June flicks her wrist at the empty driveway. “There’s no one here. No minivan, no Nesseths. They can’t use the garage because they converted it into a playroom. We’ll go around.”
She strides past the garage, disappearing around the corner. Riley cuts her eyes at me, and I give her a half shrug. Breaking into the Nesseths’ backyard is pretty low on the scale of weird shit we’ve done this week. I let her go ahead of me. I want to believe that she wouldn’t bail and run home to see her parents, but I’m honestly not sure.
The side gate opens with a pull of a cord, which seems pretty trusting of Dayton’s family. I hold my breath, waiting for an alarm or even a barking dog, but I hear nothing except the sound of June’s shoes on the gritty stone path.
The backyard is huge. Against the back fence is a long pool that’s still mouthwash blue and leafless, even though it’s autumn. There are toys everywhere—a tiny bicycle with training wheels next to the gas barbecue, plastic dolls and Frisbees partially hidden in the grass, bottles of bubbles and tubs of sidewalk chalk nestled next to the sliding glass door.
I never thought about how many siblings Dayton had. I remember seeing some little kids at her and June’s memorial service, but I hadn’t paid any attention to them. Seeing the lone little bike makes my stomach clench in a way that I know is unrelated to magic.
June presses her face to the door, but the glass is obscured by white lace curtains. Behind them is the faint shape of a dining room table, but there’s no movement.
Riley stands next to me, eerily still. Her elbow knocks into mine, and I turn to see her deep frown, her hat hiding almost all the misery in her eyes.
Almost.
June gives up on the door and whirls on us. “Can’t you . . . you know? Sense her? Isn’t that one of your powers?”
I scowl at her. I really don’t like the word powers. It makes me sound like I’m pretending to be a Monster High doll. Otherwise, she’s right. I should be able to feel if Dayton’s nearby. The terror of being caught trespassing is just getting in the way.
“Or do you need to have something more organic to help you out?” Riley adds tightly.
“I’m sorry you can’t do magic anymore,” I say, louder than I mean to. “But can you not be an asshole right now? I didn’t do anything to you.”
“Sorry,” she says. She bites her bottom lip and turns toward the pool. “I didn’t think it would be this hard to be back but not—Holy shit!”
Her arms drop to her sides, and she takes three long strides toward the pool. She gets so close to the edge that I’m terrified she’s going to dive in and recreate her death. Instead, she kneels down and points toward the deep end.
At the back corner of the pool and eight feet down is Dayton. Her body is coiled into the fetal position, her hair floating around her head in wisps.
“Jesus Christ,” June says, running to Riley’s side. “Why isn’t she floating? Shouldn’t she be floating? Dead bodies float.”
Dayton’s head pops up, and all three of us jump back. Bubbles come out of her mouth as she smiles up at us. Feet fluttering, she propels herself upward in a fluid sea otter twist. Her head breaks the surface, and she blinks water out of her eyes.
“Oh, hi,” she says, bobbing slightly as she treads water. Across the chest of her high-necked bathing suit are the letters FACS—Fairmont Academy Charter School.
“That’s all you have to say?” June says, putting her hands on her hips. “I thought you were dead! Again. Or more. You know what I mean!”
“Nope,” Dayton says with a sunny smile that doesn’t crease her cheeks quite as deeply as it usually does. “I’m the normal amount of dead. Well, I’m a little prunier than normal.” Her body dips down lower into the water as she holds up a hand. The tips of her fingers look like brains.
“Why the fuck are you hiding at the bottom of a swimming pool?” Riley asks.
The smile slips off Dayton’s face. She gives a sad dog paddle toward us. “I’m really sorry, Riley. I know you’re still mad at water. I didn’t want you to have to get this close to it ever again.”
Riley growls and splashes her hand into the water. “I don’t care about the water! What are you doing here? You’ve been gone for hours.”
“And where are your clothes?” I ask.
“I hid them in the hose pot,” she says, pointing one of her painfully wrinkled fingers at a stone pot under the kitchen window. “I just wanted to be close to my family again. I know we all agreed that it wouldn’t be right to talk to them, so I’ve been coming here for a little bit every day after my brothers and sisters go to school. At first, I missed the smell of home, so I found a spare key and walked around, saying goodbye to stuff. But then I found my swimsuit, and I couldn’t resist . . . I mean, I don’t have to breathe! My muscles don’t get tired! I was beating all my old competition records!”
“Wait,” I say, looking from her to June to Riley. “You don’t breathe?”
Riley shrugs. “We won’t die if we don’t.”
“It’s a hard habit to break,” June adds. “You just kind of keep doing it without thinking.”
“I could just swim and swim and—” Dayton pirouettes in the water, her eyes closed, the same way they were when she sang in the theater. “But today the gardener came to mow the lawn, and I was too far away from Mila to pass for alive, so I hid. And then I hid for too long because I heard my brothers and sisters get home from school. I would have come back to our house later, I promise. I wasn’t running away or anything—I was just waiting for my family to go to the farmers’ market.” She presses her lips together in a sad smile, her eyes distant. “I could hear my mom promising to get my sister one of the vegan cupcakes she likes. We help run our church’s booth at the farmers’ market on Thursdays, so we eat dinner there and then go listen to the band.” Dayton pauses and looks back at us. “Thank you for coming to look for me.”
“Of course we came to look for you,” June says sharply. “We’re your friends. We were worried.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. Two weeks ago, the thought of being called Dayton’s friend would have made me laugh for five straight minutes. Today, it wears like a scratchy sweater. Uncomfortable, but functional.
Dayton swims over to the ladder and heaves herself out of the water. Her movements seem clunky aboveground. Water splashes onto the pavement as she combs her fingers through her hair.
“Did the spell work on Caleb?” she asks me as her wet feet slap toward us.
“I think so,” I say, relieved to have good news. “One of his arms is turning scaly, and the skin is sort of falling off? I only caught a glimpse of it up his sleeve, but it looked like it was rotting pretty good.”
“Hm,” June says, wrinkling her nose. “I thought the rotten-heart thing would look more like bread mold or like bugs coming out of his mouth.”
“I was hoping he’d drop dead,” Riley says. “Murderous asshole.”
“There’s still time for any of those things to happen, too,” Dayton says cheerfully, clasping her hands to her stomach. “Mila could totally do more magic if the first spell isn’t big enough.”
I can feel Riley’s glare, but I don’t look at it directly.
“Besides,” Dayton adds with a hop of excitement. “Mila only saw Caleb’s arm. He could have fish scales all over him now. His butt could be falling off because there’s so much evil in it.”
“You think all the evil in Caleb Treadwell is located in his ass?” I ask.
Dayton throws her hands over her mouth as she erupts into giggles. Her body bends in half, and tears leak out the corners of her eyes as she sputters, “Think about his flaky, evil butt!”
I really don’t want to find this funny, but June lets out a pig snort and turns away quickly, like we won’t notice. And that makes Riley smile. So I let myself laugh along with Dayton as she mimes scratching her butt and finding clumps of it falling off in her hands.
“I guess I should get dressed,” Dayton says, finally, after we all get winded. “June, would you mind getting me a Gatorade out of the garage? The side door should be unlocked.”