As soon as I turned off the faucets, I heard something else—crying, soft and quiet. I patted my face dry with my washcloth as I walked toward the sound. “Hello? Is somebody there?”
The sniffling stopped. Just when I thought I was intruding, Raquel’s face peeked out of one of the stalls. She wore pajamas and the tan-leather braided bracelet that she always seemed to have on. Her eyes were red. “Bianca?” she whispered.
“Yeah. Are you okay?”
She shook her head and wiped at her cheeks. “I’m freaking out. I can’t sleep.”
“It got cold all of a sudden, didn’t it?” I felt stupid even saying that. I knew as well as Raquel did that she wasn’t sobbing in the bathroom at dawn because the weather was frosty.
“I have to tell you something.” Raquel’s hand closed over my wrist, her grip stronger than I would’ve thought. Her face was pale, her nose reddened from crying. “I need you to tell me if you think I’m going insane.”
This is a weird question to be asked, no matter who’s asking, no matter when or where or how. Carefully, I asked, “Do you think you’re going insane?”
“Maybe?” Raquel laughed unevenly, and that reassured me. If she could see the funny side of this, then probably she was basically okay.
I glanced around behind us, but the bathroom was empty. At that hour, we were sure to have the place to ourselves for quite a while. “Are you having bad dreams or something?”
“Vampires. Black capes, fangs, the works.” She tried to laugh. “You wouldn’t think anybody out of kindergarten could still be scared of vampires, but in my dreams—Bianca, they’re terrible.”
“I had a nightmare about a dying flower the night before classes started,” I said. I wanted to distract her from her own nightmares; maybe sharing mine would help, even if I did feel sort of stupid talking about it out loud. “An orchid or a lily or something, wilting in the middle of a storm. It scared me so badly I couldn’t shake it from my mind the whole next day.”
“I can’t get them out of my head, though. These dead hands, grabbing at me—”
“You’re only thinking about that because of the Dracula assignment,” I said. “We’ll be done with Bram Stoker in another week. You’ll see.”
“I know that; I’m not stupid. But the nightmares will just change into something else. I don’t ever feel safe. It’s like there’s this person—this presence—someone, something that’s getting too close. Something terrible.” Raquel leaned closer and whispered, “Don’t you ever feel like there’s something at this school that’s…evil?”
“Courtney, sometimes.” I tried to turn it into a joke.
“Not that kind of evil. Real evil.” Her voice shook. “Do you believe in real evil?”
Nobody had ever asked me that, but I knew the answer. “Yeah. I do.”
Raquel swallowed so hard I could hear it, and we stared at each other for a few moments, unsure what to say next. I knew that I ought to keep reassuring her, but the intensity of her fear forced me to listen.
“I always feel like I’m being watched here,” she said. “Always. Even when I’m alone. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s real. Sometimes I feel like my nightmares last even after I wake up. Late at night I hear things—scrapes and thumps on the roof. When I look out the window, I swear sometimes I see a shadow running into the forest. And the squirrels—you’ve seen them, right? How they’re dying?”
“A couple.” Maybe it was the autumn chill in the drafty old bathroom making me shiver, but maybe it was Raquel’s fear.
“Do you ever feel safe here? Ever?”
I stammered, “I don’t feel safe, but I don’t think it’s anything weird.” Then again, weird meant different things to different people. “It’s just this school. This place. The gargoyles and the stone and the cold—and the attitudes—it makes me feel so out of place. Alone. And scared.”
“Evernight sucks the life out of you.” Raquel laughed weakly. “Listen to me. Life sucking. Still with the vampires.”
“You just need some rest,” I said firmly, sounding too much like my mother. “Some rest, and something different to read.”
“Rest sounds good. Do you think the school nurse would give out sleeping pills?”
“I’m not sure there is a school nurse.” When Raquel’s nose wrinkled in consternation, I suggested, “You could probably grab something over the counter at the drugstore when we go into Riverton.”
“I guess. It’s a good idea, anyway.” She paused, then gave me a watery smile. “Thanks for listening to me. I know that I sound nuts.”
I shook my head. “Not at all. Like I said, Evernight just gets to people.”
“The drugstore,” Raquel said quietly as she gathered her things to go back to her room. “Sleeping pills. That way, I’ll sleep through it.”
“Sleep through what?”
“The sounds on the roof.” Her face was grave now, that of someone older than her years. “Because somebody is up there at night. I can hear it. That part isn’t a nightmare, Bianca. It’s real.”
For a long time after she had gone back to bed, I stood alone in the bathroom, still shivering.
Chapter Five
NORMALLY, YOU’D THINK THE GIRL GOING OUT on her first date ever would have dibs on the mirror. But when the Friday night of the Riverton trip came, Patrice was so busy looking at herself that I might as well have been dressing in the dark. She kept studying her face and figure in the full-length mirror, squinting and turning, unable to find whatever she was searching for, whether imperfections or beauty. “You look fine,” I said. “Eat something, will you? You’re practically invisible.”
“The Autumn Ball isn’t even a month away. I want to look my best.”
“What good is going to the Autumn Ball if you can’t enjoy it?”
“I’ll enjoy it even more this way.” Patrice smiled at me. She had a way of being both patronizing and completely sincere. “Someday you’ll understand.”
I didn’t like it when she talked down to me like that, but she was on my good side. For my date, Patrice had let me borrow a soft, ivory-colored sweater she owned, acting as if this was the biggest favor anyone had ever done for anyone. Maybe she was right. In that sweater, my figure—well, you could tell that I had one, something the dowdy Evernight plaids and blazers never revealed.
“None of you guys are going?” I asked as I tried pulling my hair back into a high ponytail. I didn’t have to explain who “you guys” meant.
“Erich’s throwing another party by the lake.” Patrice shrugged. She still wore her pink satin robe, and her hair was covered with a lacy scarf. Probably the party wouldn’t start until after midnight, not if she hadn’t even started getting ready. “Most of the teachers will be in town chaperoning. That makes it a prime night here.”
“I don’t admit that Evernight Academy has prime nights.”
“It’s not as though they keep us in a cage, Bianca. Also, that hairstyle is not working for you.”