Skylar sighed. She wanted to trust Meg, who seemed to have everything figured out, who always stayed so composed and collected. But her weird behavior the other day—the nonchalant way she’d reacted to finding a dead body in a pond—made Skylar see her in a new light. And there was something in her tone tonight that was only making Skylar feel worse.
A practical joke that went too far. Despite her breezy tone, Meg’s words seemed carefully chosen, an echo of old words, old comforts. Once again Skylar wondered if there was some remote possibility that Meg knew about Lucy’s accident. If so, why didn’t she just come out and say so? Or was this just Skylar’s guilty conscience acting up again?
“Babe, I gotta run,” Meg was saying. Skylar had almost forgotten she was holding her phone. “Gotta go meet Ty and Ali. Call me if you need me!” She hung up.
Skylar curled up on top of her bed, laying her cheek against the worn fabric of Aunt Nora’s patchwork quilt. Skylar’s maternal grandmother had made it. Her mom’s mom. Suddenly Skylar’s whole body ached for her mother—someone to hold her and make her feel better. She rubbed the spot on her arm where she’d been stung by the bee; it was throbbing.
The pain reminded her of the night of Lucy’s last pageant. They’d been in the dressing room together, getting ready.
Lucy leans in close to the long mirror, touching up her mascara, and Skylar is in the corner, pulling at the hem of her dress in an effort to make it fall evenly.
Lucy catches her eyes in the reflection. “Your arms look kind of flabby,” she says, appraising Skylar’s spaghetti-strap gown with a harsh eye. Skylar turns this way and that, trying to stand in such a way that her arms look slender—like Lucy’s.
With a snort, Lucy caps her mascara, comes up behind Skylar, and pinches the back of her arm. Hard. So hard that Skylar lets out an involuntary yelp.
“I don’t think you can camouflage this,” Lucy says, gripping a fold of skin between her fingers. Then, releasing her fingers slightly: “Maybe you should borrow my shawl.”
When Lucy lets go altogether, Skylar can still feel the pain. Pulsing.
Just like her arm was hurting right now. She got up to look at the bee sting in the mirror. Walking to the bathroom, she was aware of every step against the hardwood floor.
She flipped on the light in her bathroom and turned to face the mirror. What she saw there made her draw back swiftly. She gripped her hands around the door frame, swaying there for a moment. Squeezing her eyes shut. Maybe she was hallucinating. But no, it was still there when she opened her eyes.
A question was scrawled on her bathroom mirror in red lipstick:
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the vainest of them all?
The writing was jagged and sharp. A shudder ran down Skylar’s spine; her knees buckled. She turned to look down the hallway, half-expecting to see someone there. She didn’t want to look back at the mirror, but she couldn’t help but stare at the bloodred words. Was this a joke? For some reason, when Skylar heard the phrase in her mind, it sounded like it was coming out of Meg’s mouth. Singsongy. Almost . . . deranged. She thought of Em’s warnings. Did Meg and her cousins have something to do with this?
And then she remembered that night a few weeks ago at Gabby’s, when they’d walked out to Em’s car. This very phrase—or one very similar—had been written on Em’s windshield. The connection was too eerie. Terrified, Skylar forced herself to back away from the mirror.
She grabbed a wad of tissues and pressed them against the words, trying to ignore the way the lipstick smeared like blood. Her hand, shaking slightly, pressed down harder and harder. The letters weren’t coming off; they merely bled into each other as Skylar scrubbed with increasing force. Mirror, mirror. Mirror, mirror. Even as they became illegible, the words still mocked her. She clenched her teeth and leaned in to the mirror even more.
With a loud splitting sound, the mirror cracked. Her hand swerved, but not quickly enough. The glass sliced into the side of her thumb, and blood immediately began to well up around the cut. The incision didn’t hurt, exactly, but it sent a shock through her. She drew in a sharp breath through her teeth, trying not to look at how her blood matched the shade of lipstick almost perfectly.
Heart pounding, Skylar drew her thumb to her mouth and stared at her cracked reflection in the glass. The distortion made her grotesque. Like she’d been sliced, diced, and rearranged.
She looked like a monster.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE