I SIT UP that night with my sketchbook. In its pages are my latest work on Grave Belles. Usually I work on it during my free time, but I haven’t touched it in weeks.
Back in the Victorian era, sometimes people got buried who weren’t really dead. People got so paranoid about it that they rigged up bells that could be rung from inside a buried coffin in case you woke up buried alive. Grave Belles is about a young woman, the gravedigger’s daughter, who hears a bell ringing by a fresh grave and discovers a living girl inside. I started it in my freshman year, though I’ve revised and redrawn most of the pages from back then. I add to it slowly, in fits and starts, whenever I have the time.
Flipping through to find the first blank page in the sketchbook, I linger on a sketch I’d made of an important moment between the two heroines. Lenore, the gravekeeper’s daughter, standing with her back to the viewer, her face turned just enough to see the sweep of her dark eyelashes. Belle, facing the viewer, but with her face turned away and downward. Their hands stretch behind them, fingertips almost—but not quite—meeting.
In the story, Belle has just discovered that Lenore has been lying to her, concealing the fact that Belle’s brother has been arrested for her murder. Lenore believes he should hang, given that he did try to kill Belle, but Belle thinks that she should reveal her survival and spare him.
I don’t yet know how it will all work out.
There is rain drumming on the windows. At first I don’t notice it—a steady, soothing sound. And then I remember the clear skies we’ve had, hearing the sound of rain only to wake to nothing, and a chill goes down my spine.
I rise from my bed and walk to the window. None of the windows in Abigail House open; they’re sealed shut, every one.
It’s not raining. I can’t hear it anymore, either, and I tell myself I must have imagined it. There isn’t even a drop of water on the window.
Except for the faint, almost-imperceptible imprint of a hand. It fades so quickly, I cannot be sure I saw it, but I fall back from the window, my breath caught in my throat.
Have you seen her yet?
I stand frozen. I am trapped in this house. I feel besieged, as if there is something just outside waiting to snatch me up if I stray, if I break the rules. But that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? I am not Veronica; I have never had faith in spirits and energy and higher powers. The rain is only the rain and the dark is only the dark, and so I force myself to stride to the door and step out into the hallway. There, I stop, listening.
Faintly, oh so faintly, comes the patter of raindrops. So quiet it might only be that my mind has invented the sound to fill the silence. I steal toward the end of the hall, slip into the foyer. Still those soft raindrops taunt me.
I open the door. The night is quiet. Not troubled by a single drop of rain.
I step out onto the porch, feet bare, and stretch out my hand, waiting for a cold drop to land on my palm.
Nothing.
Nothing except the footprints. Bare, wet feet walking up to the door—and away again.
My heart beating wildly, I follow. Fear and fascination both wrap their thorny vines around my limbs.
The footprints follow the path. The concrete is rough against the soles of my feet. I pass the hedges that mark the edge of the yard outside Abigail House and keep going, though the lighting here is poorer, the tracks harder to follow. Then, abruptly, they turn from the path, vanishing as their trajectory takes them onto the grass. I peer in that direction, searching the shadows.
Among the trees, I think I see something. Someone. A figure, standing perfectly still. In the darkness, I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman, but I know, I know, that as I look at them, they are looking at me.
“Miss White.”
I almost scream at the voice. I whip around to find Geoffrey Oster. He is standing fifteen feet away, under the puddled light of a lamppost. He’s carrying his jacket over his arm, a briefcase in his hand. The light washes him out until he looks almost like a ghost himself.
“Dean Oster. You startled me,” I say.
“My apologies,” he says. “I was just heading home from a late night at the office.”
Very late. It’s past ten. “I stepped out for some fresh air,” I say.
“I imagine Abigail House can feel a touch stifling,” he says. He glances down, sees my bare feet. “Is everything all right? With your new accommodations?”
“Great. Perfect,” I say, too brightly. I’m still jangly with adrenaline, off my game.
