The Evil Within (7 page)

He who does not punish evil commands it to be done.

—Leonardo da Vinci

Cursed is the man who dies, but the evil done by him survives.

—Abu Bakr

January 8

possessions: me

(there is no me. there’s only free-floating high anxiety. no way, no way, no way, no way . . .)

haunted by:
Celia’s dead voice
listening to
: the same
mood
: if a fire was coming, would you stand still and wait
for it?

possessions: them

luck
good fortune
the lottery

haunted by
: they do the haunting
listening to:
the world, promising them more, now
mood
: blissfully unaware

possessions: mandy

my future
my life?

haunted by:
me?
listening to
: Belle
mood:
terrified, if she’s smart

I DON’T know how I found my way out of the forest. But as I raced away from Miles, suddenly I recognized the path I’d taken and within a few minutes, I had jogged back to the blacktop path. The white horse heads stared straight ahead, each dusted with snow. If they knew my secrets, they were keeping them to themselves.

Shaking, I went back to Grose, where my dorm mates were starting to wake up. Julie was still in bed, groaning about a hangover; I grabbed my bathrobe, towel, and toiletries and hurried to take a shower.

I passed the long row of mirrors over the sinks without looking into them, and the five strangely huge ceramic bathtubs, which no one could use because there were no faucets attached to them—and stripped off my sweaty clothes.

I went into one of the showers. The walls were slick and white; I turned on the water and let the heat sluice down on me. I thought I would never be warm again.

I burst into tears, and slid to the bottom of the stall. I couldn’t kill Mandy. I wouldn’t. I . . .

There was a dim impression of a face on the blinding white tile floor. I covered my mouth with both hands to hold in the scream. Celia had followed me in. I violently shook my head as water dripped off my hair in hard, heavy, unnatural droplets. My spine seemed to melt; and then I was falling somewhere, struggling and screaming and falling and wet and . . .

“HOLD HER DOWN
until she swears,” Belle told Pearl and Martha. Belle’s blonde braid had come uncoiled from the top of her head and hung over her shoulder like a snake. Her ruffled blouse was undone to the top of her corset; her sleeves were folded back. “She will never go near him again.”

Celia was kneeling in her white gown in one of the hydrotherapy tubs, filled to the brim with icy water. Headmaster Marlwood would order the treatment for the most willful girls—first into the tub, then the wooden lid locked tight in place, so that only their heads were visible. They had to rest quietly or they might drown. But the lid was off now, and there were no matrons or doctors to see what was being done.

“For the love of God, Belle,” Celia pleaded, up to her breasts in the water.

“She will never go near him again,” Belle shouted, as Pearl clutched Celia’s right arm, and Martha dug her fingers into the left. Their clothes were disheveled; there were spatters of blood on Pearl’s pinafore. Belle darted forward and grabbed Celia’s hair in her fist, pushing on the back of her neck with her other hand and forcing Celia’s face under the water.

Bubbles escaped her mouth; her lungs began to ache. She wasn’t afraid, not yet. Belle was mean and vindictive, but she wasn’t insane. She wouldn’t murder a fellow student; if she did, she would suffer for it, as surely as Edwin Marlwood held all their lives in his hands. For others had paid horribly, and for lesser crimes. . . .

. . . The ice pick . . . the ice pick . . .

Celia was out of air.
She’ll let me back up now,
Celia thought.

But Belle didn’t.

Celia’s strained body was beginning to convulse. She pushed against the hand that restrained her head, and moaned; and bucked. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe.

She panicked. She had to inhale, had to—

—And just as she was about to draw in a fatal breath of ice water—

—Belle yanked up her head. Celia drew in air, her aching lungs searing, her back arching. Pearl had backed away, sobbing, while Martha was hitting Belle’s shoulders, shouting, “Let her go, Belle! You’re killing her!”

“She will not love him!” Belle screamed, her voice echoing on the tile walls of the hydrotherapy room. “She will not!”

“Let her go,” Pearl shouted.

“She will not!” Belle shrieked.

“Belle, I’m here,” Celia said, dazed. Why was Belle speaking of her as if she were not there? “Belle, please, listen, I—”

Belle’s face went white. Her dark eyes burned in her face, like bottomless pits. For the first time, Celia saw the pure hatred there. The madness. “Back down, back under,” she decreed.

