Possessions (14 page)

“
Please
,” Mandy said brokenly. “You said you’d help us.”

There was no answer, by which I mean that she didn’t answer herself.
Mandy Winters is schizo
, I thought, trying it out.
She’s nuts. Or she went nuts. That’s why they sent her here.

No one had been able to confirm the Lincoln Bedroom story, but after all that netsurfing, I was well acquainted with the Winters’ high-powered lifestyle—an endless round of charity bashes and fancy parties. I had gaped at the clothes, the cars, the celebs and VIPs—I was willing to bet her rich, powerful parents could bury any kind of scandal—lock their drug-addict son up and send their crazy daughter out of town. What if she went bonkers again and did something to put us all in danger?

No way
. I remembered my mom discussing Hillary Clinton. Hillary had held imaginary conversations with Eleanor Roosevelt, to help herself think through important political issues. What was prayer, but talking to someone else about your problems? And Mandy . . . talking to herself in a Southern accent? About having four of something?

More birds rose from the lake, squeeing and cawing. The fog started to boil away. The crick in my neck became a throbbing ache; I was chilled to the bone, and my stomach was in danger of growling. I hoped Mandy was done, but she slid down to her knees and leaned forward on her hands, gazing into the lake. Staring at something.

I was willing to bet it wasn’t Eleanor Roosevelt. She had told us there was a ghost in the lake. Maybe she looked exactly like Mandy Winters’ reflection.

The silence stretched on. Rushes surrounding the inlet made papery sounds in the wind. My cheeks stung with chill, and my mind was starting to travel down the yellow brick road of what-ifs. The Jessel haunted house was spectacular; she probably had leftover special effects seeded all over campus, like land mines, to scare us and make us do weird stuff because . . . why?

“You’re the only one who knows what’s going on, sugar. Keep it that way,” Southern Mandy ordered Regular Mandy.

“Okay,” Regular Mandy replied. “But you’ll . . . you’ll make it happen, right? You’ll get him out?” Her voice was so low I could barely make out the words.

There was no answer. Mandy leaned farther over the lake.

“
Right?
”

Her voice echoed off the lake—
right, right, right?
I tipped back my head, not listening to my protesting neck muscles—to see if by chance anyone had climbed down onto the cliff to see what was up with Mandy. There was no one else there.

Then she got to her feet and whirled around so fast I thought she’d seen me. I caught and held my breath, standing as still as I could, clenching my mouth shut so she wouldn’t hear my chattering teeth. Her face was blotchy and tear-stained, and she looked younger than I’d ever seen her look. Maybe it was the lack of makeup, or audience. Or maybe it was fear.

Maybe when she and Miles had been busted in the bedroom, she’d lost her mind. Or maybe I was being set up. First, she let it be known that she and her two minions did séances; and then she did pranks about ghosts and haunted houses. And Lara had been working overtime to scare me when we walked back from the lake. And Kiyoko just “happened” to use a bookmark from an occult bookshop to save her place in a story about secret Satan-worshippers. Then, they let me see their black eyes of death and the weird faces. Next, there was that hysterical fit at the party, and now this.

Whatever the case, I was on alert now. I didn’t know what I’d do about it, but I sure as hell knew I would make sure my friends—especially Julie—were safe.

fifteen

November 3

I couldn’t believe I had only been at Marlwood for a week. But it was true. And it was time to check in with Dr. Ehrlenbach.

I was terrified. As my long black skirt (my only skirt) flapped against my boots (scuffed, and resistant to polishing), I tugged on the sweater Julie had lent me—it grazed my hips, and not in a fashionable way. I touched my hair. Julie had wrapped it into a chignon and insisted I wear her chandelier jet earrings. And that I put on some lip gloss and, y’know, made an effort.

Then my sweet best friend had kissed me approvingly on the cheek and said, “It’ll be fine.”

Crunch, crunch, crunch on the gravel; thuddathud dathudda on the panic-o-meter. My mind raced as I poured over my many infractions: out after curfew, drinking, and I was sure I had screwed up today’s test in Spanish.
Mi madre no quiere bailar.
My mother doesn’t want to dance.
Mi madre no quiere morir.
My mother doesn’t want to die.

