Line dancing, costume parties, and public speaking are at the top of my slow-death-through-embarrassment list. My clothes are spread out on every available piece of furniture in my room. I so wish I didn’t have to go to this thing.
“Sam! Door!” yells Vivian from downstairs.
I glance at my cell phone. It’s 8:17 p.m. Could Jaxon be that early? I scoop up some clothes and shove them back into Abigail’s armoire in a messy pile. “Coming!”
I make it down the first couple of stairs before I stop dead in my tracks. Vivian’s talking to Susannah in the foyer.
“Hey,” I say, and they look up.
“I didn’t know you girls were going to a theme party,” Vivian says in a friendly tone as I make my way down the rest of the stairs.
That’s because we haven’t spoken a word to each other since last night. I shrug.
“I might have something in my closet for you,” Vivian says. This is a perfect example of our current relationship. Fight, and then ignore the fact that the fight ever happened.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Let me know if you change your mind,” she says, and clicks down the hall.
Susannah is wearing a flattering black Victorian dress with a full skirt and a high neck. Her hair is fashioned in an elaborate version of her usual bun.
“Whoa. You look awesome.” There’s no way I’m going to be able to match that.
“Thanks.” She smiles.
“I was just getting ready. You want to come up?” She obviously came for some specific reason, and I don’t want Vivian overhearing whatever that reason is. She already thinks I’m unstable; all I need is for her to hear I’m inadvertently practicing witchcraft.
“Sure. This is a beautiful old house. I always wondered what it looked like inside.”
We walk up the stairs together. “I spent about three days getting lost in it.”
“I can imagine.” She takes note of the dimly lit sconces in the hallway.
“Here we are,” I say, opening the door to my room.
“It’s like stepping back in time.” She repeats my exact thoughts when I saw this place.
“So what’s up? I know you didn’t just happen to be in the neighborhood.”
“No, I didn’t.” She looks down at the antique silk purse at her side and pulls out an envelope. “This is a letter from your grandmother to mine. I found it when I was helping my mother go through some old boxes this summer. It talks about the mysterious deaths.”
“So you did know about them?” I was right in the garden. There was definitely something they knew and didn’t tell me.
“Sort of. To be honest, I thought your grandmother was, well, unbalanced. It was my grandmother’s response that worried me. It was shoved into the same envelope. She never sent it.”
“Okay,” I say, unsure.
“Samantha, how did you know other descendants saw blurred faces?”
“Is that what that letter says? The one from your grandmother?”
“Yes. I showed it to Alice, and she agreed that there might be something to it. Then you come into school saying that other descendants saw blurred faces.”
I’m beginning to see why Alice is so suspicious of me. The information I have would seem weird to me, too, if I were in her position.
“My grandmother never sent the letter. So how’d you find out?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“I know we haven’t given you any reason to trust us, with writing on your locker and the hair pulling and all the rumors—”
“And the rock,” I say.
“Rock?”
“The rock you guys threw through my window that said DIE on it?”
She scrunches her delicate features. “I don’t know anything about that. That’s horrible.”
Maybe Lizzie and John did it and she didn’t know? “Yeah, well. You can see why I’m not exactly jumping at the chance to trust you.”
“I get that. What can I do to change your mind?”
“I don’t know. I guess to start you can tell me why Lizzie’s been following me around.”
She glances toward my window, which doesn’t lessen my suspicions or comfort me one bit. “It’s complicated.”
“Does it have anything to do with why you didn’t invite her or John that day you met me in the garden?”
She touches the lace around her collar. “Yes.”
I wait, but she doesn’t continue. “Susannah, if you won’t even tell me why Lizzie’s doing all these awful things to me or why you guys are hiding the fact that you’re hanging out with me, how am I ever supposed to change my mind about trusting you?” This comes out more forcefully than I intend. But really, I feel like I’m being attacked from all sides here. And if Lizzie has some master plan, I wanna know what it is.
She nods. “You’re right. We shouldn’t hide it. That’s wrong.”
We stand in awkward silence for a few seconds, but she doesn’t explain further. “Okay, then I guess we can just go to the hanging location tonight and then go our separate ways.” Saying this out loud hurts. I didn’t realize how much I was hoping things might be different.
She grips her thin fingers together. “My little sister has cancer, Samantha. She was in and out of hospitals a lot last year. For a while we thought she was getting better. Just recently, though, they found more malignant cells. Now you understand why I’m so worried about this pattern of deaths. We both have so much to lose.”
