Chapter
TWENTY-THREE
Gabby ended up sleeping over. Em’s parents came home around eleven o’clock, and even though it was a school night, they’d agreed (as Gabby’s had, when she texted them) to let the girls sleep downstairs in the basement. Em thought they were happy to see Gabby around again. Though from the look on her dad’s face, she’d have some explaining to do about why her car had to be towed—again.
They woke up in the morning and decided to stop at Gabby’s, so she could grab her books and change. If she wore Em’s jeans, she would have to pair them with stilts.
“Cool necklace,” Gabby said as they walked out to Gabby’s car, pointing to the serpent charm that dangled from Em’s neck.
She’d put it on at the last minute. She’d try anything at this point.
After Gabby ran into her house for her bag and a quick
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change, Em asked, with some trepidation, if Gabby wanted to stop at Dunkin’ Donuts.
“Um, of course!” Em could see that Gabby was in performance mode. Her makeup this morning was impeccable, and she’d woken up almost an hour before Em in order to take a long shower. She would come out on top of this Zach humili-ation no matter what.
“You know what’s terrible?” Gabby sipped her hot drink and looked out the window. Ascension looked gray and brittle.
The steam from the coffee–hot cocoa mixture fogged up a tiny section of the glass.
“What?”
“I know that this is an awful thing to say, and I would obviously only say it to you, but . . . at least there’s too much other awful stuff going on for people to even care about me and Zach.
Like, petty gossip doesn’t really matter much right now. People are dying.”
“You’re right.” Em nodded. “Anyone who blabs about this must have some messed-up priorities.”
They agreed then, tacitly, that this was the strategy: Information lockdown. The fewer words said about the Gabby Dove–Zach McCord breakup, the better.
Just before getting out of the car, Gabby swiveled in her seat. “You’ll be at the pep rally tonight, right? I cannot deal with it by myself.”
Em hesitated for just a second. The pep rally was the last place she wanted to go. But she wouldn’t let Gabby down again.
“Of course I’ll be there,” she said.
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As they walked from the parking lot to their first-period classes, Em thought they must have looked like a formidable two-person army.
Em looked for Drea before the first bell rang, to no avail.
Again as classes switched. Nothing. They didn’t have any classes together, and Em had no idea where punked-out-Rainbow-Brite-goth types hung out during their off periods. Not near the theater, of course, and not down by the gym. Had she seen them loitering in the arts hallway in the past? She made a mental note: Pay more attention to where different cliques hang out for next time you’re being homicidally stalked by someone—some thing— that wants to punish you for your mistakes.
Then, right before Em’s lunch period, she caught sight of Drea’s part-purple, part-black hair as it bobbed down the hallway toward the library.
“Drea!” she shouted, pushing her way through the throng of students pouring out of precalc. “Drea,” she called again, getting close enough to grab her shoulder. She was out of breath.
“We need to talk.”
Drea, whose eyes were rimmed with purple eyeliner, didn’t seem surprised that Em was chasing her down. “Oh, hi.”
“Hey. I’m so glad I found you.” Em fingered the snake charm at her sternum, hoping Drea would notice that she was wearing it.
“How are you?” As she said it, she realized that Drea must know by now that her best friend was dead. “I mean, really, how are you doing?” she repeated more earnestly. “Like, about Sasha.”
“I don’t want to talk to you about Sasha, thank you.” Drea’s 290
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tone was measured but not rude. Just firm. There were circles under her eyes. She shoved her hands into her jeans pockets.
“Oh. Okay. Sorry.” Em licked her lips, nodding, trying to seem as approachable as possible.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” Drea stared at Em with something akin to boredom.
“Oh . . . well.” Em felt ridiculous; until all the insanity had started, she had never had more than a two-minute conversation with Drea, usually limited to: jumbo popcorn, extra butter. But she had a feeling that Drea was her last hope. “You told me to come find you when I was ready to talk. About, you know. The flower and everything? The red orchid?”
“Shhh! ” Drea’s veil of boredom dropped in an instant, and she turned to look over her shoulder. “We can’t talk about this here.”