At least the project with Kiyoko was on track, even if Kiyoko wasn’t. She was a jittery bag of bones. On the upside, working together at Jessel gave me a chance to spy on all of them. Something had shifted; there was tension in the air. Everyone else was usually holed up in Mandy’s room.

Mandy looked slightly better than Kiyoko, but not much. Like she wasn’t sleeping much, either. Like her drug habit was wearing her down. Or like going crazy really took a lot out of a person. Not that I was one to talk.

I opened the door and saw Ms. Shelley, who nodded at me and said, “Take a seat, please.”

And then I saw Rose. She was wearing a plain black jacket, a white shirt, and a short black skirt, tights, and shoes. She looked like a bartender at a catered party. Or a hip inner-city nun. It made me sad to see all her color gone, but I understood why she’d done it. If she’d been summoned to see Ehrlenbach, she must be in trouble.

She was perched on the edge of an L-shaped green leather sofa, beside a table topped with a vase of real fresh flowers. What I at first thought were neat stacks of magazines were actually college catalogs.

“Hey,” she said by way of greeting. “Must be that time of the week.” I stared at her. “Dude, don’t you know I’m the other scholarship student?”

“You
are
?” I hadn’t realized there were any other scholarship students. It hadn’t even dawned on me to wonder.

“Yes, I are. I have a really high IQ. What’s your excuse?”

I actually smiled a little. “Good essay? My dad thinks I’m fulfilling some kind of grant requirement.”

Rose recrossed her legs and tugged at her skirt. “Well, then they’ll have to keep you. I’m not even a minority or anything. God, I could use a smoke.” I nodded, even though smoking was repulsive.

She peered up at the clock hanging above us and let out a slow, shaky breath. “At least I’m missing biology. Today we start on fetal pigs.”

“I had it last year,” I told her. “I said I had a religious objection to dissecting.”

“Oh, shit, why didn’t I think of that?” she wailed. The receptionist glared at her and she hunkered forward, grimacing. “I mean golly-gosh-gee-whiz, what a stupid ho I am.”

I almost burst out laughing.

“We’re probably going to create our own Frankenstein monsters next semester,” she went on, pulling back her face in her Ehrlenbach impression. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Oh my God, could this place be any weirder? Do you know what I did last night? I went to a séance. At Jessel.”

I stared at her. “You
did
?”

She nodded. “I was loitering at the door out of the commons, trying to decide if I should go back to get another chocolate chip cookie, y’know, for studying, when Lara and Mandy started to go past me. Then Mandy gave me a long look and asked me what my lucky number is.”

“What?”

Rose snickered. “Yeah. So I said, ‘Seven.’ Even though it’s not. I don’t have a lucky number. But her eyes widened and the next thing I knew, I was getting invited to Jessel. Lucky me,” she added drily.

“I won the lottery, too,” I told her. “I’m working on a project with Kiyoko.”

“Then you’ve seen Mandy’s weirdatorium.”

“No. I’ve only been downstairs. I haven’t even seen Kiyoko’s room.” I leaned forward, urging her to spill.

“Whoa.” She rolled her eyes. “The first thing you see when you walk in is this rotted portrait. She said she found it in that library.
Then
, you see her Ouija board and her books about spirits and hauntings. And that crystal ball from Halloween.”

I listened hard. “So . . . what did you guys do?”

“We just hung out,” she said.

Ms. Shelley’s phone beeped. I was afraid one of us was about to be summoned to Dr. Ehrlenbach’s. “Then what?” I pressed.

“It was really stupid. They got out the Ouija board and asked it a bunch of questions, and I could tell that Mandy was moving the little plastic triangle thingy.”

“Questions like . . . ?” I prompted.

She waved her hand dismissively but I wanted—needed—details. “You know, like sleepover stuff. ‘Are you here, what is your name, how did you die?’”

“And?” Chills ran along my spine.

“It was supposed to be some girl named Gilda who died during an operation.” She chuckled at my startled expression. “I know, I heard that ghost story, too. It happened in the operating theater.”

“Yeah,” I said in a soft voice, shivering as I remembered how I’d felt in that place. The black eyes, Mandy’s freakout. Major drugs? Or was there a ghost in there?

