Frost

After Viv and Abby disappeared upstairs, I squatted and collected the shards; reaching the floor was tricky for Celeste with her cast. No matter how the vase had broken, I didn’t blame her for being upset. But couldn’t she have accepted Abby’s explanation of what happened? It was as if she was trying to make things more difficult here. I handed her the pieces in a plastic bag and, after a mumbled thanks, she headed across the hall to the little room. I swept up the flowers and dumped them in the trash.

When I finally stretched out on the bed, exhausted, my head sank into the pillow so heavily I thought I might never be able to lift it up. For a few moments, I let the room work its magic, tempting me into falling asleep right then, without even taking my clothes off. But I was already stressed out enough by my classes. No way could I afford to skip a night of homework. I had a good three hours or so ahead of me. I dragged myself up and started getting stuff out of my bag. As I rooted around the bottom for a pen, my hand came across something I didn’t recognize. I pulled it out, and saw the envelope that David had given me a few weeks ago. Damn.

I knocked on the door to our little study room and then went in.

Celeste sat reading A Room of One’s Own. (God, if only . . .) The pieces of the vase were spread out in front of her on her desk. She looked up at me.

“I know it was your grandmother’s,” I said. “Do you want me to try to fix it? I have Gorilla Glue.”

“It’s in way too many pieces.” She put down her book. “It was in the middle of the room, Leena. Not right near the dresser, where it would have fallen.”

“Maybe it bounced once, before it broke.” I’d seen mugs and glasses do that, instead of smashing at first impact.

She picked up one of the larger shards and ran her finger around the uneven edge.

“I want to keep our rooms locked,” she said. “From now on.”

I bit the insides of my cheeks. Locking the door in such a small house seemed so aggressively unfriendly. Viv and Abby and I had always gone in and out of one another’s rooms, borrowing clothes, books, whatever. . . .

“I know you’re upset,” I said. “But I wish you’d trust me about Abby.”

Celeste was quiet for a moment as she pressed the shard into her fingertip, turning the flesh white. “There’s something else,” she finally said. “The other day, when I was taking a bath, there was this . . . knocking.”

“On the door?” I said.

“No.” She shook her head. “I thought so, at first. I thought it was you, so I said I’d be out in a bit. But the knocking didn’t stop. Then I realized it was on the wall—not the door. The wall between the bathroom and my closet. Like this.” She rapped the desk three times. Waited a second. Rapped four times, then once. An erratic rhythm.

My heart began thumping a little harder, as if responding to her loud beats on the wood. “What was it?” I asked. “A noise in a pipe?”

“No,” she said. “Someone was doing it. On purpose.”

“What? Who?” Was she saying Abby had done this?

“I don’t know,” she snapped. “It takes me forever to get out of the tub with my cast. I finally hauled my ass out and made it over there, and whoever had been there was gone.”

“I don’t understand. Why would someone do that?”

“To mess with me. Freak me out.”

Okay, she was freaking me out. “Who would want to mess with you?”

“I just told you, I don’t know.” Her jaw tightened. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me. I didn’t even want to tell you. But now, with the vase . . . I’m sure it’s the same person. That’s why I want to lock the doors.”

I tried to think clearly about the best way to approach this before answering. “I’m fine about locking the doors,” I said. “If it’ll make you feel better, that’s not a problem. But I still don’t think there’s any need to. I think the vase broke by accident. And since nothing happened while you were in the tub, I’m assuming . . . I don’t know . . . that it was some other noise you heard. Have you lived in an old house before?”

“Not really.”

“Strange noises happen all the time,” I explained. “You’ll get used to it.”

She pursed her lips. “But it sounded so . . . purposeful.”

“If someone really did want to mess with you,” I said, “that would be a pretty weird way of doing it. Right? I mean, if I were trying to freak someone out, I’d replace their toothpaste with Preparation H, or fill their shoes with peanut butter or something.”

“Fill their shoes with peanut butter?” Celeste said. “You’d be a crappy freaker-outer.”

I laughed, a release of nerves mostly. “You know what I mean. I wouldn’t be knocking on a wall. Or breaking a vase, for that matter.”

She placed the shard she’d been holding back on her desk. “Yeah. Maybe you’re right.”

“I’m sure I am.”