What the hell was going on? There had been no one in sight when she’d straddled the fence minutes ago. Fiona approached the girl, consciously making noise so she wouldn’t startle her, noting that the girl had no coat in the cold. “Hello?” she called as she started over the field, her boots sinking into the cold muddy grass. “Hello there?”
The girl didn’t move. Wind bit into Fiona’s hands, snaked down the neck of her coat, making her nose run. The girl didn’t turn, didn’t move. She was wearing some kind of hat or hood, black, so Fiona couldn’t see the back of her head clearly. The music grew stronger, and sounded like it was coming from the trees. She recognized it now, the familiar tune sung in the familiar voice, a song she’d heard a thousand times: Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” Deb’s favorite song, the one she’d danced to in her room most often, mouthing the lyrics and doing hip-popping disco moves as her little sister, Fiona, watched and clapped.
Fiona slowed, hesitated. That song, with its peppy beat overlaid by Gloria Gaynor’s vulnerable yet determined voice, had been difficult to avoid for the past twenty years. It was still a popular song, so much so that Fiona had trained herself to no longer think of Deb when she heard it. She made herself think of pink pantsuits and multicolored stage lights and fresh-faced girls wearing fake eyelashes and blush, instead of her sister in her pajamas, standing on the bed, pointing cheesily across the room. But why was this song playing now, over the cold landscape of Idlewild Hall at dawn on a November morning?
The sky seemed to lower, and as the sun came up behind the clouds, the morning light turned a strange white shade, turning the trees dark and the ground vibrant, every detail visible in sudden perfection. Fiona took a step and kicked something with the toe of her boot. She looked down and saw it was a wreath of plastic flowers.
That’s it, she thought with certainty, listening to the wind flap in the fabric of the strange girl’s dress over the strains of Gloria Gaynor’s voice. This is a dream.
Because strewn over the grass between her and the girl was a litter of flowers, wreaths, cards, teddy bears—the detritus people leave at the site of grief. The same detritus that had been left in this place after Deb’s body was found. Fiona looked around and realized, belatedly, that the girl was standing in the exact spot that Deb had lain with her coat open and her shirt torn, her eyes open to the empty air.
She looked down again. ANGEL, read one of the handwritten cards, the writing now blurred and soaked. She toed another cheap bouquet of plastic flowers, bright yellow daffodils and pink roses. Next to it was a crumpled cigarette package, cellophane winking in the light. The same garbage she’d seen when she’d come here at age seventeen. It’s a dream. A nightmare. I’m still in bed. I never got up.
She raised her gaze to the girl again. She hadn’t moved. Fiona was closer now, and she could see the girl’s narrow shoulders, the weave of the thick fabric of her dress. The wind picked up a scrap of fabric, blowing it around her head, and Fiona realized it was a veil. Beneath it, Fiona caught a glimpse of golden brown hair tied tightly at the back of the girl’s neck.
There was something otherworldly about her, but since this was a dream, Fiona decided not to be afraid. “Who are you?” she asked, thinking, She looks so real, I can see her breathing. “What are you doing here?”
No answer. No acknowledgment that the girl knew Fiona was there. Fiona had just lifted her hand to touch her—what the hell? It was a dream—when she heard her voice being called. A deep male voice shouting her name in the wind.
She turned. A man in a black coat was striding over the field toward her. Anthony Eden.
“Fiona!” he shouted.
Did he see the girl? Fiona glanced back over her shoulder and froze. The girl was gone. She looked down; the wreaths and cards were gone, too. Gloria Gaynor was silent.
“Are you trespassing?” he asked as he came closer. He was out of breath, flustered, his thinning hair blowing in the cold wind. “That is not a good idea. Security is just coming on shift. If they’d seen you, they would have called the police.”
“I—” Fiona couldn’t speak. She was still in shock from what she’d just seen—whatever it was. Am I losing my mind? “I was just—”
“For God’s sake, let’s get out of here.” He took her arm and tugged her gently, pulling her across the field toward the main building. “It’s a good thing I came by this morning to check on the progress and saw your car, or you would have been in trouble. I can’t think of why you came. I hate this place, myself.”
“Anthony,” Fiona managed as they crossed the field. “I think I saw—”
But he tugged her, nearly unbalancing her, and suddenly she was so close her shoulder touched his. “Shh,” he said, his voice lowered. “Please don’t say it. I think she listens.”
The words were so unexpected it took a moment for her to process them. By the time she did, he had let her go and was walking normally again without glancing in her direction, as if he’d never said a thing.
Numbly she followed his gaze to the dead, empty windows of Idlewild. It was watching them, watching her, laughing with its broken teeth. For a second her fear turned to defiance at the sight. I see you, she said to it. I hate you.
But Idlewild still grinned. I hate you, too.
When they reached the muddy drive, Anthony said, “I’ll have security open the gates so you can leave. If you want to see the grounds again, Fiona, please call me so you don’t end up in the back of a police car.”
He motioned to a uniformed man who was getting out of a car marked with the logo of a private security company. The man nodded and pressed a button inside his car, and the gates began to swing open. Waiting for her to leave.
She wanted to run down the rutted drive and through the gates. She wanted out. She wanted to be gone from here forever.
Instead she turned to Anthony and said, in a voice both quiet and clear, “Who is she?”
He shook his head. “That’s my mother’s specialty, I’m afraid. You’ll have to ask her.”
“Except I don’t have an interview with her,” Fiona returned, frustrated.
“You should have returned my calls,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. Mother has changed her mind. She’s agreed to talk to you.” He glanced at his watch. “She’ll be getting up now, having her morning tea. I’ll call ahead and tell her you’re coming, shall I?”
It didn’t matter that she was scared, cold, shabbily dressed, and worried about her own mental state. She was finally getting the chance to talk to Margaret Eden. “Yes, thank you,” she said as politely as she could. “I’m on my way.”
He gave her the address. “Let’s not tell her about this incident,” he finished, waving vaguely behind them, “or we’ll both be in trouble.”
“Will she be angry?”
To her surprise, that made Anthony laugh, a sound that was brief and polite, but still genuinely amused. “If you ever find that you can predict Mother, then you know her better than I do. And I’ve known her all my life.”
That should have made her uneasy. Yet it didn’t.
Fiona turned and walked down the muddy drive, preparing to take on Margaret Eden.
Chapter 14
CeCe
Barrons, Vermont
October 1950
The last Sunday of every month was Family Visit Day at Idlewild, when families could come see the girls. The visits took place in the dining hall, with each girl getting a table to sit with her visitor. There were over a hundred girls in the school, but barely six or seven families showed up each Family Visit Day. The rest either didn’t know about it or didn’t care.