He looks at me steadily, and I don’t think I’ve fooled him at all. “You don’t have any concerns?” he asks. “You’re comfortable there? You feel safe?”
“Why wouldn’t I feel safe?” I ask. “Because of what happened to Aubrey?”
“What happened to Aubrey was a terrible accident,” Oster says. “And perhaps a reminder that one shouldn’t wander the grounds alone at night. Can I walk you back to Abigail House?”
“I can find my way,” I tell him. He nods and doesn’t move, and I realize he’s waiting for me to leave. I steal one last glance at the trees, expecting to find that a few minutes and the presence of another living human has transformed the mysterious figure into a stump or a sapling.
Instead, it has vanished entirely, leaving only a gap between two trees.
I feel Oster’s eyes on me the whole way back to Abigail House, and it is only when I have shut and locked the door behind me that I realize that there is nothing on the path except this house. The only place Oster could have been going, this late at night and all alone, is here.
I left my phone in my room. By the time I get through changing and get back to my bed, the text messages have already been sitting there for several minutes.
She’s called the Drowning Girl.
I didn’t see her at first.
It’s not safe there. Be careful.
Keep the water out.
I type a single word in response. Aubrey?
I wait for a long time, but an answer never comes.
I dream, again, of rushing water and blinding pain, and the next day I move through classes sluggishly. I do not believe in ghosts, but I cannot deny that I have seen the impossible. And something was out there last night.
The Drowning Girl, whoever that is?
Or someone playing a cruel prank.
The smart thing would be to forget about all of it—what I saw six years ago, the diary, what happened to Aubrey. But Delphine is the question that has haunted me for six years, no matter how many times I tried to forget.
I have to know what happened. What is happening.
When classes are done for the day, I automatically head toward Abigail House, but Zoya intercepts me. “Hey,” she says. “We missed you at lunch.”
“I wasn’t feeling great,” I say truthfully. “Did I miss anything spectacular?”
She makes a face. “The boys were there. Veronica and Ruth were mostly all over them. I don’t get it. Remi spent most of the summer with Veronica. It’s not like they’ve even had time to miss each other.”
“He’s so in love, he misses her when she goes to the bathroom,” I say, and she giggles.
“He’s sweet, at least,” she says. “She needs sweet.”
“Sweet and steady,” I agree. Someone to ground her.
“You’re coming to debrief, right?” Zoya asks. At the end of our first week of classes, we always gather for a sacred ritual that involves placing bets on final grades and which class each of us will have a meltdown about first. There’s ice cream and usually a smuggled bottle of wine.
“Lest I surely die,” I tell her, though the gathering does not hold its usual appeal. There’s something stifling about the idea of sitting there and listening to everyone talk about their wonderful summers. I’ll have to make something up. Plaster a smile on my face.
“Lest Veronica actually murders you,” Zoya corrects. “She has not shut up about it all week. In the meantime, I’m hitting up the library. Want to come?”
When I hesitate, Zoya grabs my hand in both of hers. “Come on, Eden. I haven’t seen you all summer, and I’m stuck in a dorm with the biggest pair of extroverts in the world. Please stand in companionable silence two aisles away from me?”
I force myself to smile. I love my friends; I should want to spend time with them. “Sounds like a good time.”
“The best kind of friend-date,” Zoya confirms.
We walk together without the particular need to talk. I’ve always appreciated that aspect of our friendship—we spend a lot of time reading, Zoya’s legs draped casually across my lap as I balance my book on her shins. Or watching a movie together while I braid her hair—neither the salon on campus nor the one in town are up to her standards, so between YouTube and her instructions, I’ve trained myself to a serviceable level of expertise. I was surprised to discover I really enjoyed it, and I’ve been doing Veronica’s and Ruth’s hair for years, too.
Zoya’s watching me out of the corner of her eye. “What?” I ask her.
Her lips press together briefly. “Look, it’s probably nothing,” she says.
“What, Zoya? Now you have to tell me,” I say.
