Poker and Shooter

Sue DeNymme

Poker and Shooter is an underground game played at a private New England high school where a self-appointed senior Master or Mistress invites victimized students to join "The Secret Circle" in order to avenge them. Using free tequila and a poker kitty as bait, the senior lures the victim's unknowing offender into a pre-game of Truth or Dare where the offender either reveals a shameful secret or commits an illegal act (to be videotaped for the option of blackmail later). Then the poker game begins and drinking rules apply. (Loser always takes a shot; dealer can take a shot or not; and the Master/Mistress may randomly call shots, like it or not.) To make the game appear fair, new members are tricked into winning five hands of five-card stud. The ultimate prize is vengeance.

Night filled the boathouse, smudging the space into black except for the candle flames and what they struggled to illuminate around the three remaining classmates: the twins and Sharon, their third initiate. In spite of their limited experience with the game, Daphne and her brother Piper had already begun to crave the intoxicating feeling of superiority it provided.

Daphne leaned into the center of the table where the candles glowed so she could check her Rolex: three-thirty. Five-card stud had taken longer than planned. "Piper?" She nodded at the Cuervo Gold tequila bottle that gleamed in the space between them. "Victory toast." Her twin knew what she meant: time to punish the evil one.

Her brother picked himself up and smiled with a nod before reciting softly: '"The birds pour forth their souls in notes / Of rapture from a thousand throats.' William Wordsworth." As he reached to pour out the Gold, the veins bulged in his arms in the same shade of blue as the sheen on his buzz cut. Overnight, his skin had paled as the whites of his eyes brightened with red. Stubble had sprouted to camouflage his fatigue, and it all worked toward his ultimate goal of keeping people away from them by disguising their family wealth.

Openmouthed, Sharon squinted at Daphne's brother. "What birds? What are you talking about?" She had to be the dumbest sophomore they had ever met: suspended twice for cheating within six months, and ugly, too. Her awful teeth, honking nose, and fur-ball hair made her look like a yak. She moved her eyes back and forth as if she were seeing two heads on his neck.

"Just ignore him." Daphne pocketed the trick deck and snapped her fingers. "Circle, please." It was too late for the twins to be awake, still playing and overcharged with adrenaline. The sounds of the creaking boathouse were intensifying everyone's paranoia. Each of them, wired and clammy as gravediggers in the dew, had mentioned the pylons that groaned beneath the floorboards, but Daphne had reassured them that the structure had only been erected a year before and was thus totally sound. Still, Daphne found herself grimacing in hope that the planks wouldn't cave as she took Piper's and Sharon's hands and said, "Repeat after me, Sharon. I hereby renew my vow never to tell a soul of anything occurring here tonight."

Sharon nodded, stumbled forward a bit, and little flames shone in her eyes as she righted herself, slurring the pledge.

"Sharon," Daphne beamed, proud of her superior liquor tolerance, "from this day forward, you are bound by blood to the Secret Circle. Together we will help you pursue happiness and the welfare of our Circle, and it all starts with the spoils of your victory here tonight." She winked at her brother and raised her glass, smug in her authority. "Congratulations, Sharon."

Piper's diesel-colored eyes and the sweat on his Adam's apple reflected the flickering light as he said, "Go, Poker and Shooter!" It sounded like a sports chant.

Beneath the A-frame ceiling of the school boathouse, the three clinked their glasses as they reached into the pyramid of darkness. As Daphne toasted, she gritted her teeth, trying to make the smile look real even though she loathed herself for doing it since that was why her veneers kept chipping, and cracking a tooth meant begging her dad to pay the bill and enduring the humiliation of his power games again. The thought surged inside, shorting the buzz she'd worked so hard to get. Eyeing the glass in her hand, she assured herself that the next shot would anoint her again with that baptismal burn, restoring that sublime sensation of having swallowed the sky.

They drank and winced, then opened their mouths and breathed together like fish.

Smiling, Sharon jogged her shoulders like a kid. "I can't believe I won," she said. "I always lose at poker." Sitting on the edge of her stool, she scooped the betting money into her purse, displaying the letters on her knuckles that spelled out Cornell. It was an open tribute to him, the love of her life, the boy Christina had taken away. Nodding slowly, she unwrapped a piece of gum, popped it between her yellow teeth, and chomped. "So, what about Christina? It's an eye for an eye, right? You're not really going to help that backstabber win Homecoming Queen, are you?"

