Undead Girl Gang(56)
“Let the truth raze down the lies that bloom, let the truth raze down the lies that bloom.”
Riley takes a piece of chalk and writes a series of sigils under the wooden chair. One for peacemaking. One for free-flowing speech. One for luck.
“Let’s hope they work,” she says, dusting off her hands.
Dayton hands me the empty backpack and one of the walkie-talkies.
“Okay, get out,” she says, her face as smiling and pleasant as ever, even as she starts to push me toward the stairs.
“What?” I push back. “What the hell? Caleb is going to be here, like, any minute.”
“Exactly,” June says. I can’t help but notice that her breath is not minty fresh. It’s distinctly rank. Like rotting fish and old milk. It might the only thing I’ve ever smelled that is worse than wet cat food. Is this part of the not bouncing back that Riley mentioned? “We can’t scare him with you around. You make us look normal. We’ve been practicing our zombie faces every night this week. Dayton, show her.”
Dayton puts up her hands like she’s a tiny attacking bear. Throwing herself into my face, she growls and waggles her tongue, groaning loudly.
“Oh,” I say, hooking a thumb toward Dayton, who is standing in freeze-frame so I can admire her work. “I see the problem. This is adorable.”
“But imagine it with her neck all broken,” Riley says. “And the white eyes and the veins and all that shit. It’s pretty gross.”
“Yeah, we realized that we can see part of Riley’s skull in the right light.” Dayton beams. I choke down the urge to puke. This is definitely a dead-girl thing.
“You’ll feel when you’re far enough away, right?” June asks.
“Right,” I say. I can’t keep the touch of disappointment out of my voice. Not to sound like the Little Red Hen, but I made the potion, I found the murderer, and I don’t even get to be part of the scream team? That’s trash.
“We won’t let you miss out on the truth spell,” Riley promises. “We’ll use the walkies to bring you back once he’s thoroughly scared.”
Feeling a bit like I’m being kicked out of the clubhouse, I run back upstairs. Binx is nowhere to be found, although the decapitated head of his mouse is staring at the wall. Gross. The house isn’t big enough for me to get a hundred steps away, so I go out into the chill of the night and walk into the woods until I feel the snap of the thread connecting me to the girls. The air is cold enough to sting the inside of my nose. The waning gibbous moon is trapped on the other side of the branches over my head.
Bouncing up and down to keep warm, I watch as a bicycle kicks up dust all the way down the driveway. The dark outline of a person walks up the porch, scaring off a small raccoon. I assume he sees that the front door is boarded up, because he walks back toward his bike. I bite the inside of my cheek. I really wish I had Harry Potter–style magic, where I could point a wand and have the door magically open for him.
It seems to take an entire decade, but Caleb finally walks around the side of the house, whispering something I can’t hear. He sees the back door and goes inside.
I snap the elastic band at my wrist. I don’t know if I still need to wear it, but the snapping has become a habit. Tonight, it’s helping me stay alert when all I want to do is text Xander or run to the basement to watch Caleb getting his comeuppance. I can’t even hear his screams from this far away.
The walkie-talkie buzzes to life in my hand. There’s so much static that I can barely make out Riley’s voice calling me back.
I’m panting as I rush down the stairs to the basement again. This isn’t the most menacing entrance for the Grand High Witch of Cross Creek, but I don’t need to worry, because Caleb doesn’t notice me. His sandy brown hair is in front of his face, and he’s sobbing into his chest as Dayton ties his arms around the back of his chair with more of the white fabric torn from Riley’s burial dress. June is backed all the way against the wall, her hands splayed against the stones. Her face is ghostly white like she’s been haunted herself. The bruise on her neck is slow to disappear.
Caleb pulls in a rattling, vacuum-like sob. This might be the first time I’ve ever seen him not smirking or looking for someone to high-five. He doesn’t even seem to notice that his arms are being tied to a chair or that there are sigils under his feet. He only has eyes for June.
“I can’t believe it,” he says in between brays. “God, June, I’ve missed you so much.”
EIGHTEEN
“YOU MISSED ME?” June repeats. Hearing the roughness in her voice, she lifts a self-conscious hand to the disappearing bruise on her throat. Blood oozes out of her nail beds. Her eyes narrow. “You don’t miss me. Mila! Truth him.”
Normally, I wouldn’t hop-to when June barks an order, but I recognize the uncertainty in her tone. Something has gone wrong. She won’t stop making eye contact with Caleb. I move around the edge of the room, picking up the mason jar. The drowned acorn shells and floating green bits of herbs aren’t very intimidating. I shake them together roughly. The grimoire says that the mixture needs to be at a full froth to reach its maximum effectiveness.
“I knew you wouldn’t kill yourself,” Caleb whispers reverently to June. He’s actively working to stop crying as though that’s the thing making her yell at him. His heavy lips stretch flat. “I knew you would never leave voluntarily.”