He was staring daggers now and that pointing finger had never been so intent.
He straightened, tensed the arm, and Mandy could feel that whatever he was pointing at, he was dead serious--no pun intended--and she’d better pay attention.
“Alright,” she said, getting to her feet. “What?”
He didn’t speak. Had she expected him to? She took a step closer, then asked herself what she was doing. But he had made a point to get her attention. There had to be something she was meant to see.
Christ, the place was so quiet. The girls were all in bed, but what about the women, Lynn, Jane and Bea? Were they in the common room like Lynn had said they would be?
Mandy stopped ten feet from the boy. She would come closer, but not that close.
He was still pointing, and looking her in the eyes. She hadn’t seen him this close before, but there was something about him she felt was familiar. Or maybe something that should be familiar. It was like a name on the tip of your tongue, and it would nag at her until she got it. But she wouldn’t focus too much on it now because he had something to show her.
She followed his finger and looked to her right. There was a hallway. She didn’t know where it went, if it went anywhere. She saw doors, three on each side.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the last thing I need is to get lost in this place again,” she said.
The boy nodded down the hall. Mandy tried to crack her knuckles, but got nothing.
She crept slowly, her breath shallow and her heart in her throat. Something inside her had resigned itself to getting lost again, to looking back and finding a wall behind her, or turning a corner and finding herself in some strange new place like a hospital corridor or something. She didn’t know where she was going, but she felt like she had no choice but to go anyway. God knew what would happen if she didn’t, but she definitely felt there would be consequences if she didn’t go where the boy said.
The first set of doors on either side were closed, plain white doors with nothing on them to indicate what might be inside. She glanced back at the boy and saw his arm was still raised. She turned around and kept walking.
The second door on the left was also closed, but Mandy saw light coming from under it. She stopped again and looked back and the boy’s hand was back on the table. He dipped his chin in a slow nod, once, and Mandy took a breath, swallowed, and grabbed the handle. She turned it and the door pushed open, spilling light into the dim hallway.
She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it certainly hadn’t been Lynn sitting behind a desk in an otherwise bare office, with the smell of potpourri pouring out.
Lynn sat over a small stack of papers, writing something on one of them. She looked up when the door opened, acknowledged Mandy, then went back to what she was doing.
“Hang on just a second,” she said. Then when Mandy didn’t move she said, “You can come in.”
Mandy hesitated, looked back up the hall. The boy was reading his book. She stepped inside.
“The door,” Lynn said, and Mandy closed it. Lynn scribbled something with a flourish, then looked up again. “You can sit down,” she said.
Mandy did. Her face was somber, weary and she had to admit probably a little contemptuous.
“What the hell?!” she said.
“Oh, just invoices and stuff,” Lynn said, indicating the papers in front of her. “Gotta order the food and stuff so the kids can eat, you know?”
Mandy shook her head. “What? No, I don’t care about that. What the hell is going on?”
“Oh, that what the hell,” Lynn said. “Yeah. Look, I told you to just come wait with us. You didn’t want to. I thought you’d have figured out already not to go wandering around by yourself.”
“I wasn’t wandering,” Mandy said. “I knew where I was going, and I needed to use the phone.”
“Ah,” Lynn said. “Right, the phone. So you could call for a ride out of here.” She shook her head. “I told you this place wasn’t going to let you go.”
“What does that mean, though?” Mandy asked. She felt panic rising in her again, and she fought to keep it down; she wanted answers but she didn’t want to let Lynn see her as a simpering weakling to get them. “It won’t let me go? You can’t keep me here! I’m a grown woman who can make her own choices.”
“You’ve made plenty of choices,” Lynn said. “Those choices led you here.” She sighed and set her pen down, scratched at the back of her neck. “Look, Mandy, this is a situation that we all have to make the best of.” She looked around at the walls. “Do you think any of us want to be stuck here? We were trying to ease you into it, to make you feel comfortable, because you’re going to be here for a long time.”