Sharon had no idea they'd been reading her cards, fixing the game for her to win, and Daphne was not about to break the spell. Daphne got off on rigging the cards and tricking the other kids into loyalty. "Of course not." A malicious titter escaped Daphne's lips. When they'd rowed up the river to the campus, the fog had frizzed Sharon's copper curls into sections that snaked out like the snapping hair of Medusa, chief of the Gorgons, whose face was so ugly it would turn men to stone if they looked at her, and right now Sharon seemed to be having a similar effect on Daphne. In fact, she hadn't noticed it earlier, but the blind space above felt oppressive. That and the creaking of the pylons made Daphne nervous.

"Let's go." Daphne blew out two tapers and lifted the last one from the table, cupping the flame as she ushered Sharon and Piper out of the club room down the steps to the boat bays where drying varnish filled the air, then down a hall reeking with fresh paint.

A flip of the light switch, and they saw the locker room with its sinks and toilets and back wall of shower stalls. She squeezed the flame from its wick before opening one of the stalls and leaning on the door.

The stench made Sharon wince and shield her nose.

Christina was slumped on the tiles in front of the toilet, all of that sparkling-champagne hair now dulled and matted with puked-up bits of salad and bile spattered down to her stomach. Her skirt rode up on her thighs, but for once it wasn't sexy. One of her flip-flops lay two feet away. It was hard to see if Christina's eyes were open, but Daphne was pretty sure they weren't because any conscious girl would have gotten up and left by now. The putrid fumes would have driven her off. Cornell's ring gleamed from her middle finger, a brass oval with a C in the middle. Cornell had been Sharon's boyfriend before Christina came to their school and stole him.

Daphne poked Sharon in the belly. "Take the ring back." A few months ago, Sharon had loved the ring as she had loved Cornell. "You deserve it."

"I can't," Sharon said, eyes wide. She took the gum out of her mouth and rolled it between her fingers. "I feel bad. I thought she just passed out. You said that, right, Piper? But Christina looks almost ... dead."

True. Christina's skin did have a whale-belly sheen, bloated and metallic, which was odd since she'd always been the best looking at school, making all the girls jealous. In fact, she was too pretty, the cold kind of pretty guys want to take and girls want to eliminate. "What do you care? You wanted her to be punished for what she did." Daphne looked at her brother and shrugged. "That was the point of our game. Your problem with Christina is why we made her break in here in the first place, and if you say anything, we'll tell them you're to blame. You're the one who hated Christina. Everyone knows that."

Sharon's forehead puckered as she stretched out her chewing gum and snapped it apart. "Are you sure she's okay?"

Glaring, Daphne said, "Sure, I'm sure." Sharon had paid way too much for her hairdo. It looked more like hairballs than coiffure, but it wouldn't have helped to tell her. Sharon would always be a loser and there was no makeover for that. She decided to stay out of Sharon's hair.

Piper ran his hand back and forth over his buzzed Mohawk. "Cornell won't want the skank if someone finds her half-naked on the library steps. Let's take her and leave her in her underwear. She'll never want to come back to this school. That's for sure." Piper chuckled. "We can pin a note on her jacket that says, Do Me."

"Very poetic." Daphne said. "Okay. What do we do with the Grand Prize, then?"

"She smells so bad." Sharon put her hand over her mouth. "I don't know."

"You're supposed to be happy about this, Sharon. That's why we did this for you. Christina is your prize now. Maybe you need another shot. Hair of the dog to break up the bad taste?" Daphne groped for Sharon's and Piper's hands. "Shall we chant first? Blood on the moon, blood on the moon."

"Stop." Sharon jerked away, bent down and put her ear to Christina's nostrils. "Is she even breathing?"

"She was breathing fine before." Piper looked at Daphne and got down on his haunches so his shorts rose over his knees. Wrestling and sculling had chiseled his quads, but he looked more like a burglar than a jock, and the image was not a good choice since he'd been arrested for breaking and entering through the school nurse's bedroom window. "Want me to slap her? There's no way I'm giving her mouth-to-mouth."

The color of Christina's hair reminded Daphne of the amber that ancient Greeks rubbed to generate electricity. If only they could find a defibrillator, they could jolt her back to life.

"I don't like this, you guys." Sharon stood. "Someone should check her pulse."

Daphne spotted a pair of polka-dotted panties by the toilet in the next stall that had to be Christina's. Kneeling in front of them, she tried to block Sharon's view and sneak them out of the bathroom before anyone else noticed, because if Sharon saw, she'd probably want to tell Cornell or something. Piper could go to jail. They could all go to jail.

