She slammed back into the wall, then gave up and helplessly sank to the floor.
Finally, Landon leapt into action. He raced toward her—but all I had to do was shove his chest to send him flying backward, tripping over the scattered chairs and landing in a heap.
I turned my attention to the second window, the one on the other side of Nic, and one, two, three! punched through the glass. Then, because releasing the energy felt so incredibly satisfying, I kept going—four, five, six, seven!—until I’d rammed my fist through every single pane.
I was beyond hearing Nic’s terrified weeping, or Landon’s dismayed moans. All I could hear was the voice in my head—a monstrous voice fanning the flames of my wrath.
Traitors, it said. Filthy, disgusting, bottom-feeding traitors. They deserve this. They deserve the pain, the fear …
They deserve to die.
Then they’ll know how it feels.
Finally, I caught myself and staggered back, surveying the scene.
Landon sat on the floor, cradling his left arm close to his chest. Nic was bent into a quivering little ball on the ground.
Eliza hurried by, elbowing me out of her way. Her voice was icy and filled with righteous judgment. “What have you done?”
I didn’t answer. I stared at my best friend, who hadn’t even raised her head to look up.
“Nic,” Landon grunted. “I think my wrist is broken.”
There was no answer.
“Nicola?”
Still, she didn’t answer. Eliza knelt by her side.
“Nic?” I asked, stepping toward her.
“Delia,” Eliza whispered, her voice chilled. “Get the boy’s attention.”
I stared. “Why?”
“Get the boy’s attention!” she snapped. “Now!”
“How?” I asked. I reached for a stack of magazines on the little table behind the couch, but my hand whooshed right through them.
“It hurts,” Landon muttered to himself.
“Oh, for the love of—” Eliza said. “I’ll do it.”
She stood up, reached through the broken window, and sent a small shower of glass tinkling to the floor.
“Nicola?” Landon asked, looking up and then hesitantly coming closer. “What’s—”
Suddenly, Nic raised her head and looked at him. Her skin was dull gray but her eyes were bright and surprised looking. Her left hand held tightly to her right wrist.
Only then did I see the puddle of red spreading on the floor by her—blood. Blood that came pulsing out of a gaping wound on her forearm.
Landon gasped.
“You think it’s an artery?” Nic asked faintly. “It’s … kind of a lot of blood, isn’t it?”
“Nicola, oh my God. Oh my God. Here—” Landon ripped off his shirt and ran to her side. “Raise it above your heart. Can you raise it? Let me …”
He tore the sleeve off the shirt and wrapped it around the wound. Immediately, it was soaked through with dark, brilliant red.
“Hold that,” he said. “Hold it tightly. I’m going to call an ambulance—”
“No cell service,” she whispered.
“Okay, okay.” He was panting, on the verge of panic, trying to make a plan. “Then we’ll have to drive, but the car’s parked out front. Can you walk that far?”
“I’ll wait for you,” she said.
“I can carry you—”
“No, I’ll wait here,” she said softly. “Go get the car.”
He looked at her helplessly, then ran out the door, shouting over his shoulder: “Keep the pressure on it!”
She nodded and took a few weak breaths, straining the air through her teeth. But after he’d gone, the grip she held on her wrist slackened, and her head fell limply to one side.
“She’s passed out,” Eliza said. “She’s lost too much blood.”
I dropped to the ground and reached for Nic’s wound, trying to press my own hand on it.
But I couldn’t even do that much. My hand wouldn’t make contact with the soaked shirt.
Oh God, she’s going to die. I killed her.
I killed my best friend.
“Please, Eliza, help me,” I said. “Please!”
“Get out of the way,” Eliza said, and she crouched at Nic’s side. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, she pressed her fingers on the dressing and held firmly. “If he can get her to the hospital soon enough, she’ll probably be okay.”
“But it’s snowing,” I said. “The roads are iced over.”
“Well, you should have thought about that before you tried to murder her!” Eliza barked. “Honestly, Delia. She could die here, and it would be your doing. I thought you said she was your best friend.”
“I know,” I said, and then I started to shake. My whole body quaked so violently that my vision blurred. “It was an accident—I never meant to—”
Eliza looked away, as if it embarrassed her just to witness my feeble uselessness. “Hold yourself together,” she said quietly. “The very least you can do at this point is not make things worse.”
I nodded and shut my mouth, but I couldn’t stop the tremors that coursed through me. I stared at my best friend’s pale, unconscious face, wondering if some part of her knew it had been me who did those terrible things.
What kind of best friend was I? Nic wasn’t stealing my boyfriend. He wasn’t even my boyfriend anymore. And more significantly, I was dead. You can’t steal anything from a dead person.
What had I done?
I was desperate for Landon to return, to put her in his car so they could race to safety. I ran to the front window and watched the SUV come around the corner of the house. Leaving the engine running, Landon jumped out and came inside.
His face paled when he saw Nic slumped over, but after finding her pulse, he relaxed minutely. Groaning with effort, he pulled her away from the window in an attempt to lift her. But his left arm was limp and useless, and as he tried to pull her up, he let out a primal yell of pain.
