The Evil Within by Nancy Holder

sleep?”
    There was an edge to her voice, and I knew I couldn’t tell her anything. She obviously still didn’t remember any of the terrors of last semester, including the fact that she herself had been possessed. As before, she thought I had either made up everything, or imagined it, in some twisted attempt to paint Mandy as a villain so that she, Julie, would remain my best friend. Maybe Jane would have been able to pull something like that off, but she wouldn’t have bothered—it was dumb. And ridiculous. And too much work.
    I was the proof of that.
    As we reached the opened door of the commons, I smelled coffee. And oatmeal. And a hundred different exotic perfumes on the polished, coifed girls who swirled around us.
    “Bleah,” Julie said. “I’m a little hung over. Maybe I shouldn’t drink on school nights.”
    “Maybe we shouldn’t drink on any nights,” I said. “You know, cut back for a while. Until we’re settled back in.”
    She squinted at me. “Who are you and what have you done with Lindsay?”
    “My grandmother says that alcohol robs you of your wits,” Shayna said, as she came up behind us. “And you should always keep your wits about you. In case a dybbuk tries to possess you. Then you can talk him out of it.”
    “What’s a dybbuk ?” Julie asked. Already seated at our table—dorms usually sat together—Marica and Ida waved at us. Julie waved back, but I just stared at Shayna.
    “Look at Marica’s sweater. Isn’t it amazing?” Julie chirruped, distracted. Then she hurried over to greet them as if she hadn’t seen them less than seven hours ago.
    Shayna gave me a long, measured look. She was so perfect, with her dark, glossy hair, beautifully shaped thick eyebrows, and perfect skin. “A dybbuk is the dislocated soul of a dead person,” she said quietly. “At least, that’s what my grandmother used to say.”
    I caught my breath. Felt the blood drain from my face. Shayna? I thought. Shayna knows?
    “What do you think?” she asked me.
    “Hello? Blocking the door?” Lara snarled, bumping Shayna’s shoulder as she and Mandy sauntered into the room. Mandy was dressed all in black, and Lara wore a red-and-black argyle sweater over black trousers. The red clashed with her hair. It was clear to me that they hadn’t heard our conversation.
    “Some people,” Mandy said, sighing melodramatically.
    Shayna frowned, then went neutral, and headed for the food lines. I started to follow, but she gave her head a shake.
    “What you just said . . . ” I began.
    “Shouldn’t be discussed in public,” she finished.
    She looked over at Mandy, then at me. She gave me a nod that I couldn’t interpret precisely, but I was pretty sure I had the gist.
    “Come after classes. I’m in Stewart.”
    Right. I’d seen her in Stewart, when I went there to plot strategy with last semester’s ally—Rose Hyde-Smith. Rose, who had broken into Jessel with me, and discovered so many secrets . . . and whose eyes had eventually turned black, and who had tried to help Mandy kill me. And who didn’t remember any of it, either.
    Rose was seated at the Stewart table, in a wacky outfit that was a combination of Amy Winehouse and I Love Lucy —bouffant hair, red-and-yellow paisley scarf and red hoop earrings, and a black sweater with big red buttons. Spotting me, she waved with both hands, and then blew me kisses.
    “You okay?” Ida asked me, approaching me with her tray of practically nothing—just scrambled egg whites and tomato slices—for breakfast. Tea.
    “Yeah,” I said. “It’s just hard to get back into the swing.”
    Ida pulled a sad face. “No kidding.” Then she brightened. “But I have a total jewel of gossip, speaking of swinging. Gretchen Cabot has a thing for Mandy’s brother.”
    “That is scary,” I opined. In ways you cannot begin to comprehend.
    “Well, he is kind of hot, in a savagely mad King Henry VIII kind of way.” When I obviously didn’t connect, she said,