Possessions

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

the popular girls aren’t what they seem …

Mandy and her friends with their eyes going all black like that. . . . All the elaborate hazing just to be a part of their little in-crowd. I couldn’t understand it. The flashes of cold, the uncertainty I felt whenever I was around Mandy. I didn’t know what all of it meant.

 

But I was more determined than ever to find out.

“Hip, modern Gothic. Lindsay is a wonderful heroine—strong and smart.”—
Kelley Armstrong
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Summonin

 

“Imagine ‘Gossip Girls’ with a Gothic twist. It’s hard to tell who’s scarier—the queen bees or the evil spirits—in Nancy Holder’s clever, creepy boarding school snarkfest.”
—
Nina Malkin (
Swoon
)

 

“The poor little rich girls of Marlwood Academy will scare the devil out of you.”—Marlene Perez (
Dead is the New Black
)

 

“Nancy Holder pens a riveting tale of teen angst and insanity, love and overpowering fear as she explores the dark depths of the human soul.”—Debbie Viguie (Wicked series)

 

“Nancy has created the most evil clique since the witches in
Macbeth
.”—Paul Ruditis (
DRAMA!
series)

Possessions

RAZORBILL

Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Copyright © 2009 Nancy Holder

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

eISBN: 9781101348918

[1. Supernatural--Fiction. 2. Boarding schools--Fiction. 3. Schools--Fiction. 4. Cliques
(Sociolog y)--Fiction. 5. Ghosts--Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H70326Po 2009
[Fic]
2009010627

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To those who walk in darkness.
There is light. I promise.

October: The Search

All our possessions are as nothing compared to health, strength, and a clear conscience.

—Hosea Ballou

—Ken Kesey,
Sometimes a Great Notion

one

October 28

possessions: me

Tibetan prayer beads
Mem’s UCSD sweatshirt
used black leather boho bag (thrift shop in Poway)
Converse high-tops (from Target)
Dad’s socks (too big, but they’re his)
tattered jeans (origin forgotten)
tortoiseshell headband (plastic)
NO makeup
five single-subject notebooks
regulation Marlwood Academy planner
ditto binder
six #2 pencils, one missing eraser (panic attack)
pens (unlimited)
cell phone (no bars, no reception here AT ALL)
Jason’s St. Christopher medal (thanks, Cuz!)
me, Lindsay 2.0 (or so I hope)
haunted by:
my past
listening to:
my heartbeat—too fast again!
don’t forget to
breathe.
mood:
frozen to death (not a mood?!)

possessions: them

oh.
my.
God.
is there anything they DON’T have???
haunted by:
not seeing any haunting
listening to:
each other
mood:
excited? they can pay for any mood they want.

Fog had crawled
up the mountain, like a wounded animal on pine-tree claws, and bled all over the campus. I stopped and squinted at my map with its handy printed stats—a hundred developed acres that included hiking paths and bike trails; thirty buildings, including a brick gym with a plaster frieze, which really needed updating, of ancient Greek athletes (male)—who could also have used some underwear, if I remembered the picture correctly.

The campus was rolling in white mist, and I wasn’t sure of the way to the classrooms, which were clustered on the north side of the campus. I had thought there was a shortcut through Academy Quad, my quad, but it was hard to be sure when I couldn’t see more than ten feet ahead of myself.

Then a stiff wind blew, thinning the fog. Sure enough, my building loomed on top of the small hill to my left. Grose was a creaky, scary-looking rectangle made out of brick, with a slate roof. Another dorm, Jessel, crouched at the bottom of the hill like it was waiting to pounce. It was three stories tall with a slight-L-shape, where a back porch jutted out like a hunchback.

Jessel was prettier than Grose. It had towering stone columns on either side of its brightly painted red front door, and four turret rooms, one on each corner, covered in slate shingles. The windows of the turrets were arched, completing the castle-tower effect.

Everyone else in both Grose and Jessel had already moved in, made friends, and started right on schedule—September 5
^th
. I couldn’t believe they’d let me start so late. Maybe nervous breakdowns came with benefits.

I was here to reinvent myself in a major way. No one here
knew
I had gone bonkers. No one here knew me at all. I could be anyone—Lindsay Anne Cavanaugh 2.0. I really hoped I would like the remix better. I was optimistic; I had started out well as a person—had normal friends, liked animals, did pretty well in school. I used to kick butt on the cello. Okay, my mom died. And Jane Taylor seduced my boyfriend. In our house. On the throw I knitted for my mom in the hospital.

And yeah, I’d pretended I didn’t care. I’d acted like it was no big deal. Because I wanted to be one of Jane’s cool chicks.

That was called cognitive dissonance, when you wanted two opposing things—such as self-respect and popularity. A broken heart and a shot at riding in Jane’s limo to Homecoming.

A second chance and all my insecurities begging me to get the heck out of here. . . .

Sometimes, wanting those two opposing things made you fracture, like two tectonic plates crashing together beneath the surface of the ocean.

“So what do you think, Botox? Or a deal with the Devil? I heard Ehrlenbach’s sixty-eight.” A girl’s voice wafted out of the billows of horror-movie white. I placed her at maybe twenty yards to my right—my Jessel side, where a private hedge hid their front yard from view. Dr. Ehrlenbach was our headmistress, and I had yet to meet her.

“Did you spend your summer in rehab? No one does Botox anymore,” someone else shot back. “But if she’s really that old, my money’s on the Devil. My dad would do her in a heartbeat. I’ve heard him say so. All right, blindfold her.”

I blinked. Slowed. Waited to hear more.

“That’s too tight. Ow,” a third voice protested.

“You know, Keeks, you don’t have to do this,” the second voice said, but there was a silent
but you’d better
tacked on the end, sharpened with the familiar edge of an accomplished bitch. I knew then and there that I was eavesdropping not only on a mean girl, but a leader of same—a queen bee. I was an expert on queen bees. Unfortunately.

Nothing to see here, Lindsay
, I told myself, as my face prickled from memories and apprehension.
Move it along. Even better, run.

They could have their fun. I was not there to have fun of any kind, especially that kind.