The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall

 

My mood sank instantly. “To leave,” I said. “They need to leave and never come back.”

 

“All right, then,” Eliza said. “What are we going to do to make that happen?”

 

I looked at her, feeling equal parts gratitude and confusion. “We?”

 

The pink in her cheeks intensified. “I couldn’t help you,” she said. “I might as well do what I can for your family.”

 

*

 

Mom cooked dinner in the superintendent’s kitchen and served it on paper plates. Janie took her food and went to eat by herself on the couch while Mom sat at the table with a paperback. After they’d finished eating, my sister got the red suitcase and started for the door to the hallway.

 

Mom jumped to attention. “Are you going upstairs now? I’ll come.”

 

“Mother, could you just … not?” Janie said. “I’m fine. I can be alone for five minutes without you fawning all over me.”

 

Mom tried to look light and carefree, but the effect was miserable. Her face contorted like a sad mask. “Sorry. Are you sure you’re okay up there alone?”

 

“Relax,” Janie snapped. “You’re making me so nervous.”

 

Mom was silent, and my sister relented.

 

“I’ll be fine,” Janie said, flipping her hair the way she used to—only now it was habit, not affectation. “It’s fine.”

 

Her niceness seemed to soothe some wild fear in our mother. “Okay,” Mom said, her face still plasticky bright. “See you in a bit, sweetie. I guess you can text me if you need anything. Thankfully they put in that cell tower up the highway. It’s like we’re living in the twenty-first century again!”

 

“Sure,” Janie said. Then she walked out.

 

My mother gave a little sigh and went back to her book.

 

 

 

 

 

MY FAVORITE MEMORY OF JANIE

 

 

It was almost Halloween, which is one of those holidays that’s extremely important to kids and extremely useless to parents. Mom and Dad had a history of forgetting to get our costumes until the last possible minute. When I was thirteen and Janie was eight, we decided to take matters into our own hands. So one day after school, we raided their closet.

 

I grabbed an old flannel shirt Mom had never thrown away and put together a nineties grunge look, but we were having a harder time finding something for Janie … until we dug through an overflowing shelf and found a ruffly apron. I remembered seeing it on pictures of my great-grandma. We hauled it out and then unearthed a full skirt and a simple white blouse.

 

“Voilà,” I said, tying the apron strings into a bow behind her back. “You’re a housewife.”

 

She wrinkled her nose at herself in the mirror. “It’s not enough.”

 

“Come on, then,” I said, leading her out to the kitchen and opening the pantry door. “We’ll get you some props.”

 

I handed her a broom, which she rejected with a sneer, so then I gave her a mop, which, for some reason obvious only in eight-year-old logic, was acceptable.

 

“What else?” she asked.

 

“You need a hand free for your candy,” I said.

 

“I can wear a purse on my arm and put the candy in that,” she said. “But I need more. I still don’t look like anything.”

 

“I know!” I said. “Wait here.”

 

I ran back to my room and dug through my jewelry box for a strand of fake pearls. When I got back to the kitchen, Janie was holding the mop in one hand and a teapot in the other.

 

“Better now,” she said.

 

I didn’t want to laugh at her, but I couldn’t really stop myself. “You look like you’re hosting the weirdest tea party ever.”

 

She set down the teapot, then opened a cabinet and pulled out a frying pan, struggling to manage everything with the mop wedged into her armpit.

 

“Better?” she asked. “Like, for making cookies?”

 

“What—? Janie. You honestly think cookies are made in frying pans?”

 

She blinked at me, clueless.

 

“Here,” I said, picking the teapot up and tucking it in the crook of her elbow. “Now. You’re the perfect housewife.”

 

For a second, she believed me, and then I busted out laughing so hard that tears exploded down my face. Janie took a few seconds to decide whether to be angry, and then she started laughing, too.

 

Mom came home a couple of minutes later and stared at us, confused, as we gasped and wheezed for air. “What are you girls doing?”

 

“What?” I asked. “Don’t you want some of Janie’s fried cookies?”

 

Janie waved the mop at Mom. “Come to my tea party!” she said, in a demonic, gravelly voice. “Come to my tea party and mop my floors!”

 

And then we basically lost our minds laughing while our mother, who had never taught us anything about house-wifery and therefore only had herself to blame, stared at us as if we’d turned into aliens.