The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall by Katie Alender

girls.
    Of all the things I would have guessed about being dead, I definitely didn’t expect that it would sometimes feel exactly like high school.

I spent the night sitting alone in the superintendent’s apartment. But by the time morning came, I was restless and antsy, and the low, dark ceilings seemed to be closing in on me. I passed into the lobby, headed for the double doors that led outside, and then felt a jolt of shock.
    Two wide-eyed teenage girls stood directly in my path, shoulder to shoulder, both with messy hair and in matching long, flannel nightgowns.
    More ghosts.
    The girls stared in mute fascination until I slipped outside, at which point their shrill giggles echoed behind me.
    I rolled my eyes and kept going. A soft snow fell, the kind of big, fluffy snowflakes that land on your clothes as tiny crystals. Except they fell right through me as I passed silently through the quiet morning.
    I trudged down the hill to the west of the house, stopping when I came to a row of white marble protrusions sticking up through the snow.
    Just as Theo had said—the graveyard.
    A few feet away, there was another row of headstones, and another one after that. Those beyond were buried in a deeper bank of snow, which was a relief to me. I didn’t especially want to know how many women and girls had met lonely deaths here.
    I turned around and nearly ran smack into Theo.
    His mouth widened into an almost-smile. “I’d say it’s too cold to be outside, but you seem pretty comfortable,” he said.
    So did he—he stood in a relaxed pose, his hands in his pockets. I realized how glad I was to see him again. After enduring Eliza and Florence’s prim politeness, I needed to be around someone who wasn’t studying and judging my every word and action.
    “It’s suffocating inside,” I explained.
    He nodded. “I can imagine. I like the fresh air, myself.”
    Only I hadn’t just meant the air, or the temperature, or even the smallness and darkness of the rooms. It was the fact that there was no world outside of the Piven Institute—and the fact that that didn’t seem to bother the others at all.
    “So … what have you been up to lately?” I asked Theo.
    He laughed. “Well, let’s see. Every day I walk the perimeter of the property, and then I sit on a fallen tree over there, in that little patch of woods, and then I wait for it to get dark, and there are a few animals I’ve been watching since they were small, so … that’s pretty much the whole story.”
    We were walking between the rows, basically on top of dead people. I wondered which grave corresponded with which ghost. Did the ghosts feel it when I passed over them? My seventh-grade teacher had told us once that when you shiver for no reason, that means someone’s walking over your grave. The class told her she was crazy, because we weren’t dead.
    Joke’s on me, I guess.
    “Do you ever think about trying to leave again?” I asked.
    Theo shook his head. “Not anymore.”
    “Why not?” I asked. “What would be the worst that could happen?”
    “Oh, I’m not afraid,” he said. “I just … don’t care. It’s been a long time since I cared about anything.”
    “That’s it?” I said. “That’s what’s keeping you here? Not caring?”
    His tone was practiced and easy, but I remembered the way he’d choked up when we’d held hands last time. Now he seemed to be trying really hard not to let that happen again—by suppressing any trace of emotion. “I used to care about things. But that’s not going to do you any good when you’re just a ghost.”
    I didn’t answer. As much as it hurt to miss my family and wish they hadn’t abandoned me, I wasn’t about to pretend they didn’t exist.
    “Think about it,” he said. “Have you ever known anyone who died?”
    “My grandmother,” I said. “She died when I was eight.”
    “Did you love her?”
    “Of course.”
    “But do you think about her every day? Do you remember what she did, her