The Screaming Season (17 page)

I wondered if someone had called Dr. Ehrlenbach about Mandy’s injury. The school had to keep the Winters family happy. Not to imply that they were happy to start with. Unless he was skulking around us, Miles was always in rehab, and surely they noticed that their little princess was an imperious bitch.

As I sat at my little study desk, on my side of the room beside my closet, I saw that a message had come in on my cell. It had blipped in during the morning. I’d had a new message all day and hadn’t known it. I’d turned the ringer off in preparation for classes—if your phone went off, you lost it for a week. Not that anyone’s did, with our patchy cell cover. I hadn’t felt it vibrate in my backpack, either. Judging by the time—just after eight—it must have come in when I was on Jessel’s porch. I had always been able to get good reception there.

I thumbed over to the message in-box on my phone. My heart skipped a beat. Another beat. I stared at the faceplate. The message was from Riley.

I pressed listen.

“Hi, Lindsay? If you get this, I hope you’ll call me back...”

There was a pause.

“Heather and I were talking today, and she said you and she are in touch. And, well, she misses you as much as . . . as I do, Lindsay.”

My mouth dropped open.

“I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to forgive me for what I did to you. I’ve regretted it ever since it happened. God, I wish I could go back in time and have a do-over.”

Was this actually happening?

“I want you to know that if you could possibly give me another chance, I’d like that. If you’re coming home for spring break, please let me see you. And if you could call me back . . . Heather says your reception is bad. You might not even get this. Please let me know if you do. Bye.”

I stared at my phone as if it were a foreign object. I was tingling all over. He had broken up with Jane and called me.

He called
me
.

I tried to fully grasp it.

He
called
me.

Troy had broken up with Mandy and called me too. What was the probability of that? And of Riley, who had cheated, turning out to be the happier ending of the two? “ Whoa, slow down,” I said aloud. We weren’t even at the starting gate of a relationship. And what was it they said? Once a cheater, always a cheater.

What if
Troy
had been in Mandy’s room last night?

“Are you talking to yourself ?” Julie asked as she opened the door to our room and chugged on in, still wearing her shin guards and gym uniform—dark green sweatshirt, black shorts. She must be freezing. “God, I have, like, fifteen minutes before I see Dr. Morehouse. I have to take a shower and get dressed and—”

“This is so amazing. You’re not going to believe this,” I said, registering that she was seeing the good doctor at a time other than free period. I held up the phone.

“What?” She smiled hopefully. “Did Troy call?”

As she took off her sweatshirt, revealing her dark green Marlwood T-shirt, she hustled over and perched on the edge of my desk. Maybe someone less thoughtful would have flopped onto my bed in their muddy clothes, but not Julie.

I played the message on speakerphone. Julie giggled with pure joy and threw her arms around me. Of course she knew the whole Riley soap opera.

“That’s so great! Oh, Lindsay, he sounds so nice!”

“He sounds like a moron,” said a voice from the doorway. It was Miles, wearing all black, like his sister—black sweater and trousers and a long, black coat. With his ducktail in place, he looked like an edgy European model. The unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth only added to the effect.

Julie looked at him in abject terror. I hadn’t told her he was on campus. Or about our trip to the roadhouse. How could I? She would know without a doubt that I had gone completely insane. And if I told her why I’d done it—talked about possession—she’d probably have me committed.

“Riley’s not a moron,” I said steadily. “He’s very smart.”

Did you hurt your sister last night?

“Riley can’t even string two sentences together. C’
mon
, Lindsay. That’s the competition?”

What did he mean by that? Troy’s competition? Miles couldn’t be saying . . . his own competition?
No.
He was just being snarky. Still, my cheeks went hot and I made a show of setting down my phone.

“I have to get ready,” Julie said, sounding stricken. She gave Miles a look. “We’re not supposed to have boys in here.” She picked up her sweatshirt and held it against her chest. “She can get expelled for it.”

“She won’t,” Miles said. “Trust me on that one.”

All the color drained from Julie’s face as she scowled at him. Miles was on all of our America’s Most Wacko lists.

