Get a grip, she ordered herself. Pull it together. This is pathetic!
Returning to the dining hall, she scanned the tables, seeking Andy’s face among the hundreds chattering around her. The din made concentration difficult but she was at last able to zero in on him. He was seated at a table in the far corner with Veronica, the two of them in deep discussion.
Oh, hell. It was beyond obvious: they were talking about her.
Meandering through the crowd and ignoring one jock’s pointed jab about her mental health, she maneuvered herself within earshot, picking up bits and pieces of the exchange.
"...hard to know what to believe...," Andrew was saying.
"I know, but... it’s what she says and believes, and we can’t...," Veronica said.
"It’s so frustrating!’ Andrew complained, reaching for his coffee and, in the process, spotting Autumn. "Hey, there you are! Come sit."
Autumn complied, her mind toying with the fragments she’d been privy to. It was a matter of belief and reality, the running theme of her life these days. Filling in the blanks, and given their hushed tones, it had something to do with the invisible roommate and her runaway compatriots from the land of the dead.
Andrew nudged a tray in front of her as she sat. "I got you a bagel with cream cheese and chocolate pudding. Bland enough?"
"Much better than Veronica’s mega-meal force-feedings," Autumn declared, unwrapping the bagel. "Where’s Evan?"
"Cramming for a Physics quiz," Veronica replied. "How was Politics?"
"Infuriating," Autumn grumbled.
"We have people in our class who like Stephen Harper and Rob Ford. Needless to say, I was not amused," Andrew elaborated.
"Ugh! How? Why? Wait, don’t bother trying to explain them. I’m still trying to understand how Harper won a majority."
Idle chatter batted between the two of them and Autumn disengaged, chewing slowly on bites of bagel to keep her consorts content. What had they been discussing behind her back? Belief – and disbelief – were on their minds before she’d been spotted. Specifically, Veronica mentioned how it was about what she believed – and they were unconvinced about.
They don’t believe in the ghosts, Autumn thought suddenly, the pieces interlocking. Andrew had never witnessed anything to sway him in either direction, left only with the history of coincidences and Autumn’s recounted experiences. For all of her gusto and research, Veronica had witnessed the sheet and chair debacle and heard crying once through the walls. She was an ally, supportive and believing – or was she? Had she begun to question the veracity of the haunting? Autumn sipped at her customary Vitamin Water, her heart sinking. She couldn’t blame Veronica; she, too, wondered what was real and what was mere hallucination.
You didn’t imagine the failed webcam footage.
Maybe I set it up wrong after all.
The message?
I could have typed it in my sleep. Maybe "Miraj" did it.
Therein lay the crux of her paranoia: if she’d managed to conjure up an entire person, complete with personality traits and excursions together, what else was she capable of? Maybe she was completely delusional now, Emma’s kind "talking to yourself creatively" hypothesis be damned.
It still stung to realize she was being humoured and coddled by those she loved and who loved her.
"Autumn? You okay?" Veronica asked.
"I have the worst headache today and nothing’s curing it," she replied, picking at her bagel. "I might go see the nurse and head to bed early. Get some rest."
"That’s probably a good idea," Andrew said. "I’ll add the Math homework to that pile of undone you have going. Want me to walk you over?"
The spiteful half of herself wanted to shun him for doubting her, even if she, too, doubted. The rational side of her nodded weakly.
"Did you want to finish eating first?" He wasn’t really asking if she wanted to; he was asking if she would eat.
"I can’t abandon chocolate in any form," she joked weakly. "Finish your lunch. No rush."
Insert spoon, toy with pudding. Half of this should satisfy their concerns, give or take. Even chocolate had a weird metallic scent today. This anxiety-induced eating disorder by proxy had to end, and soon: if her jeans grew any looser, they’d slide off her hips. One spoonful, then two, dutifully swallowed. Rinse with Vitamin Water and repeat. Maybe she was anemic from not eating. Didn’t that cause headaches?
A blink and time escaped. Andrew held out his hand to her, struggling to conceal his worry.
"Nurse’s office?"
The pudding was gone. Huh. "Yeah, let’s go."
Losing time... Losing her mind... What would she lose next?
