The Screaming Season (21 page)

“C’mon, row, row, row my boat.”

In the dark, she grinned like the Cheshire cat. Her white teeth were perfect, the best that money could buy. She was skinny-wiry. Rowing across the lake by herself would take her forever. I relented, moving beside her, lifting the left oar out of the oarlock and pushing against the lake bank. We began to move.

“I’m not a big fan of this lake,” I muttered as I looked up at the back of Jessel. A light was on. Second floor, on the right—probably Alis and Sangeeta’s room.

“Did we tell you the story about the school bus?” she asked me. “Rolling around down there, all the kids frozen . . . ”

“It’s an urban legend. They tell the same story about Lake Tahoe.” I had been so disturbed by the story that I had checked it out on the internet. “And why on earth would you tell me such a freaky story when we’re both already wigging out? What drives you?”

“I like to get a reaction out of you.” She pulled off my cap with her free hand. “You’re just so easy, flopsy top.”

“Hey.” What was up with her? If this was what happened to her after a little bit of alcohol, I was all for it. “If you’d been this nice in the first place, I would have joined your coven.”

Mandy guffawed. “Wrong. You came here with a chip on your shoulder the size of a surfboard. You were too good for Marlwood. Because you are a decent, honest, poor person and we are spoiled bitches.” She fluttered her lashes. “God bless us every one.”

I began to deny it, but she was right. That was how I’d felt. Still felt, mostly.

“My dorm mates are very nice.” I sounded like a prim and proper librarian.

“Coo, lovey,” she said in a Cockney accent. “You just ain’t done nuffin’ to piss ’em off. Blimey, guvnah.” She dipped her oar in the water, lifted it, and watched the droplets plink into the cold, black lake. “I came here pissed off to start with.” She took off her cap and gave her shiny hair a toss. “I admit it freely.”

“And you thought you-know-who could help with that.”

“Belle,”
she mouthed. “Yeah, I did.”

“So I guess it’s true that blondes are stupid.”

“Me-
ow
.”

“Whatevs.”

“We should row. Put your back into it, Linz.”

We glided across the water, working out a rhythm. Mandy didn’t shirk. Fog clumped in bunches on the surface, then floated away, swanlike. Swan ghosts.

A bird cawed. The water rippled and I tensed, remembering times it had seemed as if Celia would rise from the lake. Or from the depths of my mind.

In less time than I would have expected, we made it to the center of the lake. I stuck my feet through the neck hole of one of the orange life vests and gazed out at Marlwood. The other time I’d rowed across the lake, I’d been too intent on saving my own life to take in the view. Victorian silhouettes, treetops, the cupola of Founder’s Hall, and, on the highest rise, the admin building. Lights were blazing on the upper floors of the admin building, as if to reassure us that the grown-ups were on duty. That did nothing to make me feel better.

Lights were out in Jessel and Grose, our dorms. Ghosts walked there at night. Tormented us, watched us—envied us. Wore our faces and played make-believe. Plotted and planned.

“I hate this place,” Mandy whispered. “I wish it would all burn down.”

“I could help with that.”

“We’d never get away with it.” She sounded as if she’d already thought it through. “Even my dad’s lawyers have their limits.”

“Scruples. How refreshing.”

My arms were getting tired and I wanted to get off the lake. I felt like we were tempting fate, rowing along, laughing and joking. The oars dipped in layers of white fog and then black water. The moonlight leeched all the color from us, as if we were one of the old sepia prints on the fireplace mantel at Jessel—of inmates, I now knew. Of Belle.

The boat rocked, and I caught hold of the bench with my non-rowing hand. Then I accidentally glanced into the water, bracing myself for seeing Celia’s face. But she wasn’t there. Mandy raised up and looked down beside me. No Belle, either.

Mandy patted my shoulder. “Who knows ? Maybe after this, we’ll become friends. We have all these villas and things—”

“Sure, yeah, okay,” I said blandly. “It’ll be supercool fun.”

“
Why
are you always so sarcastic?”

“
Why
are you always so full of it? Julie had to find alternate transportation back here, thanks to you.”

“You don’t know that whole story. I—” Her voice changed. “Lindsay, look, there’s something in the water. It’s swimming toward us.”

