Natalie struggled to keep her emotions in check as she navigated her way through the school corridors, while a barrage of metal lockers banged open and shut. Pop, pop, pop. It sounded like gunshots.
She pushed through the heavy exit doors and crossed the athletic field toward the field house, where the ball courts and pool house were located. Natalie remembered coming here with Willow to watch Grace compete for the state championship in the butterfly stroke, which Grace specialized in. There was no utilitarian purpose for the butterfly stroke—it was hard to learn and quickly exhausting—but Grace had mastered the powerful, dolphin-like movements through the water, and she was devastated when she’d earned only second place. But Willow had told her, “A winner is just a former loser who never gives up.”
Outside, the midafternoon sun filtered down through the canopy of newly green leaves. Inside, the gymnasium’s high-gloss hardwood floors squeaked beneath a barrage of reversals and assists from the girls’ sophomore basketball team. They rammed their skinny, aggressive bodies into one another, trying to steal the ball. Two teams of feisty young athletes, darting back and forth. Jumping and scoring.
About a dozen more girls sat on the collapsible bleachers, cheering their teammates on. Now the coach blew her whistle and said, “Nice job, ladies. Next time we’ll focus on jump shots. Okay, everyone to the showers.”
They spilled out of the gym like a basketful of apples.
Natalie waved at Ellie, who came running over, her heart-shaped face beaded with sweat. “Aunt Natalie, what are you doing here?”
She handed Ellie the scarab bracelet. “I think this belongs to you.”
“Oh my gosh!” She laughed excitedly and put it on. She admired it for a moment, and then said, “Thanks so much! Where’d you find it?”
“India had it.”
The girl’s mouth dropped open.
“She was conducting a séance in the woods yesterday.”
Ellie squinted at her aunt as if she were trying to read between the lines. “She was?” she asked in a small voice.
“You, India, Berkley, and Sadie—is that the coven you were talking about?”
She nodded.
“Then why was Angela Sandhill there yesterday, instead of you?”
“Because,” she said softly, “I quit.”
“You quit the coven?” Natalie drew back. “Since when?”
Ellie glanced across the echoey gymnasium toward the locker room door. They could hear distant, mocking laughter. Teenage girls never changed, Natalie thought. Only the target of their revolving-door cruelty did.
“Why did you quit the coven, Ellie?”
Her face fell. She seemed to recognize the depth of Natalie’s concern and hardened herself against it. “I really don’t want to be late for my next class.”
“Ellie, I’m trying to figure out what’s going on. Can you help me out here?”
She bowed her head. “I can’t,” she mumbled.
Ellie used to love watching Gilmore Girls, Friends, I Love Lucy reruns, Nick at Nite. She used to daydream about owning a pony. She’d loved each and every one of her stuffed animals. None of that was true anymore.
“I’m not judging you, okay?” Natalie assured her. “I’m sure your mother has told you about some of the crazy stunts she pulled off in her youth. We’ve all done it.”
Ellie took a deep breath and said, “I quit right after I heard about Ms. Buckner.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know.” The girl’s shoulders slumped. She looked around for an exit. “I seriously can’t be late for my next class, Aunt Natalie.”
Looking down at that perky face, she suddenly pictured her niece lying dead, and it sent shivers racing across her flesh. Silence enveloped them. The evasions were piling up. Natalie felt a nauseating sense of disorientation, as if the room were shaking furiously. “Tell me about these underage parties you’ve been going to,” she said.
“You mean, the party last month?” Ellie winkled her nose. “Because I only went to one.”
“Does your mother know you were at an underage party?”
Her eyes widened with alarm. “Please don’t tell her, Aunt Natalie.”
“Then explain it to me. What’s going on?”
“All my friends were going,” she said. “So I wanted to go, too. But I didn’t do drugs or get drunk or anything like that, I swear. I just wanted to hang out with them.”
Natalie couldn’t help herself. The incipient lecture leaked out. “Right, you’ve never gotten stoned with your friends or tried alcohol or anything like that.”
“I’m not stupid,” Ellie whispered fiercely. “I’ll take a sip of beer once in a while to fool people, so they won’t think I’m a narc or a total loser. But I’m not dumb. Some of my friends will get stoned and post it on Instagram, and it’s totally humiliating. I don’t want to end up like them. I’ll pour a little beer in a cup and carry it around with me. But then, at the end of the night, I’ll dump the rest out.”
“Why even pretend? What happens if one of your friends takes a video of you pretending to be drunk and posts it online?”
“They wouldn’t do that,” she said stubbornly.
“Why not?”
“Because they’re my friends.”
“Right.” Natalie shook her head, recalling her own self-indulgences in high school. Getting stoned, getting wasted—Friday nights you didn’t want to be alone. Boys came and went. Nameless crushes. She experimented with drugs in order to find herself, but instead got lost inside her woolly mind. She snuck drinks with her friends in order to numb the pain but ended up racked with grief.
Across the gymnasium, the locker room door opened and girls’ raucous laughter rang across the basketball court. Natalie saw India and Berkley watching them from behind the cracked-open door before it slammed shut again.
“I didn’t realize India and Berkley were like this,” Natalie said. “You can’t be involved in these parties anymore. I’m worried about you. You have to tell your mom—”
“No, please!” Tears sprang to Ellie’s eyes.
“You’re only fifteen,” Natalie said. “You have your whole life ahead of you.”
“I should’ve known you wouldn’t get it,” she said fretfully.
“Oh, believe me. I’ve been there. Look, I understand you’re under a lot of pressure. Too much pressure, maybe. SATs, ACTs, thinking about college, I get that. It’s tempting to do something crazy, something that doesn’t have the approval of the entire adult world. But you’re going to have to tell Grace about this.”
“I can’t,” she whimpered.
“Why not? She needs to know.”
The bell rang.
“Great, now I’m really late,” Ellie fumed.
“Tell your mother tonight. Otherwise, I’m going to have to do it.”
“No, please … I’ll tell her, Aunt Natalie. I promise,” Ellie pleaded. “Tonight. But I have to go. Seriously. I’m late for next period.…”
Natalie nodded.
“Thanks,” she said, looking vastly relieved that the conversation was over and hurrying away.