The Screaming Season

by Nancy Holder

  “Interesting.”

  “Umm . . . ”

  “Cavanaugh, don’t wimp out,” he snapped, as if using my last name would make me pay better attention.

  I went for it.

  “She and Lara were performing a ritual on Kiyoko to get her to become possessed. And Celia Reaves took advantage and possessed me.” I said it in a rush and braced myself for Celia’s anger.

  He stared at me. “You?”

  I looked down. Saw my reflection on one of the metal lids of my breakfast tray. No white face. No hollowed-out eye sockets.

  “Me.” My voice caught.

  He stared at me, then narrowed his eyes, giving me a once-over. Abruptly, he stuck his cigarette back in his mouth and lit it, dropped back his head, and gazed at the ceiling.

  “Well.” He moved his head this way and that, scrutinizing the two square feet above himself.

  I looked at the shiny metal. It was still just me. I couldn’t help the tears that streamed down my cheeks.

  “So, now you know.” I sounded angry, but I was scared. I had never said this much to anyone.

  “Hmm,” he said. He puffed out smoke, blinking, quiet. “Okay, then. A question.”

  I watched the smoke come out of his mouth, imagining Celia leaving my body and my life in the same way. Praying it had happened. Wondering about the timing of this conversation.

  “Ask,” I said reluctantly.

  “Shouldn’t you two—or you four—be on Oprah? Because she’d pay a lot for this. And your family is destitute.”

  My mouth dropped open, and he grinned at me. We both started laughing. Big, rolling belly laughs. I gathered up handfuls of my hair and smoothed them away from my forehead as I kicked my feet and cracked up, not like the night of the lockdown, but for pretty much the same reason. Then I gestured him over and made him give me a cigarette too, and I coughed all over him after he lit it. I had never been a social smoker.

  “I see things,” I told him in a rush. “All the time. I see Celia’s reflection in mirrors and in water. I have her nightmares. On Valentine’s Day, I was convinced Troy had become possessed by David Abernathy. I thought he had lured me to the operating theater to perform a real, actual lobotomy on me.”

  He made a face. “Oh, my God. No wonder you’ve lost so much weight.”

  “Yeah. But I think she may have left me, and now I’m telling you all this stuff—” I stopped. “And I’m scared.”

  “No wonder.” He flicked ash on my omelet plate. “Being possessed. Well, that’s really something.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m so sorry.” And he was. Big, evil, scary Miles was sorry for me. I was boggled.

  We smoked together. I felt a rush from the nicotine and from finally telling someone. I kept bracing myself for Celia’s reaction. But as far as I could tell, she had left the building.

  “No wonder you’re hiding out,” he said. “Smoking while being treated for pneumonia.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. “I think it’s over for me. Not sure.”

  “But not Mandy.” He knit his brows together. “I mean, look at how she’s acting.”

  My eyes were watering from the cigarette smoke. It really was a filthy habit. “I hate to break this to you, Miles, but Mandy was evil before she became possessed. She’s a mean girl.”

  “You can take it.”

  “Why should I have to? She’s a bully. But you probably find that attractive.”

  “While you want us to use our powers only for good,” he said, making a pouty face. “I need you to help me. I mean, why did she do it? Seek out getting possessed?”

  I wasn’t sure I could go there, even though he probably wouldn’t be fazed. But it was a fair question.

  “Curiosity?” I hedged. It was a lie. Mandy had made a pact with Belle so that she could take care of Miles, be with Miles. At least that was what I had heard her tell Belle. Why didn’t I just tell him that?

  Because maybe . . . that wasn’t true, or was true no longer. Mandy had been curious. And now she and Belle were the most powerful girls on campus.

  “My sister.” He shook his head.

  “Go process it on your own time,” I said, putting out my cigarette. My lungs were blazing. Smoking had been a stupid idea.

  “Right.” He got up, patted my cheek, hesitated, then bent over and kissed me. Lightly, but deliberately. He tasted like ashes.

  “Yum,” he whispered.

  Then he left.

