The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall

 

Not for the first time (or the last, it may be worth noting), my emotions were starting to get the better of me.

 

“Now hang on, sweetheart,” Dad said, and I could tell by the sweetheart and the note of anxiety behind his words that he was heartily wishing the situation had progressed differently.

 

Smash. When I hit the door for a third time, a shooting pain went down my left arm. I clutched my elbow and backed away, my breath coming in heavy huffs.

 

“You have to understand,” Dad said. “After what happened with spring break—”

 

“Go away.” My voice was low, but I knew they heard me.

 

Mom spoke in her most conciliatory tone. “Honey, we’re going to go call Carol, and then we’ll come back and work this out.”

 

Carol was the family therapist my parents had insisted we start seeing after the spring-break incident. She was nice enough, but mostly I just sat in her office staring at her collection of exotic conch shells while my parents tried to goad me into sharing my feelings.

 

“Yeah, do that,” I said. “Tell her you locked me up in an insane asylum. She’ll love it. Very empowering.”

 

There was an uncomfortable, shuffling pause. Then Mom’s voice piped up, faint and hesitantly hopeful. “Delia, if we opened the door now, what would you do?”

 

“Run,” I said. “As far from you people as I can get.”

 

I should have just lied. But seriously—what no one seemed to believe anymore was that, at heart, I’m actually an honest person.

 

My parents sighed in unison.

 

Then I spoke the last words they would ever hear from my earthly person.

 

“I hate you,” I said. “And by the way, tell Janie I hate her, too.”

 

After a moment of wounded silence, their reluctant footsteps led away.

 

 

 

 

 

OBSERVATIONS MADE AFTER THE FACT

 

 

I hate you. And by the way, tell Janie I hate her, too.

 

Let me tell you something.

 

On a cold and loveless night, when the silver moonlight drinks the color from the earth and the grass tumbles in the wind like waves tossed on an endless, angry sea …

 

That is not the kind of memory that keeps you warm.

 

 

 

 

 

I frothed and fumed by the door for a few minutes, but that kind of anger really saps your energy. It wasn’t long before exhaustion set in.

 

I walked over to the window to take a look at the storm. Clouds boiled on the horizon, gray upon gray piling together into a churning darkness. Rain had begun to advance across the vastness of the property—you could see it pulsing its way over the hills. Sharp, sudden bursts of wind shook the old glass panes in their frames.

 

Just at the crest of the hill, a dozen spidery tendrils of electricity emerged from the cloud like writhing fingers. Then thunder struck, so loud that my ears went momentarily numb. It came in rolls, constant and deafening, rumbling all the way into the center of my chest.

 

I stepped away from the window.

 

I started to have the odd feeling that this was, on some level, weirdly personal.

 

No, Delia. It’s just a storm. An act of nature.

 

But the room around me grew darker.

 

And it wasn’t the kind of darkness that comes with nightfall.

 

Something caught my eye at the seam where the ceiling and wall met above the window. A dark, oily-looking fog crawled along the plaster, winding its way down the vines on the wallpaper—as if it were part of the design.

 

Slowly, I turned around.

 

A pulsing layer of black smoke filled the room.

 

I watched as the smoke descended the walls, its movements hypnotic. It seemed to breathe, somehow—pausing with each inhale, going a little faster with each exhale …

 

I lost myself in watching it slide down toward me.

 

Then I became vaguely aware of a horrible creaking noise, like the building was going to collapse. Thumping footsteps in the hall outside. Shouting.

 

But all I could focus on was the smoke.

 

It reached the floor and sinewed along the grains of the floorboards and through the intricate weave of the carpet toward my feet. It began to coat my skin. I could feel it on my legs, even through my leggings—an irresistible velvety softness.

 

Though my thoughts had grown swirling and vague, some part of me knew this wasn’t good. I tried to back away, away, away from the grasping mist.

 

From a far-off place: banging on the door. Voices raised in panic.

 

But I wasn’t panicking. I wasn’t thinking at all.

 

Somehow the smoke found its way between the bricks and through the invisible seams in the plaster. It worked its way under the floorboards and baseboards, rippling beneath the wallpaper. The bed gave a short, sharp jerk, and the little stool fell to its side and rolled wildly around the room. Bells rang, and rang, and rang, and then cut off suddenly.