***
Arming her with iron supplements and awaiting blood test results, the nurse had excused her from classes for the remainder of the day, urging Autumn to rest and drink plenty of fluids. She had an appointment slotted for the next day with the campus doctor to evaluate her headaches further, made more to appease than out of faith in his ability to fix her. What would fix her was alleviated stress and sleep and she took advantage of her early day, indulging in the latter. Collapsing into bed at two, she’d passed out until eight, when her phone had rang several times. Seeing her mother in the call display, she’d ignored it, turning instead to her next task at hand.
Sleep was a necessity, but impossible at night due to Nikki’s sobs and shenanigans. If Veronica’s presence no longer soothed her and Andrew’s room was impossible for refuge, that left her one more option to attempt: a spiritual cleansing of the space.
The process seemed simple enough, from the website Veronica had found: burn sage, light candles, anoint windows, mirrors and doors with a protection symbol. Her materials had been assembled days prior, but her afternoon slumber had finally recharged her enough to actually do the ritual.
Well, if she could summon the courage for it.
Autumn sat on the stone walls of the garden that ran along the rear of Ashbury, her foot pumping nervously as she stared up at the moon for guidance. It was nearing curfew, but she remained in the chill of night, waiting for her nerve. Autumn had never considered herself religious per se, but she did believe in energy and good wishes. A cleansing was a shift in energy, which she could believe in, but having never done anything of the sort, she was filled with dread. What if she did it wrong? What if she made matters worse somehow – unleashed a new set of ghosts to torment her day and night?
She longed to call Veronica for her help, yet remained pissed about the sneaky talk she and Andrew had shared about her delusions. Anger won out every time she reached for the phone.
"You’re up awfully late," a familiar voice observed behind her.
Her head spun and she managed a small smile for Professor St. James. "Slept all day. Little stir-crazy tonight. What’s your excuse?"
"Hot date off campus, of course," he quipped, sitting down beside her. "Are you feeling any better?"
Autumn shook her head. "Not really. Everything seems off somehow, and my head won’t stop hurting. They’re checking my iron and other things, but who knows?"
"Stress takes a heavy toll on the body. You need to try and take care of yourself."
"That’s what everyone tells me. Easier said than done."
He nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, I got that a lot when my brother passed. Try to be kind about it – everyone means well. Is anything resolved yet?"
Autumn sighed. "The cops are pretty useless. I’m pretty sure they’re avoiding us because they haven’t a clue where to find him."
"Astute inference. I’d put money on it. In the meantime, remember that while you can’t change what’s happening out there, you can work on what’s inside your head and heart. It’s a realm where you can always seize back control." He rose slowly, tapping his watch with a smile. "Three minutes to. Try and rest some more. If you’re not feeling well tomorrow, I’ll bring by the new novel study, okay?"
"Thanks, George. Really."
"Anytime, Autumn."
With a rolling of her shoulders she rose as well, glancing once more at the moon overhead. I have to focus on what I can still control, she repeated as she headed inside. Starting with my room.
She waited twenty minutes past ten, lest Lorraine actually check the floors for a change. Closing her blinds tightly, she lit her candles with a tiny lighter, basking in the warmth of their glow before continuing. Lighting the bundled sage next, she began to whisper.
"Nikki, I know something horrible happened to you here. I’m so sorry you’re not alive anymore. You didn’t want to die. But I can’t sleep, or eat, and it’s because you don’t leave me alone. You need to cross over and move on. You need to leave."
She began to move through the room slowly, moving the smudging sage up and down as directed. The scent was soothing, relaxing her as she walked and repeated the words of cleansing she’d rehearsed. She moved methodically from the door to the spare bed, crawling onto it to cleanse the space above it before moving to the window, then her own bed.
It was when she moved beneath the ceiling fan that Nikki began to resist.
The candles began to flicker wildly, as if caught in an unseen draft of air. The curls of smoke from the desert sage also danced through the air, yet Autumn felt nothing, save a lightheadedness that she couldn’t shake away. Frozen beneath it, the blades began to slowly move counterclockwise, drawing her eyes to the ceiling. Her vision blurred as if she were spinning in circles like a child, the sage nearly slipping from her shaky fingers as the candles extinguished.