“Um. Okay.”
Drea spoke under her breath. Unconsciously, she was touching the snake pin, which was affixed to her coat. “Can you meet me after school?”
Em hated the thought of waiting another three hours to get some answers, but she apparently had no choice. “Yes, sure, of course. Where?”
Drea hesitated, narrowing her eyes. Em had the uncomfortable feeling that Drea was evaluating her, or testing her in some way.
“My house,” Drea finally said. “It’s here.” She fished a pen from her messenger bag and grabbed Em’s hand. Her chipped gray nail polish was all Em could see as Drea scrawled an address 291
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on the inside of her palm. It tickled slightly and gave her goose bumps. Em nodded. Drea walked away without another word.
The next three hours were agony. Gabby texted her during lunch to say she’d gotten her mom to pick her up from school for an emergency therapy shopping trip. Classic Marty Dove. Em went back to eating in the library, alone. Then she sat through European history, unable to concentrate on a class discussion about fascism. All she could do was replay in her mind Ali’s appearance on her doorstep. The heavy knocking.
The shock-red orchid. Em’s eyes pricked again with anxious tears and she jiggled her knees under her desk. Earth science was even worse. Zach was finally back at school—funny, Em thought, that he’d been too broken up about Chase to survive school, but not so broken up that he couldn’t find time to cheat on Gabby—and the back of his head was the first thing Em saw as she walked into the classroom. She was glad he didn’t turn around, not once through the whole period.
Her stuff was in her bag ten minutes before the final bell rang, and she was out the doors, and headed for Drea’s, before it had even finished sounding.
She knew her way to Drea’s neighborhood, but she didn’t know her way around it. Drea’s street was close to the center of town, where there were older houses that must have existed even in the 1800s. This area stretched back into the woods, cutting a kind of ruralish strip through Ascension. The back of the neighborhood bordered the Behemoth, if Em had her directions right.
When Em pulled up to Drea’s house, something about the 292
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sagging structure made her recoil slightly. There was nothing outwardly weird about it, but it looked very . . . lived in. As though in a few more years it might just collapse in on itself.
Someone had started to shovel the walk, out from the front door, but the project had clearly been abandoned halfway through. Em walked to the front door, tramping over footsteps that were bigger than her own.
The doorbell was a jarring buzz. Em found herself looking over her shoulder as she waited for Drea. The fluttering feeling at her back returned, like there were moths there, leaving their dust all over her skin. She itched.
“Hi,” Drea said as she swung open the door. Her long-sleeved, black waffle-knit shirt was open slightly at the neck to reveal a swath of silver chains, some with pendants and some without. Her hair—the half that wasn’t shaved—was pinned back.
“I’m glad you came,” Drea said, motioning for Em to follow her down the dim hallway. An obnoxious infomercial blared.
As they passed the second room on the left, Drea reached in to close the door; before it shut completely, Em caught a glimpse of an older man—Drea’s dad, she supposed—sitting in front of the television. Its blue light bounced off his glassy eyes. Em dimly remembered hearing something about Drea’s dad having had a nervous breakdown. Drea kept walking, down the hall and then down a flight of stairs. Em followed hesitantly.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to, like, kill you or anything,”
Drea said sarcastically, observing Em’s nervous expression with a smirk. “My study is down here.”
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Her study? Em’s parents had studies. Sixteen-year-old girls did not. But sure enough, Drea led Em to the back of the basement, to a makeshift door composed of a sheet hung between two beams. Clipped to the sheet was an orange-and-black no trespassing sign. Drea pulled back the curtain.
Tugging on a string that hung from a single bulb in the ceiling, Drea illuminated her “study”—a paint-stained workbench piled with books, papers, folders, and newspaper clippings. Next to the workbench were two similarly stuffed book-shelves. In front of all this was a ratty recliner that sat alongside a small desk and a floor lamp. The lamp was strung to the wall by an orange extension cord. Attached to that same cord was a plug that ran to a small dorm-room-type refrigerator. It was all enclosed by sheets. One of the sheets, the one closest to the wall, was decorated with cupcakes.
“Whoa,” Em breathed.
