The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall

 

IF THOU BE HUMBLED AND RENOUNCE THY SIN,

 

THY PITEOUS SOUL MAY FIND MERCY WITHIN.

 

—LORD P. LINDLEY

 

 

 

Golly. How inspirational.

 

The door next to the bulletin board was marked DAY ROOM. I entered to find a large, airy space. The walls were papered in yellowing ivory decorated with trailing, flowery vines. There was a plush Persian rug on the floor, a stone fireplace, an upright piano, and a row of rocking chairs. It could have been a parlor at a college or nursing home … except for the wire screens bolted in front of the windows.

 

The June sunshine had been trapped in the room all afternoon, and the air was stuffy and warm. I slipped off my cardigan and set it on a small table, then walked over to look more closely at a small writing desk by the window. Could this room have been Cordelia’s refuge? From her letters, I didn’t get the impression that the place I was searching for was so … roomy. She’d made it sound like she had a little corner, tucked away by itself. Besides, the walls weren’t blue.

 

I set my bag down on one of the chairs next to the piano and reached inside it for the bundle of letters, unfolding one to see if I could find any useful information.

 

Dear Little Namesake, (that was what she always called me)

 

I was so pleased to hear about your third-place finish in the Holiday Fun Run. I was never very athletic myself. Of course such qualities weren’t valued in my family, especially in the girls …

 

 

 

It continued on in that way—small talk about her childhood (although she never mentioned spending that childhood at a mental institution), compliments on my penmanship, lots of little bits of advice, and a word of hello to my teacher.

 

At the end, I found a paragraph that seemed to offer a bit of insight:

 

Well, the light is beginning to fade in my little sanctuary—do you have a sanctuary in your home? Someplace you can go to be with your thoughts? Whenever I need something, I seem to be able to find it here. But, as dear as mine is to me, the sun sets on the other side of the house, so it gets dark early here. I don’t like to be alone in the dark. So I will pack up my work for the day and say farewell for now. I look forward to your next letter, and hearing about the results of the spelling test you were worried about …

 

 

 

The sun sets in the west, so her room had to be on the east side of the house. That narrowed things down a bit.

 

I was about to open the next letter when something across the room danced into my peripheral vision—a difference in the light on the wall. I looked up, but whatever it was—if, in fact, it had been anything at all—was gone.

 

But when I glanced back at the letters, I immediately saw the same thing at the outer edge of my eyesight. I cut my gaze to the right, without moving my head, and saw what it really was: a reflection dancing on the wall, like a sparkling spiderweb. It was about four feet in diameter, and it was in constant motion.

 

It reminded me of the way the sun bounces off the unsettled surface of a swimming pool.

 

It had to be coming from some body of water somewhere—but where?

 

I set the letters on the top shelf of the piano. Then I went to the window and stared down over the grounds, looking for the source of the reflection … but there was no water in sight. Only the line of trees in the distance, hills so small you couldn’t even really call them hills, and one shallow, dry ditch a hundred feet away.

 

Then what could be causing the dancing pattern of light?

 

As soon as I turned my head to study it, it was gone again.

 

Awash in equal amounts of wariness and embarrassment, I went back to looking around the day room. On the far side of the room was another door, this one marked WARD, but it was locked, and having made it this far without having to use the keys, I wasn’t eager to begin now.

 

Then there came a sound from behind me—a faint, clear ringing, like jingle bells.

 

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Then I spun around. “Hello? Mom? Dad?”

 

No one answered.

 

“Who’s there? Janie?”

 

I listened for a reply. No sound—not a word, a breath, not even more jingling.

 

It was nothing. Nothing.

 

But I didn’t really believe myself.

 

It seemed like everywhere my eyes landed—the piano, the floral-cushioned chairs—I caught a hint of a movement just finished, a moment of sudden, expectant stillness, like the space between an inhale and an exhale—as if some wily trespasser was lurking in the shadows, slipping around just out of my sight.

 

Time to go. Aunt Cordelia’s office was clearly on the other side of the building. What was to be gained by poking around in here?

 

That’s why I’m going, I thought, starting for the door. Not because of the hairs standing up on the back of my neck, but because I was on a mission.

 

I stopped by the door to pick my cardigan up off the table, and froze when I realized that the table was completely bare.