Frost (22 page)

A noise came from outside the door. I turned on the tap, praying the running water would mask the sounds as I carefully put the bottles back in the cabinet. Damn—I was taking too long.

I flushed the toilet, opened the bathroom door slowly.

Celeste and her father sat on the bed. “What are you doing here?” Celeste asked.

“Sorry,” I said. “Gabe took me up here and then I needed to pee so I used this bathroom. I hope that’s okay.”

“Raiding the medicine cabinet?” she said.

My heart stopped. “No, I —”

“You really shouldn’t be here,” Mr. Lazar said to the floor. “Why would you be here? Did someone tell you to be here?”

“I . . .”

“It’s okay, Dad,” Celeste said. “Leena is my friend. She was just using the bathroom.”

Mr. Lazar shook his head from side to side. “No one should be here. You told me that no one would be here. There are so many people.” His voice had become inappropriately loud.

“I’m sorry,” I said, moving as quickly as possible toward the door. “I didn’t know.”

“Why are you here?” Mr. Lazar continued. “No one knows you. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Sorry,” I said again to Celeste as I finally made it out to the hallway.

I hurried down the stairs, almost tripping on the way. Once in the crowd of people, I looked all around. Faces that had taken on a familiar note before now were just strangers, again. I
didn’t
know these people. What
was
I doing here? All of my muscles were tense. I needed to get the pills into my bag. Which room was it in? Or better yet, I needed to leave. I needed to leave right now.

“Leena, hon? Everything okay?” Mrs. Lazar rested a hand on my shoulder.

I tried to relax, unclenched my fists. “I’m fine,” I said. “I upset your husband. I didn’t mean to.” My fists. Shit. Something was in my right hand. The key.

“Ah,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. Please. This was a hard day for him, all the people. You’ll have to come back and see him some other time. Just you and David.” She gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze.

“Sure, yeah. That would be great.” I needed to return the key, but I couldn’t go back upstairs while Mr. Lazar was there.

“Where’s that David kid hiding?” she said.

“I don’t know. Maybe the kitchen?”

Mrs. Lazar reached for my elbow and began leading me in that direction, down a hall that was empty of people.

“He takes so much on, with his father and sister. It’s wonderful for him to have a . . . a friend like you who isn’t so mercurial, who is so . . . so . . .”

“Grounded?” I said. The tiny key weighed heavily in my sweaty hand. The tissue wad in my bra was itchy.

“Yes, right,” she said. “I was going to say normal, but then, what is normal? And what kind of mother calls her daughter abnormal?” She laughed. “Celeste is a rare bird. I feel very lucky to have her. But no one would identify stability as her cardinal trait.”

“I guess not.”

“I hear you’re going to New York over the break,” she said. “Why don’t you come here for Thanksgiving, too? Unless you’ve got family plans?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

“Invite your parents, as well.”

“Oh, I don’t think—”

We’d reached the kitchen. David was beside me. “That’s a good idea,” he said. He looked at me hopefully.

“Well,” I said, “my mom will be in LA. I suppose I could invite my dad, though. David, do you remember where I put my bag? I need something out of it.”

After finding my bag in the mudroom, I hid out in the downstairs bath and transferred the pills into it. I still needed to return the key, though. As far as I could tell, Celeste and Mr. Lazar had never emerged from his room. I was biding my time, talking to the older man who thought I looked like the movie star, when David tapped me on the shoulder.

“I’m going to head out for a bit to drive my dad back to Riverside. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” I said.
Yes! Take him!
“Do you want to borrow my car?”

“No, no,” he said. “I’ll take Mom’s. It’s about ten minutes away so I won’t be long. I’d ask you to come, but it’s probably better—”

“That’s totally okay,” I said. “I can fend for myself.”

I stood by a window in the living room, watching until the car rolled out of the driveway and down the street. I checked around the party rooms for Celeste. No sign of her. I casually walked back up the stairs. The door to the Lazars’ room was shut. I knocked lightly. No answer. “Celeste?” I said. Nothing.

I slipped inside and shut the door behind me. Get in, get out. No problem. Just walk through. Don’t look around. My armpits were sweaty. I made it across the room, gripped the bathroom door handle.

