“It was … poisoned?” I asked.
She nodded. Her sorrow seemed to fill the room, and she wilted like a flower petal. “We died. Nurse died first. She told me to run and get help for myself, but I loved her, so I couldn’t leave her there, cold and lonely. Then we both woke up, and we were … what we are. When the wardress found our bodies, she made them take us upstairs and make it look like we died in the bathroom—like I hurt Nurse. But I didn’t die in the bath. And I would never hurt Nurse. She was so good. She was my especial friend even when I was a baby. I don’t know why they did that.”
Probably because an insane inmate killing herself and a nurse was a lot better than two innocent people being inexplicably poisoned.
“I have hurt someone,” Maria was saying quietly. “I begged Nurse to eat the cake. It was my fault she died.”
“No, Maria,” I said. “It wasn’t. Did you ever find out who made the cake?”
She shook her head.
“All right,” I said. “That’s okay.”
I sat back, reflecting on what I’d learned about Maria’s life and death. And still trying to process the fact that Great-Aunt Cordelia, who was, like, a billion years old, had basically lived a Buffy the Vampire Slayer life, and we never had a clue.
“Wait,” I said. “The wardress that made them move the bodies—was her name Penitence?”
Maria blinked. “No.”
No, she couldn’t have been, because Maxwell was the one who committed Penitence. So it must have been someone new by that point. “Is she here—is she a ghost? The wardress?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think so. She was here for a very long time, but they sent her away, after the other thing happened.”
“What happened?” Fresh hope bloomed in my heart. Maria obviously knew something important. I just had to coax it out of her. “Did someone get hurt? Was it the black fire?”
Maria’s eyes went wide, and then she ducked away, trying to make herself small in the corner.
“It’s okay, Maria,” I said. “You can tell me what happened. I won’t be angry.”
“But she’ll be angry,” she said. “If you try to put out the fire, she’ll know I told.”
“Who?” I said.
She shot me a sharp glance out of the corner of her eye. “You know who.”
In my shock, I dropped my coaxing voice. “No, I don’t know who it is. I really don’t.”
She turned to face me, exasperated to the point of being offended. “The one I tried to save you from!”
“In the hallway?” I asked. “When the walls were closing in?”
“No, that was just the house being naughty.” Her expression was wounded now, as if I’d misunderstood her on purpose. “The one in the lobby. She smells like flowers.”
“Do you mean Florence?” My blood went icy in my veins. “Are you saying Florence isn’t nice?”
Maria’s voice rose to an agonized cry. “How do you think I got like this? I used to be pretty, like you!”
“Maria, what do you mean?”
“She wanted me to bring her things,” Maria said, turning away. “Because she can’t go to the basement, and I can. She wanted the fire. I tried to get it for her, but I couldn’t. Then she was angry because I failed. She said I was a bad girl, and she only likes good girls.”
Wait. Florence had done this to Maria? But that was impossible. Florence had always been sweet to me, since the day she protected me from Maria …
But then, Maria wasn’t actually a threat. So why had Florence been nice to me?
She only likes good girls.
Because I hadn’t tested the limits. She was fine, as long as I behaved. I remembered how she’d sat up waiting for me the night I’d been outside with Theo. Like she’d been keeping tabs on me. So what would she do to someone who did test the limits?
“Eliza!” I said, leaping to my feet. “Eliza doesn’t know!”
The reason Florence and Eliza had gotten along perfectly well since 1922 was that Eliza had never tried to leave the house. But as of a few minutes ago, that had changed.
Suddenly, a scream cut through the silence. “DELIA!”
It was Penitence.
“Let’s go!” I said. Maria grabbed my hand, and we ran down the hall toward the stairs. I started to descend, but Maria stayed on the landing above me, shaking her head with tiny movements.
“I can’t go down there,” she said. “I can’t go onto the second floor.”
“It’s okay!” I said, halfway to the second-floor landing. “Go back to your room and stay there! I’ll come get you when it’s safe to come out.”
She ran away, carried on noiseless feet.
In the day room, I found Penitence wringing her hands in a panic. “She was here! She never comes to the second floor. But she came, and she attacked them, and she …”
I didn’t need to ask who. I pushed past her. “Where?”
“In Room 2,” Penitence said. “But—”
“Are they okay?” I asked.
Penitence stared at me without answering.
I raced through the day room, trying to assure myself that everything would be fine. If Florence had kept her secret this long, she was probably waiting for some big moment to reveal herself, right?
I swung into the ward hall and froze. All was quiet.
They’re fine, I told myself. Everything is fine.
Then I heard a whimper from my sister’s room.
I ran in. The first thing I saw was my mother, stretched out on the bed, half-asleep.
But no Janie.
A faint ringing sound broke the silence—followed by a voice so wretched and weak that I hardly recognized it. “Delia?”
I rushed to the other side of the bed, where Eliza lay on the floor. Her left arm rested limply on her side, hideously bruised and broken looking. Both of her legs looked similarly abused, and her hair seemed to be coming out in large clumps.