Her brother bent to grab Christina's wrist, feel for the pulse in her veins.

"Don't touch." Daphne blocked his arm with her foot. "You didn't touch her skin, did you?" She was grinding her teeth again. Her temples ached from her churning jaws.

Her brother smiled with his eyes just like he had when they were kids and he'd lie, lie, lie to their nanny. He crossed his arms and said, "I didn't touch her."

"You're such an idiot." Of course he had touched her. He'd taken off her panties! Daphne shook her head. "We have to change the whole game because of this. They can get prints off the skin."

"I saw that on TV." Sharon sat on her haunches next to Daphne and looked at the blonde. "I think they use superglue." She pulled a mobile phone out of her purse. "I'll call for help. Maybe 911 can pump her stomach or something."

Daphne snapped. "Put that goddamn thing away."

"We can go to the pay phone if you're scared."

"And tell them what?" Piper snorted. "We hazed her? You're crazy. They'll lock us up."

Daphne took a brown paper towel from the dispenser and wiped Sharon's prints off the faucet. "We put muscle relaxants in her tequila. Do you want to spend the rest of your life watching your back in prison?"

Sharon shook her head. "We can tell them she agreed to take the pills. We had too much to drink and she passed out in here, and that's when we called 911. She drank too much and took drugs. They can save her." She opened her phone. "Okay?"

Daphne shook her head and held up the panties. "That would have worked if Piper hadn't spoiled everything." She glared at her brother. "Will they find DNA?"

Sharon's face puckered. Her wiry locks shot in the air like antennae groping for signals, a sea anemone in shock therapy.

"No." Piper took a step back. "I used a condom."

Daphne scoffed. "What the hell were you thinking? If she wakes up now, shell tell for sure." She watched Christina's chest for movement, but it didn't rise or fall. No telling how long she'd been like that. They were in big trouble now.

She pictured the police at the headmaster's office. Would they charge manslaughter or murder? Definitely rape—premeditated rape because Piper had slipped a Mickey into her booze at the beginning of the card game. They all had histories of violence and delinquency.

Burdened with the onslaught of unwanted responsibility, Daphne pushed herself up from the floor and began to plan the next move. She turned to her brother. "Pick her up. She's not breathing."

Sharon objected quickly. "No way! You're not supposed to move someone like that."

Daphne didn't want to hurt her, but it would have felt good to bop Sharon in the head. "Listen, Sharon. Pull it together. Take a deep breath."

"What if you killed her with those pills?"

Daphne shook her head. "That's not what happened." Sophomores could be so dumb. "You're the one responsible here."

Squeezing her fists into white knuckles Sharon said, "This is your fault, Daphne. You set all of this up. You're the Mistress of Poker and Shooter. It was your dumb game that got us into trouble."

The fire of betrayal stung Daphne's cheeks as she glared. "Who do you think you are? You're new to this school, and you're just a sophomore." Daphne was the one who used people, not the other way around. She had rigged it all for Sharon with the trick card deck in order to gain power at school; but now, with Christina dead, Daphne had to revise the game. It was hers to play and preserve now that she acted as Mistress. Daphne held Sharon's gaze. "Remember the oath you took in blood?"

Sharon looked away. Her pistachio eyes flicked around the space: at the ceiling, then the floor, anywhere it seemed but into Daphne's eyes. Finally, she fixed her eyes on the ring that gleamed on Christina's finger. "Do what's best for the Circle? Restore harmony through the game?"

Daphne looked at her brother. "Should we tell her?"

"The first oath." Piper frowned. "You don't remember the blood vow?"

Sharon opened her hand and answered. "Not a word outside the Circle." For a moment, she stared at the circle they'd inscribed in her palm to draw blood for the oath.

"What you hear in the Circle, what you see in the Circle, must always stay in the Circle. To break the rules is to break the Circle and risk being silenced." The idiot had to be told again and again. "You're linked to us now. Forever."

"Like Knights of the Round Table," added Piper. "Break the vow and you're cursed."

Sharon said, "This is different. This is real."

They weren't getting through. Daphne fought an impulse to kick Sharon in the stomach. She stabbed a finger into Sharon's chest. "Remember, this is all because of you, Sharon."

Sharon's tears splashed on the tile as she crumpled and sobbed, her stomach jiggling over her jeans so that the fat smothered the gem in her navel. Not only did she need a brain transplant, but she could have used lipo, too. Extreme makeover. All the way. "How old are you? Sixteen?"

