There was a knocking on the door and Em jumped.
“What?” she called, too sharply.
“You awake, sweetie? Gabby will be here in about half an hour. . . . ” Her mom’s voice floated tentatively through the door.
“I’m up, Mom,” she called back, trying to make her voice sound as groggy-normal as possible. Em moved over to her nightstand and forced the motions of her morning routine—after only a week, it felt unfamiliar, like trying to squeeze into someone else’s jeans. She began to run a comb through her long layers. “I’ll be down in a few.”
She moved robotically, washing her face and brushing her teeth, trying to think of normal things. Math class. Spring break. Digging through her dresser drawer, she found a blue henley, one of her favorites—worn thumbholes, soft as flannel. She was pulling it over her head when she began to gag, a wrenching, sudden feeling of sickness that burst from her stomach into her throat.
The smell. It wasn’t her.
Someone else had worn this shirt.
She tugged frantically, trying to get it off her body, finding her head stuck in the collar, like hands around her jaws. Get off me. Get it off. The feeling wasn’t too far from what she imagined it would be like to be thrust into a barrel of snakes.
Finally she was free of the fabric; she threw the shirt as far as she could muster. That smell. Like flowers drooping—just slightly dead, emanating their last bit of sad sweetness. Disgusting. If her mom was using new detergent, she’d have to throw it away.
With a shudder, she plucked a plain white T-shirt from the drawer.
Gabby was already honking outside; Em looked out the window and could see her car idling in the driveway. She hurriedly finished dressing, pulling a black hoodie over her head and kicking through the pile of clothes on her floor. She needed a pair of jeans—any pair—that didn’t look like it had been balled in a corner for seven days. Finally she found a pair of dark denim that wasn’t too wrinkled and slipped them on, nearly tripping over herself as she rushed out of her bedroom. She flew downstairs before stopping short; if her mom was in the kitchen there would be an awkward pep talk. Confirming the coast was clear, Em shoved a pile of books into her bag and grabbed a yogurt from the counter.
“Thanks, Mom!” she shouted as she slammed out the front door.
As soon as she settled into the passenger seat, she felt instantly relieved. Gabby handed her a steaming cup of hot chocolate and gave her a quick once-over.
“You look good,” Gabby said, raising her perfectly groomed eyebrows in approval.
“Really?” Em responded, pulling down the sun visor to look at herself in the mirror.
“Really,” Gabby said. “More beautiful than ever. Welcome back.”
She smiled back. “That’s what best friends are for, right?” She reached over and squeezed her hand, then winced. “Circulation, much? Your hands are freezing.”
Emily wrapped her hands around her cup of cocoa as Gabby reversed out of Em’s driveway, barely missing the mailbox, as usual. Em felt her spirits lift a little. Normal. A normal beginning to a regular day. It was amazing how much she had come to crave the everyday, regular-routine stuff of life, and to appreciate it. Just like she had a new appreciation for the people she loved. Gabby had been inconceivably generous with her forgiveness during the past few months. First there was the fiasco with Zach over the holidays, when Em had betrayed Gabby in the worst possible way—by hooking up with her best friend’s sleazebag boyfriend. Then Gabby had to adjust to Em’s blooming friendship with Drea—a girl they used to make fun of together. And Em had waited some time before telling Gabby, her oldest and best friend, that she was in love. In love with her next-door neighbor JD Fount.
Honestly, Em had started to wonder if she even deserved a best friend like Gabby—who, even now, bounced her head back and forth in perfect time to the radio. Em took a sip of her hot chocolate, wishing it tasted as good as she remembered. But all this thinking about how she’d betrayed Gabby made her want to puke. And all for him. Zach.
He loomed like a specter over their friendship. Zach McCord, Gabby’s slimeball ex. He’d played both of them, cheating on Gabby and making Em feel superspecial, when really she was just another trophy for his collection. She had to admit that she was grateful he’d left school. There was a rumor that Zach had fallen prey to a mysterious illness or accident that left him unable to play sports, but really, Em was fine knowing as little as possible about Zach’s new life—she was just happy he was no longer part of theirs.
