“I thought maybe she convinced me to do it,” she says suddenly, her hands swirling under the water. “We’ve been friends for so long, and I love her, but she has this way of seeing the worst parts of you. She’s right. She does push people. She doesn’t mean to, not really, but she still does it. I was so scared that she’d shown me something about myself that I didn’t even know was there, something that could make me . . . I’m sorry that someone felt like they had to kill us, but selfishly I’m so relieved that it wasn’t me. And it’s nice that June got to have Caleb back for a little bit.”
Outside, Caleb scoops June up by the waist and carries her across the lawn. Her bare feet kick the air, but her mouth is wide and laughing. I almost don’t notice the strange pallor of her skin or the parts of her that randomly start bleeding.
“Does it bother you that you didn’t find a long-lost boyfriend?” I ask Dayton, prying my attention away from June’s happiness. It feels too much like being kicked while I’m down.
Dayton dunks her hands back into the water and pulls up a chocolate-stained plate. “Oh, no. That’s too much to live for. She’ll be so much sadder tomorrow night when we have to go back.”
I edge around to lean on the counter next to her. Water sinks into the waistband of my jeans. “And you won’t be?”
She sets aside the sponge and scrapes the chocolate off with her thumbnail. “Sure, I’ll be sort of sad. I’ll miss Gatorade and swimming and having friends.” She flicks a smile at me. “I’ll miss you and your grumpy face.”
“I’ll miss you, too,” I say quietly. I don’t know when it happened, but it’s true. I will miss her. And June, for all her judging and shit-talking.
And Riley. Of course. Her dying almost broke me the first time. What’s going to happen tomorrow night when I know that she’s gone for good?
“But I already miss things from my real life,” Dayton says, cheerfully continuing to scrub and talk at the same time. “Like choir and my family and being able to walk around without scaring people. That first night back, you said we weren’t really back to life. Just sort of visiting. I had a good visit. I’m ready to go back to heaven.”
“You don’t think God is going to be mad at you for being a zombie for a week?”
She rolls her eyes at me. “God doesn’t get mad at you, Mila. No matter what your mean old witches say. Will you put some music on for me while I finish the dishes? Something I can sing along with.”
I pull my phone out of my pocket and squint at the screen, struggling to see anything but the crack in the glass. I have a missed call from the landline at the Greenway Funeral Home. I put the voicemail on speaker.
“Mila, this is Monica Greenway. I’m looking for Xander. Is he with you? He said that the two of you have been spending time together, and I have a pair of, well, fuller-figure jeans in my washing machine. Your mother says you’re out studying this afternoon. If you hear from Xander, tell him he needs to return home immediately. We received a very strange phone call . . . Anyway, pass this along if you see him.”
Fuller-figure? Come on. She could have just said jeans. Mrs. Greenway trying not to call me fat is so much worse than her coming out and saying she thinks my body is gross. Her euphemisms are more hurtful than June’s actual insults.
“A strange phone call?” Dayton echoes. “From who?”
“The cops, maybe? Or Riley?”
“It would be strange if her dead daughter called.”
I blow out a breath, opening my texts to respond to Mrs. Greenway to tell her that Xander isn’t with me. Hopefully the cops have already tracked him down, but I won’t let myself be an accidental alibi, especially since my mom is blabbing my whereabouts to whoever asks. Above my last conversation with Xander, there’s a message from a number I don’t have saved in my phone. It has a Creek County area code.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: It’s Aniyah. Don’t erase this, please. Something fucked up is going on with the Greenways. Stay away from Xander. He’s lying to you.
MY PHONE: Can we meet up and talk about this? Tomorrow night?
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Yes! Where?
MY PHONE: The abandoned house on Knapp Road. 8 p.m.?
“No, no, no,” I say out loud. “I left my phone in my jacket when I was showering last night.”
“So?” Dayton asks.
I reach over her and the sink full of murky water and bang on the window until Caleb and June look up. I motion for them to come inside. They do, leaving the yapping fluff outside.
“Xander told Aniyah to meet him at Yarrow House tonight. We have to go get her!”
“Wait, what?” June asks.
“She thinks Xander used her phone to lure Aniyah to her death,” Dayton says.
I send a panicked message to Aniyah’s number.
ME: Call the cops. Don’t go in the house. Get as far away from the house as you can.
The clock on the oven says it’s a quarter till eight.
“Fuck!” I snap the rubber band on my wrist so hard that the glue gives and the elastic flops to the floor. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. We gotta go. Leave the dishes!”
“Mila!” Dayton says, flicking the soap off her hands. “Why would he wait a full twenty-four hours to get Aniyah alone? Why wouldn’t he have her go right away if he really believed she had information worth dying over?”
“Because he thought we were going to spend last night fooling around, and that was obviously more important than killing the editor of the Fairmont Informant!” I shout.
“Is that the newspaper’s name?” June asks. “For real?”
I don’t have time to waste. I grab June’s and Dayton’s wrists and pull them out of the kitchen before their necks can even un-break.
“Wait!” Caleb calls after us.
“Stay safe!” June calls back, her long legs fumbling along behind me. “If we’re not back in half an hour, call the cops!”
“Thanks for the pizza and pashminas!” Dayton adds.
* * *
June only asks me to slow down once as I drive us to the edge of town. She seems to realize from the scream-barking sound I make in lieu of words that her request has been denied. I push my Toyota within an inch of its life, the gas pedal cutting a trench into the floor mat.
“It doesn’t even make sense, Mila,” Dayton says from the backseat. “I might not remember dying, but I remember Xander. We were friends. He and June came to my last show-choir concert. He brought flowers. You don’t bring flowers to someone and then murder them.”
“I’m sure someone has, at some point, given flowers to someone they’ve murdered,” June says. “But I don’t think Xander is one of them. Have you considered that the mushrooms on his back were there because you’re not as good at magic as you think you are?”
I let them chatter among themselves. I don’t blame them for their denial. It’s the same mental gymnastics that made them not believe they were dead until the first time I stepped out of the magical perimeter in Walmart. Or that made Caleb think that their corpse forms were makeup. Or that made Aniyah believe that they’d faked their deaths.
If only one of us is going to be thinking clearly, I’m fine with it being me. My focus is perfectly level.
Another girl is not going to die. I won’t let it happen.
Bringing the girls back from the dead wasn’t enough. The revenge curse wasn’t enough. The truth spell loosened the wrong lips. All the magic I’ve done—have ever done, will ever do—will be for nothing if Xander hurts Aniyah Dorsey.
The car jostles and bumps down the driveway. I park as close to the porch as I can get. Normally, I want to stay under the radar, but tonight I want to be as conspicuous as possible. Let everyone driving by know that there are people inside. That we need help. That the cops should definitely beat down the door.
The hearse Xander stole is nowhere to be seen, but he could have easily parked up the street and walked down. He wouldn’t want to be spotted.
I climb out of the car, wishing I had a weapon or something. But if Aniyah can walk in unarmed, then I can, too. At least I have zombie backup.
Dust kicked up from the driveway coats the inside of my nose and tickles the back of my throat. From the outside, the house is as silent as ever. It looks no different than it did when I walked through the woods this morning. I’m struck by the realization that I don’t want to go inside. That I would be happy to never see the inside of this house again. It doesn’t make me feel safe or welcome. It’s the hole where I’ve been throwing my secrets.