“Your secret?” Graham’s stare prodded.
“Oh yeah,” he said conversationally as he returned the bottle to the floor. “I’ve got this secret thing all figured out. I was a little freaked because I can’t usually keep things to myself. My older sister looks at me and knows what’s up and my younger sister is a huge snoop. So this isn’t a secret from them, but a secret from all of them.” He jerked a thumb toward the door.
“Your friends,” I said.
He bobbed his head. “I moved here the summer before high school. We used to live in Chicago. I was really skinny, wore glasses—no offense, man,” he said aside to Graham. “Didn’t know what music was good, geeked out over the wrong stuff, and didn’t have a lot of friends. I was beat up on. Bad. During the first summer here, I worked out, got contacts, and my older sister took me to concerts and helped me pick out new clothes. Being from Chicago and moving to this tiny place helped. Everyone was impressed. They thought I knew rappers because I was from Chicago and, well, black.” He pointed to his face. “They thought I was this big stoner guy and I let them all think it, telling them stories about stuff that never happened. I just slipped right in with Trent and Conner. Easy.”
“Do you think they’d like you if they knew?” Viv asked.
His shoulders shrugged up to his ears. “Sure. Definitely. They’re my friends.”
“What about your old friends in Chicago?” she pressed.
He coughed, stalling. Her question had shaken him. “Um, I don’t really know. I haven’t texted or called them, and if we were friends on social media or something, my friends now would see what I used to be like.”
She opened her mouth and I knew she was going to say, If you think your friends now wouldn’t care, why hide what you used to be like?
“Thanks, Campbell,” I said, sending him from the barn.
Next, Conner. He tried to appear hard to impress while standing at the center of our circle. He swished the truth serum around his mouth, tipped his head back, and gargled before he swallowed. He checked the bottom of the idol like he was looking for a “Made in China” sticker. He rapped a knuckle on her head.
“Stop it,” Harry said. “Tell us your secret or get out.”
Conner’s perpetually bored smile turned cruel. Then he rolled his shoulders back, and while staring into the idol’s face said, “I’ve cheated on every girl that’s ever gone out with me.”
“Who has ever gone out with you.” Harry didn’t miss a beat. “They’re girls, not ‘its’ or objects or animals.”
Conner glanced up from the idol, one bushy brow hitched, mocking Harry. “Whatever you say, Chief. Was that juicy enough? You all hard? I pass?”
“No,” Graham said, “you don’t.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“It has to be a secret you mind people knowing,” Graham said. “You’d write serial cheater on a T-shirt and parade it around school.”
Conner snorted. “Not the parading part.” He balanced the idol on his open palm as he thought. “I ran away once.”
“More,” Graham demanded.
“After my mom died. I put protein bars, a picture of us in a macaroni heart frame she saved, and this dumb frog stuffed animal in my backpack. It was two days until my dad and brother noticed I was gone.”
“Where did you go?” I whispered.
“The tunnel didn’t used to be shut off,” he said, stifling a yawn.
“The Ghost Tunnel?”
“Yeah.”
“How old were you?” I said.
He scowled. “Why are you so nosey?”
I shook my head and stammered, “Sorry.”
“Happy?” He set the idol by his feet and left.
Viv licked her thumb and forefinger and pinched the flame of a candle at her feet.
“It worked,” Harry said, a heaviness to his words.
I knelt, feeling out of breath before I even started blowing out the flames.
Another wick sizzled between Viv’s fingers. She was smiling, almost like she was baring her teeth.
It had worked. We were going to wield them as weapons against Seven Hills. Use them. They’d injured my friends. Didn’t that make them my enemies? Conner and Amanda especially. Shouldn’t I have wanted to use my enemies?
Another candle died between Viv’s wetted fingers.
“You’re going to burn yourself,” I said.
Viv lowered her head and blew.
I couldn’t look our initiates in their eager eyes as we met them outside of the barn, as Viv passed around glass jars with candles burning brightly within, and Harry and Graham led them into the trees toward the meteorite. Toward our stage. For Goldilocks, I promised myself. For her revenge. For us.
22
Graham took a winding route though the orchard. The boughs were thick and golden with leaves. Without their apples, the trees seemed taller. The initiates held their glass jar candles, one after the other, a light-touched tunnel burning through the dark.
I brought up the caboose with Viv. Her warm arm intermittently pressed against my skin.
Amanda and her friends slowed through the borderlands of the orchard. They stopped with the trees. The rock loomed ahead. For the six who hadn’t played on the meteorite as children, its landmark meant wilderness. It was death and mystery and nothing good.
Graham, standing on top, silhouetted against the bonfire, waited. Jess pushed to the front and crawled up first. Brave girl.
Halfway up the rock, my hands went slippery. The meteorite was like a conduit for mysterious appearances. I hesitated putting my toe in the last groove. Here we were, tempting it again. Only this time we were using it as a prop in a play. Even Goldilocks had become a prop. I winced. Stop. This was all for her. All for revenge.
The initiates gathered together. Graham and Harry flanked an old-fashioned leather trunk they had delivered earlier, when we built up the bonfire.
My eyes picked at its lock. Its rusted iron key was tucked in Graham’s pocket, yet I hoped it wouldn’t open. Let the key snap. Let the trunk’s resident stay hidden. Alive.
Graham flung his arms in the air and the chatter fell silent. He breathed loudly through his nose. “Thousands of years ago this meteorite fell to Earth. It came slowly and defied gravity. Left no crater.” The initiates toed curiously at the rock. This wasn’t what they’d expected. Odd. Kids in Seven Hills tended to forget that our town was home to mysteries.