Em? Are you there? Are you reading this?
So the Furies had gotten him, too. An adult. Someone almost completely disconnected from Em, her life, and her circle. The weight of it hit Em like a wave, pummeling her with a horrible realization: The Furies wouldn’t stop with Chase, or her, or even JD. They wanted to infect all of Ascension.
With frantic fingers, she typed out: I need to tell you what I’ve learned over the past few days. Have you found out more about the banishment procedure? How to get rid of them?
Drea’s words came back almost immediately. I’m on it, she wrote. Trust me.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The garlicky smell of Aunt Nora’s seafood risotto—steaming, salty, fresh—was wafting through the old Victorian, making it next to impossible for Skylar to keep her eyes on her textbook. She was starving. Her appetite had been insatiable over these last few weeks—it was like she was trying to eat away, or maybe bury, all of the stress and lies that were building up inside her. She’d barely slept last night after calling in the anonymous tip to the police station. . . . Instead, she’d crept downstairs and eaten pretzels dipped in sour cream. One of the few things she and Lucy had ever agreed on was that pretzels and sour cream were the perfect combination: salty, crunchy, creamy, tangy. Thank god her coping mechanism hadn’t resulted in extra pounds—yet. Skylar reminded herself not to chow down too much risotto. She had to fit into Lucy’s dress a week from Friday.
Aunt Nora was hollering up the stairs, “About half an hour more, Sky. Come down when you can and set the table.” Just then the doorbell rang. “Could you get that? I’m in the middle of making supper,” Nora yelled.
Skylar padded down the stairs in socks and her hideous holiday-themed pj’s, which she’d put on the moment she got home from school. Those senior girls had invited her—along with Gabby, Fiona, and the rest of the crew—to some party, but she’d turned them down. She really did have to get some homework done, plus Gabby had been distant since the dance committee fiasco. Skylar wanted to give her a few more days to cool off.
She was shocked to see Em Winters on Nora’s stoop. Were unannounced drop-bys, like, a thing in Ascension? She opened the door a crack, mortified to have been caught looking like this. It was like announcing that she had no plans on a Friday night.
“Um, hi?” She didn’t open the door any wider.
“Skylar, hey, thank god you’re home,” Em said, smiling awkwardly and biting her lip. “I’ve been trying to talk to you ever since the night of the your party. It’s so hard to catch you alone—you’re like the Ascension cruise director or something!” Skylar could hear the false notes of enthusiasm in Em’s voice. She’d never heard Em talk like this—like she was trying so hard. And still Skylar detected Em’s usual darkness, her intensity, running underneath the words. She thought of the picture of the beaming, giggling girl in Gabby’s key chain photo. What had happened to that girl? she wondered.
When Skylar didn’t say anything, Em kept going. “There were . . . some things we talked about. That night. About some—friends we have in common?” Em looked at her pointedly then, trying to communicate something without saying it out loud. “I think we need to talk more about them.”
Not only was it bizarre that Em, who had barely given her the time of day before this, had shown up on her porch . . . it was also uncomfortable that Skylar could barely remember anything about the conversation they’d had in front of the bonfire. All she remembered, foggily, was that Em had freaked out about the orchid and Skylar had said something about Lucy. Which was something she absolutely never did.
But Skylar couldn’t exactly tell Em Winters to leave . . . not when she was Gabby’s best friend (albeit a bit of a whack job) and still considered part of the A-list.
“Do you . . . want to come in for a minute? We’re about to have dinner, but . . .”
Em was already halfway in the door. “Yes, thanks,” she said, taking off her sweater as soon as she crossed the threshold. “It’s warm in here . . . and it smells amazing.”
“My aunt’s making risotto,” Skylar explained.
“Who is it?” Aunt Nora called from the kitchen.
“It’s my friend Em,” Skylar shouted back, glancing over at Em to see how she reacted to the word friend. But Em was too busy looking around Nora’s living room, which was cluttered with dusty antiques and nautical knickknacks.