Em was still amazed at how she’d deluded herself into thinking she and Zach were meant to be. She’d been longing for love, but she’d been looking in the wrong place. And she’d ruined everything by being so stupid, so wrong.
How could it have taken her so long to see that JD was the one for her? The boy who’d challenged her to epic snowball fights when she was a kid, who’d sat and watched movies with her one summer when she had broken her ankle and couldn’t play outside, who’d made her laugh and knew all the words to her favorite cheesy musical, Guys and Dolls.
For the millionth time, she wished she could go back and do it all differently.
Gabby would be well within her rights to ditch Em completely—to advertise for a new co–queen bee. A new best friend. But Em was determined not to let that happen. She’d screwed up so much recently. Her chances with JD were almost certainly over; he believed she’d bailed on the pep-rally bonfire (and him) to meet some other guy at the Behemoth. He thought she was a selfish liar. And she had no way to prove that it wasn’t true. She couldn’t tell him what had really happened—she’d made a promise to the Furies, and she already knew all too well what could happen if she broke it.
And then there was her overwhelming guilt about Drea; it was impossible not to believe that her own safety from the fire had come at the price of Drea’s life, no matter what the counselor said. It was her fault. And Drea had been trying to save her, to exorcise her of whatever demons she believed were consuming Em.
She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let anyone else down. From now on, she would be the one to play heroine. She would save her friendship with Gabby. She would save Ascension from the wrath of the Furies, before any more deaths occurred. She would save herself.
It was up to her now.
* * *
“When did Skylar come back to school?” Em asked Gabby when they reconvened in the library during lunchtime and plopped down at the research table by the windows. With the Gazebo section of the cafeteria under repairs after the glass roof collapsed onto Skylar’s face, there was overflow during fifth-period lunch. Gabby, Fiona, Lauren, and a few others had taken to eating in the library, where they were often shushed but rarely bothered. That was another thing that had changed since the slew of tragedies had hit: Back in the day, the girls would never have missed the opportunity to be right in the center of the action. But now it didn’t seem so important.
“Today’s her first day back too,” Gabby said. She bit her lip, looking worried. Before her accident, Skylar had developed a major girl-crush on Gabby. “I called her a few days ago, just to see how she was doing. It was superweird; she kept saying all this sad stuff like how she didn’t deserve my friendship.”
Em had spotted Skylar by her locker before third period. Skylar had avoided her eyes. She had a new haircut that had to be a wig. When she’d seen Skylar in the hospital last week, part of her head had been shaved and a row of stitches had stretched from her forehead past her hairline. Em was sure this cut and style was chosen to conceal her scars: long bangs, layers around her cheeks. Still, it was impossible to miss the feather-colored scars crisscrossing Skylar’s nose and cheeks.
At least she was healing. Em involuntary shuddered as she pictured Skylar just before the Spring Fling—lying in the hospital bed and practically incoherent, her face slashed and bandaged.
While the school board blamed the accident on structural deficiencies in the Gazebo glass, Em knew that there was another
culprit. Or rather, three of them, who went by the names of Ty, Meg, and Ali. Em was certain the Furies had marked Skylar, but she didn’t fully understand why. There were glaring clues: the orchid Em had spotted pinned to Skylar’s dress at the bonfire in the Haunted Woods, the fact that Skylar, too, had met the mysterious trio.
“I saw her waiting for the bus on my way to school today,” Lauren piped in. “She looked like she wished she could melt into the ground.”
“Talk about tragic,” Fiona said, stirring a thermos cup of soup in front of her. “I heard from Amy Martin that she’s planning on trying out for the school play. Apparently the guidance counselors want her to get more involved and stuff . . . to help her cope.”
“Ned’s play?” Em had a fuzzy, pre-Furies recollection of JD’s nerdy friend Ned carrying on about the play he planned to direct in the spring: A version of the Greek story of Cassandra, whose prophecies were perceived as madness. Ironic that Skylar might play a role in a Greek tragedy onstage while embroiled in one offstage, as well.
