“Right. I remember.” Not like I could forget my stomach jumping into my throat when we dropped into the ground or being in Tram’s arms. My heart fluttered at the thought. “Why didn’t you tell me all this sooner?”
He started drawing in the dirt again, a curved tree trunk here, a pointed leaf there. “I don’t know. Because you’re…you. I didn’t know what you’d think or if you’d even believe me.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Who cares what I think? It’s who you are.”
A smile twitched his lips while an even more elaborate tree drawing took shape under his shoe.
“A tree boy,” I said, trying to wrap my mind around everything.
“Tree man,” Tram corrected, eyebrows lifted. “I’m seventeen, so I’m of age.”
“Fine. Tree man.” I looked up at the blue sky broken by the canopy of green. All the trees, except for the Trinity ones, had been black a few nights ago. “Did you fix these trees after One and Two were captured?”
“Yes, but I can only fix the trees inside the Trinity. My power is greatest when I’m inside a Trinity, but Sorceress power inside a Trinity is too powerful, especially with two of them. Three would be…too much.”
“So how did you capture them?”
“They went after you and left the center of the Trinity, the most powerful spot. I stayed in the center and made the roots and branches take them down. You had their attention, so they hardly noticed me.” He stopped scuffing the dirt long enough to frown.
“How did you make the trees do that?” I asked.
Tram glanced at me. “Trees do what I tell them.”
“Huh.” A black bird strutted a few yards in front of us, its orange eye staring. With one flutter, it winged into the sky. “How long have the Trammelers been chasing One and Two?”
“About sixteen years until their numbers dwindled to just me.” He tilted his head and studied his drawing. “One and Two have killed thousands of Trammelers since then while they looked for the third Trinity grave.” He placed his feet on either side of his drawing of a knot-holed trunk with branches full of curved leaves. “And someone to fill it.”
“It’s like a prize. A grave for the winner.” I shivered. That wasn’t a prize I would like to win. The grave, the coming back, being a dead Sorceress. None of it. But I’d come close to winning it all. I wrapped my arms around myself to keep more shivers away.
A spider scuttled out from under his sleeve, then disappeared under his shoe, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Do you believe everything I’ve just told you?”
What he said was completely insane, but I’d seen enough weirdness lately to make me doubt reality as I knew it. “You keep asking me that, and the answer is always yes.”
“Are you thinking I’m crazy?”
My opinion seemed to matter so much to him. But if he was crazy, then I was the host of the postal party, because I believed everything he said. He’d caught One and Two and saved Earth from the baddies. He was a hero who should be thanked. Who better to do it than me?
I pressed my hands into the dirt, careful not to disturb his drawing, and crawled in front of him. He looked at me funny, probably wondering what I was doing. I didn’t really know myself, but I was glad when he finally met my gaze. His earthy smell reminded me of spring, when nature comes alive.
With his head sandwiched between my hands so he wouldn’t turn away, I said, “No. I’m thinking this.”
As soon as my lips brushed his, a symphony of bells sent birds in the surrounding trees into an excited flurry. The fire from before lit through me and pushed all the oxygen from my lungs, but I didn’t care. His lips were so soft, so tender, that I probably wouldn’t notice if I fainted from oxygen starvation.
He jerked his head back as if I’d shocked him. The bells stopped ringing. His chest heaved up and down. “I… I…” A smile quirked his mouth.
I smiled back. “That was for the note you left me.”
His eyebrows bunched together, but his smile didn’t waver. “Note?”
“Yeah. The note on the card?”
“What card?”
“The card. Underneath your wreath of leaves.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t leave a card.”
“What?” I rocked back on my heels, my face burning. “Oh, God. I thought you did.”
“If that’s why you kissed me, I’m not complaining.” He chuckled, and the bells tinkled behind it.
“What’s with the bells?”
His smile vanished. I could’ve kicked myself for asking that. He gathered the neck of his sweatshirt in a fist and tugged it up to his chin. “It’s a warning. Active duty Trammelers are warriors. We aren’t supposed to laugh. Or kiss.” He looked away. “Or…anything.”
