When All the Girls Are Sleeping

by Emily Arsenault

Norma went on to open six more free and sliding-scale family rooming houses for patient families near several different hospitals in New England and New York State.

  In 1987, Norma began the Healing Hearts Scholarship Fund, which provides tuition assistance to families of children with medical issues. In 1990, she began the Brian Drayton Scholarship Fund to help college students whose medical needs require additional funding, accommodations, or equipment.

  Sounded like a nice lady. I could imagine her thinking that compared to these causes, Windham really didn’t seem like a worthy recipient of her money. Even if girls without money—like me—might be the trickle-down recipients. Her attention was understandably focused elsewhere. I didn’t think Windham could really begrudge her that.

  It didn’t entirely explain why she’d never gotten the Sarah Dearborn portrait restored, but maybe she was just a busy person and had other priorities.

  And she wasn’t dead yet. So she couldn’t be the ghost.

  But Lucia Jackson must’ve brought her up for a reason. I wondered if Lucia knew about Norma Fleming’s connection to the portrait. Or if there was another reason why she kept bringing up her name.

  * * *

  I knocked on Alex’s door.

  “Come in!” she yelled.

  As I opened the door, I saw it: a tiny heart. Scratched in the outer doorframe. Just slightly bigger than a quarter, it was carved low, almost at doorknob level. I sucked in a gasp as I saw it, my gaze meeting Alex’s as she sat up on her bed. Her hair frizzy, a flushed crease across her cheek.

  “You okay?” she asked groggily.

  “I’m sorry—were you sleeping?” I asked, trying to compose myself, making a split decision not to ask her about the heart first thing. I’d come here to check on her, after all—not make her feel worse.

  “I was just trying to take a little nap.”

  The carving was so tiny, so low, that perhaps it had always been there and I’d never noticed. We generally convened in Maylin’s nicer, more spacious room, so I didn’t know every nook and cranny of Alex’s. I exhaled.

  “A nap a couple of hours before bed?” I said slowly. “That can really mess with your sleep.”

  “I figured if I didn’t wake up till morning, that would be okay.”

  “Um, Alex?” I pulled her desk chair closer to her bed and sat on it. “Is there a reason you’ve not been sleeping in your room some nights?”

  “Oh.” Alex rolled her eyes. “So that secret’s out.”

  “Well, is it a secret?” I asked.

  “Not really. I don’t see why anyone should care.”

  “Neither Maylin nor I care where you sleep. Or…we care because we care about you. Just…it doesn’t make a difference to us…in case you were wondering.”

  Alex smiled and shook her head. “Is that what you two think? You guys are cute. No, Chloe’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Then why did you sleep in her room?”

  As the question left my lips, it felt vaguely obnoxious. Normally I would leave it all alone, like I always did with Anthony. But I felt like I had to ask—because her behavior was starting to resemble Student X’s. It scared me.

  “She’s having a lot of trouble with chemistry.” Alex sighed. “So I was helping for a couple of hours. I got so tired I went down for a micronap on her floor, but then I didn’t wake up for the rest of the night, and she was too shy to wake me up, I guess.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  This didn’t explain why Chloe’s roommate, Rhea, had made herself scarce all night, but I decided to stop pressing. Maybe there was some truth to Maylin’s theory after all. But it really wasn’t any of our business.

  “Hey…you’re a big Lucia Jackson fan, right?” I asked. Awkward segue, but I was eager to divert the conversation away from Alex’s private life. I was starting to feel like a creep for bringing it up.

  “Well…” Alex shrugged. “Kind of. I used to be more into her, like, sophomore year. I don’t have time for that kind of reading right now.”

  “You ever read her story ‘The Snow Angel’?”

  Alex turned away from me and plumped her pillow—as if she was wishing—even hinting—to get back to her nap.

  “Don’t think so,” she said, smoothing the pillowcase. “I prefer to read whole novels.”

  Alex curled up on her bed and rested her head. Clearly I was supposed to take the hint now. In the fetal position, with her tired eyes pleading, Alex looked about twelve years old. The vulnerability in her face struck me deep. It reminded me of something I couldn’t quite name.

  “I want to tell you something,” I said, my voice dropping almost to a whisper.

  “Yeah?”

  I swallowed the impulse to ask her about the heart.

  “If you ever feel like you can’t be alone in your room at night, you can come hang out with me and Star. Even if you want to crash on our floor.”

  “Well, I appreciate that offer.” Alex curled up and rested her head on the pillow. “I don’t think it will be necessary, though. I like my room.”

  “Really, just…if you ever don’t feel like things are right in your room…please go to someone. Even if it’s not me.”

  Alex’s gaze shifted away from me, and her mouth went slack. I felt like she had suddenly recognized something in what I was saying—something that matched her experience.

  “Why would things not feel right in my room?” she asked quietly.

  I hesitated. Was I scaring her? Was I making things worse?

  “I don’t know for sure,” I said. “I just think that’s what happened with Taylor. That she started to feel like being alone in her room was getting to her. That the…um…energy of that was weighing on her…”

  I figured if I said ghost, then Alex would shut down this conversation completely. Let alone Bible-quoting ghost, or ghost who changes dresses, or dueling white-dress, black-dress ghosts.

