Frost

“No. No, it’s not. He told me. She went crazy, after having a baby. And she was locked back there, where we live, and she died. And now she’s there . . . sort of. Trying to kill me. I don’t see her. I don’t hallucinate, Leena. It’s all physical. My bruises, Leena, that’s what they’re from. She’s hurting me.” She gripped my arm,dug fingernails into my flesh. “You believe me, don’t you? My bruises are proof. You have to believe me.”

Her bruises—she thought they were from a ghost? What did that mean? Was she doing it to herself? “How long have you been feeling this way?” I said.

“It’s never been right in there,” she said. “All of the stuff that happened. All of it. It’s this . . . it’s this . . . thing. It’s gotten stronger and stronger and I can’t tell anyone and I can’t keep fighting it. I tried . . . I tried to make peace. I tried to talk to her—to contact her—so many times. You know, how you’re supposed to. But that’s probably all bullshit, talking to them. She just wants what she wants.”

Jesus. That’s probably what Celeste had been burning those big white candles for. Some sort of . . . séance.

“Celeste, why wouldn’t . . . why would it only do this stuff to you? Why haven’t I felt anything?”

“Maybe you have,” she said. “You’re . . . Look at what you do all day. You take your pills and you don’t have any friends—it’s ruining you, too.”

“No!” I said. “That’s not . . . that’s all just from stress. Frost House . . . I love Frost House. It’s not—”

A quick knock came at the door and before either of us could answer it opened and David was there.

“Here you guys are. I just got back and couldn’t— Hey. What’s wrong?” He came over and knelt next to Celeste.

She wiped at her eyes, pushed her hair behind her ears. My heart hurt, it was beating so hard. I couldn’t believe any of this was happening.

“Nothing,” she said, remarkably pulled together all of a sudden. “Just, it’s difficult to see Dad, you know?”

“He did pretty well tonight,” David said. His brow wrinkled. “Don’t you think?”

“I guess,” Celeste said.

David looked at me. I didn’t know what expression I wanted my eyes to telegraph. Desperation? Panic? Calm?

“Do you want us to stay up here with you?” he asked.

Celeste wiped her nose with the cuff of her blouse. “No. I’m fine. Let me just rinse my face and we can go back down. I need to say one last thing to Leena, though.”

“Okay. If you’re sure.” David stood slowly and started out of the room, turning back to look at us several times. I could feel his reluctance as he disappeared into the hallway.

Celeste stared at me with a fierce, completely composed expression. “Telling David is not the way to help me,” she said. “What I need is your help to get rid of this thing so I can make it through the next few weeks. Okay? When I don’t live there anymore, I’ll be fine. I just need to find a way to live. Okay?”

I swallowed hard. Nodded.

“If you tell David, I’ll make sure you regret it. Understand?”

“Okay,” I said. “I understand.”

She lay back on the bed, an arm over her face.

I stood and made my way to the bathroom, splashed water on my cheeks and returned the key to the top of the cabinet, although it didn’t seem urgent anymore. Before, when she had threatened to tell David about my pill stash, it had scared me. Now, her threat just made me sad. Like I was witnessing her last, desperate attempt to hang on to power. Power her illness would completely strip away.

We drove onto Barcroft’s campus ten minutes before sign-in, giving me no time to talk to David alone. After Celeste and I dropped him off, the claustrophobic space in the car was filled with a silence more haunted than any house could be.

“You don’t believe me,” Celeste finally said as I parked in the driveway. Her voice was calm now. Frost House crouched in front of us, shrouded by layers of branches and the darkness. Warm orange light glowed in the upstairs windows of Viv’s bedroom. How had this all happened? How was it that I was here in this car, as scared as if I’d fallen into someone else’s open grave, rather than up there, with my friends?

“I don’t think you’re lying,” I said.

“Tactful. You don’t think I’m lying. You just think I’m psychotic.”

Silence returned as I helped her with her bags and crutches. I resisted the urge to run down the path to my room and into the house, resisted the urge to find calm and sanity in my closet as quickly as possible. Instead, I matched my steps to hers, and held open the door when we reached the entrance. Celeste hesitated for a moment. It must have taken all her courage to return to Frost House. She obviously believed she was in danger, regardless of the fact it wasn’t true. To her, it was true.

In the hallway outside our rooms I said, “Do you want me to stay in there with you tonight?” It didn’t feel responsible to let her sleep alone.

“No,” she said. “It didn’t make a difference before. When we were in the same room. It was just as bad.”

“Why haven’t you asked, you know, to be moved somewhere else?”