“I know, it’s kind of ghetto,” Drea said, propping open a folding chair that she dug out from under the workbench. “But it serves its purpose. It’s quiet down here. My dad never bugs me. And I have a system. I know where everything is.”
“It’s . . . it’s awesome, Drea.” Em was serious. “It’s so . . .
real.”
“Yeah, it’s real-ly dusty down here. Now let’s get to work.”
Drea marched over to the fridge and opened it. “Tell me what’s going on. Do you want a Coke?”
“Um, sure.”
Drea pulled out two sodas and handed one to Em. Then she sat in the recliner, turned on the floor lamp, which cast a 294
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greenish glow on the whole space, and stared. Em shifted in her Bean boots, then started in.
“Well . . . I think that Chase—”
“We’re not here to talk about Chase,” Drea said sharply.
“We’re here to talk about you. Right?”
Em blushed. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“So what’s going on?”
Looking up at the ceiling as though it might offer a sugges-tion, Em asked, “Where should I start?”
“Well, what’s freaking you out?” Drea took a slug of Coke, raising her eyebrows, and propped her feet up on the workbench in front of her. She was wearing steel-toed boots.
Em swallowed, and then said in a rush: “Okay, well, there’s this girl—these girls—who are following me. I think. One of them keeps, like, appearing. In my windows and in Boston and everywhere. And I think there are two others like her. Chase Singer knew one of them, I think.” Em looked at Drea, eyebrows raised, waiting for a laugh or a dismissal. But Drea was listening, face serious. “And I think they’re part of the reason that he’s dead. I think . . . I think they killed him because of what he did to Sasha.”
There was a long silence then, between them. Drea looked like she’d been slapped. Em cursed herself for bringing up Sasha so indelicately. Drea probably didn’t even know that Sasha and Chase had been involved; she certainly wouldn’t know that Chase had been the one to circulate Sasha’s pictures and messages. She hoped Drea wouldn’t ask for more details.
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But then Drea cleared her throat and leaned forward.
“What did you do?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you,” Drea said, pointing right at the middle of Em’s chest.
“I . . . well . . .” For some reason, Em couldn’t force the words out, even though what she’d done was already pretty public knowledge. For all she knew, Drea might have already heard about it.
Drea just kept staring. “Em, did you come here to talk, or what?”
“Okay.” Em tucked her hands up inside the cuffs of her shirt, closed her eyes, and blurted out: “So, over break I hooked up with Zach.” There. She had said it. Em opened her eyes to check Drea for a reaction; there seemed to be none. “Zach McCord.” Still nothing. Drea looked at her impassively, eyebrows slightly raised. “Gabby’s boyfriend.”
“Gabby . . . ?” Drea waved her hands around questioningly.
“Gabby Dove. My best friend.” Em sat down heavily in the folding chair. If Drea didn’t know anything, how was she going to help?
“Ohhhhhhhh. It all becomes clear,” Drea said. “You hooked up with your best friend’s boyfriend.”
Em cringed. It sounded so trivial when it came out of Drea’s mouth. “Yeah, I did. But it wasn’t just, like, this terrible thing—”
Drea interrupted again. “Listen, Em. I don’t want to sound mean. But I don’t really care. I mean, I don’t care about why 296
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you did it or anything. We’re not here to become besties. I just want to know what happened so I can explain to you what’s going on and maybe fix it.”
“Okay.” Em breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t feel like getting into the whole story again anyway. “Me too.”
“So. All this stuff.” With a sweep of her arm, Drea motioned to the literary debris that filled her nook. “It’s all about the Furies.”
“The who?” The word made an anxious feeling lash in Em’s stomach.
“The Furies,” Drea said again. The light caught her eyes, making them gleam golden. “Three girls. Three spirits. Three demons. Three witches. Whatever you want to call them.
They’re here, for sure. They’re these three spirits who have been around forever.” The way Drea said it, it was like spirits and demons were a common thing. Em was shocked to find herself listening closely, waiting for her to finish explaining.
