“We’re talking blood and fire on a grand scale,” Graham said. “What’s not scary about that?”
“This rebellion needs to be an obvious escalation. It needs to send the message that we’re not fooling around. We told Denton and Carver to resign. They didn’t do it. Everybody knows IV is angry over Goldilocks. She’s dead. I saw her dead body. Blood that looks like paint isn’t enough. It’s not the same as showing people a body.”
The wind whistled through the gap in the sliding door.
“The bones are for the final Goldilocks rebellion,” Graham said gently. “Not this one.”
I pushed away from the table and stood too quickly. Stars firing off before my eyes, I blinked at the bandage on my palm. Its corner had caught on the table. The scab was a black divot, like a wormhole on my hand that led anywhere. I said, “Not bone. Flesh and blood.”
“Like the dove,” Viv stated.
Driving pins into the dove’s heart made the initiates more malleable. Doing something that forbidden changes you. It brings all the other taboo acts out of the middle distance. No longer on the horizon. They’re possible. Close. Just say yes.
I wanted to leave a symbol like the dove for Seven Hills. But not to make them conspirators like our initiates. Sure, our neighbors worried they’d get hit again with spray paint. Maybe they even slept with the lights on, bats rested against the bedframes to be ready for the vandal. But it wasn’t the same kind of fear Goldilocks had experienced right before she died. Real fear didn’t live in Seven Hills. I wanted to crook my finger. Welcome it. Not to actually hurt people. Never, I told myself. Fear was enough.
“All those books you’ve been carrying around”—I pointed at Graham—“ritual sacrifice and guerilla movements and insurgencies . . . You’ve been reading about secret groups.”
He thumbed the dimple in his chin. “I have. Mostly because it’s an academic interest.”
“We’ve started a secret society, Graham.” I spread my arms, spun. “You had us recruit initiates. We’re calling ourselves an order. You haven’t been reading to help us?”
“Curiosity, Izzie. You understand that. These aren’t the kind of groups you want to model us after.”
I shook my head, ponytail swinging defiantly. “Isn’t there one thing—one thing you can think of to use? C’mon, Graham. Don’t chicken out on me now.” It was unfair appealing to his ego. It did always work, though.
Elbows on the table, he tented his hands under his chin. For a long time we stared at each other, unblinking. We were the monster the other had created—all our pushing and daring. We scooped up the line, tossed it far afield. Finally he sighed. I’d won. “There was a group in South America. They hung dogs from the lampposts while everyone slept.”
I swallowed. Viv covered her face. “Not dogs,” she said weakly.
“It was in Peru,” Harry said. “The Shining Path and the dogs represented the dogs of capitalism. They were a Marxist group.”
“And it worked,” Graham said. “People were terrified.”
“What about an animal that’s already dead?” I asked. “Like roadkill?”
“We just go driving around looking for corpses?” Graham said.
Viv rested her head on her folded arms. “I can’t believe we’re discussing this. I am not here.”
“I just . . .” I held my head. “Denton and Carver haven’t resigned. They didn’t take our note seriously. A girl is dead. A girl is dead.” My voice cracked. I felt apart from my three friends sitting calmly, watching me. I was closer in spirit to the night through the sliding door. I wanted to break something. Leave its pieces all over Seven Hills.
Harry walked over and put his arm around me. “We know, Izzie. We’ll make the rebellion horrifying. Maybe we can—”
I held my hand up, silencing him. “Let’s just get back to going over the plan, okay? Please?” I softened my face. I needed to focus. I wanted to think and plan, and if they didn’t have the stomach for what needed to be done, so what, I did.
His hand ran down my arm, fingers catching on mine, as he nodded.
? ? ?
The interior lights were all out except the foyer lantern when I got home. Dad was asleep. I still hadn’t thought to return my mom’s calls; five had registered on my cell as missed since the morning after she left. I wasn’t angry with her; I just didn’t want to think about anything other than the Order.
Not entirely true. I wanted to bring Harry inside. I thought about kissing him more. Keeping him in my room with me the whole night so I didn’t have to be alone. But more powerful than that desire was the pull of my fingers, itching to flick through photos of dead girls on my laptop. My anger needed more fuel. More fire for tomorrow’s rebellion. For what I believed needed to be sacrificed.
29
The next morning I woke up with the sun. I got dressed hastily, hit the button on the coffee maker in the kitchen, and waited for it to brew as I ate a Greek yogurt. With one thermos of brimming-hot coffee in my cup holder, I drove up the hill to Conner’s house. I could have walked, but I sensed that out on the street, Graham or Harry or Viv would see me, stop me, want to tag along. And then I couldn’t ask Conner for a favor. Give him a secret rite I didn’t want anyone else to know about. Break our rules; well, rules we hadn’t been explicit about. And misuse the secret rites in exactly the way I worried someone else might.
The four of us had agreed that the night’s rebellion was too sensitive to commit to paper. Instead, we’d tell our initiates where and when to meet us and what to bring.
It was a little after seven as I parked behind the other vehicles in the Welshes’s driveway: an SUV, a four-door sedan, a two-seater, and a boat. They were displayed, sparkling clean, with not so much as a frond from the palm trees on them. Even the sleek, modern design of the house made me feel like I was on the set of a music video.
I listened at the front door. Somewhere in the house there was the thump of bass. My finger fell away from the doorbell without pressing it. What if Sebastian Welsh opened the door? He was the most disturbing thing about Amanda’s secret.
The door was opening inward when I realized I should have texted Conner that I was coming or, better, to meet me out front. A woman in a plain gray dress and white apron stared at me.
“Hi. I’m here for Conner,” I said.
I hugged myself on the way to Conner’s room. The thumping bass grew louder as we got closer. It was noticeably colder inside the house than outside, all the polished concrete floors creating an atmosphere of refrigeration. Or a crypt. I could vaguely remember Conner’s eighth or ninth birthday and a party he invited the whole class to. I hadn’t been inside his house since then.
Conner’s room was immaculate. All polished chrome and black lacquer and a TV that took up most of the wall. Every surface dusted. No clutter of magazines or books or clothes. He looked up, startled, half stood, knocked his breakfast onto the carpet, and hit mute on the music playing.