Free The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong Page B

schizophrenia.
    But what if it wasn’t
?
What if Rae was right, and I was seeing ghosts
?
    I shook my head sharply. No, that was crazy talk. That would mean Liz was dead. That was nuts. I was hallucinating, and I had to accept it.
    I reached under my mattress, pulled out the pill I’d stuffed there the night before, and swallowed it dry, gagging in protest.
    I had to take my meds. Take them and get better or I’d be shipped off to a real mental hospital, like Liz.
    ***
    Only Rae joined me for breakfast. Tori was still in her room, and the nurses seemed content to leave her there.
    I picked at my cereal, scooping one Cheerio at a lime so it looked like I was eating. I kept thinking of how scared Liz had been. Terrified of being sent away. Then talking about her dream of being tied down, unable to breathe …
    A hallucination. In real life, things like that don’t happen.
    And in real life, teenage girls can’t make bottles explode and pictures fly off the walls…
    “Miss Van Dop?” I said when she came in to lay the breakfast table for the boys. “About Liz…”
    “She’s fine, Chloe. She’s gone to a better place.”
    Those words sent a shiver through me, my spoon clattering against the bowl.
    “I’d like to talk to her if I could,” I said. “I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye. Or thank her for helping me my first day.”
    Miss Van Dop’s severe face softened. “She needs to settle in, but we’ll call her in a few days and you can speak to her then.”
    See? Liz was fine. I was being paranoid.
    Paranoia. Another symptom of schizophrenia. I pushed back the stab of dismay.
    The nurse turned to go.
    “Miss Van Dop? Sorry. I, um, I was talking to Mrs. Talbot yesterday, about e-mailing a friend. She said I needed to speak to you.”
    “Just use the e-mail program to write your letter and click send. It’ll sit in the out-box until I enter the password.”
    ***
    Some instructions from my school had arrived, so after breakfast, I showered and dressed as the guys ate, then headed off to class with Rae.
    Tori stayed in her room and the nurses let her. That surprised me, but I guessed it was because she was upset over Liz. I remembered Liz saying Tori was here because she was moody. There’d been a girl at drama camp a couple years ago whom I’d overheard counselors calling “moody.” She’d always seemed to be either really happy or really sad, with no in-between.
    With Tori absent, I was the only ninth grader. Peter was in eighth; Simon, Rae, and Derek in tenth. It didn’t seem to matter much. Kind of like running a one-room schoolhouse, I guess. We shared a room with eight desks and we all worked on our separate assignments as Ms. Wang went around, helping and quietly giving short lessons.
    Maybe knowing Ms. Wang had been partly responsible for Liz’s leaving influenced my opinion of her, but she seemed to be one of those teachers who trudges through her job, watching the clock, waiting for the day to end … or a better job to come along.
    I didn’t get much work done that morning. I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t stop thinking about Liz, what she’d done, what had happened to her.
    The nurses hadn’t seemed at all surprised by the damage in our room. That’s just what Liz did, like with the pencil. She got mad and threw things.
    But she hadn’t thrown that stuff. I’d seen pictures fly from the wall when she’d been nowhere near them.
    Or had I?
    If I
was
schizophrenic, how was I supposed to know what I’d really seen or heard? And if paranoia was another symptom, how could I even trust my own gut feeling that said something bad had happened to Liz?
    ***
    Rae was in session with Dr. Gill for the first part of the morning. When she returned, I spent the rest of the class eagerly awaiting break time, so I could talk to her. Not about Liz and my fears. Just talk to her. About class, last night’s movie, the weather … anything that would clear Liz from my head.
    But she was having