  But while I tried to decide on my next words, I was stunned to see a big tear was rolling down Alex’s cheek. Then another. They splashed down on the crew neck of her black sweater.

  “But I don’t think she was crazy,” I said softly, unsure if I should keep going. “I’m really starting to think there might be something that Dearborn does to people. That we all need to be careful that nothing like that happens to anyone this year. We need to take care of each other, watch out for each other, and make sure no one’s too isolated like Taylor kind of was. Especially between now and February 10th. That date might be…important.”

  Alex’s shoulders were shaking a little, but she wasn’t making a sound. Just quietly wiping away a steady stream of tears.

  “There’s really something here. Something…bad. It might not be a ghost, it might be some other force or tension, but whatever it is—”

  Alex covered her face and an actual, audible sob tore through her.

  “Why are you crying?” I asked gently.

  Alex sniffled and wiped at her face with her fingertips.

  “Because I’m tired. And because I’m sorry about what happened to Taylor,” she said. “And I’m sorry you have to live in this building after all that. I don’t think I’ve thought before about how fucked up that really is. That they even let you live on the same floor, for fuck’s sake.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m okay.”

  “No, it’s not. And you’re not. Do you hear yourself?”

  I had never seen Alex so torn up. And the only time I’d ever seen her cry before was that one time our first year—when I wasn’t supposed to have seen.

  “Did you know there’s a little heart carved in your doorframe?” I whispered.

  Alex was silent for a moment.

  “Yes,” she hissed. “It’s been there all year. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “It’s a sign
of the…” I trailed off. I did maybe sound a little crazy.

  “There. Is. No. Ghost. Haley.” Alex’s voice was low and feral.

  She was staring at me, her face wet with fresh tears, her expression strained with a fear she was trying but failing to hide.

  Fear for me? Or fear for herself that she was unwilling, still, to admit? Either way, she looked so young and so scared. That familiar twinge her expression had given me a few minutes earlier—I understood it now. I remembered where it came from.

  “Okay,” I whispered. “Okay.”

  Alex wiped her face with her sleeve, sniffled, and looked at her phone.

  “I know things have been hard for you here sometimes. Like they’ve been hard for me. This place isn’t us, but we endure it for all of the opportunities it’ll supposedly give us, right?”

  “Right,” I said, still whispering.

  Tap tap tap. There was a barely audible knock on Alex’s door.

  I got up and opened it so Alex wouldn’t have to. Rhea was standing there.

  “Hi,” she said. “I was just wondering if Chloe was here?”

  “Nope,” Alex said quickly, sitting up. “We don’t have a tutoring session this afternoon.”

  Alex’s words were stilted. Her use of the phrase tutoring session was kind of weird, like she had to reiterate why she and Chloe spent time together. Nothing romantic. Nothing to see here, folks.

  “Oh.” Rhea looked puzzled. “Okay.”

  “I’ve got a couple of things to do alone before dinner,” Alex said, the pitch of her voice unusually high.

  Both Rhea and I started. Alex really wanted us both to leave.

  We said quick goodbyes, and I stole one more glance at the little heart before Rhea and I headed down the hall. When I reached my door, I turned to Rhea before she continued to the stairwell.

  “Alex spends a lot of time in your room lately, doesn’t she?” I asked.

  “Yeah…kind of.” Rhea looked a little sheepish. “She and Chloe…”

  She seemed unsure how to finish the sentence. I thought I heard the stairwell door creak, but then no one came out of it.

  “If you ever think Alex needs help, will you let me know?” I said, lowering my voice. I was trying to shake the feeling that the little carved heart—among other things—meant that Alex was marked somehow.

  Rhea hesitated. “What do you mean?”

  “She’s my friend. I lost a friend last year. And I’m trying to be a better friend.”

  Rhea looked at the floor, embarrassed by my awkwardness. I didn’t care. I wasn’t sure what to do for Alex, but it seemed like doing something—anything—was better than doing nothing. I couldn’t tell everyone about the ghost, about my fear of the looming February 10. That would look crazy. But I could at least make sure there were other girls looking out for Alex.

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  * * *

  Once I was back in my room, it took me a few minutes to find the picture on my laptop. It wasn’t in my main photo file, as apparently I’d never downloaded it from my email.

  My mother had taken it on my very first day at Dearborn—when Alex and I had become roommates sight unseen. The housing office must have figured we’d get along—two scholarship kids from the Midwest.

  Alex’s parents had gone back to their hotel and would see her the next day. But since my mom had to say her official goodbye that evening, she’d lingered. Her suggestion that Alex and I pose for a “new roomies” photo had embarrassed me even though I understood that it was one of several last-ditch strategies to extend the goodbye.

  Alex and I had stood awkwardly next to each other in front of her bed. We didn’t know each other well enough for someone to drape an arm over the other.

  My mother sent it to me with a short note:

  Hope you are having a wonderful second day. You’ll do great!

  Alex seems like a sweetheart.

  Indeed, Alex did seem like a sweetheart. You could tell from the picture. Doe-eyed and uncertain, trying to smile. Her long light brown hair was sort of lifeless from a long, humid day of moving our stuff up the freshman dormitory stairs. Several inches shorter than me, her face not yet matured as it was now, she looked way younger than our fourteen years.

  I clicked back to Sarah Black’s photo.

  Since it was a black-and-white photograph, of course I couldn’t tell exactly what color Sarah Black’s hair was—but it was on the lighter side, like Alex’s. They both had eyes so big they didn’t quite fit their thin faces. They both had a skinny vulnerability that made you want to cook them a cheeseburger or brew them a cup of hot cocoa—fatten them up, make them smile.

  That was what had startled me, seeing Alex curled up in her bed—looking very much her younger self, reminding me of this picture:

  Sarah Black and young Alex looked strangely alike.

  44

  I minimized the photo when Star walked in.

  “Hey,” she said softly. And then stood there gazing at me for a moment.

  “You okay?” I asked, to prevent her from asking the same of me.

  “Well…yeah.”

  “You look like you have something to say.”

  Star eased her backpack off her shoulder and sat down on her bed.

  “I was wondering something,” she said.

  “Sure?”

  “Are you friends with Rhea?”

  “Um…not really…we were just talking. You saw us?”

  That would mean that it was Star who’d started to open the stairwell door when Rhea and I were in the hall together. But she maybe hung back when she saw us talking. And listened to me talking about Alex?

  “No,” Star said quickly. “I was just wondering.”

  “Yeah, no. She hangs with Chloe, who hangs with Alex, so she’s usually around. I just was asking her something random. Why?” I pressed.

  Star reached into her coat pocket, pulled out some M&M’s, ate one, then offered me the bag.

  “You know how there are some people who you get the feeling hate you?” she asked.

  I hesitated, taking a single piece of candy. “Uh-huh.”

  Certainly I had had that experience. Particularly when I was friends with Taylor. Lots of secondhand death rays came my way. But I had a feeling it was different for Star. Like she got it in her head that this or that person hated her without there being much evidence, just to make herself feel bad. Or that for her, hate meant something more like thinks I’m a dweeb.

  “We…uh…weren’t talking about you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I said.

  But then it occurred to me that Star had overheard Rhea’s and my entire conversation and was hoping I would confide in her. She and I talked about history and ghosts, but there were a bunch of real-life things that I always left out.

  “Well, of course you weren’t…I didn’t mean it like that,” Star said quickly, blushing. “I just wondered if you guys were friends.”

  I shrugged and popped the M&M in my mouth. “We’re not.”

  Star sucked in her lips for a moment, then pulled her laptop out of her bag.

  “I have something for you,” she said. “Something pretty good.”

  “Yeah? Will it be served with a Twizzler?” I was trying to lighten the mood, help us both shake off the embarrassing conversation that had just occurred.

  “Well…that’s what I brought the M&M’s for. It’s something from the Rochester Library. Something kind of juicy.”

  “About Sarah Black?” I asked.

  “Well, kind of. About her aunt. The one she was staying with when she died. There was one article listed about her when I went in for more the other day. They just sent it to me. Look.”

  Star plopped her laptop in my lap.

  December 13, 1889

/>   Sirs and Madams—

  I write in support of my dear old friends Kate and Maggie Fox—and to shine a light on Maggie’s recent recantation, which I believe deserves more public attention than it has received.

  Hungry reporters were eager and present in abundance on that terrible day at the New York Academy of Music last year. Maggie was coerced to announce that her mediumship—and that of her sister—was a sham. Naysayers laughed and gloated and had great fun. None of them understood the terrible circumstances Maggie was in at the time, that made her feel she had no choice. Now that she is recanting her statements, where are all of the eager reporters? Few have been circumspect enough to consider that Maggie had fallen victim to opportunists who wished to take advantage of her poor health and destitution. Even close friends did not realize the desperation of her situation, or we would have come to her aid.

  Kate’s and Maggie’s gifts are delicate, and have always made them vulnerable to reprobates who wish to take advantage. This forced denunciation of spiritualism was the most egregious. Now that Maggie’s friends have come to her aid, she is no longer in such personal and financial straits, and has taken back up her spiritualist roots in earnest.

  I do not expect everyone to believe in Maggie’s and Kate’s powers. I do believe, however, that the Rochester area press has a duty to tell their whole story—and not end it on their worst, most misguided, day.

  My sisters in spiritualism deserve better, as do all of us.

  Sincerely,

  Katherine Hannaford

  “This is really exciting, isn’t it?” Star squealed. “Leonora and Sarah’s aunt Katherine was a friend of the Fox sisters!”

  “Who are they?” I asked, too tired to care if it was a stupid question.

  “They’re famous. They were these two women—well, girls when it all started—who started the spiritualist movement in the 1800s. Remember I was talking about the spiritualist movement a few days ago? When we were first talking about the ghost?”

  “Oh…yeah,” I lied, and waited for more.

  “So, these two girls lived near Rochester, New York, in the mid-1800s, and one night they claimed to hear a mysterious knocking in their room. They told their mother and she heard it, too, and got scared and then…well, let me find a little summary for you.”