The Silent Scream (11 page)

Jess was reluctant to go inside when they reached Nightingale Hall. Sensing her feelings, Ian sat down on the top step and pulled her down beside him.

Jess snuggled against his chest when he put an arm around her. She certainly wasn’t ready to go back to her room. Maybe she’d
never
be ready. Maybe she’d have to spend the rest of the year on the front porch.

If Ian would stay out here with her …

That seemed like an even better idea when he bent his head to kiss her.

I
AN PEELED CARROTS AT
the sink the following night while Jess heated the huge pan of lasagna Maddie Carthew had brought, and Jon and Cath set the table. Milo returned from fishing with Trucker in tow.

So far, Trucker had had no luck finding keys for their doors.

Watching Ian work, Jess remembered the slimy pink creatures in her dresser drawer. A mental picture of Ian, a fishing pole over his shoulder, disappearing into the woods carrying a coffee-can filled with bait came, unbidden, into her mind. Then his face was replaced by Trucker’s, and then Milo’s.

No. Not them. They wouldn’t. The vandal didn’t have to be a fisherman, anyway. Maybe he’d just wanted it to
look
like one of them had done it.

Jess couldn’t stand suspecting Ian. Remembering his kisses, she shivered with pleasure and quickly moved to the refrigerator to collect lettuce and tomatoes. She’d much rather concentrate on the kisses. But the suspicions kept popping into her mind.

She stood at the open refrigerator door for a long time, lost in thought.

“You’re wise to keep an eye on it,” Ian said as he joined her. “Never can tell about large appliances. Sometimes they take off without a moment’s notice.”

When she failed to laugh, he frowned. “Hey, kiddo,” he said in a low voice, “what’s up? Did I
do
something? Peel the carrots wrong? How many ways can there be to peel carrots?”

She was saved from answering by an impromptu game of catch between Jon and Milo, in which a loaf of French bread was the ball. Milo missed. The long, foil-wrapped loaf hit Ian in the small of the back and, their conversation forgotten, he whirled to join the game.

When she carried the steaming lasagna to the table, Jess had to maneuver around the ballplayers, still cavorting with the French bread. Linda came in, laughed at their antics, and went over to Jess. “Milo and I are going to the library together tonight,” she confided in a low voice. “What should I wear?”

The bread sailed past them, caught by Jon at the opposite end of the kitchen. “Touchdown!” he shouted in triumph.

“What should you wear to the
library
?” Jess asked. “Well, spike heels, definitely, and if you have any diamond earrings, wear those and …”

“Jess!” Linda laughed. “Come on, be serious.”

The bread escaped from Trucker’s grasping hands and thunked into a large white ceramic goose stationed on top of the refrigerator. It toppled sideways and landed on its side with a clang.

“Okay, guys, cut it out!” Cath scolded sharply.

Jess sighed. Everyone else seemed more relaxed, but Cath was still strung tighter than a violin. She wasn’t eating much, and Jess suspected that she wasn’t sleeping, either. She certainly
looked
like she hadn’t been sleeping. There were dark circles under her eyes.

It wasn’t as if Jess didn’t understand how Cath felt. Cath’s privacy had been invaded, and Jess knew, now, what that felt like. It was horrible.

But Cath was letting it make her crazy. Ruining her first year at college. She looked like she might fall apart at any second.

“You’ll wreck something,” Cath told Milo. “Mrs. Coates has a lot of antique pieces in this house.”

“Yeah, right,” Milo said, sinking into a chair. “Antiques, spelled J-U-N-K.”

Cath sniffed. “I thought poets were supposed to appreciate the finer things in life.”

“I appreciate the finer things enough to know that stupid goose isn’t one of them.”

Jess found herself wishing that Cath would call a truce with Linda and Milo. Everyone else seemed to be getting along well, in spite of the tension caused by the stories of Giselle’s death and the recent vandalism. But it was obvious that Cath hadn’t forgiven Milo for the stolen essay, and equally obvious that Linda and Milo were on edge around Cath.

Remembering Ian’s quote about standing together, Jess thought, we should all be united now, trying to find out what’s going on around here. The vandalism involves everyone, even those people whose rooms haven’t been invaded yet. Because they still could be. We don’t have any reason to think that it’s over.