Fiona shrugged. “I guess so. God, do you remember what she looked like at the Fling? She certainly knows how to put on a show.”
The night of the Fling, drugged-up and bandaged, Skylar had looked almost as if she were possessed. Her entrance at the dance had been anything but subtle. She’d stumbled in, hopped up on painkillers, wearing a too-small dress and a crazy-lady veil that half-concealed her gauze-covered wounds.
The dance. Though she tried to quell the thoughts before they overtook her, Em began to flash back to the moments following Skylar’s disastrous appearance. The gym had gone black. Hysteria set in when students realized the doors were stuck. Drea had gone into a corner to prepare what she believed to be a ritual that would banish the Furies. And then Ty had appeared.
The girls got quiet, a show of respect for Em. They’d noticed how close she and Drea had gotten.
“So, how’s your first day back?” Gabby asked.
“It’s not that bad, actually,” Em said. And it wasn’t, thank god. She’d felt relatively . . . normal today, which was a good sign. “I’m never going to be able to leave the house again, though—too much homework.”
“I can help you with all the math stuff,” Fiona said. “It would actually be good practice for the PSAT.”
“And I’ve got all the French homework,” Lauren added.
“I can tell you every single couple that’s fought and made up in the past seven days,” Gabby deadpanned. The girls laughed as the bell rang, jolting Em from the few moments of true freedom she’d felt in weeks.
It was time for gym. They all said good-bye, and Em hoofed it across campus.
* * *
In the antiseptic locker room, she distractedly made small talk with Jenna, who had just “totally failed” a math test, and Portia Stewart, the starting forward on the girls’ varsity soccer team and Em’s go-to girl during yearbook season for write-ups in the sports section.
“I can’t believe we have to go outside in this weather,” Jenna whined, finger combing her hair into a high ponytail. “It’s—it’s inhumane is what it is.”
“Jenna, it’s like fifty degrees outside,” Portia reasoned. It was one of those cusp-of-spring days marked by damp air and gray skies. It was almost guaranteed they’d do a whole lot of laps around the track—not to mention Ms. Hadley’s version of handball, which involved students hitting small rubber balls against the dark green walls that lined the tennis courts. To be honest, Em didn’t mind it that much. She hadn’t exercised at all recently—though you wouldn’t be able to tell, the way she was losing weight—and she appreciated the every-other-day chance to focus only on her heaving breaths and burning calf muscles. To shut off her mind for a bit.
“Yeah, but the point is, we wouldn’t even be out there if the stupid gym hadn’t—” Jenna cut herself off, her eyes wide with embarrassment.
“Burned to the ground?” Em asked, struggling to keep her voice neutral.
“Em, I’m so sorry. . . . I wasn’t even thinking.”
Em shook her head and managed a weak smile, hoping they could both just drop it. But the mention of the fire, so sudden and unexpected, made it hard to breathe. She couldn’t even be mad at Jenna, though; what she’d said was true. Since the fire had damaged the interior of the Ascension gym, all phys ed classes were being held outdoors until further notice.
“Well, at least Hadley keeps us on the track and the courts,” Portia said to defuse any awkwardness. “We had to do sprints on the grass at practice yesterday and Sarah Stokes totally wiped out on the mud.” She giggled. “It looked like she’d crapped her pants.”
“She probably did,” Casey Cornell snickered, coming up from behind them. “Remember when she peed her pants at the ski mountain in sixth grade?” Em had never liked Casey—she’d always seemed just a little too fake, a little too plastic. Her clothes were generally more suited for Ft. Lauderdale than Maine, and Gabby always said she looked like a Bachelorette waiting to happen.
Ms. Hadley stuck her permanently scowling face into the locker room. “Girls! Hurry it up! I want you outside in three minutes!”
Em slipped on her gym shorts and a loose-fitting T-shirt and headed outside; as she did, Jenna jogged up alongside her. “Em. I really am so sorry about what I said earlier. . . . ”
“Jenna, seriously—don’t worry about it.”
“Okay, well . . . ” she started. “It’s just good to have you back, is all. But aren’t you going to be freezing?”
