Frost

Then I heard it. The slightest shifting of fabric. I turned. My eyes fumbled to make out shapes in the gloom. There. Subtle movement underneath a large desk. Shit.

“Hello?” I said tentatively.

No answer.

“Are you okay?”

“Leave me alone, Leena.” The voice was Celeste’s. But it was rough and strained. She’d been crying.

I took slow steps toward her and lowered myself down so I was kneeling next to the desk.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

Her thin arms wrapped around one knee. Her whole body shook.

“Are you sick?”

“No.” She began sobbing so hard she could barely speak. Noises from the party floated up the stairs. She rocked back and forth.

“What can I do?” I said. “Tell me. Do you want me to get David?” I remembered he was gone. “Or your mother?”

“No!” she said. “I’m . . . I’m . . . I’m just too tired to fight it anymore.” Her words were forced out between sobs and gulps for air. “I’m so, so tired.”

“Fight what?” I said.

“How can you not know?” She gripped a leg of the desk, as if to steady herself. “How can you not know?”

“Celeste, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” My pulse had quickened. The tone of her words, her body language, her incoherence—it all made me worry I was in over my head. “Can you come out and sit on the bed? It would be easier to talk.”

She maneuvered out from under the desk. She was visibly shaking, and on top of that, her body still heaved with sobs. I stood up and grabbed a soft blanket that was piled at the end of the bed. I wrapped it around her shoulders and led her to sit down. I sat next to her.

“Can you tell me?” I said.

“No.” She shook, her head and her body. “I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anyone.”

“If you’re too tired to fight it alone,” I said, “you need someone to help you. Right?”

“I can’t,” she said. “And not you. Before, before . . . maybe. But not now. I can’t tell anyone. Don’t you see?”

“How can I see, Celeste, since I have no idea what you’re talking about? Well, I mean, I have some idea, but . . .” Either she knew she had some blood disease, someone was hurting her, or she was hurting herself. That much I knew.

“You do?” She gripped my sleeve with a hand that glowed white and skeletal in the darkened room. “It’s happening to you, too?”

It’s happening to you, too. Oh, God. Was she talking about David? My head began to spin.

“Maybe,” I said. “Tell me.”

“What is it?” she said. “What’s happening?”

She wasn’t making any sense. “What do you think it is?” I said.

“There’s . . . there’s something there. Right?”

Not about David. Breathe, Leena.

“Something there?” I said. “Where?”

“What do you mean? Frost House. Isn’t that . . . Don’t you know what I mean? Frost House.”

Frost House? I thought of the closet. She wasn’t talking about that, though. That was mine.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” I spoke as gently as possible. “But you need someone to help you. To help you fight it. So tell me.” If I used her words, maybe she’d trust me more.

“How can you not know?” she said. “How can you live there? It’s . . . There’s no word for it. There’s something there. There’s someone. It’s . . . evil. There’s something that’s trying to kill me.”

Sweat clammed up my hands.

“You mean, it’s haunted? Something like that?”

“That word sounds so stupid,” she said. “This isn’t a fucking Halloween prank.”

“Have you told anyone else this?” I asked.

“Of course not! How could I ever tell anyone? They’ll just think I’m crazy. But I’m not, Leena, I’m not!” She grabbed my sleeve. “Don’t you feel it in there? Your room is the worst. That’s why I moved, you know.” Her words were coming quickly, one on top of the next. “It used to just do things to my stuff. But then it got stronger, it’s seeping over. It’s in the bathroom. It burned me that day. I wasn’t sure at the time, but now I am. And it’s tried to push me under, drown me. It hurts me while I try to sleep. Presses on my chest so I can’t breathe. I can’t get away from it. I’m so scared it’s going to kill me. I don’t know what to do. I can’t tell anyone. I shouldn’t have even told you. But you believe me, don’t you? You know I’m not crazy?”

What could I say? Of course I didn’t believe her. Of course I thought she was crazy.

“I just want to help you,” I said. “I hate for you to be so upset.”

“I think I know what it is, too. I talked to Whip’s grandfather, when I had dinner with him after that assembly. And that girl, that girl Whip told us about. She died there, in Frost House.”

“What girl?”

“You know, that one Whip told us about. The one who lived there, before it was a dorm.”

God, she’d worked up a whole thing in her mind. “Celeste, that was just a stupid rumor.”