The Evil Within (25 page)

A SCOUNDREL AND A ROGUE.

That’s what he’d called David Abernathy.

I left the haunted library and its weeping ghost, searching for a few seconds for some rags or piece of newspaper, anything to wrap around my flimsy parka and my tiny black dress. Anything to keep me warmer in the draining cold. There was nothing handy, and I wasn’t about to go back into the reading room, even if there was a fur coat to be found in there.

I crept outside; the snow was falling more steadily, and when I felt severe cold against the back of my neck, I had no idea if it was Celia or the elements. Orienting myself, I knew I should head left. I tried to keep my eyes open, scanning for a stalker. I felt in my pocket for Marica’s high heels, my only weapon.

I started moving, afraid I was about to become a Marlwood statistic—Lindsay Cavanaugh, the scholarship student who froze to death on Valentine’s Day. Why was she staggering around, inappropriately dressed? Because the boy she was crushing on already had a girlfriend. Poor, crazy, pathetic Lindsay. No one would know the real reason.

Maybe not even me.

I blinked; I had started to daydream, and I knew I was lost. Trees rose around me. I was in the forest. I thought I heard something moving through the brush and I grabbed onto a branch and held tightly, just to keep myself from screaming. Were mountain lions nocturnal? Were psycho brothers and/ or possessed boyfriends?

Then the coldness intensified, giving me a brain freeze, and I doubled over because it
hurt
; it hurt like brain surgery; it hurt like my heart breaking; like all the air forced out of my lungs; like my skin peeling off my face in the flames. It was a searing, horrible
hurt
and I knew that if I could see myself, my eyes would be black and empty.

My love is like a red, red rose.

I will come to thee by midnight, though hell should bar the way.

I must pretend to love Belle, Celia, because she has money; she is an heiress with a fortune and Marlwood has his hooks into her family. And there must be a way for me to dip into it. Once that is done, we shall leave together, you and I—

—you and I—

I WAS STANDING inside the operating theater. Flickering lanterns—
kerosene—
were set on folding chairs, casting yellow light over the drifting snowflakes, cascading blue through the hole in the roof, past the ruined balcony where the eager young men had once watched helpless young women lose their minds.

Below, a few yards in front of me in the center of the room, a girl was lying on a surgical table draped with a white cloth blotched with blood, and Troy, in a white doctor’s coat, was bending over her.

“Here’s the pick,” he said, and his voice was not his voice as he raised up something metallic; the light glinted off it and I screamed, hard.

Then Marica—not Mandy—bolted upright, knocking Troy backward. They both looked at me and Marica waved her hands in front of her face:
no harm, no foul
.

“Get away from her!” I shouted, barreling into him. “Marica, run!”

“No, no, it’s all in fun,” Marica said, laughing, as Troy grunted and staggered backward, grabbing me around the waist.

“Whoa, whoa,” he said. “It’s okay.”

I pulled away from Troy. “What is this?” I asked shrilly.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” he said. “I thought you
believed
that. It wasn’t me. Listen, please—”

“What are you doing?” I yelled, as Marica slid off the table. The white cloth was a thick, fuzzy white blanket, and the blotches were scarlet Valentine’s Day hearts. A shiny silver serving tray ornately decorated with a floral pattern and large Ms—for Marlwood—contained a hammer and a single long-stemmed red rose.

“I recreated the lobotomy surgery,” Troy said, gesturing with the ice pick. “I thought if we went through the steps . . . ”

“Are you insane?” I asked, and I hoped he was.

He looked at me, really looked. “You have to know I would never hurt Julie. I forgot that I’d given my ID bracelet to Mandy. After we left the dance, she confessed that she gave it to Miles.” He raised his brows, hopeful that I was following him. “And so, you see . . . ”

“I-I remembered that, too,” I said, but my voice was quaking. “But why are you here?” I looked at Marica. “Why are you doing this?”

