From Bad to Cursed (9 page)

“No,” Kasey said. “He’s made of spirit energy. He doesn’t come out of the book. I don’t know what that was.”

“I refuse to believe that a giant mysterious animal just
happened
to visit Lakewood the same night you started messing with a new ghost.”

“Wait,” Megan said, her brown eyes accusing me. “I never heard anything about this.”

I sighed. “I’ll explain later.”

Megan sat back. She slid her phone back and forth across the counter from hand to hand.

“If the book is a dwelling, it has to be the power center,” I said. “The ghost’s energy is tied to it. So we need to destroy the book.”

The color drained from my sister’s face. “Adrienne hides it somewhere. I don’t know where. She would
never
let anything happen to it.”

“But she brings it to meetings, right?”

“Yeah…but it’s not like she just passes it around.” Kasey sighed. “Listen, you guys. I know it sounds bad, but please…I can handle it.”

She must have seen the skeptical expressions on our faces, but she pressed on.

“If I talk to them, and tell them it’s not a good idea, they’ll listen to me.” She glanced pleadingly from me to Megan. “They’re my friends!”

“Not very good friends,” Megan said. “If they got you wrapped up in this mess.”

Kasey stared up at us, her eyes wide.
“Please.”

“You know what?” I said. “Fine, Kasey. You want to fix it yourself? Go ahead.”

My sister hesitated. Across the table, Megan was watching me.

“She’s right,” I said to Megan, shrugging. “They’re her friends. Go ahead, Kasey. Get them out of it.”

Kasey swallowed hard. Her fists were tight balls pressing into the counter. “I will.”

“Fine,” I said. “Then it’s handled.”

“Whatever,” Megan said, giving me a wary glance. “I’d better get going.”

“I’ll walk you out,” I said.

Once we got outside the front door, she stopped and looked at me.

“You aren’t serious,” she said.

“No, of course not,” I said. “But there’s no point in arguing with her.”

Megan sighed. “Okay, thank God,” she said. “Because for a minute I thought you’d lost your mind. Now, could you please explain to me what this thing is that you keep talking about? A mystery animal? When were you in the woods? And why didn’t you tell me about it before tonight?”

“It’s not important,” I lied. The last thing I wanted was Megan suggesting a late-night trip to Lakewood. “It was a coyote or something.”

I’d hurt her feelings. Her eyes were too bright, and she looked like she had something to say. But she didn’t say it. “Fine. So what’s the plan?”

“We’re going to go to their next meeting,” I said. “And we’re going to get the book and destroy it. And no one is going to get hurt.”

“Right.” Megan glanced at the time on her phone. “Except me, if I don’t make it home by ten thirty.”

M
ONDAY MORNING
, I found Carter sitting on a low brick wall in the courtyard, bent over a copy of
Moby Dick
. When I stepped into the sun, casting a shadow over the pages, he marked his place with the dust jacket and set the book down.

“Good morning,” he said, squinting up at me.

“Hi,” I said. “Sorry I missed your calls yesterday. I was doing a photo shoot with my sister and things got…hectic.”

“No worries.”

“But I missed you,” I said, scooting next to him. As soon as I said it, I meant it. I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against his sleeve.

“You’re coming this afternoon, right?” he asked.

“What?”

“To my poster party?”

“Refresh me on what a poster party is again?”

“A campaign thing. Zoe Perry arranged it. She’s the girl I was talking to at the party for like a half hour. Keaton Perry’s little sister.”

I tried to remember her, but I couldn’t recall her face, just a voice and a bunch of political buzzwords: alignment, empowerment, proactivity. “The boring one?”

He laughed. “I hope not. What would that say about me?”

“That you’re good at humoring boring people?”

“Anyway, I need you there. I can’t be alone with her and her friends. They seem to be confusing high school politics with real politics.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “I can’t come.”

“Seriously? Why not?”

Honesty is the best policy, right? “I’m hanging out with my sister and her friends.”

The corner of his mouth went up in confusion. “The Sunshine Club?”

I shrugged. “You don’t have to call them that.”

“Why not? Everyone does. They’re like a cult.” His shoulders pressed back. “And when did you decide this? Because I asked you about the party last week and you said yes.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot. Any other day except today. I need to do this for Kasey. She’s having some problems fitting in.”

“Are you joking?” he asked. “Does
that
look like someone having problems fitting in?”

I followed his gaze to the picnic tables, where the Sunshine Club had claimed a spot under the mottled shade of the school’s big oak tree. They sat close together, like sisters, talking and laughing among themselves. And Kasey was right smack in the center.

“You don’t understand,” I said. And he couldn’t. Because if he knew the truth, he’d flip out.

