Envy (Fury) (29 page)

“What do you want?” Em asked, trying to keep her voice impassive and making a show of packing up her things.

“To give you this,” Crow said, sliding a CD in a clear case across the small café table. Em stared at it blankly. “It’s a song. I wrote it.” He cleared his throat. “For you.”

A single butterfly’s wing fluttered in her stomach, but Em steeled herself to it. She tossed the CD in her bag as she stood up. “Thank you,” she said, before switching gears. “Though perhaps I should be giving you a gift for acting as a bodyguard the other night?”

Now it was Crow’s turn to stare at Em without expression. She noticed for the first time how symmetrical his features were—his straight nose, his thin lips, his square jaw. They were all set in firm lines.

“Come on, Crow—don’t play dumb,” she said. “You know what I’m talking about. The club below Benson’s. I saw you there the other night. How did you even know about it—did you follow us?”

“You and Drea aren’t the only ones who are hip to the local nightlife,” Crow said, rolling his shoulders back in his leather jacket. “Some friends told me about that place.”

Em pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, looking up at him. “What friends?”

He laughed. “Why do you want to know? You jealous?”

God. He was infuriating. She didn’t like his cocky attitude or the fact that he seemed to be hiding something from her. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of continuing this conversation. She turned to leave and took a step away from the table.

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him; when she turned around, his cockiness evaporated. “Yes,” he said. “I—followed you there. But only because I was worried, and . . . I just want to make sure you’re okay.” He took a breath and seemed about to say more, but finished quietly, “There’s a lot about me you wouldn’t understand.”

He was still holding her arm, and Em hadn’t wrenched it away. She stood there staring into his eyes, just inches from him, unable to move. His yellow-green eyes were flickering hypnotically. And at that moment someone coughed behind them.

Em knew who it was before she turned around. She swiveled
and saw him watching them through eyes that were slits. “JD!” she said, her voice coming out high and squeaky.

From the look on JD’s face, he obviously believed he had stumbled upon a major love scene. Em snatched her wrist out of Crow’s grasp, but it was too late.

“If only there were more coffee shops in Ascension,” JD said, his voice dripping with condescension, before giving her a knowing, angry smirk and slamming out of the Dungeon.

“Wait!” she called out.

Crow tried to grab her shoulders. “Em, hold on.”

But Em could barely hear him—all she could feel was that the chasm between her and JD had cracked wider.

“Leave me alone!” she snapped, pushing past Crow and out into the parking lot, where she stalked to her car without a backward glance.

•  •  •

At Drea’s, Em rang the doorbell and knocked a couple of times, to no avail. She knew that Drea was home—she could see the light on in Drea’s basement “study” through a dingy cellar window—so she quietly let herself in, making sure to scurry quickly by the living room, where, as usual, Drea’s dad was sitting practically comatose in front of the blue flickering television. She headed down basement steps, too lost in thought to announce her presence. When she parted the colorful curtains that cordoned off the space, Drea jumped from her seat and gasped.

“God! You scared the
hell
out of me, Em,” she said, catching her breath. “You look like a ghost.”

Em just stood there, trying not to cry. Seeing Drea made her think of Crow. Which made her think of JD. Which made her think of the Furies. Which made her head ache. It was like being strapped into the seat of a sickening roller coaster and not being able to get off.

“Fire,” Drea said suddenly.

Em looked up, her trance momentarily interrupted. “What?”

Drea sat back down. Em looked at her, finally, and saw that Drea was full of nervous energy—her leg ticked up and down, and she kept rubbing her lips together. Drea pointed to a book in front of her. “I figured out the banishment ritual!”

The book was old and heavy, like the ones they’d seen in the antiquities library.
Hidden History: Tales of Small-Town Maine
, it was called. “Where did this book come from?” Em asked.

“I managed to
borrow
it from that library after all,” Drea said vaguely. Em knew what Drea meant: She’d stolen it. “It says in here that there were three sisters who were killed in Ascension—”

“Hold up, Drea,” Em said. “Did anyone see you take this?”

