“Student X is the one who had a breakdown before the headmistress hired you. Her breakdown seems to have started it all off, in a sense.”
“Oh. Okay. Yes, but we never met her—she’d graduated. We only ever managed to talk to her on the phone. Mrs. Bradford arranged it—at some risk to her, because I believe that she kept the student’s family out of the loop. She was over eighteen, but that still involved some risk. Anyway, we never saw her face or knew her name. And it was a brief conversation. Ron did the best he could with the report.”
“What was your sense of her, from the phone conversation?” I asked.
“Mmm…it was a long time ago. My general sense was that she wanted to put the whole thing behind her.”
“Do you think there’s a way to find her?”
Kathleen was silent. But as I listened to her breathe, I realized there were all kinds of ways to find Student X. I knew her graduation year—1985—to start.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “You could start with a senior class roster for that year, start calling the graduates, and see if someone remembers her name.”
“You met Student Y,” I said. “Do you remember her name?”
“I do, yes. I barely remember the names of any of those girls. Thirty years takes its toll. But I remember hers. I might not have, if she hadn’t become kind of…” I heard Kathleen sigh. “Kind of famous.”
“Famous?” I repeated.
“Her name is Lucia Jackson.”
I gasped. “The writer?”
The one Alex liked. The one who might merit her own file in the archives when she was dead, according to Ms. Noceno.
“Yes,” said Kathleen. “Are you a big fiction reader?”
“No. But everyone at Windham knows who she is.”
“Yes. Well, that’s Student Y.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
I sat down at my desk, noticing that I was breathless from pacing the rug.
“How could I not be sure of something like that?”
“Did you ever talk to her again?”
“Of course not. I liked her book Stormchaser, though. But the movie wasn’t as good.”
“I wonder if she would be willing to talk about what happened,” I mused.
“I suppose there’s only one way to find out,” Kathleen said, rather cheerfully.
I was silent for a moment, scribbling LUCIA JACKSON! on my list of questions.
“Do you know anything about contacting famous people?” I asked. “Since you used to be married to a semifamous man?”
Kathleen laughed. “He wasn’t that famous. And we separated right around the time he was becoming kind of cult-following famous.”
“Okay. Well, I had a couple of other questions. Not just about Students X and Y.”
“Sure. Go for it.”
I nervously poked my pen back into its holder, then pulled out the fake white tulip I’d stuck in there with the pens.
“We’ve identified a girl who went here in the late 1880s, named Sarah Black, who died young,” I explained. “We—my friend Star and I—think she could very well be the ghost. I don’t know if you remember in the report that in Headmistress Bradford’s time, and before that, some girls called her Sarah in Black. We think originally it was Sarah Black.”
“Okay. Sounds reasonable.”
“She died the same day as my friend.” I stared at the fake tulip. It was yellowing now. I’d had it since I was twelve. “February 10th.”
I heard Kathleen suck in a breath.
“Oh God,” she said.
“What?” I asked quickly, tossing the tulip onto the desk, standing up instinctively. “Do you know what that might mean?”
“I…no. I’m just shocked. That’s very unsettling.”
“She didn’t die on campus.” I was pacing again. “She died a few months after she dropped out. Her sister Leonora stayed a student here, though. We kind of figured it out through that.”
“This is very impressive, Haley. That you’ve made all of these connections. I wish Ron and I had known about this girl.”
“So, um…we’re a little worried about February 10th.”
“I see.”
“We’re not sure what to do…I mean, my roommate and I.”
I went into the closet and tugged at the pull string. The dim light of the closet—with its cheap, low-wattage bulb—felt mildly calming.
“I’m not certain you need to do anything, necessarily.”
“But…have you ever dealt with a really angry ghost?” I persisted. “Or, like, a demon?”
“I don’t really believe in demons, dear.”
“Well, a ghost that was really scaring people or trying to hurt them? Like a ghost who clearly had ill intent?”
Kathleen hesitated. “Are you certain that’s what you have here?”
“I’m thinking of my friend Taylor, still. Of what happened to her.”
I am afraid she might be the ghost now. I couldn’t bring myself to say that part. It felt like a sick thought.
“Okay. I understand. Well, to answer your question, yes. We had a couple of claims of ghosts like that. In one case the family eventually moved away from the house. In another, acknowledging the ghost had a surprisingly positive effect. Apparently that spirit was just misunderstood.”
“But what if acknowledging doesn’t work?” I demanded. I tugged the pull string again and left the closet.
“It seemed to work for Student Y…or rather, Lucia Jackson.”
“But it didn’t keep the ghost from coming back…from still being angry.”
I sat on my bed and opened my laptop.
“Well, maybe the ghost is on a bit of a loop,” Kathleen suggested. “Comes back angry—in the coldest winter months, for whatever reason—needs to be acknowledged year after year—like it or not. I think that Student Y…or, Lucia, rather…had a point when she said that Student X’s responses to the ghost probably made it a whole lot worse.”