“No, Belle, no, please,” Celia cried. “Someone, help me!”

Down she went, into the ice water . . .

. . . Longer this time—

“GOD,” I gasped. As I panted, Celia’s face, barely visible, stared up at me from the shiny white floor of the shower stall.

“
So you see. It’s happened before. Two girls, in love with the same young man. Belle, and me. You, and Amanda Winters. And she’ll kill you for him. Like she killed me.
”

The words were in my head, in my own mouth, but it was Celia talking.

“No,” I whispered, but Celia was right: Mandy Winters was every bit as vindictive as Belle. She would kill me rather than give up Troy. She’d
already
tried to kill me.

“
You have to fight fire . . . with fire
,” Celia said. “
You have to strike first. Or it will be too late.
”

I covered my mouth. I didn’t know if I was going to be sick, or to scream. I was losing it. Panic attack. I could feel my mind shutting down.

“
Kill or be killed.
”

I started to hyperventilate.

“Lindsay? Are you still in there?” It was Elvis, pounding on the stall door. “I forgot my conditioner. Can I borrow yours?”

Oh my God.
Heaving, I fell onto my side; I gathered up my thick dark hair and wiped my face with my hands several times before I connected that it was still wet because the shower was on. Disoriented, I swallowed hard and awkwardly crawled up the wall with my fingertips until I was upright. Then I leaned against the wall, numb.

“Lindsay?” Elvis called. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said quickly. “Conditioner. Hold on.”

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

I MOVED as if I were underwater, floating as I got dressed and brushed my teeth—without looking in the mirror. I swam upstream to our room, to find Julie showered and dressed in fashionable new clothes, even less tweeny and more grown-up. She’d unpacked a few things from her suitcases, and she was holding a scarf in both hands. I had the sudden uncontrollable terror that she was going to strangle me with it. I knew that was crazy . . . unless she was possessed. But her eyes were their usual hazel. Her smile, pleasant and sweet.

“So,” she said, as we left our dorm and joined the dozens of other girls heading for the commons, “how did you sleep?”

There was an edge to her voice, and I knew I couldn’t tell her anything. She obviously still didn’t remember any of the terrors of last semester, including the fact that she herself had been possessed. As before, she thought I had either made up everything, or imagined it, in some twisted attempt to paint Mandy as a villain so that she, Julie, would remain my best friend. Maybe Jane would have been able to pull something like that off, but she wouldn’t have bothered—it was dumb. And ridiculous. And too much work.

I was the proof of that.

As we reached the opened door of the commons, I smelled coffee. And oatmeal. And a hundred different exotic perfumes on the polished, coifed girls who swirled around us.

“Bleah,” Julie said. “I’m a little hung over. Maybe I shouldn’t drink on school nights.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t drink on any nights,” I said. “You know, cut back for a while. Until we’re settled back in.”

She squinted at me. “Who are you and what have you done with Lindsay?”

“My grandmother says that alcohol robs you of your wits,” Shayna said, as she came up behind us. “And you should always keep your wits about you. In case a
dybbuk
tries to possess you. Then you can talk him out of it.”

“What’s a
dybbuk
?” Julie asked. Already seated at our table—dorms usually sat together—Marica and Ida waved at us. Julie waved back, but I just stared at Shayna.

“Look at Marica’s sweater. Isn’t it amazing?” Julie chirruped, distracted. Then she hurried over to greet them as if she hadn’t seen them less than seven hours ago.

Shayna gave me a long, measured look. She was so perfect, with her dark, glossy hair, beautifully shaped thick eyebrows, and perfect skin. “A
dybbuk
is the dislocated soul of a dead person,” she said quietly. “At least, that’s what my grandmother used to say.”

I caught my breath. Felt the blood drain from my face.
Shayna?
I thought.
Shayna knows?

“What do you think?” she asked me.

“Hello? Blocking the door?” Lara snarled, bumping Shayna’s shoulder as she and Mandy sauntered into the room. Mandy was dressed all in black, and Lara wore a red-and-black argyle sweater over black trousers. The red clashed with her hair. It was clear to me that they hadn’t heard our conversation.

“Some people,” Mandy said, sighing melodramatically.

Shayna frowned, then went neutral, and headed for the food lines. I started to follow, but she gave her head a shake.