I jerked and raised my oar out of the water. “Where?” I cried, half rising.

“Stay down.” She raised her oar too and pointed at the stern. “Eleven o’clock, on your side. See it?”

I stared hard. Fog rolled toward us, obscuring the moonlight, making it harder to see. I craned my neck as my heart jackhammered against my ribs. The water was obsidian shadow against ebony depths with no variation, except . . .

“Wait. Yeah,” I said under my breath. “I see it.”

A streak in the water, streaming straight at the boat. Reflexively, I lifted my feet and swallowed, hard.

Mandy shrieked with laughter.

“Psych!”

Livid, I balled my fist and socked her on the arm.

“Ow, ow!” she shouted. “Child abuse! Child abuse!”

“Shut up!” I hissed. “Oh, my God, Mandy!”

“I’m sorry.” Chortling, she rubbed her shoulder. “It was just . . . there. Waiting to be done. It would have been a waste of a good prank not to have done it.”

“What
is
it with you and pranking?” I asked, clenching my jaw. “Some kind of fetish?”

“I don’t know. It’s sick.” She sighed and picked up her oar. “I first contacted you-know-who as a prank.”

“And that went well.”

She was quiet for a moment. “It did, for a while.”

The bottom of the boat made a scraping sound; we’d reached the other side of the lake. I was so relived I nearly wet my pants. Without waiting for my orders, I jumped out and dragged the boat farther onto land. I couldn’t wait to get out of the boat. I’d give anything to hitch a car ride back.

“Come on,” Mandy said, putting on her cap as we doubled over and crawled from the loamy earth into a stand of pine trees. Beyond that, there was a crumbling stone wall, very picturesque. Mandy led the way along it, then stepped over a ruined heap of rubble. A well-worn trail through wild grasses proved the popularity of our route.

“Voila,” she said.

Across a vast lawn dotted with semicircular benches of white marble, brick walkways, and a large fountain sprawled a three-story white and brick colonial-style building. It was topped with a rotunda, like the White House, and white columns held up an overhang that sheltered the entrance. The glass doors formed a panorama window, and through it, ferns in marble urns flanked a reception desk that looked like it belonged in a posh hotel.

“
Sacrebleu,
it’s so cheerful,” I said.

“Whisper, tea leaf.”

She gestured for me to follow her as she darted to the right, feet crunching on white gravel. There was no fog on their ground. We ran past brick walls covered with ivy, turned left into an alley, and exploded out of the darkness onto what appeared to be a soccer field. Overhead lights beamed down on lush grass; Mandy skirted the yellow circles, zooming along the perimeter. She was a blur of black, like a cat.

It had occurred to me when we’d left Marlwood that if Mandy and I had a fight, I’d have to get back to campus on my own. But now, as we cruised the warren of miniature alleys and identical brick buildings, I knew I would have to stay on her good side. Short of a GPS or ghostly intervention, I would never find my way out of Lakewood alone.

About midway down our sixth or seventh alley, Mandy screeched to a halt and put one of her boots on the rung of a ladder obscured by ivy. It clanged. She giggled and began climbing like Spider-Man. I knew I was supposed to follow, and I wondered if Miles had been wrong about my physical condition. I was winded, and my lungs hurt. It seemed to me that my pneumonia had been real enough.

With hardly any pauses, Mandy rocketed all the way to the top of the three-story building. Then she hung over the side of the building, calling sotto voce for me to hurry up. I was wheezing. I made the mistake—only once—of looking down, and even though I had farther to go up than down, a rush of vertigo hit me.

Mandy kept gesturing at me and I finally made it up. As I swung my leg over the wall on the roof, sweat congealed into ice and I shivered. But Mandy was already headed for a door. She squatted beside it, pulled out a loose brick, and showed me a swipe card inside a plastic bag. She ran it through the door’s card reader and the lock yielded with a click.

I held the door open while she put the key back in the bag and replaced the brick. I’d have been happier if we’d kept it. Then Mandy scooted around me and headed down a pitchblack staircase. I could hardly hear her footfalls. Stealth Mandy.

She’d already told me the plan. As an honor senior, Troy got his own little suite, with a sitting room, a bathroom, and a separate bedroom. And most importantly a balcony, which was how we would enter without being detected.