  SIX

  I WAITED FOR Celia to punish me for breaking silence. Miraculously, I did homework to keep myself from going crazy while I waited. I got an incredible amount done, when I had expected just the opposite.

  That night, I had trouble looking in the mirror, afraid Celia would be glaring back at me. I fought falling asleep, terrified of what she might put me through. I just couldn’t go back into her grave, out in the forest where the dead girls screamed.

  There was no shot from Ms. Simonet, but she did give me two small blue pills. I wanted to hide them under my tongue the way they did in the movies, then spit them out when she wasn’t looking, but she watched me like a hawk as I swallowed them down.

  I had no nightmares. None. Except for the one where I went to my history class naked and had to star in a play but didn’t know any of the lines. So maybe my dozens of nightmares had been a combination of the drugs and Celia. And if both were gone...

  The next evening, Troy called me and we talked forever. Basketball, the weather, classes, the upcoming spring beak. He would try to talk his parents into going back to San Diego. He was pretty sure they’d go for it, because they were worried that he’d ask to go to St. Barts like last year, and “St. Barts got crazy.”

  We talked about Spider and Julie. They were so cute. It was working out so well.

  But we didn’t talk about:

  Mandy.

  The Marlwood Stalker.

  Whoever had attacked Julie, if it wasn’t the Marlwood Stalker.

  The death of Kiyoko.

  Other guys.

  And while we were talking, Riley messaged me.

  RiKballz: HI?

  The whole thing was monumentally weird. I was debating what to do when a figure walked into my room wearing a black leather jacket and a ski mask. I was filling with my lungs with air to scream when Miles whipped off the mask.

  “God,” I said, exhaling.

  “What?” Troy asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  Miles rolled his eyes and jerked his head toward the door. “I’m busting you out. Come on,” he whispered.

  “Are you crazy?” I mouthed back.

  “Someone’s there,” Troy said. “I should let you go.”

  “No, it’s all good,” I insisted. “He was just leaving.”

  “He. The doctor? Hey, Spider,” he said away from the phone. “Yeah, man.” Back into the phone with me. “Linz, I have to go anyway. When are you moving back to your dorm?”

  “No clue.”

  “Okay, well, we should enjoy the cell phone reception as much as we can.” His voice was warm and fuzzy. I wondered what Miles would do if he knew I was talking to Mandy’s boyfriend. That had been a huge issue, before. That was what he had threatened me about, in fact. I had to remember that Miles was a Winters. Duplicitous. Not trustworthy.

  “’Kay,” Troy said. “Good night.” His voice got syrupy. “Sleep well.”

  “All right, good night.” I pressed disconnect and looked at Miles.

  “Awkward much?” Miles drawled, putting back on his ski mask. “Let’s go.”

  I ignored the fact that he seemed to know exactly who I’d been talking to. I looked down at Riley’s text message. I couldn’t help my little smile. I was so over Riley. I really was. Troy was the guy for me, even if he wouldn’t break up with his girlfriend.

  “Where are we going?” I asked Miles.

  “Away from here, for starters. I found some stuff I want you to look over.”
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  “Bring it here. To my room. Tomorrow.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “All this estrogen is making me wilt. If it had been up to me, I would never have sent Mandy to an all-girls school. All you guys can do is turn on each other like inbred poodles.”

  “And share grooming tips.” I crossed my arms. “I’m not going anywhere with you tonight.”

  “You must be going stir-crazy. C’mon, there’s a roadhouse a few miles down the road.”

  I was going stir-crazy. And I had never been to a roadhouse. “Ms. Simonet will probably do a bed check.”

  “Not tonight.” He grinned evilly at me through the mask. It made me squirm.

  “Oh, God, did you kill her?” He said nothing. “Poison her? Drug her?”

  “Don’t ask, don’t tell. If you don’t know, you won’t ever have to lie about it.” He walked to the side of the bed and made as if to lift my blankets. “Are you in your jammie bottoms?”

  I grabbed the blankets and held them down. “Yes.” Said bottoms were white and black plaid flannel, old and baggy. “What time is it?”

