The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall

 

 

My mother put her hands in her pockets. “I guess we should get everything inside.”

 

Janie shrugged and trudged through the knee-high weeds toward the front steps, but Mom called out to her. “Jane? Could you help me with the bags?”

 

Jane? She went by Jane now?

 

It’s fine, I thought, even though it felt like the floor had just dropped out from underneath me. Kids grow up. She’s not a baby anymore. She’s a teenager.

 

But Janie—sorry, she’d never be Jane to me—didn’t hurry back to help our mother. Instead, she froze, her shoulders rigid, and stared at the door for a second before she spun around, stalked back to the car, and wordlessly waited for Mom to pop the trunk.

 

“I know this isn’t your first choice—” Mom started to say. But Janie cut her off.

 

“I just don’t see why I have to be the pack mule when you’re the one who decided to bring almost everything we own.” She hoisted a bag over her shoulder and frowned. “Where are the keys?”

 

Mom’s lips pressed into an unhappy line, but she handed over the key chain. Then Janie reached back into the trunk and pulled out a scraped-up red suitcase.

 

I gasped. That had been my suitcase.

 

Trying desperately not to show that the stuff she was carrying was almost too heavy for her, my sister tottered up the steps and unlocked the front entrance. Then she went inside. The doors gaped open behind her, and I quickly moved to follow her into the house.

 

“Delia, hold on,” Theo said softly. “I think we should talk.”

 

I glanced back at him. There was something like worry in his expression. The prospect of spending time with Theo was tempting. But I didn’t have time to chat. I had my family back.

 

By the time I got inside, Janie had opened the door to the superintendent’s apartment and set down her bags. Mom came in carrying everything else—cleaning supplies, groceries, her laptop, pillows, sheets, blankets, a tote full of books (my mother never went anywhere without books). Then she ducked into the kitchen to put the food away.

 

When she came out, she looked around.

 

“Jane?” she called.

 

No answer.

 

“Jane!” I detected thinly-veiled panic in her voice. Could you blame her? Alarm rose inside me, too, like a tiny, quaking creature.

 

Mom dashed out to the lobby and threw open the front doors to look outside—was she making sure the car was still there? Then she went back inside and down the main hall, pausing to listen for any sign of my sister. Finally, she climbed the stairs and walked across the day room to the ward door. I trailed close behind her.

 

In the ward, she made it almost all the way to the end of the hall before stopping outside Room 4 and letting out a massive sigh. Over her shoulder, I saw Janie sprawled on the bed, her eyes closed and earbuds in, with tinny music spilling out of them.

 

“Jane,” Mom said loudly. My sister lazily opened her eyes, and plucked out one of her headphones. “Honey, why didn’t you tell me you were coming up here? You can’t just run off by yourself. You could get lost in this place.”

 

Not likely. I remembered the hand-drawn map on Nic’s phone. At some point, my sister had done some unauthorized exploring.

 

“Please,” Janie said. “I’m not a little kid.”

 

“Why don’t you come downstairs?” Mom asked.

 

But Janie just stuck the earbud back in her ear.

 

“Why on earth have they returned?” Eliza asked, popping in by my side.

 

I looked at my mom, who was clenching her fists in an effort not to lose her cool.

 

“To get the place ready to sell, I guess,” I replied.

 

“How would you know? Have they said?” Eliza turned her reproachful gaze toward my mother. “Surely someone else could have handled the details for them.”

 

“Who knows?” I said. “Maybe they don’t have enough money to hire people.”

 

After all, with Dad out of the picture, Mom was having to make ends meet with one salary instead of two.

 

But a plaintive, embarrassed voice deep inside me said, To see me. To be near me. I mean, sure, I was dead, but wouldn’t they naturally want to spend time at the place I’d died? To sort of … cherish my memory or something?

 

“Well,” Eliza said, bells jingling as she placed her hands on her hips, “I hope for their own sakes that they don’t stay long.”

 

I bristled with indignation.

 

“Oh, don’t get grumpy,” Eliza said. “You know what I mean. This place isn’t safe.”

 

I turned on her. “And yet you keep saying it’s fine.”

 

“I don’t—” She colored slightly. “It is fine, in some ways.”

 

“Like if you’re dead?”

 

“I suppose.”

 

“Yeah, well, news flash,” I said. “I wasn’t dead until I came here.”

 

She narrowed her eyes. “What’s a ‘news flash’?”

 

“Forget it,” I said.

 

“Anyway, whose side are you on?” she asked. “Do you want them to stay or leave?”

 

I stared at Mom for a beat. She and Janie had just finished a mini-argument that left them both hurt and angry.