“You need to wake up,” he said. “Nicola, come on, wake up.”
She stirred, but her eyelids didn’t even flutter.
Again, Landon tried to hoist her off the floor, and again he cried out in pain.
“Please, Nicola, come on,” he begged. There was a tone in his voice I’d never heard before … a tenderness he’d never used with me. And it was mixed with crushing fear. When I looked at his face, I was shocked to see terrified tears streaming from his eyes.
He genuinely cared about her. More than he’d ever cared about me.
“He can’t pick her up with that arm. She needs to wake up.” Eliza stared at the ground for a second, came to some decision, then shot a sharp glare at me. “You stand well back.”
“Why?” I asked. “What are you going to do? Are you going to carry her for him?”
She looked at me like I was crazy. “Carry her? And how would that look? You don’t understand anything about how the world works, do you? Do you want spiritual mediums and two-bit psychics crawling all over this place? Now, stand back.”
I stood back.
“Farther,” she said. “On the other side of the table. I don’t want her to see you.”
To see me? I obeyed wordlessly.
Eliza closed her own eyes and inhaled—but instead of taking in air, her body seemed to breathe in light. She glowed slightly, kind of like Florence had in the lobby with Maria. But that light had been fierce and vivid—this had golden warmth to it.
She leaned forward and placed her hands on Nic’s cheeks.
“Wake up, then,” she whispered. “Come, Nicola, wake up.”
Nothing happened.
Eliza leaned forward so her forehead touched Nic’s, and a bit of her glow ignited a flush of warmth under my best friend’s graying pallor.
“Wake up, sweetie,” Eliza said, a bit more tersely. “Enough of this foolishness. Wake up.”
But nothing happened.
Eliza shot me a despairing lo
ok, then turned back to Nic. Her voice rose and became firmer. “Nicola—wake up! Wake up, you idiot! Trust me, you do not want to die here! Wake up!”
Nic’s eyes suddenly popped open.
She stared right at Eliza.
“There’s a good girl,” Eliza said, stroking her cheek gently.
Nic was transfixed, staring at Eliza with wonder in her eyes. Then Landon grabbed her face and, pulling it toward his own, smothered her forehead with kisses.
“Oh, God,” he said, his voice thick with tears. “I thought I was losing you.”
Nic looked surprised to see him, and then she turned her gaze back to where Eliza had been sitting—where she still sat, though she was invisible to Nic now.
“Let’s stand up. Wrap your arm around my neck,” Landon said. He shuffled her into position, and she got to her feet, swaying slightly.
“Where’d she go?” Nic asked, looking around the room. “The girl with the dark hair … did you see her?”
“No, I didn’t see anybody,” Landon said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
They reached the door, and Landon pushed it open with his foot.
Just before they stepped outside, Nic made one last visual sweep of the room.
And she called out, “Delia? Are you here, too?”
Then the door closed.
I stayed in the corner, where I’d been since Eliza ordered me there. Through the frosty windows, I watched Landon load Nic into the passenger seat and then run around to the driver’s side. The car bumped away from the house and disappeared around the corner.
Eliza sighed and sat back. She looked drained.
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for saving her life.”
“Well, it wouldn’t have been necessary if—” Her harsh words cut off suddenly. I saw deep sadness in her eyes, and I saw them grow even sadder as she stared into mine. Slowly, she got to her feet. “Delia, you need to be more careful. You can’t go on this way.”
“I know,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded, and I could tell her thoughts had strayed to something heavy and painful, from some distant time.
“Why did you ask me about the smoke?” I asked. “Did something happen to you when you were here?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she said. “The past is in the past. And if you’re wise, you’ll learn to accept your place and stop trying to change the way the world works.”
“But why?” I asked.
“Because,” she said. “You’re still just a child, aren’t you? And there’s no limit to the destruction that a child can cause.”
Her words went through me like a knife. For once I saw my actions from someone else’s point of view. Saw the stupidity of my recklessness.
“If the past is kind enough to disappear into oblivion, we should be grateful,” Eliza said, staring at the floor. “We should take it for the gift that it is. Trust me … I know.”
Then she walked away and disappeared through the wall, leaving me alone in the wrecked and bloodied room.
I stood in that spot until the shadows grew blue and long. Until the sky began to turn purple and orange and the night mist crept up from the horizon and enveloped the world in an eerie glow.
I don’t know how long I would have stayed there if I hadn’t heard the voice:
“Delia …”
It seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. I may have been in a daze, but I was aware enough to be frightened. The problem is, when you don’t know where something is, it’s impossible to run away from it.
“Delia …”
“Hello?” I said.
I dashed through the wall, into the dark hallway, and continued through to the kitchen. There, I found myself looking at a ghostly woman dressed in a crisp white-aproned nurse’s uniform. Her name tag read NURSE CARLSON and she carried a metal tray—judging by the distinctive rust spot on one side, it was the exact same metal tray that I’d seen in the superintendent’s apartment and in the nurses’ office.
This lady really got around.
Her eyes were encircled with bluish-black bruises. Had she been the one saying my name?