“That sucks.” Did that mean I couldn’t kiss him again? Because that would really suck.
“You are you without any shame, and I envy that about you.” Eyes flicking to mine, he took my hand and pulled me up. “Bells don’t dictate how you can live your life.”
He brushed dirt from his pants, even though I didn’t see any. The crumpled fabric at his neck dipped open when he leaned over. Ugly red cuts, almost like claw marks, scraped down his chest.
“What happened?” I asked as I tugged his sweatshirt down. “Did One and Two do this to you?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
He reached up and traced the curve of my jaw, sending ripples of flame skipping up and down my skin. “You make it all worth it.”
I scrunched my eyebrows together, understanding suddenly dawning. “The one who makes the bells ring did that to you.”
He took a step back and nodded. “I have to go.”
“But…One and Two are still inside the Earth, right?” I asked.
“They’re caged beneath my tree roots until they’re convicted to the Core.”
“Just making sure.”
He smiled and took another step away. “Touch a tree anywhere, for any reason, and I’ll be there.”
“I promise.”
On my way out of the graveyard, I said goodbye to Mom, then pedaled home with thoughts of Tram’s lips on mine. I didn’t even notice the fierce wind in my face.
After she had ice cream with Dad, Darby seemed to be in a better mood. I talked the two of them into sitting on the patio to decipher the fluffy Rorschach tests and sip carbonated lunch. Darby didn’t want to lie in the grass like I wanted because she said there were spiders.
“It’s that time of year for spiders, girls. Like it or not,” Dad said, leaning back in his lawn chair.
“I vote not,” I said.
“That cloud looks like a spider,” Darby said and shivered. “They’re everywhere.”
The cloud she referred to was a blob of fluff with one leg sticking out. “How can that be a spider? It’s a lollipop on its side that some little girl dropped because she saw a cute puppy.”
“Or it could be cotton candy on a stick,” Dad said.
Darby shook her head. “It looks like a spider.”
“You look like a spider,” I mumbled.
She snorted a laugh, and that was exactly what I’d hoped to hear. Even Dad smiled.
Later that night, I lay in bed, thinking about my normal blood, the note Tram didn’t write, how much fun it was to make those bells ring warnings at us, and the angry cuts on his chest. Had someone done that to him because he’d made the bells ring? Because that was stupid. He should be able to laugh at and kiss whoever he wanted.
When I drifted somewhere between awake and sleep, my door creaked. I opened my eyes to see Darby’s silhouette framed in the doorway.
“Leigh, I can’t sleep,” she said.
I scooted over on the bed and unfolded the covers for her. She shut the door, and through the darkness, her feet whispered over the clutter on my floor.
After we curled up together, she said, “There’s spiders all over my room.”
Megan and Lily stood in front of me in the
lunch line, but neither girl cheered for the cafeteria crowd. With arms crossed over her chest, Megan shot seek-and-destroy missiles out of her eyes over Lily’s pink lily flower tucked in her hair. Lily planted herself between us like she expected World War III to start in Krapper High School’s cafeteria. The nearby table of boys still ogled them, probably hoping their boobs would automatically bungee jump for their enjoyment.
“I can’t believe Callum,” Megan said so everyone within a twenty foot radius could hear her over the cafeteria buzz.
Lily widened the space between her feet as if to hide me with her cheerleader body. Or maybe to do some side splits. It was hard to tell. “Men are scum.”
I didn’t try to hide the smile on my face. If Megan had been any other girl, even Lily, I probably would’ve felt bad. But Megan was Megan. I didn’t feel even a little guilty about being happy over her fall from her mighty princess tower.
“I hope those dead ladies kill him like they did the cop,” Megan said.
My smile vanished. A surge of heat swept through my veins. “A dead Callum won’t help you any. You’ll still be dumped.”
Megan turned her missiles on me again and stepped forward, knocking Lily out of her way, until we stood nose to nose. “What did you say, you stupid freak?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lily becoming one with the wall.
