The Grave Winner

by Lindsey Loucks

  “It’s too late for that.” Mrs. Rios shook her head and chewed her lip. “I think the best thing to do…”

  I stepped toward Jo, not wanting to eavesdrop. She sat at our table under the mohawk poster, arranging her wilted lettuce around her fingers to make little green skirts. But one whispered word from Ms. Hansen froze my foot in midair. Trammeler. I blinked, wondering if I was hearing things again, and stared at the two women.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  Both turned and looked at me.

  Concern darkened Mrs. Rios’s face. “Are you sure you’re okay, Leigh?”

  “I’m fine.” She’d asked me the same question in Spanish class. “But, Ms. Hansen, did you say Trammeler?”

  The thought of her knowing about magical creatures and Trammelers spun my mind into a tornado. How could she know?

  Mrs. Rios brushed by me and flashed me a quick smile. “I need to go. Ms. Hansen, we’ll talk more later.”

  The librarian winced as the door clicked shut behind Mrs. Rios. Thin lines at the corners of her eyes reached across her pale skin toward her graying hair. Grabbing a book from her desk, she said, “Yes, I said Trammeler.” She arched an eyebrow. “I guess you know about them, too.”

  “Not nearly enough. Please tell me everything you know.”

  Ms. Hansen glanced at the spine label and went to the nonfiction shelves. “I know that you should get far, far away from here. The world is in serious danger, and it will start here.”

  I shook my head. “It’s too late for me to run.”

  Ms. Hansen shoved the book into the shelves and looked at me sharply. “What do you mean?”

  My mouth opened but no words came. I didn’t know where to begin.

  “Tell me you dyed your hair.” Ms. Hansen stepped toward me, and an odd look that I had never seen before passed over her face. Terror, maybe?

  “What? My…hair?”

  She pointed at Jo. “Red suits her, but not you.” Another step closer. “Leigh, tell me you dyed it.”

  I gripped my lunch tray with one hand and ran the other through my hair. It was blonde, like always. Had Ms. Hansen completely lost it?

  “What are you talking about? Ms. Hansen, please. How can I stop One and Two?”

  “You didn’t…dye it?” She came closer with an outstretched hand and looked at me like I’d just grown a horn from my nose. Her eyes widened with every step she took.

  She touched the ends of my hair and gasped. “Oh, Leigh. What did you do?”

  Before I could say anything, before I could pull away, Ms. Hansen stuck the ends of my hair into her mouth. I didn’t have time to be disgusted because she shrank away from me, her mouth open in a gasp.

  She backed toward the door and shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. “What did you do?”

  Dread snaked between every bone in my body and squeezed. She knew. Somehow, she knew.

  Tears streaked her cheeks. She gave me one more frightened look and flew out of her own library.

  “After we finish collecting signatures, I’ll deliver it to the mayor myself.” Jo flapped her arms like a bird hopped up on sugar as we strolled up her sidewalk. “The petition’s almost done! The petition’s almost done!”

  I laughed, and the sound surprised me. It seemed like forever since I’d let loose enough to laugh. It’d been three days with no sign of spiders, Sarah, or the Sorceressi. The three S’s. My heart tripped over itself at the thought of Three. But since I hadn’t seen or heard anything, maybe I wasn’t Three. Maybe I didn’t have to complete the Sorceressi’s creepy, stinky club. Maybe I wouldn’t win myself Sarah’s grave. Maybe Tram had caught them, for good this time, and couldn’t be bothered to tell me.

  Once we were inside Jo’s house, she skipped down the stairs into the basement’s black mouth. “I’ll get Cal’s keys.”

  I flicked on the basement light and followed, even though I really didn’t need to go with her.

  Jo pressed her ear against Callum’s door then pushed it open. I peered inside. His back glowed blue in the light of the lava lamp. He laid asleep spread eagle on his bed. Each breath lifted his shoulder blades and swelled over every curve of muscle. Elf sat on his head, flicking his tail and blinking his shiny eyes at us. Jo crept toward his dresser and tucked his keys in her fist.

  The phone rang. Elf leaped off Callum’s head and ran out of the room like he was going to go answer it.