After dinner, Linda helped load the dishwasher. “I didn’t know Milo ever
went
to the library,” Jess said. “Are you sure he’ll know how to behave?”

Linda laughed and said, “Of
course
he will. Milo is a
poet,
Jess. He’s probably spent hours in libraries.”

“I still have trouble with the fact that Milo lied about knowing Giselle.” Jess knew the statement might rile Linda, but she had to say it. True, Milo
had
explained why he hadn’t mentioned knowing Giselle. And it made sense. But it still rankled that he hadn’t told them he’d known her.

“He
didn’t
lie. No one
asked
him if he knew her.”

“But he never volunteered the information. That’s almost the same thing. Even when Ian told us what happened to her, Milo never said a word.”

Linda’s cheeks reddened, and she was about to answer when Milo and Ian returned from hauling the trash to the bottom of the hill.

Jess had learned nothing.

When she went upstairs and passed Linda’s room, she found Linda’s door open. Linda was inside, primping in front of her dresser mirror in preparation for her library “date” with Milo.

“You’ve done a super job with your room,” Jess said from the doorway. “I love that bedspread.” It was splashed with brilliant flowers in vivid shades of red.

Linda flushed with pleasure. “Oh, thanks. Come on in. Maybe you can help me tame my hair. My grandmother sent me the spread when I told her my room was plain old white. It helps, right?”

“It sure does.” So did the seascape posters and high school pennants Linda had tacked on the walls. Her bookshelves were crammed with swimming trophies, and a photo gallery of her family and friends had been taped to the thick wooden frame around her dresser mirror.

Linda’s eyes were bright with excitement. Jess couldn’t help asking, “Linda, are you sure Milo sees this library thing as a date?”

Hairbrush in hand, Linda turned away from the mirror to face Jess. “Look,” she said, nervously fingering the collar of her peacock blue blouse, “I know you think I’m being really dippy about Milo. But … I never dated in high school. I mean
never.
Not once.”

Jess looked at her inquiringly. “But …”

“I’m a
big
girl, Jess. Bigger than most of the guys in my high school. The ones who did tower over me were jocks and they weren’t keen on dating a hotshot girl athlete.” She said the last with difficulty, letting Jess know the pain was still fresh. Putting on her earrings, Linda added wistfully, “My parents were always so proud of their daughter-the-athlete. They never guessed I was lying awake nights wishing I had a date. And,” her round face flushed more deeply, “feeling ashamed because I wanted something so … trivial.”

“Everyone wants to go out and have fun,” Jess said. “That’s not anything to be ashamed of.”

Linda slid her feet into black flats. “Well, Milo’s no jock, that’s for sure. Maybe that’s why he appeals to me. Besides,” she added with the smallest of grins, “he’s taller than me. I could even wear heels.” Her grin widened. “Even spike heels.”

Jess laughed. “You look really pretty,” she said sincerely. “And forget about not dating in high school. I mean, look at someone like Giselle McKendrick. Everyone says she was so popular. She probably dated a lot. But it didn’t make
her
happy, or she wouldn’t have done what she did.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Suicide,” Linda sighed, and bent over to adjust her shoe.

The word “suicide” had barely left her mouth when there was a sharp, cracking sound from the mirror behind her.

And then, as Jess watched in horror from her seat on the bed, the wide square of glass exploded outward into a thousand pieces.

T
HE MIRROR EXPLODED WITH
such force, the chunks and shards and slivers of glass were propelled far out into the room, like arrows shot from a bow. It was that very force that saved Jess, who sat on the foot of the bed, directly in the line of fire. The glass arrows were flung over her head and beyond her, to pierce the pillows, stab the wall pennants and posters, and dive into the floor near the head of the bed.

Linda, her eyes wide with terror, remained frozen in a crouched position.

“Oh, God,” she breathed when the last piece of shattered glass had clinked to the floor, “what was
that
?”

Jess, her face hidden behind her hands, whispered, “Is it over?”

Linda straightened up cautiously. Her face was as white as the wall behind her. “I think so.” She glanced at her dresser. “My mirror is gone.” There was awe in her voice. “Totally gone!”

The explosion had been heard by the others. Feet ran down the hall, someone pounded on the door. “Linda?” It was Milo. “What was
that
?”

