Undead Girl Gang(55)

The girls have obviously been hard at work. When I walk into the kitchen, there’s a path of unlit candles marking the way to the basement steps. There are no signs of life in the living room except for Binx, who is chowing down on a very fat, wiggly field mouse. Blood stains the white fur around his mouth. It’s a shame that the mouse will be long gone by the time Caleb gets here. It would be hella unnerving.

Riley stomps up the stairs from the basement. She gives me a smile before she notices the cat mid-murder in the living room.

“Thackery Binx. That is a shitty way to greet company.”

“He’s an outdoor cat,” I say. “He’s never needed manners.”

“Fair point,” she says, bobbing her head. “Where the hell did you go yesterday? You disappeared and left your car behind. Dayton said you were going to the farmers’ market, but that sounded nuts—”

“No, she was right,” I say. It’s suddenly very hard to maintain eye contact. There’s a strip of shiny white fabric wrapped around her wrist that I recognize as a piece of her burial dress. She sees me staring and cradles the arm and its makeshift bandage to her stomach.

“My broken wrist isn’t bouncing back as fast when you come back,” she says hurriedly. “Well, nothing is bouncing back as fast. The spell did say we were going to die again in a week. We’re like ground meat slowly spoiling, and our best-by date is coming fast.”

“You aren’t meat, Ry. You’re a person.”

“A person being held together entirely by magic. When you aren’t here we’re all gross and goopy, but we still eat and talk and sleep like we’re normal and alive. But we’re not alive, and that’s kind of becoming more clear.” She pauses, then waves me off with her unbandaged wrist. “Don’t worry about it, okay? It’s really not a big deal. Just don’t be surprised if June’s neck flops around a little. Now, for real, why did you go to the farmers’ market yesterday? Were you running low on shitty music and homemade apple butter?”

“I went with Xander,” I say. And then quickly add, “I was standing out front waiting for you guys, and he drove by. I couldn’t tell him why I was really there, so I said I was going to go to the farmers’ market. He wanted to come with me.” Her eyes are bulging so hard that I can see the whites all the way around. “What?”

“You went on a date with my brother?”

“What? No!” But I have to stop and think about it. “We just hung out. I mean, we danced but then also cried. It was friendly mourning.”

“Who cried?” she asks. “Him? You?”

“Mostly him,” I say. And then, quickly, “Not that I’m not sad that you died, but I get to see you still and he doesn’t, plus he’s pretty torn up about June and Dayton dying, too.”

“Right,” she says, biting the inside of her cheek and nodding. “He must miss his friends . . .” Her voice drifts off. “You and he never hung out before I died though, right? I’ve been remembering a lot lately, but this feels new.”

“It’s new,” I say. “A lot of things have changed in the last two weeks. We had this nice moment when he gave me the rose quartz necklace—”

“My necklace,” she interrupts. “Which you won’t give back to me because you had a moment over it?”

The way she says it makes it sound like the stupidest reasoning ever, but that doesn’t make it less true.

“He gave me his dead sister’s most prized possession, Ry,” I say. “He’d notice if I wasn’t wearing it. What am I supposed to tell him? That you’re back and pissed that I borrowed your jewelry?”

“You’re right. It’s a good thing, I guess,” she says, a little distant. “I don’t want him to be alone. He needs a good friend right now. Why not my blister? You can keep his crybaby butt in line.” She flashes me a quick, tight smile. “How much time do we have? The sun went down forever ago, but we lost track of the minutes when Dayton got ‘Monster Mash’ stuck in her head.”

Half pulling my phone from my pocket, I check its clock. “We have half an hour. If Caleb is perfectly on time.”

She motions for me to follow her back downstairs.

The basement window has been boarded up again, and my eyes sting as they adjust to the darkness. The single wooden chair is in the center of the room, and candles burn in every corner, making June and Dayton’s shadows huge and distorted on the walls. The spell ingredients are piled neatly on top of the grimoire, alongside the mason jar we need to mix everything in. It’s more twee than a heavy, ancient chalice or something, but it’s the only cup we had on hand.

“Mila!” Dayton says. “How was your date?”

“It wasn’t a date,” I say, handing her my backpack so she can sort through everything. “We just hung out.”

“You and Xander are perfect for each other,” June says. “His natural Gemini flow won’t erode your Libra firmness.”

“Um. Cool,” I say, picking up the Mason Jar of Truth. “Thanks, June.”

You have to take what you can get in the June Phelan-Park compliment department.

I pour honey and vinegar into the jar, then add dried herbs, dandelion fluff, and a slew of acorn caps. I twist the lid shut and shake the mixture hard enough to make my arms quiver, reading the chant out of the grimoire.