Drea looked Em in the eye and said, “Let’s stay focused on what’s important here. So, like you told me the other day, these three sisters died in the woods, in a fire. But I found out more. As the story goes, the women were practically hermits—the townspeople thought they were witches, or evil seductresses, or some
weird shit. Probably one of them had slept with someone’s husband or something.” Drea rolled her eyes. “Point is, they were practically prisoners in their home. They boarded up all the windows because kids would throw stones through them otherwise. But everyone in town still wanted them punished.”

Drea stopped here, to make sure Em was paying attention. She was. She’d sunk down to her knees on the thin rug that lay on the basement concrete. The story made something deep inside of her ache. Vengeance that wouldn’t be satisfied—she recognized the pattern. Surely, this was how the Furies had been born here, in Ascension, Maine. “Go on,” she whispered.

Drea picked up the book and flipped the pages until she found what she was looking for. “Okay, so . . . the townspeople decided to smoke them out—using rags to light fires around the property. But one of the fires raged out of control, and the women were trapped inside. There was no way they could have escaped, no place they could have gone.”

Em winced. There were flames licking at her chest, her cheeks, her hair. She put her icy fingers against her face, trying to cool off.

“You okay?” Drea looked up at her, concerned. “You want a Coke or something?”

“I’m fine,” Em croaked. “So what happened after that?”

“Well, when the townspeople burst in to try and pull them out of the blaze . . . 
they weren’t there
. Only the body of a boy was
found, no trace of the three women. It all fits together,” Drea said, turning to look at Em. Her eyes blazed with intensity. Em felt weak.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “Who was the boy? What happened to him?”

“No one knows,” Drea said. She stood up again and started pacing. “But don’t you get it? The women didn’t die. Instead, they became Furies. Or the Furies became them. Whichever. Remember how I said the Furies have existed forever, but in different forms?”

Em felt like she was at the top of a mountain looking down. She was at the edge of something powerful. She sensed it. “So, you’re saying these three women . . . they
became
Furies. But how?”

Drea shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe their spirits were somehow trapped. Because the way they died—it wasn’t right. They hung around, looking for revenge. They tapped into the eternal, shifting darkness that
is
the Furies. Anyway, that’s not our problem right now. We need to get
rid
of them.”

Suddenly she leaned forward and grabbed Em’s wrist. “And I think I know how. It’s just like the theme of the stupid Spring Fling—smoke and mirrors. It’s all about mirroring. The Furies were somehow created by fire. Or during a fire. And by fire we’ll get them
out
.” With that, she pulled away and jabbed a finger toward a lighter on her desk. Next to the lighter was a pile of
debris—bits of sticks and moss, a shredded piece of cloth, some crumpled pieces of paper. Did Drea want to burn that stuff?

“But—they’re not human,” Em said. “How can we burn them to death?”

Drea put on her
must I explain everything
face. “It’s not like that,” she said. “It’s a ritual. We have to reverse the process. And we have to do it soon. Just trust me, okay? And I need you to be there. It won’t work if you’re not there.” She stared at Em pleadingly, and Em began to see that Drea was dead serious.

“I’m just—I’m not sure,” Em said. She was more than a little freaked out by Drea’s plan. A fire ritual was even more intense than stabbing a snake. . . .

“Trust me,” Drea repeated.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Em said, keeping her voice as friendly as she could. “But why should I trust you? Why are you so obsessed with the Furies, anyway? Don’t you think I should have a say in how we deal with them? I’m the one who’s being haunted by them. I’m the one who’s being tortured.”

“Em.” Drea cut her off in a voice of infuriating calm, like she was talking to a child. “The entire world does not revolve around you. I have my reasons.”

“Oh yeah?” Em took a step forward. “You have your reasons? Then please, spill. I’m all ears. Because so far, you haven’t told me jack shit.”

Drea looked away, and for a second Em feared she’d gone
too far. Drea would refuse to answer. But then Drea looked back at her, looking gentler and more vulnerable than Em had ever seen her.

“You want a reason?” Drea spoke in a quiet, measured voice, narrowing her eyes. “Fine. I’ll give you a reason. Want to know why my dad hardly leaves the house? Why he can barely get out of bed? He blames himself, Em. He blames himself for my mom’s death—he thinks she killed herself. They had gotten into an argument just before she died. He thinks he was the one making her unhappy.”

