Intrinsical (5 page)

“
Why are there ghosts’ footprints in our room?”

“
Um . . . because it’s where two of the students lived. Pendrell legend suggests they went back to their room after the accident, not knowing they had died.” Even as she told me her dark tale, her eyes danced in anticipation; I could practically feel the excitement growing inside her.

I looked at Cherie aghast. “Cherie, why would you actually choose to live in, not visit, but live in a haunted room where a confused ghost might put us in danger. I know
Vovó
warned you they can be the most dangerous.”

Cherie looked absolutely crestfallen. Worse— she looked hurt. I still thought that I was right, but I felt a twinge of guilt at having hurt my friend. But after seeing Brent attacked and having a ghost in my room, Vovó’s warnings all seemed a lot more important now.

We stared at each other for a moment, not sure what to say. Eventually Cherie shrugged. “I hadn’t really thought of it that way,” she said. “Sorry. I mean, I’ve never been successful before so I didn’t even think about the fact it could be dangerous. I just— ”

I interrupted her, trying to repair some of the damage I had done. “No, you’re right,” I lied. “It’ll probably all turn out to be smoke and mirrors like every other place you’ve investigated.”

“
Exactly.” Cherie smiled wide and I could tell our small spat was mended. Our fights never lasted long because we couldn’t stand being mad at each other.

My next question slipped out against my better judgment. “Did you ever read anything about a black mist on campus?” I held my breath, waiting for the answer.

Cherie cocked her head, thinking. “No. Why?”

I exhaled slowly. “No reason.”

Cherie raised her eyebrow but then looked at her watch and cursed quietly to herself. “We’re going to be late,” she said, grabbing my hand and dragging me back toward the window. We climbed back down the tree, Cherie complaining to me the whole way about not having enough time to see everything she had wanted to see. Personally, I couldn’t relate; I had seen enough.

It was a relief to be out in the fresh air again, walking among the birch trees, feeling the warmth of the sun on my face. Still, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t forget the unsettling feeling of the room and a foreboding feeling that everything that had happened to me here all led back to the people who died in that pool.

****

By the time our tour ended, lunch was almost over and my stomach grumbled hungrily. After procuring my grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup, I followed Cherie to a table where Brent and Steve were already sitting. Being near Brent made my heart beat a little faster than normal, and it kicked into overdrive when he scooted his chair closer, so our legs touched, soft as a whisper.

“
We’re going to the pool after lunch,” Steve said. “Do you guys want to come?”

Not another trip to that creepy place, I thought with a sigh.

“
We’ve already been this morning.” Cherie spread her napkin carefully across her lap. “Of course, you probably mean the swimming pool with water in it, right?”

Hope entered my heart as I remembered there was a normal pool, ghost-free and full of non-haunted water, making the invitation much more appealing. But then I remembered what happened yesterday and I began shaking my leg under the table.

“
Of course. Water usually helps with the swimming.” Brent’s tone was one someone would use on a confused child.

Cherie paused dramatically with an impish grin. “We checked out the original swimming pool, the one that’s locked, off limits, and supposedly haunted.”

Understanding flickered across their faces, and I think the phrase ”off limits” especially caught their interest. Giving up all pretenses, Cherie eagerly told them of our morning adventure.

“
You guys did that without us?” Steve complained. “We would have gone with you.”

Cherie dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “Honestly, I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

I doubted Steve was upset about missing the pool; I think it had more to do with missing time with my best friend.

“
How did you even know about it?” Steve asked.

Cherie smiled demurely. “I did my homework before I came to school.”

“
We’ve been down there before. I mean, everyone goes there at least once, sees it isn’t that big of a deal, and leaves. There’s no reason to go back—unless, of course, you believe in ghost stories.” Steve’s expression turned serious when he saw the looks on our faces. “Do you believe in the ghost stories?”

“
No, of course not. It was just for fun,” I said before Cherie could answer. I knew for a fact that ghosts were real, but I had learned not to go around telling people that. Even without looking, I could feel Cherie’s heated glare and I determinedly avoided her gaze.

“
So, do you guys have any other big plans as far as checking out old school rumors?” Steve asked, his crystal blue eyes watching Cherie.

“
Well I thought about looking into the Pendrell curse,” Cherie announced, sipping the soup from her spoon.

Brent scoffed. “You really believe in the curse?”

“
Don’t you? I mean you almost died, and with it being so close to the end of the second year, isn’t it almost time?” Cherie asked.

“
I was choking— it wasn’t suicide,” Brent said, narrowing his eyes.

“
I was meaning to ask you about that. What were you choking on? I asked around, no one knows what happened.” Brent didn’t answer, but the muscle of his jaw clenched. “I know they’re all found to be suicides. But maybe they’re not. Maybe they’re accidents or maybe even murders!” Cherie held up her spoon to emphasize her point. “That makes more sense than the brightest, most popular students of this school killing themselves every two years, doesn’t it?”

“
Look,” Brent said, his voice chilly, “you just started here. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Steve tapped Brent on the back. “Yeah. It was usually about midterms or finals and everyone who knows the person who . . . dies agrees that they hadn’t been acting like themselves. They all had majorly traumatic breakdowns. Too much pressure. There’s no mystery.”

“
Maybe.” Cherie leaned in, lowering her voice, her blue eyes wide with enthusiasm. “I’ll let you know what I find out at our next investigation.”

“
When?” Steve asked. Even though I doubted he believed in ghosts, he wasn’t about to let that stop him from any activity Cherie was involved in.