Wrapping herself in the blanket, Marica walked over to us. She opened one arm like a mother hen and cuddled me up, giving me a kiss on my cheek. I was so cold I couldn’t feel anything, and Marica winced. Meanwhile, Troy walked over to the tray and laid down the pick. His hand hovered over the rose; then he dropped his arm down to his side, facing me. His face was shrouded in darkness.

I was drowning in iciness, shivering so hard my head hurt. The center of my forehead burned as if someone were dripping hot wax onto it. I saw Troy jerk, and I stiffened.

Marica whispered in my ear, “I helped him plan this. He wants you,
chica.
He broke up with her, really, he did. Tonight.” Then she frowned at me. “Are you okay? Troy, I think she’s got hypothermia. Like before, when she was in the infirmary. She looks so
white
.”

“I could start a fire,” Troy suggested. “There’s a lot of trash and—”

“No!” I yelled, making them both jump. I tilted my head, straining to see him in the darkness. “No fires.”

“Are you . . . feverish?” Marica asked. She touched my forehead, then my cheeks. “Ay, she’s burning up.”

“Get help,” I whispered urgently. “Marica,
run
.”

She blinked at me, then looked over at Troy as if to say,
Are you hearing this
? He was still standing in the shadows. Why? Why didn’t he come over to us, unless he had something to hide? He didn’t want her to see, to
know
. . .

“Help,” I begged. Icy sweat was pouring down my forehead. “Marica—”

Marica took my hand and began to rub it.

They tie you down. They take the hammer—

A clang echoed through the cavernous room. Neither one of them heard it.

There was a scream. It shot around the room like a tangible object—like a bullet, ricocheting off the walls, the floor, the table, the ice pick.

The ice pick.

I smelled smoke.

“
My love is like a red, red rose
,” Troy sang, as Marica walked me toward the table.

“Oh, God,” I gasped. “It really is you.” I tried to move away, but I was suddenly so tired, and dizzy. I could feel myself sinking down, down, somewhere deep and frozen, somewhere where I couldn’t move my own legs or arms . . .

. . . Couldn’t talk . . .

. . . Couldn’t warn her . . .

“
Oh, Dios mío,
I think she’s fainted,” Marica said. Troy came forward then, and scooped me up into his arms. My head lolled as he carried me toward the table; I saw my reflection in the silver tray.

Only it was Celia I saw. And her skin was rosy; her brown eyes were framed with dark lashes, and her black hair tumbled down onto her shoulders.

“Troy!” someone called. It was
Mandy
. “Okay, listen, Miles says that he has proof he was in San Covino that night.”

“Linz?” Troy said ignoring her and brushing my hair away from my forehead.
From my forehead.

“Are you listening to me?” Mandy shrieked at him. “Y-you cheating bastard!”

He ignored her. “Linz, are you sick?”

He leaned over me like this, and over her like this, promising love; and then he murdered—

The smoke thickened, making my eyes water; or I was crying. Heat rose from the floor. The rush and roar of the flames drowned out his voice.

I sat up, flung out my hand, grabbed the hammer, and hit him as hard as I could. With a shout, he fell forward. I gathered up his tux jacket and hit him again; where, I didn’t know; he slumped forward, against me. Then I threw down the hammer and got the pick. My hand was shaking but I held it against his neck. I got ready to jab. He groaned.

“Linz,” he said, gasping, “what . . . ?”

“Mandy, he’s going to kill us!” I bellowed.

“Oh my God!” Mandy shouted. I ticked my glance toward her. In his overcoat, Miles came up behind her.

“Don’t come any closer. He’s possessed!” I cried. “He’s David Abernathy.”

“
My love
,” Troy said, only it wasn’t Troy, it was David. My David, my own.

“Did you hear that?” I cried.

“Troy,” Mandy said, her eyes ticking from me to Troy and back again, “Troy, be careful.”

“Mandy, get help,” Miles said through his teeth, his gaze fastened on me. “
Go
.”