Looking up briefly, Sharon sobbed and sniffed. "Yeah."

Maybe she was retarded.

She was worse than pathetic. Sharon's hysteria brought out something abysmal in Daphne, and though she knew it was wrong to want to kick the initiate in the face as she lay crying at her feet, Sharon's weakness catalyzed the predator in Daphne. It filled her with energy, and she liked the power of it.

In the long rectangular mirror, Daphne caught a glimpse of herself: a scary banshee with ratty burgundy hair and bloodshot eyes. Normally she looked like the princess in the Star Wars movies, but she had drunk off her lipstick and the eyeliner had smeared around her sockets. She was turning into Sharon, for God's sake. Quickly, she splashed water on her face and wiped the smudges away with toilet paper.

"Ugh!" Piper heaved Christina's body like fresh-killed game across his shoulders: ankles to one side, wrists dangling on the other.

Daphne threw the tissue into the toilet and flushed. "Down to Sharon's boat." Daphne nodded and scanned the bathroom for evidence. "Can you manage the steps?"

"Yeah. She's light as a feather."

"Good." Daphne wiped the sink with pink dispenser soap, then the toilet and the doors. "Check outside, Sharon."

Sharon hugged herself and rocked back and forth on the floor. "It's all my fault. I just wanted Cornell so much."

"I know. Go to the door and look outside. Make sure no one's coming." No response. Sharon didn't even move. Daphne thought she and Piper couldn't have been that dumb as sophomores. There was no way everyone was created equal. Sharon was getting on Daphne's last nerve. "What is wrong with you? Do you want to go to jail? Get up and move!"

Finally Daphne sighed. "All right. Don't get up. I'll check outside myself." She walked to the window and peeked out the blinds. Every second that drew closer to dawn upped the ante of getting caught. Across the lawn near the woods by the headmaster's cottage, an owl hooted, but the lights were still out. The mist was the only thing moving on campus. At the foot of the cliffs in the labyrinth, the fog had broken into phantoms that meandered through the boxwood as darkness fled. "Okay." Daphne looked down at Sharon. "Let's go."

Piper led the girls out of the bathroom and down a hall, past a phalanx of trophies, novelties, and awards, where Daphne's father smiled from a glossy 8 x 10. Once captain of the sculling team, their father had donated the boathouse to the school. Seeing his face unhinged Daphne, opening a door to the past that she had long trussed shut. She could almost feel those damn veneers popping off.

"Bet he'd return our calls if he could see us now, Daf." Piper chuckled.

"Why now? To say he's proud of how we picked up his amazing poker skills?" She spat at his glazed eyes. "No way he'd bail us out of jail. He never even loved us."

Piper sighed. "He's a fraud. Forget the jerk," he said. "We're in control. It's our turn to change the world." Their childhood days were definitely over.

Daphne nodded and followed him back to the lobby and the poker table, where she stopped to stuff the candles into her backpack with the shot glasses and the ashtray. After she downed the last of the tequila, she put the empty bottle in with the clinking shot glasses.

Suddenly, she couldn't breathe in all that darkness. Her knees felt like Silly Putty. Above, the blackness seemed to shift and the beams stretched like guillotines, four deep, about to fall on her neck.

The next thing she saw was Piper looking down, shaking her shoulders. "What was that? I think you fainted."

She tried to focus. "I'm okay."

Piper smiled and offered his hand. "'0 the cunning wiles that creep / In thy little heart asleep!'"

Taking his hand, Daphne finished the stanza: "'When thy little heart doth wake, / Then the dreadful night shall break.' William Blake." Dusting her skirt with her hands, she said, "Pick her up. Time to blow this rat hole."

Under a thin film of dusk, the three climbed down the boathouse stairs to the dock to untie Sharon's boat. Piper went first, taking the stairs one by one with Christina's body slung over his shoulder, an ankle in his grip as he breathed what looked like smoke. The stench of Christina's hair stained the air but the chill revitalized them as it blew off the water.

At the end of the dock where Sharon's boat waited, Piper stopped and sighed.

When he dropped his burden, the body landed in the boat with a thud, rocking it, making circles in the water that slapped back again and again.

On the surface of the river, the moon sparked in zigzags that looked like a polygraph test or maybe a heart monitor in ICU. A fish flew out of the water in a flash of silver light.

