“Mila, please!” Her fingers scramble for a hold on the sleeve of my coat, but it slides out of her grasp. “The Greenways are weird, okay? They always have been. Like, I don’t think there is such a thing as a normal mortician. You’re lucky that Riley’s gone so that you don’t have to get in any deeper with them—”
I don’t know where the rage comes from, but I swing out without thinking about it. My forearm is braced against Aniyah’s collarbone, pinning her to the wall of the cafeteria. Her eyes bug at me, surprised but not scared. Which sucks. I’ve never pinned anyone to a wall before. It should elicit a bigger response.
“Aniyah,” I breathe. “I don’t know you. You don’t know me. You have no reason to believe me when I threaten you, so I’m gonna need you to listen to me very, very closely. I am a fucking witch, and if I hear you talking shit about my dead best friend or her family again, I will curse you into the ground.”
She rolls her eyes. “Okay, that’s not what Wicca is.”
I shove her away and straighten my jacket. “It is the way I do it.”
* * *
After sneaking out while Izzy washes tonight’s dinner dishes, I park even farther away from Yarrow House than normal. I doubt that Caleb has any idea what my car looks like—mostly because my car looks like a thousand other cars in Cross Creek, and the sun has already set—but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared. I’ve filled my backpack with supplies for tonight’s horror show. Walkie-talkies bargained off my sisters complete with fresh batteries, the last herbs we need for the truth spell stolen from neighborhood bushes and my spice cabinet, pepper spray in case shit goes south, Gatorades for everyone to toast with in case shit goes our way.
The girls have obviously been hard at work. When I walk into the kitchen, there’s a path of unlit candles marking the way to the basement steps. There are no signs of life in the living room except for Binx, who is chowing down on a very fat, wiggly field mouse. Blood stains the white fur around his mouth. It’s a shame that the mouse will be long gone by the time Caleb gets here. It would be hella unnerving.
Riley stomps up the stairs from the basement. She gives me a smile before she notices the cat mid-murder in the living room.
“Thackery Binx. That is a shitty way to greet company.”
“He’s an outdoor cat,” I say. “He’s never needed manners.”
“Fair point,” she says, bobbing her head. “Where the hell did you go yesterday? You disappeared and left your car behind. Dayton said you were going to the farmers’ market, but that sounded nuts—”
“No, she was right,” I say. It’s suddenly very hard to maintain eye contact. There’s a strip of shiny white fabric wrapped around her wrist that I recognize as a piece of her burial dress. She sees me staring and cradles the arm and its makeshift bandage to her stomach.
“My broken wrist isn’t bouncing back as fast when you come back,” she says hurriedly. “Well, nothing is bouncing back as fast. The spell did say we were going to die again in a week. We’re like ground meat slowly spoiling, and our best-by date is coming fast.”
“You aren’t meat, Ry. You’re a person.”
“A person being held together entirely by magic. When you aren’t here we’re all gross and goopy, but we still eat and talk and sleep like we’re normal and alive. But we’re not alive, and that’s kind of becoming more clear.” She pauses, then waves me off with her unbandaged wrist. “Don’t worry about it, okay? It’s really not a big deal. Just don’t be surprised if June’s neck flops around a little. Now, for real, why did you go to the farmers’ market yesterday? Were you running low on shitty music and homemade apple butter?”
“I went with Xander,” I say. And then quickly add, “I was standing out front waiting for you guys, and he drove by. I couldn’t tell him why I was really there, so I said I was going to go to the farmers’ market. He wanted to come with me.” Her eyes are bulging so hard that I can see the whites all the way around. “What?”
“You went on a date with my brother?”
“What? No!” But I have to stop and think about it. “We just hung out. I mean, we danced but then also cried. It was friendly mourning.”
“Who cried?” she asks. “Him? You?”
“Mostly him,” I say. And then, quickly, “Not that I’m not sad that you died, but I get to see you still and he doesn’t, plus he’s pretty torn up about June and Dayton dying, too.”
“Right,” she says, biting the inside of her cheek and nodding. “He must miss his friends . . .” Her voice drifts off. “You and he never hung out before I died though, right? I’ve been remembering a lot lately, but this feels new.”
“It’s new,” I say. “A lot of things have changed in the last two weeks. We had this nice moment when he gave me the rose quartz necklace—”
“My necklace,” she interrupts. “Which you won’t give back to me because you had a moment over it?”
The way she says it makes it sound like the stupidest reasoning ever, but that doesn’t make it less true.
“He gave me his dead sister’s most prized possession, Ry,” I say. “He’d notice if I wasn’t wearing it. What am I supposed to tell him? That you’re back and pissed that I borrowed your jewelry?”
“You’re right. It’s a good thing, I guess,” she says, a little distant. “I don’t want him to be alone. He needs a good friend right now. Why not my blister? You can keep his crybaby butt in line.” She flashes me a quick, tight smile. “How much time do we have? The sun went down forever ago, but we lost track of the minutes when Dayton got ‘Monster Mash’ stuck in her head.”
Half pulling my phone from my pocket, I check its clock. “We have half an hour. If Caleb is perfectly on time.”
She motions for me to follow her back downstairs.
The basement window has been boarded up again, and my eyes sting as they adjust to the darkness. The single wooden chair is in the center of the room, and candles burn in every corner, making June and Dayton’s shadows huge and distorted on the walls. The spell ingredients are piled neatly on top of the grimoire, alongside the mason jar we need to mix everything in. It’s more twee than a heavy, ancient chalice or something, but it’s the only cup we had on hand.
“Mila!” Dayton says. “How was your date?”
“It wasn’t a date,” I say, handing her my backpack so she can sort through everything. “We just hung out.”
“You and Xander are perfect for each other,” June says. “His natural Gemini flow won’t erode your Libra firmness.”
“Um. Cool,” I say, picking up the Mason Jar of Truth. “Thanks, June.”
You have to take what you can get in the June Phelan-Park compliment department.
I pour honey and vinegar into the jar, then add dried herbs, dandelion fluff, and a slew of acorn caps. I twist the lid shut and shake the mixture hard enough to make my arms quiver, reading the chant out of the grimoire.
“Let the truth raze down the lies that bloom, let the truth raze down the lies that bloom.”
Riley takes a piece of chalk and writes a series of sigils under the wooden chair. One for peacemaking. One for free-flowing speech. One for luck.
“Let’s hope they work,” she says, dusting off her hands.
Dayton hands me the empty backpack and one of the walkie-talkies.
“Okay, get out,” she says, her face as smiling and pleasant as ever, even as she starts to push me toward the stairs.
“What?” I push back. “What the hell? Caleb is going to be here, like, any minute.”
“Exactly,” June says. I can’t help but notice that her breath is not minty fresh. It’s distinctly rank. Like rotting fish and old milk. It might the only thing I’ve ever smelled that is worse than wet cat food. Is this part of the not bouncing back that Riley mentioned? “We can’t scare him with you around. You make us look normal. We’ve been practicing our zombie faces every night this week. Dayton, show her.”
Dayton puts up her hands like she’s a tiny attacking bear. Throwing herself into my face, she growls and waggles her tongue, groaning loudly.
“Oh,” I say, hooking a thumb toward Dayton, who is standing in freeze-frame so I can admire her work. “I see the problem. This is adorable.”