“Maybe I don’t,” he said. “You’re one of the people who really wanted me to run for president this year, and now you’re disappearing when my campaign needs you.”

“I’m not disappearing,” I said. “I’m missing one little arts and crafts party thrown by a bunch of boring preps.”

His laugh had no humor behind it. “Thanks, Lex. I love being called names.”

Just like I love being expected to make campaign appearances like some lame wifey with no life of her own.
“That’s not what I meant!”

“Okay, well, I wish you could stop saying things you don’t mean. Like that I’m one of a million boring preps—or that you’ll spend time with me.”

“Where’s all this coming from?” I asked.

“I guess I don’t like being lied to,” he said.

“Who’s lying?”

He enumerated on his fingers. “You said you’d come today. You’re not going to. You say it’s because Kasey is having problems. She’s clearly not. If you’re somehow suddenly too cool to help with my campaign, I wish you’d just say it.”

“I’ve never been too cool for anything in my entire life,” I said, bristling at the accusation of lying. “I
forgot
about the stupid party, Carter. Sue me!”

“All right,” he said. “When you can clear some time between cult meetings, let me know.” He checked his watch. “I have to go find Zoe and tell her we’ll need extra help.”

“Stop. Please. I hate this,” I said, reaching out to him. “Can’t we just not be angry?”

“I’m not angry, Lex…I’m sad.” And he walked away.

We spent the morning exchanging terse text messages.

First, I apologized, and he said he accepted it.

The rational, grown-up thing to do would be to let it go. But I could feel the tension behind his words. So I texted him back that he didn’t
have
to accept my apology, and he replied that I was the one who couldn’t accept that
he
could accept it perfectly well…and then my fourth-period teacher made me put my phone away.

We managed about twenty words between us during lunch. Nobody noticed. Emily would have, but now she sat with the Sunshine Club. They’d moved inside to a table in the center of the cafeteria—not the prime real estate by the window, but creeping closer.

Certainly not the Janitor’s Table or the Doom Squad’s courtyard exile anymore.

So we sat like a pair of cordial strangers. We’d never had a disagreement this serious before. Some small part of me kept trying to suggest that maybe he’d overreacted and it wasn’t my fault. But it was shouted down by the rest of me, the part of me that wanted things to go back to normal as soon as possible, even if that meant taking all the blame.

Because without Carter, I didn’t even have a normal to get back to.

W
E WERE EARLY
, so Megan parked a few doors down from the enormous, well-manicured Laird house, and we sat in the car with the windows down, listening to the contented sighs of the engine.

After about fifteen minutes, a group of happy-go-lucky girls, including Kasey, turned the corner, coming from the direction of the school. We watched from the safety of the car, like tourists on safari.

“Look,” Megan said. “They’re all wearing skirts.”

“Kasey told my mom they’re more flattering than pants,” I said.

“Only if it’s the
right
skirt,” Megan snorted, staring out the window. “But they all do seem to be wearing the right skirts.”

“They do everything right. Haven’t you noticed?”

Adrienne, Kasey, and Emily went up the front walk together, all shiny hair and teeth, and disappeared through the door.

Another girl crossed the street in front of the car. She looked familiar, but it took me a moment to place her.

“Megan!” I gasped. “Is that
Lydia?
”

For three years, Lydia Small had prided herself on being the gothiest goth ever to stomp through Surrey in her giant steel-toed boots. But this…this was…

“Impossible,” I whispered.

She was dressed like Jackie O., and her stringy black hair had been cut and blow-dried in a perfectly turned-under bob. She glanced at us, and I saw that she was fully made up, her eyebrow ring gone, her lips a demure pink.

“She wasn’t at school today,” Megan said. “I guess we know what she was doing.”

Lydia flounced over to the car and leaned on the window ledge.

“Alexis! Megan! Hi!” She ducked down to glance into the backseat. “Where’s Miss Kasey?”

“Hi,” I said. “Uh…she’s already inside. How’s it going?”

“Perfectly!” Lydia beamed, peppy as a 1960s soda-pop commercial. “How are you girls?”

“Super-duper,” I said.

“No kidding?” Lydia asked. “So. When are you two going to join the Sunshine Club? I’m telling you, you won’t regret it.” She assumed the saintly expression of a beauty pageant contestant talking about world peace. “It has totally
changed
my life.”

“Actually…today,” Megan replied. I was looking down at Lydia’s hand. Gone were her many skulls and plastic spiders and other assorted jewelry (a lot of which, I’m sort of embarrassed to say, were purchased on shopping trips with yours truly, back in the day). The only thing on any of her fingers was a single, gleaming gold ring.

“Lovely!”
she cried.

“Yes,” I said. “Lovely.”

“Do us a favor?” Megan said. “Don’t tell Kasey you saw us. We want to surprise her.”