Then I heard it. The slightest shifting of fabric. I turned. My eyes fumbled to make out shapes in the gloom. There. Subtle movement underneath a large desk. Shit.

“Hello?” I said tentatively.

No answer.

“Are you okay?”

“Leave me alone, Leena.” The voice was Celeste’s. But it was rough and strained. She’d been crying.

I took slow steps toward her and lowered myself down so I was kneeling next to the desk.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

Her thin arms wrapped around one knee. Her whole body shook.

“Are you sick?”

“No.” She began sobbing so hard she could barely speak. Noises from the party floated up the stairs. She rocked back and forth.

“What can I do?” I said. “Tell me. Do you want me to get David?” I remembered he was gone. “Or your mother?”

“No!” she said. “I’m . . . I’m . . . I’m just too tired to fight it anymore.” Her words were forced out between sobs and gulps for air. “I’m so, so tired.”

“Fight what?” I said.

“How can you not know?” She gripped a leg of the desk, as if to steady herself. “How can you not know?”

“Celeste, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” My pulse had quickened. The tone of her words, her body language, her incoherence—it all made me worry I was in over my head. “Can you come out and sit on the bed? It would be easier to talk.”

She maneuvered out from under the desk. She was visibly shaking, and on top of that, her body still heaved with sobs. I stood up and grabbed a soft blanket that was piled at the end of the bed. I wrapped it around her shoulders and led her to sit down. I sat next to her.

“Can you tell me?” I said.

“No.” She shook, her head and her body. “I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anyone.”

“If you’re too tired to fight it alone,” I said, “you need someone to help you. Right?”

“I can’t,” she said. “And not you. Before, before . . . maybe. But not now. I can’t tell anyone. Don’t you see?”

“How can I see, Celeste, since I have no idea what you’re talking about? Well, I mean, I have some idea, but . . .” Either she knew she had some blood disease, someone was hurting her, or she was hurting herself. That much I knew.

“You do?” She gripped my sleeve with a hand that glowed white and skeletal in the darkened room. “It’s happening to you, too?”

It’s happening to you, too.
Oh, God. Was she talking about David? My head began to spin.

“Maybe,” I said. “Tell me.”

“What is it?” she said. “What’s happening?”

She wasn’t making any sense. “What do you think it is?” I said.

“There’s . . . there’s something there. Right?”

Not about David.
Breathe, Leena.

“Something there?” I said. “Where?”

“What do you mean? Frost House. Isn’t that . . . Don’t you know what I mean? Frost House.”

Frost House?
I thought of the closet. She wasn’t talking about that, though. That was mine.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” I spoke as gently as possible. “But you need someone to help you. To help you fight it. So tell me.” If I used her words, maybe she’d trust me more.

“How can you not know?” she said. “How can you live there? It’s . . . There’s no word for it. There’s something there. There’s someone. It’s . . . evil. There’s something that’s trying to kill me.”

Sweat clammed up my hands.

“You mean, it’s haunted? Something like that?”

“That word sounds so stupid,” she said. “This isn’t a fucking Halloween prank.”

“Have you told anyone else this?” I asked.

“Of course not! How could I ever tell anyone? They’ll just think I’m crazy. But I’m not, Leena, I’m not!” She grabbed my sleeve. “Don’t you feel it in there? Your room is the worst. That’s why I moved, you know.” Her words were coming quickly, one on top of the next. “It used to just do things to my stuff. But then it got stronger, it’s seeping over. It’s in the bathroom. It burned me that day. I wasn’t sure at the time, but now I am. And it’s tried to push me under, drown me. It hurts me while I try to sleep. Presses on my chest so I can’t breathe. I can’t get away from it. I’m so scared it’s going to kill me. I don’t know what to do. I can’t tell anyone. I shouldn’t have even told you. But you believe me, don’t you? You know I’m not crazy?”

What could I say? Of course I didn’t believe her. Of course I thought she was crazy.

“I just want to help you,” I said. “I hate for you to be so upset.”

“I think I know what it is, too. I talked to Whip’s grandfather, when I had dinner with him after that assembly. And that girl, that girl Whip told us about. She died there, in Frost House.”

“What girl?”

“You know, that one Whip told us about. The one who lived there, before it was a dorm.”

God, she’d worked up a whole thing in her mind. “Celeste, that was just a stupid rumor.”

“No. No, it’s not. He told me. She went crazy, after having a baby. And she was locked back there, where we live, and she died. And now she’s there . . . sort of. Trying to kill me. I don’t see her. I don’t hallucinate, Leena. It’s all physical. My bruises, Leena, that’s what they’re from. She’s hurting me.” She gripped my arm, dug fingernails into my flesh. “You believe me, don’t you? My bruises are proof. You have to believe me.”

Her bruises—she thought they were from a ghost? What did that mean? Was she doing it to herself? “How long have you been feeling this way?” I said.

“It’s never been right in there,” she said. “All of the stuff that happened. All of it. It’s this . . . it’s this . . . thing. It’s gotten stronger and stronger and I can’t tell anyone and I can’t keep fighting it. I tried . . . I tried to make peace. I tried to talk to her—to contact her—so many times. You know, how you’re supposed to. But that’s probably all bullshit, talking to them. She just wants what she wants.”

Jesus. That’s probably what Celeste had been burning those big white candles for. Some sort of . . . séance.

“Celeste, why wouldn’t . . . why would it only do this stuff to you? Why haven’t I felt anything?”

“Maybe you have,” she said. “You’re . . . Look at what you do all day. You take your pills and you don’t have any friends—it’s ruining you, too.”

“No!” I said. “That’s not . . . that’s all just from stress. Frost House . . . I love Frost House. It’s not—”

A quick knock came at the door and before either of us could answer it opened and David was there.

“Here you guys are. I just got back and couldn’t— Hey. What’s wrong?” He came over and knelt next to Celeste.

She wiped at her eyes, pushed her hair behind her ears. My heart hurt, it was beating so hard. I couldn’t believe any of this was happening.

“Nothing,” she said, remarkably pulled together all of a sudden. “Just, it’s difficult to see Dad, you know?”

“He did pretty well tonight,” David said. His brow wrinkled. “Don’t you think?”

“I guess,” Celeste said.

David looked at me. I didn’t know what expression I wanted my eyes to telegraph. Desperation? Panic? Calm?

“Do you want us to stay up here with you?” he asked.

Celeste wiped her nose with the cuff of her blouse. “No. I’m fine. Let me just rinse my face and we can go back down. I need to say one last thing to Leena, though.”

“Okay. If you’re sure.” David stood slowly and started out of the room, turning back to look at us several times. I could feel his reluctance as he disappeared into the hallway.

Celeste stared at me with a fierce, completely composed expression. “Telling David is not the way to help me,” she said. “What I need is your help to get rid of this thing so I can make it through the next few weeks. Okay? When I don’t live there anymore, I’ll be fine. I just need to find a way to live. Okay?”

I swallowed hard. Nodded.

“If you tell David, I’ll make sure you regret it. Understand?”

“Okay,” I said. “I understand.”

She lay back on the bed, an arm over her face.

I stood and made my way to the bathroom, splashed water on my cheeks and returned the key to the top of the cabinet, although it didn’t seem urgent anymore. Before, when she had threatened to tell David about my pill stash, it had scared me. Now, her threat just made me sad. Like I was witnessing her last, desperate attempt to hang on to power. Power her illness would completely strip away.

We drove onto Barcroft’s campus ten minutes before sign-in, giving me no time to talk to David alone. After Celeste and I dropped him off, the claustrophobic space in the car was filled with a silence more haunted than any house could be.

“You don’t believe me,” Celeste finally said as I parked in the driveway. Her voice was calm now. Frost House crouched in front of us, shrouded by layers of branches and the darkness. Warm orange light glowed in the upstairs windows of Viv’s bedroom. How had this all happened? How was it that I was here in this car, as scared as if I’d fallen into someone else’s open grave, rather than up there, with my friends?

“I don’t think you’re lying,” I said.

“Tactful. You don’t think I’m lying. You just think I’m psychotic.”

Silence returned as I helped her with her bags and crutches. I resisted the urge to run down the path to my room and into the house, resisted the urge to find calm and sanity in my closet as quickly as possible. Instead, I matched my steps to hers, and held open the door when we reached the entrance. Celeste hesitated for a moment. It must have taken all her courage to return to Frost House. She obviously believed she was in danger, regardless of the fact it wasn’t true. To her, it
was
true.