  He wrenched the bedclothes out of my hands and tore the blankets away, exposing my shameful cheap some-designer knockoffs. He nodded as if to himself.

  “You look great. Let’s go.” He huffed at my hesitation. “It’s not a fashion show, Lindsay.”

  “You probably have your pajamas custom made.”

  “Commando, baby.” He leered at me. “Listen, if it makes you feel better, I read your medical chart. Your pneumonia is a cover story. You really aren’t that sick.”

  “What?” I was stunned.

  “Yeah. They’re keeping you here because as we know, you went cuckoo. They don’t want to send you home. They want to keep you at Marlwood, so they’re trying to make sure you won’t try to kill someone else. Which I find fascinating.”

  “They don’t want any more bad publicity,” I said slowly. They were lying to me about my health? Or was Miles? How would he be able to see my chart?

  “Then why not send home the bad apple? That’s what I would do. That’s what they always do to me.”

  He had me there.

  “You want to be free of this,” he said. “Right? And I want Mandy out of it.” He had me there, too. And we Marlwoodians had a fine tradition of sneaking out. Plus Miles was my new ally.

  “Okay. I’m in,” I said.

  I pondered the insanity of that even as I slid my jeans on over my pj bottoms, adding a sweater, my hat, mittens, and my Doc Martens—all brought down from my dorm during the week—and we crept into the hall. It was pitch black. I felt a little wobbly, and I almost turned back.

  When Miles pushed open the door and I gazed out on the pines washed with moonlight and the dark sky twinkling with stars, my breath caught in my throat. It was so beautiful. The cold smelled fresh and clean after the sickroom smell, which, until that moment, I hadn’t noticed.

  “This better be good,” I told him.

  “It’s already good.” He fluttered his lashes at me.

  “Please, take off the mask,” I said. “You look like you should be carrying around a chain saw.”

  With a flourish, he ripped it back off. He was made for moonlight, all angles and hollows. He wasn’t classically handsome, but he was very arresting; there was something about Miles that made you take a second look, maybe even a third. He had so much going for him. Why was he so screwed up?

  Leading the way, he headed for a tree, disappeared behind it, and reemerged with a motor scooter. More specifically, a Vespa. He left it standing, disappeared again, and came back with two helmets and a burnished mahogany leather messenger bag.

  “What about your Jag?”

  “In the shop. Down in San Covino. I thought this would be kind of fun.” He sat down. “You sit behind me, put your arms around me, and we’re in business.”

  “What’s in it for me?”

  He patted the bag. “I snuck a bunch of stuff out of Mandy’s room. I think it’s got the ritual that started the possessions. What opened the door.”

  “I already know how she opened the door,” I began, but he shook his head.

  “If all one had to do to get possessed was close one’s eyes and say ‘Come to me’ five times, I would stand before you a possessed man.”

  I noted the correct usage of the word one. “You did that?”

  He set one of the helmets on a rock and put on the other one. “Nothing happened. Very disappointing.”

  “You might be possessed and not know it. We could be driving along and you get taken over and then you kill me.”

  He stopped working on the strap and looked at me. “My God, you’re serious. You’ve been living like this for how long?” He reached down for the second helmet. “I’m not possessed.”

  I didn’t move. He grunted with frustration.

  “You said you’d help. You want this to end, yes? So work with me.”

  Crap. Still not completely on board, I put on the helmet and climbed behind him. I crossed my hands over his torso. For someone who looked as thin as he did, he had a lot of muscle. He turned on the engine, which was quieter than I would have expected, and we glided onto the blacktop path.

  The way was bordered, as were all the paths in Marlwood, with white, blank-faced horse heads holding oversized chains in their mouths. On bad nights, I had imagined those horses recording my comings and goings. On worse nights, I could tip my imagination into believing that they turned to look as I passed each one by. Why not? This was Marlwood.

