Austin hesitated another moment. Finally, he turned to Lily.

“You seriously didn’t see it?” he said. “You didn’t think there was anything out of the ordinary in that ballroom? Besides your friend acting like a psycho, I mean?”

He’d said “friend.” She was safe. Lily exhaled.

“I seriously didn’t see anything,” Lily said. “And Maria wasn’t acting like—”

“You didn’t feel the air change?” Austin interrupted her. “You didn’t see the lights go fuzzy?”

“I saw the power go out. Is that what you mean?” Maybe Austin was stoned after all.

He shook his head. His face had gone from disappointed to frustrated. When he spoke again, it was in a mutter so low Lily could barely hear him. “No one at this godforsaken school ever sees them but me.”

“Sees what? What are you talking about?”

“He’s talking about them.” Felicia’s voice was crisp and clear. It made Lily shiver.

She remembered that night she’d sat up listening to Felicia’s screams. She wondered if Felicia’s dreams were like her own.

“Have you seen them?” Lily whispered.

Felicia shook her head. “No. But I’ve heard them . . . at the window.”

Oh, hell. Oh, hell.

“Does it come from up here?” Lily whispered. Felicia glanced at her but didn’t answer. “The sound at the window?”

“No. They aren’t in the cemetery.” Austin swept his arm out over the graves. “This place is the only safe spot in this whole damn campus. It’s consecrated ground. The dead people up here, even that creepy statue chick with the flowers, they’re all off in heaven someplace. Or hell. Wherever. Either way, they don’t bother us. The messed-up ones are all down the hill. And in the woods.”

The sweat trickled down Lily’s neck. It sounded like Maria wasn’t the only one who believed in ghosts.

Austin was speaking rapidly, without his usual slur. He pulled out a lighter and flicked it on. His fingers shook. “This place is cursed as hell, man.”

Lily felt shaky too. She hadn’t sensed anything in the ballroom, but Maria clearly had. She turned back to Felicia. “You’ve heard them before?”

Felicia nodded.

“At the window?” Lily pressed. “The scratching?”

Felicia nodded again, slowly this time.

That meant Lily wasn’t crazy. But she didn’t want to think about what else it might mean.

“I’ve seen them lots of times,” Austin said. “And one of them . . . the girl on the lake . . . I only saw that girl once, but it was enough to last the rest of my life. She had freaky big black eyes. She talked to me, too. Told me to come swimming.”

Lily’s palms were slick. She wiped them off on her pants and tried to catch Felicia’s eye, but her face was blank again.