At Stephanie Beecham's, the street was full of car doors slamming. The noise of voices was steady as people filed up to the house and around back. They were mostly in costumes, even though Halloween wasn't until Tuesday.
The whole neighborhood was decorated for the season. There were paper skeletons in the windows and jack-o'lanterns on all the porches. The rain had settled down to a steady drizzle. In Stephanie's front yard, someone had staked a burlap scarecrow of Gentry's own monster of legend, the Dirt Witch. Its hair was made of wire and twine, and someone had drawn a snarling face on the burlap in marker. It loomed off to the side of the porch looking huge and sinister.
Roswell and I walked up the driveway without talking. He didn't have a costume exactly, but he was wearing a pair of pointy plastic teeth that fitted over his real ones. He kept giving me strange sideways looks.
"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You didn't--ow!" He touched his lip and then his new plastic teeth. "You didn't open the window. You know how long it's been since you didn't open the window in my car?"
And I realized that was true. I was fine, even after fifteen minutes in the car. "Is that a problem?"
"No. But it's weird."
I nodded and we stood at the top of the driveway, looking at each other. Behind us, someone was shouting the words to the school fight song, high and off-key.
We headed for the open side gate and started around to the back of the house.
The back door opened into a big, brightly lit kitchen, where too many things were shaped or painted like cows.
And there was Tate. Because she was everywhere, creeping in at the edges, getting all tangled up in my life, and she couldn't leave it alone. She smiled when she saw me, but it was a fierce, triumphant smile, like she'd just beaten me at some kind of game.
She was leaning against the counter between Drew and Danny. She wasn't wearing a costume either, but she had on this bizarre sort of headband. Two shining stars stuck up from it, swaying back and forth on long stalks. They were raining glitter everywhere.
I took a deep breath and tried to act normal, sliding past her on my way to the refrigerator. I got a can of Natty Light off the shelf on the door and retreated across the kitchen.
Danny was at the sink, knocking around with measuring spoons and bottles, doctoring up some kind of mixed drink. He had on a store-bought skeleton costume with a gray zip-front hoodie over it, like the title character in the movie Donnie Darko. Drew was dressed like Frank the Rabbit of the same film, but his mask was off and lying on the counter.
When he was done adding sloe gin and grenadine, Danny shoved the glass across the counter at Drew. "Try that and tell me what it needs."
Drew took a sip, then coughed and set the glass down. "That's awful."
Danny scowled and tossed a dripping tablespoon at him. "You're awful. I'm looking for constructive feedback, asshole. What does it need?"
Drew threw the tablespoon back. "It needs to be taken out and shot."
"Make your own damn drink, Mr. Mixology."
They punched each other in a friendly way, then Danny slipped the bunny mask over Drew's head and they started for the living room. As they walked out, Drew reached over and yanked Danny's hood down over his face.
Roswell had already made a timely exit--probably to see where Stephanie was. I was alone with Tate, not sure whether to start planning my escape because as unappealing as the idea of talking about her dead sister was, I was pretty sure she was just going to follow me, and it might be smarter to get the conversation over with while no one else was around.
I could see the shape of her, the curve of her body under the T-shirt. I knew I should stay back, but suddenly, all I wanted was to touch her. I crossed the kitchen and stood next to her so at least we wouldn't be shouting our secrets at each other across a room. Her mouth was set in a hard, cynical smile, and nothing good could come of it. Her hair smelled like grapefruit and something light and fluttery that seemed out of place on her, but it was nice.
"What are you supposed to be?" I asked, reaching over to flick one of her antennae.
"Oh, I don't know--I'm a robotic praying mantis. I'm a Martian. I'm aluminum foil. What are you supposed to be?"
I set down my beer and pressed my hands flat on the counter. I'm not me--I'm someone else.
I'm a normal, ordinary person, born to a normal, biological family, with brown eyes and fingernails that don't turn blue just because the cafeteria ladies used steel trays for the french fries instead of aluminum.
But I didn't say anything. Her eyes were hard and mysterious. She reached for Danny's failed drink without looking away from my face.
I dropped my chin and watched the floor. "Stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
Like I'm stupid and pathetic and you hate me?
I shrugged. "I don't know. Nothing." I glanced up and gave her a helpless look. "Just, what are you even doing here?"
There was a fast, pop-y track playing on the stereo--you know the one--how everything will be all right and you just have to be yourself and try your hardest and it'll work out and all that other bullshit. In the next room, girls were dancing together, singing along.
