The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall

by Katie Alender

  “You okay?” Theo asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Somebody must be walking on my grave, that’s all.”

  “They’re bound to eventually,” he said. “Now see if you can catch me!”

  He swooped away, and I pushed off behind him, wobbling a little before managing to find my balance. Then I was sliding, faster than I would have thought possible, across the slick ice. The wind cut through me, but it felt good, bracing, human.

  We spent hours racing each other across the pond, and I got to be almost as fast as Theo. By the time the sun began to sink below the trees, I could spin just as well as he could.

  “How many times can you go around without stopping?” I asked. “In theory, if there’s no friction, you could just spin forever, right?”

  With a grin, he pushed off with one foot and began to turn.

  Then he came almost to a screeching halt.

  “Theo?” I asked. A moment later, I realized that time had slowed down again.

  How long would I be stuck out here, alone in this slip of time? Without Theo to keep me company, the tall trees and pale sky felt like a terrible wilderness. But after a few minutes, I decided to ride it out. So I stood back and simply waited, watching Theo’s slow series of turns take shape in front of me, the delighted flash of his smile sending a trickle of hope into my heart.

  If I had to do this—if I had to be stuck here forever—then at least there was someone like Theo …

  “How many was that?”

  Theo stood in front of me. Time had sped up and I didn’t even notice.

  “You’re flushed,” he said, a note of concern in his voice.

  “It’s nothing,” I said. “I’m just having fun.”

  “You are?”

  I nodded. “But I lost count of your turns.”

  “Me, too,” he said.

  As the sky darkened, we ended up slowly circling the pond. After a while, Theo cleared his throat and stopped. “I guess your feet are pretty cold,” he said.

  “I can’t feel them,” I said. “But that doesn’t matter, does it?”

  He was quiet for a moment, then brushed his hands on his trousers. “Still, you should get back to the house.”

  “Why?” I asked. “What difference does it make?”

  But he was walking in that direction, and with no better options, I went with him.

  “Am I really the first person you’ve talked to since you died?” I asked.

  “You really are.”

  “Well, your social skills are pretty good, considering.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “I think.”

  We walked in silence toward the main entrance and stopped at the foot of the wide stone stairway.

  “This was … nice,” I admitted. I looked at Theo, wondering if he felt the same.

  But the smile he’d been unable to hide all evening had melted away, and in its place he wore an even more serious expression than usual. Behind his eyes was a deep pain, something he didn’t want me to see.

  So I turned and walked up the steps without saying anything more.

  * * *

  I was shocked to see Florence sitting on the lobby sofa, waiting the way Mom used to wait when I went out with Nic or Landon. When she saw me, her face lit up with concern. “Sugar, you’ll freeze out there!”

  I brushed my arms off and shrugged. “Still dead. No harm done.”

  She gave me the kind of look my mom used to give me, puffed-out lips and a sideways glance—the kind of look that says, Oh, YOU.

  She frowned. “What have you been doing out there? You weren’t talking to that boy, were you?”

  “Is that a problem?” I asked.

  She sighed. “It’s just that … your place is in here. I’m sure he’s lovely, but being out among the trees and the wild animals is no place for a lady.”

  “Oh, well that’s fine,” I said. “I’m actually not much of a lady.”

  She clucked and shook her head. “What I mean is that … well … I think the house prefers us to be indoors.”

  I tried to think of a polite way to say that the house could stick its preferences down its stovepipe, but words failed me.

  Florence’s sweet laugh filled the room. “Sugar, you look sadder than a fat turkey on Christmas Eve. Anyway, I’ve talked to Eliza, and we have something planned that’ll turn that frown right upside down.”

  I let her shepherd me back to the nurses’ dormitory.

  Florence’s idea, it turned out, was for them to give me lessons on interacting with the physical world—specifically, learning to pick up a brittle old red rubber ball. It was kind of them to offer, but it felt like a consolation prize—one designed to placate me and keep me from asking questions. I pictured Florence cajoling Eliza into helping me: The new girl is a crazy rebel, bless her heart; let’s indulge her a little.

