The Screaming Season

by Nancy Holder

  Ice water poured through me. Starting at the crown of my head, it cascaded over my brain, into my forehead, down my skull. I gasped; cold throbbed through me in a steady slow pulse. My vision started to cloud.

  It was Celia. She hadn’t left me. I was still possessed. I wanted to scream, I was so devastated. I was shivering. The cold had never been this bad before. It made me ache.

  “Leave me,” I whispered, in my own voice. “Stop.”

  She didn’t answer, but I could feel her moving my hands, making me push backward, forcing myself to crawl out of the dumbwaiter. I couldn’t hear Dr. Morehouse anymore. I didn’t know if he could hear me fighting her, trying to stay in control. She was forcing me to leave because he’d been helping me get free of her. I was surer of that than of anything else that had happened since I’d come home from break.

  “I hate you. I hate you,” I whispered, as I grabbed my form off the copier. I was shaking. I wanted to cry out to Dr. Morehouse, let him know I was there and I needed his help.

  But then I was walking stiff-legged to the door, like a robot or a monster. I was walking like a stalker.

  Like the Marlwood Stalker.

  I pushed the door open and staggered outside into the pouring rain. It wasn’t noon, but it was as gray as twilight; rain poured down in buckets. I was so cold already that I felt no difference. My teeth chattered.

  Lightning jagged overhead, and I shambled back onto the porch and rushed into the admin building. I put the form on Ms. Shelley’s desk and wrote on the Post-It, “Sorry, couldn’t find copier.” Now she’d think I was an idiot.

  I walked back around on the porch, making sure I’d shut the door. There was a back porch, too, sided by two small columns with a triangular overhang. Something was sitting on it. The driving rain washed the image out, making it impossible to figure out what it was. But suddenly I knew it was bad. I knew I had to stay away from it.

  I knew I should run back to the conservatory.

  And yet, I walked toward it. I couldn’t stop myself.

  I couldn’t breathe. Shivering in the cold, nearly paralyzed with fear, I kept lurching toward the thing on the porch. I had the sure sensation that someone was watching me. It was like a laser beam at the nape of my neck.

  “No,” I told Celia “I won’t do this.”

  We were getting closer. A white blob was sitting on the porch, about two feet tall. I didn’t want to see it. My heartbeat was hammering in my eardrums. My throat had closed so tightly I couldn’t even swallow.

  Something was still watching me. It was behind me. I didn’t know how close, but it was there. I knew it was there.

  If I fainted, what would happen to me ? I looked down, completely mute. My eyes bulged and the rain smacked my face.

  The thing on the porch was the white head from our room.

  Did it move? Did its blank eyes gaze up at me?

  “God!” I finally forced out, swaying, reaching out to grab onto something, anything. But there was nothing, just the freestanding porch and the head sitting on it.

  I staggered backward.

  Something was behind me.

  I couldn’t turn around. I couldn’t move forward.

  The scent of wet geraniums filled my nose—my mom’s favorite flower, the borders of my walk with Dr. Morehouse. I had friends in this world, connections, people who cared about me and could save me.

  No one’s coming. I stood in the rain and I knew it.

  I was at Marlwood, an isolated world unto itself. Brimming with ghosts and danger. I was drowning in terror. If that head moved, if it came near me . . .

  “No, please, help me, please,” I whispered.

  Did someone take my hand? Did someone lead me away?

  Because everything went hazy and blurry; I floated away; I wasn’t there. Time passed without me, as it had when I woke up in my pajamas and found Kiyoko’s body in the lake. What had happened to me while I was “gone”?

  I came to outside the conservatory. The shrieks of my friends must have snapped me out of my catatonia.

  “Lindsay, what are you doing?” Julie cried, racing up to me. She was carrying a dark blue umbrella with white stars on it and she shielded me from the downpour as she grabbed my wrist and dragged me into the airy glass-and-iron room. Marica, Elvis, and Claire were seated at a glass table that was perched on a base of weathered turquoise-streaked copper. They’d been playing cards; Julie had thrown her hand down when she’d come to get me.