  “It might be Miguel,” Jo whispered and took off after Elf.

  Callum stirred. He turned his head toward me and fluttered his eyes open. “Leigh?”

  I tried to disappear behind the doorframe, but the blue light on his bare back wouldn’t release my gaze. “Yeah.”

  “Were you watching me?” Sleep thickened his voice.

  “No.” I swallowed and edged around the wall so that only one of my eyes peered at him.

  “Then why are you in my room watching me sleep?”

  “I… I’m not. Jo was just…”

  He rolled over and stretched his arms over his head, every muscle pulling tight. “It’s all right. You can admit it.”

  “Admit what?” I wanted to pull my gaze away from him, but couldn’t. His bare chest hypnotized me.

  “That you’re in love with me.” He swung his legs off the bed and sat up.

  Blood scorched my face and the tips of my ears. I leaned my head against the wall to cool myself. “Callum, I’m…”

  “I know.” He grabbed a shirt from the floor and stood. “You and that freaky Tram guy are hanging out.”

  At the mention of Tram, a knife stabbed my heart and twirled it like a top. “He’s not freaky. Just because you don’t know him doesn’t make him freaky.”

  Callum shrugged and walked to his dresser. “I don’t like him.” He took a stick of gum and popped it in his mouth.

  “Yeah, you mentioned that,” I said and pushed away from the doorframe so I could glare at him with both eyes. Anger had ended his hypno skills and dried the drool from my lips.

  “Well, I don’t.” He came toward me, his shirt dangling by his side. Warmth radiated from his skin as he drew closer. I didn’t have to touch him to feel it. “It’s okay, though. I’ll wait.”

  I forced myself to focus on his eyes, willing myself to stay strong. But his nearness sent fluttering wings through my body. The tenderness in his eyes thawed some of my rage. “Wait for what?”

  The side of his mouth slid into a smile as he came closer still. “For you.”

  It was like he sucked the air from my lungs with those two words. He was a bare-chested air vampire. I cleared my throat. “No.”

  He nodded, his lips just inches from mine. “I will.”

  His breath blew on the top of my mouth, warm and cinnamony. “I’m with Tram.” Wherever he was. If you could really call us with each other when we weren’t.

  “You don’t have to be,” he whispered, skimming his upper lip over mine.

  “Callum…” My lips moved over his, but he caught the rest of my warning with his entire mouth.

  My body and mind told me to do two different things—melt into him and kiss him back or pretend like he had no effect on me anymore. When thunder boomed down the stairs, my decision was made for me. I pulled in a breath and stepped away from him.

  Jo appeared at my side and ticked her gaze between Callum and me. “You must’ve said something stupid for her to look like that.”

  “He didn’t,” I said, not meeting his eyes.

  She patted him on the head. “Good boy.” A slow smile spread across her face while she spun his key ring around her finger. “We’re taking your car.”

  “I’ve got baseball practice, so you better have it back in an hour, Weed, or I’ll tell Mom and Dad.”

  She spun the keys faster, her dark eyes sparkling with a dare. “Then I’ll tell them that you haven’t signed your scholarship acceptance letter.”

  “What?” He stretched his shirt over his head and stared at Jo. “Yeah, I did. I p
ut it in the mail right when I got it.”

  I blinked. So he was leaving?

  Jo stopped the keys’ spin-cycle and stared at Callum. “No, you didn’t. I just saw it on your dresser.”

  “That was a copy. You really think I’d give up a baseball scholarship?”

  Jo glanced at me. “I thought…”

  Callum followed her gaze, and then we both looked away. “You thought wrong.”

  I shook my head, trying to clear his pretty words from my brain. He would wait. While living in a college town with thousands of pretty girls scouting for sexy baseball players to give them a home run. He would wait. Bullshit. But I almost believed him. Maybe I’d wanted to. That didn’t make any sense, though, because I was with Tram. Maybe. Callum had tricked me into kissing him.

  “You’re such a liar, Callum.” I lined those words with the burning venom that raged through my veins.

  He just looked at the floor.

