The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall

 

So I lamely patted his shoulder. “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me. But I swear that’s not what’s happening here. I’m trying to make them go.”

 

“Well, for your own sake, as well as theirs,” Theo said, standing up straight once again, “see that it doesn’t take too long. All we are is energy. All we’re made of is the suggestion of what we were. And the longer you’ve been dead, the easier it is to forget who you were. Who you wanted to be.”

 

“I’ve never been who I wanted to be,” I said. “Even when I was alive. I think I might actually be a better person now … for all that’s worth.”

 

Theo blinked at me and reached his hand out, as if he were going to touch my arm. But at the last moment he pulled it away.

 

“Whoever you are,” he said, “whoever you were, I—I like you.”

 

Just put your stupid hand on my arm, I thought.

 

His expression turned stern, and the moment was gone. “But you still need to be careful.”

 

Then he vanished.

 

*

 

That night, I sat on the hallway floor between my mother’s and Janie’s rooms until they both clicked off their lights.

 

Mom called, “Good night, Jane. I love you.”

 

After a short silence, Janie reluctantly replied, “Good night.”

 

I closed my eyes and curled up on the floor, blurring my thoughts and memories, trying to fool myself into thinking that I was back among them, one of the family.

 

It almost worked. I was lulled into a deep, soft place, and something at the back of my heart began to blossom like a shy flower. For the first time in years, I felt warm, and loved, and safe. Even if it was just an illusion.

 

Then I heard a noise.

 

I shot up, ashamed that I’d let my guard down for even a few minutes. My family’s safety—not my loneliness—had to be the number one priority. I felt a wavering awareness that this might be the first sign that I needed to heed Theo’s warning.

 

I sneaked into Janie’s room and found her in bed, curled up under the covers. Her breath seemed even, and her eyes were lightly closed. I sighed with relief; she was perfectly fine. Still, no more resting for me.

 

I spotted the stack of Cordelia’s letters on the vanity table near the window. Laid flat next to them was the newest letter. I bent down to read it.

 

Dear Little Namesake,

 

It has now been years since we were last in correspondence. I apologize for writing out of the blue, most especially because of what I must write. But it is unavoidable, as I hope you will see and understand.

 

First, my confession. In all the letters I ever sent you, I never told you the real truth about myself. I can’t recall what I wrote, but I’m sure it must have been a lot of fluff. I was thrilled to have someone to write to, and I didn’t want to scare you away. I can honestly say that our period of letter writing was one of the nicest and least lonely times of my life. Now, I don’t say that to make you feel bad that we stopped … If you’ll remember, I never wrote back to you, either. We’re even on that score.

 

But now you are a young woman, not a child anymore, and very soon I am going to share something with you that is of a rather serious nature. It concerns me, and you, and our family history. And my home.

 

It is no ordinary home. It was once known as the Piven Institute for the Care and Correction of Troubled Females—or Hysteria Hall, if you were one of the local residents of Rotburg. The facility opened in 1866 with the aim of, well, caring for and correcting troubled females. It was started by my great-great-great-great grandfather, Maxwell Piven, immediately following the end of the Civil War. (I suppose a lot of women were left without husbands or suitors following all the bloodshed, and many of them may have been seen as troubled—or perhaps troublesome—to their families.)

 

Maxwell Piven was not, unfortunately, a tremendously nice man. He was rumored to be ruthlessly strict and abusive to the inmates here. At one point, he even institutionalized his own daughter, who up until that point had been the wardress, a female warden who oversaw the patients and their care.

 

That is only the background. The present situation is this: I was born here, and I have lived here all my life, and I begin to be afraid that I will die here. Because I cannot and have never seemed to be able to leave this place, no matter how I try.

 

But what worries me the most is that even in death I will not be free.

 

I will send more as soon as I can.

 

 

 

Okay, so she knew this place was messed up. But what did she want me to do about it? I looked back up at the date and my heart sank—she’d written this on February 25. Only a couple of weeks before her death. If things were really as bad near the end as I suspected they had been, when would she have written the rest of her message?