"The amazing thing about this song," Tate said, in a voice that sounded aggressively cheerful, like she wasn't changing the subject completely. "The amazing thing about this song is that it contains absolutely no irony."
Her gaze was direct, full of a sadness so raw and crystallized that I could see the shape of it. It ringed her pupils in rusty starbursts, but she was grinning--this terrible, ferocious grin. It made her look like she wanted to tear someone's throat out.
I leaned against the counter, trying to think of something to say that would end the discussion and not drag it out. I needed something definitive that would take care of the problem once and for all. She just finished Danny's drink in one long swallow, grinning up at me.
I couldn't work out what she actually wanted. Her sister was dead. Whether being dead happened in a pretty box on Welsh Street or someplace else, it didn't make a difference. Dead was irreversible. It was permanent. You couldn't do anything about it, and still, Tate seemed determined to take it back, like with the right answer, she could fix everything.
Her eyes were hard, and glitter showered from her headband, dusting the shoulders of her jacket. "Do you believe in fairy tales?"
"No."
"Not even the nice, grown-up kind where you follow all the rules and you work really hard and get a good job and a family and everything is happily ever after?"
I snorted and shook my head.
"Good. Then you should be just as righteously pissed as I am that everyone around here loves a nice game of Let's Play Pretend."
"Look, you're taking this way out of context. I'm sorry about your sister, I really am. It's awful. But for the love of God, this is not exactly my problem."
Her smile looked frozen on suddenly, and she opened her eyes wide. Her voice was high and mocking and mean. "Oh, let's play pretend, Mackie! Let's play the part where you grow a pair and face basic facts and stop acting like everything is sunshine and unicorns! Let's play that you start treating the girl like she has half a brain and tell her all about how sometimes, nasty little monsters show up in the bed where her sister used to sleep. Why don't you tell her about that?"
My cheeks got hot, like I'd just been slapped in the face. "Why?" I said, and the question sounded very loud, coming out in a harsh bark. I brought my voice down to a whisper. "Why should I? What's in it for me?"
She looked up at me and shook her head, making silver sparkles dance all around her. "You really think that everyone is stupid, don't you?"
For a second I stopped breathing. Then I leaned close and made my voice as hard and as mean as possible. "So, now I'm supposed to be some kind of expert on why your family's all tragic? What did I ever do to make you think that any of this is my responsibility?"
Tate's laugh was short and scornful. "Believe me, if I'd had a choice, I would have picked someone with a little more backbone. You're kind of all I've got."
I threw the beer in the sink, where it foamed up in a white froth, and pushed myself away from the counter. Away from the kitchen and Tate's hard, merciless grin.
For the first time since Drew and Danny's art project, I thought about my locker and for a second, I got the idea that maybe Tate was the one who'd scratched Freak on the door. The idea died a quick death, though. The graffiti had happened the day of the funeral, which pretty much ruled her out, for the simple reason that I hadn't pissed her off yet.
In the living room, the sound system was louder, the crowd thicker. I made my way between superheroes and slutty witches, trying to find a place I could escape to.
"Mackie!" Alice was sitting on the sofa, smiling, waving at me. "Mackie, come over here." Everything about her was so effortless, a glossy island, normal, relieving. Just what I needed.
When I sat down next to her, she moved closer, so that her leg pressed against mine. She smelled like tequila and some kind of powdery perfume that made my eyes water.
She was dressed like a cat, which I thought was a very obvious costume. It was easier to think of her in a cotton tennis uniform, far away and spotless. But there was no avoiding the clip-on ears and the waxy black whiskers drawn on her cheeks. Every third girl was a cat.
"Hey," she said leaning closer. Her hair had come loose from one of the clips and it skimmed my arm in tangled waves. "We should go somewhere quiet."
Her lips were slick and shiny looking. In her mouth, the barbell still hummed at me--a mean, wicked little song. I wondered if the Most Beneficial Hawthorn was strong enough to protect me from the steel. Whether I even really wanted what I thought I wanted. I wanted to kiss her and not in the pure, longing way you want to kiss someone. I wanted it the way you sometimes want to jump into very cold water, even though you know it won't feel good. I wanted to go numb. To see what it felt like to be someone else.
She moved so that her chest was against my shoulder. "Do you want to go sit somewhere?"
"We are sitting." My hands were sweating.
She gave me an annoyed look and tipped her head to one side. "I bet there's someplace more private, though--upstairs? Bedrooms or something."
I didn't know how to answer. Yes and yes and no and yes.
I glanced in the direction of the stairs and then I almost stopped breathing.