Lydia’s face lit up. “No way! So fun. Of course.”

She mimicked zipping her lips shut.

If only that could be a permanent setting.

Lydia flashed us another smile and bounded away, up the rose-bordered sidewalk toward the house.

“What…on earth…was that?” I asked.

“That,” Megan said, “is what the Sunshine Club is all about.”

We were the last ones inside. Pepper sat in the kitchen, eating a banana and keeping a suspicious eye on the front door. When she saw Megan and me, her jaw dropped. “What are you guys doing here?”

I shrugged. “We’re going to the meeting.”

Pepper dropped her peel in the trash. “Megan? Explain?”

Megan smiled, like the whole thing was a lark.

“Whatever.” Pepper grabbed her car keys. “I’m going to Kira’s.”

Megan knocked lightly on Mimi’s bedroom door, and Adrienne pulled it open.

“Oh my God!” she squealed. “Hi!”

Behind her, I saw my sister’s face turn white. But Megan and I pushed our way in, and there was nothing Kasey could say in front of the other girls.

The ten of us fit in Mimi’s bedroom with room to spare. It was pristine, like an ad in a decorating magazine—the perfect backdrop for the array of immaculately dressed girls, wearing blissful, self- satisfied smiles, legs crossed at the ankle, posture perfect.

The whole room fell silent when Adrienne went to her bag and lifted out a large object wrapped in midnight-blue velvet. She set it on the dresser and unwrapped it, then held it in front of herself while everyone in the room sat perfectly still.

You had to admit—it was quite a book.

Ten inches wide, sixteen inches tall. The cover was leather, densely embossed with runes and symbols—stars, moons, vines, Celtic knots.

For a moment, I considered just grabbing it and taking off, but then Adrienne spoke.

“We protect your dwelling with our blood and our lives,” she said, in the vague drone of a pod person.

“
We protect your dwelling with our blood and our lives,”
everyone repeated.

Megan and I glanced at each other. They did
not
sound like they were kidding.

Even if I did manage to wrench the book out of her hands, there were five girls between me and the door. Self-defense training or no, odds were I’d never make it.

Adrienne broke into a smile. “I’m
thrilled
to announce that Alexis and Megan are joining us today! Alexis was one of the first upperclasswomen I met at Surrey, and she was so nice to me, even though she’s popular and has a boyfriend and I was a gross loser. And of course, Megan is well-known for her leadership.”

The way Adrienne talked about herself, you’d think she was dishing on some sad reject—not the sweet, well-meaning girl she’d been a few short weeks before.

“Megan and Alexis.” Adrienne could hardly speak through her giant smile. “Please stand.”

Stand? I glanced at Kasey, whose face was buried in her hands.

Suddenly I felt like maybe we should have thought this whole thing through a little more.

I got to my feet, my heart beating as if I’d climbed ten flights of stairs. Megan stood next to me.

“Please put these on your ring fingers.” She passed each of us a thin gold ring. I slipped it over my finger. Adrienne looked into my eyes, her gaze as smooth as a polished stone. “Place your right hand on the book, and repeat after me.”

Megan blinked with alarm and obeyed. Angling my body, I lifted my
left
hand and set it against the underside of the open book, hoping Adrienne wouldn’t notice. And if she did, I could just pretend I was confused.

But she didn’t notice.

“Geallaim dílseachta…”

“Geallaim dílseachta…”

She went through a whole long spiel of words that were nothing but nonsense—to us and to her, I could tell. I repeated as well as I could.

“A tu, Aralt,”
Adrienne said with finality.

“A tu, Aralt,”
we repeated.

My nerves felt like a writhing bundle of live wires.

Adrienne gently closed the book and leaned in to give us a kiss on each cheek.

“Our sisters,” she said.

Everyone clapped politely. A path cleared back to my seat on the bed, and I sank down, trying to figure out if I felt different. I felt on edge, somehow, but that was probably adrenaline. After all, I’d taken an oath in a language I didn’t understand to a supernatural being I knew nothing about.

An oath. Why hadn’t Kasey said anything about an oath?

It occurred to me that maybe she’d planned this all along. She had to know that Megan and I wouldn’t just leave the subject alone…just because we’d said we would.

No. She’d been shocked to see us. And she didn’t look happy. She really believed she could fix this herself.

But an
oath…

I caught sight of myself in the mirror over Mimi’s vanity and was struck by how dumpy and unkempt I looked, especially in contrast to the perfection surrounding me. My forehead and nose gleamed with oil. I raised my sleeve to try to wipe my face.

Someone gave my arm a gentle pat, and I looked up to find myself staring into Lydia’s untroubled eyes. She smiled reassuringly.

“What a joy,” Adrienne said. “Now, sisters, let’s get down to business. Does anyone feel called to start off Betterment?”