The weight of her words takes me by surprise. “I’m so sorry.” That’s why Jaxon approached her about my dad. He thought she would be sympathetic.
“I don’t expect you to trust me right away, especially with everything that’s happened. Just, please, think about it. We can’t go our separate ways, because then…”
She doesn’t need to finish for me to understand the fear at the end of that sentence. I know it all too well. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”
She nods. “I’ll let you get ready. I can show myself out.” She walks out my bedroom door, and part of me wants to tell her that everything’s going to be okay. But the truth is that I have no idea if it is.
Instinctively, I let my gaze fall on the pictures of my dad, resting on my trunk. “I’m gonna figure this out, Dad. I’m doing everything I can. I’m falling down seven times, and standing up eight.” Which means I now need to go to this party so that I can figure out what those blurred faces were all about. Even if all I want to do is camp out in the hospital.
I check my cell. It’s 8:39. I swing open my armoire and examine the mess inside. On top of the pile is a neatly folded black lace dress. What’s this doing here? I carefully pull it out, and it swishes to the floor. It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.
“Elijah?” No response. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” I wait, but there’s no answer.
I pull off my ripped jeans and shirt. Did he do this because he wants to make sure I go to the hanging location with the girls? Or was he just being nice?
I examine myself in my vanity mirror and feel self-conscious. I slip on a pair of lace-up boots and shove my wallet into one of them. Somehow that detail makes me feel more like myself.
“That’s a beautiful dress. I don’t remember it,” says Vivian from my doorway.
I turn around, but don’t answer.
“Looks like an antique,” she continues.
“Maybe.” I pull out my jacket and put it on my bed, avoiding eye contact.
“You can’t wear a leather jacket with that dress. Especially a fake leather jacket. It won’t look right.”
I want to yell at her to get out of my room, but I’m afraid she won’t let me go out if I do.
“Sam, take my black cape. It’ll match perfectly. Consider it a peace offering.”
That’s the closest Vivian ever gets to an apology. “Can we go see my dad tomorrow?”
She sighs. “Don’t you think I want to see him, too? I was just worried about you last night. We can definitely visit him tomorrow.”
Some of the tension leaves my chest. “Okay,” I say. “Let’s see that cape.”
She smiles, and clicks toward her room at the opposite end of the house. I follow as she talks about clothing eras and how the cape’s from such and such a time period. She goes straight into her bedroom and then to her closet.
I have no idea what she means by all of it. I’m just relieved that I’ll see my dad. I punctuate her fashion talk with a “Great” occasionally. On her dresser, I spot the corner of a medical bill. Note to self: come back when she’s not home.
“Here,” she says, and hands me a heavy silk cape. It’s actually quite beautiful.
She always dressed me up as a kid, like I was her personal doll. Funny thing is, I used to like it. The attention made me feel special.
Vivian sat down on my bed and placed a shiny black box in front of me.
“What is it?” I asked, sitting up against my pillows.
“The only way to find out is to open it.”
Vivian used the same tone of voice with me as she did with adults. She never treated me any differently because of my age. I liked her for that.
I lifted the lid and pulled aside the tissue paper. Inside was a cream dress with intricate beading patterns. “Whoa. It looks like yours.”
“It’s exactly like mine. I had it made. You know why?”
I could not believe that I was holding a replica of my very favorite thing in Vivian’s wardrobe. And that was saying a lot, considering the size of her closet. “For my fifth-grade graduation?”
She nodded. “A twenties-style dress will match your short hair perfectly. And when everyone is admiring your bold fashion choices, you can give those girls who chopped your hair off the finger.”
I laughed.
I put on the cape and she inspects me. “Hmmm,” she says to herself, and digs through a jewelry box. She slips a silver necklace over my head. It has a pendant made of silver loops entwined to form a knot. “Much better.”
She straightens the cape on my shoulders, and I suddenly feel the heavy awfulness of the fights we’ve been having lately. Maybe I’ve made the wrong decision, keeping what’s happening in Salem from her. If Elijah was right, and my dad is in serious danger, doesn’t she deserve to know? At least some piece of it?
“V, do you remember when you had that twenties dress made for me?”
She smiles. She always likes it when I call her V. I haven’t done it in months. “Back when you had the brains to follow my fashion sense.”
