Marianna Baer - Frost

“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?”