Without a word, Sharon untied the knot and tossed in the rope. Staring at the coil, she followed Piper, grabbing the side of the boat for balance until she took the seat across from him.

Daphne stepped in last, lifting her skirt to avoid the corpse. She couldn't stop looking at it, all that hair moving in a Cuervo-colored puddle. Christina's half-open lids made her seem like a ghost, beckoning from the underworld, as if she could be revived. Arms crossed, Daphne braced herself against the lonesome chill. They had each taken blood vows to one another, but she'd never felt so alone. "Don't start the engine," she whispered. Her temples felt like skinless nerves. She realized her palms were sweating. "Too noisy." The words played again in her skull, taking on lives of their own.

Sharon looked terrified. "What if someone comes?" She pushed off, dipping the boat to the side so that wavelets slapped back. The puddle in the boat curled Christina's hair around Daphne's toe. "Do you two have a plan?"

"Yeah." Piper grabbed the oar and plunged it, leaning toward the water as he stroked to propel them upriver. The air felt cooler as they moved into it. "Where to, Daf?"

Intuitively, she knew. Something primal had ignited in her soul, a sixth sense, and she projected herself up to look down on the boat as if she were in some higher realm, a realm of all-knowing where she could see the shimmer of fish swimming by, the currents in the water, and the people in the village waking in their beds. "We'll lodge her body up the river by the Appalachian Trail mouth. Under the tree in the water."

When they arrived at the trailhead, Piper put the oar in the boat. He dug a Zippo lighter out of his jeans, cupped the flame around a cigarette, and sucked before spewing smoke into the stench of alcohol-drenched vomit. With the cigarette hanging from his lips, he reached down and lifted the corpse with one hand, but the head slipped and smacked against the side of the boat.

Christina seemed to be watching through her lashes.

"Jesus!" Sharon whispered with force. "What are you doing?"

He shrugged and fumbled with the body again and finally, when he flipped it over the side, both girls flinched. Needles of icy water splashed up as Christina's head dipped under the surface.

Piper put a leg over and eased himself down, grimacing. The girls stared at the patient, rising corpse.

The eyelids had fully opened, revealing lichen green irises like the stained rose borders of the campus chapel doors. Why hadn't her parents baptized her? Then she would have been forgiven.

"We're going to hell for this," Sharon said. "We could at least tell someone she drowned so they'll give her the proper burial."

Daphne grimaced. "It's too late."

Sharon opened her mouth and closed it, staring at the ripples of water by the boat.

Chest deep, Piper grabbed Christina's ankle. "Don't freak out. The animals and the water will take care of my prints." He waded the body through the river to the massive trunk that had been split by lightning and sunk years ago, then lodged the corpse underwater.

Daphne lit a cigarette, gave it to Sharon and lit another for herself to smoke while she watched her brother wade to shore and back, anchoring the body with stones. Puffing while they waited, they exhaled rings that bloomed into halos that floated up to heaven. Daphne prayed there was no God.

When her brother finally came back, he splashed his sister and quoted Edgar Allan Poe: '"Resignedly beneath the sky / The melancholy waters lie.'" The boat rocked as he climbed in and, like a dog, shook off spray.

"Watch it!" Sharon flicked her cigarette at his arm and watched it bounce off his bicep to the river.

Piper scooped fistfuls of water and splashed her in the face.

"Asshole." Sharon wiped her cheeks with her shirt hem. "It's getting light, you guys. I have to be back before my mom wakes up. What time is it?"

"'Had we but world enough, and time.'" Piper looked at his diving watch. '"This coyness, Lady, were no crime.' Andrew Marvell."

Daphne rolled her eyes. Her head throbbed and burned. "It's almost five. Row the boat to Sharon's house, Piper. We'll walk back after we drop her off."

A few days later, the girls were standing catty-corner in the buffet line when they heard a teacher telling the chef that a body had risen in the river. The girls locked eyes.

Sharon whispered, "Let's go to the Sunken Garden."

"Good plan," Daphne whispered and put a cupcake on her tray. "No one goes there, and if anyone comes, we'll see them on the steps." She eyed Sharon's loose-fitting clothes and put a cupcake on Sharon's tray. "You're losing weight, you know. Your face looks drawn."

