“Seven beating hearts to her one,” I say, and it’s hard not to recoil as I twist open the lid of the moth jar. I have to catch a fluttering fugitive in my hand and smack it down into the first tiny grave. I smash another to the ground, turning away from its writhing body as I bury its wings. “Enough life to strike a spark.” I crush each moth to the ground and scoop the crumbly soil over them. Not enough to smother them. They have to breathe until their lives trade for Riley’s. “One for each day she will walk.
“Give back what was unjustly took,” I say, and I’m not asking anymore. I’m telling. I’m telling the dripping beeswax candles and the moths dying in the dirt. I’m telling the stars watching over me and the wind pushing ice over my cheeks. “Hear me and heed me. This murdered girl will no longer lie. Set her feet to walking. Send her back to me.”
And now the dangerous part. I lift the North candle and tip its flame into the nest of hair, then again onto my eyeliner-stained pillowcase. The flames shoot up, hot and high. The air stinks from scorched hair and melting plastic. Sparks fizz up into the breeze. I stand up straight, holding my arms over my head.
“So mote it be!” I scream at the moon, imagining every cell of power in my body as a blue lightning blaze surging downward, through the dirt and the roots and the casket. For a moment, I’m not stretch-marked skin or wet socks or girl-shaped. I am wielding the will of the Goddess herself.
Except.
There’s nothing.
The twin fires in the circle die down to embers. There’s no more hair. There’s no more pillowcase. The lip gloss tube is melted to mush except for the thick plastic applicator. Even the wind has died down. There’s nothing but the cavernous echo of failure inside me.
I crumple to the ground. Distantly, I wonder about the cops. Whether anyone driving by can see the flickering light of the candles. If I even give a shit. I’ll tell them the same thing I’ve told everyone else—my parents, Dr. Miller, the not-going-to-help-me Goddess: My friend is dead. My friend was murdered. And I’m alone. I’ll be alone whether I’m in a graveyard or the back of a cop car or at home in my room minus one Pua doll.
I beat my fist into the circle. “How could you leave me alone here? Why were you even at the creek that night? And why the fuck would anyone kill you?”
The question that needs answering. Guess I solved the riddle after all.
I hear the earthquake starting. It’s like a semitruck hitting full speed, coming right at you, rumbling the ground miles below all the way up to the surface. I know I need to blow out the candles so that the quake doesn’t knock them over and set the whole cemetery on fire, but nausea slams into me before the quake does. My spit goes hot and thin and clear all at once.
The ground trembles beneath me. It shakes the bile out of my throat. I roll to the side, clawing at the grass. The sounds of my heaves are buried under the roar of the plates shifting underground. I close my eyes to keep from watching my dinner fountain out. I can’t seem to stop. I gasp for breath, and it only serves to refresh my body for another round. Everything is sour and hot and burning.
When the quake stops, my limbs are trembling and weak. Still shuddering, I’m curled into the fetal position with my cheek pressed into the cold ground. I hear myself whimper. I want water to rinse the bitterness out of my cheeks, but the water I brought with me is to tamp down the soil, to make sure that I don’t leave any sparks behind.
Maybe I always expected the spell to fail. Riley was right. My confirmation bias is a hindrance to my magic. Or I never had any magic to begin with. The only people who ever believed that I do are Toby—a batshit biker granny—and Riley—the friend I failed to save.
The smell of cotton candy permeates the night air. It’s an unmistakable scent—spun sugar swirled over flowers and baby powder. The bottle it sprays out of is round and obnoxiously pink. I saw it the day before yesterday in the bathroom above the Greenway Funeral Home. It was next to Riley’s toothbrush.
“Mila?” The voice is right. Rasping and a little asthmatic.
I force myself to roll onto my back.
Riley Marie Greenway is standing in a short white party dress that’s way too fancy for our surroundings and in flip-flops that are slightly too small for her feet. Her toenails have chipped black polish. I guess Mr. Greenway didn’t think anyone would ever see them again. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, the bleachy yellow washed to white in the moonlight. Her dark eyebrows pinch together over her nose in a concerned slash.
“Were you puking?” she asks. Her eyelashes flutter, and she staggers forward a step, staring up at the sky. “Fuck a duck, it’s cold. Why are we in the graveyard?”
I launch myself to my feet. My arms are around her shoulders, bracing her into a tight, probably smelly hug. The sweetness of her perfume isn’t on her skin. It’s set into the fabric of her dress. Her skin has the plastic stink of dollar-store toys—formaldehyde.
“Uh, hey, friend,” she says, patting my back almost sarcastically. “Did we do a bunch of drugs I forgot about?”
I end the hug but grab on to her forearm, not ready to be separated. What if she disappears? “What’s the last thing you remember? The funeral? The creek?”
“Which funeral?” She cocks her head at me. Her movements are robotic, halting, and slow. “I live in a funeral home, dude. You’ll have to be way more specific.” She squints at my chest. “Is that my necklace?”
I ignore the question for now. One death at a time.
“June and Dayton’s service,” I say slowly. Did I fuck up the spell and bring her back wrong? I try to remember any herbs for memory charms, but my mind is racing. Magic is real. Riley is real. Magic and Riley are here with me! “We went to their service on Monday, and then you—”
“June’s dead?” Her eyes bug. “Holy shit! Is Xander okay? Why can’t I remember any of this? Are you fucking with me?”
I did not anticipate having to break this news. I kind of thought the whole crawling-out-of-her-grave thing would be a giveaway. Although, from what I can tell, the grave seems undisturbed. While I was puking, the earthquake spit out Riley and swallowed everything inside the circle. There’s no sign of the ritual left. The dirt is as smooth as if it had just been leveled with the side of a shovel. Thankfully my jacket and the grimoire are safely off to the side.
I squeeze her arm gently. “Ry, you died. You’ve been dead for almost an entire week.”
She rears back, out of my grasp and away from me. The heel of her flip-flop stabs into the dirt, flicking soil onto her foot. She looks down and sways. When she turns back, the color has drained from her face.
“That’s my grave?” she asks, but it sounds like she already knows the answer. “You brought me back?”
Briefly, says my brain, throwing a guilty look at the grimoire broadcasting that this is a seven-day deal.
“Yeah.” I nod. “I did.”
She lets out a long exhale, her eyes fixed on the grave dirt. “Wow. That’s incredible, Blister. Really, that’s beyond anything I could have ever guessed. I never would have believed that anyone could actually raise the dead. But you really did it—”
“What do you mean you wouldn’t believe it?” I say, half laughing. I never thought I’d get to hear her call me “Blister” again. “The spell was in your new grimoire. The red one? Super old, giant fairy tale lettering?”
She reaches up, pressing the heel of her hand to her eye like she’s dizzy. “I don’t remember a new grimoire. I don’t remember anything.”
“It’s okay!” I say quickly, grabbing her shoulder to steady her. I can feel the roughness of goose bumps on her 98.6 degree skin. There’s a zit starting to break the surface of her right temple. She’s really here, too exact to be a memory. Tears splatter on my cheeks as I choke out, “You’re here. It doesn’t matter how.”
“Actually, it really does matter how,” says someone behind us.
My stomach lurches. Two figures emerge from the darkness, one taller and thin with brown bangs and impossibly long legs, the other shorter with the kewpie-doll face of a Disney Channel star.
June Phelan-Park and Dayton Nesseth. Risen from the dead.
June folds her arms over her chest, her eyes dark under blunt-cut bangs. “What the fuck did you do, Camila Flores?”
EIGHT