“Do you want me to get Ms. Krige?” she asked me.

“No, it’s okay. Go take your shower. Really, it’s okay,” I added when she shifted her weight from foot to foot, like a soccer goalie preparing to take down the enemy if he just got close enough. I loved her for it. When I first met her, she would never have stared anyone down, least of all Miles Winters.

Miles made a show of moving away from the door, arching backward like a bullfighter so she could dart past him. He smiled as he did it, not in a mean way, but she didn’t budge.

“Lindsay,” she said. “We should call someone.”

Miles pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and toyed with it. “I’m not a bad guy, like the Marlwood Stalker. Lindsay knows that.”

Julie looked at me, eyes wide with astonishment. When Miles smiled more brightly, she glanced nervously over at him, then back at me.

“I do not know that,” I replied.

“Neither do I,” Julie said. She shifted her weight again.

“Look.” Miles cocked his head. “If I really wanted to do something evil to her, would I actually come to your room?”

She huffed. Someone had attacked Julie at the beach house last fall, and we still didn’t know who. There were strict rules about boys on campus, but the rules didn’t apply to the Winterses. I wasn’t sure they even knew what rules were.

I gave Julie a little wave, telling her not to even bother with him. Obviously freaking, she crossed to her closet and pulled out some dark brown wool trousers, a wide belt, and a purple top, then a beautiful brown and gold brocade jacket. From her dresser she palmed what I imagined was some underwear, a bra, and some socks. She also grabbed her makeup bag. Throwing me one more questioning look, she left.

“How’s Mandy?” I asked him as soon as we were alone.

“Oh, God.” He slumped and walked to my window. From there he looked down at Jessel, the last rays of the sun etching his profile into the glass. “How is she? Well, she’s been better.”

He lifted his hands and rested them on the top of the white head. Jerking, he glanced down at it, then ran his hands down along the sides to the temples.

“Let’s see . . . ”

He picked up the head and carried it toward me. I fought to hide my revulsion. He tapped a marked-off section above the forehead marked with a large 7.

“She has contusions of the 7. Bruises,” he said. Raising his hands, he caressed the 7, then moved along the left and right sides of the head toward the temples, marked 11 and 12. “And some scrapes at the
undecim
and the
duodecem
. Not bad or deep, but painful.” Then he led with the back of his hand, allowing his fingernails to glide over the lips. “A tiny cut here. Just a nick.”

He ran his thumb along the outside line of the upper lip. It was sickening to realize he was fondling the head like some huge weird love object while he was talking about his own sister. His outrage at my comment at the roadhouse seemed even more off given how much he was baiting me.

He carried the head over to my bed and sat down, his back pushed up against the wall, and cradled it on his lap. He tapped the forehead. “Right there at the bull’s-eye. That was where Abernathy would aim the ice pick sometimes. But he also went through the eye socket. A few wiggles, taps of the hammer . . . ” He set the head on the nightstand and tsk-tsked.

“Why do you do it?” I asked him. “Work so hard at acting like a freak?”

He grunted. “Did you do group therapy when you had your breakdown? You have that same sort of confrontational style.”

“What happened to Mandy?” I asked him. “Did you beat her up?”

“What?”
He whipped his head toward me.

I waited. He folded his arms across his chest and frowned at me. A silence grew between us. After a few seconds, he unfolded his arms and chewed on his lower lip.

“I thought
you
knew what happened to her,” he said. “She won’t tell me. But she wants to see you. Alone.”

I jerked, startled. “Why?”

He lowered his head and looked up at me through his lashes. “You two have so much in common, no?” His voice shook. “And she and I . . . don’t.”

He sounded jealous, as though there had been a rift in their force. I didn’t understand him. I trusted him less. “Why are you acting so weird? Are you actually saying you’re jealous that you aren’t possessed? Were you in her room last night?” I asked.

His surprise seemed genuine as he shook his head.

“Excuse me, are you asking me why I’m upset? Have you completely forgotten what’s happened to us in the last twenty-four hours? Have you
seen
my sister? She’s hurt.”