We’re approaching the library. She cups her elbows in her hands, hunching as she walks. “It’s just, people have been gossiping. About what happened to Aubrey and you being in Abigail House.”
“There have always been rumors about Abigail House,” I say. Usually, they have to do with Delphine not really being sick, Madelyn Fournier being a Munchausen-syndrome-by-proxy villainess, that sort of thing. And of course people occasionally say that Abigail House is haunted, but every brick and stone at this school has a haunting to its name. It’s the sort of place built to breed ghost stories.
“They’re saying that Aubrey was never anywhere near water when she drowned. They found her on the front steps, and she had a bunch of broken bones,” Zoya says. Goose bumps rise on the back of my neck. “Some people are saying she’s dead.”
“She’s not,” I say. “I think she texted me, actually.”
“Seriously?” Zoya asks.
“I can’t be sure, but I think so. She said she saw the Drowning Girl.”
“The ghost,” Zoya says, not quite a question. “The girl who drowned in the Narrow because of some boy, and now she climbs out to drip on people.” She gives me a sidelong look. “Have you seen something?”
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I say. It’s true. I’m pretty sure. “But I don’t know. There’s something weird about that place.”
Zoya looks thoughtful. “You know who I bet knows something about it? Mr. Campos.”
“We don’t have to talk to Mr. Campos,” I say at once.
“Why not? He’s all about Atwood history, and he teaches that ghost story elective during Free Week.” Free Week is the week between semesters. The teachers and some of the staff offer short classes on niche subjects—there’s Mr. Campos’s ghost story class, a baking class, even a class that consists entirely of watching the movie Hot Fuzz every day for five days.
“I just . . . don’t think it’s necessary,” I hedge.
Zoya snorted. “Riiiiight. I forgot you have a thing for him.”
“I don’t have a thing for Mr. Campos. He’s almost twice our age,” I say unconvincingly. “Besides, he’s had a hit out on me since I spilled a mocha on a copy of The Odyssey in first year.”
“My bad. Thirty is ancient and you have zero interest,” she says, patting me on the head. “You know he knows every ghost story and urban legend about Atwood. So if you want answers, you’re just going to have to deal with your absolutely obvious and embarrassing crush.”
I roll my eyes at her.
“Besides, I’ll be there to protect you if he goes after you with a hole puncher.”
I allow her to cajole me into the library. Even this early in the semester, it’s pretty busy—seniors doing college application prep, panicky freshmen grabbing giant stacks of books as they realize just how academically intense Atwood is.
Mr. Campos is at his desk. He’s fat, with thick black glasses and dark curly hair that makes him look boyish, though his beard and piercing dark eyes balance that out. Today he’s wearing a sweater vest over a tailored shirt, his standard uniform—sometimes spiced up with a semi-ironic bow tie, though not, to my disappointment, today.
I always instinctively like men with sweater-vests. Veronica claims that someday, in a moment of dramatic irony, it will be a man in a sweater vest who betrays me to my doom.
Truthfully, I absolutely have a thing for Mr. Arturo Campos. It’s why I spilled the mocha, since I was sitting there daydreaming about impressing him with my knowledge of the classics when he asked me if I was finding everything okay, and I screamed aloud and smacked the cup over.
Zoya approaches his desk, her shoulders curled forward the way they always do when she’s talking to someone she doesn’t know well. I hang back and hope vaguely that he’s sustained a head trauma over the summer and won’t remember me.
“Miss Ivanova-Smith. Miss White. What can I do for you today?” he asks cheerfully. His voice is warm and friendly, and I want to sink into the floor.
“Eden has a ghost problem,” Zoya says. Her voice totally changes when she’s talking to other people—thin and quiet, like a layer has been stripped out of it. She looks back at me, beckoning me forward.
“I believe you want the Ghostbusters for that,” he says, a twist of humor on his lips.
“She means I’m trying to find information about ghosts,” I say.
