Now that I think about it, hanging is a pretty brutal way to go. How would they have even done it themselves? Jumped off the tree branches with their nooses attached? I cringe at the thought and can’t help but touch my own neck in sympathy. The girls are right; something about the suicide story definitely seems off. If Riley was murdered, maybe June and Dayton were, too.
Dayton lets out a sob. Have I mentioned how tired I am of watching people cry this week? I’m seriously over it. “I can’t believe someone hated me enough to kill me.” Dayton cries in tiny kitten mewls. “And now I have to live my life as a-a-a—” She starts to hiccup as tears shoot out of her eyes. I’m relieved to see that they’re clear and not, like, blood or moth dust. I’m less relieved when she throws her head back and wails at the sky. “I’m a zombie!”
“Will you shut up?” I say, lowering my voice to a whisper. Not that it’ll help if someone was driving by and heard the word zombie echoing through the night.
“Why?” June asks. “It’s not like we can get in trouble.”
“You might not be able to, but I sure as hell can.” I look down at Dayton. “And you’re not a zombie. You’re temporarily not dead. The spell is only good for seven days.”
She sniffles, her lips wobbly under her nose. “And then what?”
“And then you go back to wherever you were.” I shrug. “But if you even think about eating a brain, I will plant you back in the ground myself.”
This does not stop her crying.
June shows no inclination to console her friend. They are in the same boat, I guess. Everyone grieves differently—see: me screaming into my pillows for a week—and I imagine it’s a lot worse when you realize that you’re the one who’s dead.
That far-off look is back in Riley’s eyes. Under different circumstances, I might have teased her or poked her in the arm to get her attention, but I don’t think it will be so easy for her to bounce back this time. And while she doesn’t seem mad at me, I can’t help but wish she were more excited to be here. I’ve spent a week desperate to have her back. I pictured her crawling out of her grave, ready to make up for lost time with revenge and sleepovers. Instead, she’s cold and sharp, like she’s already outgrown me in just a week of being away.
Sensing my interest, her head gradually turns to face me. Her eyes have a weighted sleepiness to them.
As someone who was woken up and told that her friend was dead—thanks, Mom—I understand that I need to give her some time to adjust. But if we really have only seven days together, what if she spends all of them distancing herself from me? Won’t that hurt as much as if she weren’t here at all?
“What now?” she asks me.
I swallow and attempt not to seem terrified. This isn’t how it works. Riley never asks first. She’s the planner.
But it was my decision to bring her back, and I can’t back down now. I’m head witch in charge.
“I have to go back to school tomorrow, I think,” I say. I scrape my lower lip with my front teeth, tearing off a slice of dead skin. “If all of you were killed by the same person, it has to be someone who goes to Fairmont. I can look for clues there.”
I try to sound like I know what I’m doing, like I wasn’t expecting Riley to come back to life with her killer’s name on her lips.
“Excuse me.” June’s voice slices into my thoughts. “But what are we supposed to do while you’re at school? Hang out in the graveyard? Have a picnic?”
I wonder if she was this nonstop sarcastic when she was with Xander. I could never understand how he was such good friends with her, even when they weren’t dating.
“You could go home,” I suggest, although it seems pretty obvious to me. “Spend time with your families. Say goodbye. They must miss you a lot. And you could tell them that you didn’t kill yourselves—”
“That’s a horrible idea!” Dayton says, getting to her feet and thrusting her hands on her hips. “They’ve already started grieving. It’s been a whole week! What are we going to do, march in, freak them out, and then die again in seven days? That’s not right.”
Riley massages her temple like the sound of Dayton’s voice might be giving her a headache. Can the undead get headaches? “She has a point. Best-case scenario, they have to say goodbye to us all over again. Worst case, they think they’re going insane.”
I wonder if she knows that people have been calling me crazy since she died. Was she actively watching me from the afterlife or just sending along hints and hoping they stuck?
“Then what do you suggest?” I ask.
Everyone’s attention swings to Riley. Even June and Dayton aren’t immune to the Greenway magnetism. There’s something about Riley that feels like a leader.
She presses her lips together and closes her eyes before she says, “We’ll go to Yarrow House. We can come up with a plan from there.”
“Yes. Okay,” I say. Pinpricks of guilt taint the relief I feel at having a real Riley-certified plan. “I can be there tomorrow after school. There’s a mandatory memorial service during sixth period, but I can skip it. It’s not like I’m mourning you guys anymore. And I can’t handle listening to the show choir for a third time this week.”
“Wait,” Dayton says, taking two hopping steps to stand right in front of me. Up close, it’s easier to see the thick postmortem makeup she’s wearing. The foundation is like spackling paste spread over her cheeks. “It’s our service? Like, the whole school is going to be honoring us?”
I take a step away from her. There’s a hungry glint in her eye. “That’s the plan. Everyone got an email about it, parents included. But don’t get it twisted. It’s probably going to be a show-choir concert posing as—”
“We’re going,” June says.
“Uh, no. You’re not,” I say firmly. “If you think seeing you would freak out your families, why wouldn’t it emotionally scar the entire school?”
June over-enunciates, her mouth stretching and contracting around each letter. “We are going.”
In the distance, I can hear a motorcycle engine revving. I have to get the girls settled at Yarrow House and then get back across town with no car, and it’s almost one A.M. already. I’ll have to move quickly or else be prepared to dole out whatever I own to my sisters if they catch me sneaking back in.
Tomorrow, I have to look at my classmates and figure out who had the motive and means to kill three people in a week. At some point, I’ll have to really wrap my mind around the fact that holy fucking shit, magic is actually real and I brought back the dead.
Dayton bobs her head in agreement and jabs a finger toward me. “Don’t fuck with us, Mila. We’re zombies.”
“No. You aren’t,” I say. “You’re visiting life.”
She grants me one of her sunny smiles. “And tomorrow we’re visiting school. Let’s go to Walmart and get some black clothes!”
“You and what money?” I ask.
I look to Riley for help, but she shrugs one shoulder and tugs at the hem of her dress. “I would like a change of clothes. Any chance my parents did my roots before they buried me?” I shake my head at her, and she frowns. “Fuck. I need a hat.”
I reach under the sleeve of my jacket and free the black elastic band. I snap it as I follow the undead girls down the hill of the cemetery, leaving their empty graves behind us.
NINE
THE TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR Walmart is only a couple of blocks away from the back entrance to the graveyard. Even so, as we pass through the automatic doors and into the stark lights of the warehouse store, I can feel sweat beading in my baby hairs and sliding down the backs of my ears.
The store is eerily empty, the wide aisles seemingly waiting for a tumbleweed to blow through. I’ve never seen the checkout lanes without lines of people backed up all the way to the jewelry display case. But I guess Cross Creek isn’t really an up-all-night kind of town. Even our restaurants close by nine.
June, Dayton, and Riley make a beeline for the clothes department, looking laughably out of place in their fancy dresses.