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a laptop they’d given us. It seemed like an absurd task to me, but compared to what I’d expected—having to do dishes or scrub floors Cinderella-style—it didn’t seem so bad.
    I read out names, and Gabe typed them into the laptop, names like Archibald Cumberland and Willfred Pinfolds. I almost giggled a few times. You could just picture these people holding lapdogs or muskets while posing for a somber Gilbert Stuart portrait like that one of George Washington on the one-dollar bill.
    But Gabe was edgy, constantly looking over his shoulder. He kept jerking at the tiniest sound.
    “Are you okay?”
    “Fine,” he said unconvincingly as he clicked on the computer. “Did you notice this laptop is completely blank and Internet disabled?”
    “So?”
    “They obviously don’t trust us.”
    “Or it’s a new computer and they didn’t put anything on it yet.”
    He huffed but then lurched, apparently hearing something down the hall. His edginess was making me feel uncomfortable, too. I tried to distract him.
    “Prudence Goggins. Class of 1939.” I put on a crackly old voice. “I studied needlepoint and tea-making at Wickham Hall and then went on to marry the ketchup baron … Haverford Heinz, Class of 1938.”
    Gabe managed a chuckle. We turned the corner into a small nook off the hallway, and he suddenly screamed—at the top of his lungs. He grabbed my shirt and lurched backward, pulling me away from something hideous. Something horrible. The school laptop hit the floor and smashed. I fell right on top of it.
    “Run! Now!” he shouted at me. And then he turned back to the darkness, addressing whatever was there. “No! Stop! Go away!”
    As I was gathering myself up and pulling away, I couldn’t help but quickly glance back into the dark nook—the way you have to look at a car accident as you pass—and I saw it.
    Nothing.
    There was nothing there. But nothing has never been so frightening.
    THE BROKEN LAPTOP SAT on the table between Mrs. Mulford and us. Needless to say, she wasn’t pleased, especially with Gabe.
    “Considering you’re on Final Warning, this incident warrants a conversation with the headmaster and could possibly precipitate your expulsion.”
    He stared at his lap, his hair shielding his eyes. But I could tell from his expression that, as much as he despised Wickham Hall, home was worse. I understood. I felt for him. So, without really thinking, I started to talk.
    “I dropped the computer.”
    She glared at me. “That’s not what you previously reported.”
    “He was just trying to be nice. To help me. Because I’m new. And I let him because I didn’t know about Final Whatever.”
    “
Warning
,” she clarified.
    “But he can’t be expelled for something I did. It’s not fair.”
    I could feel his eyes on me, but I refused to look over. I was going to stick to this story. I was not on Final Warning. I had nothing to lose.
    “Is this the truth?” she demanded, shifting her stare to Gabe.
    “Yes,” I said firmly, before Gabe could reply.
    “Well, in that case,” she said with a smirk, “You’ll
both
receive an appropriate punishment.”
    OUTSIDE, GABE QUICKLY THANKED me. We walked across the quad silently for a good while. I caught a few glimpses of his face, and he was clearly wrestling with something. Finally, once we were far away from everyone, he stopped. So I stopped, too.
    “Do you want to know?” he asked.
    I nodded. I was prepared for the worst: A) He was mentally ill, B) He had an imaginary friend, or C) He took bath salts—not that I ever really understood exactly what bath salts were.
    “I saw Lydia. She’s gruesome. She was coming at us.”
    I nodded again. It was definitely C.
    “I hear the voices of ghosts at Wickham Hall. And thereare certain places—dark, cursed places—where I can see them, too. They haunt me. All of them. I don’t know what they want.” He bit his lip, seeing I didn’t believe him. “Wickham Hall
is
haunted. It’s not a