“They have other names too,” she went on. “Sometimes they’re called the Erinyes, which means ‘the angry ones.’ They’re all over Greek mythology—I’m surprised you haven’t heard of them. They’ll haunt you if you’ve done something bad. They seek vengeance for wrongdoings. They basically wait for people to curse themselves and then decide what they think that person deserves. If they think you’re guilty, they’ll destroy you—regardless of the context, regardless of the circumstance, regardless of whether or not it makes the situation better.”
“The Furies,” Em repeated. She rubbed her fingers against her temples. “So . . . they’re like ghosts?”
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“Kind of. I think they take different forms in different places. I have a feeling that they’ve been appearing as humans in Ascension, though I haven’t seen them.”
“You actually believe this stuff?” Em scratched her neck uncomfortably.
“I don’t believe it. I know it.” Drea’s face was dead serious.
“So the girl who’s following me—you think she’s a Fury?”
Em’s mind was clouded with questions and doubts. “Do you think that Sasha and Chase were connected to the Furies?”
Drea shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised. They’ve been around forever—there have always been stories about cruel, beautiful sisters in this town. And other towns around the world.”
“How do you know all this?” Em asked. Her brain was reeling.
Drea ran her finger around the rim of her soda can.
“Hobby,” she said shortly.
“But why?” Em pressed. The basement wasn’t cold, but she was trembling. “When did you first hear about them? Why did you start to . . . collect all of this stuff?”
Drea stood abruptly, chucking the empty can forcefully into the garbage in the corner. “Look. This isn’t about me, okay? This is about you, and what’s happening, and what you’re going to do about it.”
“But it’s crazy,” Em said. If anyone knew she was sitting in Drea Feiffer’s basement talking about ghosts . . . “Why—why should I believe you?”
As if she could read Em’s thoughts, Drea asked, with a 298
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perfectly straight face, “Does anyone else believe you?”
Em shook her head.
“I didn’t think so. That’s why you’re here. And that’s why you should trust me. Because I believe you.”
Em bit her lip. “So . . . let’s say the Furies really exist,” Em said. “Can they be stopped?”
“I’m not sure, but I’m going to find out.” Em saw the determination in Drea’s eyes. “I’m going to destroy them.”
Em groped for words. “But shouldn’t you, like, be on their side?” There was no way around it, she realized. She would have to tell Drea about Sasha and Chase. “Look, I’m pretty sure Chase was the one who made Sasha jump off the bridge. Now he’s dead. Isn’t that kind of what you want?”
Drea looked at Em through sad eyes. For the first time in her life, Em felt truly small.
“Really?” Drea squeaked out. “Really? That’s how you think the world should work? That’s why you think Sasha jumped off the Piss Pass? Because of Chase f*cking Singer? No.
She jumped off the Piss Pass because she was sad and lonely and deeply depressed. And I didn’t know.” Drea’s voice got higher and higher; she was talking so fast Em could barely make out her words. “I didn’t know,” she repeated. Em could see she was determined not to cry.
“I’m sure you—”
“You don’t know anything, Emily Winters. All you know is your own little world and your own little life. But listen. The Furies aren’t doing anything good. I don’t want them to do anything other than disappear. Because what happens when I make a 299
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mistake? Who decides my fate? Me. Or at least the people around me. Not some otherworldly demon-goddess chicks hell-bent on destruction. They can’t feel remorse, do you know that?”
“But what about—what about when they make a mistake?”
Em realized she was gripping her Coke can like a vise.
Drea let out a dry laugh that sounded almost like a cough.
“They’ve been around for centuries—and yet I’m sure they don’t think they’ve made a single mistake.” The greenish light played across her face.
“But how do they choose?” Em persisted. “And how do they know when someone’s done something bad? What counts?”
She wanted to say: What I did wasn’t nearly as bad as what Chase did, but she bit back the words.
Drea shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Em squeaked.
Drea leaned over and grabbed a book from under the bench.
She handed it to Em. “Look, there’s a lot I don’t know. Here’s what I do know. The Furies are after you. The red orchid is like their marker. It says so in there.” She pointed to the ancient-looking book in Em’s hand.