“Of course,” he says, and his eyes glitter. I flush. “So are you looking for a particular specter or will any old haunting do?”
“I’m looking for information about the Drowning Girl,” I say, more confidently this time.
“Oh, good choice,” he says, like a waiter complimenting your wine selection. “That’s an intense one.”
“So you do know it?” I ask. I find myself leaning forward eagerly, an anxious excitement thrumming through me.
“There are all kinds of ghost stories associated with the Narrow, going back to before the school was even here. But the Drowning Girl, specifically, is more recent. Basically, the story goes that there was a young woman in love with a young man. This young man was someone she wasn’t supposed to be in love with—the details vary on why. He was older, or poor, or his skin was the wrong color. Her parents forbade her to see him, and the school attempted to intervene, but of course that only made them love each other more. And so the two of them decided to run away together.”
“Idiots,” Zoya mutters.
“It’s not my place to judge,” Mr. Campos says, though he looks amused. “Anyway, they were supposed to meet up at the Narrow.”
“Again, idiots. Who goes down to the Narrow at night to meet up?” Zoya asks. “It’s a good way to get yourself killed.”
“An excellent way, as it turns out,” Mr. Campos agrees. “Apparently, her lover never showed up. The girl, in her grief, threw herself into the water and was pulled down below. But legend says that she climbs out of her watery grave at night to find him. She leaves wet footprints in the halls, and a few students have glimpsed her. She’s called the Drowning Girl because she’s always in the process of drowning. Choking on water. Gasping for air.”
“That’s horrible,” I say, clutching the strap of my backpack tightly. I can imagine it vividly: The constant sense of striving for air, your lungs filling with water. The thrashing panic of it. Only the release of unconsciousness never comes.
“That’s ghost stories for you,” Mr. Campos says. “At their core, every ghost story is a tale of loss and destruction.”
“Who was she? When did it happen?” I ask.
Mr. Campos spreads his hands. “That’s trickier to pin down. I think the earliest iteration of the Drowning Girl story is from the late eighties, but there are so many ‘drowned in the Narrow’ ghost stories that it can be hard to be sure. The choking, though—that definitely shows up in the eighties, from what I’ve found.”
“Is that when you were a student here?” Zoya asks.
He looks over his glasses at her. “The eighties were the decade before I was born, so no, I did not attend Atwood then.”
“Right,” Zoya says, and looks at the floor, embarrassed.
“Work with teenagers, they said. It’ll be so fulfilling, they said. Never mentioned how they’d make me feel like a crypt keeper all the time,” he mutters, staring up at the ceiling and heaving a sigh. I stifle a laugh, and he grins. “I had a working theory that the Drowning Girl was inspired by a real disappearance in the eighties.”
“Disappearance?” I echo, interest piqued.
“Well before my time, as mentioned.” He gives Zoya a mock glare. “It was a young woman, a student at the school. She went missing, and there was speculation she ended up in the Narrow. That’s about as much as I know off the top of my head.”
“Do you know who’s seen her? Or where we could find out more about the missing girl?” I ask.
“I don’t know of any specific sightings. You could try a classmate’s cousin’s roommate’s aunt—they’re usually the ones with the firsthand knowledge,” Mr. Campos says with a wink, and we chuckle obligingly. “As for the missing girl, you could ask Dean Oster. He was a teacher here during that time period.”
A jolt goes through me. It’s hardly sinister—I already knew Oster was here in the eighties. But I think of him out on the grounds at night, the questions he asked, and I wonder.
“You could also check out the local paper archives on campus,” Mr. Campos adds. “Just say the word, and I can get you the keys to the kingdom. The extremely nerdy, niche-interest kingdom.”
“Thank you,” I say, feeling a bit faint. “This is really helpful.”
“That’s my job. Helping students with weird questions and not asking too many of my own,” he says cheerfully, pushing up his glasses. “Oh, and Eden? Watch out for rogue mochas.”
My cheeks turn red, and I hurry away.