Intrinsical - Lani Woodland [11]
“Come look at this!” She called out, and I dutifully joined her at the edge of the pool where she knelt, peering down over one of the sides.
“Do you see that?” She asked, her voice full of satisfaction. “It’s wet, just like the wall.”
“Uh-huh,” I replied, noncommittally. “And condensation is interesting because . . .”
“It’s not just condensation!” She took a deep breath. “It’s interesting because I read about it, but it’s so much cooler to actually see it. No matter how hard they try or what they do, this whole level is always wet. I wish I could get down to the bottom of the pool. I want to feel it with my own hands,” she said peering back at the dark depths below us.
“You want us to go down there?” I whined like a six year old. Since the pool had no shallow end, I wondered if she was expecting us to jump. I was also worried that even if we made it down unscathed that we wouldn’t find a way back out, expert climbing skills or not.
Cherie made a disappointed face at me. “Luckily for you, there doesn’t seem to be a way down,” she said, obviously disgruntled about it. “Would you like to know why it’s always wet here?” I shrugged my shoulders indifferently so she answered, “Because people died here. And it’s commonly believed that the moisture is drawn out and left behind by the presence of the wandering spirits.”
“It does have an ominous vibe, doesn’t it?” I conceded trying to keep my goosebumps at bay.
Cherie was excited that she finally had my attention. “It does! The spirits still roam in this room,” she added dramatically gesturing around us.
“So who died here?” I asked, slightly amused by her enthusiasm.
“A couple of students, about sixty years ago.”
“How many is a couple?” I questioned, folding my arms around my chest, feeling cold again.
“The accounts vary. Some stories say there were two; others say three boys were here that night, but one survived. It’s hard to tell because the school tried to hush it up.”
“Why?”
Cherie rolled her eyes. “Don’t you have any imagination?”
I shrugged to answer that I didn’t. Cherie gave me a look to let me know she pitied my closed-mindedness.
“Obviously, they didn’t want to tarnish the name of the school, and they didn’t want to be blamed.”
“Okay. But how did they die?”
“They drowned rather tragically,” Cherie said as she continued examining the room.
“Isn’t every death considered tragic?”
“Yes, but a lot of this one was preventable.”
“How?”
“The school designed this room not only for a pool, but for a gym, too. So they had a retractable gym floor built over the pool.” Cherie walked around the pool and sat down on the edge of the diving board. She turned toward me and motioned me toward her.
I shook my head. “Uh . . . Cherie, I hardly think that’s safe. It could seriously give out at any minute.”
“Scaredy-cat.”
“Stick and stones,” I said, not budging an inch. I took a moment to inspect the ground with new interest but saw no evidence of the retracting floor. “So, where’s this floor now?”
Cherie pointed to a wide band of paneling against the opposite wall. “It slides out from over there. They had been having technical difficulties with the floor for over a month, and the building was closed for repairs the night of the fire. From what the investigators could tell, there was a group of friends here after hours who became trapped under the floor when it closed. They figured the same faulty wiring that was playing havoc with the floor started the fire. None of them made it out. And the weird thing: the only key was in the headmaster’s office. The official report declared it a tragic accident. But I’ll bet there was some foul play involved— murder, or maybe suicide.” Cherie seemed too pleased by the idea of intentional homicide.
My case of the creeps returned in full force. Was I standing where