“
I haven’t decided that yet. It didn’t sound like you’d be interested.”

“
We wouldn’t miss it.”

“
Yes, we would.” Brent slammed one hand down on the table while his other one crumpled his napkin and tossed it on his plate. He pushed his chair away from the table and jerked up. “I’ve got to go.”

“
Brent?” I asked as he turned to go.

“
I’ll catch up with you later.” He gave me a tight smile that didn’t go further than his lips. I stared after him, wondering what exactly had happened.

****

After lunch, I was in the library, picking up the textbooks I needed for my classes. I had already double checked my list to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, so I arranged my books by size and hefted them into my arms, trying to balance the unsteady stack.

“
I thought I might find you here.” I glanced around my book tower and found Brent smiling at me.

“
Hey,” I said. “You okay?”

Brent raised a fingernail to his teeth, then shook his head and dropped his hand. “Yeah.”

“
Really? Or do you just not want to talk about it?” I adjusted the top book with the tip of my chin.

“
Need a hand with those?”

I nodded and he took all but two from my arms. “I guess that means you don’t want to talk about it.” He didn’t say anything just tucked my books under one of his arms. “You just seemed ticked or something when Cherie started talking about the curse.”

He gritted his teeth. “What is wrong with your friend, anyway?”

“
What do you mean?” I followed him into the library’s elevator and pushed the button for the first floor. He didn’t answer, he just stared straight ahead, and I shuffled my feet in the awkward silence until the doors of the elevator slid open with a slight squeak that echoed across the deserted floor.

“
Well it isn’t exactly normal to take such a morbid interest in people’s deaths,” he said finally. We walked toward the nearest study area, with two arm chairs, a table, and a sofa illuminated by a large stained glass window. Blue, red, and green rainbows danced across the table.

“
That’s not it. She wants to help, she wants to—”

“
Solve the big mystery? Why do the over-worked, under-praised students of the most elite prep school on the West Coast kill themselves? The answer is in the question.” Brent dropped my heavy stack of books on the table and sagged into one of the chairs.

“
It’s more than that. Cherie has this need to prove there is life after death, that the universe is bigger than science can explain.” I took a deep breath. “She had just started dating my brother right before he died.” I waited for Brent to respond in some way, but he didn’t. “His death really rattled her. Ever since then she’s been obsessed.” I didn’t mention that even Cherie’s popularity at our old school hadn’t stopped people talking about her.

“
Why Pendrell?”

“
You have ghost stories, curses, the best education, and it’s close to home. How could she not choose to come here? It has everything she wants.”

“
Well, tell her to back off. Every year some stupid person brings up the curse and—”

“
She isn’t stupid.” My hands clenched my books tightly, digging them painfully into my chest.

Brent gave me a level stare to let me know he didn’t agree.

“
She isn’t stupid,” I repeated. “I mean, this place is downright creepy sometimes. You can feel that, right?”

“
Creepy?”

I focused on the stained glass window, noting the graceful design of the roses. “Yeah.”

Brent rested his elbows on the table leaning toward me. “Like footprints in her room, dark, ghostly presences, and a feeling like someone is following her.”

My tongue felt numb, and my fingers tingled. “Exactly. That is exactly what she saw,” I lied. I knew I was being a coward, but I still wasn’t ready to admit it was me who had experienced these things. Brent wasn’t like the kids I had fought with as a child. The muscles in my shoulders relaxed. “How did you know?”

“
Because it’s in every piece of trash book that is out there about the supposed curse.”

I felt like I had been blindsided by a semi. “But she did see it.”

“
Then you’re right; she isn’t stupid,” Brent agreed. “She’s crazy!”

A sensitive internal trigger fired a series of disjointed but powerful images behind my eyes: Grandma talking to nothing but the air in public places, the pointing and taunts that followed. Only in this case he’d called Cherie crazy. Only it wasn’t really her; it was me. That nagging fear that had worried me since childhood became a reality: I had just been called crazy. The room spun for a moment and I figuratively felt myself join the ranks of my lineage. Had each of them had someone they cared for flippantly dismiss them the way Brent had just dismissed me? Apparently, Brent was no different than the other close-minded people who had ridiculed my Grandma, and now me.

“
She isn’t crazy either,” I said through clenched teeth, my fingers clamping tighter on my book.

“
If it looks like it should be in a straight jacket and it talks like it should—”

I really hadn’t planned to do it but before my brain had a chance to veto the idea, I chucked my five-pound calculus book at him. It soared through the air and clocked him right in the temple. There was the loud thud of the book making contact with his cranium, and then a clatter as the book bounced off the table and landed on the floor. It was probably the most effective and satisfying use the book would get all year.

He rubbed his head while glaring and swearing at me. I hesitated before retrieving my textbooks and stalking off without a word.

Chapter 4

Kicking hard, I struggled to swim up toward the air that my lungs were burning to breathe. My legs flailed and my hands clawed, but the tightening crush of water told me I was still sinking. With a sickening realization, I knew it was my gown that held me captive. Frantically I tried to free myself from the confused tangle my dress had become, but my panicked fingers were unable to undo a single button.

My knotted hair and ripped dress swirled around me like a beautiful ethereal dream, hypnotizing me, twirling in the water with enticing promises of what awaited me once I surrendered to my inevitable fate. I’m drowning; I accepted it as the hazy black edges of my vision started to spread into the center of my sight. My eyes were drifting closed in defeat when I saw him, swimming toward me and I fervently wished he had been a few moments earlier, because I knew he was already too late.