The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall (21 page)

I
started to take a step toward her, but she held up a hand.

“Halt,” she said. “Just wait right there, if you please. There’s another guest coming to this party, and I’d hate for you to miss her.”

The door opened behind me. “Delia … ?”

I spun around and found myself looking into my sister’s eyes. I’d tried to brace myself, but nothing could have prepared me for the sight.

They were wide, amazed.

Don’t fall for it,
I told myself.
It’s a trick.

But there wasn’t a glimmer of evil in Janie’s expression.

“Delia, is it really you? Can you hear me?”

I tried to block out the sound of her voice saying my name—it cut too deeply, right to my core, and brought back too many memories, too much pain.

“I can’t believe it,” Janie said. “You’re
here
. There’s so much I need to tell you.”

I took a step back. “No,” I said. “You’re not my sister.”

“But, Deedee, you know I am. Of course I am.”

She spoke like my sister. She reasoned like my sister. I began to feel that I’d be willing to let the house do whatever it wanted, if only I could see and talk to my sister. Maybe there was some kind of deal we could strike.

No. No. That was exactly what the house was trying to do to me—use my sister to break down my defenses.

“What did Mom used to say to us?” I felt like I was going to choke on my own sadness. “Every night before bed, when we were young?”

She smiled tenderly. “You tell me.”

“Just say it, Janie,” I said. “And then I’ll know it’s you.”

Her smile faltered.

“You don’t know,” I whispered. “Because you’re not her. You’re just a monster.”

She shook her head. “This makes me so sad …”

“ ‘And though she be but little, she is fierce,’ ”
I said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

I pulled the salt from behind my back and threw it at my sister’s face.

She gasped and tried to block it with her hands, but it was too late. She began to choke, to make sounds as if she couldn’t breathe, and a look of pure rage came into her eyes. She began to stalk toward me, but she was quickly growing weak. Halfway across the room, the life seemed to drain out of her, and she collapsed to the floor.

I watched her for a few beats, until I saw her chest rise and sink with a breath.

Florence broke the silence with a low chuckle. “Well, sugar, looks like it’s just you and me. I suppose you saw what I did to your friend upstairs.”

“I did,” I said. “And she was your friend, too.”

“ ‘Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.’ ”
She grinned, pleased with herself. “You’re not the only one who knows a little Shakespeare.”

“What are you after?” I snapped. “What do you think you’re going to accomplish? What good is it keeping people trapped here?”

“Well, honey, on that line of thinking, what good is anything?” she asked, delicately twisting the ends of her hair around a slender finger. “Why question the
why
of things that simply
are
?”

“Just answer my question,” I said.

She patted the sofa next to her. “You come sit down, and we’ll have a nice little talk.”

I walked across the room and perched on the edge of the cushion. We both knew I’d listen, that I couldn’t just attack her, because I needed more information about the house if I was going to stop whatever was in it.

“I suppose you know Penitence,” Florence drawled. “Everybody knows Penitence. Penitence was in charge of the institute—I mean, under her old daddy, Maxwell. She did her best to run the place, but she was never good enough for him. She tried to be nice to the patients, be their friend. He just thought they oughtta be taught to behave. One day she ran off and got herself married without his permission. And then there was going to be a baby. But her husband fell off a horse and died, and she had to come back. Well, her daddy promised he would welcome her, and he did—but not as the wardress. Oh, no. He thought she needed to learn a lesson, so he admitted her as a patient. And when that baby was old enough to walk and talk, he took it away. He kept Penitence on the second floor and sent her baby to the third floor.”

I reeled.

Maria.

“How do you know all this?” I asked.

“I was friends with the wardress who took over when Penitence was committed. She told me all the gossip. She said Maxwell got worse, treating the patients more strictly with every passing year. But Penitence turned as meek as a little mouse, and eventually he trusted her a little. And do you know what I think happened? I think she took that trust and killed him with it. And it just happened to be on the same night that the little brat took a thousand-volt swim with a third-floor nurse.”

I nodded.

Florence leaned forward, an eager spark in her eyes. “I believe a great power was born here that night. The very ground beneath us was defiled, and it began to drink in the misery, loneliness, and confusion of its inhabitants. It
craved
the sadness that seeped through the walls of the house like blood.”

The way she spoke reminded me of the way my sister used to talk about the boy bands she liked. Florence was totally fangirling the evil spirit.

“Things changed. Women who came here—not all of them, but some of them—stopped getting better. Girls who should have gone home after a month or two showed no improvement at all. Some went mad. Some died. Some tried their best to get out, and had to be made to stay, if you know what I mean. What am I saying? Of course you do.

“It was the truly troubled girls who had it the worst—not us third-floor girls, but anyone with a secret. Something buried, that was eating away at them. Like our little friend, Eliza, for example. The house latched on to girls like that, girls who carried the scent of pain when they passed through the halls. It took hold and decided not to let them go.”

“Were you one of those girls?” I asked.

She smiled warmly. “Yes, I was, thank you for asking.”

“Why were you locked up, Florence?”

“I suppose I was just tired,” she said airily. “In need of a little rest.”

“What did you do?” I pressed. “Getting sent to the third floor is a pretty big deal.”

“What do you think I did?” she asked. “A pretty little Southern belle … I couldn’t hurt a fly, could I? Gentle as a kitten, wasn’t I?”

As gentle as a kitten, and with the razor-sharp claws of a kitten, too. “Is that what people thought?”

“It’s what they all thought.” Her eyes flashed. “Do you know that my mother had the nerve to be ashamed of me? After everything she’d sacrificed, I still couldn’t make it work, she said. I was scaring the men away, she said. I was too obvious—too
desperate
for love. She said once a man smelled a hint of desperation, nothing could keep him around. Not even my looks … which were fading, she said.”