Sharon huffed and followed Daphne out the dining hall's French doors, across the terrace and beyond the Georgian campus buildings to a series of immaculate outdoor rooms, tennis courts, the ice rink, football field, and running trail that ran alongside the service road. The footpath led them directly to the orbed gateway of the Sunken Garden, now blanketed with red roses. A central fountain spouted water from a fish's mouth in the middle of the recessed quadrangle whose sections were said to represent the four corners of paradise. Down the steps, they found a bench near a bed of flowers that filled the air with perfume.

The instant Sharon put down her tray and sat, she let the tears fall. "I'm so scared. This game is driving me crazy." She dabbed at the spots that kept blooming on her cotton skirt. "You should come with me tomorrow to church. I'm going to confession."

"Are you crazy? All we have to do is stay quiet. Don't admit anything or volunteer information. Never admit guilt. That's what Piper's lawyer tells him. Life sucks." Daphne picked a rose and inhaled the scent. "We just have to deal with it." She put down the flower and said, "They don't even know we were with Christina that night. You'll be fine."

"Who are you, the Oracle at Delphi?" Sharon sniffed. She kept rubbing the stains, but they only multiplied as more tears fell. Like the rock Sisyphus rolled, the task seemed endless. "What if they find something?"

"No way. It was an accident. Happens every day. Christina fell in and drowned." Daphne nodded.

Sharon returned an empty green-eyed stare. "So what do we do? I feel like I'm dying inside. I feel like hell."

"You look like it. We should do your hair." She nibbled a hangnail. "We need manicures. And force yourself to eat something. If you start wasting away and looking like crap and crying all the time, everyone will know."

"I won't." Sharon shook her head. She lifted the fork and cut her chicken enchilada into little pieces, choking on the tears. "I want to go to the river and say a prayer." She chewed as if she was eating cat litter. "I want to see where they found Christina."

"Are you certifiably insane?" Daphne licked a blue-frosting flower off the top of her cupcake. "We can't go there. Bad idea."

Another bit of enchilada went into Sharon's mouth. "Then we have to cast a spell." She looked up at the sky as if an answer would appear in the smoky letters of a skywriter plane. "Last year you stole frogs from the lab, right?"

Daphne frowned and bit into her cupcake. "They never proved it was me."

"You said it was because of your spell, that protective spell." Sharon crossed herself in the Catholic tradition. "Why don't we cast a spell like that so no one finds out about this? To protect ourselves?" Sharon watched her finish her cupcake. "We could at least say a prayer for Christina. Light a candle?"

Daphne nodded. It was scary how she believed every mystical charm. If some detective asked her what happened, Sharon could actually tell the truth like some kind of idiot. "Okay. If you insist, let's go to higher ground." She picked up the rose and waved it at the green apple on Sharon's tray. "Are you gonna eat that?"

"I thought you wanted me to."

"Save it." She faked a smile. "We'll bring it to the bluffs as an offering."

High above the river, the air tasted like grassy topsoil and decay, but the view of the leafy hilltops and flowing river below was so exhilarating that Daphne felt she could fly away. There was something intriguing about the impulse, though she knew if she tried she would crack like a melon on the rocks. She inhaled and beamed. "Heavenly, isn't it?"

"Heavenly." Sharon nodded as she stepped to the edge. Her green eyes sparkled as she turned back. "Is this where you always cast the spells?"

"Not always." Wriggling out of the backpack, Daphne spread her jacket on the ground so she could sit and watch the idiot. She fished out her supplies: a lighter, some candles, and the trick deck. "It's a tragedy so few of us know about this, but that's why it's so nice, too."

"Yeah. It's nice up here except for that." Sharon pointed at a hundred-foot tree below. "That's the Killing Tree, where my cousin bled his first deer. He was so proud, he brought me to see it, but I hate hunting. I was glad when they finally gave that land to the government."

"Tax write-off?"

Sharon nodded and stepped toward Daphne, who was laying black tapers out on her jacket. "How did you know?"

"My father does that whenever he needs a tax break. Problems of abundance."

Sharon nodded. "Hey. I didn't see him at the parents' picnic. How is your dad?" Daphne was grinding her teeth again and Sharon must have sensed her irritation. She changed the subject. "Do you always use black candles for spells?"

"Only death spells." A flicker of fear in Sharon's eyes passed as quickly as it had come. She believed all Daphne's lies about magic, but nothing practical about protecting herself from jail.

"Is that why you used them at the poker game?"

"No." Daphne stabbed three candles into the topsoil, in a triangular formation. "That was accidental."

"Oh." Sharon pursed her lips, eyes watering as though she was about to weep. "Sorry." She picked up a fallen limb and poked it into the bobbing doilies of Queen Anne's lace that fringed the cliff. "Don't you need, like, tarot cards or something occult?"