Troy usually stayed up very late, at least until one, because he was a night owl with a sweet final-semester schedule that allowed him to sleep in. I could verify that much—I’d talked to him on the phone late, whenever I could get a connection.

We went out the back door of the building to a landing. Facing us, Troy’s white balcony jutted toward us. There was a space between our landing and his of approximately two feet. All we had to do was climb up onto the rail, balance for one terrifying moment, take one giant step, then grab the white wrought-iron wall of the balcony and climb down.

Mandy went first. She scrambled up onto the railing and opened her arms for balance. As she hovered, I looked down at the rectangle of crushed white rock below. If you fell three stories onto gravel, would you die?

I thought of the hours of begging and demanding Celia had subjected me to, insisting that the only way I would ever be free of her was to kill Mandy Winters. I braced myself for another barrage now.

Nothing.

Mandy extended one leg, balancing like a gymnast. The wind picked up. I held my breath, wondering why she was taking so long. I still didn’t trust her. And now, on this crazy night, I wasn’t sure I trusted myself. I stayed back, arms folded, and waited.

“Oh,
God
,” Mandy whispered.

I gasped, running toward her, arms extended in case I had to catch her. And then, just as I reached the rail, she pushed off, cleared the space, and balanced on the balcony wall. Then she stepped gracefully down.

She’d faked me out again.

She gestured for me to hurry up, mouthing,
“I’ll catch you.”

The wind blew harder. A cloud crossed the moon, dimming my vision. Not sure, not sure at all.

And then suddenly, wildly, I climbed up, stepped into thin air, and found the balcony with my Doc Marten. I fell into Mandy’s arms and she caught me. Then she lowered me to the balcony deck and kissed me on the lips.

“Blech, Mandy,” I managed, but I was so pumped from making it across the gap alive that I smiled as I pushed her away. She put her finger to her lips, reminding me to be quiet.

Then she crooked her finger and we tiptoed around the side of the balcony. A light beamed brightly, and I could hear Troy’s voice. He was talking to someone.

“His bedroom,” she said.

“This is stalkerish,” I whispered, and she nodded happily.

We reached the window. The curtains were pulled back. A dim light shone. Mandy bent beneath the glass, staying out of range. I did too. On a silent count of three, we raised our heads.

Mandy pointed downward. Troy’s bed was up against the wall beneath us. He sat with his back against it, wearing a white T-shirt, gray sweats, and bare feet, and he was on the phone. From my vantage point, I could see the faceplate. There was a picture of a girl with short reddish-brown hair.

“Yeah, I got it today,” Troy said. He reached down beside himself on the bed and picked up a sheer piece of red fabric. I gaped. It was a
thong
. “Under my pillow, you know it.”

“That
pig
,” Mandy whispered fiercely. She reached up as if to knock on the window. I grabbed her hand.

“Not worth it,” I whispered. I was crushed. Troy was a pig. Troy. He’d just broken up with us, and he was getting underwear from another girl?

Were all guys just one guy ? A handsome jerk who pretended to like you, then cheated on you?

While I pondered, Mandy pounded on the window, hard. I collapsed into a little ball.

“Yeah,
you
!” she shouted.

“Oh, God,” I muttered, lifting my head and resting it against the wall.

A few seconds later, I heard a sliding glass door. Then Troy emerged, without the phone, his face a mixture of guilt, embarrassment, and anger. He was looking at Mandy. But as I got to my feet, he stared at me. He looked like a fish. If I could have laughed, I would have.

“Hi,
Thongboy
,” Mandy said, stomping over to him. “So I got pushed down by the lake and I passed out, and when I woke up, the choker you gave
Lindsay
for her birthday was lying on the ground next to me.”

“Oh, my God, Mandy, are you okay?” he asked, peering at her forehead. He looked at me. “What happened to you guys?”

“I told you, I was pushed. She fell off a motor scooter. But someone jumped out so she would swerve. And we think it’s you.”

“What? Why?”

We were clearly light-years ahead of him.

“Because when
I
woke up, there was a red thong lying on the ground,” I deadpanned.

Mandy whooped with impressed delight. She high-fived me as Troy stood there, sputtering.