Mandy felt that panic begin to overtake her, but she fought to keep it hidden. What did Lynn mean?
“No,” Mandy said. “I’m leaving. Take your job and stick it up your ass, I don’t need it this bad. I’ll find something else.”
Lynn chuckled.
“There isn’t anything else,” she said. “Whatever you did to end up here, this is where you are. I’m so sorry.”
“What do you mean whatever I did to end up here?”
Lynn stood up, causing the chair to squeak along the floor when she did. She stretched and twisted her head around, trying to loosen up her neck. It creaked and popped and she lout out a sigh.
“I’ve got to take a walk, make sure everything’s ok. Come with me.” She moved around the desk.
Mandy stepped aside so Lynn could open the door, then followed her out. Lynn turned up the hallway toward the foyer and Mandy trailed behind, wondering the whole time why she was following her at all. This wasn’t what she wanted to be doing. She wanted to sit and wait for someone else to walk in the front door so she could leave.
“Did you know I had a baby?” Lynn asked over her shoulder. They reached the foyer and turned down another hallway. Mandy watched the boy turn a page.
“That girl earlier mentioned it,” she said.
“Yeah,” Lynn said. “A daughter. Anya, we named her. She was so beautiful, and she was just what I’d always wanted. I can understand not being able to have children, but I never did get those people who just don’t want them. To me, children are the most amazing thing ever.”
They reached the stairs and Lynn started up them. Mandy was hesitant, but then realized she was probably a lot safer in the company of Lynn, who obviously knew what she was doing, than she had been at any point she’d been alone tonight. She followed.
“I had that girl’s whole life mapped out before her first feeding. She never made it out of the hospital.” Lynn stopped on the stairs and turned around to look Mandy in the eyes. “I smothered her.”
She turned and started up the stairs again, letting that sink in. Then she continued.
“It wasn’t on purpose, obviously. I was feeding her. I fell asleep. God, I was so tired, but it was time for her feeding, so I tried like hell to hold on, but I couldn’t, and when I woke up, it was only a minute or two later . . . I’d smothered her against my breast. She wasn’t even a day old yet.”
Mandy felt her heart and stomach sink simultaneously.
“Jesus,” she said. “That’s terrible. I’m sorry.” But a sob story doesn’t change anything, she thought. I’m still out of here.
“Yeah,” Lynn said. They’d reached the second floor and walked to the end of the hallway where Lynn approached the first door. She stopped outside it, then eased it open and peeked inside. All was well, Mandy assumed, and Lynn pulled her head back out, eased the door closed just as quietly, and they moved on to the next door. Before she opened it, Lynn said, “There aren’t any words for how devastated I was after that. It was an accident, obviously, no one doubted that. But that didn’t take away my guilt.
“I tried to make up for what I’d done by getting a job taking care of children. I couldn’t bear the thought of trying to have another one. I think the emotional and mental scars still run too deep for that. Havi
ng another child, if it lived, if it grew up to be happy and have a full life . . . it just seemed unfair to Anya, you know? So I came here instead.”
“Wait,” Mandy said. “You came here after the baby? How long have you been here?” She was thinking surely Lynn had given birth well after she’d started here, because she worked like someone familiar with the job, someone who had put in their time from a while back, but from the looks, Lynn was still carrying that baby weight. Maybe Lynn had worked in similar jobs before? But she wasn’t talking like this was something that had just happened recently.
“What year is it?” she asked. Mandy thought she was joking, then Lynn said, “Fifteen years ago.”
“Fifteen?” Mandy said.
Lynn saw the look on Mandy’s face. She said, “I can tell your mind is working on that one.”
She opened door number two, made sure all was well, then closed it again.