“Marica, come with me,” Mandy said. “She’s out of her mind. Lindsay, we’re going to get someone for you—”

“No one moves,” I said, holding the pick against Troy’s neck. And then I thought about what I was doing. This was
Troy.

“
David Abernathy
,” Celia insisted. “
He locked—
”

And then I saw it, as clearly as I had seen the ghost of Edward Truscott:

He gave a locket to me, and then he gave one to Belle. Belle, always the favorite. Belle, who seduced Mr. Truscott, the orderly. Who had coffee and blankets, while I froze. The heiress, the rich girl, while Leticia died of exposure and I would be next.

And David—Belle didn’t love him; she only wanted to escape and so she hated me because I was in the way. I took him from her because he loved me.

So I got the rags, and I set the fire . . . and I pounded on the door shouting, “Who locked it? Who locked it?”

But it wasn’t locked.

I only pretended that it was, and I couldn’t help but laugh as the flames caught Belle’s gown; but as Lydia died, I was a bit sad—

—And then I pulled the door open—

—And then David appeared on the threshold. He was shouting, “Belle! Belle!” And when I tried to run out of the blazing room, he pushed me back in!

He pushed me back in!

He pushed me back in!

He pushed me out of the way so that he could save
her,
precious, rich
Belle
, but I swung at him, and I knocked him to his knees. Then I ran through the door—

—Too late! The flames had caught me then! My hair was on fire! My shift, on fire, as I ran through the snow, across and into the forest; on fire as I burst down the lane, fire streaming behind me, running, ablaze!

“I killed them! I killed them all and I would do it again! Because he was mine!” I shrieked.

Troy pushed himself away from me, stumbling backwards, and I felt for the hammer. Clutching it in one hand and the pick in the other, I whirled in a circle so they would all stay away. I was burning up. Sweat poured down my face.

“Linz, stop,” Mandy said, as they surrounded me. And something glinted against her coat. She was wearing . . .

She was wearing—

“My locket!” I screamed, holding my weapons over my as I ran at her. “Mine! That is mine!” I came at her and as she backed away, she tripped and fell.

I was back at the shore, by the lake house, when her eyes were black—

—And her eyes were black now, blazing with hatred, and fear—

“
Fear of me
,” Celia crowed. “
At last.
”

And I got ready to hit her.

“
Kill her kill her kill her
,” Celia commanded me. But she wasn’t afraid; she was gleeful; she wanted this not to save herself, or me, or anyone. She wanted it because she was . . .

One by one, I killed them all. First it was the birds. And then it was the cats. And then it was Leticia.

“
I smothered her to keep her from the cold.

“
And then it was
—

“Oh my God, no!” I wailed, dropping the pick and the hammer.
Celia
was the crazy one;
Celia
was the evil one. My
dybbuk
, her unfinished business—murder.

I kept screaming. I got the high heels and threw them at someone, at everyone, as I screamed.

As my world burned away, into cinders.

No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

—Mary Wollstonecraft

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

—Oscar Wilde

February 18

possessions: me

how can I live with myself? how can I stand this guilt?

possessions: them

ignorance. and, oh, God, how i envy them

possessions: mandy

“there are different kinds of love, but they all have the same aim: possession.”

—unknown

possessions: troy

his backbone
my heart

Take care of the worst ones, the ones who will try to escape. . . .

I WAS BACK in the infirmary, and everyone was waiting for my high fever to break. I thought it had happened, but I was pretending to be asleep, because I just couldn’t face them. What did I say? What did I do?

What did I
really
see?

All my insanity had been excused—Dr. Steinberg, our campus physician, said I’d been delirious, raving, due to exposure. Running around in the snowstorm that night, I really did get very sick. My fever spiked so high they talked about life-flighting me out.

They life-flighted Kiyoko’s body out, after she drowned.

I couldn’t accept that I might have pushed her in. But I was the one who found her. Or that I hurt those birds, or the cats . . .