  I didn’t want their pity. But I really did want to learn. Being able to manipulate objects would help my investigation. I could go back and look over Aunt Cordelia’s letters, and when I found her office, I could search for information on the history of the institute.

  So I went along with it. I thought it would be like learning to ride a bike. You ride a little, fall off, ride a little longer, fall off, and keep trying until you miraculously don’t fall off. But in actual practice it was more like trying to ride a bike that you couldn’t even manage to sit on. Repeatedly, I tried to scoop the ball off the table or the floor or from Florence’s delicate hand, and every time, I failed completely. After about nine hundred attempts, Eliza and Florence looked like they were sincerely regretting their generous tutelage.

  Finally, giving up, all three of us flopped onto the couch.

  “I don’t think I’ve been so worn out since I died,” Eliza said. “I feel like I could actually sleep.”

  Florence smiled wistfully. “Oh, that would be wonderful. I want to dream again.”

  “Dreams,” Eliza said. “I had the best dreams. Every night, it was like something out of the cinema—only there was talking, obviously.”

  Right—living when she did, Eliza would have seen only silent films. I tried to remember what little I knew about the 1920s. Flappers came to mind—women with short, dramatic hairdos and fringed dresses dancing flouncily in jazzy nightclubs. I could easily picture Eliza there, dancing among them.

  “Am I allowed to ask what you did—why you were sent here?” I asked, fully expecting to be snubbed.

  Eliza made an unhappy sound. “Nothing,” she said, a note of protest in her voice.

  Florence clucked and laughed. “That old story?”

  Eliza reached up and pushed her hair back behind her ear. “I was thinking about eloping with an American boy. My father was very British, very old-fashioned, and couldn’t stand the thought that I would marry a young man with no family or money. Despite the fact that my father himself had come to America to marry my mother for her money, and that was fine.”

  It confirmed my suspicion about a lot of the patients here; Eliza’s misbehavior didn’t sound so bad at all. Certainly not worse than sneaking off to Daytona for spring break. I wondered if, had we lived a hundred years ago, my parents would have locked me up here just like Eliza’s had. But wondering that opened some dark well of untested emotions inside me, and I suppressed the thought before I could be flooded with feelings I wasn’t ready to face.

  I focused back on Eliza. “Eloping?” I asked. “You were going to get married? How old were—are you?”

  “Seventeen,” Eliza said. “Yes, I was eager to be married. The alternative was sitting around and watching my mother do needlepoint and gossip about her friends. It was bound to happen eventually, and I wanted it to be on my terms.”

  “Oh,” I said, trying to imagine a life with such a narrow scope.

  “You didn’t plan to get married, then?” Eliza asked.

  “Well, I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Maybe someday, down the road. People don’t really get married that young anymore. I mea
n, my parents would have had a conniption if I’d ever talked about marrying my boyfriend.”

  Eliza and Florence exchanged a glance. “Boyfriend?” Eliza asked, sounding intrigued. “What was he like? What was he called?”

  “Ex-boyfriend,” I said, correcting myself. “His name was Landon. He was cute and smart. And I thought he loved me, but apparently not.”

  Florence sighed dramatically. “Men.”

  Eliza leaned forward. “Did you love him?”

  I shrugged. “I thought I did.”

  “Did he make you feel more alive, every time you were near him?” she asked suddenly. “Is that what it felt like?”

  “Honestly?” I said. “No. Not really. Mostly I felt sort of nervous, like he was too good for me.”

  Both Eliza and Florence frowned.

  “I don’t know,” I said, wishing I had an answer that made me sound slightly less pathetic. “I liked being around him, and we always got along. But somehow I did always feel sort of … smaller.”

  Saying it out loud made me realize that it was true.

  “What about you?” I asked Florence. “Have you ever been in love?”