I didn’t stop to point out that
upset
and
weird
were not synonyms.

“There was a guy in her room last night. I thought it might have been you.”

A beat. “A
guy
?” He looked astonished.

“And today she’s got contusions of the seven,” I said.

A red flush washed up his neck and spread across his face. He pushed up off my bed, straightening, feeling in his pockets as if he were assuring himself that he had something. What? A gun?

“I’ll kill him.”

“I didn’t see who it was,” I said quickly. “Don’t jump to conclusions.”

In a fury, he headed for the door. “Oh, please.”

“Miles, don’t.” I got up and followed him. He kept going. I reached out and tugged on his sleeve.
“Don’t.”

He shook me off. “Why not ? He charmed you too. Mr. Charming, stringing everyone along, so tortured and niceynice-nice, confusing her,
hurting
her.”

I reached out and tugged again. “Miles, wait! Stop!”

He whirled on me. “Why? Why should I?”

A high-pitched scream shattered the fury between us. It came from down the hall, toward the front door. We looked at each other, then bolted out of the room, racing like one person toward the sound.

FOURTEEN

I STOPPED THINKING as I ran in the direction of the scream. I operated on pure adrenaline, my only aim to help whoever was screaming. I pushed around Miles in the narrow hall; he bashed against the wall, sending bad art flying, the frames clattering on the hardwood floor. If he yelled, I didn’t hear him.

I was all about the scream.

Wheeling left, I burst into a room to find Claire on her knees, doubling over, making retching sounds. I fell to the floor beside her, cupping the sides of her head and bending low to peer into her face.

Her eyes were bulging and she was gagging. In case she was choking, I formed a fist and pounded on her back. She shook her head wildly.

“Get me out of here, oh, God,” she whispered.

Miles took both her hands and urged her to her feet. I stood too, trailing after her as Miles dragged her out of the room. She was hiccuping and crying, and her free hand was around her wrist. At first I thought she was trying to get free of him, but then I saw that she was clinging to him. I followed, gazing back into the room. Once we were out, I shut the door.

“Ms. Krige!” I shouted.

“She’s not here,” Miles said. He pulled Claire down the hall, toward our front door, then stopped and bent his knees so he could look into her eyes. “What happened? Are you all right?”

Claire couldn’t stop shaking. I wanted to get her some cold water or find her a place to sit down, but as I moved, she let go of Miles and grabbed onto my forearm. Her eyes were enormous and pleading. She was shaking, and tears were cascading down her face. When I tried to speak, her fingernails dug painfully into my skin.

I walked her toward the door. Miles held it open and we burst out onto our porch. Claire practically propelled me down the path that led to Academy Quad. I gave Miles a stern look to back off and he slowed, then stopped, and Claire and I kept on going without him.

She leaned forward and made more heaving noises. Then she groped for me, as if she were blind. I held her tightly.

“Claire, you have to tell me what’s wrong,” I insisted. She was sagging against me. My back was spasming from the effort of trying to keep her from sliding into a puddle beside us. “Tell me
now
.”

“G-ghost,” she whispered. She choked back another scream. “In my room.”

I caught my breath. Before I could say anything, she went on in a rush. “Dr. Morehouse said it’s because I’m too stressed, but I really saw it. It wasn’t just a—a dream.” She grabbed at my shoulders as if she were going to climb up my body. “Lindsay, it was . . . ” She shut her eyes.

I pried her hands off my shoulders and gave them a squeeze. She wept hard, each sob a sharp contraction of her stomach. I glanced up at Miles, who was loitering about thirty feet away, watching us closely. My gaze drifted past him to Grose, my dorm. I couldn’t see into Claire’s room—it was on the opposite side of the hall, the windowless side—and at the moment, I was glad I couldn’t.

Then I looked over my shoulder at Jessel. My line of sight led directly into Mandy’s turret room. The curtains were open, and she was staring down at us. The white bandage looked like a ski headband. In the dim light, I couldn’t make out her expression. Then she moved away, disappearing from view.