  The thought of bloodying his lip again flashed through my mind. But instead, I took Jo’s elbow and pulled her toward the stairs.

  “An hour, Weed,” Callum called after us and slammed his door. The walls of the house shook.

  Jo grabbed at my shirt to stop my flight out the front door. “He did say something.”

  “Your brother’s a liar,” I said through gritted teeth. The venom inside me amplified my voice.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he’d wait for me.” I jerked open the front door. “But he won’t. Not if he’s some hotshot college baseball player with his own lip gloss-slathered fan club.”

  Jo grabbed her clipboard from the stair banister and perched her dark sunglasses on top of the scarf tied around her head. “I really thought he wasn’t going to accept his scholarship because of you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”

  But it did matter. My burning rage proved it. He’d fed me his pretty words just to confuse me. He would leave and then forget all about me. He didn’t care at all. How could I have thought my death, my becoming Three, would crush him if he didn’t even care about me?

  When we stepped outside, heavy clouds stole the sunlight and wiped the sky gray. Drops of rain dotted the sidewalk. They cooled my skin and helped ease my anger, but once inside his car, the smell of cinnamon jostled my brain. I jabbed at the window button and breathed in the scent of raindrops.

  Jo started the car, still looking at me. “We’re going to the graveyard first.”

  “What for?”

  “So you can visit your mom. And maybe get your Tram fix.” She settled the sunglasses on her nose, put the car in gear, and started down the road.

  I scratched my spider bite and nodded, though I doubted he would be there.

  “Are you going to tell me why he hangs out at the graveyard?” she asked, rolling down her window, too. “Does he work there or something?”

  “Yeah.” That’s all the explanation I could give. The talk about what Tram really was would have to wait until after I saw him again. Otherwise, it would hurt too much, and I’d already had an overload of pain today.

  Rolls of gray sky stretched into the distance. The rain fell harder, splashing my arm. I shivered and pushed the window button back up.

  Jo did the same. “So your dad’s been on the phone all day with landscaping people? Do they know why Sarah’s yard virus spread to yours?”

  I shook my head. “I haven’t seen my dad that pissed off in forever.” He’d stormed in and out of the house raking his hands through his hair while yelling at someone on the phone. He kept looking at Mom’s lilacs as if he expected them to shrivel up like the trail of death through our yard, but their purple heads bobbed happily in the wind.

  “It’s probably Earth’s way of warning us she’s had enough,” Jo said and reached under her butt to pull out a candy bar wrapper from the seat. “How can I be related to someone who’s contributing to the death of our planet?” With a sigh, she pulled up in front of Heartland Cemetery. “You want me to come with?”

  “I’ll just be a minute.” I opened the door, and the wind picked up, blowing a piece of paper out of the car. It whirled around in a tiny twister before it scooted across the soaked street.

  Jo hopped out and ran after it.

  On my way to Mom’s grave, I touched my fingertips to every tree. Rain splashed on the leaves with heavy thunks before slapping me with their cold. Hope rose up inside of me and revolted against my doubts that he would be here. I needed to see him, to hear his voice, and tell him everything that had happened with One and Two.

  Mom’s grave looked peaceful. It was like she called me nearer to wrap her calm around me. I knelt at the side of her headstone. A wreath of leaves rested there, but all of them were wilted with rain and edged in brown. I searched for a card underneath and held up a smudged and soggy one.

  Four words were scrawled in black ink. Don’t go t— W—.

  What the hell did that mean? Who kept leaving these stupid cards? More importantly, where was Tram?

  Rain plastered my hair to my face, so I skimmed it behind my ears to scan the graveyard. Heartland Cemetery was dead. Tram must really be gone. The revolution between hope and doubt still surged inside me, and it moistened my eyes.

  Mom, Darby is safe. I made sure of it. You don’t have to worry about her.

  I grazed my hand over her picture as though I was brushing a tear off her face.

  Maybe Tram was busy hunting down One and Two since they’d escaped him. That made sense. He had to save the world. That was a good reason, but I still needed to tell him what I’d done.

  The hope inside me took one last dying breath. The sky loaned me its tears while I gazed at Mom’s picture again.

  I love you, Mom.

