“Hey, Abby,” Hunter Prioleaux said over her shoulder, “you dropped your lunch.”
Abby looked down and nearly tripped over a white plastic ten-gallon bucket. It was sitting on the floor and overflowing with gray fetuses. They were pressed from the same mold: skin smooth, eyes closed, mouths open, tiny hands bunched into fists. Piled in the bucket without rhyme or reason, they looked like hairless kittens, heavy and sleek.
Abby swore she wouldn’t be the first one to go out to the hall. Her vision swam and blurred around the edges. She looked up and locked eyes with Gretchen. They stared at each other for a second and then Gretchen smiled, and though Abby thought the smile looked mean, she instinctively smiled back. She couldn’t help it. Gretchen stopped smiling and whispered something in Glee’s ear and the two of them giggled. Abby flicked her eyes away. All she could think was, Why on the floor? Couldn’t they at least put them on a table?
On the drive back to school, Abby could still smell pickles clinging to her clothes. In front of her, Dereck White and Nikki Bull continued talking about some kid named Jonathan Cantero who’d stabbed his mom to death in Tampa. Abby couldn’t stop seeing their muscles moving beneath their skin as they talked. She imagined what their mouths would look like with no lips.
“He was a Dungeons and Dragons geek,” Nikki said. “That’s why he killed his mom. The game made him do it.”
“You’re insane,” Dereck said. “A game can’t make anyone do anything.”
“It’s a satanic game,” Nikki said, and she rolled her eyes. “You’re so naive.”
Abby peeled the skin back from everyone on the bus, which became a metal can on wheels full of wide-eyed skeletons with clacking jaws. Their muscles jerked and danced like puppet strings, raising and lowering their arm bones and leg bones, and they were all just bones and meat and they all looked exactly the same.
Through the window, Abby saw the red school van pull up alongside them on the West Ashley Bridge. Father Morgan honked, and Abby watched as Glee and Gretchen looked out the window. They saw her, and Gretchen locked eyes again.
“Satan made him do it,” Nikki was saying. “Plus he was probably on LSD.”
Abby imagined peeling the skin from Gretchen, pulling off her flesh like a damp glove, exposing her bones. But it didn’t work. In her mind, she couldn’t see what was inside Gretchen. She had no heart, no lungs, no stomach, no liver. She was full of bugs.
Gretchen and Glee waved.
Abby didn’t wave back.
“I’m so sorry, Abby,” Mrs. Spanelli said. She was dressed as a witch, holding a shopping bag that contained her turban and crystal ball. “They didn’t tell me until I got here this morning.”
Friday was a half day because of the Halloween carnival. It was sponsored by the parents, but the upper school clubs were expected to run the booths that filled the Lawn, and whichever club took in the most tickets got half the door money. Abby didn’t belong to any clubs, so she’d agreed to help Mrs. Spanelli do the fortune-teller booth. Except this year, no fortune-teller.
“They don’t want anything that might be, you know, occult,” Mrs. Spanelli said. “Especially after Geraldo.”
“That’s okay,” Abby said. “I might go home early.”
Instead she went to the downtown library.
“I’m trying to find out where this area code is,” she asked the librarian, showing her Andy’s number. Abby felt very mature asking for help tracking down a phone number.
“Eight-one-three is Tampa,” the librarian said.
“Do you have any Tampa phone books?” Abby asked.
The librarian jerked her thumb over her shoulder.
“Back wall,” she said.
Abby walked over to a a dimly lit section of shelves that stank of newsprint and found a broken-spined Tampa phone book on top of a pile of worn directories. It felt greasy and used. She flopped it onto a table and flipped through until she found three Solomons. She wrote down their names, street addresses, and phone numbers, and that night she closed herself in her room and started dialing.
No one answered at the first Solomon household. The second one was an answering machine. The third was registered to Francis Solomon. Abby knew it was the right one. It was only two digits different from the number in Gretchen’s daybook. Someone picked up on the fifth ring.
“Hello?” the woman said and then hacked out a smoker’s cough. “Sorry. Hello?”
“Is Andy there?” Abby asked, fighting the instinct to hang up.
“Andy!” she heard the woman scream. “There’s a little girl for you!”
There was a long pause, then a click.
“I got it, Mom. Hang up!” a whiny voice shouted. Abby heard another click and then a boy was breathing in her ear. “Tiffany?”
“This is Abby.” A confused silence followed. “I’m Gretchen’s friend.” More confused silence. “Her best friend.” The silence lengthened. “Gretchen Lang? From camp?”
“Oh,” the boy said. “What?”
It was Abby’s turn to be confused.
“I wanted to ask you . . .” She didn’t know how to get into it. “Has Gretchen seemed weird to you? Or said anything about me?”
“What do you mean?” he asked. “At camp?”
“Or on the phone,” Abby said.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I’m her best friend,” Abby said, hating how childish it sounded. “And I think something might be wrong with her.”
“How would I know?” he asked. “I haven’t talked to her since camp ended. She never called me. I have to go. We don’t have call waiting.”
After he hung up, Abby sat on the phone for a minute. None of it made sense. She vowed that on Monday she would risk being humiliated and confront Gretchen about Andy and figure out what was going on. But that weekend it was Halloween. And by Monday it was too late.
Union of the Snake
“I appreciate you taking the time to be here today,” Major rumbled. “I would like to discuss with you Abigail’s future at Albemarle Academy. It is my opinion that she does not have one.”
Abby sat across from Major. To her left was her dad, jammed uncomfortably into a hard wooden chair. He was all sharp angles and bony knees, awkward elbows, jutting shoulder blades. He’d shaved but missed the spot beneath his lower lip. His palms rested on his thighs, and unconsciously he rubbed them over his worn khakis, back and forth, back and forth. It was making Abby crazy.
On her right sat her mom, leaning forward, keyed up, jaw clenched, ready for a fight; she blinked her eyes rapidly to stay awake. Mrs. Rivers had worked double shifts over the long Halloween weekend, and she was not prepared for a parents’ meeting on Tuesday after school. She clutched her purse in her lap and hadn’t taken off her puffy winter coat. It was overkill for Charleston, but Abby’s mom was always cold.
Major placed a manila folder in the middle of his desk and flipped it open, then he put on his reading glasses and made them wait while he scanned its contents. Once finished, he looked up again.
“Several incidents occurred over the Halloween weekend,” he said. “And I have it on good authority that Abigail was involved in at least one of them. She has also been accused of theft. And while her grades have been excellent up to this point, I do not believe that past progress is indicative of future performance. At least one parent has called and asked me to ensure that Abigail does not interact with her child because she believes, as do I, that she is using and selling narcotics.”
“Are you on drugs?” Abby’s mother snapped, turning on her. “Are you selling drugs?”
Abby was shaking her head.
“No, Mom,” she said. “I promise.”
“You swear to me?” her mother demanded.
“I promise,” Abby said. “I don’t even do drugs.”
Mrs. Rivers turned to Major.
“Who said that about my daughter?” she asked.