I still didn’t believe that I’d done it, even when Celia was in control of me. Crazy, evil Celia, more evil by far than Mandy and her sick clique. . . .

I’m possessed by a madwoman.

When Troy and Miles carried me out of the operating theater, I heard myself “raving.” After they brought me to the infirmary, I felt Dr. Steinberg and Ms. Simonet taking care of me. Swaddling me; there were drugs. I was so cold. I was on fire.

Troy came, with Julie. His arm was in a sling from when I’d hit him with the hammer. And even though they both assumed that I was unconscious, Troy sat beside me, holding my hand, and told me that he had gone back to the lake house that night to see Mandy, to break up with her. But as usual, he had lost his nerve, which was why nobody saw him.

When we’d come back from break, Mandy had asked to wear his ID bracelet, and he’d given it to her. He’d thought she wanted it to reassure herself that he was still hers.

Now he wondered if Mandy herself had found Julie’s skirt after Julie’s attack. Maybe she’d planted the bracelet on it—for reasons he couldn’t understand—to have power over me—but he swore to me that he had not touched Julie.

Julie backed him up, saying that she thought she must have seen him wandering on the shore after he didn’t go back to the party. She apologized, both to him, and to me, adding that Spider had also made friends with Troy again. She was earnest, contrite, and so very sweet. No one was sure
what
had truly happened the night of her attack. I wondered if we’d ever know. I was so tired and drifting so badly by then that I held onto the sound of their voices—loving me, wanting to spare me any pain. I heard their sincerity, and their innocence.

The Grose clan came for a group visit, but Ms. Simonet told them they had to wait to see me, because I was too sick. Marica felt especially bad, assuming responsibility for my wandering all over campus in the snow. They left flowers and balloons--and belated birthday cards, since they’d found out they’d missed my birthday, and Marica kissed my forehead.

Miles made an appearance, discussing the sordid history of Marlwood with Dr. Steinberg. He knew about the lobotomies—after all, he had been researching the history of his family’s new investment. Miles had tracked down Dr. David Abernathy, who’d survived the fire, gone on to perform many more lobotomies, and had died in Boulder, Colorado, at the age of seventy.

But the seven “last” girls—the last Marlwood inmates scheduled for the brain-destroying procedure—died the night of the fire—six in the operating theater; while the charred bones of Celia Reaves were found on the road, exactly where Troy had seen her burning ghost the night we drove back to Marlwood.

As Miles lingered beside my bed, I smelled his clove scent. I felt him wrap something around my wrist. Thread. Heard him say softly, “You can come out now. I know you’re there.”

It was the same thing he’d said when I hid from him in the shadows outside my dorm. I wasn’t sure what he meant . . . or whom he meant it for.

Dr. Ehrlenbach and Dr. Melton came, discussing my prognosis with Dr. Steinberg. They left conferring about how to catch me back up, since I’d probably be out for the rest of the week. There was much to be done to get their little barracuda ready for Harvard, or Yale, or Brown.

“Oberlin. Maybe Vassar,” Dr. Melton said.

Mandy didn’t come. She stayed well away.

But in the night, in the dark, Troy came again, by himself.

“Get better soon,” he whispered in my ear. “I . . . I love you.” And then, he laid his head down beside mine, and dozed.

I still didn’t know why he had sung that horrible song, but his warm breath melted a few of the layers of the ice around my heart.

Eventually, Ms. Simonet shooed Troy out and I was alone, with Julie’s stuffed Corgi, Panda, tucked in beside me, with nightmares, memories, and questions.

If I wake up now
, I thought,
will Celia be gone? Will I be free?

How can I ever be free?

A line from somewhere kept playing in my mind:
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
Was Celia in hell? Reunited at last with David Abernathy?

I felt the sun on my face as the day began; and a warm tear slid across my temple.

“Hey, sweetie.”

It was Julie, squeezing my hand.

“Welcome back.”

I began to open my eyes.