Undead Girl Gang(19)

The dirt looks the same to me, but I can’t waste time worrying about it. I squint at the pages of the grimoire, reading the spell as slowly as I dare and changing the pronouns as I go.

“I ask the Earth to return the unjustly dead. Infinite Mother, return her soul to the body in this soil. Set her heart to beating, as the wings of the crows fly. Balance her humors to resting.” I kneel in the dirt and reach for the jar of creek water. I pour it carefully, making a wobbly power sigil inside the honeysuckle-branch circle.

“Take back the steel that stole her breath. Take back the tears I shed. Take back the time we have been parted. Bind her to her body with this dancing flame and midnight air, wishing breath and reflecting light.” I dig my index finger into the dirt, making seven hash marks. The creek water makes them smear.

“Seven beating hearts to her one,” I say, and it’s hard not to recoil as I twist open the lid of the moth jar. I have to catch a fluttering fugitive in my hand and smack it down into the first tiny grave. I smash another to the ground, turning away from its writhing body as I bury its wings. “Enough life to strike a spark.” I crush each moth to the ground and scoop the crumbly soil over them. Not enough to smother them. They have to breathe until their lives trade for Riley’s. “One for each day she will walk.

“Give back what was unjustly took,” I say, and I’m not asking anymore. I’m telling. I’m telling the dripping beeswax candles and the moths dying in the dirt. I’m telling the stars watching over me and the wind pushing ice over my cheeks. “Hear me and heed me. This murdered girl will no longer lie. Set her feet to walking. Send her back to me.”

And now the dangerous part. I lift the North candle and tip its flame into the nest of hair, then again onto my eyeliner-stained pillowcase. The flames shoot up, hot and high. The air stinks from scorched hair and melting plastic. Sparks fizz up into the breeze. I stand up straight, holding my arms over my head.

“So mote it be!” I scream at the moon, imagining every cell of power in my body as a blue lightning blaze surging downward, through the dirt and the roots and the casket. For a moment, I’m not stretch-marked skin or wet socks or girl-shaped. I am wielding the will of the Goddess herself.

Except.

There’s nothing.

The twin fires in the circle die down to embers. There’s no more hair. There’s no more pillowcase. The lip gloss tube is melted to mush except for the thick plastic applicator. Even the wind has died down. There’s nothing but the cavernous echo of failure inside me.

I crumple to the ground. Distantly, I wonder about the cops. Whether anyone driving by can see the flickering light of the candles. If I even give a shit. I’ll tell them the same thing I’ve told everyone else—my parents, Dr. Miller, the not-going-to-help-me Goddess: My friend is dead. My friend was murdered. And I’m alone. I’ll be alone whether I’m in a graveyard or the back of a cop car or at home in my room minus one Pua doll.

I beat my fist into the circle. “How could you leave me alone here? Why were you even at the creek that night? And why the fuck would anyone kill you?”

The question that needs answering. Guess I solved the riddle after all.

I hear the earthquake starting. It’s like a semitruck hitting full speed, coming right at you, rumbling the ground miles below all the way up to the surface. I know I need to blow out the candles so that the quake doesn’t knock them over and set the whole cemetery on fire, but nausea slams into me before the quake does. My spit goes hot and thin and clear all at once.

The ground trembles beneath me. It shakes the bile out of my throat. I roll to the side, clawing at the grass. The sounds of my heaves are buried under the roar of the plates shifting underground. I close my eyes to keep from watching my dinner fountain out. I can’t seem to stop. I gasp for breath, and it only serves to refresh my body for another round. Everything is sour and hot and burning.

When the quake stops, my limbs are trembling and weak. Still shuddering, I’m curled into the fetal position with my cheek pressed into the cold ground. I hear myself whimper. I want water to rinse the bitterness out of my cheeks, but the water I brought with me is to tamp down the soil, to make sure that I don’t leave any sparks behind.

Maybe I always expected the spell to fail. Riley was right. My confirmation bias is a hindrance to my magic. Or I never had any magic to begin with. The only people who ever believed that I do are Toby—a batshit biker granny—and Riley—the friend I failed to save.

The smell of cotton candy permeates the night air. It’s an unmistakable scent—spun sugar swirled over flowers and baby powder. The bottle it sprays out of is round and obnoxiously pink. I saw it the day before yesterday in the bathroom above the Greenway Funeral Home. It was next to Riley’s toothbrush.

“Mila?” The voice is right. Rasping and a little asthmatic.

I force myself to roll onto my back.

Riley Marie Greenway is standing in a short white party dress that’s way too fancy for our surroundings and in flip-flops that are slightly too small for her feet. Her toenails have chipped black polish. I guess Mr. Greenway didn’t think anyone would ever see them again. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, the bleachy yellow washed to white in the moonlight. Her dark eyebrows pinch together over her nose in a concerned slash.

“Were you puking?” she asks. Her eyelashes flutter, and she staggers forward a step, staring up at the sky. “Fuck a duck, it’s cold. Why are we in the graveyard?”