"Would you stop talking for a minute?" Stupid girl. "Am I the Mistress here?" Sharon nodded. "Then keep quiet. We have to clear our heads before any of this will work. Don't say anything while I sort out the altar. Got it?"

Sharon held out the apple and raised a brow at the ocher stain of rot caving in around the stem. "Do you need this now?" Daphne glared a wall between them that stopped Sharon from breathing. "I'm sorry," Sharon said as she put the apple back into her pocket. "I'm asking too many questions."

"You're nervous." Daphne faked a smile. "Let's talk. Tell me how I chose my name."

"You mean Daphne? Daughter of the river god." Sharon nodded, eyes agleam. "You took it from Apollo and Daphne in Mythology 101. Because of the current and the way the story seemed to juice you up. You said it gave you a charge."

"Right. Her delight was in sport and the spoils of the chase. The river was her rapture, that and the woods." Daphne lit the candles and said, "Go stand by the cliff. Clear your head. Imagine the river god in the current. Just listen to the music of the water. Feel it carry you away."

"I like the sound of water." Sharon nodded and turned and walked to the edge. She turned back. "But you know what? I still miss Cornell. And you won't believe this, but I miss Christina, too. I hate what we did, but at least we have each other." Facing the gorge, she said, "How long do I do this?"

What a moron. "However long it takes." Daphne rubbed her aching temples. Sharon had been a lamebrain during the cover-up and now again since Christina's body had risen. Like her mythological namesake, Charon the ferryman to Hades, Sharon could lead them both to hell, but Daphne was not going down, now or ever, and especially not because of some dumb chick named Sharon. She pictured the freak as Medusa, paddling into the underworld, and giddiness took hold. Swallowing hard, she stifled a laugh. Wouldn't the entire human gene pool improve without Sharon Hicks, Lamebrain of the Century? Daphne's future looked a lot cheerier without that imbecile in the picture. She took a step toward her.

Sharon shuffled backward and said, "How do you know when you're finished?" Pebbles tumbled down the cliff.

Seeing Sharon on the ledge was too much. Daphne's cheeks glowed, her stomach tingled with urgency. "Have you been baptized?" She took a giant breath and exhaled, feeling stronger by the second as she walked toward the cliff.

"No. Why?"

"Maybe you should pray for forgiveness."

Sharon turned around. "What?"

"Pray." Something surged inside and Daphne lunged.

Sharon's body betrayed her. Her back twisted. Her knees buckled. Her shocked face gave Daphne a strange sense of satisfaction as she stepped forward to watch the fall. Sharon had dropped twenty feet when her coppery head smacked on something, making her body jerk before splashing down another forty feet into the eddy.

She looked a lot better underwater. Her white jacket puffed out around her like wings. She wouldn't be worrying anymore.

Daphne heard something. She turned to check the staircase for any witnesses, but no one was there. Just distant thunder. Lightning charged the sky. Five counts later came the bang.

She looked up, but the heavens gave no comfort. Clouds raced past and the wind shook the trees like Furies streaming down the river, the leaves shivering in gusts that moved from tree to tree. The foliage and sky were tearing themselves apart.

She shouldn't have looked back down the bluffs but she did.

In the river, Sharon looked up breathlessly, her body swirling like a leaf. The body whirled around and around, spinning, and dizziness swept over Daphne. She closed her eyes and shuddered at the thousand-mile-an-hour spin of planet Earth. Loose soil gave way underfoot and her reflexes pulled her back as her stomach churned, around and around, like Sharon, far below. She opened her eyes and wished Sharon alive. She wished she hadn't killed her. If only she could press the Undo button, like on a computer, and make it all reverse. Daphne hugged herself and held back the tears. If Sharon hadn't been such a freak, if she had only been able to control herself and keep her mouth shut, she would still be part of the Secret Circle. Daphne felt rotten, and for a moment, she wanted to let herself go, crash on the rocks, and float in the eddy. The whirlpool had become a black void in her soul, and she felt herself falling into despair.

Then lightning cracked. In three counts came thunder, even closer than before, and beneath the gathering thunderhead she spotted a string of rosary beads—Sharon's. They must have slipped from her pocket. Daphne's breathing quickened as she went for them and the movement of her body snapped her out of her trance.