I laugh. “Yeah. I was really scared to go to my graduation that year and face everyone. That dress made it a lot better.”
“It didn’t hurt that one of those punks fell on her way up to the stage, either.”
I grin. “Nope. That didn’t hurt one bit. Anyway, thanks for all this.”
She tilts her head slightly. “You’re welcome.”
The tension in the air is thinner, at least for the moment. I can’t help but think how nice it is. “I was just thinking that maybe we could spend a little time together, like we used to. I know I’ve been weird lately…and difficult. I’ve just been overwhelmed.”
The grandfather clock chimes downstairs. It’s 9:00. Jaxon will be here any minute.
Vivian’s expression softens. “You want to talk about it?”
“Yeah, I think maybe I do. I have to leave in a minute, but could we talk tomorrow?”
“Dinner. I’ll make it a good one, after we visit your father.”
“Deal,” I say. If we were the hugging types, we probably would right now. Instead, I smile and she nods and I walk quickly down the hallway toward my room.
I examine myself in my vanity mirror. I’m too dressed up to be a witch. Green face paint would help. Wait, I’ll make a wart. At least that gives me something witchy. I draw a dot in the middle of my cheek with my eyeliner. Better.
“Sam, Jaxon’s here!” Vivian yells.
I turn my light off and head into the hall. I stop at the top of the stairs and look down at Jaxon. He smiles. I take the steps cautiously, to not step on my dress. Reaching the bottom, I turn to face him.
“What?” I say after a few seconds of silence.
“You’re beautiful.”
My cheeks get hot. “Thanks.”
“I like the whole Marilyn Monroe mole thing.”
“What? No, it’s a wart,” I say. Jaxon laughs.
We cross the foyer and Jaxon holds the door open for me. He wears a black vest with gold buttons, black pants, and a floor-length black coat. “I have to say, I’m impressed.”
“That I opened the door for you? Or that I was right about looking good as a warlock?” Jaxon walks toward his driveway and offers me his hand. I take it.
I shake my head. “With your costume, stupid.”
He opens the passenger door of a pickup truck and helps me in. “There are a lotta costume parties here. I’d start preparing, if I were you.” He walks around the truck.
“I’m sure I won’t have to worry about it. I highly doubt I’m at the top of everyone’s invite list. You got your mom to lend you her truck?”
“It’s actually mine.” He starts his engine and backs out of the driveway.
Come to think of it, I did wonder why Mrs. Meriwether had two trucks in her driveway. “Why don’t you ever drive to school, then?”
He grins. “Because I was doing donuts late at night with my friends and she caught me. I only convinced Mom to let me drive because you’re wearing heels.”
“What made you think I was gonna wear heels?”
“Just a good guess.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Whoops.” His grin widens.
“You’re the worst,” I say, smiling.
“You mean I’m the awesomest, because now you don’t have to walk in a dress.”
“ ‘Awesomest’ isn’t a word.”
“It is now.” He reaches into the glove compartment and pulls out a small box. “Oh, and my mom sent this for you.” He places it on my lap.
It’s a tiny pink pastry box from her bakery, tied up with black and gold ribbons. I pull at the bows and open the small lid. Inside is a bunch of black and purple violets sparkling with sugar.
“It’s a corsage,” he explains as we pass a large house with white columns wrapped in white lights. Each window has a candle in it. Must be Alice’s. Jaxon parks his truck in the first available spot on the crowded street.
“No one’s ever given me a corsage before,” I say in a quieter voice than normal, lifting the delicate flower arrangement out of the box.
He turns toward me and takes it from my hands. “She says it’s edible. So when the party’s over, you can eat it.” He carefully pins it to my dress. “I told her this wasn’t prom, but you know my mom. There’s no telling her no.”
I smile at him. “It’s beautiful.” Maybe this party won’t be so bad after all.
“Let me get your door,” he offers.
But before he makes it to my side of the truck, I open it myself. I step tentatively onto the uneven sidewalk so that I don’t catch my dress on anything.
Jaxon laughs. “Sam, you’re the most stubborn girl I’ve ever met.”
“And just think, this is me in a good mood.”
He puts his hands on either side of my waist and pulls me close to him. His woodsy smell encompasses me. “Good thing I find stubbornness hot.” His face is inches away from mine.
I lean forward, and the edge of my boot slides into one of the sidewalk cracks. I take a step to keep from falling. “Do you also like girls who can trip standing still?” I ask. That’s the closest he’s come to kissing me since the woods, and I trip?