“You heard me.” I faked a smile and elbowed around Megan to cut in line.
She did the right thing and kept her mouth shut.
The lunch lady handed me a plastic tray with six parts of a rubber chicken and sample-sized carrot sticks. The cooks must’ve run out of real food again.
Even more news crews crowded the hallway that led to the library. I steeled my spine in preparation to hear all about how Krapper was now Zombie Mecca.
“Maybe it wasn’t Lazarus Syndrome, you know?” A freshman boy pushed his glasses up his nose and squinted at the news man. “I mean, if two more people really are back from the dead, and they killed that policeman, would a miracle have brought them back if they were just going to murder people?”
“I don’t know, man.” A tall senior bent toward his microphone farther up the hallway. “Dead people, dead lawn, dead cop. This is some weird shit. Oh, shit. I can’t say shit, can I?”
A frizzy-haired sophomore girl chewed her thumb nail into the lens of another camera. “I still can’t wrap my head around how Sarah got out of her casket. Haven’t you ever seen that movie Kill Bill?
I stared at the ceiling and shook my head.
That same brunette news lady in a red lacy suit and her cameraman stood in front of the trophy case. She seemed to have way too much enthusiasm for anyone from Earth as she spoke into the camera.
“Behind me is a picture of Sarah Henderson and her cheer squad before she committed suicide and came back from the dead. A report of two females who were described as looking like they were ‘back from the dead’ are now haunting this sleepy Kansas town. These two are wanted for questioning in the death of a local policeman,” the anchorwoman said, her eyes bright with excitement.
My jaw dropped. It made sense that they were wanted for questioning, but I doubted they would cooperate, never mind get caught.
“However, no sightings of them have been reported since late Friday evening, and no graves in News Channel Thirteen’s viewing area have been disturbed. If they are dead, these suspects aren’t local.” The woman gave a toothy grin. “The big question is, are they really dead? If so, why are more and more dead people waking up? Is it a miracle? Or is it something more sinister? Could it be a government secret gone bad? A terrorist plot? A zombie invasion?”
The woman turned toward me. Her eyes grew brighter as she click-clacked her ruby red high heels faster than I’d ever seen anyone go. Before I could run or react, she took my elbow and dug her sharp red fingernails into my arm.
“What do you think is causing the dead to return to life?” She shoved her furry microphone at me.
I glared at her over-excited, makeup-plastered face. “I…try not to think about it. But people like you make that impossible.”
Something flickered across her eyes, and she gasped. Was she shocked that I wasn’t eager to participate in this news circus?
She stared at me a beat past uncomfortable, smoothed an eyebrow, then smiled into the camera. “Perhaps it’s the result of too much processed food. We’ll have more at ten on this developing story.”
“And we got it.” The cameraman lifted the bulk off his shoulder and pressed several buttons.
“What do you think you’re doing?” a female voice hollered. Mrs. Rios, the Spanish teacher, dodged reporters and trotted up to the woman. “There’s no way you had enough time to contact this student’s parents for permission to put her face on TV. You just got here.”
The news lady removed her grip from my arm. “Relax.” She turned and glared at me. I was getting a lot of that today. “We’ll cut her attitude and just use a shot of her lunch tray.” She gave Mrs. Rios a chilly smile. “No harm done.”
“Right. No harm done,” Mrs. Rios said and lifted her chin. “Where are your great aunts these days? Still pulling strings to get you reporting jobs? I heard this was your second one in less than a year.”
The news lady’s mouth kinked a fake smile. “Real cute.” She shot a venomous look at the cameraman. “Ben, we’re out of here.”
Ben gathered his camera and wires and hurried after the ruby red click-clack machine.
Mrs. Rios watched them go, then swept the bangs of her dark pixie-like hair to the side. The stack of papers tucked in the crook of her elbow shifted and spilled onto the shiny tiles. Sighing, she bent to pick them up.
I set my lunch tray on the floor to help.