  “Oh, my God, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Julie said, then blanched. I had tried to tell her that there were ghosts at Marlwood, but she hadn’t believed me. What did I say now? What did I do now? “Here. We were drinking hot chocolate. Drink mine.” Julie sat, pushing me down in one of the stuffed chairs and picking up a white china Marlwood academy mug.

  The other three watched me warily, and when I peered through my lashes at Marica, she knit her brows.

  “I forgot your umbrella,” I said, sounding dazed. “I left it in the admin office.”

  “It’s all right,” Marica said, her frown transforming into a reassuring smile. “I’ll get it later.”

  “Take off your jacket. Jeez, what have you been doing? What did Shelley want?” Elvis asked.

  “I had paperwork. I—I lost something on the way back,” I lied. “I dropped it in the grass and it was too precious to lose.”

  “What was it? An earring?” Marica asked.

  “Something . . . that belonged to my mom.”

  The four of them groaned sadly.

  “A . . . a ring ,” I said. “Just a simple silver band with a piece of turquoise shaped like a wolf’s head.” Actually, my cousin Jason owned a ring like that. Jason was the one who had given me my army jacket.

  “I think you showed it to me once,” Julie said, although I hadn’t. She was so suggestible. Ordinarily, that bothered me; at the moment, it was very convenient.

  “Yes,” I said. “When I put away my necklace from Troy.” My voice caught, and I sneezed. I had a thought: did I have to give back the crocheted silk choker decorated with the crescent moon charm that Troy had given me for Christmas?

  “You should go change,” Claire said. “We’ll help you look after it stops raining. And be sure to tell Ms. Krige about it. She can get the groundskeepers to keep an eye out for it.”

  “Thanks,” I said, but my voice cracked again. I still felt as if I were being watched.

  I looked down at the glass in the table. And I saw Celia’s reflection. White face, black eyes, black mouth.

  I rose from my chair and stumbled to the fireplace. I looked from the table to the glass panes of the conservatory.

  Her white face floated in the air, black eye sockets, black hollows in the cheeks. Giddy hysteria welled up in me: “What do you want from me?” I wanted to scream.

  The head moved its mouth, talking, but the excited girls obviously didn’t see her. I felt so entirely defeated, completely and totally conquered. The ghosts of Marlwood had closed in, and Celia, not Belle, was their leader.

  Julie looked at me. I hugged myself, saying, “I’m cold. And I’m upset about the ring. I don’t have a lot of things of my mother’s.”

  “Did your stepmother take them?” Claire asked me. “Stepmothers can be like that. Greedy.”

  “When people pass away, other people fight over their stuff,” Elvis said. “It’s disgusting.”

  “No.” I leaned my face in my hands, cold and exhausted. I’d thought it was over. I’d thought I was free. “My stepmother is nice.” My voice cracked.

  Julie came over beside me and took my hand, rubbing it. She reached down and pushed layers of corkscrews away from my face.

  “I know it’s hard,” she said quietly. “Spider and I texted and he says Troy is stumbling around like a sleepwalker. I’m sure he’s having second thoughts. You guys will get back together.”

  I didn’t react.

  “As far as I know, he’s never had a nice, normal girlfriend. He
’s never dated anyone but Mandy. So you can see why he’s not so great at this kind of thing.” Julie licked her lips. “Give it time.”

  Time was not something I had control of. I was out of control. Or Celia was.

  I need to see Dr. Morehouse, I thought. Celia didn’t respond. She had gone dormant again, or taken a time-out, or I didn’t know what. But one thing I had to face: she hadn’t gone away.

  “Oh, Julie,” I moaned. I laid my head on her shoulder. “Julie.”

  “I’m here,” she soothed.

  And that helped, a little bit.

  TWELVE

  DR. DAVID ABERNATHY gathered Celia up in his arms and kissed the side of her face. Next her forehead, then her lips. He touched her neck, and she stiffened and caught her breath. She loved him so, but she was a poor girl, and sometimes gentlemen made assumptions about the lower classes.

  Smiling gently, raising his brows, he stopped. “Are you afraid of me, my love? Never, never be afraid. I will take all fear from you.”

