“Mila, hold up,” Riley says, giving my elbow another tug. “You can’t barge over there. If people see her change back near you, they’re going to figure out you’re a witch.”
I scoff and pull my arm back. “It’s way too late for that. Did you forget that you outed us as witches freshman year? You told Ms. Chu that keeping The Crucible on the required reading list would inspire witch-related hate crimes on campus.”
She lifts the brim of her hat so I can see her roll her eyes. “I told everyone we were Wiccan. You brought three dead people back to life with some candles and an old-ass book that probably came from eBay. You did real, live magic. Like rewrite-the-universe-to-your-will magic. That’s not the same as making charm bags.”
“You said it was!” I say. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. This time last week, Riley would have literally punched me for even implying that there was a difference between our little spells and true magic. She would have screamed blasphemy and stormed off. She would have given me a silent treatment that would turn my stomach inside out. Riley Greenway knew that magic was real, and she would never, ever let anyone second-guess it. “You have always, always, always said that what we were doing was real magic. And you got pissed if I treated it like a game or said we were killing time.”
“Yeah, I also pretended to believe in Santa for an extra year because I found out the truth before Xander. Sometimes people need to believe in magic, Mila. That doesn’t make it real! Religion is supposed to make you feel good. Make you less scared and more present. That’s all. Wicca made you less angry and me less lonely, and it pissed off our parents. That was enough for me. I didn’t need the spells to work. They never worked! Spells are just prayers with more steps and a name that scares people.”
Toby’s voice floats through my head. Any book that purports to have the answer to death isn’t Wicca, I’ll tell you that much. This is some dark shit.
Why did magic work for the first time when I cracked open that grimoire? Was it the book? Or me truly believing that it could work?
“Fine,” I say to Riley. “Then we were both wrong. Because magic is real as shit, and June is going to give all the Nouns PTSD.”
“So what?” She laughs, and the sound is burlap rough. “Since when do you care about the Nouns? They’re trash people! Or did you make friends with them while I was dead?”
“No! But I’m responsible for this. And, as someone in the middle of curating my own traumatic stress one zombie at a time, I’m gonna go ahead and try to save some other people.”
“Ugh. We’re not zombies. Also, you’re friends with my brother now?”
“Yeah, someone we loved died, so we’ve had all of two conversations.” I don’t have time to argue about this. I don’t know what June is planning on doing to the Nouns or how much she’ll spill if she’s left alone with them for too long.
“Go find Dayton,” I tell Riley. I flex my shoulder blades. Having someone out of range of my magic is like an itch I can’t reach. “She’s more than a hundred steps away.”
Riley adjusts her baseball cap and slips her hands into the pocket of her hoodie. “Okay, but later we’re going to have to talk about this Frankenstein’s monsters situation we’re in.”
“Can’t wait,” I say with a level of sarcasm I usually save for my sisters. I’m starting to think that death has corroded some of Riley’s personality along with her memories. A week ago, I don’t think she would have let the Nouns be terrorized by a reanimated corpse.
Or maybe she would have and I would have gone along with it because it was her plan?
While Riley slips back inside the cafeteria, I sneak forward. The Nouns are still being lectured by a monster and also probably collectively pooping themselves, so they don’t notice as I duck behind the dumpsters. Even though it’s not that warm out, the smell of hot garbage is baked into the rusting metal, and I have to hold my breath as I step over puddles of who knows what.
“So, which one of you was it?” June’s voice is starting to lighten back to its usual flutter as she continues to rage at her friends. “Which one of you tacky bitches killed me?”
There’s a nervous wheezing of four voices all trying to communicate the word no without being able to fully formulate it.
“None of you are going to admit to it?” June snarls.
“W-we had a competition that night,” says one of the Nouns.
There’s a sucking and sputtering of snot before someone else adds, “Honor society isn’t the same without you. Caleb doesn’t even want us to meet at Starbucks anymore.”
“Don’t say that name to me!” June screeches. “Don’t you ever talk about him and me in the same breath again!”
In the distance, there’s the wheezing sound of a pitch pipe and the choral hum of the show choir warming up. Oh no. They’re going to sing “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” again, and I’m not at a safe distance away from them. Why couldn’t June have chased the Nouns to the other side of the school?
“Even if you didn’t kill me, I have some things to say before I go,” June says. I can see the toe of a black sneaker tapping on the other side of the dumpster. “Angel, I cannot believe you’re wearing earrings you stole from me right now. But you’ve always been super fake. Everyone talks about it. And Diamond, I never liked spending the night at your house. Your carpeting is tacky and smells like dog butt.”
I clear my throat. Using the gremlin voice I used to use to terrorize my sisters through our shared wall, I screech, “Run away, debate nerds! Run away and never return!”
Apparently, they don’t need coercing. I can hear the patter of stumbling steps and panting breath. I walk around the dumpsters and find June, her face returned to pretty disdain. Her lips puff petulantly.
“Did you really just quote The Lion King?” she asks.
“Did you really just threaten to haunt your friends?”
She watches the empty corner the Nouns disappeared around—toward the cafeteria or their cars, I’m not sure which. “They are not my friends. Friends wouldn’t talk smack about you at your own funeral.”
“Celebration of Life,” I correct.
“Same difference.” She sniffs. “I thought they’d have nice things to say. We were friends for two years. Two years of study groups and bake sales and parties. They couldn’t muster one nice thing to say about me? ‘June had good hair.’ ‘June really was a good listener.’ ‘Great taste in jewelry.’”
“Angel must have thought so if she was wearing your earrings,” I say, interrupting her reverie. It’s weird hearing her compliment herself in the third person. Weirder that she thinks of herself as a good listener with multiple nice qualities.
“And telling everyone that I slept with Caleb Treadwell.” She shakes her head until her top knot loosens. Her hair spills back to her shoulder in a ripple of brown silk. “How disgusting is that? Me and that loser?”
I haven’t figured out how the girls’ memories work yet. I haven’t heard any rumors about June and Caleb, but without Riley to pass gossip from Xander’s strata to ours, I’m pretty far on the outskirts of Fairmont society. What if June already knew about the rumors and forgot? What if she stopped being friends with the Nouns weeks ago and woke up from her dirt nap thinking everything was cool between them? How many other important memories could the girls have forgotten?
My face must be betraying my confusion, because June takes a threatening step toward me.
“What?” she growls.
I lift a shoulder in a lazy shrug. “I mean, you don’t really remember, though. You don’t remember anything from the last two weeks, right? So it might not be a lie.”
She crosses her arms and sighs. “Can we just go? I stole a box of cookies from Walmart, and I want to eat them in my nasty new room in that disgusting abandoned house before the raccoons wake up. Where are the others?”