Betterment?

For a moment, no one said anything, and then a hand rose. “Monika?” Adrienne said.

The girl she’d called on, a tall brunette, stood up. “Everyone looks wonderful today,” she said, her glance traveling quickly past me. “But I noticed at lunch that some girls were eating very large portions.
Small
meals in public, and then eat in the bathroom if you’re still hungry. You know we want to appear our best, inside and out.” She sighed and continued with a mournful
it has to be said
air. “I’m talking about Emily and Paige.”

For a few long, uncomfortable seconds, everyone stared at Emily and Paige, who ducked their heads and gazed at the carpet.

It went on for another ten minutes, girls being called out for infractions of an extremely strict and meticulous behavior and dress code. Even Adrienne was chastised for the length of her skirt—more than three finger-widths higher than her kneecaps.

Megan looked at me, her eyes asking when we were going to make our move. Then I watched as her gaze traveled to the mirror, and her eyes narrowed in distaste.

I didn’t understand—she looked fine. Just as good as any of the other girls, maybe better.
I
was the ugly one.

After bettering each other through the magic of nitpickery, we listened to Adrienne give a pep talk about the qualities of a successful young woman.

It was fine, I guess, if you wanted to spend every waking hour at constant attention, never relaxing, never letting down your guard. But how could a group of teenage girls keep it up? By the end of the hour, I felt like we’d been through a self-help seminar at a religious cult.

The thing was, for the time being, Aralt only seemed to want his Sunshine Club girls to be pretty, fashionable, thoughtful, and well-spoken.

It was kind of twisted—but was it evil?

“All right, everybody, that’s it,” Adrienne said, closing the book and setting it on the dresser. “Stay sunny!”

With the meeting over, all of the girls wanted to welcome Megan and me personally. There would have been no way for us to grab the book without being noticed. They held our hands and looked into our eyes and said sweet and encouraging things, like something out of a sorority in the 1950s.

“I can’t wait to see you…
after
,” Emily said, giving my hands a squeeze.

“After what?” I asked.

Her smile faltered. “Well…after…”

“Remember: the only people we’re called to judge are ourselves,” Lydia said. “Except during Betterment, obviously.”

Emily hurried away, leaving me alone with Lydia.

“Welcome, Alexis,” she said, touching my shoulder.

“Thanks.” I tried to act like the other girls were acting, a peculiar blend of eyes-down modesty and utter self-consciousness about the way they held themselves and moved.

“I know you don’t totally get it yet,” she said. “But it’s only your first meeting. Let me tell you—I didn’t even really want to join.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “
I thought the whole thing was a joke.”

“No kidding.”

“Then I took the oath, and suddenly it all made sense.”

I was starting to feel like I’d had enough of this for one day. “I’m so glad for you.”

“Anyway, you have to let me do your hair.”

I’d been drifting, but that snapped me back to attention. “Do
what
to it?”

She laughed. “
Fix
it. You can’t leave it all…pink and…unfinished. A real lady doesn’t need flashy clothes or dyed hair.”

“Or eyebrow rings?” I asked.

“Exactly!” Lydia grinned like I’d finally gotten it. “She has poise, charm, and intelligence.”

“I think…I’ll just wait a few days,” I said.

Lydia’s joy evaporated. “Why would you do that?”

Obviously I couldn’t tell her that I intended to destroy the book that night, thereby removing any need to try to impress Aralt.

“You represent
us
now, Alexis,” Lydia said. “You’re not a single person anymore. You’re one of many.”

“Good point,” I said. “I just can’t tonight. I have a huge project to finish.” I smiled apologetically. “Gotta keep those grades up!”

“I guess.” She tried to hide her displeasure but did a pretty bad job. “Well, I’m around, as soon as you’re ready.”

Over by the bed, Megan and Kasey were busily talking to Adrienne. I edged closer to listen to them.

“And I’m excited about all the meetings and the improving and the—Alexis!” Megan said, turning to me. “I’m telling Adrienne and Kasey how much I look forward to growing and improving!”

It was totally obvious to me that she was acting. And Kasey was just as manic. But Adrienne was so delighted by their gushing enthusiasm that she just looked from one to the other while they fluttered around her like a couple of hyperactive fruit flies.

Then I saw what Megan and Kasey were doing as they talked: packing up their book bags.

Megan kept pushing. “I’m just so elated! Aren’t you, Alexis? I’m, like, beyond…”

Beyond sanity, I thought. But I had to pull my own weight. “Yeah,” I said. “Totally. I’m totally, I mean…I can imagine that this is going to be a great opportunity to…uh…grow. And, like, improve.”

“Yes!” Adrienne said, practically glowing. “
Totally
!”