for Lila Zeller.
“Wow, Jill didn’t waste any time . . .” Then I look more closely at the figure of the woman. Its outlines are a little hard to make out—black on red isn’t the best graphic choice—but there’s something unsettling about it that takes me a moment to figure out. “Christ, is she out of her mind?”
“Um . . . it was Rachel Lazar’s idea. She said it’s for emotional impact.”
“Give me those!” I tell Paola. She hands over the stack of flyers and wraps her arms around her chest as if their absence has left her cold.
“Please don’t tell Ms. Frankel I gave them to you. She offered me extra credit for putting them up. I got a B-minus on her final so I could really use the help.”
“I’ll tell her I took them down myself,” I say, holding up one of the flyers so that the figure on it seems to flap in the wind. Which is fitting. It’s not just a picture of a girl in Colonial dress; it’s a picture of a hanged girl swinging from the gallows.
“ARE YOU OUT of your mind?”
I slap the flyer down in front of Jill Frankel. I’ve found her in the theater, standing onstage, in front of a raised platform that serves as the gallows. Four girls are lined up in front wearing placards around their necks that say WITCH. I belatedly realize I should have asked to speak to Jill privately instead of confronting her in front of students.
Jill looks briefly toward the girls but doesn’t suggest they go; she doesn’t seem to mind an audience. “Do you have a problem with the flyer?” she asks with studied innocence.
“Yes,” I say, trying to modulate my voice for the benefit of the girls onstage, who include Dakota Wyatt, Rachel Lazar, Samantha Grimes, and Sophie Watanabe. “I don’t think an image of a hanged woman is appropriate for a memorial performance for a young girl who died tragically.”
“Lila wasn’t hanged,” Rachel Lazar says.
“That’s not the point,” I say, and then, in a lower voice to Jill, “Perhaps we should discuss this in private.”
“You’re the one who stormed in here onto my stage,” Jill says. “And I don’t believe in hiding the truth from my students.” She glances at the girls, two of whom have taken their cell phones out of their pinafore pockets. “Go ahead and take five,” she suggests. The girls slouch off to the stage wings, still close enough to hear.
I take a breath and try a different tack. “Look, I understand you’re trying to honor Lila.”
“I’m not, really,” Jill says. “I’m trying to expose the hypocrisy and corruption that led to her death.”
“What do you mean? We don’t know who killed her.”
“Don’t we? Lila was clearly troubled about something. I tried to talk to her but she was too frightened to tell me what it was. But I know it had something to do with that history paper she was writing for your husband.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask, ignoring the sneer on her face when she says your husband. I’ve always suspected that Jill was jealous when I married Harmon. She was closer in age to him and I’d overheard her once say, He likes them young.
“Here, look at this.” She takes out her phone, taps, scrolls, and hands it to me.
Is Lila Zeller the latest victim of the Maiden Stone disappearances? I read. It’s a tweet by someone called LostGirl99 with a link to a site called “Lost Girls of the Maiden Stone.” I skim the tweet, which asserts that Lila was researching the disappearances surrounding the Maiden Stone when she was killed. Could Lila have found out something about the person responsible for those disappearances—or was she a victim of the Maiden Stone’s malice?
“This is ridiculous,” I say. “Where did you even find—” But as I scroll farther down I see where Jill got this post. It’s been retweeted by IceVirgin33. “How do you know him?” I demand, holding the phone out.
“Who? Oh, IceVirgin33? I don’t know . . . I think I met him in a theater group in Portland.” Her eyes slide up and to the left, a clear sign she’s lying.
“You’ve met him in person? Luther? Did he ask you about me and Rudy?”
Jill seems taken aback. “What? Why would he? He asked me about me, about my life and work. Believe it or not, Tess, it’s not always about you.”
I’m briefly flabbergasted that vain, drama queen Jill Frankel is