He laughs and grabs my hand. We walk up the lawn to the front door.
“Welcome to the Parker residence,” says a butler at the entrance. “May I take your coats?” I give him my cape.
My stomach drops when I realize this party’s like Vivian’s dinners on steroids. It’s a high school party. Why’s it so fancy? Everyone stares at us in an obvious way. “Let’s get something to drink.”
“Sure,” Jaxon says.
“Hey!” calls a familiar voice as we make our way toward a beautifully arranged table covered with autumn treats. It’s Dillon. And he’s standing with the pretty girl from our history class who always flirts with Jaxon.
“Hey,” Jaxon says. He nods at Dillon and gives the girl a hug. She wears a lace-up corset and a skintight short black skirt. I don’t get the as-close-to-naked-as-possible costume thing. Dillon, on the other hand, threw on every black item of clothing he owns with no real thought. If he wasn’t clean-shaven, with coiffed hair, he’d look homeless.
“You know Dillon, and this is Niki.” Jaxon gestures to them. “This is Sam.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say to Niki, but she keeps her attention on Jaxon. Well, this is gonna be fun. I glance at the costumed people. The whispers and stares are blatant.
Dillon hands us hot apple cider from the table and pulls out a flask. He dumps a shot in each of our cups, and tucks it back into his many layers. “We have a real Mather at a party full of witches. I’ll drink to that!” He lifts his cup.
He’s dopey, but I kinda like him. I take a sip of my cider, and it’s delicious.
“You’ll drink to anything,” Jaxon says.
Niki looks at me for the first time. “You have something on your face.”
It takes me a second to figure out what she means. “It’s a wart.”
“Oh.” She sounds skeptical.
I scan the crowd but don’t see the Descendants. Strangely, I notice I’m also looking for Elijah.
“That’s what I like to see,” Dillon comments as I take a big sip of my drink, and I realize I’ve just about finished it. “We’ll do shots later, Sam.”
I’m already starting to feel a little light-headed.
“Or maybe we won’t,” Jaxon says. “I’m gonna show Sam around. I’ll find you guys in a bit.”
“Okay, man,” Dillon says.
Niki says nothing, but her disappointment is clear.
“Samantha!” Dillon yells as we walk away. “He likes you!”
My cheeks flush. I’m sure Niki wants to kill me.
“Shut up, dude!” Jaxon yells over his shoulder.
“Don’t break his heart!” Dillon yells, but we’re already making our way through the crowd.
Jaxon grins. “Don’t listen to that clown. He’s obviously drunk.”
“So you talk about me to your friends?”
“Maaaybe I said something about liking you.” Jaxon blushes, and we step into a formal sitting room decorated with a copious amount of black candles.
“It’s hard to believe anyone likes you,” Lizzie says from the chaise longue, and I stop short. “Get out.”
Please don’t let this happen right now. I can’t leave until I come up with a plan with the girls.
“Shut up, Lizzie. It’s not your house,” Jaxon says.
Lizzie gets up. Her skintight dress brushes the floor. It has a lace collar that stands high in the air behind her head and makes her more terrifying. “It’s my party, Jaxon. Why don’t you just step aside and let me deal with her. Unless you want me to start on your crazy mother.”
Mrs. Meriwether? That’s so mean. For the first time since I’ve met him, Jaxon gets really mad. If she were a dude, I’m pretty sure he would punch her.
Before Jaxon has time to respond, John interrupts. “What the hell?” He holds out his arms for Lizzie to see. A severe rash of red ovals covers his hands.
We all stare. “It looks like bite marks,” he says, his voice unsure. A girl screams and we turn. She has the same rash on her face. Dread drops an anchor in the pit of my stomach.
Lizzie points at me. “Did you do this? No one’s forgotten about that pastry stunt you pulled.” Her voice is loud enough that all the people within twenty feet of us start whispering.
I glance at Jaxon, mortified. But he’s looking at his own hands, which also have red marks on them. Oh no.
Lizzie chews on the side of her mouth. I try to focus on a possible out, but can’t. I wish I didn’t drink that alcohol. I take a step backward. Lizzie grins, and she mutters something under her breath.
Susannah, who I didn’t know was in the room with us, interjects, “Lizzie, don’t.”
Is she standing up for me?
“Walk away, Susannah. I’m going to deal with this problem because you clearly can’t.”
