The Grave Winner

by Lindsey Loucks

  I closed my eyes and ducked back behind the counter. Ica’s screams sent a deep tremble through me. The spider wailed.

  Callum shook me, forcing air into my lungs. His breath blew clouds into my face. He pointed at a nearby rack of men’s coats along the wall nearest the door.

  Cold climbed through the soles of my boots and collected in the pit of my stomach. I nodded and mouthed, “On three” through chattering teeth.

  Another scream, but I didn’t dare look. The bug rings lay scattered across the floor around the red-haired lady inside her picture frame. Red. My new hair color. Gretchen. It had to be. This was her cult’s headquarters. Whaty-Whats was her secret compound. I snatched the picture from the icy floor.

  Callum held up one finger, then two. Right after three fingers, we slipped across the open space tucked in a crouch. Underneath the coats, murky light drifted through the glass door just a few feet away.

  A new sound sliced through the store. Ica’s laughter. “You just killed the only family I had left. You’ll pay for that.”

  My body shook. We would be visible by everyone once we dashed out from the coat rack, but I sure wasn’t going to stick around. I looked back at Callum’s pale face and wide eyes. I held out one finger, then two. On three, we scrambled for the door.

  I pushed Callum in front of me. We skidded across the ice, arms windmilling. Callum reached for the door.

  “It’s you,” Ica said. “I recognize you from somewhere.”

  Callum grabbed the handle and shoved.

  “It’s you, isn’t it?”

  Something whipped around my leg and yanked it from under me. I landed hard on the ice, and all my air whooshed out. Gretchen’s picture slipped from my grip, clattered to the floor, and slid away.

  “Leigh!” Callum’s hands gripped my armpits and tugged.

  A red spider web wound up my leg and squeezed.

  I kicked at it and bucked against Callum. “Drop me, Callum, and go!”

  “Leigh, is it? You have Gretchen’s hair.” She wiped black ooze from the exploding ball from her chin and forehead then flicked it to the floor where it sizzled through the ice.

  Underneath where the ooze had been, black smoke puffed from the dark holes all over her face. The red web around my leg reached to her index finger. She brought her finger back and pulled my leg with it, dragging me toward her, a sneer plastered to her smoking face.

  She gave another sharp tug and wrenched me out of Callum’s hold. “But I don’t have Gretchen’s hair.”

  The harsh landing shocked through me, and I sucked in a much needed breath. Ica reached for me, her eyes flaring red. Long fangs extended over her bottom lip. My heartbeat jumped as I kicked and clawed and tried to pull away.

  One and Two hissed. Ica’s body lurched up to the ceiling so suddenly, I gasped. It was as if she was attached to puppet strings. The Sorceressi stepped directly under her, spitting their whispers up to her spread-eagle body.

  Callum bent by my leg and tore at the web, but it didn’t budge. I jerked the part that bridged to Ica’s finger.

  Ica laughed menacingly. “Here, let me help you.”

  She waved her other hand. The hammers and shovels buried in the giant spider to our left sprang out and flew at our heads. Sharp whistles filled the room.

  I shielded my head. Something bit into my back, and I cried out.

  Tools clanked to the floor. Warmth streamed from the cut between my shoulder blades. I tried to ignore the pain and reached out for something to hack at the web. My fingers closed around an ash tree key.

  Ica screamed, but Callum sawed at the web around my leg with the edge of a shovel, blocking my view of what the Sorceressi were doing to her.

  The ash key must’ve fallen out of the back of my pants. Blood pooled around its bumps and ridges. A drop ran between my fingers and fell to the red web. The threads snapped apart at the same time Callum’s shovel sliced through it.

  My feet slid on the icy floor as I fought to stand. I grabbed for Gretchen’s picture and, heart in my throat, I pushed Callum out the door.

  “I will be Three,” Ica yelled.

  The glass shattered behind us. We ducked. I shoved Callum to the side. More tools clattered to the wet concrete at our feet, but I kept sprinting to Callum’s car.

  His tires didn’t stop squealing until we were several blocks away from Whaty-Whats. I kept turning around in my seat, expecting to see shovels, hammers, fire, and ice hurtling toward us, but only the rain followed.

  “Well, it’s official,” Callum said, cranking the heater dial with a shaky hand, his voice even shakier. “Whaty-Whats has lost my business forever.”

  I shot another glance behind us and rubbed my arms. Shivers chased the blood through my veins, and the climbing temperature in the car wasn’t helping. How many times had I visited that store? How many times had I windshield wiper waved at the twins, the same twins who were Ica’s great aunts and a giant spider? Had One and Two been hiding in the store since they escaped? I guessed it made some kind of nightmarish sense to keep all the spiders together in Gretchen’s cult since Tram couldn’t sense them.

  Teeth locked together to keep them from chattering, I touched my back and winced. I was wasting my oh-so-precious blood.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I was clipped pretty good.” I glanced down at the seat, somehow thankful for the pain and the blood since it reminded me I was still alive. “And I’m bleeding all over your car.”