  “How can you?” she asked him, searching his face. “My father has sent me here. He signed the papers. I’m his. Only he can set me free.”

  “I will marry you. Then you’ll be mine. And he’ll have no say over what’s mine.”

  To be his, to be his . . .

  I HEARD MYSELF sighing as I woke up. My first thought was disappointment—I was dreaming Celia’s dreams, or sharing her memories. But as Celia’s dreams went, it hadn’t been a bad one. What it represented—trusting that horrible guy—was worse than the dream itself.

  Rubbing my eyes, I looked over at Julie, who was still fast asleep. Moonlight fell on her cheeks, and she was faintly smiling. The little stuffed corgi, Panda, was cradled in her arms. Julie was fifteen, a year younger than me, with her first serious boyfriend newly acquired, and living in a shark tank. I felt a rush of tenderness and smiled faintly back at her. I had wanted a little sister with all my heart. They had discovered my mom’s cancer because she couldn’t get pregnant. Julie and I weren’t sister close, but it was still nice to share a room.

  The moon glowed on the white head, which was perched on the windowsill. I had found it back in our room when I’d ducked in before dinner. No one else had been in Grose. They’d been taking full advantage of our day to use the conservatory.

  Julie had taken to putting it on the night stand, afraid it would fall and break if it was on the sill. But when I had come in that evening, it had been in its original position. And it had been wet.

  By the time Julie had seen it, it was dry. She said she hadn’t moved it. And when I asked her about it, she had looked at me strangely, as if to say, Not again. Don’t start this up.

  So, had someone seen me going into the admin building and tried to scare me? Because of course the head couldn’t have gotten there by itself—there, or back here.

  I didn’t want to walk across the room in the dark, but I had to pee. I pulled back my covers and winced for a second as I put my feet on the floor. When you saw ghosts and moving porcelain heads, it didn’t seem outlandish to imagine something under your bed, just waiting to grab you.

  I held my breath as I tiptoed over the bare wood, and then the soft cabbage-rose carpet, and opened our door. Gritting my teeth, I snaked my hand along the wall in search of the light switch. The miniature overhead chandeliers flicked on at my touch, casting down-ward beams on the bad art from our bad art students, and pooled on the floor. I tried not to look at anything for too long. If I saw Celia’s face, I was afraid I’d scream.

  Besides, the bathroom was a much more terrifying place than the hall. I had to save up my courage.

  In the center of the tiled room sat five enormous bathtubs, where they used to force the worst girls to lie up to their necks in water, with wooden lids bolted over to hold them there. Through me, Celia had relived one of her private torture sessions, when Belle had nearly drowned her in one of those tubs, demanding that she give up David Abernathy, screaming, “He is mine!”

  But he had been no one’s.

  I turned on the bathroom light and hesitated, standing on the threshold, holding my breath. Then I rushed past the tubs and went straight into the nearest stall. I did my thing, then ran back into the hall without washing my hands.

  When I came back to our room, the outline of the head was cut sharply by light glowing behind it. The light was on in Mandy’s turret room. I didn’t want to look there either, but I moved forward in the shadows.

  A row of white tapir candles—six—was lined up along the sill, and I took an involuntary step backward. Mandy had conducted rituals disguised as pranks in her room, designed to help her pick five willing girls to allow Belle’s dead friends to possess them. Mandy had let me watch them from my window, in the hopes that I’d become one of those girls—never dreaming, at the time, that I was already possessed by the seventh victim of that horrible fire—Celia Reaves, the girl who had started it. The girl they all wanted to kill.

  It was so insane. They were dead. But their fury was burning in their souls as strongly as the flames that had consumed their earthly bodies. They couldn’t get past their rage.

  So was Mandy back to her old tricks, collecting live girls so that the dead girls could finally get their payback? I had to stay alert. Or their madness would swallow me alive.

  The outline of Jessel rose like a medieval castle above Searle Lake, its inky blackness spreading below the horizon. I wanted to sneak down into Jessel’s basement and do some exploring. I was angry with Miles all over again for losing the messenger bag.