Em looked around, noticing all the other girls were pulling on sweatshirts or yoga pants to brave the misty afternoon. But she knew she’d be perfectly comfortable. It was as if her internal temperature had increased over the past month or two. Like her anger at the Furies was a fire burning constantly inside her.
“I’ll be fine,” she responded. “I’m going to go warm up.”
Out by the track, Hadley was already barking at the students: “I don’t want to hear any griping about the weather. Start moving and you’ll work up a sweat.”
She was already burning up. As she folded herself in half, hands dangling by her toes, Em tried to quiet her mind, which was suddenly full of the Furies and everything else. Just the mention of the fire made her feel crazy, made the stories flare up in her brain. The gym, sure, but also that house in the woods . . . the one Drea had told her about.
Drea’s research had unearthed the tale of three sisters hounded to death by Ascension townspeople more than a century ago. Accused of being witches or gypsies or husband-stealers. The fire was set in an effort to drive them out. And while the sisters’ charred remains were never found, the townspeople did find the body of a male, a boy, in that house in the Haunted Woods. They’d assumed he was a servant. That odd detail had stuck out.
She closed her eyes, feeling the pull in her hamstrings, trying to block out everything but the sensations in her body. Then she swooped her torso and arms upward, reaching for the sky, leaning to the left and the right.
“Okay, now start jogging,” Mrs. Hadley instructed the group. “We’re going to run for fifteen minutes. If you can’t run anymore, start walking. But I don’t want to see you strolling. This is work, people.”
Em had never been much of a runner; while Gabby enjoyed sweating it out on the treadmill, Em had always been a Response Runner—that is, her running routines were generally a response to jeans that felt tighter than usual. But today it came naturally. She was barely panting.
“Nice work, Winters,” she heard Hadley shout as she marked her first lap. “You been taking steroids?”
Lap two. Pound, pound, pound. She was an asteroid hurtling toward an unavoidable fate.
She ran past Casey a second time, and felt resentful eyes boring into her. Didn’t care.
Lap three. Go. Go. Go. Her skin soaked in the dampness around her. She was pulling energy in like a magnet. The running came easily—she whipped along, enjoying the wind against her face and the steady pounding of her feet against
the asphalt. It was more comfortable sprinting than standing still. She felt like she could keep going forever. Part of her wanted to. As if she could outrun every thing and everyone that reminded her of the fire, of Drea’s death, of the Furies.
But then, just as she was starting to relax, to feel a whiteness in her whole body, a cleanness, like she was floating, something happened: a terrible sound, like high-pitched wind chimes keeping an off-kilter beat, went tearing through her mind. The trees lining the track blurred together in fast-forward. The speckled asphalt below her feet created fractals—patterns that repeated themselves over and over. It was like everything was folding in on itself. Soon, she could hear nothing else but the unmistakable timbre of Ty’s laughter reverberating in her mind. She ran faster and faster, trying to drown it out with the air whooshing into her ears and her increasingly strained breath. When fifteen minutes were up, she stood on the sidelines with her hands on her hips and an expression of what she hoped looked like nonchalance on her face. Oh, hey, no big deal that I just lapped every one of you. Inside, her heart was pounding.
Then they were moving on to handball—dividing themselves into teams and “serving” the ball by bouncing it against the ground and slapping it against the wall. The goal was to hit it in such a way that one’s opponent couldn’t return the shot. Bo-ring.
Em teamed up with Jenna against Casey and Portia. She waited for the first serve, shaking her head in an attempt to quiet the lingering echo of Ty’s laugh. Any peace she’d found while running had disappeared completely.
When the ball came whizzing toward her, she held her palm flat, enjoying the sting as her skin made contact with the rubber surface. It was a nice kind of pain. She swung, propelling the ball forward. Her arm was simply part of a machine. The ball shot away from her hand like a cannonball, hurtling toward the wall. She could practically hear it whistling through the air. It hit the wall with an explosive thud, sending several chips of green paint onto the asphalt below. Em watched it go. She felt calm. Like she’d done it before.
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