“Student X didn’t do anything wrong, though—like try to perform an exorcism or anything aggressive. She was just trying to stay sane.”
Just like Taylor. Just like me.
“Of course. I’m not saying it’s her fault. I’m just saying that some spirits feed off negative energy. And that something can clearly be learned from Lucia’s attitude and experience.”
So I was going to have to write to a famous author and ask her for ghostbusting advice. My whole anxious life of avoiding little humiliations had led up to this. I deserved this.
“Right,” I said softly, glancing at Darkins’s report on my laptop screen. “Why…why was Ronald so interested in the Tina Resch case?”
Kathleen was silent for a few seconds. “You’ve heard of that case?”
“I looked it up because it was mentioned in Ronald’s introduction and conclusion.”
“Yes, well. At the time of the report, it had been in the news, at least, in the couple of years before we were at Windham. It was still on people’s minds, or at least his mind, and the headmistress’s. First of all, you should know that Ron was never directly involved with Tina, although the case bothered him, and he wrote about it. An acquaintance of his, a parapsychologist named William Roll, was highly involved with her case, even took her in as a kind of foster father at one point. Tina was very troubled, whether she had a poltergeist or not. Ron always thought not enough attention was paid to that obvious matter. That the poltergeist was perhaps a secondary issue.”
“Did he think that there was some sort of similarity between her case and what was happening in Dearborn?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe just in the potential dark power of repressed female adolescent energy.”
Those words made me feel icky.
“Um, okay,” I breathed.
“Kind of a sexist idea, perhaps. But it was something Ron spoke about sometimes. Not that I was ever certain it had much merit.”
“Don’t poltergeists happen around boys, too?” I asked.
“Sure. But that boys’ school you have down the road…They don’t have a problem like this, do they?”
“Well…no.” I hesitated. “Do you think Tina was faking it?”
“I never met Tina, so I can’t say for sure. More than likely, I think. But then, imagine being that troubled, to fake that? Imagine how much Tina was probably suffering, as a young girl? Wasn’t that worth paying attention to? Rather than abandoning her at the first sign of fakery? Make a circus out of her and then dump her when the obvious fact that she needs serious, serious help makes itself so sadly clear? When she was fourteen, Tina probably still could’ve been rescued from herself. That’s what’s kind of sad about it, either way.
“But…” Kathleen exhaled. “That was an entirely different case. It’s not likely that any of you at Windham would be quite as troubled as she was,” she said. “At least without someone noticing.”
“I disagree,” I said. Heartily.
“Well…” I heard Kathleen sigh. “You’re right. You have a point there. Excellent point. I stand corrected. I should know better. Do you have someone in mind when you say that?”
The question took me by surprise.
“I’m not sure,” I murmured, letting my eyes settle on the dollar-store tulip on my desk. It had grown sort of rubbery and gross-looking over the years. I didn’t know why I still had it—and couldn’t remember how it had traveled here to Windham with me. In a pencil box? In a suitcase? It’s weird how random shit like that can follow you around, refusing to be thrown away.
“Are you really clairvoyant?” I asked. “We didn’t talk about that much at your shop.”
“Oh…I never said I was for sure. I sense presences, energies. I’m not one to say if I sense them any more or less than anyone else.”
“I see,” I said, deciding not to pursue the question further.
Kathleen had answered my questions openly, and asked nothing in return. It probably wasn’t my business if she’d been a bit of a charlatan thirty years ago. That was between her and the long-dead Betty Bradford. And I’d done things in the much less distant past that I wasn’t proud of, either—so who was I to talk?
“Now, I’m not sure why you asked that, but the thing about acknowledging a spirit is that you don’t need an expert to do it,” Kathleen added. “Anyone can. Take Student Y, for example. She just went ahead and did it. If you know a ghost is there and you have something to say to her, then say it. And by the way, burning sage might help. It doesn’t get rid of ghosts, like people think. But it cleanses the air of negativity and might bring some clarity to your communication with the ghost, if you wish to have that.”
I sat down on my bed and glanced around at our walls, trying to process my response to this. Maybe my eyes were always drawn to Star’s umbrellas and enigmatic beluga because I hadn’t bothered to put anything on my own wall this year.
“Haley?” Kathleen prompted.
“Yeah, I’m here. You said not to be aggressive, though. Not to feed the negative energy.”
“Well, right,” Kathleen replied. “Don’t be accusatory. Just let the ghost know you know she’s there. If you have a favor to ask her, go for it.”
And then my eyes were drawn toward my window.
“A favor—like, please don’t push any more girls out the window?”
Kathleen was quiet for a moment.
“I don’t believe that the message you read on the window said anything about pushing,” she pointed out.
“Making her jump? Kind of the same thing, isn’t it?”
“No…because it brings up the question…how does one make someone jump?”
I felt my breath catch at this question. I didn’t like to think of Taylor in the moment before. Looking down at the pavement below.
“Haley?”
“A ghost or spirit could have all kinds of powers that we don’t understand,” I said softly, still staring at the window. “Possibly even the power to make someone jump.”
