October Girls: Crystal & Bone (5 page)

Momma stared out the window above the sink, where trailer-park life went on in its carnival of mangy mutts, muscle cars on cinder blocks, laundry on the line, and kids poking each other with sticks. “That’s not good. That means the third Orifice will be opening soon.”

“You knew it was coming.”

“Means you’re a woman now. You’re the new guardian.”

Crystal slammed her Diet Sprite can on the counter so hard it spat bubbles. “I don’t want to spend my life sitting in a trailer park chanting at a hole in the wall. I’ve got plans.”

Momma gave a sad, tired smile. “I said the same thing when I was your age.”

Looking at her now, it was hard to believe Momma had ever been Crystal’s age. The cigarettes hadn’t helped, but the crow’s feet around her eyes looked as if they’d been clawed out by actual crows. Momma’s trailer-trash fashion of aqua eyeliner and burgundy lipstick didn’t hide anything but her pride. Her teeth were chipped and coffee-stained, and even her smile was broken.

That’s me in 20 years. God, get me out of here.

God didn’t answer, leaving her to wonder yet again about the purpose of witches, magic, and dead things crawling back from the grave.

“Casserole gets a little squishy if you let it set too long,” Momma said.

“I better call Pettigrew.”

Minerva beamed in victory. “Tell him I said hello and invite him to Sunday lunch.”

“He’s got church.”

Pettigrew attended First Methodist, a brick edifice whose bell hung higher than any other church in town. Now that Crystal thought about it, she’d never heard of a “Second Methodist” church.

“Tell him to come before that,” Momma said.

“Sure,” Crystal said. “But you’ll probably see him before I do. You seem to keep pretty good track of him. Why don’t you look into your crystal ball and tell me how it all works out?”

Crystal hurried to her bedroom in the back of the mobile home, kicking off her high heels and nudging them into the closet. The sparse array of outfits depressed her. She’d picked up some Old Navy, but her name brands were from thrift shops in neighboring Seymour and Hickory. She didn’t dare shop used in Parson’s Ford for fear of accidentally buying something formerly owned by someone she knew.

Like Cindy Summerhill, who goes through clothes as fast as she goes through boyfriends. Use once and donate.

“And it’s all your fault,” she said to the wall. The portal had shrunk to the size of a quarter, stuck to the cheap paneling like a gooey black booger. Too small for anything really dangerous to squeeze through. Too small for Bone, too, unless she did the spider thing.

Crystal did a belly flop onto the mattress and stretched out. Something thumped under the bed, and she froze in anxiety. Momma had warned her about the Underlings, one of the myriad of creatures that would spill from the Orifice if the Aldridges didn’t stand guard. Momma wasn’t sure what Underlings looked like or what they did, but Crystal imagined woolly balls with lots of tiny, sharp teeth.

She peered cautiously over the edge of the bed, clutching the pillow as a weapon. A pointy-nosed, black-and-white face poked out and sniffed.

“Roscoe,” Crystal said. “You gave me a spook.”

The possum crawled out from under the bed and climbed up the blankets, nestling against her. In the old days, witches took cats as familiars, but in the Blue Ridge Mountains, possums were as good as it got.

She eyed the phone but it seemed too far away. She realized Dempsey hadn’t asked for her phone number.

Why was she thinking of Dempsey?

Maybe Pettigrew didn’t know a lick of French and thought earrings were for sissies, but he was honest and loyal.

Dempsey seemed like the type who would promise you the sun, trick you under the moon, and leave you dreaming while he whistled his way out the door with nary a look back.

A bad boy. And the best I can come up with on Pettigrew is “honest and loyal.” Sheesh. I may as well say he’s “sweet and nice
.”

She sighed and dialed.

Pettigrew answered on the third ring. “Yullo? Happy Hookers Towing Service & Auto Service at your service.”

His corny idea of poetry
. “It’s me, honey.”

“Hey, good-looking, how was your day?”

“Long. I could really use a foot rub.”

“Wearing heels?”

“Yeah.”

“The kind that makes your buns all jiggly?”

“Shh. Somebody might hear.”

He revved the engine to let her know he was in his truck. As usual. “Yeah. Can you hear me now?”

“Momma invited you for dinner Sunday.”

“I got plans Sunday.”

“You know how Momma is.”

