Free The Evil Within by Nancy Holder Page A

as he jutted his face toward mine. I could smell sour wine and cigarettes on his breath.
    “You already have hurt her,” he said. “I’ll give you a chance to back off. Now.”
    My cheek burned as if he had slapped me. “What are you talking about?” But I knew he was talking about Troy. About me being a boyfriend stealer.
    “On your mark,” he said.
    “ What? ”
    “Get set.”
    “Go to hell.” I jerked hard on my arm. To my surprise—and intense relief—he let go. With as much dignity as I could muster, I walked away from him, all senses on alert in the event that he decided to come after me after all. What if he had killed that bird? It didn’t look like an animal had gone after it. Its wing had looked . . . bent.
    I kept walking, waiting for a parting shot, or some more patronizing laughter, or proof of his craziness, but there was silence. And I when I looked back over my shoulder . . .
    . . . He had vanished.

REPOSSESSION
He who does not punish evil commands it to be done.
    —Leonardo da Vinci

Cursed is the man who dies, but the evil done by him survives.
    —Abu Bakr

SEVEN
    January 8
    possessions: me
    (there is no me. there’s only free-floating high anxiety. no way, no way, no way, no way . . .)
haunted by: Celia’s dead voice
listening to : the same
mood : if a fire was coming, would you stand still and wait
for it?
    possessions: them
luck
good fortune
the lottery

haunted by : they do the haunting
listening to: the world, promising them more, now
mood : blissfully unaware
    possessions: mandy
my future
my life?

haunted by: me?
listening to : Belle
mood: terrified, if she’s smart

    I DON’T know how I found my way out of the forest. But as I raced away from Miles, suddenly I recognized the path I’d taken and within a few minutes, I had jogged back to the blacktop path. The white horse heads stared straight ahead, each dusted with snow. If they knew my secrets, they were keeping them to themselves.
    Shaking, I went back to Grose, where my dorm mates were starting to wake up. Julie was still in bed, groaning about a hangover; I grabbed my bathrobe, towel, and toiletries and hurried to take a shower.
    I passed the long row of mirrors over the sinks without looking into them, and the five strangely huge ceramic bathtubs, which no one could use because there were no faucets attached to them—and stripped off my sweaty clothes.
    I went into one of the showers. The walls were slick and white; I turned on the water and let the heat sluice down on me. I thought I would never be warm again.
    I burst into tears, and slid to the bottom of the stall. I couldn’t kill Mandy. I wouldn’t. I . . .
    There was a dim impression of a face on the blinding white tile floor. I covered my mouth with both hands to hold in the scream. Celia had followed me in. I violently shook my head as water dripped off my hair in hard, heavy, unnatural droplets. My spine seemed to melt; and then I was falling somewhere, struggling and screaming and falling and wet and . . .

    “HOLD HER DOWN until she swears,” Belle told Pearl and Martha. Belle’s blonde braid had come uncoiled from the top of her head and hung over her shoulder like a snake. Her ruffled blouse was undone to the top of her corset; her sleeves were folded back. “She will never go near him again.”
    Celia was kneeling in her white gown in one of the hydrotherapy tubs, filled to the brim with icy water. Headmaster Marlwood would order the treatment for the most willful girls—first into the tub, then the wooden lid locked tight in place, so that only their heads were visible. They had to rest quietly or they might drown. But the lid was off now, and there were no matrons or doctors to see what was being done.
    “For the love of God, Belle,” Celia pleaded, up to her breasts in the water.
    “She will never go near him again,” Belle shouted, as Pearl clutched Celia’s right arm, and Martha dug her fingers into the left. Their clothes were disheveled;