“J-just a dream?”
Right when I was about to yank off the sheet to examine my legs and feet, I heard footsteps clipping down the hall.
I dropped back, closing my eyes an instant before my mother entered. Without even a courtesy knock. “Evie, are you up?” Light flooded in from the hallway.
“Mom?” I said, trying to sound sleepy as I took a frantic mental inventory of my body. Were my feet bleeding, my legs? Was I covered in dirt? Had my fingernails returned to normal?
But all I felt was numbness, as if my entire body were immersed in Novocain.
“I thought I heard you cry out.” Her tone had that alarmed edge to it. Sherlock senses crazy. . . .
“Huh? I must have been dreaming.”
Still dressed for the day, she sat at the end of my bed, her diamond studs flashing. “Your face is so pale. Are you coming down with something?”
“Nope. Not me.” Oh, God, if there was blood on my legs, would it soak through my sheet? If my mom saw those parallel slices, she would probably think I was a closet cutter, like my former roommate at the center.
“I’m worried about you,” she said. “We need to talk about how you’re doing now that you’re back at home.”
“Mom, I told you, everything’s fine.” My legs were bleeding.
Another furtive adjustment of the sheet. Three stripes of crimson were soaking through. She’ll see, she’ll see. . . .
Adjust the sheet, overlap it. There. Better.
“You’ve been back for nearly two weeks, but I haven’t heard you laugh a single time. You always used to joke around, just like your dad.” Her brows drew together. “Evie, what’s . . .” She laid the back of her hand against my damp forehead. “Are you trembling?” She wrapped her arms around me, rocking me. “Baby, I’m here. What’s wrong?”
What’s right? I’d doubled up on my meds tonight—and I was now worse off. “I-I think I just had a bad dream.”
She drew back. “A hallucination?”
“No! I was sound asleep.”
“Honey, just tell me, and I will make this better.”
You didn’t last time. The cure didn’t take! Yet I was so freaked out, I was tempted to reveal all once more.
Instead, I dug deep, resolved to make a stand. I met her gaze, steadying my tone. “I will tell you when I need your help.”
She was taken aback by my demeanor. “Oh.” Because, for a brief moment, I’d sounded just as steely as she usually did. “Um, okay.”
“I’ve got a big day tomorrow. And I’ve really got to get some sleep.” I’m already going to be up for hours, convincing myself that I dreamed those claws.
Mom rose, her gaze wary, almost startled. “Of course. Uh, sweet dreams, honey.”
Once the door closed behind her, I yanked the sheet away, grimacing in advance at what I’d see.
The skin on my thighs was crusting with blood, but my feet were clean and free from gashes.
Maybe I’d just cut myself with my fingernails in sleep. I wanted to latch on to this reasoning, to ignore how realistic Death’s visit had been.
When I recalled his armor, my fingers itched to render his likeness. I reached under my mattress, dragging out my drawing journal.
Pencil flying over the paper, I whispered repeatedly, “Two years and out, two years and out.” A tear dropped onto the page, then another and another—three blurred spots over Death’s otherworldly image.
By the time I’d finished the drawing, the storm pressure was ebbing. No rain for our crops tonight.
And because I was insane, I ached with them.
I gazed down at one of my legs, convinced that I’d merely cut myself during my nightmare. With a curse, I flicked the crusted blood away.
The skin beneath it was . . . unmarked.
Chapter 6
DAY 2 B.F.
I spent my free period on Friday in Eden Courtyard, sitting at the tiled cement table, licking my wounds in private.
On the verge of tears, I tried to ignore the fact that a bed of daisies had turned their faces toward me—instead of the direction of the sun.
At least the roses and ivy were still.
Last night, before I’d gone to sleep—the first time—I’d wondered, What are the odds that I’ll have a pop quiz?
I hadn’t had one today.
I’d had two. And just to add insult to injury? When we’d handed our English quizzes up the row, Jackson’s paper had all the answers, scribbled in bold handwriting.
Though I’d never before gotten below a B+ on anything, I’d accumulated two Fs this week. At the thought, my eyes welled with tears. I laid my flushed face against the cool stone, struggling not to cry.
Today when I’d asked my teachers for makeups . . .
Bitches said no.
My stomach churned. A drop in grades. I couldn’t go back to CLC, would never go back.
I had to wonder where the bottom was for this. What was that SAT word for the absolute rock bottom? The nadir. Where was my nadir?
How much more could I fail/lose/hallucinate/unravel? After last night’s date with Death, I might’ve thought that I’d get a time-out from creepy. Not so!
Once we’d finished that quiz in English, I’d fallen asleep, dreaming again of the red witch. I began sketching her now. Naturally, she’d been fresh from a kill. Her vines had been smearing the blood of her victims over her skin; she enjoyed wearing it.
I’d been able to see more of her than ever before. Her pale face was round, her skin marred only by those two shimmering tattoos running the length of her cheeks. No, not tattoos, but glyphs—like glowing green brands. Though she had girlish freckles across her nose, she looked older, maybe midtwenties? Her eyes were gleaming green, pure evil.
I’d watched as she’d advanced on a magnificent rosebush, stabbing her thorn claws into one of its stalks. Somehow she’d leeched energy from it, siphoning its life into herself as she’d thrown back her head and shrieked with pleasure.
The plant writhed, as if in death throes, but she was merciless, sucking it dry, leaving it a withered husk. She was like a parasite, enslaving the very things I loved.
When I’d jerked awake, everyone had been packing up their books—except for Jackson.
Then I’d realized he hadn’t been looking at my face, but at my hands, at my knuckles gone white as I clenched the edges of my desk. I’d released my hold at once.
“Nightmare?” he’d asked with a nod.
Had he seemed sympathetic? Unable to help myself, I asked, “Do you . . . do you have them?”
“Yeah.” He’d sounded like he was about to say more, only to remember we weren’t friends. He’d just repeated, “Yeah.”
“What do you do?”
“I sleep with one eye open.” He’d taken a pull from his flask and strode away.
I’d be happy just to sleep at all.
My phone chimed with a text from Brandon. If this was more pressure, I was going to primal-scream.
Kick-back on Sat. 4 couples. Ur friends & mine. Spence & Mel
He’d come through with Spencer? Finally something positive! I seized on this, excitedly texting: Where?
Sugar mill
I frowned. On the back, back, back forty of Haven there was a crumbling mill on the banks of the bayou. It was so old, only the brick walls and a smokestack remained. There was no glass in the porthole windows, so it kind of looked like an old Roman coliseum.
If folks thought Haven might be haunted, they were convinced the mill was. Rumors of gory deaths inside the cane crushers abounded.
But thinking of Mel, I knew I would agree to go—
“And you Sterling girls make fun of Clotile for wearing short skirts?” Jackson said, striding across the courtyard, raking his gaze over me in my cheer uniform.
“My brain’s on shuffle,” he said, tapping his temple. “Evie, football, Evie, football.”
“At least I come first.”
“Always,” he said easily, flashing me his movie-star grin.
“I’ll tell you my answer sometime this weekend, I promise.” Giving myself less than forty-eight hours to decide?
Once he’d driven off to get ready for the game tonight, I headed toward the cane before I lost my nerve. I was determined to get to the bottom of this. Two equally catastrophic results awaited me. Either I was delusional. Or . . .