“I reckon. Want me to come over later?”

“I’m awfully tired, Pettigrew. We had to restock this morning.”

“Did you snag me a copy of ‘Die Hard III’?”

“Sorry, honey. It completely slipped my mind.” Crystal rolled over on her back and gazed up at the dark splotch on the wall. Now it was shaped like the profile of Alfred Hitchcock. But it seemed to be behaving itself otherwise.

“I’d go get it myself but you might as well use your employee discount. It’s the only fringe benefit you get besides stale popcorn and a free tan.”

“I can’t do the tanning booth when I’m running the counter.” Something squirmed inside the splotch. “Besides, Fatback Bob has—”

“What about tomorrow night, then?” Pettigrew said.

“Dinner?”

“No. I just want to pick you up. In my pick-up.”

“I have a lot going on right now.”
End of the world, crushing on Chain Boy, my best friend is a spider… you know how it goes.

Static crackled on Pettigrew’s end of the line as a call came in over his dispatch radio.

“Say, babe, I got to run,” Pettigrew said. “A Florida Cadillac locked its keys inside.”

“Okay, call me later. We’ll get together.”

He smooched and hung up, leaving Crystal alone with that indistinct ache in her belly.

Tap tap tap.

“Honey, is everything okay?” Momma stood outside the door. There were few secrets in a trailer park.

“Yeah,” she said. Lying to Momma was harder back in the good old days, before puberty and finding out about the long line of Aldridges who had been guarding the portals of Parson’s Ford for centuries. But lying got easier as life got harder. If that wasn’t in the Bible, then it should be.

“You hungry yet?” Momma asked through the door.

“No.” She could always order out for pizza. Or have Pettigrew swing by some Chinese. Might as well get some use out of him while the spell was in effect.

“I’ve got to run out for a little bit,” Momma said. “How’s the Orifice behaving?”

“It’s just sitting there.”

“Should be okay for now. I don’t expect things to get really crazy until Halloween.”

Crystal waited for the footsteps down the hall.

“By the way, honey, stay out of the bathroom. I’ve got something cooking in there.”

“Sure, Momma.”

Then went the footsteps, the squeak and slam of the trailer door, and the roar of Momma’s rusty ‘79 Chevelle.

She rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

D
amn. Don’t those creeps know it’s an hour past midnight?

Bone ducked behind the skeletal tree. The Lurken were scattered in the shadows around the Graveyard of Second Chances, obscured except for their tentacles undulating in the night air. Bone had waited past the witching hour because everybody, even dead people, knew you didn’t mess around graveyards at midnight. But she figured even Lurken had to sleep, though she could never be sure whether their eyes were closed, or if they even had any.

While being dead made her invisible in Parson’s Ford, it gave her no such protection in Darkmeet. She had to negotiate the tombstones the old-fashioned way, by drifting and dodging, dancing with the mist. The sallow, featureless moon hung above, throwing a gauze of light over the graveyard.

She should have kept on going to her casket like a good girl, a Tweener earning brownie points, but the whole control thing rubbed her the wrong way.

Who was the Judge to judge me? Who died and made him boss?

Here and there, spirits were rising from their graves, other restless types who hadn’t figured out where they belonged. She occasionally saw people from history books, though she couldn’t tell Mark Twain from Albert Einstein. Sometimes the Graveyard of Second Chances seemed more like a self-storage warehouse than a launching pad, and Bone wondered if any of her fellow ghosts ever made the transition. Maybe this was as good as it got.

So who could blame me if I tripped over to the Other Side for a while? Killing time here or killing time there, what’s the difference?

But she would never make it across the graveyard. Even without the Lurken doing their thing, it would have been risky. The mausoleum was a good three hundred feet from her casket, and legend had it that Poot Owls hid in the trees and screeched whenever someone tried to escape.

Bone didn’t plan on getting noticed by either Lurken or Poot Owls.

She was just about to make a run for it when she heard a “Psst.”

Hiss of a night creature?

“Hey, good-looking.”

A piece of shadow separated from the larger darkness. It was definitely a night creature. In T-shirt, tight blue jeans, and black leather boots, it was the kind of creature she wouldn’t mind spending a night or two with.

“Royce,” she said, wondering if her hair was still a wreck.