"Autumn," the walls hissed.
Her knees buckling beneath her, she stumbled, collapsing backwards onto her bed with a whimper. She was blind: everything was white noise, scrambled pixels drained of life. Her hands pawed the blankets, the sage falling to the floor as a suffocating weight bore down upon her chest.
"He’s coming," the walls whispered, the defeated voice stilling her heart. "He’s coming."
THIRTY-TWO
Oakville; January 12th, 2012
Sick. Of course she was: she didn’t have any other problems to cope with or anything. Oh no, not at all.
Autumn fussed with her blankets, tossing beneath them as she moved abruptly from freezing cold to boiling hot. At least she understood why she’d fainted during the ritual: suspected strep throat or possible mononucleosis could definitely incapacitate. Waking at ten that morning half-sprawled on the bed, she’d immediately noticed how hard it was to swallow saliva, never mind water. Too weary to walk, she’d phoned Lorraine and begged her to come upstairs. One hand to the forehead later, she was dialing the on-campus clinic and requesting a dorm room visit.
A mix of Tylenol and an antiseptic spray for her throat had brought her symptoms to ignorable, and Autumn had passed out for the remainder of the day. Her phone claimed it was after five, yet no one had checked in on her, aside from her mother. The doctors had called her as per routine, informing her that it was better to let her daughter sleep through it than disturb her with a long drive home. A text affirming that really, all she wanted was to sleep, had persuaded her panicked mother to not call out the cavalry.
Why hadn’t Andrew called? Or Veronica? She’d missed every class today and they normally worried if she was ten minutes late getting downstairs for breakfast. A friendly face or two would make the burning in her throat easier to bear.
Kicking off her blankets, she groaned. Fine, fever: cool off. She was horribly contagious, the doctor said, and Veronica had an audition soon for the spring Drama production. It was selfish to want her here. As for Andrew, Lorraine could be nice, but she wasn’t that nice. She was unequivocally stuck in isolation. Quarantine time.
A knock on the door startled her, Autumn grabbing for the blankets and covering herself. The yoga pants and tank top were perfectly suitable for company but damp with sweat and thereby too gross to be seen.
"Who is it?" she rasped, reaching for the water beside her.
"Lorraine, dear. One of your instructors brought your work. Can we come in?"
"Uh, sure."
Casteel Preparatory Academy: where not even mono stops us from teaching your child!
The door opened a crack, revealing Professor St. James in his customary chalk-dusted attire with a small plastic bag in his hand. She managed a weak smile in spite of her condition and Lorraine left them with a little wave. Her favourite instructor took a seat on the vacant bed, feigning a yawn as he stretched.
"Oh thank God! I thought I’d have to teach that night class. I can nap here, right?"
Autumn shrugged. "Hey, there’s a spare bed. I’m monstrously contagious though, so if you have another hot date on the horizon, I’d advise against it."
She coughed loudly, buckling forward and wheezing. So talking wasn’t a great idea, apparently. Knowingly, St. James took the lead and dug into his bag.
"I promised to bring you the next novel we’re looking at, which I suspect you’ll enjoy," he began, pulling out a paperback novel. "Zombies are your thing, right?"
Autumn nodded enthusiastically. What other teacher in this planet would use a zombie book as a study in Contemporary Literature?
"I know what you’re thinking, but let me assure you, Mira Grant’s Feed is a Hugo award nominee with heavy political and pop culture themes worth analyzing. Not a fluff book. Now, let’s see..." Passing her the book, he dug through the bag once more. "Two bottles of that Vitamin Water you always have on your desk, some Advil, and oh yes, jelly beans. Candy always makes me feel better, although it sounds like your throat’s in bad shape. Did Lorraine bring you food?"
"Soup." Keeping to short bursts of speech seemed viable. "Thank you. Above and beyond."
George shrugged. "Teachers are people, too. They advised us you’d been excused from classes until Monday, so I thought you could use a few things. It’s not like being at home, where you can bug a parent to baby you. Are you headed home?"
She shook her head as she sat the book beside her. "Long drive sounds awful. Tomorrow maybe."