“You’re thinking it couldn’t be that long ago because I’m still carrying the pregnant belly. I could be off by a month or so, maybe even a year, but it’s been about that long. Time doesn’t mean as much here. That’s the thing you have to understand, see? You’re not where you were before. And things are a lot different than what you’re used to, and whatever you did to wind up here, this is your world now. I killed my daughter. It was an accident, my God, I didn’t mean to and I live with that guilt every day and God knows I see Anya every time I look at one of these girls. I wonder if one of them is her, grown up and come back to haunt me. I wonder if she’s one of the littler ones. For all I know you’re her, or what she would have been had she been allowed to grow up.”
Third door. All was dark and quiet. Mandy heard snoring from inside.
“I can’t escape what I did, no matter how much I didn’t mean it. So here I am, paying for my sin. The others could tell you stories, Jane’s got hers, Bea has hers and my God is it a bad one; you think she’s a bitch, she’s earned it, believe me. And you have your story. You don’t have to tell it if you don’t want to; we’re not like that. What’s your business is your business. But I thought it was only fair to tell you--better late than never, right?--that whatever you did to get here, we won’t think less of you. But whatever it was, you’re here now and they’re not going to let you go. I’m sorry, they’re just not.”
“I didn’t do anything, though,” Mandy said. “And nobody can just keep me here. I’m not a prisoner and I won’t be held like one.”
“You made your own prison, Mandy. Whatever you did, you did it yourself.”
“But I didn’t do anything!” Mandy nearly yelled, but Lynn held up her hand and shushed her.
“Quiet down,” she said, “the girls are sleeping.”
Mandy nodded. “I know, sorry. But I didn’t do anything.”
“Maybe not on purpose,” Lynn said. She opened another door, did another check, came back out. “I didn’t smother my baby on purpose. But it happened and here I am.”
This was stupid. Why was she even listening to this, when it was obviously wrong in every single way? She tried to look at things logically. She could accept this building was haunted. She had grown up in Angel Hill; she knew this town’s reputation, she knew not everything that happened around here could be explained so easily. Ghosts were a reality, especially here. Okay, that was solid. But that didn’t make it possible for someone to be held hostage for fifteen years because of an accident.
But the parking lot was gone. That wasn’t imagined, it was gone.
And she’d only been here a few times, and never at night, and never after having come out from the back of the building, never in dense fog and never after having walked through a gymnasium full of dead bodies.
Yes, she definitely hadn’t imagined that. But that was the ghosts, she told herself. It only seemed obvious the ghosts had some kind of ability to alter a person’s perception, so they think they’re seeing things that aren’t there. That could easily explain the parking lot being gone. It wasn’t gone, it was right there all along.
“And look,” Lynn was saying, “we’re not judging you, whatever it was. We don’t care. But the sooner you own up to it, the sooner you can realize there is some good in this place. These girls, they need us. They’re just kids. They didn’t ask to be raised in a place like this. This is a good thing we’re doing here.”
“I’m sure it is,” Mandy said. “I’m sure this is a very noble and upright job, and I wish I could stick around and make something of it, I really do, Lynn. But I can’t take this place. You know, if it wasn’t the ghosts and the crazy building and I’m getting lost and can’t trust myself to turn a freaking corner around here without wondering where I’m gonna wind up . . . I just can’t. I’m not that person. If it was like Mr. Winters said--”
“There is no Mr. Winters,” Lynn reminded her.
“Yes,” Mandy said, “apparently. But someone hired me, or I thought they did. But if it was like he said, if it was just normal day to day around here, but you have to watch out for the occasional maid failing out of the window--”
“She was in the laundry,” Lynn corrected her.
“Whatever,” Mandy said, shaking her head. “I don’t care. If it was like that, and stuff like that was all I had to worry about, I could do that, probably. I’m pretty sure I could. But it’s not like that at all. What the hell is in those woods?”
“I don’t know,” Lynn said. She did another quick, quiet bed check. “And as long as it stays in the woods, I’ll never know, because I’ll never go back there. I know I’m supposed to be here, and I’m not fighting it. I stopped trying to leave ten years ago. It took some time, but, you know, eventually I just gave in, accepted what’s happening and let myself take this job seriously.”
