Frost - Marianna Baer
the conversation had added years to her age. “What happened
this semester, Leena?” she said. “I feel like in the past, you would
have come to me with this.”
I swallowed and tried not to tear up. “I . . . I kept screwing
up. You’ve been so mad at me.”
“It’s been a rough semester,” she said. “That’s true. But I
would still have been here for you. Always.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. All her words did was make me feel worse.
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The paths crisscrossing the Great Lawn stretched empty;
everyone else was in class. I fought against a strong wind as I
hurried toward Frost House. Leaves swirled above me like the
flocks of ravens in Hitchcock’s The Birds.
David still hadn’t answered my call. I needed to find him. I
hadn’t told the dean about his part in this whole mess, especially
not the fact that he might have been lacing the house with lighter
fluid as we spoke, because I wanted to believe that he— we—
could have a life together here at Barcroft for the rest of the year.
A life without Celeste. If the dean knew he was going along with
the whole haunted house thing, well, that wouldn’t be good.
Maybe, just maybe, once he realized his sister was sick, he’d see
that I’d actually helped save her. Maybe he’d see that I’d risked
my own happiness to make sure she was safe. Maybe he would
even realize it now. Maybe I wouldn’t have to wait.
My head was killing me. I searched the inside of my jacket
pockets, in case I had any of my meds hanging around. Nothing.
I’d get some at the dorm. Assuming it was still standing. No—that
wasn’t really a concern—David hadn’t talked about burning down
the whole place, and he certainly wouldn’t do it without telling
me first, letting me get out the things that mattered to me. Still, I
couldn’t help scanning the distance for any sign of smoke.
Branches swayed in front of the little house when I reached
the driveway. My little old lady house. Vulnerable. But not on fire.
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I opened the side door. The common room looked the same
as ever; clueless as to what was going on around it. Waiting for us
to come hang out and watch TV or make microwave popcorn. Or
have another Sunday night dorm dinner. All the things I’d
envisioned when we moved into Frost House. I automatically
straightened the tapestry that covered the couch.
Once in the hallway, I heard the sounds. Objects moving,
shifting, in Celeste’s room. I moistened my lips. It couldn’t be
Celeste—she had classes straight through to lunch. And if the
dean had called her immediately, she wouldn’t have come back
here, would she? Would the dean call her? Or send people to pick
her up at class in person? A vision of Celeste in a straitjacket
flashed in my mind. Being carried out of her class, wrapped up
like a lunatic.
Celeste’s door was closed. I kept my footsteps soft, so I could
make it to my own room first and take at least a little something
to help with this headache. The floorboards creaked and groaned.
Click. I stopped. The door to Celeste’s room opened. David
stood there. His hair leapt out from his head in messy clumps.
Circles of sweat darkened his shirt. From the look of the room he
had been moving things out of her closet.
“Leen, hey. I’m so glad you’re here,” he said.
He opened his arms. My body fell into his. I was pulled in two
directions. Pulled into his warmth, like I wanted to crawl under his
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shirt and hide there, as if I could be folded into his body and leave
mine behind. But the buzz, the life I felt in his body also gave me
strength to remember I’d done the right thing. Energy darted
back and forth between us. When I felt the push rather than the
pull I separated from him, taking that strength, feeling it in my
bones. What I had to do now was a thousand times harder than
what I’d already done. A million times harder.
“Did you get my message?” I asked.
“No. You called?” He patted his pockets. “Oh, right. My
phone’s in my bag. I left it in your room. What’d you say?”
“Did you . . . did you need something in my room?”
“I borrowed a couple of tools.” He reached over to Celeste’s
desk and picked up my hammer. He smiled and raised his
eyebrows. “I have a plan. I would’ve called but I figured you were
in class all morning. Shouldn’t you be at math?”
“David,” I said. “It’s too late.”
“Too late? For what?”
I filled my lungs as if preparing to be submerged underwater.
“I told Dean Shepherd about Celeste.”
His head jutted back slightly, his chin pulled into his neck.
“You what?”
“If she’s not sick, they’ll find out. And if she is sick, she needs
help.”
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Now he stepped back completely; I could no longer feel the
heat from his body. The hammer dangled from his hand. “You’re
kidding, right?”
“I knew that you were too close to her to do it yourself. And
it had to be done.”
“You told the dean everything?”
“Most of it. I didn’t tell her that you know. I thought . . . well,
I thought it would be better to keep you out of it. Dean Shepherd
might find it kind of odd that you believe all the haunted stuff,
too.”
There were nails in his voice when he spoke. “What were you
thinking?”
“We talked about this before, David. You know what I think.
Celeste needs help.”
“I know she needs help. I’m the one helping her. That’s why
I’m here.”
“Please, David. Please don’t be mad.” I wanted to touch him,
but knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. I rested my hand on the
desk, instead. “This isn’t the Dark Ages. They won’t just lock her
up.”
“Shit.” He banged the hammer down with a jarring crash,
barely missing my fingers. I snatched my hand back.
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“This ruins everything,” he said. “What the hell do I do
now?”
“David—”
“Shut up, Leena. Okay?”
He pushed by me, across the hall, into my bedroom. I leaned
against the wall next to Celeste’s desk, pressed fingertips against
my forehead. What had just happened? My whole body felt cold
with dread.
I heard the sound of David putting his coat on, then metal
jangling. He stood inside my room, near the door, where I’d hung
my keys since the day Celeste gave me his room key. I assumed
he was taking it back. Please don’t.
“I understand what you’re feeling,” I said, moving into the
hall, closer to him.
He came out of my room, hands shoved deep in the pockets
of his army jacket. “No you don’t. You don’t love your family the
way I do.”
I froze. “What?”
