Possessions (2 page)

“I’m not so sure about this.” That was Keeks again.

“Tie her hands.” Her Majesty.

Yow.

“Maybe we’d better wait.” The first girl I’d heard. Not in charge.

“Just do it, Lara. Oh, forget it. Give me the rope and—”

“God, Mandy, chill. I’m on it.”

Mandy. How typical. I wondered if Mandy was half as mean as Jane; and if she was, I pitied Lara just for being there almost as much as I pitied Keeks, whoever she was, for agreeing to be blindfolded and tied up in the middle of a fog bank when they should be in class. Obviously, Keeks had to prove herself to get into their exclusive little club. So not worth it.

By then I was at the hedge.
Just a peek
, I told myself,
just to make sure she’s okay.

The privet leaves were wet and small, covering branches that grew together as dense as an actual fence. I smelled wet earth and my own sugar-free cinnamon gum. Wind toyed with my crazed ringlets as I raised myself up on my tiptoes in an attempt to peer out of a thinned-out space above my head. I’m only five-foot-two, and it was out of my reach. I crept to my left, still unable to see anything.

“Let’s get started. Breathe in, breathe out, center. We gather to welcome you. Kiyoko, let go, let go of yourself, and become one of us.”Nervous laughter drifted from a thinned section in the hedge, a circle of broken branch endings that looked as if someone had clipped them, like wire cutters on a chain-link fence. The opening emitted fog—as if
it
were breathing—and it creeped me out. I hugged my UCSD sweatshirt around myself as I moved in quietly and peered through. My high-tops sank into mud.

“Come to me, come to me,” Mandy urged.

The fog rolled and churned; then I saw them. Two girls flanked a third, who was blindfolded. The tallest wore her light, nearly white-blonde hair in a messy bun. She had to be Mandy. Her full lips were curved in a smile I knew well—calculating, cruel, enjoying the distress of her victim.

Maybe-Mandy’s neck was fashion-model long, and she was wearing glittering diamond earrings as big as pencil erasers. I assumed they were real. Her clothes were so fine—a long black coat hung open, revealing a knee-length black cashmere sweater-dress over black pencil-leg woolen trousers above high-heeled boots—and I saw a thick gold bangle around her wrist as she smoothed a wisp of hair away from her cheek. Everything looked designer and real.

“Become one of us,” Mandy said again, her voice papery, and she exhaled, sending condensed breath all over the blindfolded girl’s face.

“Become one of us,” the other girl—Lara—chanted. She was grinning like a coyote that had stumbled on a nest of baby rabbits. Her emerald eyes (definitely contacts) gleamed as Kiyoko stood statue-still. Lara was a classic redhead with ivory skin and a few cute freckles, her hair short and her clothes tasteful but boho—a man’s plaid suit jacket in olive green and chocolate-brown, an extra-long white shirt, and the skinniest of skinny dark jeans.

Standing blindfolded in the center, Kiyoko’s hands were tied behind her back, which was the part that made me extra-uneasy for her. It was going a little too far.

Kiyoko was rail-thin, the kind of thin that was too thin even for a model, and black silky hair cascaded over her shoulders. A gorgeous silvery sweater grazed the thighs of her gray jeans, but it hung too loose on her. Her legs were like sticks. She was chewing her lower lip; her golden-hued features displayed her concentration and eagerness.

“Become one of us,” Mandy and Lara whispered together, their breaths spiraling up toward the sky.

Fog rushed all around me, wrapping me up in cold sheets of blank whiteness, and I couldn’t see a thing. The chill seeped through my clothes straight through to my bones, and I shivered, hard. It felt as if the cold were creeping under my hair, straight into my
brain
.

I shuddered, and for a few seconds, I couldn’t even think. For a quick moment, I thought I smelled . . . smoke? Then the sensation passed. Another strong wind whipped through the fog and thinned it out again—just as Mandy and Lara both stiffened and quickly inhaled. Their faces went slack, with their eyes still open.