Two girls were standing halfway up the stairs, leaning their elbows on the banister and whispering to each other.
One was pretty, wearing a huge, puffy dress, complete with a crown and a silver star wand. She looked soft and pinkish, the kind of girl who gets kissed awake at the end of a fairy tale, but she was short. Really short. Standing next to me, she wouldn't have come up to my elbow. Also, she had the biggest ears I'd ever seen on a real person.
She was standing up on the baseboard with her feet struck through the slats, holding on to the banister. She was talking up at the other girl, who wasn't small or pink or cute.
The second girl's face was shiny, like skin after a bad burn. There was a jagged ring around her neck. No blood, just torn flesh and raw edges. Her grin was lunatic, almost as wide as the gash.
She was looking out over the crowded room, and when she smiled, she was smiling at me.
I turned to Alice. "We should go outside."
She shook her head. "It's cold out."
Across the room, the girl stepped away from the banister and started down the stairs. Even from the couch, I smelled the low stink of something dead. It wasn't a costume.
I grabbed Alice harder than I meant to, yanking her up off the couch. "Let's just go outside, okay? Let's go for a walk."
Out in the backyard, people were standing around in little clusters on the covered patio, laughing and smoking, drinking beer out of plastic cups. I tried to breathe slower, but my heart was beating hard and fast in my throat.
Next to me, Alice was wrestling with the cat costume. "God, this tail is so obnoxious."
It was, but not in the way she meant. Suddenly, she was right in front of me, pushing herself up on her toes.
In her mouth, the barbell twanged at me. Her hand on my arm was warm. Her lips were less than three inches away. I swallowed and tried to figure out why this wasn't the best moment of my whole life.
"What's wrong?" she said, breathing out another gust of tequila and stainless steel. She put a hand on her hip. "Look, are you gay or something?"
I stared at her. She was beautiful in the porch light and very far away. I shook my head.
"What's wrong with you, then? Seriously."
But she'd never really looked at me. She'd never seen me. Here she was, making up some complicated story, when Tate was right--the answer had always been dangerously obvious to anyone who felt like looking.
Tate, her face inches from mine as she stared up me, telling me that thing in the box wasn't her sister, that something else had died in her sister's bed and all she wanted was for someone to listen when she talked.
Alice leaned closer. "Are you even listening to me?"
But I wasn't. I was standing under a rain-soaked tree with a girl whose sister was one more casualty of our shitty little town and who had the good sense to be angry about that instead of heartbroken. It was the only thing I could think of and Alice was so far away.
The screen door slammed behind us and I turned, bracing myself for the two strange girls, but it was Tate. She'd come out onto the back steps and was looking down at us with her elbows propped on the handrail, silver-glitter stars swaying back and forth.
The light from the kitchen was shining behind her. It lit her hair around the edges, giving her a halo, like a neon supernatural being wearing deely boppers. I couldn't see her face, but her silhouette was going back and forth between us. Me. Alice. Me. Alice.
I stood in the yard and looked up, like she was a girl on a balcony. She stepped out from in front of the light and I could finally see her face. I don't know what I'd been expecting. Something remarkable, I guess. She looked like she always did. Completely unimpressed.
"Roswell's looking for you." Her mouth was thin and she was staring me right in the face.
I found him in the living room with a bunch of the student-council girls. He grinned and waved me over, then lunged to tickle Stephanie, making her laugh every time he pretended to chew on her with his fangs.
I squeezed in next to Jenna Porter, who was looking bored and a little drunk. She was dressed in a toga, with leaves in her hair, but she was wearing her normal shoes. They were bright red, with little flowers die-cut on the toes, and didn't match her costume.
"Hey," I said.
She nodded and gave me a smile. Over by the coat closet, the two strange girls stood whispering behind their hands. I pretended not to see, but Jenna glanced at them, shaking her head.
"I can't wait to get out of here," she mumbled, touching the little steel cross around her neck. "As soon as we graduate, I'm moving to New York."
"What's in New York?" I said, raising my eyebrows. My voice sounded easy, but the staring girls were making it hard to act normal. Suddenly, the last thing I was in the mood for was making conversation.
Jenna shrugged. "Chicago, then. Or Boston or L.A. or wherever." Her eyes slid out of focus, and she smiled without looking like she meant it. "Screw it--I'll go to Newark or Detroit if it means getting out of this godforsaken place."
She didn't have to say what she was really thinking--if it means getting away from these people.
I opened my mouth, trying to think of something generic and reassuring. Then I smelled rotting meat.
