Dead Voices

“Out of here,” Ollie whispered back. “I hope. And then my friend is going to help you find your bones. So you can go home. Isn’t that what you needed? You said it in my dream. Your bones, so you could go home?”

Gretel let out a soft sigh. “Do you mean it?” she whispered. She stumbled again. For a second her clumsiness reminded Ollie of Coco, and Ollie felt a terrible surge of longing for her friend. “Do you promise? If you mean it, I’ll let you have my lamp.”

Ollie would have liked to promise. She wondered what the real story was, the history of the ghost girl, endlessly hiding, endlessly lost, and Mother Hemlock endlessly chasing. But she didn’t know if any of them would make it out, let alone Gretel. And Ollie hated to lie again. So she just said, “I’ll do my best. But first we have to hurry.”

So Gretel did her best to hurry. Behind them, Mother Hemlock’s footsteps were getting fainter. Maybe they were outrunning her! All they had to do was keep ahead of her, find a good hiding spot near the bunk room mirror, keep an eye on it, and hope Coco managed to find Gretel’s bones.

Gabe halted suddenly. Ollie had to raise her lantern and squint after his pointing finger to be sure. But it was a door! Another door. Maybe a door out! It was narrow, set in a recess in the wall, and hard to spot. It had a tarnished handle and peeling paint. Ollie reached with her free hand, turned the knob, and opened the door.

Behind it was a skinny, dark staircase leading steeply up. Looking at those stairs, Ollie thought that she’d had enough of dark staircases to last her for the rest of her life.

Gretel was hanging back. “But,” she said, “those stairs—”

Mother Hemlock’s voice interrupted, whispering almost at their backs. “Where are you?” she breathed. “Where are you? I can smell deceit. I can smell bad children . . .”

With Mother Hemlock right behind them and the long staircase ahead, Ollie didn’t hesitate. She pulled Gretel after her into the staircase and started to hurry up. Behind her, she heard Gabe close the lower door softly behind them and begin to climb heavily in their wake.

“Thanks for helping,” Ollie whispered back to Gabe as she climbed. “It will be all right,” she added to Gretel. “It will, it will . . .”

There was no sound from Gabe. Ollie had a tight grip on Gretel’s wrist and was pulling her along. But the ghost girl was pulling back. “No,” she was muttering to herself. “Don’t listen, don’t listen, don’t listen . . . That’s what I tried to tell you. But I’m so confused now. He wanted me to be confused. I don’t remember why . . . Don’t listen!”

As soon as they got off the stairs, Ollie decided, she was going to find a quiet place and try to understand what Gretel was talking about. But they had to get off the stairs first. Mother Hemlock was right behind them.

And they were almost off the stairs. Ollie could see a door in the wavering light of her oil lamp. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’ll be okay, Gretel.”

“No, it won’t,” said Gretel. Her voice shot up into a cry, like she’d suddenly understood. “It won’t because—”

Ollie didn’t hear the end of the sentence. She groped for the knob in the door at the top of the stairs, turned it.

And froze.

As the door swung open, Gretel let out a single, soft whimper of fear before she fell silent, standing rigid beside Ollie.

They were in a strange room. No, Ollie thought. Not strange. She’d seen it before.

In a nightmare.

It was the bunk room, but it wasn’t. This room was not wide, but it was long. A thick hush lay over it. There were big black metal bars in the windows, and strong moonlight filtered in between them, throwing huge stripes of white light and shadow across the room. After the darkness of the basement, the moonlight dazzled her eyes.

Just like in Ollie’s dream, the room was full of beds. In each bed was a girl asleep, with her eyes frozen shut.

Beside Ollie, Gretel whispered, her voice short and thin with fear, “Here? Why would you bring me here?”

Across from them and a little to their left, there was another door. This one had to lead out into the hall. Ollie licked dry lips. “We just have to get across the room,” she said. “Come on.”

Before they could move, someone sat up in the bed nearest them. It was a small girl. She looked a lot like Gretel. Same thin braided hair. Same frost-blackened nose.

Except that her eyes were packed with a thick layer of ice. Her eyes were frozen shut, not open.

But despite her closed eyes, she smiled, wide and empty. She turned her face toward them. And she spoke. “Gretel, you came back,” she said, in a strange dry whisper. “Get in bed now, and she won’t ever know you were gone.”

Gretel started to tremble.

Another girl in another bed sat up. “Gretel, you brought a friend? No visiting after lights-out. Mother will be angry.”

“So angry,” said a third, also sitting up, and now there were girls sitting up in all the beds, turning their ice-packed eyes, their wide smiles to Ollie and Gretel.

“It’s okay,” Ollie whispered. “Come on. I’ll get you out of here.”