  Before I stood, I pressed my lips to the wet marble of her headstone. I didn’t allow myself to look back on my way out.

  “Are you okay?” Jo asked when I climbed into the car.

  I shrugged. “He wasn’t there.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jo said, reversing to head east. “Do you know where he lives?”

  “Uh. Not exactly.” Where did he live? Inside trees?

  “Well, maybe he’ll show up and surprise you.” She glanced at me, her forehead wrinkled. “Do you need a hug? Because I can pull over.”

  A chuckle escaped me, taking with it a tiny bit of my anger and disappointment. Only Jo could make me laugh at a time like this. “No, it’s okay. Just continue to be you.”

  “Be me,” she said, nodding. “I can do that.” Soon she pulled onto a street lined with trailers and an apartment complex. “Ready or not, here we come.” With her clipboard in hand, she was out of the car in 0.8 seconds.

  I followed at a much calmer pace.

  We walked along the sidewalk, careful to avoid the craters in its cracked surface. Jo got a few people inside the trailers to sign her petition, but I suspected they did it just to get rid of us.

  The apartment complex came next. Woodchips lay on both sides of the sidewalk leading to the front door, the same kind used on my old elementary school playground. A tricycle on its side was the only recess equipment around, its front tire spinning and squeaking in the wind. Not exactly a playground dream come true.

  Jo turned the doorknob, and the door creaked open. “Welcome to the Cockroach Apartments where the roaches pay rent so you don’t have to.”

  I crinkled my nose at the stale air and cigarette smoke. “Just call 1-800-RIP-OFFS, and we’ll provide one month’s supply of free mice.”

  “Nice one,” Jo said and knocked on the first door on the left.

  I was about to lean against the wall while we waited, but the dirty handprints changed my mind. “Maybe the cockroaches ate them.”

  “God, I hope not.” Jo knocked on the door to the right. No answer. “What if everyone in the whole town is at someone else’s house with their own petition? How weird would that be?”

  “Definitely weird,” I said, beating on the next door down.
r />   Jo tapped on the last door and sighed when there was no answer from either one. “Let’s try upstairs.”

  One story up and four unanswered knocks later, we climbed the red-carpeted stairs again. The Cockroach Apartments were three stories high, probably because the owner wanted it to be destroyed by a tornado. Then the whole place would be nothing but woodchips.

  Someone answered the last door Jo thumped on. We both stared at the person before shock turned into recognition.

  “Mrs. Rios,” I said. “It’s you.”

  Her mouth popped open as she backed away. “L—Leigh. What are you doing…here?”

  I frowned. Was this how teachers acted outside of school? Was the absence of a whiteboard behind them that scary? Or had Ms. Hansen told her why she’d run out of the library after sucking on my hair?

  “Um, we’re…” I gestured at Jo.

  “We just wanted to know if you’d like to sign a petition to put a recycling center in town,” Jo said in her most polite voice and handed over the clipboard.

  “Oh,” Mrs. Rios said and swallowed. She studied the sheets of signatures as if she wasn’t really seeing them.

  “And to make sure you’re feeling better,” I added. “Both you and Ms. Hansen were sick yesterday. And the day before. I left both of you voicemails. Didn’t you get them?”

  She jerked her head up and stared at me. Bingo. I wanted answers from someone, anyone, and the fearful gleam in Mrs. Rios’s eyes told me she knew something important.

  “Of course I’ll sign it,” she said and clicked the pen.

  “Great. Thanks.” The dark hallway glowed with Jo’s smile as she took the clipboard back.

  Shifting to the side, I glimpsed a few suitcases inside the door. “You must be better since you’re going somewhere.”

  Mrs. Rios narrowed her eyes and sighed. “Why don’t you girls come in? My flight doesn’t leave until tonight anyway. Plus, I made cookies.”

  “Cookies?” Jo said.

  “Chocolate chip.” Mrs. Rios held the door for us, and we went inside.

  “Are you going to make us conjugate verbs?” Jo asked.

  The corner of Mrs. Rios’s mouth turned up in a smile, the smallest one I’d ever seen on her. “Only if you don’t like the cookies.”