Using that airtight logic, I slid my finger under the seal and ripped it open.
Inside, on a matching cream-colored card, someone had typed up a poem.
Death will strike before Halloween,
The mark of the damned, the killer unclean,
If you walk the old corpse road where the dead ley,
Sprites and devils might snatch you away,
Go to the Braaid and you’ll lose your soul,
For an entrance into hell, such is the toll.
I skimmed over the poem. The words prickled my skin. I turned over the card. A gold C had been embossed on the back. Cecilia.
Of course she sent me this, and of course she couldn’t just state her message like a normal person. She’d done this before a few months ago. These poems were her cryptic way of communicating with me. Only as usual, they were vague and didn’t make too much sense.
“What’d you get?” Leanne asked, placing her new bag of candy next to her backpack.
I looked at the poem in my hands again. “Just a message from my childhood nanny.”
Leanne hitched her bag over her shoulder and grabbed the candy and an umbrella. “Oh, that’s nice.”
That was one way of putting it. The note gave me sense of deep foreboding. The last time she’d sent me a note, I’d almost died.
***
Two hours later my door opened and Oliver sashayed in as I finished getting dressed for the seer club party. I zipped up my boots and shrugged on a blazer.
“Ready to go girlfriend?” he asked. He eyed me up and down and opened his mouth.
I held up a hand. “Save it Pixie Sticks.” Oliver’s mouth formed an indignant O at the nickname. “I’m not changing, so you’re just going to have to deal with it.”
If it was up to Oliver, I’d only wear designer clothes.
“I was just going to say that I thought you looked nice.”
“Uh huh.” I grabbed my keys and an umbrella and pushed Oliver out the door before he could get any ideas about doing my makeup for me. I already swiped on mascara, and that was as much as I was willing to do.
“Pixie Sticks . . . how insulting.”
We glided down the stairs and left my dorm. “I’m sure it must feel awful to be the target of a nasty nickname,” I said, rolling my eyes.
Outside the rain was coming down in torrents. I clicked open the umbrella, and was promptly booted out from under it.
“Hey!” Rain pelted against me. I was going to look like drowned rat tonight. Meanwhile Oliver huddled underneath the center of the umbrella.
“I’m sorry Gabrielle,” he said, “but I can’t get my hair wet. You’re just going to have to suck it up. The walk isn’t too far.”
I snatched the umbrella’s handle away from him, and he yelped. “Don’t piss off a vampire.”
“Bite me,” he said, snatching the umbrella back.
“Don’t tempt me.” I yanked the aluminum column of the umbrella a little too hard and the whole thing crumpled in on itself.
“No.” Oliver yelped again as the rain pelted down on him. “Damnit Gabrielle!” We sprinted across the soggy lawn. The scarecrow perched next to the castle’s main doors looked a little limp standing amongst all those pumpkins. I could empathize; I felt the way it looked.
As soon as we made it inside, I tossed the umbrella into a nearby trash.
Oliver’s once stylized hair now clung to his skull. “You had to ruin it for the both of us, didn’t you?” he said.
I shook out my hair, and it regained some of its volume. Damp, dark waves of hair cascaded down my back. “That’s what happens when you get greedy Oliver.”
“Easy for you to say. Your hair just naturally looks good.” He muttered something about stupid sirens. “I need a mirror to fix this,” he said. “I’ll meet you in the ballroom.” He wandered away, towards the men’s restrooms.
I walked down the long hallway, in no rush to get to the ballroom. Behind me I heard a growl, and then the clicking of paws.
Not this again.
A warm canine tongue licked my hand. Ever since I’d survived my ordeal a month ago, the castle’s black ghostly dog, the Moddey Dhoo, had started following me when I was alone in the castle.
The dog was supposed to be an omen of death; whoever saw him was destined to die within a day. I had and I lived. I guess surviving that sort of ordeal made us friends.
He whined happily as I scratched him behind his ears. I was just glad that he closed his eyes so I wouldn’t have to see how they glowed red.
My life was officially a freak show.
I began walking again, the dog followed next to me, wagging his tail. The torches flickered in their scones, and a couple skeletons that had been placed on display grinned at me.