Jilo (Witching Savannah #4)(49)

Still, a body needed to have a little fun from time to time, so on occasion, Jilo sneaked out to the clubs on Auburn. Hardly a sin, and sure as hell not a crime.

She opened one eye, doing her best to remember how much she loved this girl yapping at her. “Mary Ellen Campbell. You know better than to say ‘ain’t.’ You are an educated woman. You need to speak like one.” Pulling her hands free of Mary’s grasp, she let her other eye pop open too, her vision still a little blurry from sleep. “And no, I don’t go there to meet any goddamned man. I go for the music.”

“There, at least you’re awake now,” Mary said, her eyebrows rising as a self-satisfied smile rose to her lips. “Now you better get moving.” She wagged her finger in Jilo’s face.

“You better pull that thing back unless you want to be left with a bloody stump.”

“Mmm,” Mary said, dropping her hand to her hip. “You sure are mean when you’re hung over. Maybe next time you sneak out, you should do a bit more dancing and a bit less drinking.”

Jilo wished she could see her own expression, because whatever came across her face was fierce enough to shut Mary up instantly. Her friend wandered over to the cracked mirror that hung on the wall, her back to Jilo, and began smoothing her hair. “I’m only trying to look out for you,” she said, an obvious quaver in her voice.

“Oh damn it,” Jilo whispered under her breath. She hadn’t even made it all the way out of bed, and she’d already hurt her best friend’s feelings. She pushed herself up. “Listen. I’m sorry.”

Mary spun back around. “You’re always pushing your luck. Trying to see how much you can get away with before you get caught.”

“I’ve been caught plenty of times.”

“Yes, and for some reason the rules don’t seem to apply to you,” Mary said, her voice heating back up, “the way they do for the rest of us.”

It was true. The other girls faced swift and certain repercussions when they stepped out of line, but that line did seem a little less straight and narrow when it came to Jilo. Though she wouldn’t say so out loud, she figured Nana must have cut a deal with the reverend. Seemed that the papists hadn’t completely cornered the market on the selling of indulgences.

Fat tears fell from Mary’s eyes, missing her cheeks entirely and dropping to the floor like rain through their leaky roof. “Sooner or later you are gonna go too far. And Pastor Jones is going to kick you out. And your nana, she’s gonna make you go home . . .” Her words petered out as her moist eyes widened. “And I’ll miss you when you’re gone.”

She eyed Mary up and down, testing her for sincerity, trying to determine if this was just another ploy to get her to do as she wanted. Jilo pursed her lips and looked down at the floor, doing her best to convey that she was not in the least little bit impressed by Mary’s histrionics. Still, it was the damnedest thing, but she could tell Mary really was worried.

“All right. All right.” Jilo threw up her hands. “I’ll get ready.” She went to the chest of drawers and took hold of the bucket where she kept her toiletries—her permitted toiletries, that was. Her blue eye shadow and Venetian-red lipstick were hidden in the false bottom of a hatbox that she kept in the closet.

“I’ll make your bed for you,” Mary said, suddenly all sunshine.

Mary’s sudden transformation fired up the worst in Jilo. She said the one thing that was sure to get her friend going again. “The pastor has no business going on thinking he is morally superior to the rest of humanity anyway. None of this God stuff is true. There is no such thing as God.”

Mary’s mouth fell wide open, causing Jilo to chuckle at the sight.

“Oh, Jilo. Don’t you go saying that,” Mary said, once her jaw started working again. “I know you don’t believe any such thing. You are simply trying to get a rise out of me, but it ain’t gonna work.”

“It isn’t going to work,” Jilo said, correcting her friend’s speech automatically, out of habit.

“No it isn’t,” Mary said. It was easy to pin the exact moment when she realized Jilo hadn’t taken her point, and was just correcting her grammar again. “You don’t believe that. I know you don’t.”

Jilo wondered at her own mean streak. She had no reason to try and shake her friend up. No other reason beyond that it was too early, she was hung over, and, well, even under the best of circumstances, perkiness just kind of ticked her off.

“ ’Course not,” she said to mollify her friend. As soon as the smile returned to Mary’s face, Jilo looked away. She couldn’t risk having their eyes meet, for then Mary would know she was lying. Truth was, having grown up surrounded by her nana’s put-on magic, Jilo didn’t believe in anything she couldn’t see with her own eyes. Oh, sure, she couldn’t see things like magnetism, radio waves, and electricity, but there were scientific tests to prove that those things were real. That they existed. As far as Jilo knew, no one had managed to come up with a test that would prove the existence of the bearded old buckra in the sky.

A rap on the door pulled Jilo from her thoughts. “Miss Wills,” Mrs. Jones’s voice came through the door. “The pastor needs to speak with you. Immediately.”