The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky (ebook reader for manga TXT) 📕

posters all over the walls—The Thing, The Evil Dead, Halloween. Two twin beds rested against opposite walls, both unmade. I didn’t know which one belonged to Freddie. There were two dressers, distressed from age, not by artistic choice. The furniture reminded me of my own.

In the world of Manchester, it was easy to forget that there were other people who lived like me. But then there was Freddie.

“So,” he said, taking in a deep breath. “Do you need a cheat sheet or something?”

“I’m not here for your services,” I said, then blushed. “I mean, I don’t need your help with school. Well, maybe Earth Science.”

“I got you,” Freddie said. “But why are you really here?”

“I had a nightmare.” I felt ridiculous saying it out loud, but Freddie deserved the truth of why I’d woken him up. “I couldn’t go back to sleep and I needed to clear my head and you gave me your address once, to meet up for Thayer’s test, remember? And I really wasn’t thinking.”

Freddie seemed unfazed by my rambling. “What was the nightmare about?”

“Just … it was more of a memory. I dreamed about what happened last year.”

There was a look on his face like pity, which bothered me. I didn’t need anyone feeling sorry for me. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shrugged. “I guess it was on my mind because of what Sim said about Felicity’s Fear Test. That he saw a guy in a mask.”

“I wouldn’t really trust anything Sim says. He got scared and left his girl to fend for herself. Of course he’s going to make up stories to maintain his cred.”

He was probably right. Felicity had done a good job of hiding her face in that giant hoodie. Sim probably didn’t know what he’d seen. Speaking of Felicity.

“Is what she said at the last meeting true? Did you only let me into the club because you were worried I was going to expose you?”

Freddie’s face fell. “You know you belong in the club just as much as any of us.”

I could tell he meant it, but no matter what he said, Felicity’s words had burrowed deep. “I just still feel like an outsider sometimes.”

Freddie sat on his bed and scooted over to make space for me. I sat beside him. The lamp bathed the room in a warm glow.

“My mom used to work as a housekeeper for Bram’s family,” Freddie said. “Did you know that?”

I shook my head, but it made sense given their dynamic. There was a familiarity between Freddie and Bram, like two different species of fish that swam in the same bowl. I always attributed their dynamic to the club, but now I knew it was more than that.

“It’s actually how I ended up at Manchester,” Freddie continued. “Mrs. Wilding was kind of, like, my sponsor. She put in a good word for me. Anyway, sometimes after school I’d go over to their house and Bram was always there. I’m the one who got him into scary movies.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We’d watch them on his laptop every day after school until it was time for my mom to go home. The first time I ever watched Amityville Horror was at Bram’s house. Coming from this tiny apartment, big mansions in scary movies didn’t ever get to me. But at the Wilding place? We were, like, eleven, all the way up in Bram’s room, like three floors away from the rest of civilization. It was pouring out and we both thought we were going to die that night. It was amazing.”

Freddie’s eyes flashed with excitement and I understood exactly the feeling he was describing.

“That’s what it’s supposed to feel like,” I said. “Nerve-racking, pit-in-your-stomach, shaky like someone’s got you by the heart, squeezing it ’til you feel like you can’t breathe and then … air. You know?”

“Yeah,” Freddie said, nodding emphatically. Somehow his hand found its way to my knee, but just as quickly he took it back again.

“You never told me how you got into scary movies,” he said.

Right. My story wasn’t as fun as Freddie’s. “I only started getting into horror … after what happened. The break-in. I thought that maybe if I watched enough scary movies I could train myself to become numb to fear.”

Freddie watched my face, his eyes searching mine. It made me realize how close we were sitting.

“Did it work?” he asked softly.

“At first, yeah,” I said. “The club worked better, though. Or, I thought it did. But as much as I love being in the club, sometimes I feel out of place. Felicity and Bram—they’re not the most welcoming people.”

“Bram?” Freddie’s eyebrows furrowed. “Did he say something to you?”

I thought of telling Freddie what Bram had said about him, his warnings about getting too close. But I didn’t want to stir anything up. “Just his general attitude toward me,” I said.

“Look,” Freddie said, “I’ve been in this world for a while—the world of Bram Wilding, the Mary Shelley Club, Manchester—and I still feel like an outsider, too. I mean, look at where I live.”

“I like your room. It looks like mine.”

Freddie smiled like he didn’t believe me. “I didn’t invite you to join the club because I thought you were a threat to us. I invited you because I wanted you there.”

I held on to the fact that he’d said “‘I” instead of “we.” Even if it was just him who wanted me in the club, it was enough. It was everything.

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” I said for what seemed like the millionth time. “I feel like I forced my way into your room.”

“No, I’ve been meaning to get you in here.” As soon as he said it, he lit up red like a siren. “I don’t mean … not like that. There’s something in my bedroom especially for you.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but I could swear even the tops of Freddie’s ears looked sunburned.

“You know