“You shouldn’t play with forces you don’t understand,” she spat. She locked eyes with Emma. “It can be dangerous. You can accidentally call all kinds of problems down on yourself.”
“I think it’s time you stop with the lame aura warnings,” Charlotte said. “You’re the one who called down all kinds of problems on yourself when you messed with us. Remember that the next time you try to get in Sutton’s head.”
“You’ve been warned,” Celeste insisted, shaking her head slowly. “The spirits will not be mocked.” She tossed her bag on her shoulder and started up the path away from them. A moment later they heard a car start and drive away.
“That was brilliant,” Madeline told Madame Darkling. The medium had already lit a cigarette and stood to the side, examining their props. Charlotte handed the woman an envelope bulging with cash, and she opened it and began counting the bills.
“I’m going to have to remember some of this stuff,” she said. “Glow paint and balloons. Nice touch.”
Emma stood back, mask still on, not joining in the celebration of the rest of the group. She watched as the woman shoved the envelope somewhere inside her robes, then took off down the same path Celeste had, toward the parking lot. Laurel wheeled a cooler out of the underbrush while Gabby and Lili built a teetering pyramid of kindling. Nisha cued up a Black Eyed Peas album on the surround sound. Soon they had a fire crackling, marshmallows speared on sticks and browning in the heat. The clearing, which just minutes before had been spookier than a graveyard, became bright and cheerful.
“That could not have gone better,” Madeline said, reclining in a camp chair. The Twitter Twins were reading aloud tweets hashtagged “séance.” They had gotten the prank trending locally within the past few minutes.
Emma pulled Sutton’s wool jacket closer around her torso. “You guys, I feel a little bad,” she said.
If there had been a DJ playing in the bushes, his record would have scratched and gone silent. The girls turned to gawk at her. Sutton rarely felt bad about anything, and she wasn’t big on regret. But Emma couldn’t help but think of how desperately she’d wanted to believe that her sister could still speak, and how lonely she’d felt in the split second after she’d realized the medium was a fraud. It had felt almost as awful as those moments after she’d found the murderer’s first note—almost as if she’d lost Sutton all over again.
“I just mean, you know … her grandma recently died. Maybe we shouldn’t have gone there,” she said softly.
Surprisingly, it was Nisha who spoke first, her voice tense.
“If she was stupid enough to think her grandma would talk to her through some cheesy lamé-wearing hack, she deserved to be punked,” Nisha said. “The dead don’t come back. No matter how much you want them to.”
Emma bit her lip. Of course solid, sensible Nisha would have no patience for the desperate, delusional hopes of the grieving. Her voice was harsh with bitterness. She sounded as if she was mocking her own grief as much as anyone else’s.
The song ended on the stereo system. In the silence before the next started, they heard the distant bark of a dog down in Nisha’s subdivision. Then they heard a low, mournful cry.
“Did you leave the sound effects on?” Laurel asked Nisha. Nisha shook her head. Something crashed in the bushes nearby. Emma strained her ears.
“Seriously, guys?” Madeline said. “Who counter-pranked? I thought we agreed not to pull those anymore. That stopped being clever in middle school. I think whoever did it should have to sit out the next prank as punishment.”
“I didn’t do it!” Laurel quickly protested. “Cross my heart and hope to die!”
Everyone quickly repeated the safe word. They looked uncertainly at one another.
“Okay,” said Charlotte, rolling her eyes. Her robe hung open, revealing a pink sequined camisole. “It’s obviously just Celeste.”
Madeline slapped her forehead. “Oh my God, you’re right.”
“But we heard her leave.” Emma frowned.
Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me, are you new to this? She circled around somehow. There are trails all through here—it wouldn’t be hard. She’s just trying to make us think there’s some evil spirit on the loose.”
“I can’t believe she’s asking for seconds,” Laurel said.
“Just ignore her,” Charlotte said. “I’m so over that weirdo.”
The explanation seemed to be enough for the other girls. Nisha turned the music back up. The Twitter Twins replayed the whole séance on their new iPad, reading the comments that had already popped up on YouTube. “Spaceman77 says, ‘Who’s the babe in the satyr horns, she’s hawt!!’” Gabby turned to Emma, but Emma hardly noticed.
They were probably right—it must be Celeste, hoping to get back at them. But what if someone was hurt? The voice had sounded like it was crying. What if someone had gotten injured out in the woods?
Or … what if Becky had come back to the scene of the crime and taken another victim?
Emma imagined Sutton bleeding and running through the woods, trying to get away from Becky. What if someone had been in the clearing that night? What if someone could have helped her but had ignored her instead? Sutton could be alive now, at the fire with the rest of them. She couldn’t let Becky get away with it again.
She stood up and dusted off her butt. Out beyond the cheerful firelight the canyon was pitch-black. She peered up the trail in the direction she’d heard the crying.
“What are you doing?” Madeline asked, staring at her.