“The mirror attacked us,” Linda said without emotion, as if she couldn’t believe it herself. “Watch out for glass on the floor.”

Ian was right behind Milo. He went to Jess, sat down next to her. “You’re not hurt?”

She shook her head. A tiny piece of glass fell from her hair to the bedspread. She slid her hands away from her face, checking quickly for cuts. She found only one small scratch on her left hand, another on her right forearm. She saw none on Linda.

“What
happened
?” Cath cried as she entered the room. She was wrapped in a long yellow robe, her hair clustered into a careless ponytail. “You broke your mirror?”

“I didn’t
break
it,” Linda said, leaning against Milo. He put an arm around her and she sent him a grateful look. “
It
broke. By itself. It … exploded.”

Jess nodded. “That’s exactly what happened. I know it sounds crazy, but no one did anything to it. Linda bent to fix her shoe and the mirror exploded.”

“If I hadn’t,” Linda interrupted, pressing a fist to her mouth, “if I hadn’t bent over …” the thought was too horrible to finish and she fell silent.

Jess finished the thought in her head. If Linda hadn’t been bending over, she could have been sliced to ribbons by all that flying glass.

Cath sank down on the bed, next to Ian. “Mirrors don’t just … explode.” She looked to Ian for confirmation. “Do they?”

They’re not
supposed
to, Jess thought as Ian shrugged. But then, lots of things happen in this house that aren’t supposed to.

Trucker appeared in the doorway. “What a mess! Somebody throw a rock through the window?”

Jess hadn’t thought of that. The window
was
open, and had no screen. Maybe some neighborhood kid had been practicing his pitching skills?

“I didn’t see a rock. Did you, Linda?”

Linda shook her head. “I didn’t see a thing. I heard a crack, that’s all.” She looked doubtful. “I guess something
could
have hit the mirror.”

When they had carefully cleaned up the glass, they all searched under the furniture for some object that might have made the mirror its target. They found nothing.

But because something thrown from outside was the only explanation that seemed to make sense, they all agreed that they simply weren’t looking in the right places, that whatever had hit the mirror was almost certainly somewhere in the room.

It wasn’t until they were leaving, toting brown grocery sacks filled with broken glass, that Jess remembered what she and Linda had been talking about when the mirror exploded. Giselle … they’d been talking about Giselle’s suicide.

And she remembered the first time that topic had been mentioned, in Ian’s story on the front porch that first night. An upstairs window had suddenly slammed shut. Then they’d gone inside to the kitchen. And as they’d talked about the incident a little more, the light had gone out abruptly. And now, tonight, Linda had mentioned the word “suicide,” and the mirror had exploded.

The thought that there might be a connection was so off-the-wall and made so little sense, that Jess dismissed it as too,
too
weird.

But even as everyone was repeating how lucky the two girls had been, escaping serious injury, an uneasiness settled over her and she knew that it wouldn’t go away until she left the house.

So Ian had no trouble persuading her to go see a movie on campus. Jess jumped at the chance to get away from the house.

I would have
seen
something coming through the window in Linda’s room, she thought as she collected a jacket and her campus I.D. I
would
have.

Cath surprised everyone by deciding to go to the movie, too, adding, “
I’m
not staying here alone.” Linda and Milo agreed to go on to the library.

And Jess decided that pretending that everything was normal was much better than acknowledging the waves of uneasiness that crawled up her spine like ants. And as long as they were out of the house, she
could
pretend.

The movie was hilarious, and Ian held her hand the whole time. Feeling completely safe in the crowded campus theater, Jess relaxed and laughed, forgetting her uneasiness.

After the movie, Trucker drove them into town for pizza. Vinnie’s, which served the best pizza in town, was mobbed. Jess saw Jon in a corner booth, a ponytailed blonde seated next to him. Remembering Jon’s telephone conversation she knew, without checking, that the girl’s eyes had to be blue.

Spotting Jon, Cath deliberately turned to Trucker and began chatting animatedly, as if she had, at that very moment, suddenly realized how attractive he was.

Jess hid a smile. Cath says she’s not interested in Jon, she thought to herself, but if she’s not at this very moment trying to make him jealous, then I’m a pizza-hater.