Marianna Baer - Frost

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

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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.

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“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

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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,

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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.

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“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

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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?

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“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.

In the hallway outside our rooms I said, “Do you want me to

stay in there with you tonight?” It didn’t feel responsible to let

her sleep alone.

“No,” she said. “It didn’t make a difference before. When we

were in the same room. It was just as bad.”

“Why haven’t you asked, you know, to be moved

somewhere else?”

“What would I say? People don’t just switch dorms with a

month left in the semester. What could I possibly say?” Her voice

was so tired.

“I don’t know,” I said. “You’re positive you don’t want me to

stay with you?” If she were causing the bruises herself, somehow,

maybe my presence would deter it.

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“I’ve got work to do, anyway. I’ll pull an all-nighter in the

common room—it hasn’t touched me in there. Yet.” She reached

for her doorknob, then looked back at me. “What are you going

to do?”

“Right now?”

“No. Are you going to help me, Leena?”

I smoothed down a flake of paint curling off the wall. “Did

you . . . did you think you might be imagining it? At the

beginning?”

“Of course,” she said. “You think it struck me as totally

normal to be living in a place like this? To have all this stuff

happen? Of course I thought I was crazy. I didn’t know that

something like this was possible. I thought . . . you know, it was

made up, in books and movies.”

“And why—I mean, how—did you decide, you know, that it’s

really happening?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I can just tell. It’s real, Leena. Don’t

you know when something is real?”

How could she be so blind, after seeing her father today?

Real was walls and flesh and DNA and brain chemistry. How could

she not know that?

I shut and locked the door to my bedroom, went into the

closet, and shut and locked that door, too. I sank down on the

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cushion, opened my cell, and pressed the glowing green buttons.

The phone looked like something from outer space, some alien

tool. But it wasn’t. It was a cell phone, made in China, with LED

lights that lit up the buttons so I could see them here in the dark.

Real.

“Miss me already?” David said.

His voice brought everything else about him—his eyes, his

goofy laugh, the smell of his skin. . . . The way he takes care of his

family. What was I thinking, doing this over the phone?

“Leena? You there?”

“Yeah, I . . . I just wanted to say thanks. For inviting me.”

“Everyone loved you,” he said. “And thanks for being so

patient with Celeste. I’m surprised she was so upset. Dad was

pretty good, all things considered.”

I tipped my head back against the wall. “I’m glad I got a

chance to meet him. And your mother. She seems wonderful.

Your whole family does. Anyway, I have to go. I just wanted to

thank you for including me. It meant a lot.”

“I hope you didn’t think I was too pushy,” he said, “telling

you to invite your dad to Thanksgiving.”

I hadn’t even remembered that. “Oh, right. I’ll think about

it.”

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“Because at the risk of sounding like an after-school special,”

David said, “you’re really lucky you have two . . . healthy parents.

And I think, someday, you might regret not . . . not trying harder.”

I breathed deeply.

“I’d love to get to know your family,” he said. “They couldn’t

be all that bad if they made you.”

I smiled. “Thanks. And I’ll definitely think about it.”

After saying good night to David, I picked up Cubby, thinking

I should put the new pills in her now. Then I remembered my pills

weren’t in her anymore, and reached for the plastic bag. As I did,

her voice rang in my head.

He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

More and more, the voice came on its own, without me

asking any question. Like a muscle, maybe, my subconscious was

getting stronger. This time, I didn’t understand what she—what

I—meant.

You’re not the one who should try.

With my family. But . . . why? Maybe inviting my dad would

be a good thing.

Stupid. Weak. Believing what David says. He doesn’t know

you.

I’d do it if it made him happy. Did that make me weak?

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David’s happiness. What would even be going on in his life at

Thanksgiving? Where would Celeste be?

“Hello, spirit,” I said. “Are you there?” I felt like a total idiot

the minute the words were out.

No answer, of course. I almost wished there had been—a

diaphanous figure appearing next to me, saying, “You called?”

Then I could have just convinced it to leave Celeste alone, and I

wouldn’t have had to worry.

There was no ghost, though. Not now. Not ever. The whole

idea of Frost House as evil was . . . unthinkable. If there was such

a thing as a haunted house, it would be the type of place people

write about—where you feel uneasy and scared to turn out the

lights. I’d never felt anything but safe and wanted in here. It was

that type of house—I’d seen it right away—the type of house that