The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall

 

 

“It’s what they all thought.” Her eyes flashed. “Do you know that my mother had the nerve to be ashamed of me? After everything she’d sacrificed, I still couldn’t make it work, she said. I was scaring the men away, she said. I was too obvious—too desperate for love. She said once a man smelled a hint of desperation, nothing could keep him around. Not even my looks … which were fading, she said.”

 

The bitterness saturated her voice like dye seeping into a cloth.

 

“What did you do?” I asked.

 

“I killed her,” Florence said simply. “The day after my fiancé changed his mind, I felt awful for letting her down—I really did. I went out walking and brought her back a bouquet of flowers … buttercups. I took them to her room, where she was laid up with a headache, because of me. I held them out to her, and she said—I’ll never forget—Why would you bring me a pack of weeds, Florence? God knows I’ve got enough reminders that you’ve been unable to bloom where you were planted.”

 

Her eyes clouded over with something like nostalgia—a gentle sadness.

 

“Terrible last words, don’t you think? So what I did was, I told her to sit up and I would fluff up her pillow for her. I even got out her favorite music box—I thought the song was more than fitting.”

 

“ ‘Beautiful Dreamer’?” I asked.

 

“Oh, you know it? Then I took the pillow, and I smothered her with it. Oh, it was a struggle. She was strong. But I was stronger. And do you know, I think I just wanted it more.”

 

The self-satisfied glint in her eyes turned my stomach.

 

“So they sent me here, along with my music box, and it was the making of me. I found something precious and important. Something worth protecting. I found the house’s soul,” she said, savoring the word. “I spent time with it, shared my pain with it. You see, I was used to being taken care of, told what to do, petted, admired—I didn’t like looking after myself. All my life, I’d had my mama, and suddenly she was gone. So I found something new: The house became my mama. It took care of me. It protected me. I sat for many happy hours playing that music box and just soaking in the love.

 

“The problem is, I was so happy and well-behaved that they moved me down to the second floor. But my new room wasn’t the same at all. They didn’t let me take my music box. I could no longer feel the house’s spirit. My friend the wardress said it was time I learned to be like the other girls. But you know, I never was like other girls. I begged to go back upstairs, but she wouldn’t let me—said there wasn’t room. So I stole her keys and did something very brave.”

 

“You killed yourself,” I said.

 

She brightened and pointed toward the ceiling. “I swung from that very chandelier, honey.”

 

I looked up at the light fixture, which dripped with grimy teardrop-shaped crystals. And as I stared at it, an apparition faded into view—a beautiful girl’s body hanging limply, eyes closed, hair falling in rippling waves down over her shoulders, fingers slightly splayed as if she’d been caught by surprise.

 

Then the hanging girl’s lips curled into a smile, and her eyes opened. They were filled with black smoke, which slinked in narrow, grasping tendrils toward us. Florence walked over to the vision, letting one of the fingers of smoke travel gently across her cheek with the softness of a mother’s touch.

 

The girl’s body vanished, and Florence’s lips curled into an ugly, triumphant smile. “You can imagine how I felt when I woke up and found that I was part of the house at last. I could live here forever—in my home, where I belong. This house loves me, and I it. What the house wants, I want. And really, how much is it to ask for? A little obedience in exchange for a comfortable home … It’s our duty, if you think about it.”

 

Outside, the summer sun was high overhead, leaving the yard oddly shadowless.

 

“Anyway, that’s the long way round of telling you that I’m afraid you aren’t going to be allowed to leave us, honey,” she said. “Nor your sister, nor your mama.”

 

“That doesn’t work for me,” I said. “Sorry.”

 

She carefully smoothed her skirts, like a warrior adjusting her armor before the battle. “Oh, I’m sorry, too.”

 

I stood. We were the same height, standing eye to eye. “Florence.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Let’s be clear,” I said. “I’m not afraid of some pathetic old control freak of a ghost.”

 

“You’re braver than you are smart,” she said, sneering. “If you haven’t sense enough to be afraid of me, I’ll just have to teach you to be. And it looks like you’re out of salt, sweet pea.”

 

“Doesn’t matter,” I said.

 

Her eyes widened, mocking me. “I can’t wait to remind you of all these valiant words when you’re a crushed and broken smear of bones and blood on the floor.”