The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall
By: Katie Alender
Besides, what else was I going to do with the endless days that stretched before me? Clean toilets? Repair the plumbing? Play Yahtzee with Janie? Scroll through old pictures of me and my ex-boyfriend Landon on my phone?
As I crossed the threshold into the house, my father called to me. “Delia,” he said.
I turned, one foot in, one foot out, to look back at him.
“Don’t get too attached to this place, okay?” he said. “It’s not like you can stay here forever.”
OBSERVATIONS MADE AFTER THE FACT
Can’t stay forever, eh?
Wanna bet?
A sweet scent filled my nose the moment I crossed the threshold. I couldn’t place it right away, but it clouded the back of my mind with memories of sunny summer walks with Mom when I was younger—the bright blue sky overhead, the two of us picking tiny wildflowers …
Buttercups. That was the smell. Little yellow buttercup flowers.
After I figured that out, I could focus on looking around. The foyer was spacious, with a high ceiling, an elaborate chandelier, dark red wallpaper, and an antique couch off to the side. It didn’t resemble any foyer I’d ever seen, actually. It looked more like … a lobby.
To my left was a door. I looked at the metal plaque, darkened with grime, screwed into the wall next to it.
HEAD WARDRESS
Hmm. I had no idea what a wardress was.
“Delia?” Mom’s voice startled me. She and Janie stood oddly still on the far side of the room, staring at the wall.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “What’s a wardress?”
Mom let out a bitter half laugh, half sniff. “You’ll find out in a minute. Come here.”
I walked over.
On the wall before them was a large wooden plaque caked in a layer of dust. Hanging above it was the portrait of a handsome, severe-looking man in a suit and bowler hat.
Embossed on the panel, in old-fashioned block letters, were the words:
THE PIVEN INSTITUTE
FOR THE CARE AND CORRECTION OF TROUBLED FEMALES
FOUNDED 1866 BY MAXWELL G. PIVEN
“Hysteria Hall,” Mom said, her gaze locked on the writing. “The word hysteria originated from the Greek hystera, meaning ‘womb.’ Female hysteria was a blanket diagnosis applied to women for everything from schizophrenia to having too many opinions.”
Mom had a PhD in women’s studies. To put it mildly, she didn’t find stuff like this amusing. Janie and I heard the danger in her tone and didn’t comment.
“That’s Maxwell?” Janie asked, standing on tiptoe and reaching a finger up to touch the dried swirls of oil paint. “He looks mean.”
I batted her finger away. “He’s the founder of an insane asylum,” I said. “Not Mr. Rogers.”
The silence was broken by artificially cheerful whistling as Dad entered the room behind us. We all spun to face him at once.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“What’s up,” I said, “is that I’m the only sixteen-year-old I know who owns a mental hospital.”
He didn’t answer right away.
“Brad,” Mom said, a trace of sharpness in her voice, “you don’t seem surprised.”
“Oh no, I am,” he said. “I am. A mental hospital? That’s … not what I imagined.”
My mother folded her arms over her chest. “What did you imagine?”
Now Dad was starting to look a little uncomfortable. “A school, maybe? I mean, I didn’t know details. The lawyer told me it was some kind of institute, and that there was a recovery center interested in the property, once the structure was retrofitted …”
“Wow,” I said. “Way to keep all the important stuff to yourself.”
“What’s a recovery center?” Janie asked.
“Same thing,” I said. “A place for crazy people.” I crouched to pick up the bags I’d dropped, then started back for the front doors.
“Where are you going?” Dad asked.
“To the car,” I said. “We can’t stay here.”
“Of course we can. Where else would we stay?”
I stared at him in blank disbelief. “Um … how about anywhere that isn’t an abandoned mental hospital?”
Dad shook his head. “Don’t be overdramatic. Cordelia lived here her whole life, and—”
“And look what happened to her!” I said. “Exactly. I’m not staying.”
“If we don’t get this place to at least a basic level of safety and cleanliness, we can’t sell it,” Dad said. “And if we can’t do that as a family, then someday it will be all your responsibility. And you’ll have to do it alone.”
“Okay,” I said. “Sounds perfect. I’ll deal with it when I’m older.”
Not the answer my father had hoped to hear. He sighed. “We’ve already decided that this is what we’re going to do this summer. It’s a family project, and—”
“Some project. We do all the work, and Delia gets all the money,” Janie said, tossing her long blond hair haughtily over her shoulder. (I’d caught her practicing that move once in the mirror and thought it was a little too sad even to make fun of.)