Susannah grabs Lizzie’s arm. “No, Lizzie. I want her here.”
All the amusement on Lizzie’s face drains away. Only anger remains. “You disrespectful little shit. You have no loyalty!”
I don’t know what Lizzie planned to do, but I’m pretty sure Susannah just saved me from it. “Susannah, you don’t have to do this,” I say, feeling bad that Lizzie’s anger is now focused on her.
Lizzie glares at me and throws her drink at my face. I try to step to the side, but I’m not fast enough and the cider splashes on my hair and cheek. I look at Jaxon. He’s scanning the hysterical crowd, not paying attention to the Descendants. His rash is worse and the house is in chaos. Everyone’s screaming.
Lizzie walks toward Susannah, who steadily backs away. Lizzie raises her hand, and Susannah’s eyes widen. Glasses crash against the floor and people run.
“Sam, let’s get out of here,” Jaxon says.
“I can’t leave Susannah like that.” But really, I can’t leave. I have to go to the hanging location.
“She’ll work it out on her own.”
I look at poor Susannah, who’s now backed against a wall by Lizzie. Alice pushes past a group of screaming people to get to her. I break away from Jaxon and move toward the girls. Jaxon grabs my arm.
“Stop—I have to tell them something,” I say.
“No, you have to get out of here right now.”
Alice pushes Lizzie away from Susannah. “Alice!” I yell, but she can’t hear me.
“Sam, people think it’s you,” Jaxon says.
I pause, realizing I’m the only one without bite marks. And Jaxon’s right; my name is being flung around. “I just have to say one thing.” I try to push past some hysterical girls.
“Leave, Samantha,” Elijah says, appearing by my side. “It is not safe.”
Alice and Lizzie are yelling at each other. Jaxon pulls on my arm.
“I will follow the Descendants,” Elijah says.
More people push in around me. The wedge between me and the Descendants widens.
“You did this!” a girl I’ve never seen before yells. She lunges at my face with her marked hands. She misses but manages to rip off my corsage. I don’t resist anymore. I run.
Tables are knocked over, and the floor is strewn with broken glass. Jaxon and I move quickly through a formal dining room, into the kitchen, and out a door.
He sidesteps a crying girl on the ground.
“Jaxon, it’s on your neck,” I say as we loop around the house to the front yard. I hold my dress in my hand so I don’t trip. “The rash.”
“There she is!” yells a guy from my homeroom, and he points at me.
A group turns toward me. Jaxon and I sprint to the truck. My breathing’s heavy. Someone shouts my name as we get in. Jaxon turns his key in the ignition, and the yelling guy pounds on my window with the side of his fist. I smack the lock button, and Jaxon’s truck screeches away from the curb.
“What was that?” I ask, not sure how to process the wild scene.
“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”
I look at the bite marks on his neck as he drives. “Does it hurt? The rash?”
“No, not really. Just looks gross.”
“Jaxon, come on. People were screaming and throwing themselves on the ground. There is no way it doesn’t hurt.”
“Yeah, I guess it stings a little.”
“Or a lot.”
“I don’t know how you avoided it.”
“I swear I didn’t do that,” I say, touching my dress where the corsage used to be.
“That’s so weird, ’cause I totally thought you bit everyone at the party.”
I smile despite all the stress. Still, I’m not sure it wasn’t my fault. What if it’s part of the curse? We sit in silence for a few blocks.
Jaxon pulls into his driveway and parks. We both jump out fast, like we can somehow get away from the experience we just had.
He flips his hands over, and the red marks look a little less angry. “It’s so weird that you didn’t get this. I mean, I’m glad you didn’t.”
“I told you people around me get hurt.” I can’t erase this guilty feeling I have.
“Just don’t start telling me to stay away from you again.”
I can’t stay here, though. I have to go change, and wait to hear what Elijah says about the Descendants. There’s still a chance we can go to the woods. “I gotta go.”
“Sam—”
“It’s not about that. I just gotta go.”
Seconds pass. “Fine.” He turns around and walks toward his house.
My heart tightens. I want to say thanks. I can only imagine what they might have done to me if he hadn’t pushed to leave when he did. But instead, I watch him walk away.
I turn toward my house, and Vivian is standing in the doorway. “Where’s my cape?”
I pull the necklace off and hand it to her. “I left it.” I walk toward the stairs.
“Real nice attitude, Sam.”