I wondered if they were having some kind of infectious seizure. I waited for them to exhale, but it wasn’t happening. Then I realized
I
was holding my breath, too, and forced myself to let it out. I felt shaky and weird.

I almost called out to see if they needed help. Before I went nuts, I had done some lifeguarding, and I was still certified in CPR.

Slowly, Mandy turned her head in my direction, as if she knew I was there. Probably not a good thing, spying. Before I realized what I was doing, I stepped to the right, where the branches grew closer together, blocking her view, although I could still see her sick little game.

Mandy’s forehead creased in apparent frustration. I squinted as more fog rolled between us; when it wafted out of the way, her eyes looked completely black. No pupils. No white. No color. Just black.

Whoa, how high was she?

“Number Three,” she intoned, and her voice sounded different. “Come to me.” Higher, shriller, with a little Southern accent. Her laugh was high-pitched, and a tad OOC . . .

“Number three, come to me,” Lara added, and her voice didn’t sound the same either. Maybe a little lower . . . meaner . . .

“I’m here,” Kiyoko murmured. She sounded unsure, more like she wanted to please them than anything else.

A deep chill ran through me, the fog moist and cold on my face. What exactly was I witnessing?

Then someone tapped me on the back, and I gasped and whirled around.

two

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,”
said the girl before me. She had a little gap-tooth grin and I recognized her immediately from the JPEGs she’d sent me. She was my roommate, Julie. Her hazel eyes glittered in her classically oval face; her wheat-colored blonde braid coiled over her shoulder like a friendly snake. She was a couple inches taller than me, and she hunched, round-shouldered, as if to lessen her impact on me. “I didn’t mean to give you a heart attack.”

“No, no,” I assured her. “I’m fine.” I moved away from the hedge. I didn’t want them to know that I’d been watching them. “So, hi. I’m Lindsay. But you know that.” I’d sent her pics, too. But they were pre-breakdown. Maybe I didn’t look like any of those pictures. After all, I hadn’t been crazy in any of them.

You are not crazy now,
I reminded myself.

“You must have just gotten in. I dashed to our room to get something during free time and I saw all your stuff,” she said, breathy and rosy-cheeked and very, very nice. “So I started looking for you.”

“And here I am,” I said, smiling as best I could.

“Here you are. C’mon, let’s get you settled in. Do you know how to get to Ehrlenbach’s? She left a message that she wants to see you. I’ll take you there. Then I’ll let Coach Dorcas know I’ll be late for soccer—I was supposed to start—and I’ll meet you back at our room. Do you know how to get there?”

“I think so. And thanks.” A beat, and then some of my old snarky self resurfaced. “And tell me that’s not her real name.”

“Well,
she’ d
be happy to tell you that St. Peter raised the original Dorcas from the dead.” Julie smiled, then looked in the direction of Jessel. “What’s so interesting?”

“Nothing,” I said. As we walked away, I felt something like a tap on the nape of my neck, and I glanced back at the hedge. Mandy was standing exactly where I had stood, staring at us. From that distance, I couldn’t see her eyes, but I could read her body language. She was on alert, on guard, wondering if we’d seen anything. And I knew then that what I’d witnessed was a secret.

Marlwood Academy
was nothing like the brochure I had snagged in my old school counselor’s office back home in San Diego, when they were trying to decide if I was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (verdict: yes) and if I needed meds (“not yet”—that was reassuring). The extremely fancy booklet (eighty-four pages) had featured lots of glossy close-ups of wildflowers and pine trees. There were seventeen dormitories and apparently some condemned buildings that were forbidden territory. Marlwood had three hundred surrounding acres of forest, and a current student population of 201. I had a feeling that extra Dalmatian was me, she who did not really belong here. No matter. I
was
here.

I’d learned a little about Marlwood from emailing and IMing with my roommate-to-be, Julie Statin. She said Marlwood had reopened that year after decades of being closed. Generations of rich Ehrlenbachs had used the extensive grounds as a family retreat, but Dr. Margot had started up the school again for some unknown reason.