  Her eyes glazed over. “Oh, yes, I was in love. I love being in love.”

  “Florence is like a fairy-tale princess,” Eliza said. “She spends a lot of time sitting in the parlor, reading poetry, and waiting for Prince Charming to show up.”

  “Old habits die hard,” Florence said. “That’s how I spent my teenage years … sitting around lookin’ pretty, trying to catch a man good enough for my mama.”

  “Prince Charming’s not coming here,” I said. The only man we had access to was Theo, stuck outside. And something inside me went cold at the thought of Florence turning her considerable wiles on him.

  “Don’t I know it,” Florence said. “I’m so sick of women I could spit. Present company excluded, of course.”

  We all laughed a little, and I began to feel like they were warming up to me.

  “Did it work, when you were alive?” I asked. “Did you catch a man?”

  “Well, lots of boys came calling on me, of course. But none of them really got my attention. Then there was one who was different from the others.” Florence leaned back and stared at the carved plaster ceiling. “He set my very soul on fire. I would have done anything for him. The problem is … he married someone else.”

  “Oh dear,” Eliza said.

  “Oh dear is right,” Florence said. “Talk about a troubled woman.”

  Then we all laughed, harder this time.

  I sat back, contemplating whether what Landon and I had had was even real. It certainly paled in comparison to Eliza’s aliveness and Florence’s fiery soul.

  Maybe that was why he was the one I missed the least.

  “Will you tell me more about what it was like to live here?” I asked, still curious. I tried to imagine Eliza arriving and being shown into the wardress’s office. My eyes traveled instinctively to her wrist. “Like, why …” I trailed off, not sure if the question would offend her.

  “My jingle bells?” Eliza’s voice darkened. “I kept trying to get away—I was quite good at it, actually; I’d learned how to pick locks from my older brother, Ernest. Eventually they strapped the bells on. Completely mortifying. I’m like a cat. A naughty cat.”

  “They’re not so bad,” I lied.

  “You know, my family never came back for me,” Eliza said, looking at the floor. “Not even to visit.”

  “That’s pretty harsh,” I said.

  She thought for a moment before speaking again. “Yes, I do think it is. What about you? What was your life like? Aside from the fact that your family doesn’t like one another.”

  I flushed, annoyed. “We do like each other; it’s just … complicated. Different from when you guys were alive. Families don’t always get along.”

  “That’s not different,” Florence said with a small laugh. “That’s the way it’s been since Cain and Abel.”

  “What’s different, I think, is that everyone seemed so rude,” Eliza said. “The way you treated each other.”

  “We weren’t always like that,” I protested. “I was having a really bad day.” Which was a bit of an understatement.

  No one spoke for a long time, and when I glanced back over at Florence, she was gone. Eliza was beginning to fade, too.

  “How do you do that?” I asked. “Fade in and out.”

  “It’s not just us,” she said. “You do it as well. It’s like … when you’re alive, you can walk into a room and not attract any notice. And then you say hello or spill your drink, and people notice you. For ghosts, it’s a bit like that, only you fade in and out.”

  “So you can’t always see me, even when we’re in the same room?”

  “Not always,” Eliza said. “But I should warn you, I hate surprises. So don’t creep up behind me.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. I was starting to think she found me just tolerable, which was a big step up from before. Her next words floored me.

  “What color was the smoke?”

  I looked up at her, startled.

  “The smoke you saw before you jumped—I mean, fell,” she said. “What did it look like?”

  “It was dark, practically black,” I said.

  “And it was almost … shiny?” she asked. “Like a piece of oiled metal?”

  I nodded and saw a gleam of recognition in her eye. I waited for her to say more, to tell me why she’d asked. But instead, she nodded curtly and disappeared.

  * * *

  I was worn out, too, but I felt stubbornly determined to accomplish something. So I went through the hall door and down the dark corridor, illuminating it with the pale blue glow that emanated from my body. I’d been through every door except the one at the far end—the visiting parlor—so that was where I headed.

