November 8th, 1984

It's been a week since I thought I'd seen Harper's ghost lurking in the cemetery, and now I see her everywhere. I pass the paintings of Thorntons that line the hallways, but all I see is her face. I can swear I catch a figure that looks suspiciously like her going into her room from time to time, but when I race in after it, no one is there. I might be going crazy, following ghosts around the Hall, stumbling upon passages I know only Harper knew about. She can't be dead, can she?

I haven't told anyone that I've been seeing her. I mentioned to Wade what happened on All Hallow's day, but he told me to keep it to myself. Said he sees her sometimes too, but it does nobody any good to share that. I nodded and kept my mouth shut.

Harper has been missing for long enough to make me question whether she ran away or was...taken by someone. If she had run, where did she go? If she hadn't been kidnapped, why hasn't she come back yet? It baffles me that Harper would do this to me, to leave me here to face the aftermath alone, but I'd rather believe she doesn't care about that than believe she was taken.

I'm in the study at a desk, studying for an upcoming chemistry test. But I'm not really paying attention to my textbook; my thoughts are drawn to Harper. I look up from the text and scan the walls, eyeing the portraits that hang. I see Harper at first and I blink to chase away her image, and my mother's replaces it. The picture was painted the day before her wedding. She and Father were married in a small church in the mainland. I smile at the thought. I hope one day I can find someone to love as much as my parents love each other.

The study door slamming open startles me from my thoughts. I look up to see Grandpa Jackson stalk angrily in and head straight to the landline. "What's wrong?" I ask him.

He ignores me as he dials the phone. I get up from the desk chair, debating whether or not I should get any closer to him. His rage isn't something I generally want to be close to.

"Yes, I need to speak to the headmistress immediately. Jackson Thornton. Yes, I will hold." He paces while he's speaking, obviously nervous, but why? And who is he on the phone with?

"Thank you, Ma'am. My name is Jackson Thornton, I believe we spoke a few months ago about my granddaughter?"

Oh no. Oh, God, no. This can't be true - he's on the phone with Saint Dymphna's Hospital. About Harper. But, that must mean she's here? That she's come home?

"Perfect. Yes, just let me grab a pen…" Grandaddy continues to whom I assume is the headmistress of the "school" he plans to send Harper to.

"No!" I shout as I run from the study, out the open door, and race into the front parlor. Harper is sitting on the couch, her legs crossed and her hands folded neatly on them. She holds her head high and looks unbothered despite being gone for months. Aunt Virginia is wiping dirt off of her face while silently weeping. Wade is next to her, saying something to her I can't quite make out.

I rush to her and slam passed Aunt Virginia into her, embracing her in a hug. "Harper, dollbaby! Are you okay?!" I scan over her visible skin so I can search for cuts or bruises, but there's nothing I can see.

She just tilts her head up at me, her face blank. She gently pushes me back and I end up sitting on the edge of the coffee table. There's dirt and blood under her nails. God, where has she been?

"He's going to send me away, isn't he?" she says straight and simple.

I burst into tears and cover my mouth with my hands to keep from quivering. "Oh my God, Harper…where've you been?" I try to change the subject; there's nothing I can do about Grandpa Jackson's decisions regarding the hospital and I can't bear to tell her that. I can't tell her she's finally come home just to be forced away.

"Why is there a headstone with my name on it in the cemetery?" she asks, avoiding my question just like I avoided hers. So she's already been to the cemetery? How long has she been back?

I squint my eyes quizzically. "When did you get back, exactly?"

Harper shrugs. I don't think she'll answer anything I ask. Aunt Virginia lets out an audible sob then immediately gets up and leaves the room. Wade just sits silently and slack-jawed, like he can't believe she's real. Like if he reached out to touch her, his hand will go straight through her and she'll disappear. So instead he'll sit still forever rather than to risk her fading away right in front of him. We've all lost her once already, and once is enough.