“Florence did this,” Eliza whispered. She shivered violently. “When I tried to leave, she attacked me. Then she came up here. She was going to hurt your mother, but Janie and I stopped her just in time.”
“Where is she now?” I asked. “My sister, where is she?”
Eliza lifted her head, and when I saw her face, I nearly recoiled. A blistered, blackened line stretched diagonally from her hairline, across a ruined eye and nose, through the corner of her discolored lips, and ended in a gaping, dark wound at the tip of her chin.
“The smoke,” she said. “The smoke took over your sister, and mesmerized her. They left together.”
I went limp. Janie could be dead by now.
“I think your sister is alive,” Eliza said. “Florence is probably using her … as bait. To catch you.”
That gave me a hint of hope. “I have to go,” I said. “I have to find Janie. But I’ll be back.”
“Go,” Eliza urged. “But be careful.”
“Penitence!” I called, running out. “I’m going downstairs. Keep Eliza and my mother safe.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked, following me to the door. “You can’t fight her! You have no idea how strong she is. She’s tapped into some kind of dangerous power.”
“Yeah, well, too bad,” I said, shoving the door open and starting down the stairs. “So have I.”
Florence was evil. She wasn’t the evil force in the house, but she was tapped into it—maybe obsessed with it, or she wouldn’t have sent Maria to bring her the black fire.
She only likes good girls.
She bullied and assaulted the ghosts who tested the limits or failed to abide by her standards. How long had she been watching me, waiting for me to make a mistake so she could punish me?
And now she had my sister.
I stopped in the kitchen, grabbed a container of salt from the pantry, and pushed open the door to the lobby.
Florence was posed on the couch, as lovely as a painting, wearing her brightest, most glittering smile.
&nb
sp; “Well, hello there, sugar,” she said. “Lookin’ for me?”
I started to take a step toward her, but she held up a hand.
“Halt,” she said. “Just wait right there, if you please. There’s another guest coming to this party, and I’d hate for you to miss her.”
The door opened behind me. “Delia … ?”
I spun around and found myself looking into my sister’s eyes. I’d tried to brace myself, but nothing could have prepared me for the sight.
They were wide, amazed.
Don’t fall for it, I told myself. It’s a trick.
But there wasn’t a glimmer of evil in Janie’s expression.
“Delia, is it really you? Can you hear me?”
I tried to block out the sound of her voice saying my name—it cut too deeply, right to my core, and brought back too many memories, too much pain.
“I can’t believe it,” Janie said. “You’re here. There’s so much I need to tell you.”
I took a step back. “No,” I said. “You’re not my sister.”
“But, Deedee, you know I am. Of course I am.”
She spoke like my sister. She reasoned like my sister. I began to feel that I’d be willing to let the house do whatever it wanted, if only I could see and talk to my sister. Maybe there was some kind of deal we could strike.
No. No. That was exactly what the house was trying to do to me—use my sister to break down my defenses.
“What did Mom used to say to us?” I felt like I was going to choke on my own sadness. “Every night before bed, when we were young?”
She smiled tenderly. “You tell me.”
“Just say it, Janie,” I said. “And then I’ll know it’s you.”
Her smile faltered.
“You don’t know,” I whispered. “Because you’re not her. You’re just a monster.”
She shook her head. “This makes me so sad …”
“ ‘And though she be but little, she is fierce,’ ” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
I pulled the salt from behind my back and threw it at my sister’s face.
She gasped and tried to block it with her hands, but it was too late. She began to choke, to make sounds as if she couldn’t breathe, and a look of pure rage came into her eyes. She began to stalk toward me, but she was quickly growing weak. Halfway across the room, the life seemed to drain out of her, and she collapsed to the floor.
I watched her for a few beats, until I saw her chest rise and sink with a breath.
Florence broke the silence with a low chuckle. “Well, sugar, looks like it’s just you and me. I suppose you saw what I did to your friend upstairs.”
“I did,” I said. “And she was your friend, too.”
“ ‘Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.’ ” She grinned, pleased with herself. “You’re not the only one who knows a little Shakespeare.”
“What are you after?” I snapped. “What do you think you’re going to accomplish? What good is it keeping people trapped here?”
“Well, honey, on that line of thinking, what good is anything?” she asked, delicately twisting the ends of her hair around a slender finger. “Why question the why of things that simply are?”
“Just answer my question,” I said.
She patted the sofa next to her. “You come sit down, and we’ll have a nice little talk.”
I walked across the room and perched on the edge of the cushion. We both knew I’d listen, that I couldn’t just attack her, because I needed more information about the house if I was going to stop whatever was in it.
“I suppose you know Penitence,” Florence drawled. “Everybody knows Penitence. Penitence was in charge of the institute—I mean, under her old daddy, Maxwell. She did her best to run the place, but she was never good enough for him. She tried to be nice to the patients, be their friend. He just thought they oughtta be taught to behave. One day she ran off and got herself married without his permission. And then there was going to be a baby. But her husband fell off a horse and died, and she had to come back. Well, her daddy promised he would welcome her, and he did—but not as the wardress. Oh, no. He thought she needed to learn a lesson, so he admitted her as a patient. And when that baby was old enough to walk and talk, he took it away. He kept Penitence on the second floor and sent her baby to the third floor.”
