Ruby slept. She might even have slept well, though Effie wasn’t certain. She had spent time watching her friend sleep, but always before she had assumed any sleep would be good sleep. Always before she had been able to assume that, but now she was no longer so certain. Who knew what dreams might be running through her mind now? Who knew how they might be shifting that mind?

Effie couldn’t fall asleep. She lay down on her bed but only wound up tossing and turning, staring up at the ceiling. At this point, she’d wind up as mad as Ruby.

The thought shouldn’t have been funny. It wasn’t (it really wasn’t), but she still had to press a hand over her mouth to stop from giggling. It was just tiredness. It had to be. She knew that, and yet she couldn’t seem to stop, not even when tears came to her eyes.

She really was mad, and it was all Ruby’s fault. Maybe it was a little bit her own, for loving her friend so, but she would lay most of the blame at Ruby’s feet. Nothing at all would be wrong if she were not so easy to love.

Effie rolled onto her side. Easy to love? Maybe before all this had begun. If she had met Ruby just last week, she doubted she would love her at all. She would be worried, yes, but only with the same worry she might have for a stranger. She wouldn’t dare to draw close to her, nor to feel anything for her. At best, she would be grateful they were both soon to leave Pendleton, for then they wouldn’t have to see one another any longer.

Right now, she only felt a steady ache in her chest. Poor Ruby, tormented by madness and ghosts. Effie wished she could determine what was happening to her friend. This had to have begun somewhere. Madness couldn’t spring up from nothing, could it? Everything that happened in the mind had a seed someplace, or so her uncle said. All she had to do to help Ruby was to find that seed.

She hoped Ruby might help her with that. She didn’t like the thought of prying through her friend’s things in an attempt to find out her secrets. But if Ruby wouldn’t tell her anything… if she had no other choice…

Effie rolled onto her other side. She would do what she had to. No one could ask anything else of her, surely. She would do whatever she must to save her friend.

She only hoped Ruby would understand when all was said and done.

***

Lydia was up late again. This was growing to be something of a habit, one she hoped wouldn’t linger too long. The young could get away with such activities, but as she grew older, she suspected she would find it much harder to do. She already couldn’t stay up the whole night as she had once in her adolescence. It was unlikely she could have carried on such an activity for long, but she had suffered no ill effects the next day.

Of course, that night had been by choice. Had she her own choice now, she would be tucked comfortably into her bed, already fast asleep. She might still be able to be up and teaching the next day, but it was very likely to cost her something. She would be irritable and short-tempered. The younger students wouldn’t understand why, and the older ones would think they had done something wrong. She wouldn’t be able to explain to them that they had done nothing, that all was well except with her.

Except with her and Miss Cambridge, rather.

She had been about Ruby’s age when she’d stayed up so late, she now recalled. It had been a foolish, thoughtless idea, and she ought to be glad nothing had come of it but sleeping deeply the next night. Maybe Ruby was going through a similar period of strangeness. Adolescent girls were plagued by them, and it was possible hers was rather odder than others. Perhaps all would be well. Perhaps they would look back on this in a year and laugh.

Or perhaps she was only deluding herself and Ruby was in real danger, and to look away from it would cost the girl her life.

Lydia set aside her tea and got to her feet. She would have to make a decision, and quickly. God alone knew what might happen if she did nothing.

***

Was this a dream? Ruby could never be certain these days. She knew she ought to be, but it was hard to tell, and it was growing harder and harder as the days went on.

That should have frightened her. It did, most of the time, but right now the fear was hazy and distant. Maybe that meant she was dreaming right now.

Maybe it just meant she had utterly lost her mind.

The latter would explain why she was sitting on her bed in her nightgown, chatting with a ghost as though all was well. If she were dreaming, she would surely have better sense than to befriend someone like Mina. She would be trying to wake up, or at least trying to toss about or scream, to give Effie some sign that she was asleep and needed waking. There was no chance of waking from madness, though.

Well, there was sanity, perhaps, but she suspected she should have given up on that long ago. Sanity was for people who didn’t talk to ghosts.

Sanity was for people who didn’t fall in love with their teachers.

“It’s more than just a spark,” she sighed, tugging on one of her red curls. “It’s love, truer love than I could ever feel for a man. And you’re the only one I can tell about it, because you’re dead and can’t tell anyone else.” If she could speak to others, she wouldn’t bother much with Ruby. She would find someone more interesting to converse with.

Even now, that was what she seemed to be doing. She certainly wasn’t listening to Ruby. Every word she had said must have flown right past Mina’s ears into some other world.

She ought to try saying something truly shocking, something that would get a reaction from the dead woman.

But that would wait, for Mina was speaking now, and Ruby was too well-bred to interrupt another woman when she was in the middle of saying something. At least one of them ought to be a model of good manners.

(She had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from laughing about that. Being mad was far more amusing than anyone had warned her about. She should have given up on sanity long ago.)

“There have been ghosts here for a long time,” Mina said, gazing up at the ceiling. Her eyes seemed to go right through it, but when Ruby looked up, she saw nothing more than she normally did. Perhaps one had to be a ghost to have that particular ability. (And why would she want to bother with that? There was no point in being able to look through ceilings, not unless one wished to know what one’s neighbors were getting up to, and she certainly didn’t.) “Something about this school calls to them. Do you know why?”

Ruby shook her head. “I have to stay here,” she said. “I can’t go back home.”

Again, Mina ignored her. Maybe she had been wrong. Maybe it was best to talk to the living. They at least knew how to listen. “Neither do I. I only know there’s one way for us to find out, and surely you know what that is.”

The dead girl’s gaze was piercing. It was impossible for Ruby to look straight at her. She turned her gaze to her hands instead. “I’ve a secret to tell you,” she whispered. “You can’t tell anyone else. Will you promise?”

“You must stay alive. That is the only way. Do you understand?”

Ruby didn’t. She couldn’t imagine why any of this was happening. She could only whisper her secret, but when she blinked, she found Effie sitting on her bed, staring at her with wide eyes.