“I suppose…” Kathleen sounded uncertain.
I didn’t feel like talking anymore. My mind was on Taylor again. Taylor at her window, alone.
“Maybe I could call you back another time,” I murmured. “I’m sure I’ll have other questions.”
“Of course, Haley.”
“I should let you go.”
“Okay. Keep me updated, all right? Take care of yourself.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Goodbye.”
“Bye now.”
After we hung up, I lifted my blinds and sat cross-legged on my bed, looking out the window. Two girls were coming toward the dorm in the lamplight, chatting. One was clapping her mittened hands together. The other was wearing a cute knitted beanie that looked like an intricate basket. They both looked so perfectly preppy in their boots and snug wool coats, their hair stylish even under their hats.
They were exactly how I pictured myself—or aspired to picture myself—when I first left for Windham-Farnswood. I’d taken endless trips to Target and Goodwill in search of clothes that would match my picture. Sweaters and boots that looked like the girls’ sweaters in the welcome brochures. Sweaters and boots of girls so cozy and confident, they could never sink.
Sometimes, when I would be flitting around with Taylor in the winter, I would think, Here I am! I’m one of those girls. It would be like I’d stepped outside myself, and could see myself coming down the walk. See myself toss my hair. See myself walk in that swaying, confident way I had never used before. Hear myself laugh at Taylor’s jokes.
I reached out my hand and unlocked the window. The old metal lock was stubborn, but I pushed hard and it snapped free. I forced the window up and a blast of winter air came through the screen.
Taylor always kept her screen up because occasionally she liked to perch near the window and smoke. But I didn’t need my screen up for this experiment. I wanted to hear what it sounded like when a Dearborn window closed. I’d heard it before—in the fall, when it was still warm enough to open windows—but wanted to hear it again now. It was a thought that had preoccupied me for the final part of my conversation with Kathleen.
I slammed the window closed. It made a rusty-sounding EEEE-BANG! Just as I thought it would. I took out my phone and clicked on the video that Thatcher had sent me, skipping to the very end, right before Taylor comes out of the bathroom. There’s a muffled EEEE-BANG! And then the OOARRRRR-thump! of the bathroom door closing behind Taylor as she comes back for her phone.
My heart was in my throat as I slipped out of the room and headed down to the bathroom.
OOARRRRR-thump! went the bathroom door behind me as I entered. I looked up at the bathroom windows. Along the tile wall—up so high that only the tallest girls could reach them—was a row of narrow, rectangular windows with cranks for opening and closing. The bathroom windows were completely different from the student room windows. Still, I stood on tiptoe to crank one open and closed. It made a soft, low thump thump thump, like a heart beating.
The night Taylor had freaked out in her room and filmed it, right before she came out into the hall from the bathroom, a window was closing somewhere nearby. In Taylor’s room? And her phone had picked up the sound because her door was still open from when she’d fled the room?
Possibly.
But it couldn’t have been Taylor closing the window. Because she was still in the bathroom. It was someone or something else.
* * *
“How was it?” demanded Star, who was waiting in our room when I returned.
“Interesting,” I said. “I don’t think she’s going to help us figure out what to do, exactly. But she’s got some useful
information. For example—Student Y is Lucia Jackson. The writer.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.” I glanced up at my window, making a mental note to lock it. I’d forgotten to do so after my experimental slam.
Star sat on her bed, her mouth hanging open. “I’m going to have to process that for a little while. That kind of takes the air out of what I found.”
“What’s that?”
“That Rochester database.” She slipped her computer out of her bag. “There’s an article in the catalog. Black, Sarah Georgetta. Death. 1889. And then the reference numbers. I’ve already written to the contact to scan and email that article.”
“I don’t think that’s free,” I pointed out.
“I already used my mom’s credit card. It’s only a few dollars. But it says it takes two to seven days to process these requests.”
I nodded. “We’ll see what it says.”
“Yes, we will. So, Lucia Jackson, huh?”
“Yeah. I’m wondering if I should try to talk to her.”
Star got up and picked up a pair of pajama bottoms from a heap of clothes by her bed. “Why not?”
“She’s a celebrity.”
“Not really.” Star changed from her jeans to the pajama bottoms, which were covered with cats wearing Santa hats. “It’s not like she’s a movie star. She probably doesn’t have an entourage. Most people wouldn’t recognize her on the street.”
Star settled on her bed, pulling her computer onto her lap.
“She’s got an author website,” she said after typing a quick Google search. “With a contact email. You could just write to her.”
“Her email probably goes straight to an assistant or publicity person or something,” I mumbled.
“So what? It doesn’t mean they wouldn’t forward it to her. Say you want to interview her for the Windham student newspaper or something. She might find it charming.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“What else did Kathleen say? Any advice for February 10th?”
“No,” I said flatly, realizing I’d never really asked that specific question.
“Nothing?” Star looked skeptical.
When All the Girls Are Sleeping Page 21