However long she'd been there, she had stayed too long. She couldn't look at Sharon again, or the river. One only had to be within hearing distance of thunder to be within striking distance of lightning. Time to save herself.

Daphne's jacket, candles, and cards still lay on the ground, so she scurried to pick them up. Zipping everything into her backpack, she walked to the steps perched on the cliff. No wonder she could smell the sweat on her skin. She was drenched in it.

"Terrible shame," she rehearsed as she grabbed the railing. "Sharon was so mad and blue about her boyfriend Cornell after he'd dumped her for Christina. She said she was going up to the trail to clear her head and figure out how to get him back." That would wind things up.

Through the woods abutting the Sunken Garden, catmint squished underfoot as she trudged. It marked the air with its scent like a cat marking its territory, and she told herself that she had become a mouser cat, killing where needed to safeguard the grounds and ward off the pests. What she'd done was awful, but it was for the greater good. It helped to remember that she was more potent and smarter than anyone, like Daphne, the nymph anointed from beyond. The electricity in the air invigorated her, and she didn't know how she'd ever gotten so low. Right now was the best time of her life. She had never been so free and in control. She could probably make anyone do anything if she put her mind to it. She would never have to kill again. It was all in the past; she had to live in present tense, no matter how painful her remorse.

Rain sheeted down as she pushed through the locker-room door. Her mouth was pasty. A shot of tequila would have helped her relax, but her head throbbed too much. Maybe some water and a shower would rinse off the day.

Indoors, where the smell of eucalyptus leaked out of the sauna, she tried to think back. Had she left anything behind to incriminate herself? Somehow she couldn't remember gathering her things, just the experience of vertigo and looking down at Sharon's spinning body. She tried not to think of the cliffs or the river at the water cooler, but the bubbles glugged as she filled her cup and she got a sinking feeling. The sound of water made her wonder. Did God really care about a bunch of stupid kids? She drank as she walked to her locker, and the cool springwater tasted sweet on her tongue. If He did, then wouldn't He in His wisdom understand why she had to get rid of Sharon, if there even was a God, which she seriously doubted? Of course He would forgive her, baptized or not, because she was sorry and He only helped those who helped themselves. She had heard that somewhere and hoped it was true. She had to get rid of the rosary, maybe pick Sharon's locker or stuff it into the vent.

Daphne set the cup on the bench next to her so she could open her own locker door. The smell of cedar filled her nose as she stowed her backpack inside and ignored Christina's locker in the same row, two down. It was sad, but Christina had brought it on herself, driving them all crazy; she was pathologically pretty on top of being a man thief. As for Sharon, the nitwit had to be silenced so the Circle could continue—for senior year, at least, when she and Piper would host the games to restore harmony in school. The whole game had been for the greater good of her classmates. They had never set out to actually kill anyone. Slipping her dress over her head, she took off her bra and wrapped a towel around her chest. She was taking off her panties when she heard a bubbly freshman call to her.

"Daphne?" The girl scanned the room, her eyes flicking right and left as she bounded toward her in shorts and a tank of lapis blue. "You don't know me, but we need to talk." Daphne's seat shook as the girl plopped next to her with the energy of a chihuahua, and she looked like one, too, with skinny legs and arms and mouse-ear ponytails.

Daphne closed the locker and pinned the key to her towel. "Not to be rude, but I'm in a hurry."

"This is life or death." Tucking a hundred-dollar bill into Daphne's hand, the girl sighed and leaned in. "I'm serious. I have everything to lose."

"Shush." Daphne felt refreshed as she sensed a flare of excitement deep inside her body. "Keep it down. Someone might hear."

The girl whispered and cocked her head like a puppy. She smelled like strawberry flavoring. "Madeleine used to be my best friend, but she totally just stabbed me in the back. She's been stealing my clothes and turning my friends against me, gossiping. Not to call a spade a spade, but I swear she wants to take my life from me. She's even sleeping with my boyfriend." The girl squinted and stunned Daphne by patting her on the thigh. "Your brother said to ask you about the Secret Circle." She hesitated before shooting out the words: "Will you invite me? You know. Liquor up front and poker in the rear?"

Piper had revealed the code. The surge returned. In that instant, the current of omnipotence fed her veins. A warm force surged through her body; she could do anything. She knew the craving and the alchemy. All she had to do was keep playing the game. "So, go ahead. Ask."

"Okay. I've got more for you, if you trust me." The girl opened her purse. Inside was a bottle of Cuervo. "Are you really the Mistress of Poker and Shooter?"