Emma glanced around at her friends. There was safety in numbers, in the clearing. But then she set her jaw in determination.
“I’m going to go prank Celeste back,” she said. “You guys stay here.”
“Wait, we want to come,” Gabby and Lili said, starting to stand up, but Emma held out a hand.
“I’m invoking Executive Diva privilege,” she announced, citing Sutton’s official Lying Game title. “You can hear about it later. I’ll give you an exclusive.” She tried to be lighthearted, but her heart was hammering. No matter how much she didn’t want to go out there alone, she would never be able to live with herself if she got one of her friends hurt.
“Okay, raise your hand if you don’t think it’s a brilliant idea for Sutton to go wandering in the woods by herself,” Laurel said, throwing her own hand in the air. Emma snorted.
“Whatever, guys,” she said, starting up the path with a flashlight.
“All right, but if you get murdered in the woods, I’m going to say I told you so,” Charlotte’s voice rang out behind her.
Touché, I thought.
The pale beam of the flashlight swept over the brush on either side, small bushes and cacti casting deep shadows. Emma stopped and listened for the sounds again. From farther away than before came another whimper, a rustle of leaves. She started jogging along the trail, trying to land softly on her feet so she could hear where the sound was coming from. A human groan echoed off the desert rocks. The trail led her higher up the mountain. She moved in silence for several minutes, until the bonfire glittered far below her, a tiny pinprick of light shining through the sparse trees.
Emma arrived at an overlook, with a park bench facing the neighborhood where Ethan and Nisha lived. She thought she could just make out Ethan’s porch light. Was he looking at the stars? She wished she could run all the way down the mountain and into his arms.
While Emma stared out over the city, I saw a figure step quietly out from the shadows. It was a gaunt woman, mascara and tears trickling down her cheeks. She watched Emma for a moment, chewing her lip. An old hospital bracelet still stuck to her wrist, as if she’d forgotten to cut it off.
Becky.
Emma’s back was to her. I couldn’t believe how silently our mother could move when she wanted to—just a moment ago she’d been crashing around through the underbrush, but there was nothing here to trip her up. She stepped toward Emma, eyes glued to her back.
A few pebbles dribbled down the side of the mountain from where Emma’s feet displaced them. It was a sheer drop to the next overhang, forty feet or more. Becky kept advancing, her eyes glowing strangely in the darkness, like a mountain lion’s.
“Emma!” I screamed, as loudly as I could.
Emma cocked her head. “Hello?” she whispered. The voice that had called her was so tiny, so faint it was almost like a breeze.
My knuckles clenched. She’d heard me. I was right—I was stronger here, for some reason.
“It’s Becky!” I shrieked, focusing every fiber of my ghostly being on the words. “She’s right behind you!”
“Sutton?” Emma breathed. But before I could answer, before Emma could make another move, a hand clamped on her arm. Emma’s body spun forcefully around so she was looking into Becky’s face.
And just like that, something snapped into place at the back of my mind. That familiar feeling came over me, of something unknown finally making sense, and a memory tugged me backward in time …
31
ORIGIN STORY
My lungs burn in my chest as my mother’s arms tighten around me. Bright colors kaleidoscope behind my closed eyes, reds and greens exploding across my vision. Some ancient part of my brain, a primitive survival instinct, kicks in. My body wrenches around in her grasp. She’s stronger than she looks—but so am I. I thrash back and forth, gasping for breath, my arms and legs writhing in all directions. And then all at once I break free and stagger away from her.
I fall to the ground, too dizzy and breathless to move.
She steps toward me. I open my mouth to scream for help, to scream at her to stay away from me, but my lungs are flat inside of me. Her face is hidden in the shadows of her hair. She walks over like some kind of monster, in a halting shuffle, and kneels down next to me.
The moon blazes out from behind a cloud, and suddenly I can see her face as clearly as if it were day. She’s crying.
“Sutton, I know you’re upset, but you have to breathe, sweetheart. Take a deep breath. You’re hyperventilating.” She reaches for my hand. I search her face for the grotesque sneer, the anger that I thought I had seen just a few seconds earlier, but I can’t. With a jolt, I wonder: Was that just the face of a woman trying not to cry?
I take a deep, shuddering breath, and when I exhale, the world seems clearer.
“What do … you want from me?” I pant.
Becky shakes her head back and forth, her lip quivering. “I just wanted to meet you, Sutton. That’s all. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just grabbed you like that. But … I’ve wanted to hold you for almost eighteen years now.”
Wanted to … hold me? That was a hug? My mind reels. A humiliating realization dawns on me—she didn’t crush me at all. I had just panicked when she put her arms around me.
Some prankster queen I am. I almost just asphyxiated myself in fear.
I take three or four more gigantic breaths. She doesn’t touch me again, but she sits down beside me, watching me with concern. Her eyes are still wet, but her tears have stopped running.