The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall

 

 

“We found it,” Maria said. “Nurse Carlson and me. We were good friends. We liked cake, and we liked to explore sometimes when no one was watching. We found it in the kitchen one night, and it already had a piece cut out of it, so we thought we could have some, too. Only … it wasn’t a good cake. It was a very bad cake.”

 

“It was … poisoned?” I asked.

 

She nodded. Her sorrow seemed to fill the room, and she wilted like a flower petal. “We died. Nurse died first. She told me to run and get help for myself, but I loved her, so I couldn’t leave her there, cold and lonely. Then we both woke up, and we were … what we are. When the wardress found our bodies, she made them take us upstairs and make it look like we died in the bathroom—like I hurt Nurse. But I didn’t die in the bath. And I would never hurt Nurse. She was so good. She was my especial friend even when I was a baby. I don’t know why they did that.”

 

Probably because an insane inmate killing herself and a nurse was a lot better than two innocent people being inexplicably poisoned.

 

“I have hurt someone,” Maria was saying quietly. “I begged Nurse to eat the cake. It was my fault she died.”

 

“No, Maria,” I said. “It wasn’t. Did you ever find out who made the cake?”

 

She shook her head.

 

“All right,” I said. “That’s okay.”

 

I sat back, reflecting on what I’d learned about Maria’s life and death. And still trying to process the fact that Great-Aunt Cordelia, who was, like, a billion years old, had basically lived a Buffy the Vampire Slayer life, and we never had a clue.

 

“Wait,” I said. “The wardress that made them move the bodies—was her name Penitence?”

 

Maria blinked. “No.”

 

No, she couldn’t have been, because Maxwell was the one who committed Penitence. So it must have been someone new by that point. “Is she here—is she a ghost? The wardress?”

 

“No,” she said. “I don’t think so. She was here for a very long time, but they sent her away, after the other thing happened.”

 

“What happened?” Fresh hope bloomed in my heart. Maria obviously knew something important. I just had to coax it out of her. “Did someone get hurt? Was it the black fire?”

 

Maria’s eyes went wide, and then she ducked away, trying to make herself small in the corner.

 

“It’s okay, Maria,” I said. “You can tell me what happened. I won’t be angry.”

 

“But she’ll be angry,” she said. “If you try to put out the fire, she’ll know I told.”

 

“Who?” I said.

 

She shot me a sharp glance out of the corner of her eye. “You know who.”

 

In my shock, I dropped my coaxing voice. “No, I don’t know who it is. I really don’t.”

 

She turned to face me, exasperated to the point of being offended. “The one I tried to save you from!”

 

“In the hallway?” I asked. “When the walls were closing in?”

 

“No, that was just the house being naughty.” Her expression was wounded now, as if I’d misunderstood her on purpose. “The one in the lobby. She smells like flowers.”

 

“Do you mean Florence?” My blood went icy in my veins. “Are you saying Florence isn’t nice?”

 

Maria’s voice rose to an agonized cry. “How do you think I got like this? I used to be pretty, like you!”

 

“Maria, what do you mean?”

 

“She wanted me to bring her things,” Maria said, turning away. “Because she can’t go to the basement, and I can. She wanted the fire. I tried to get it for her, but I couldn’t. Then she was angry because I failed. She said I was a bad girl, and she only likes good girls.”

 

Wait. Florence had done this to Maria? But that was impossible. Florence had always been sweet to me, since the day she protected me from Maria …

 

But then, Maria wasn’t actually a threat. So why had Florence been nice to me?

 

She only likes good girls.

 

Because I hadn’t tested the limits. She was fine, as long as I behaved. I remembered how she’d sat up waiting for me the night I’d been outside with Theo. Like she’d been keeping tabs on me. So what would she do to someone who did test the limits?

 

“Eliza!” I said, leaping to my feet. “Eliza doesn’t know!”

 

The reason Florence and Eliza had gotten along perfectly well since 1922 was that Eliza had never tried to leave the house. But as of a few minutes ago, that had changed.

 

Suddenly, a scream cut through the silence. “DELIA!”

 

It was Penitence.

 

“Let’s go!” I said. Maria grabbed my hand, and we ran down the hall toward the stairs. I started to descend, but Maria stayed on the landing above me, shaking her head with tiny movements.

 

“I can’t go down there,” she said. “I can’t go onto the second floor.”

 

“It’s okay!” I said, halfway to the second-floor landing. “Go back to your room and stay there! I’ll come get you when it’s safe to come out.”