  The room was large and gracious-looking, with wood floors and a fancy sofa against one wall. Apart from the superintendent’s apartment and the lobby, it was the nicest room I’d seen in the house, which made sense, considering it was for visitors.

  There was a large bookcase against one wall, and I let my eyes drift across the authors’ names embossed in gold on the spines—Byron, Tennyson, Dickinson, and a whole row of dark green texts with gleaming silver spines—The Selected Works of Lord Lindley. I tried to remember the last book I’d read as a living person, and cringed as I realized it had been the Cliffs-Notes of something my teacher had assigned at the very end of the school year. Maybe someday I’d be able to pick up and read these books. Maybe even today.

  I bet for something as noble as poetry, I’ll be able to touch the books, I thought. Eyes closed, I slowly reached my hand toward the shelves.

  Nope. My fingers went right through the spines of the first three volumes of Lindley. I slumped in disappointment.

  Then a distant sound caught in my ear, a faraway rumble …

  I perked up. I knew that sound.

  It was a car.

  I ran back to the lobby, where Florence had reappeared on the sofa. She gazed dreamily out at the grounds.

  “Someone’s here!” I said, racing to the window.

  “That happens from time to time,” she said, waving her hand languidly.

  Off in the distance, kicking up snow as it came up the driveway, was a silver SUV.

  Despite her blasé pretense, Florence came and stood next to me. “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said breathlessly. But an impossible hope grew in my heart—

  It’s my family.

  I ran through the front door and down the snowy steps just as the car reached the circular drive in front of the house. The glare of the sun on the windshield obscured the faces of the people in the front seat, so I ran around to get a better look at my dad.

  But when I saw the person behind the wheel, I stopped short.

  The driver of the car wasn’t my father.

  It was Landon.

  I stood staring at Landon’
s face so intently that it took me a moment to notice who was sitting in the front passenger seat.

  Nic.

  “Oh!” I cried, and the word ended in a choked sob.

  “Who is it?” Theo had materialized next to me. He stared into the car, shading his eyes with one hand.

  “My best friend,” I said, trying and failing to keep my composure. Tears streamed down my cheeks, though I couldn’t pinpoint which emotion had motivated them. “She came. She didn’t forget me.”

  Theo frowned in Landon’s direction. “And who’s he?”

  “That’s … nobody,” I said. “He’s not important.”

  I ran up to Nic as she got out of the car and threw my arms around her in a bear hug, even though she couldn’t know I was doing it.

  “Nic, I’m so happy you’re here!” I spoke loudly, as if she were hard of hearing. On the off chance that she could understand me, I was going to make sure I said everything I’d ever wished I could go back and say. “I’ve missed you! I love you! Thank you for not forgetting about me!”

  But she didn’t seem to hear my words, and she definitely didn’t take comfort from them.

  She stared up at the house like it was something horrible, a cavern filled with angry dragons, and shrank into her thick winter jacket. Seeing her so miserable took the happy wind right out of my sails.

  Landon came around the car, looking more than a little uncomfortable. When he touched Nic’s arm to get her attention, she practically jumped out of her skin.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “You don’t have to.”

  She swallowed back her tears and wiped her nose with a tissue. For a girl who usually went around looking like a Hollywood starlet, with dark Renaissance-princess hair and perfect white teeth, Nic was the world’s ugliest cryer. Her nose went tomato red, her skin got all splotchy, her eyes squinched up, and her lips pulled back. It was a sight to behold, the perfect representation of who she was—over-the-top, emotional, big, blustery, and completely the most loving and lovable human being on the planet.

  “I do have to,” she snuffled, a steel rod of resoluteness in her voice. “I do. I owe it to her.”

  Landon sighed and stuck his hands in the pockets of his preppy navy-blue corduroy peacoat. “All right. But remember, we can leave anytime.”