Lynn did the last bed check and walked toward the stairs, motioning for Mandy to follow.
“Okay,” Mandy said, “so what you’re saying is, I did something bad, even though I know for a fact I didn’t do anything, and now I’m here and I can’t ever leave. So, what, am I, like, a ghost now too?”
“Not at all,” Lynn said. “You’re every bit as alive as I am. Or as the girls here.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense!” Mandy said. “You can leave, Mr. Winters said everyone was at the water park when I can for my orientation.”
“Oh we can leave,” Lynn said. “We can take the kids where they need to go. But we can’t get away. You can try, but you’ll just wind up back at the bus or the van or whatever. It doesn’t matter what you try, how clever you think you’re being. Once you’re here, you belong to this place.”
They were on the first floor. The little boy read his book.
Mandy looked at her phone to check the time.
“Look, whatever,” she said. “You tell yourself whatever you want because you hate your job. Say you’re trapped here, oh no, the place won’t let me go, I’m damned for eternity to work in this hellhole!”
“Mocking it won’t change anything.”
“I’ve had bad jobs before, okay? I know how it feels thinking I hate this job, but I can’t quit because I’ve got bills to pay, I can’t go look for another job because I’ve got to get real life stuff done in the few hours freedom I have, and I’m not going to waste my day off going out looking for more work. I know that feeling, believe me. But that’s all it is. In the end, it’s just a job. And I’ve decided, on my own, because I’m an adult, that I don’t want this one anymore. That’s all there is to it.”
“God, you’re in such denial,” Lynn said. “Okay, then, go ahead. You tried to leave once and it didn’t do you any good. Try again.”
Mandy didn’t move, nor reply.
“Well, go on,” Lynn said. “You didn’t do anything wrong, walk out the door.”
Mandy ignored her and walked to the bench near the door and sat.
“If you’re still going with ‘I’m gonna wait for third shift to show up,’ you are third shift. No one else is walking through that door tonight.”
&nbs
p; “Sam will,” Mandy muttered. “Or Katie. One of them will get my message and come get me.”
“Sure,” Lynn said, already by her side. “Except you couldn’t get through earlier.”
“I got through when I was outside, for your information.”
“Oh,” Lynn said, nodding her head. “Ok. Well, you sit there. You’ll come find me eventually.”
Mandy wasn’t looking at her, she faced the front door, trying to will it to open, to see Katie walk inside and say, “Let’s go, my car’s right outside.”
Mandy would overlook her suspicions until Katie got her home. Then she’d thank her very kindly for the ride, she would go inside her apartment, and she would slowly begin ignoring Katie’s calls and texts until the friendship was over. Mandy would put all of this behind her. She’d call a cab tomorrow to come get her car. She’d start applying for new jobs. She might even be able to get one of her old ones back; that was something she hadn’t considered before. The next phase of her life could start and everything from tonight and before would be nothing but a memory.
But the door didn’t open. And when she looked around, Lynn was gone. She noticed the boy was gone, too.
Alone for real, this time.
She pulled her phone from her pocket and checked it. Still nothing from Katie or Sam. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what if she had to call her mother instead? That would go over real well, wouldn’t it? She didn’t even want to think about that possibility.
But who was to say she couldn’t just call a cab to come pick her up? She had just thought of doing it tomorrow to come get her car. Why hadn’t she thought of that before?
She tried to look up a number for a cab company, but she couldn’t get internet access on her phone in the building. She tried to call information, but, again, the call failed. From the bench, she looked around the area, but didn’t see a phone book anywhere.
Think, where would a phone book be? In one of the offices? They were locked, as far as she knew. She got up and checked the door to Mr. Winters’s office--or whoever’s office, she thought--and confirmed it was locked.
The Ghosts of Mertland (An Angel Hill novel) Page 13