Royce was about her height, but he projected an air of power and grace. The dramatic swoop of brown hair gave him a couple more inches, but it was his eyes that did the damage—they were as blue as summer sky, though stormy and troubled enough to be addictive. Sure, he was see-through, but she believed his touch could scorch her. “Where are you headed in such a big hurry?”

“Nowhere.”

“This place is nowhere, all right.” He put a cigarette in his mouth, and she wondered where he’d gotten it. Cigarettes were just as uncool in Darkmeet as on Earth, except they were a lot harder to get. As hard to get as Milk Duds.

Is Royce crossing over, too? How many Tweeners are bopping back and forth? And, most important, does he have a girlfriend over there?

“I’m supposed to be getting back to my grave.” If she had a pulse, she was sure it would be racing. “You know, that rest in peace thing.”

“Your grave is over that way.” He jerked his head to the left, bobbing the cigarette from his luscious lower lip.

“Have you been spying on me?”

“Nah, just hanging out.” He patted his pockets for a cigarette and came away empty. He shrugged and snapped his fingers, the friction sparking a small flame from his thumb. He lit his cigarette and exhaled a heavy gray smoke that blended with the mist.

Neat trick, considering he can’t breathe.

“So, I’m not the only one playing hooky,” she said.

“Graves cramp my style.” He waved the cigarette. “That’s for ordinary stiffs. Me, I gotta spread out a little.”

She lowered her voice. “Have you been… over there?”

“Outside the graveyard? Nah. These clowns keep us all bamboozled with smoke and mirrors. That corny Judge and his rules. They can shove it.”

“There’s a gate.”

“Freedom’s just a bigger coffin, Dollface.”

Bone felt a need to impress him. Maybe it was his air of defiance, or maybe she’d found an ally, another Tweener who was suspicious of the whole sausage grinder of the soul.

Yeah, right. It’s those danged smoldering eyes, that’s what it is.

“There’s a way back,” she said. She pointed in the direction she’d been headed. “A crack in that mausoleum where you can slip through to my friend’s bedroom.”

“Yeah? Is she cute?”

Bone ignored the spear of jealousy in her chest. She’d thought getting smacked by a truck was the most painful thing that could happen, but it turned out feelings followed you to the afterlife. “Come see for yourself.”

His slight sneer froze in place around the cigarette. “Uh. I gotta be somewhere.”

“You scared or something?”

He tossed his cigarette down and stomped it into the spongy turf. “Meeting my agent.”

“Agent?”

“Show biz stuff. You wouldn’t understand.”

“What are you doing after that?” She hoped she didn’t sound desperate.

“Hanging out.”

He didn’t get the hint, and she didn’t want to push too hard. She’d barely dated before she died, and she’d never quite figured out the mating game. Crystal said if you wanted to test a guy, you had to drop a few crumbs and then see if he’d follow. You didn’t go shoving the whole loaf in his face.

Then again, Crystal had a mother who cast love spells for her, so maybe her advice was a little unreliable.

“Well, maybe I’ll bring you back a pack of cigarettes,” she said. Not that she planned on coming back.

“Cool.” He was distracted, staring past her into the mist.

“You could come with me.”

“Don’t want to miss my big break.”

Some rebel.
She headed for the mausoleum, determined to forget him.

He called after her. “Tell Dempsey I love the script.”

Dempsey? The movie guy?

She turned around but Royce was gone, or maybe dissolved. A distant wolf howled, and something fluttered in the black sky overhead. Despite the mist, she felt exposed on the open ground, and she moved between the grim marble tombstones.

How could he know about Dempsey unless he’d crossed over himself? And if so, what is he hiding?

She had to tell Crystal as soon as possible. Crystal made a big deal out of these portals, and supposedly it had something to do with Halloween. Bone didn’t really care if the Orifice opened wide and everything in Darkmeet spilled out into Parson’s Ford, but Crystal’s mom was giving Crystal a hard time about it all. Trailer-trash magic was apparently a big deal in the Aldridge family.

The mausoleum was now in sight, ten feet high and gleaming like chalk. It looked like most of the structures in the Graveyard of Second Chances, formal but a little worn around the edges. Carved angels stood in relief over the top of the entry, the fat, creepy kind that looked like babies in diapers. She didn’t know whether the rusty gate was designed to keep people out or keep them in.