The Dead Girls Club - Damien Angelica Walters Page 0,47
on the wall followed me the way the ones in the dolls did.
“Maybe she’s the only thing I want to talk about,” Becca said. “If you were really my friend, you wouldn’t be mad.”
“I am your friend.”
The corner of a box stuck out from beneath her bed, and I said, “What’s that?”
“Go look.”
Inside were a bunch of the construction-paper books we’d made when we were little. I snickered at the titles: The Ghost. The Witch’s House. The Ice Dog. The Fire Cat.
“We were such dorks.” I pushed the box back and sat on the edge of her bed with my back to the Red Lady. “So where did you get all her stories?”
“Oh,” she said. “That book at the mall.”
I chewed my bottom lip. “I don’t remember seeing her in it.”
“You didn’t read it all, but I did.”
But she said it without looking at me, and I knew she was lying. She was making it all up herself. For one thing, there was no way she’d had time to read all those stories and remember them while we were at the bookstore. For another, it was all too weird to be anything but made-up.
“I won’t tell Rachel and Gia,” I said.
“Won’t tell them what?”
“That you’re making it up.”
“I’m not. I don’t understand why you don’t believe me.”
I didn’t want to call her a liar, so I said, “Want to watch a movie or something?”
“Yeah, sure.”
We went in her basement and watched MTV for a while, but every time I talked to her, even to say something silly, she only sort of dipped her head. She kept rubbing the bruise, her face turning angry and then kind of sad. When I lied and said I had to go home and check the dryer for my mom, she just said, “Don’t forget to lock the door on your way out,” and didn’t even walk with me upstairs.
* * *
“I know what we did wrong,” Becca said.
The candles were in a circle in the basement again, and she was in the middle holding the matches. The mark on her cheek was still dark. She caught me looking and flipped some of her hair forward, not that it hid much, but I got the point. “We weren’t sitting the right way,” she said, lighting the candles.
I thought she was joking, because how could that make any difference, but her face was serious. Once again, Rachel was scared, twisting her fingers and biting her lip. Gia was all wide-eyed and excited.
We sat the same way we did before, Rachel next to me with Gia on her other side. But after Becca pricked our fingers again and put on our blindfolds, she said, “Turn so you’re facing out, with your legs crossed, and leave room for me.”
Once Becca sat down, I had to scoot again. Our folded legs were squished, Rachel’s knee practically on top of mine. Everyone, even Becca, moved a little bit, trying to get comfortable as we linked hands. Because of the way we were sitting, our arms from shoulder to elbow were pressed tight to our bodies, and from elbow to fingers rested on our thighs, like dolls stuck in wrong poses. I wrinkled my nose. If they wanted to do this a third time, I was going to say no, no matter how angry they got. They could do it without me.
“Red Lady, Red Lady, show us your face,” Becca said.
We joined in, my voice not nearly as loud. I waited for Becca to knock my leg or something, but she didn’t. After a while, her voice got faster and so did Rachel’s and Gia’s. Mine, too, until the words were oatmeal in my mouth. It sounded like there were more than four of us here, like we weren’t even speaking English anymore, and goose bumps pebbled my arms.
The room grew warmer. The candles smelled even worse this time, all flowery and fruity and Christmas trees. It made me feel queasy, but if I threw up Becca would never forgive me. Rachel started shaking. I tipped my head back, peeking under the blindfold’s bottom edge. The light flickered and a shadow moved past. I jerked my hands, but Becca held tighter. Rachel’s slipped a little, but she held on too. I turned my head from right to left but saw only the candles. Past them, the candles made dark shapes flit on the walls.
The air grew thick, and I smelled something other than the candles, something meaty and rich. Something moved