“And they can look like people.” Em said it more as a statement than a question.
“They can assume human form, yes,” Drea said. “When they’re exacting revenge. When they’re stalking someone.”
“Like me,” Em said.
“Like you,” Drea echoed matter-of-factly.
Em gulped down the rest of the soda. “So what should I do?”
“Take these,” Drea said, reaching over and placing a pile 300
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of newsprint onto Em’s lap. “And start your reading. These are stories from all over the world that I think have some connection to the Furies.”
Em threw her head against the back of the padded chair.
“How is reading going to help me go to sleep without one eye open?”
“You can’t fight something if you don’t understand it.”
Drea gave Em another withering look. “Jeez. I thought you were supposed to be smart.”
Em blushed. “Sorry that I’m not some junior-wizard-Hermione-on-crack.”
This was enough to make them both smile, even slightly.
“Just read up, Winters.” Winters. It made her think of Chase. Em took the books and printouts silently and tucked them carefully into her bag.
She didn’t even wait until she was off Drea’s street before pulling over, digging the biggest book out of her bag, and opening it up. Her head was spinning. Furies. Revenge-seeking spirits? This was crazy. Even if they did exist, she didn’t think the biggest book in the world could explain why they’d choose to appear in Ascension, Maine—when the world was full of terrible people doing terrible things. Why would they choose to punish a bunch of high school kids? She f lipped to the index and scanned it: Alcohol . . . Alecto . . . Animal embodiments . . . Daemons . . . Erinyes . . . Familiars . . . Greek origins . . . Megaera . . . Seeds . . . Serpents . . . Tisiphone . . . She didn’t even know what half of these words meant. The text swam in front of her and her head started to throb.
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She slammed the book shut. It would have to wait until she got home.
“Lots of homework!” Em called to her mom as soon as she walked in the door. Her mom, who worked half days on Thursdays, seemed to be looking at her strangely—like she knew something Em didn’t know—but Em brushed it off as paranoia until she climbed the stairs to her room. Sitting on the floor just outside her bedroom door was a bouquet of daisies and a huge bar of dark chocolate.
“JD dropped those off for you,” Em’s mom said from halfway up the stairs. Em turned. Her mom was looking at her with a half smile.
“Mom, it’s nothing,” Em said. But she couldn’t hide her own grin, either. She took the flowers and chocolate into her room and slammed the door, giving the bouquet a closer look as soon as she was alone. There was a note taped to the chocolate.
I should have been a better listener, the note read. I just want to make you happy. Always. JD.
Em’s stomach was fluttering now, but not out of fear. She ran to her window and opened it, letting in a cold blast of air that felt nice against her blazing cheeks. She shook the string that ran between hers and JD’s windows; there were bells attached to both sides, an ancient method of communication that they’d devised in third grade. She was relieved to see the string, which had been used only rarely since they’d entered high school (and gotten cell phones), was still intact.
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watched him lift his blind and then his window.
“Want to go to the pep rally with me later?” she shouted into the cold evening, her breath getting caught in the wind between their houses.
“You’ll be seen with this guy in public?” JD pointed to himself, eyebrows askew. He was wearing a sweatshirt with a picture of a deer emblazoned across the chest and the word maine right above it.
“I would love to be seen with that guy in public!” Em yelled back. “I love deer. Bring your fedora.”
“I’ll bring you one too,” JD said. “À bientôt, escargot!”
Em laughed. She loved that JD had picked up the expression from her. “À bientôt, escargot!”
JD was smiling like a kid as he closed his window, and Em just knew.
She knew, suddenly and without question, that JD loved her. In that way. In the way that her dad loved her mom. In a way that was real. She felt weightless. Despite all of these disasters—the Zach-Gabby lust triangle, Sasha and Chase, the Furies—she knew she could count on JD, that he would accept her for who she was. That he would listen. That he saw her. She recalled that night on the couch at his house, and the moments on the bridge on New Year’s Eve. Right now she wanted nothing more than to be close to him.
Always. JD. He was exactly right. It had always been him.
Like the string between their windows, their connection was unbreakable.
Em was in love with JD.
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