A rock of sickness lodged in Em’s stomach. Somehow, suddenly, she knew. It all sounded too familiar. “The Furies,” she said softly. “They were after her?”

Drea nodded. “She was being haunted. I’m sure of it.” She looked around the room, even though they were the only ones there. “After she died, I found an orchid. It was tucked underneath all her sweaters. There were notes, too. Taunting her.” Drea’s voice was barely audible now. “I buried the orchid and the notes in the backyard. And whatever it was they think she did, I’m sure she was innocent. I
know
it.”

“What happened to her? How did she die?” Em asked gently.

Drea looked at her hands, still picking at her nails and her cuticles. Em could see that the skin around her right pointer finger was starting to bleed. “She worked at the Inland Diner—the one up on Route Four?—and it was a closing shift. The other
waitresses and the cook said she insisted everyone go home, that she could handle locking up by herself. They said she seemed nervous, intense—but no one thought anything of it until . . .”

“They found her.” Em murmured.

“The cook . . . the next morning. She was—” Drea swallowed hard. “She was inside the walk-in freezer.” Drea yanked up the hood of her sweatshirt. “There were no wounds, no nothing. She—she just froze to death. She was trapped in the freezer for twelve hours. The inside doorknob had been broken off.”

Em felt like she was about to be sick. “The Furies locked her in the freezer?”

Drea threw up her hands and spoke with a vengeance. “I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe she
was
trying kill herself. But it was their fault either way.” Her eyes were shining with hatred. “They might as well have killed my dad, too. Sometimes I wonder how much he knew about the Furies—I have this vague memory of fire. . . . Maybe he tried to cast them out too?”

“Have you ever asked him?” Em said.

“No,” Drea retorted firmly. “He’s suffered enough.”

There was no sound for a few moments, except for the rattling furnace and the faint noise of the television from upstairs. Em didn’t know what to say. She could see Drea’s shoulders rising and falling beneath her sweatshirt. She wanted to hug her. To comfort her. She tried to imagine what Drea had been through . . . and couldn’t. Her mind wouldn’t even let her go
there. So instead, she went to touch Drea’s back. But Drea flinched, pulling away.

“We’ll figure this out together, okay?” Em said.

Drea offered a halfhearted smile. “The princess and the punk—whatta team.”

Just then church bells sounded in the distance. Six o’clock.

“Shit!” Em cursed. She was almost an hour late to see Gabby. “I gotta go. I’m supposed to meet Gabby.”

“Go,” Drea said. “I need some time to be alone.”

Emerging from Drea’s basement, Em could see that she was irredeemably late. Gabby had sent several texts:
Where are u? . . .
and then,
We’re gonna miss the movie . . .
and then,
Are you even gonna come over at all?
. . . and then,
Well, I guess I’ll just get ready for bed, then. See you in school. . . .

Em tried calling to tell Gabby that she was on her way, but there was no answer. Gabby was probably furious, and screening her calls. When she arrived at the house, Gabby’s car was in the driveway and her light was still on. Good. She was still awake.

But there was no response when she rang the bell, or when she knocked on the door, or when she called Gabby’s cell (again), or when she dialed the Doves’ house line. She could hear it ringing inside, jangling. “Gabby?” Em yelled up at the house. Her heart started thumping, low and hard against her rib cage. This wasn’t Gabby ignoring her. Something was wrong. She could sense it.

She made her way around to the back door, which she knew would be unlocked. She stepped into the Doves’ huge kitchen. “Gabs?” No response, her voice echoing against the stainless steel.

She walked around to the front hall and started up the stairs. “Gabby?” She repeated Gabby’s name over and over like a mantra.

Em pushed open Gabby’s bedroom door slowly. It swished against the carpet. At first that was all Em saw—carpet, and Gabby’s bed, and all the usual stuff. The smell of perfume in the air. And then, a foot. A bare foot with painted toenails. Gabby’s.

Gabby was lying there, her breaths shallow, her face horribly puffy and swollen. Like bee-stung flesh. Like bread left in a bowl of water.

Em knew instantly what was going on: Gabby was having an allergic reaction. This was bad. Really bad.