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Footsteps sounded outside the room. The girl holding Ollie’s arm cringed, but she didn’t let go of Ollie’s sleeve. “Good little girls don’t try to leave,” she muttered, almost to herself. “They stay here with Mother. Only bad little girls try to escape. But I’m a bad little girl. I don’t want to stay here forever.”
Her face was in the moonlight now. Unlike the other girls, her eyes were open, although ringed in frost. She looked like her eyes had frozen open, instead of shut. She didn’t blink. Her wide eyes gave her an expression of startled horror.
Ollie’s breath was shallow with terror. The quick, clacking footsteps outside were getting closer. “I don’t know where your bones are,” she managed.
The girl threw a terrified look at the door.
Then she bent forward and whispered in a totally different voice, almost too low for Ollie to hear: “It doesn’t matter. Don’t listen to the voices.”
“What?” Ollie’s voice came out a thin, terrified whisper. “What voices?”
“The dead voices,” said the girl. “All the dead voices.” Her icy hand pinched Ollie’s arm. “Stay out of closets. And don’t look in the mirror.”
Then the door to the room slammed open.
The girl screamed and threw herself backward, scrabbling away and disappearing into the shadows.
There was something in the doorway. Someone. It looked like a woman. Ollie couldn’t see her face. Just that she was tall and wore a black dress. She advanced on Ollie and reached out a bony hand. “Awake?” she demanded.
Ollie didn’t answer. She tried to get up and run, but she couldn’t move.
“Bad little girl. I caught you red-handed! How dare you be awake! Lie down this instant! Get back in bed and stay there.” The woman’s bony hand descended, grabbing at her. Ollie finally got her breath and shrieked.
And came gasping awake, to find herself in the lower bunk of their room in Hemlock Lodge, in the pitch-black dark before dawn. Coco must have just gone to the bathroom. Ollie heard her climb the bunk ladder and settle again under the covers.
Ollie had to pee too. But she lay still in bed, trying to ignore it. She really didn’t want to go out into the dark, freezing hallway.
She couldn’t ignore it.
Annoyed, and still shaken from her nightmare, Ollie got up, shoved her feet into slippers, went out into the hall. It was inky dark, and freezing. She almost ran to the girls’ bathroom. But she wasn’t scared, she told herself. Just cold.
There was a light showing under the bathroom door. Ollie frowned. Hadn’t they turned it off before going to bed? Despite herself, she was nervous. She scolded herself for being silly. Nightmares were just nightmares. Didn’t she know that by now? She’d had enough of them.
Determinedly, Ollie stepped forward and opened the bathroom door just as one of the toilets flushed.
“Hello?” called Ollie. Her voice cracked a little. “Who’s that?”
Coco stepped out of the stall, frowning.
“It’s me,” she said. “Who else would it be?”
Ollie stared. “But,” she said, “I heard you get back in bed.”
“Not yet,” said Coco. “I had to pee. You probably heard the lodge creaking.” Coco looked small and cold in her flannel pajamas. “This lodge creaks a lot. I’ve been hearing weird noises all night.” She said it like she was trying to sound chill, but was a bit anxious herself.
Ollie nodded. “Yeah,” she said, with feeling. “Although I was sure I heard . . . Wait for me to pee?” she asked.
“’Kay,” said Coco, and Ollie was happy not to be alone.
She flushed the toilet, and together the girls went back to their room.
But Ollie stopped short in the doorway. She stared at Coco’s bed.
It didn’t look empty. For a second, she was sure she saw a small girl, ice in her wide-open eyes, sitting up, staring at her. Her lips moved, mouthed two words.
Don’t listen.
With a gasp, Ollie leaped for the lamp, turned it on. There was no one there. Coco was peering at her worriedly. “What?” she said. “Did you see something?”
