Marianna Baer - Frost

I reached for Cubby and wrapped my hand tightly around her. Calm down , I told myself. I drew in deep breaths as well as I could through my stuffed nose. You made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes. I traced Cubby’s feathers with my fingertip—over and over. It’s okay to be upset. You’ll feel better soon.

Through my rough breaths, I heard a noise—the front door opening. I sat up and wiped my face, listened to the sound of someone coming in the entryway. It wasn’t Celeste. Her crutches were so distinctive. But whoever it was didn’t go upstairs either. Footsteps started across the common room, which meant they were headed in this direction.

I didn’t have time to think, just knew I couldn’t bear talking to anyone. Quick and quiet, I hurried to the only safe place—Celeste’s closet. I pulled the door closed behind me—it made no noise at all—slid through dresses and skirts, all the way to the back, into a corner, Cubby clutched in my hand.

I made it there just in time; footsteps sounded in the room.

I sat very, very still. Who was out there? Viv or Abby, borrowing clothes again? I didn’t hear drawers being opened. But it wasn’t someone just checking if we were here—they would have left already, if that were the case.

Maybe … maybe someone had broken Celeste’s vase on purpose. Maybe whoever it was was in the room now, looking for something else to do to her. Was that possible? I swallowed, reached forward slowly, carefully, and parted the curtain of clothes, hoping … No, there wasn’t a keyhole to look through, nothing to—

Click-click.

My body went rigid.

The doorknob right in front of me—it was turning. The door itself rattled.

Someone was trying to get into the closet.

Click-click . I shrank back against the wall, my heart beating like crazy now, beating so hard I was sure the person could hear it through the solid wood barrier between us. What should I do? What could I do? I pressed my spine harder against the wall as the doorknob click-click-click ed and the door rattled some more. I wondered if I pressed back hard enough whether the wall would open up and swallow me before the door unstuck. Click, click, rattle, rattle . My heart was about to stop, it was thump-thump-thump ing too hard. I pressed back and closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable light to stream in. A little kid, thinking, If I don’t see you, you don’t see me.

Rattle, rattle. BAM . Like a fist against the door now. Click-click, rattle, rattle.

Maybe the person had ripped Celeste’s skirt, too, and had hidden in this very closet and knocked on the wall with the same fist they were now— BAM —banging against the door.

I held Cubby up to my face, wrapped both my hands around her, and prayed to whatever nameless entity someone like me who doesn’t believe in anything prays to, and then …

Nothing.

Wait …

Still nothing.

The rattling, the turning—they had stopped before my heart did.

Now, a voice. A male voice, incongruously calm, muffled but still understandable. “Hey, so, I’m here trying to get your laundry bag, but I can’t open the damn closet. Is there some trick? Anyway, I’ll come by later, I guess. But call if you get this message in the next couple minutes.”

David. Leaving a message for Celeste. It was David.

A shudder poured through me. Both relief that no one was doing something bad to Celeste—of course they weren’t—but also a moment of panic at the thought of David being the one to find me in here. How would I have explained that I was hiding in his sister’s closet?

His footsteps left the room. I sat for a minute, letting my body recover from the scare. Every muscle had been taut, and as they loosened, I even laughed quietly at how ridiculously frightened I had been. I briefly considered taking some sort of calming pill, but then realized that sitting here in the closet was having a similar effect. Surrounded by the smell of my attic and these cool walls, in the now not-quite-pitch dark. Just light enough so I could make out where things were. Being in here made everything seem so far away—what had happened with the dean, my confusion about David. In here, there was a sense of being out of time and place. Safe.

I held Cubby up to my face. “Rough day,” I said. “Any advice, O wise one?”

Stay in here , she said.

So I did. I leaned my head back against the wall and let myself just be.

Eventually, though, I realized that Celeste might come home earlier than she’d said. I pushed through her clothes, and as I put my hand on the doorknob, I wondered why it hadn’t occurred to me that I might not be able to get out , since David hadn’t been able to get in. But when I turned the knob, the door opened easily. Like it always did for me. Back in the bedroom, I shut the door again and tried to open it. No problem. Why hadn’t it opened for David, after all his shaking and rattling? Was it like when you try to open a jar, and you strain with all your might, and then hand it to someone else and it comes off first twist?

I supposed that’s all it was, that I’d been incredibly lucky, and with one more pull, David would have gotten in. It didn’t seem quite believable that he hadn’t been able to, since he was trying so hard, but I couldn’t think of another explanation.

As I stood there with my hand on the door, I said a little thank-you to Frost House, for doing such a good job of protecting me.

MS. MARTIN’S KITCHEN RESEMBLED a construction site, the counters covered with ingredients and cooking equipment for the inaugural dorm dinner. Abby was helping me make vegetarian lasagna, garlic bread, and arugula salad with apples and toasted walnuts, and helping frost the red velvet cupcakes I’d baked yesterday afternoon.

I opened the freezer door of the ancient mustard-yellow refrigerator and took out two packets of spinach I’d stored there. I’d just finished telling Abby how bad I’d screwed up when trying to help that girl Nicole, and how upset Dean Shepherd had been. I’d been worried that talking about it would make me feel like an idiot, that it would bring back all of the horrible feelings. But Abby was so incensed, so convinced I’d done nothing wrong, that I actually felt better.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this sooner,” Abby said. “I would’ve kicked that girl’s ass. And then kicked the dean’s ass, too. Maybe I still will.”

“Please don’t,” I said, smiling as I imagined it.

“If she leaves school because of this, she’s a total wuss. Good riddance.” Abby threw the top of an onion in the trash for emphasis.

“I saw her from across the quad today, so she hasn’t left yet,” I said. “Can you hand me that?”

She reached for the glass bowl I’d gestured at. “Why’d you lock your room today?” she said as she passed it to me. “I wanted to get back the jeans you borrowed.”

I hadn’t mentioned to Viv and Abby that we’d started locking it. I’d been hoping that, by some miracle, they wouldn’t find out, and that Celeste would change her mind once she calmed down and realized we didn’t need to.

“No reason,” I said, placing the icy, green bricks in the bowl. Leo the cat rubbed his side against my leg. “I can’t pick you up while I’m cooking, cutie. Sorry.”

“I’m too heavy to pick up anyway.” Abby patted her stomach.

“Ha.”

“But seriously,” she said. “You never lock your room. There must be some reason.”

“Celeste and I agreed that since we’re on the first floor, maybe it’d be a good idea.” I slid the bowl in the microwave.