no hiding the atrocious symmetry of the area. It was darker back here, thanks to the secretive vining Madame Arnaud or her servants had planted. It felt poisonous, as if some of the dark, fertile plant life might rub against one's cheek and leave a residue of venom.

“Maybe this is just some kind of hoax?” I asked quietly. “Anyone can throw up a bunch of wooden grave markers.”

He shook his head. “No, Phoebe. Don't you feel it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just listen to your body. The way you do when you swim.”

Listen to my body? When I swam, I
forgot
my body. I was nothing but breath. But I tried to do what he said. I stared off into the distance, where the ivy clung to the walls of the manor. And I allowed myself to turn up the volume on my strange, whistling undercurrent of knowledge.

I heard sadness, aching generations of sadness, with one bright crimson stripe of brutality, like chamber music with a single electric guitar banging out dissonance. Or a chorus of monks chanting, while a deranged soprano threaded her screech through their piety.

Some say the past is like a groove in an old-time LP record. If the needle skips, you hear it again. But somehow Madame Arnaud's legacy had embedded itself into every channel of that wax, softly behind the regular track.

“I feel it,” I said.

He reached out his arms and hugged me. His shaved jaw lightly scratched my temple.

“I'll help you,” he whispered into my ear. His voice had the deep rumble of someone far older, a man who'd smoked cigars all his life. I could sink into that voice, let it comfort me through nightmares, through all the nights I might sit up unable to sleep.

“Thank you,” I said. I told him what I knew I had to tell someone. “She wants me to bring her a child from the village.”

“Are you serious? How do you know that?” His eyes searched my face.

“She wrote me more pages. She said she'd let Tabby go if I could bring her someone else. It's taboo for her to drink her own family's blood, but she's starving.”

He hugged me again, and I closed my eyes to inhale his particular fragrance of soap and cologne. He stepped back firmly, clearly reminded again of his girlfriend. “I don't know what to say,” he said. “But you won't have to secure a child for her if we get Tabby out of here.”

He pointed at the thicket of ivy—somehow he had seen a gate handle in the profusion. It was another way out of the secret cemetery, and we found ourselves in the manor's true backyard—the area stretching behind the main wing. Miles stopped short at the sight. I realized I was standing there with my mouth wide open like those antique portraits of Christmas carolers.