Both Julie and the brochure had neglected to mention that the campus was located in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by some seriously eerie woods, or that the headmistress, Dr. Margot Ehrlenbach, looked like something out of a wax museum—at least judging by her photograph on page one. Now I was about to find out.

Julie and I approached the admin building, me watching a cluster of my classmates laughing and strolling to points unknown. They were dressed for a level of upscale success I hadn’t dreamed existed outside dishy, trashy websites. I was gawking so intensely that I nearly ran into a big black door, adorned with a circular door knocker clutched in the mouth of a stern lion. Arched windows swagged in dark green curtains looked like eyes; two stone columns propped up lacy iron-work verandas enclosing the two stories.

“I have to leave you here,” Julie said. “I’ll check in with coach and see you in a few.” She patted my shoulder. “Ehrlenbach is freaky, but don’t let her get to you.”

“Words to live by,” I drawled, trying to sound braver than I felt.

“You’re funny,” Julie said. It was a compliment. “Later.”

She dashed off and I went inside.

The scent of ivy seeped through a clogging, old-building smell, and stained glass windows blocked out more light than they let in. It was so gloomy that it took me a moment to see the washed-out receptionist, with gray hair and silver glasses and a gray blouse under a dark green jacket. Dark green was Marlwood’s color. She brought the gray to the party on her own.

“Lindsay Cavanaugh,” she said. I was a bit taken aback that she knew my name. But of course, I was the only new girl, new defined as starting the semester so late.

“That’s me,” I blurted.

She didn’t smile. “Go down the hall. Her door is on the left. She’s waiting,” she told me, gesturing. Her nameplate read ANNE SHELLEY.

I passed Ms. Shelley’s desk and walked into an even dimmer corridor. At the other end, the marble bust of Our Glorious Founder, Edwin Marlwood, glared at me so hard that I actually took a step back. He had a narrow forehead and a long, hooked nose, and his blank eyes practically narrowed with disapproval.
You
, he seemed to say,
do not belong here.

Just before I knocked on the heavy mahogany door that said, MARGOT EHRLENBACH, PHD, HEADMISTRESS, Dr. Ehrlenbach opened it herself and invited me to sit down. The office was freezing—even colder than outside—and I was glad I had opted for my high-tops instead of my flip flops. The room was completely bare except for a large cherrywood desk, a bookcase containing a dozen or so thick leather-bound books, her padded leather chair, two upholstered (dark green) chairs in front of it, and some framed watercolor sketches of the Marlwood grounds.

“So. Lindsay,” Margot Ehrlenbach said unto me.

My cousin’s boyfriend had dubbed her “Maggot” during the endless family debates we’d had about whether it would drive me even crazier to go away to boarding school. I wondered if she kept her office so cold to keep herself from decomposing. I knew she was on the elderly side, but there were no wrinkles on her sharp-featured face. She was wearing an incredible amount of makeup; maybe she had troweled it into all her lines, like grout. Her skin was pulled so tightly she couldn’t have smiled if she’d wanted to.

And after seeing me, she obviously didn’t want to. I had thought I was all that—proud of my anti-fashion statement: high-tops, tattered jeans, my mom’s ratty UCSD sweatshirt, no makeup. And the hair that would not die—my black curls flowing like bubbles over my shoulders, contained—not tamed—by a plain tortoiseshell headband. But it wasn’t happening.

“You’ve arrived,” she continued, in a tone that said
We won’t make a mistake like that again
.

I had assumed my first stop would be my room, and I had planned to change into a less ragged pair of jeans and maybe even a sweater and Jason’s peacoat to meet my headmistress. Instead, Dr. Ehrlenbach’s eye-sweep up and down drove home the point that I had blown my first impression, and the silence in the room hung there like a meat cleaver over my head.

“And you’re ready to get to work,” she said icily, continuing the pleasantries. “Because you have a
lot
of catching up to do.”