I jumped up and down, giggling. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. You didn’t think your circle was going to ignore your eighteenth birthday, did you?”
I lifted my shoulders. “I’m pretty used to my birthmas being a disaster of smooshed holidays, so yeah—I did.”
“I hate that your birthday has always been so crappy,” he said. “I really wanted to change that for your eighteenth.”
“Hey, there were little bits of good with the crappy. Grandma always gave me something cool, and my little brother, Kevin, used to sneak me silly little things he made or got from the Dollar Store because my mom’s awful husband, the step-loser, used to only give me Jesus-themed gifts because, you know, the baby Jesus’ birthday is the only one that should be celebrated in December.”
“Oh, right, of course,” Stark said sarcastically.
“But it’s awesomesauce that my friends are surprising me! And well-timed awesomesauce, at that. I can give Neferet’s stupid journal to Damien. He’ll love studying it, and I can already hear him lecturing us about making it required reading and such for all House of Night students—a cautionary tale or whatever.”
“That’s probably a good idea. So, where is it?”
“You’re not gonna like this part.”
“Just this part? When it comes to Neferet, I don’t like any part,” he said.
“Neferet hid the journal in the floorboards under our bed,” I said.
Stark’s jaw clenched and unclenched before he spoke. “You’re right. I don’t like that part. At all.”
I sighed, giving our giant four-poster bed a long look. Stark and I had designed it ourselves. The tall posters were carved to look like four trees, their branches joining above us like a living canopy. “I wonder if it’s as heavy as I remember it being.”
“Well, as Stevie Rae would say, let’s get ’er done.”
“That thing was way heavier than I remembered it.” I wiped sweat from my face and tried to peek over Stark’s shoulder. He was on his knees using a pocketknife to dislodge the thick wooden panel in the floor that had made the ominously hollow sound as we’d knocked over every square inch beneath our bed.
“Uh, Z, you don’t remember the bed being heavy because the Sons of Erebus Warriors and I hauled the thing up here and put it together to surprise you. I remember how heavy it was.”
“Oh, well, that would be why then. OMG, there it is!” I gasped as Stark pulled a bundle that was wrapped in an old linen cloth from the hidden floor cubby. I held out my hands and he passed it gingerly to me, like it was an unexploded bomb. Carefully, I unwrapped it and found a worn, brown leather journal. The slender book was longer than it was wide. Its faded cover was unadorned, except for the very center. There, in surprisingly easy-to-read cursive, were the words “Emily Wheiler’s Journal,” which were marked through with an ominous X. Beside them, in the same handwriting, only much bolder, much darker, was the new title: Neferet’s Curse.
“Looks like we found the right book,” Stark said. This time it was his turn to peek over my shoulder.
“Looks like it,” I said.
Neither of us moved.
“Uh, you gonna open it?” he asked.
“I wish I didn’t have to.” I looked up from the journal to meet his concerned gaze. “How about we get breakfast first? Everything seems better after a big bowl of Count Chocula.”
“And brown pop?”
“Breakfast of champions,” I agreed, pulling on my sweat pants that were decorated with fat orange tabby cats.
“I’d usually say we shouldn’t procrastinate about this, but you’re right. It’s gonna read like a horror story, and that’ll be better on a full stomach. Plus, I need coffee. Now.”
I brushed my teeth and stuck my hair up in a messy ponytail, glad that one of the first rules I’d proposed when I’d officially become High Priestess of our new Council was to relax the dress code of the professors’ dining hall. Holding the journal carefully, I beat Stark to the door and opened it. Aphrodite fell forward, barely catching herself in time to not knock me over.
“Seriously? You’re lurking outside my bedroom door?” I shook my head at her. “That’s creepy AF.”
“Please don’t use text abbreviations when we’re talking. Out loud. I realize it’s your special little way to use cuss words without actually cussing, but it’s not cool,” she said, patting her flawless hair back into place.
“Aphrodite was just bein’ polite. We heard that bed a thumpin’ so we thought we’d wait until you was done. Like Aphrodite said—it didn’t take long.” Kramisha shoved past Aphrodite, eyes narrowed at the bed that was totally catawampus, off-centered and rumpled. The Vampyre Poet Laureate shook her head, making her gold, waist-length Beyoncé braids swirl as she sent Stark a look. “Boy, you got you some excess energy.”
“I don’t know whether I should be impressed or squeed out.” Along with Kramisha, Aphrodite was staring at our displaced bed.
I felt my cheeks flush with heat. “No, no, no. First, you’re wrong. Second, we’re not having this conversation. Third, what are you two doing here?” Magnet-like, my gaze was pulled to the lavender notebook Kramisha clutched in her hands.
“Yeah. It’s what you think. A poem woke me up. First time in almost a year,” Kramisha said.
“And because misery loves company, she woke me up,” Aphrodite said. “Have I mentioned how much I hate poetry?”
“Not for about a year,” Stark said.
“Thank you, Bow Boy,” she said. “And, as per usual, I couldn’t figure out what the hell the stupid thing was saying—hence the fact we’re both here.”
“Poems ain’t stupid,” Kramisha said firmly.
“Why do we have to keep going over this? ‘Ain’t’ isn’t a word,” Aphrodite countered.
“How ’bout we go over this—I’m gonna kick your tight white ass if you keep disparaging poetry. Is that a word?” Kramisha said with mock sweetness.
“That’s a bunch of words.” Aphrodite flipped her hair back. “And I don’t think the vamp Poet Laureate is supposed to resort to violence.”
“If you had to read the awful poems them kids be writin’ in my class you’d know that we in a war. A literacy war.”
“But I think that war’s figurative—not literal.” Aphrodite paused, shrugging her smooth shoulders. “What do I know, though? I’m shitty at figurative language so, war away. Just not on me. It’s unattractive.”
“Stop. I can’t deal with bickering today,” I said, and the two of them turned to face me. Instantly their expressions changed.
“Something’s up,” Aphrodite said. “Right?”
“Right,” I said.
“Double right,” Stark said.
“Yep. I knew it. That’s why I wrote this.” Kramisha thrust the purple pad at me, but before I could (reluctantly) take it, Aphrodite interrupted.
“What’s that?” She pointed at what I was still holding.