Grandpa Jackson comes into the parlor with the same bright red anger flashing in his brown eyes. "I've just gotten off the phone with the staff at Saint Dymphna's in North Carolina." He faces me while he says this, refusing to meet Harper in the eye, though she stares right at him. "Charlotte, go upstairs with your sister and pack up some clothes for her. She's leaving this weekend."

He can't even say her goddamn name, can he? He's that disgusted with her? I tighten my jaw and grab Harper's hand. "Come on, dollbaby. Let's talk upstairs, okay?"

She absentmindedly nods her head and gets up from the couch. She squeezes my hand which is the only sign she's even mentally here right now; her face is empty and she walks like she's floating, barely moving her legs and not making a single sound. I follow behind her as she leads me up the stairs, still holding strongly to my hand.

Her room is still torn apart and messy, there are still my tears stained on her pillowcase. But she floats on through like nothing's happened. That's how all of us Thorntons are supposed to deal with things, right? Pretend they didn't happen?

Harper pulls clothes from her dresser drawers and from her closet, just tossing them aside onto her unmade bed. She tosses a bathing suit from last summer onto the pile, she adds a gown she wore to the Christmas Ball last December. She's not looking or caring about which clothes she chooses. The pile is getting higher and higher, full of clothes she'll never wear again let alone wear at a hospital.

"Is he really going to send me away to that school, Charlotte?" She turns to face me. There are deep, dark circles under her brown eyes. She looks so desperate for me to say "no", to tell her the lies she wants to believe. But I can't say anything; I can't believe Grandpa Jackson told her it was a school.

All I do is cry. She's getting taken away from me all over again.

November 11th, 1984

Grandpa Jackson wouldn't let me go with when he escorted her up to that dreadful place in North Carolina. He said I'd be too emotional and it would cause Harper to act out. I said goodbye to her and she was dragged into his car, fighting back and screaming. I wanted to run to her and save and be the big sister she needs. But I stood there on the front steps of the Hall and watched him take her away.

She wouldn't tell me where she'd been. After she dumped her life's entire wardrobe onto her bed, she started running around the house and turning things around. She flipped paintings upside down, switched books on the bookcases with dishes from the kitchen, and turned on all the faucets in every bathroom. I ran around after her, fixing everything she moved. There was something in her that had snapped, and that's when I thought something horrible: that maybe she should be going to St Dymphna's. St Dymphna, the Catholic patron saint of mental illnesses. My baby sister, my dollbaby, is mentally ill.

Clara tried to talk to her while she was screwing up the house. Tried to calm her down is all, and she ended up helping me put the dishes back and reorganizing the books. After Harper had switched on the last of the faucets, she announced she needed some time alone, and headed up the the widow's walk. I didn't notice that was where she was going, because I was still alphabetizing the bookcases in the study, but Clara saw so she ran up after her.

When I got up there, it had been too late. I don't know why Harper had gone up there; maybe she was planning to jump off in order to avoid being sent away. Maybe she really did just want to get some air. But I also don't know what Clara said to her that set her off, but I know how Harper had reacted. She shoved Clara off of the widow's peak. When I reached Harper, it was too late. All I could see of Clara was her blurry figure lying three stories beneath us,

"Harper, what did you do?!" I shouted at her. She looked so innocent and frightened.

She didn't respond; she just held herself while I ran all the way back down to where Clara had landed. I yelled to a maid on my way down that she needed to call for help; luckily Clara was still breathing. There were slashes and blooming purple bruises flowering all over her pale skin. She was unconscious and lying in the rose bushes.

Harper has become someone I don't know in these past few months. I don't what happened to her or where she had run off to, but she had changed. A thirteen year old girl, and she pushed her own cousin off of the roof of a three story building. Maybe she'll be better off at St Dymphna's. I hate myself for thinking it.

But she's gone now. Judging by the time, she's already been admitted. I wonder if Grandpa Jackson told her that it really isn't a school. I wonder if I'll ever get to see her again.