In the next room I was rewarded with more teenage scribblings. Lisa and Penny lived there, also in ’78. They too had an inordinate fondness for Donny, in addition to several other alleged heartthrobs whose faces I didn’t recognize.

But where was Leslie?

Next room.

“Leslie Was Here.”

I read the handwriting out loud, though to see the words had made my throat squeeze shut. I didn’t see any other names, or anything at all to indicate she hadn’t been alone. Her room was indistinguishable from the others as far as the contents went, but I snooped around it anyway, hoping to find . . . hoping to find heaven knew what.

I found nothing. I left the room wishing for a souvenir, but there was nothing to salvage.

I trudged back to the front, where a secretary, nurse, or receptionist’s desk was lodged in a corner. Its top drawer was empty, but the next one down held a stack of mail. I rifled through the assorted scraps of stationery until I saw my mother’s name. A paper clip held a note to the envelope.

“Another one from A. Have sent the letter to her file in Brach.”

Brach. Another rich old family likely to have a building named after it, if I looked around hard enough. I took the empty envelope and folded it over, wedging it into my back pocket and wanting to leave. By that time, any destination would have sufficed. The atmosphere was overwhelming in the dormitory—if I didn’t leave it soon, I was going to pass out.

The air lightened when I stepped outside, but the heaviness did not release me completely. The weight followed, or rather I carried it with me. My walking felt more labored, and my head seemed stuffed with cotton. Again at the edge of my conscious hearing came the heartbeat, just slow and distant enough not to be mine.

“I’ll check that one more place, and that’s all. Then I’m leaving.” The knife casing in my boot rubbed reassuringly against my ankle. I thought about pulling it out, but then I thought about being stopped by a cop and I decided against it. Better to appear unarmed, if caught. Besides, if there were only hobos or other humans present, they would have made their presence known; and any other unknown watchers were unlikely to be intimidated by a four-inch blade.

“I’ll leave it there for now. One more place, though, before I go. Just the one.”

I couldn’t be sure if I was talking to myself anymore. I knew there must be ghosts—surely there had to be ghosts in a place where two thousand people had died a hundred years before. Yes, there had to be ghosts, and therefore I should be unafraid if they wanted to watch. What harm had ghosts ever done to me?

Leslie.