His heavy lids narrowed his eyes into slits. His expression
wasn’t just anger; it was disgust. “I would die for my sister.
You . . . you don’t want anything to do with your family. You don’t
even know what family means.”
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“That’s not true,” I said, barely able to speak. It felt like he’d
taken the hammer and driven a spike straight in my chest. “I love
my family. And my . . . my friends are like family.” I did. I loved my
family and friends—more than anything.
“Who? Viv? Abby? I don’t think so. And not me and Celeste,
obviously. Unless you show your love through betrayal.”
Along with the throbbing pain in my ribs, a fire burned in my
head, and coldness penetrated the rest of my body. Anger now.
The voice echoed inside my skull. Cubby’s voice. The closet’s
voice. Tell him, she said. Tell him, Leena.
“What about you?” I said. “You and Celeste are so bonded
it’s creepy.” Tell him. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re the one
who’s been hurting her.”
The words sucked the air out of the hallway.
David and I stared at each other. His lips parted, jaw slack. As
shocked as I was that those words had come out of my mouth.
“You think I would hurt Celeste?” he said.
Did I?
Of course you do.
I shook my head to clear her words out. “No. I don’t know. I
know it wasn’t some . . . some ghost.”
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“How could you be so close to me, and think I would do
that?” he said.
“I didn’t. I don’t.” My brain was spinning. Had I ever really
thought that? I’d had my suspicions, but did I really believe he
was capable of that? “I just don’t understand how you can think
she’s not sick.”
“Because she’s not!” he said. “How could you be with
someone you think might be abusing his sister? God, Leena.”
“I don’t think that. Really. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t
know why I did.” I wrapped my arms around myself. I was
shaking. “David, I told the dean because I’m worried about
Celeste. I did it even though I knew it might mean I’d lose you.
Doesn’t that tell you anything? I love you, but your sister is sick.”
David had started walking down the hall, toward the
common room. He paused and turned his head slightly, so I was
looking at his profile. Turn, I willed him. Meet my eyes. Let me
know it will be okay. He didn’t.
“Who’s the sick one here, Leena?” he said.
He didn’t wait for an answer.
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Chapter 40
A STRANGE CALM SETTLED over the hallway once the side
door banged shut behind David. Okay. Okay. It had happened. My
limbs tingled on the edge of numbness. I touched my arms. I was
still there. I was alive. I touched my face. Dry. I did the same body
check I’d done the one time I’d been in a car accident, making
sure all of my parts were in their right places. Numb, but intact.
Okay. I was okay. I stumbled into the bedroom. Only, I
couldn’t feel the floor under my feet.
Once I was back in the closet, physical sensations started to
return. First, a sense of the mattress as it held my body, then of
the clothes that dangled above and brushed against me. I curled
into a fetal position, holding Cubby. As the feeling came back to
my skin, though, I realized the numbness had penetrated all the
way inside. Where I expected to feel the intensity of sadness,
there was nothing.
The worst had happened. I’d lost David, and in a way that
meant I’d never have him back. But it didn’t seem real. The
numbness seemed to be my body refusing to believe what had
taken place. I knew this feeling—or lack of it. The moment of
divine intervention before all hell breaks loose. “We’ve grown
apart, Leena,” my mother had said, the first time my world was
demolished. For days I’d been fine after she’d said that. Hadn’t
told any of my friends, had played the part of the understanding
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daughter. I’d been fine until the feelings came crashing down, the
day I’d emptied my parents’ medicine cabinet and lined the pills
up on my bed according to size and shape.
This time, I wasn’t going to wait until it was too late. I found
the plastic baggie of pills, reached inside, fondled the hard bits of
betterness. I placed a small oval one in my mouth. Then a round
one. The sadness was coming. But I could head it off. Because I
knew, I knew what I’d done was right. That was what mattered.
The sadness was unnecessary. A stupid, physical reaction. If David
had to leave me, well, what was there to do about it?
But why did I say those things to him? Maybe it would have
been okay, later.
No, it wouldn’t. The words were all around me. You’d already
lost him.
He might have forgiven me. Understood why I did it.
He never loved you. None of them did.
My family, Viv, Abby. Never loved me? Hearing those words
shriveled me inside, as if all my organs were dried and cracked.
“No,” I protested. “They did. They do.”
Another pill or two or three found their way into my mouth,
down my throat, leaving a bitter trail. Didn’t care what they were.
Anything would help.
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God, I was tired. The headache I’d had earlier grew and grew
so I took something for that, as well. Enough to get rid of this one
and the next one. Maybe I could wait it out. The feelings. Just stay
in here until it was too late to care anymore.
Shelter. Wait out the storm.
You can. Stay with me. I held Cubby close, almost too
exhausted to lift her hollow wood body. These words had nothing
to do with her anymore. They were from the walls, the ceiling, the
floor. Should this have surprised me? I wondered. Maybe I was
just too tired to be surprised.
“I don’t understand why this had to happen.”
You’re safe now, Leena. Admit what you’ve always known.
“What?” I said. “Admit what?”
Why it’s all happened. Why all your pain has happened.
A wave of marrow-deep fatigue swept through me. I needed
to sleep—for a week, a month, more—I couldn’t imagine I could
ever sleep enough.
I drifted off, who knows for how long, but woke when a
steady beep, beep, beep filled my ears. I forgot where I was,
thought it was my alarm clock. I tried to move, to turn it off, but
couldn’t. Then I remembered.
Nausea swelled in my stomach. The beeping grew louder.
Louder.
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The fire alarm?
Had David . . . ?
I reached for the doorknob. My hand could barely stretch
that high, my arm was so heavy. I was fighting against more than
gravity. I finally felt the knob, turned, and pushed. Nothing. The
door wouldn’t move. The bolt. Had I locked it? No, I hadn’t. The