  Mandy walked into my view. She was dressed in a long white nightgown with her hair pulled back, and she was holding a glass of wine. I knew I had to watch to protect myself, but I couldn’t stop wondering if Celia and Belle were watching too. If they made us do things we weren’t aware of. If we had entire other lives we lived in secret.

  For them.

  Mandy moved through the room, gesturing, drinking her wine. She was talking to someone. Belle?

  Then a shadow loomed behind her. It was a figure, taller than she. A guy.

  Miles, I thought, clenching my fists. Was he her partner in crime ? Or was he spilling his guts, telling her he had stolen her papers and lost them?

  Or was the figure Troy? Maybe Belle had given her some kind of power over him, and she’d compelled him to row across the lake. Miles and the other guys took the old Lakewood rowboats and came over to our side all the time. I’d once thought he’d been possessed by David Abernathy. Maybe he had been. Maybe he was now.

  The shadow moved toward her. I could see the outline approaching—definitely a guy, and I craned my neck forward to see who it was. Closer, closer, I could almost see who it was . . . then Mandy rushed back to the window, threw out her arms, and looked straight at me. I stiffened.

  She stood still for a moment. Then she grabbed the edges of her beautiful damask curtains and yanked them closed.

  The show was over.

  I remained by the window, frozen, replaying everything I had seen. Going over the details, trying to figure out what had been going on. Mandy had looked frightened. I could almost swear she’d been asking me for help. What should I do ? Sound the alarm? Would anyone believe me, the crazy girl? Mandy was in a building filled with dorm mates and a housemother. But what if something happened?

  What if something was happening right now?

  Wine, candles, nightgown. Oh, yeah, something was probably happening.

  I walked back around Julie’s bed to my own, and as I started to climb back in, my foot came down on something soft. I cried out.

  “What?” Julie half-shouted, bolting upright.

  The nightstand light came on. I looked down. I had stepped on Panda, the stuffed corgi. How had he gotten all the way over by my bed? Taking a step backward, I scooped it up and showed it to Julie, whose hand was still wound around the lamp.

  “Sorry,” I said, holding him out to her. My scalp was prickling; the hair on the back of my neck stood straight
up. “You must have dropped him.”

  Julie yawned and blinked at me. “Or thrown him.” She took him from me and smiled down at him, tugging on one of his big ears. “Panda, did you miss Lin-Lin?” She gave him a little kiss, then turned him around toward me and made air kisses. “He still loves you, Linz. You want to sleep with him?”

  “Jules, he’s not alive,” I blurted. She flushed, because she was just having fun, being girlie and silly. “I mean, I’m sorry, Panda.” I pursed my lips as if to give him a kiss.

  “What are you doing up anyway?” she said, a little strained. She picked up her cell phone to check. “It’s one in the morning.”

  “I had to pee.”

  “Do you want one of my French sleeping pills?”

  I felt a terrible sense of déjà vu. At the beginning of last semester, she had offered me a pill. I hadn’t taken it, but I’d wandered around the dorm and finally dozed off in our living room. When I had awakened in the morning, I’d discovered that someone had been in our room. They’d raked the side of Julie’s mattress, leaving a pile of wadding on the floor. I’d blamed Mandy and her clique, insisting they were trying to prank her. She’d suspected I’d done it, to make them look bad. It had never been resolved.

  “Did you put the head back on the sill?” I asked her now. I hadn’t planned to. It just came out.

  She placed Panda on her pillow and folded her hands. “Marica came by to study. We made some tea and we needed more room for our books. Okay?”

  Maybe I winced. Her face softened. “I’m sorry, Linz. I know you’re under a lot of stress . . . ”

  I’m not crazy. Believe me. Believe in me.

  “Yeah, no kidding,” I said. “I’m still not caught up. By the way, Rose? Not such a great math tutor.”

  “I didn’t think that was going to work out. Maybe Marica?”

  “That’d be great.”

  I climbed back into bed, resisting the urge to look underneath it first. Julie lay back down, leaving on the light.

  She said sweetly, “Maybe we can leave it like this for a little while.”