“I know things,” she said. “Ruby tells me stuff.”
She slunk back against the wall, and as she did it seemed that the shadows were moving all around her, crouching low as if they had a hold of her by the legs. Maybe we weren’t alone in here; maybe we had company who’d come out to listen.
My own legs were getting heavier now. I felt it at my ankles, the familiar tug, and before it could fully bring me back—to that night, the night London remembered differently—one of her friends poked a head in.
“You guys, we’re so bored!” Asha shrieked, breathless. “You know what we should do? Go on the swings! In the rec field!”
Vanessa ran up next. “We totally should. What do you think, Lon?”
“Sure,” London said, her face expressionless. Maybe what she really wanted was to stay back alone with me, in this darkened tomb, just the two of us, but she ended up giving in and following her friends.
I couldn’t get my heart to stop thumping for minutes after.
We left the mausoleum to find that, outside, dark was clearly falling. For a moment, I wasn’t sure how long we’d been inside that tomb. It was here when I thought to check my phone, to see if maybe Ruby had texted.
The light was flashing, and Ruby’s texts went on for a whole screen:
dreamed we ate mushrooms growing on ceiling & u
had only 4 toes
4 toes ON EACH FOOT not only 4 toes! omg what if u had only 4 toes????
did u hide the good cereal? want frosting chlo
migraine gone away. u should come home
come home now. miss u
starting 2 worry. y not answering? y not home yet?
worried
worried
worried
think i need new boots we shld go shopping
btw could u bring home cereal?
“Wow, are those all from Ruby?” Asha said, leaning over.
“I should call her,” I said.
“Please don’t,” Cate said quickly, then she had her hand over her mouth to show she hadn’t meant to say that, not out loud in front of me.
Vanessa started talking for her, trying to ease the damage. “What she means is, maybe you don’t want to call her right now? Maybe we should go across the street to the swings first? And you can call her after?”
“I should at least text her,” I said, pulling up her number on my phone.
But then Damien had my phone, then Vanessa had it, then Laurence, then Damien again.
Owen wouldn’t have anything to do with my phone—or me—and stood at a distance, hands behind his back so no one would make him catch it, but then he opened his mouth, and he said some words in my general direction: “Do you have to tell her every single thing you do? She’s not your mother.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t have to.”
I never had to. Her hand wasn’t at my throat forcing me to open up and spill so she could know all. She never dug around inside me, grabbing secrets to pull out; she didn’t have to go digging, since she knew them already.
“Good,” Owen said.
Owen had never seemed enamored by Ruby. Sometimes it felt like a typhus epidemic had taken out an entire village but spared one lone person and that was him. Not even I had the immunity. It made me distrust him, but somehow, against my better judgment, which meant against all words of Ruby-wisdom in my head, it made me like him more.
“Okay,” I said, and didn’t ask for my phone back, and soon I was following everyone down the hill, headed for the rec field across the road. It was night now and I was crossing the dark street, free of traffic, and running across the lawn to reach the swings. I was well aware of the chain-link fence just beside us, on the other side of which was the newer of the two graveyards, the one that maybe, if I’d only known where among the headstones to go searching, would have revealed an empty plot in the grass that should have been London’s grave.