The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall

 

“I’m sorry. It’s just, I … I don’t know if I can do this,” Janie said. “It kind of feels like those slasher movies you and Nic used to let me watch with you. What if you’re not even Delia? What if you’re something evil pretending to be her? And you’re luring me to my doom? Give me a sign. Any sign.”

 

She wanted a signal, but what if I couldn’t send her one?

 

Of course, she was completely right—I could be any ghost, misleading her, tricking her.

 

We were so close, and the situation was so frustrating that, without thinking, I turned and knocked over the nearest knock-overable object.

 

It happened to be a mop.

 

Janie gasped.

 

Yes! A mop. I remembered her housewife costume from Halloween and searched the surrounding shelves for the other objects I needed.

 

Almost giddily, I knocked a stocky-looking metal teapot off the shelf. It hit the ground and bounced heavily one time, then rolled onto its side.

 

My sister held her breath.

 

Next, I swept an entire stack of frying pans to the floor with a deafening crash!

 

Then there was silence.

 

Janie swallowed hard and balled her hands into determined fists. “All right, Delia,” she said. “What now?”

 

I felt a swell of joy and had to remind myself that this wasn’t the time for celebrating. I walked across the room and opened the door to the incinerator room.

 

Janie came and stood in the doorway. We were practically shoulder to shoulder, not that she’d know it.

 

The incinerator itself hulked in the corner, a six-foot-tall, eight-foot-long, and six-foot-wide fortified box of iron and brick. The air smelled stale and faintly burnt—a sweet blend of toast and smoke.

 

I stepped inside, flipped up the lever on the incinerator’s two-by-two-foot-square metal hatch, and pulled it open.

 

Janie’s eyes went wide. “No way, Delia! I’m not going in there.”

 

There was a petulance in her voice that made me feel like we were just two normal sisters trying to figure out how to glue together a broken vase before our parents came home.

 

“I never said you had to,” I said. “Nobody’s going inside the incinerator.”

 

But when I opened the door and peered down into the belly of the structure, I could see nothing but pitch darkness. Which meant that one of us was going in, and since I was the only one of us who could produce her own light, it was probably going to be me. Better me than my sister—but still.

 

“Delia?” Janie asked, stepping close. “Are you going in? Be careful. Are you sure it’s safe?”

 

Nope. Not sure at all.

 

What, Delia, you’re going to give up now?

 

Of course not. There was no fire in the incinerator. It wasn’t even hot. It was just dark.

 

I repeated those facts to myself—not hot, just dark—as I moved through the thick brick wall.

 

“Are you okay?” Janie asked.

 

I looked around, a very bad feeling rising in my stomach.

 

I was not, in fact, okay.

 

I was surrounded by fire.

 

The flames reached as high as my head. They looked like normal fire in the way they jumped and leapt, but instead of being bright orange, they were the fathomless, velvety black you’d expect to find in a black hole. And, like a black hole, they devoured the light that radiated off of my ghostly form, until parts of myself were missing and I started to get pretty worried that I was being burned alive by the dark flames without even knowing it.

 

But no. If I moved my arm, the invisible parts became visible again—even if only for a moment. And I didn’t feel any burning—not from heat, anyway. They were actually quite cold, like on a frosty night, when the wind goes right through your clothes.

 

Any relief I felt was only temporary, though. Because immediately I was faced with the reality of being surrounded by dark flames and having no way to put them out except apparently spilling the blood of my little sister, which—call me crazy—I had a feeling she wouldn’t be totally cool with.

 

And then disaster struck.

 

“Delia, I’m coming in!” Before I could stop her, Janie climbed up and propelled herself through the incinerator hatch, landing clumsily inside with me. “What … What’s happening in here? What’s … Is this fire?”

 

Her voice faded out as she held her hand in the light that spilled in through the hatch, studying the way the flames made it vanish.

 

“Am I dead now?” she asked. “Am I a ghost?”

 

To be honest, I wasn’t sure. I stepped between her and the opening. “Can you see me? Can you hear me?”

 

She looked around wildly. “Delia? Are you still here?”

 

I practically crumpled with relief. If she were dead, she’d have been able to hear me. And the oily smoke didn’t seem to be gathering around us—yet. At least there was that.

 

“Okay, this was a bad idea,” she said. “I’m willing to admit that.”

 

Janie stepped toward the hatch and tried to climb back out.

 

Then she grunted in confusion and looked down toward her feet.