“Everything okay, Leigh?”
“Yeah.” I reached for a paper and shot a look down the packed hallway. “But I’m pretty sure that was the devil.”
A smile lit up Mrs. Rios’s petite features. “I mean are you okay?”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. Our conversations never went past verb conjugations.
Her smile lingered in her eyes even after it faded from her face. She placed another stray paper in the stack. “If you ever need anything…”
I looked away and glanced down at what I was picking up. Large letters at the top of orange copy paper read I Dream In Unicorn. Below that read “Anonymous Is Missing” with an article underneath.
Mrs. Rios snatched the paper from my hands. “That’s just a side project I’m working on. Thank you for your help, Leigh.” She gathered the rest of the papers with one swoop of her hand and escaped down the hallway.
I stared after her. “You’re welcome.”
What was that about? The crease I felt between my eyebrows made my head ache, so I shrugged away my confusion. I grabbed my tray and headed into the library.
Ms. Hansen busied herself at her computer with the ends of her hair secured inside her mouth. She glanced up at me, a deep line creased into her forehead, and waved. I smiled. There would never be a day when Ms. Hansen didn’t make me smile.
Jo sat at our usual table under the mohawk poster. Today she wore every necklace she owned over a flowery t-shirt.
“What took you so long?” she asked as I sat next to her.
With my tray on the table, I could analyze the damage of the news lady’s claw marks on my arms. “The devil in the form of a news lady caught me in the hallway and stabbed me with her needles.”
Jo took a big bite out of a carrot. “So it’s another typical day. Dead people, the devil. What’s next?”
As I rubbed my arm to make sure my elbow was still attached, my fingers grazed a small bump on my wrist. It kind of itched so I scratched it. “I don’t know. But I have to tell you something.”
Jo’s mouth was full, so she just nodded.
“I saw Tram yesterday.” A smile spread over my face. “We kissed.”
Bits of orange fell out of Jo’s mouth onto her tray.
She slapped the table with the palm of her hand and stared at me, grinning like a crazy person.
I had to laugh even though she grossed me out with her carroty grin.
She finally swallowed. “He’s super hot.”
“Yeah.”
“I won’t tell Cal that you and Tram kissed.”
The smile slipped from my face. “Huh?”
“Cal will lose it if he finds out. He’s already hanging onto sanity by a turtle’s tooth because of you.” She glanced at the chicken nuggets on her tray, squished up her face, and took another carrot.
“But…” I shook my head, trying to make sense of Callum. That would probably take more time than one lunch period. “I didn’t do anything to him.”
Jo touched my arm. “I know that.” She sat back in her chair and studied me. “Besides the fact that Tram’s hot, why pick him for your rebound boy?”
“Is that what I’m doing? Rebounding?”
“Probably.”
I wasn’t sure how I should feel about that. Frowning, I helped myself to the bottle of barbecue sauce next to her and squeezed half of it over the nuggets. “He told me that Mom wouldn’t come back like Sarah. I tried not to show it, but for a while, I was freaking out. Bad. I didn’t want Mom to be like that,” I said, pushing my carrots into the sauce. “After Tram explained why she wouldn’t, I felt a weight lift off of me. At least a little.” Sudden tears blurred my vision, and I tried to blink them away.
“Oh my goddesses. He gave you permission to mourn your mom’s death.” Jo threw her carrot on her tray and swung her chair around closer to mine, resting her head on my shoulder. “That’s beautiful. How could you not fall for him after that?”
I shrugged, the weight of Jo’s head on my shoulder comforting.
“I’m sorry you were so scared your mom would come back, Leigh. I didn’t help by dragging you to the Wake the Dead party where more weirdness happened,” she said and buried her head in her hands. “I’m so not a good friend.”
“You didn’t drag me.” The dead Sorceressi did that, after I was already there.
Jo looked at me again, her eyes red. “So Tram knows what’s going on? It’s not Lazarus Syndrome that’s waking up all these people, huh?”
The Grave Winner Page 9