“Big conspiracy. My parents like to grill,” Harry said, and then to Viv and Graham, “If you guys aren’t ready, Izzie and I will walk.”
“Maybe,” Amanda spoke over him, “if you let us in, we’d be better at not asking questions about what you guys bought at a butcher shop the same day there was a prank pulled with animal blood. Maybe then we’d be better about not spreading our theories around. Think on it.”
A bolt of anger shot through me. I left before it came out as a yell or threat or curse. Even when we had the upper hand, Amanda somehow laid claim to it anyway. Amanda and I didn’t have a history like she had with Viv. I didn’t seek out ways to spar with her in the way Viv did. Save once.
Seven Hills High School’s production of The Breakfast Club sophomore year. Amanda had the role of Viv’s understudy. Opening night, Amanda, Jess, and Rachel sat in the front row, and as Viv recited her lines, Amanda hissed like a snake. Sssssssss. I watched the slow spread of red hives up Viv’s neck. It took me until intermission until I understood that Amanda was reminding Viv of the years she stuttered on words that began with the letter S.
I followed Amanda to the restroom during intermission. Surprised her in the corridor by the theater’s coat closet, yanked her in.
“What in the hell?” she cried.
I pinned her against the wall, elbow pressed to her neck, imitating the way the girl with the blade held me in the train car. “I promise that if you don’t shut up during this performance, I will rip your wicked tongue from your mouth so you can’t make S sounds ever again, snake.” The burst of violence, the threat, had me trembling as I held her. She smiled like she’d won something. Adrenaline made me light-headed. Amanda leaned into my elbow and spoke in a raspy whisper, “If you don’t let me go, I’ll stand up in the middle of the second act and tell your bestie her thighs look like an elephant’s.”
I could smell the watermelon hard candy tucked in her cheek. It nauseated me. The closeness. I dropped my arms. “That’s what I thought,” she said as she knocked by me.
But she didn’t make a peep during the second half.
? ? ?
“They want in,” Graham said in the backseat of the car. “Who do you think Amanda meant?”
“Everyone who was there,” Viv said. “Amanda, Jess, Rachel, Conner, Trent, and Campbell. The six of them.”
“Do you realize what a coup this is?” Graham slapped the driver’s seat back.
“Hey.” I swiped blindly at his hand.
“Sorry,” he muttered aside. “We haven’t even tried to recruit them and they’re begging to join.”
“There’s nothing for them to join,” I said, steering onto our street. I slowed at Mr. Kirkpatrick’s house and glared up at it. “The Order of IV is ours. That’s the point. It would be different if we had more members.”
“Absolutely it would have to change.” Graham’s voice already heavy with thought. “Think, Izzie. Everything we’d be capable of with recruits.”
“Stop calling them recruits.” My protest was halfhearted. Recruits like in an army. I was caught between fear that Amanda would ruin the Order for us and cravings for amping up our next rebellion.
“Imagine,” he whispered, “if we had six foot soldiers to do our bidding.”
Harry palmed his eyes beside me. “Do our bidding?”
“To help with the rebellions,” Graham said.
Thoughts were streaking through my head at speeds that whistled, their colors running, mixing, forming new ideas. “If we want new members, why add kids who treat us like crap?”
“Because they’ll have to grovel at our feet,” Graham said.
“We’ll give them orders,” Viv whispered, like she was watching Amanda grovel already.
Harry stared out the window. “All of them would have to listen to us?” His tone sounded funny; I couldn’t put my finger on how.
“Every single one would have to do what we wanted,” Graham answered.
“Because they want in,” Viv added.
“Doesn’t everyone always want in?” Graham said, like it was the simplest lesson in the world.
Maybe it was.
The Order was always about belonging. Us. Together. Forever. Was it so unforeseeable that its allure would crook its finger and beckon to others? So unimaginable that other kids would be hungry for an idol, a bonfire, the moon, and secrets?
19
I stayed in my room Saturday morning, planted on my desk, watching the Pacific. Each wave rushed in darker, something ominous gathering. I snapped Polaroids, placing their unformed vignettes in single file across my desk. When I finally studied their captured moments, it was clear. The sea knew what we were planning.
Our third rebellion had been aimed at Carver and Denton. Intended to frighten and unnerve them. Pictures circulated. People gossiped. That boy lied about the bloody noose and the girl about the X marking her door. The mayor was forced to respond to the whole town in her statement. My own parents locked our windows, which were usually thrown open to the breeze. All that blood gnawed a little at the myth of the utopian Seven Hills.
The fourth rebellion would have a wider scope. We would aim revenge not just at Carver and Denton, but at those we knew hadn’t helped Goldilocks. Maybe there were more whose indifference cost Goldilocks her life, or at least justice. Our next rebellion wouldn’t target them all directly, but I hoped they’d get the message of our scattershot. You are not safe.
But we were small in number, and though our group was a universe to me, there was a limit to what we could do.
The Order had one invisible hand. With Amanda and the others, we would have many. All invisible. Omnipresent. Vengeful gods capable of endless aftershocks.
When Harry arrived Saturday evening to take me to homecoming, Mom and Dad had their cell phones out, Dad being sneaky about snapping shots and Mom instructing us to pose. I set my jaw and withstood the happy parent routine. Thus far, there was no evidence that the flowers delivered to Ina had caused the flourish of town gossip I’d expected.
“You look beautiful,” Harry told me in the car.
I smiled at him. “You do too.” I hadn’t seen Harry in a suit since eighth-grade graduation. I remembered him looking like a coat hanger in his jacket. Since then, Harry had done a lot of broadening.
“This used to be my dad’s.” Harry pinched the fabric of his jacket cuff.
“It’s perfect.”
“Green is my favorite color,” he said of my sleeveless dress.
The fabric was thin and delicate, pooling around my strappy sandals. “It’s silk, I think.”
“I like silk.”
He opened the moonroof. It was a balmy night, moisture in the air making my wavy hair wavier. I rested my head back and looked starward. “It’s really clear. The stars are so bright.”
Harry glanced up from the road. “When I was way younger, I was obsessed with astronomy.”
“Did you ever have those glow-in-the-dark constellation stickers when you were little?”
“They covered my bedroom ceiling. You?”
“My closet. I used to tear all the clothes off the hangers to stare at them from the floor. Sometimes I’d make Graham or Viv sit and I’d talk like we were at the planetarium.”