The bitterness saturated her voice like dye seeping into a cloth.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“I killed her,” Florence said simply. “The day after my fiancé changed his mind, I felt awful for letting her down—I really did. I went out walking and brought her back a bouquet of flowers … buttercups. I took them to her room, where she was laid up with a headache, because of me. I held them out to her, and she said—I’ll never forget—
Why would you bring me a pack of weeds, Florence? God knows I’ve got enough reminders that you’ve been unable to bloom where you were planted.
”

Her eyes clouded over with something like nostalgia—a gentle sadness.

“Terrible last words, don’t you think? So what I did was, I told her to sit up and I would fluff up her pillow for her. I even got out her favorite music box—I thought the song was more than fitting.”

“ ‘Beautiful Dreamer’?” I asked.

“Oh, you know it? Then I took the pillow, and I smothered her with it. Oh, it was a struggle. She was strong. But I was stronger. And do you know, I think I just
wanted
it more.”

The self-satisfied glint in her eyes turned my stomach.

“So they sent me here, along with my music box, and it was the making of me. I found something precious and important. Something worth protecting. I found the house’s
soul
,” she said, savoring the word. “I spent time with it, shared my pain with it. You see, I was used to being taken care of, told what to do, petted, admired—I didn’t like looking after myself. All my life, I’d had my mama, and suddenly she was gone. So I found something new: The
house
became my mama. It took care of me. It protected me. I sat for many happy hours playing that music box and just soaking in the love.

“The problem is, I was so happy and well-behaved that they moved me down to the second floor. But my new room wasn’t the same at all. They didn’t let me take my music box. I could no longer feel the house’s spirit. My friend the wardress said it was time I learned to be like the other girls. But you know, I never was like other girls. I begged to go back upstairs, but she wouldn’t let me—said there wasn’t room. So I stole her keys and did something very brave.”

“You killed yourself,” I said.

She brightened and pointed toward the ceiling. “I swung from that very chandelier, honey.”

I looked up at the light fixture, which dripped with grimy teardrop-shaped crystals. And as I stared at it, an apparition faded into view—a beautiful girl’s body hanging limply, eyes closed, hair falling in rippling waves down over her shoulders, fingers slightly splayed as if she’d been caught by surprise.

Then the hanging girl’s lips curled into a smile, and her eyes opened. They were filled with black smoke, which slinked in narrow, grasping tendrils toward us. Florence walked over to the vision, letting one of the fingers of smoke travel gently across her cheek with the softness of a mother’s touch.

The girl’s body vanished, and Florence’s lips curled into an ugly, triumphant smile. “You can imagine how I felt when I woke up and found that I was part of the house at last. I could live here forever—in my home, where I belong. This house loves me, and I it. What the house wants, I want. And really, how much is it to ask for? A little obedience in exchange for a comfortable home … It’s our duty, if you think about it.”

Outside, the summer sun was high overhead, leaving the yard oddly shadowless.

“Anyway, that’s the long way round of telling you that I’m afraid you aren’t going to be allowed to leave us, honey,” she said. “Nor your sister, nor your mama.”

“That doesn’t work for me,” I said. “Sorry.”

She carefully smoothed her skirts, like a warrior adjusting her armor before the battle. “Oh, I’m sorry, too.”

I stood. We were the same height, standing eye to eye. “Florence.”

“Yes?”

“Let’s be clear,” I said. “I’m not afraid of some pathetic old control freak of a ghost.”

“You’re braver than you are smart,” she said, sneering. “If you haven’t sense enough to be afraid of me, I’ll just have to teach you to be. And it looks like you’re out of salt, sweet pea.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said.

Her eyes widened, mocking me. “I can’t wait to remind you of all these valiant words when you’re a crushed and broken smear of bones and blood on the floor.”

“I’m a ghost,” I said, letting my arms relax by my sides. “I don’t bleed.”

She was trying to seem lighthearted, but I could tell she was a little unnerved by my confidence. “You got some trick up your sleeve?”

“I don’t need tricks,” I said. “I’m stronger than you.”

She stepped toward me.

I
didn’t
need a trick. I really wasn’t afraid of her. I knew what she was fighting with, and what I was fighting with.

I called up the thoughts I usually fought to suppress—being trapped in the room with the smoke—watching my family drive away—Aunt Cordelia dragging herself down the driveway in the frigid morning air—Maria being hurt—Nic, pale and bleeding—my mother’s unfathomable pain—my sister sobbing with guilt, bearing the weight of my death—

The world began to vibrate around me.

Power filled my body as if I was summoning it out of thin air.

At the same time, Florence exploded with light. I heard a high-pitched wail as her strength grew.

And then we slammed into each other.

Our arms came together, our hands clasped, and we pushed against each other—not just with our physical forms, but with the strength of our innermost souls, our deepest feelings.

And that was how I knew I was going to win. Because I was fighting with love—to defend the people I cared about. To earn their safety and freedom.

Florence was fighting with fear. If she lost, she had nothing. Not even the memory of having been truly loved.

It was like arm wrestling, only with my entire being. The struggle was somehow about the right to occupy the space we were both in. To extinguish the other’s energy would leave the loser helpless against whatever revenge the winner chose to exact.

And Florence’s vengeance would be vicious, if she should win.

But she wasn’t going to win.

“The house doesn’t love you, Florence,” I whispered. “It’s incapable of love. It’s only using you because you’ll do as it says. Because it can control you, like your mother controlled you … but some dark part of you knows that, doesn’t it?”