She must have mistaken my response as that of a true believer. “Lindsay, Mandy was
moving
the triangle. She was pranking me and I have to say, I was kind of insulted. It wasn’t up to her usual standards. No sound effects, no costumes. I figured it was because I’m a scholarship chick, so she doesn’t have to spend a lot of effort on me.”

“But why do it at all?” I asked.

“She’s bored? She’s into numerology? She’s crazy?” Rose moved her shoulders. “I’m going with crazy. I think this place is a little beyond her. All these elaborate practical jokes and stuff . . . She always has to be the center of attention, you know? Like when she ‘freaked out’”—Rose made air quotes—“at the party in the OT. Then everyone fawns all over her. It’s a textbook cry for help. And it’s very sad.” She smiled at me, not one bit sad herself.

I nodded. “You’re right about the crazy part. She’s really losing it. I heard her talking to herself.”

“Yeah.” Rose’s eyes widened. “Kiyoko made some comment about that when Mandy went to the bathroom, and I thought Lara was going to hit her. I’m talking serious body-blow.”

“Yikes,” I said.

“Ms. Cavanaugh, you may go in,” Ms. Shelley said.

I nodded and got up, wiping my sweaty palms on my skirt.

“Do you think I should tell . . . you-know-who?” I whispered.

“Debatable,” Rose whispered back. “
Mandy
pays tuition. You, not so much.”

We shared a look. Rose smiled wanly. Then I walked down the short hall. And there was the statue again. Just like I’d seen on my first day. Edwin Marlwood. He had a very fierce face. He didn’t look like a man who would run a posh girls school. More like a judge for the Salem witch trials.

I knocked. Waited. There was no reply, but Ms. Shelley had told me to go in. So I did.

On an easel inside the office, an architectural sketch of a round building with a canted roof was labeled, WINTERS SPORTS CENTER. Okay, that decision was made. I would not be discussing Mandy Winters with Dr. Ehrlen-stein.

I began to sit down, when I realized that, this time, her desk had something on it . . . a laptop computer and a small, black leather-bound book. Cramped black writing was framed in a yellowed rectangle. I squinted to make out the upside-down words.

The Science Behind the Lobotomy Procedure
, it read.

Lobotomy? Yeow
. Darting a glance at the door, I reached forward and flipped the book open, turning it around as I did so.

My heart caught. The first thing I saw was an ink sketch of a skull, the top of its head sectioned into numbers—just like the head that sat on my windowsill. There was a large X across the forehead.

Separation of the frontal lobes produces a calming effect,
a note read beneath the sketch.
The young women prone to hysteria become biddable.

“Oh my God,” I murmured.

I heard footsteps in the hall. I quickly shut the book and returned it to its original place next to the laptop, and sat down. Dr. Ehrlenbach came in. I looked straight at her, not at the book.

“Lindsay,” Dr. Ehrlenbach said, in a professionally cordial way, “how is it going?” Her mouth didn’t move. It had to be Botox. I remembered Rose’s imitation of her, and nervous giggles threatened to bubble out of me.

“It’s going great,” I said. “I love . . . I’m enjoying myself.”

“I’ve spoken to some of your professors and you can expect a couple of Bs coming your way. You need to pull those up,” she said, and I think she was trying to raise her brows, but they were already quite arched.

I nodded like a bobblehead, sitting there awkwardly in her office, even though I wanted to protest that I had only been there a week. Hardly time to get grades in anything. “Yeah, I mean, yes, I’m doing just that.” I smiled too brightly. “Study, study.”

“Any concerns? Anything we need to discuss?” She was wearing simple gold earrings and a watch on an expensive leather band. Her nails were buffed. Very elegant and understated. I was mortified by my appearance, even though it was much better than the first time I’d been in there. I shuffled my feet, wondering if I should sit down.

Yes, yes, yes. We need to discuss the fact that Baby Sports Center is psycho
, I wanted to tell her.
And what’s up with that book?

“Everything’s great.” I tried to think of intelligent replies, or questions that would illustrate how brilliant and aware I was. The meeting might be some kind of test, a last chance to impress her. But nothing came to mind.

Then I took a breath. I
should
tell her about Mandy. But the architectural drawing was to her immediate left, and I knew that anything I said about Ms. Winters that was negative in the least would seal my fate, not hers. So I pretended to cough.