The girl with the torn throat had started toward me. She was pushing her way through the crowd with the little pink one scrambling after her, and my pulse was wildly out of control.
Jenna made a whining noise, somewhere between disgusted and scared. "That's the nastiest costume I've ever seen. Seriously. What are you supposed to be?"
The rotting girl didn't answer. She just turned on Jenna with her crazed smile, and Jenna backed away, looking glad to be going. I was on my own, with a girl who looked like she'd climbed out of a grave.
"Are you avoiding us?" she said, coming in close. Her breath smelled cold and stale. "I'd have thought the hawthorn was good for a chat, anyway."
"Go away," I said in a whisper, looking past her, trying not to watch the way her neck gaped and squelched when she talked.
She smiled wider. Her teeth were sharp and yellow. "What's wrong? Are you worried we'll attract attention? Expose your little secret? This is our season, dear--the time when even the worst of us can go out on the town and look just like everyone else."
"Did you see the Orionid shower last night?" the little pink one asked, peering out at me from behind the other girl. "The Orionids are falling all the time now--astral bodies separating from the parent body. They originate from Halley's comet. Did you see them?"
I shook my head. Her cheeks were very pink.
"They won't peak until Monday. You have plenty of time."
The other girl turned on her. "Shut up, you ninny. No one cares about stars."
"He does," said the little pink one. "I saw him gazing in the kitchen. He was positively coveting them." She waved her toy wand at the other girl and tried to pat my arm. "It's quite all right, you know. Not everyone is as unmoved by beauty as she is."
I stared straight ahead, tasting rancid meat every time I breathed. "Look, what do you guys want?"
The other girl smiled wider. "You, of course. We've been hunting for you."
"Yes," said the little pink one, smiling so that her eyes squinted into crescents. "We're hunting." Then she tipped her head back and laughed like that was the funniest thing she'd ever heard.
The other girl leaned close, staring into my face with milky eyes. "Your foster sister accepted our services and now she owes us a favor. Come to the slag heap and be quick about it. If you don't, we'll find Emma and take the price out of her skin."
"Oh, don't be hateful," the pink one said, swatting the other girl with her wand. She turned to me. "Malcolm, please, if you're amiable and cooperative, everything is going to be fine."
Then they were gone and I was standing in Stephanie Beecham's very floral living room, with a taste in my mouth that reminded me of roadkill. She had called me Malcolm.
Drew was next to me suddenly, smelling stoned and a little like papier-mache. "Jesus," he said, taking off his rabbit mask. "What was that all about?"
I turned to face him. "What was what about?"
"Those girls just now." His expression seemed to narrow. "It looked like a pretty intense conversation is all."
I shrugged and looked down. "I never met them before." Which, as we both knew, was not an answer to anything, no matter how factual the statement sounded.
He raised his eyebrows in a suggestive way. "Just as long as you weren't planning on hooking up with one of them. The tall one was ass ugly."
"That's not really a danger," I said, and reached for Roswell's arm. "Hey, you ready to get out of here?"
He didn't act surprised--he never did--just pinched Stephanie's cheek and started for the door.
In the car, we sat looking ahead, not talking. My heart was skipping beats all over the place.
Roswell turned the key in the ignition. "So, are you up for going over to Mason's for a little?"
"Nah--" My voice sounded weird even to me and I started over. "I should get home. Stuff to do . . ."
Roswell nodded and put the car in gear. His profile was serious and younger looking than normal.
I didn't say anything else because I couldn't think of anything to say. There were too many things in my head. I told myself that Emma was at home, working on a botany project, maybe, or curled up with a book, already in bed. That she was safe. She had to be because I couldn't stand to consider the possibility that she wasn't.
Come to the slag heap, like some kind of invitation. But the slag heap was just a crumbling pile of rubble. It was weedy and abandoned, nothing to find if I went there.
Except if the girls were as unnatural as they seemed, there would have to be a secret that went along with it. There would be a way in because sometimes at night, the dead rose and walked around deserted streets. If you listened to the rumors and the dark murmurs of bedtime stories, something lived under the quicklime and the shale. I was no expert, but the girl at the party had been dead. The smell coming off her was the rank, clotted smell of decay, and nothing could live with its veins and arteries cut open. Her smile had been horrific, and I had a sneaking fear that she was just the beginning of what I'd find if I went there.
But only one thing really mattered as I stared out the passenger window on the drive home. Emma. She'd been trying to help--and the little bottle of hawthorn water had helped--but what was the payback, the price? When I thought about it that way, though, the answer didn't matter. I couldn't let anything happen to her. So I knew what I had to do.