I reeled.
Maria.
“How do you know all this?” I asked.
“I was friends with the wardress who took over when Penitence was committed. She told me all the gossip. She said Maxwell got worse, treating the patients more strictly with every passing year. But Penitence turned as meek as a little mouse, and eventually he trusted her a little. And do you know what I think happened? I think she took that trust and killed him with it. And it just happened to be on the same night that the little brat took a thousand-volt swim with a third-floor nurse.”
I nodded.
Florence leaned forward, an eager spark in her eyes. “I believe a great power was born here that night. The very ground beneath us was defiled, and it began to drink in the misery, loneliness, and confusion of its inhabitants. It craved the sadness that seeped through the walls of the house like blood.”
The way she spoke reminded me of the way my sister used to talk about the boy bands she liked. Florence was totally fangirling the evil spirit.
“Things changed. Women who came here—not all of them, but some of them—stopped getting better. Girls who should have gone home after a month or two showed no improvement at all. Some went mad. Some died. Some tried their best to get out, and had to be made to stay, if you know what I mean. What am I saying? Of course you do.
“It was the truly troubled girls who had it the worst—not us third-floor girls, but anyone with a secret. Something buried, that was eating away at them. Like our little friend, Eliza, for example. The house latched on to girls like that, girls who carried the scent of pain when they passed through the halls. It took hold and decided not to let them go.”
“Were you one of those girls?” I asked.
She smiled warmly. “Yes, I was, thank you for asking.”
“Why were you locked up, Florence?”
“I suppose I was just tired,” she said airily. “In need of a little rest.”
“What did you do?” I pressed. “Getting sent to the third floor is a pretty big deal.”
“What do you think I did?” she asked. “A pretty little Southern belle … I couldn’t hurt a fly, could I? Gentle as a kitten, wasn’t I?”
As gentle as a kitten, and with the razor-sharp claws of a kitten, too. “Is that what people thought?”
“It’s what they all thought.” Her eyes flashed. “Do you know that my mother had the nerve to be ashamed of me? After everything she’d sacrificed, I still couldn’t make it work, she said. I was scaring the men away, she said. I was too obvious—too desperate for love. She said once a man smelled a hint of desperation, nothing could keep him around. Not even my looks … which were fading, she said.”
The bitterness saturated her voice like dye seeping into a cloth.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I killed her,” Florence said simply. “The day after my fiancé changed his mind, I felt awful for letting her down—I really did. I went out walking and brought her back a bouquet of flowers … buttercups. I took them to her room, where she was laid up with a headache, because of me. I held them out to her, and she said—I’ll never forget—Why would you bring me a pack of weeds, Florence? God knows I’ve got enough reminders that you’ve been unable to bloom where you were planted.”
Her eyes clouded over with something like nostalgia—a gentle sadness.
“Terrible last words, don’t you think? So what I did was, I told her to sit up and I would fluff up her pillow for her. I even got out her favorite music box—I thought the song was more than fitting.”
“ ‘Beautiful Dreamer’?” I asked.
“Oh, you know it? Then I too
k the pillow, and I smothered her with it. Oh, it was a struggle. She was strong. But I was stronger. And do you know, I think I just wanted it more.”
The self-satisfied glint in her eyes turned my stomach.
“So they sent me here, along with my music box, and it was the making of me. I found something precious and important. Something worth protecting. I found the house’s soul,” she said, savoring the word. “I spent time with it, shared my pain with it. You see, I was used to being taken care of, told what to do, petted, admired—I didn’t like looking after myself. All my life, I’d had my mama, and suddenly she was gone. So I found something new: The house became my mama. It took care of me. It protected me. I sat for many happy hours playing that music box and just soaking in the love.
“The problem is, I was so happy and well-behaved that they moved me down to the second floor. But my new room wasn’t the same at all. They didn’t let me take my music box. I could no longer feel the house’s spirit. My friend the wardress said it was time I learned to be like the other girls. But you know, I never was like other girls. I begged to go back upstairs, but she wouldn’t let me—said there wasn’t room. So I stole her keys and did something very brave.”
“You killed yourself,” I said.
She brightened and pointed toward the ceiling. “I swung from that very chandelier, honey.”
I looked up at the light fixture, which dripped with grimy teardrop-shaped crystals. And as I stared at it, an apparition faded into view—a beautiful girl’s body hanging limply, eyes closed, hair falling in rippling waves down over her shoulders, fingers slightly splayed as if she’d been caught by surprise.
Then the hanging girl’s lips curled into a smile, and her eyes opened. They were filled with black smoke, which slinked in narrow, grasping tendrils toward us. Florence walked over to the vision, letting one of the fingers of smoke travel gently across her cheek with the softness of a mother’s touch.