  We zoomed past the infirmary, up the hill, and through Academy Quad, where Jessel hung over the lake and Grose stared down at Jessel. The light was on in Mandy’s room and I pushed myself down against Miles’s back, wanting to yell at him that a little more stealth would be appreciated.

  We went past the new library, the commons, and the gym; then Miles drove straight when he should have hung a right. We were approaching the old library, with its treasure troves of ghosts and mildewing books, one of which had been Dr. Abernathy’s notes on his lobotomy techniques. Troy had found it. David Abernathy killed a lot of girls and turned others into vegetables. His notes about his failures were cold and detached. He was like a Nazi, keeping lists and records. Both Celia and Belle were on the last list in the journal. After the fire, he left Marlwood forever and died of old age in Colorado.

  I tensed. I hated that place. Celia had warned me away from Troy, appearing in the broken glass of one of the library’s cabinets, saying I couldn’t trust him, that he was dangerous. She’d been wrong about him. Being dead didn’t make you infallible.

  There was a light on in the upper story, in the exact location where I had seen the ghost of Mr. Truscott, the madhouse orderly weeping over Belle Johnson’s impending lobotomy. She had seduced him into caring about her. I tapped Miles on the shoulder and extended my arm into his peripheral vision so he could follow my pointed finger. I wanted to see if he saw it too.

  Just before he glanced up, the light disappeared. I tapped his helmet, indicating he should just move on, but he slowed, then stopped and put his foot down. I cringed.

  “Sorry, it’s nothing,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  He looked at the library, then craned his neck around and looked at me. My face prickled. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Define your terms,” I answered. I couldn’t help looking back at the library. He followed my gaze, then studied the black mouth of the doorway.

  “What’s in there?”

  “Nothing. Forward motion.”

  He gripped my arm, and a chill shot down my back. This was Miles Winters. No one knew we were here. What had I done?

  He gave my forearm a squeeze. “C’mon, play fair. You’re shaking like a leaf.”

  “Let go of me or I’ll gouge your eyes out,” I said coldly.

  His reply was a cross between a laugh and a grunt, but he did let go. Without realizing what I was doing, I rubbed my arm.

  “What have I ever done to you?”
he asked me.

  “It’s not what you’ve done. It’s who you are.”

  “You have no idea who I am,” he retorted. “And what I am is the closest thing you have to backup.” He patted the messenger bag. “I have information in here. And I want to go someplace and sit down and sort through it. With you.”

  He looked at the library, obviously intrigued. “I wanted to get away from Marlwood when we do it. Just in case. But if this place is haunted, then wouldn’t it be perfect to do it here?”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “No.”

  “Wow. Okay. Fine.”

  I put my hands around him again and we took off, the Vespa buzzing like an angry hornet. Headlight beams hit the trees . . . and farther up, more light reflected against the leaves: The light from the library had turned back on.

  He pointed to the left at a cluster of Victorian-style bungalows and bellowed, “That’s where I’m staying. Too many neighbors,” he added, as if explaining to me why we didn’t hold our pow-wow there.

  Miles downshifted and I held on as the Vespa worked its way up the incline. Above us, on the hill, the Victorian-style mansion that was the admin building perched like a vampire on a rooftop, waiting to spring. We thrummed through the mostly empty parking lot, past the dark stained glass windows.

  Then we forked left, down the bypass where Troy had seen the burning ghost, and I could feel my heartbeat picking up. Was she a manifestation of Celia? I was on a scooter, unprotected; what if we saw her? What if she was mad at me for getting rid of her and came after us?

  “Ouch, you’re hurting me!” Miles shouted above the whine of the engine.

  “Sorry.” I tried to unclench my hands. I couldn’t. I was too scared.

  Then I recognized the landscape of my dreams of the screaming ghosts. It was all around us; I had been here with Celia—maybe in my mind, maybe out of my mind. And I had a terrible thought: I had always assumed that all I had to do to end the possession was free myself from Celia. But what if the possession worked two ways—what if my spirit or soul, or whatever it was, could be taken from my body and sent somewhere else?

  “Ouch!” Miles bellowed. He batted at my hands. “Stop it!”