She scowled at me. “You’d better get back to the ward before Dr. Normington sees you—whoever you are!” she snapped.
I stared at her without answering. She definitely hadn’t spoken my name before. She didn’t even know my name.
“Go!” Her voice rose to a shrill howl. She dropped the tray to the floor with a deafening clank. “Go! You’re bad, just like the rest of them! You’re all bad! You deserve what you get here! Bad, crazy girls! Look what you did to me! Just look at me!”
I didn’t want to look at her. I didn’t want to do anything but turn and run the other way. So that’s what I did—out of the kitchen, down the hall, and up the stairs to the second floor.
“Delia …”
The voice was like the breath of a stranger on the back of my neck. It made me feel like I was being smothered by something I couldn’t even see.
There was nowhere left to run.
Except up. To the third floor.
* * *
On the third-floor landing, I paused outside a door painted in layers of peeling paint. The metal sign, which had nearly crusted over with damp-looking blue corrosion, proclaimed LONG-TERM CARE.
I pushed it open and found myself in a large room. With the exception of a few wood benches bolted into place under the windows, which were covered in a thick mesh of chicken wire, the space was bare—there was nothing here except the stained tile floor and sickly green walls. There wasn’t a single picture, no chairs. No fireplace, rug, piano, tables, or lamps. Nothing to suggest comfort or a sense of home. This was the day room for the lifers.
The dust was so thick in the air that it looked like a school of plankton swirling and dipping in the late-afternoon sunshine.
There was a door marked NO UNAUTHORIZED ADMITTANCE in a little alcove to my left, and another door across the room, with a dirty-looking stamped metal sign that read WARD.
I went through the ward door. Like the day room, the hallway was laid out similarly to its second-floor counterpart—same length and width, same number of doors—but with a few striking differences. The nurse’s station was guarded by sturdy metal mesh, bolted into the walls. The closest door was open to reveal a filthy-looking bathroom with a row of exposed toilets, three grimy sinks, and a pair of bathtubs. There wasn’t even a curtain for privacy.
No dignity for the troubled women on the third floor.
In each bedroom was a metal bed frame holding a limp, discolored mattress, most with rotting foam spilling out from their torn seams. A network of cracked and crumbling leather straps was clearly visible: two for the wrists, two for the ankles, one to go across the chest, and one to go across the upper thighs. Just looking at them gave me phantom sensations of pressure on my wrists and a tight feeling in my chest.
Things were much less luxurious up here, which made sense: for a woman to be confined to the third floor, she probably showed some signs of actual mental instability. Unlike the second floor, where the residents were just troublemakers, the families of the third-floor women didn’t have to do any soul-searching about leaving them at the Piven Institute. There was no need for cozy bedding or snug-looking rooms to entice guilt-ridden parents or husbands with the promise of comfort.
The third floor wasn’t just for show.
With a shudder, I walked toward the window at the end of the hall, where I stood staring outside at the moonlight luminescing off the snowbanks that covered the grounds.
I stepped back from the window.
But when I turned to head downstairs, something was wrong …
The hallway had shrunk.
Before, it had been wide enough that I could have lain down across it and still had a couple of feet between my head and the wall.
Now, stretching my arms out to the sides, I could reach both walls with my fingertips.<
br />
Just ignore it, I told myself. Ignore it. It wants you to react. It’s trying to scare you.
My first instinct was to scrunch my eyes shut as hard as I could and run for it, but I knew that would be a mistake. What I had to do was act like I hadn’t even noticed and sail right through the hall. Keep my head high all the way back to the first floor.
But when I took a step, I was immediately engulfed by a sick, dizzy feeling. My vision seemed to ripple. I rubbed my eyes to clear them, and when I looked up, the walls were even closer. With my arms extended, I could have rested a flat palm on either side.
Another step. Another wave of nausea rang through me like a gong.
If I stood still, the awful feeling subsided. If I moved, it pressed in on my face and my cheekbones and turned my stomach.
Two more paces forward. I leaned over and retched.
When I stood up, the hallway was less than three feet wide.
Finally, I closed my eyes, stretched my arms out in front of me, and ran.
I made it about ten steps before my shoulder slammed into something, and I recoiled, only to slam into something else on the other side. Now the space was only as wide as my body. And there were still six feet to the door.
I paused and then turned just my head to look back over my shoulder. Surely I’d see that this was all just an illusion. There would be a spacious, bright hall behind me.
But there wasn’t. What I saw was like a view through a fun-house mirror. The narrow walls twisted off out of view, squeezed together and distorted.
What’s more, they were still getting closer—as if a zipper was dragging them together.
As if I was the zipper.
I was paralyzed by fear, afraid to go forward and afraid to stay where I was. What would it do to me? Smash me flat? Leave me horribly maimed and disfigured, the kind of ghost that other ghosts chase back to the third floor?
I felt like a mouse being tormented by a cat. Like the house itself was batting me into a corner, playing with me—just because it could.
As if it was showing me who was boss.
Just go, I thought. They were just walls. I could get through walls. What was the problem? But they were solid against my body.
Suddenly, there was a blast of cold air, so cold it made my whole body ache.