Her throat ached, sandpaper scraping each time she spoke, but there was one question she had to ask. She sipped water again, longing for the anaesthetized feel of the antiseptic spray that was somewhere around her room... Bathroom, maybe? She’d have to check.
"I shouldn’t keep you from rest, but I wanted to stop by and wish you well," George said, running a hand through his hair. "Besides, Lorraine might pick me up by the scruff and drag me away any minute."
"Wait," she croaked. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure, but don’t strain yourself. That throat sounds painful!"
She shrugged. "I saw that Grant went here. Student. You seem happy here. Did you attend Casteel too?"
Innocent enough question. George St. James was the absolute last teacher she’d suspect of anything, but maybe he knew of other teachers who’d been on campus in 1980.
"Not me, although I do love the job. The students can keep up with my sarcasm, like you, Miss Brody. I’ve been teaching here for three years, been in Toronto for five years. Before that, I was in Chicago, where I was born and raised." He paused, reflecting on her words. "Paul went here as a kid? Hmm, doesn’t surprise me. He lives for this place. I think one of the junior teachers went here too back in the late 80s, maybe?"
A knock on the door preceded Lorraine’s return, a stern look on her face. Taking dorm mother literally, are we? Recognizing his cue, Professor St. James wished her a speedy recovery and left, Lorraine locking the door swiftly behind him. Turning her book over, she read the synopsis and grinned. Definitely a book I’ll love. Andrew will, too. At the thought of him, she checked her phone for messages, baffled by the absence of texts.
Wait: they told my teachers I was out until Monday. Gretchen probably told him, and he figures I’m home in bed, sleeping. Yawning, she drew the blankets tighter around her, the chills returning on schedule. Sleep did sound heavenly. If nothing else, it was a reprieve from her throat pain and the slight wheeze of her chest when she spoke.
I’ll text him tomorrow, let him know I’m okay, she decided. Everything can wait until tomorrow.
January 13th, 2012
Time passed in fits and starts, Autumn tumbling between the cracks in the hours. She slept straight through the night after her professor’s visit, waking briefly at ten in the morning to Lorraine insisting she take her medication. In trying to thank her for the can of chilled Ensure, Autumn had discovered matters had worsened: she could barely make a sound. The doctor was again consulted, who diagnosed laryngitis and ordered her to be as silent as possible.
Calling Andrew was out of the question. Grumpy and lonely, she’d gone back to sleep. What else was there to do?
Her mother called, waking her at two. She’d managed to croak out "laryngitis" before hanging up and texting with her. She was adamant that her daughter come home for the weekend and it sounded wonderful, except that Autumn was now nauseous, too. Autumn had promised to text her at six-thirty and decide on coming home Friday or Saturday morning – there was no "let me die in my room" option in Sarah Brody’s vocabulary. Setting an alarm for six, she’d rolled back over for another nap. The months of haphazard rest had finally caught up with her, it seemed, and mercifully, Nikki was dead silent and on her best behaviour.
Maybe I’m just too sick to leave false clues around.
It was nearing six and Autumn was bored of sleeping. After washing down with a damp cloth in her bathroom – the shower seemed too risky in light of her waves of vertigo – she pulled her hair back and dressed in a fresh tank top and yoga pants, sipping her gifted Vitamin Water while surfing the internet. Her email remained empty and this annoyed her greatly. How long could it possibly take Ben to look up a few faculty records? Or at least answer and say, "I’m working on it"?
"Mic check," she said sarcastically, wincing at the raspy whisper that masqueraded as a voice. "Fuck laryngitis."
An image from her childhood: she was perhaps eight years old, and horribly sick. Her throat was incredibly sore then, too, she remembered. Her mother had solved the problem of her being unable to call for help in a way only a music teacher would choose: a triangle, stolen from her classroom. One high-pitched ding! and her mother or father would dutifully appear, ready to meet her every whim – even watermelon at six in the morning. She stifled laughter to spare her throat further irritation, thinking of her parents. They were the best parents anyone could hope for: loving, intelligent, encouraging at every turn. Every rule had a purpose that was explained, and sometimes negotiable once she hit her teens. Home sounded wonderful, even if the drive seemed destined for a reenactment of The Exorcist.
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