  “Hospital bleeding?”

  I shook my head and searched the floorboards. “Do you have anything to stop it?”

  “My shirt?”

  “I’ll use my bra. Don’t look.” Callum kept his eyes glued to the road while I unclasped my bra and snaked it out through my sleeve. I folded the cups together and pressed it to my stinging back.

  “Here,” he said and handed me his new belt. “Tie this around yourself tight to put pressure on it.”

  I did, thankful for his purchase from the giant spider twins.

  “That other crazy bitch. Why can’t she be Three? She fits right in with them. She’s got superpowers and everything,” Callum said.

  Thunder cracked over the steady rhythm of the windshield wipers.

  I tugged at the sticky red web still wound around my leg, but it didn’t move. “The Sorceressi said Gretchen wanted me.”

  Callum stomped on the gas as soon as the light turned green. “She can’t have you.”

  “Did you fall asleep at Whaty-Whats?” I asked, razor blades sharpening my voice. “You saw what the Sorceressi can do and what they’re like. Are you going to walk up to them tonight and tell them that Gretchen can’t have me? Because I won’t let you do that.”

  “So you’re just going to be their Three. You’re not even going to put up a fight?” He slammed a fist against the steering wheel. “Why didn’t you just kiss their feet back there and play catchup on the top ten ways to creep me the shit out?”

  I winced and looked away. The drops on my window warped the whole world. If I stared through them long enough, maybe that was how things would really look. A grey and dismal reality sagging at the edges. Maybe that would be my perspective when I was Three. If I was Three. God, had I already given up?

  “I told them to choose me,” I said. “You know that. And if I try to run or do anything to piss them off, they’ll kill Jo.”

  “But will they really kill Jo? They’ve already got another Three all lined up.”

  “Let’s turn around and go ask them,” I yelled and instantly regretted it. He didn’t ask to be in this situation.

  Callum loosened his clamped jaw and sighed.

  I touched his shoulder and dropped my voice to a pseudo-calm. “I’m not going to just lie still tonight. But I won’t let them have Jo, either.”

  “Whether you like it or not, I’ll put up a fight.” Callum glanced at me as he braked at an intersection, and I thought I could read the rest of that sentence clearly in his expressive brown
eyes: I’ll put up a fight for you.

  I looked again through the raindrops on my window, bending and distorting Krapper life to their own will. My life.

  More shivers gave chase through my bloodstream. “I know.”

  When we drove by my nightmare black yard, I made Callum stop.

  “Tram?” I called before I was even out of the car. The dark, rain-soaked tree crumbled into mush under my fingers. “I need you.”

  The earth gave a low rumble.Roots broke through, twisting and pulling the ground apart, until the top of Tram’s head emerged. His face didn’t appear to have any new bruises or gashes, but his old ones still looked painful.

  “Gretchen’s cult,” I said, breathless, and took his hands. “It’s a spider bitch convention at Whaty-Whats. That was why it was undetectable to you.”

  Tram’s eyebrows joined together. “Where?”

  I groaned. “I don’t know the actual name of the store.”

  “Hang on.” Callum slammed his door with his hip, fingers flying over his cell phone. “What Gifts She Carried. On the corner of Second and Main Street.”

  “What… gifts.” Gretchen’s gifts? Was all that junk at Whaty-Whats gifts that Gretchen had stolen? The gifts she took from the people who left them for their dead friends or family at the graveyard?

  Tram brought my fingers to his lips, a glimmer of hope brightening his beat-up face, then rushed to the hole in the ground. “Look after her, Callum. I’ll see if they’re still there.”

  Callum nodded, his eyes narrowed. The idle of his car stifled a distant boom of thunder. Wiping my hands on my shirt, I crossed the yard to the car.

  He stared at the spot where Tram had disappeared and the sealed hole behind him, then cut his gaze to me, his jaw stiff. “Sarah’s yard doesn’t look like this anymore.”

  I stopped, my fingers on the door handle. “It doesn’t?”

  “It doesn’t look anything like yours,” he said with a shudder.

  “I want to see it.” Gretchen stared up at me from the photo frame in the front seat, eyes day dreamy, her smile soft. I shoved it to the side and shut the door after me. “After we look in on Jo.”

  Callum climbed into the driver’s seat. “I was right about it not being Lazarus Syndrome that brought Sarah back to life.”

  “Yeah.” I rolled my eyes up to the stained upholstered roof. “You called it.”

  We drove down the street and shot inside so I wouldn’t disturb the lawn with my death touch. Jo was still sleeping. I tiptoed into her room and knelt beside the bed.

  “I won’t let them have you.” I tucked a stray strand of red hair behind her ear, brushing her icy cheek.

  She better be back to the same old Jo when I was dead. Or at least close to the same. Minus me, would she be okay in small-minded Krapper?

  Eyes stinging, I turned to Callum behind me. “You’ll take care of her?”

  He stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets and nodded.

  I faced Jo again and kissed her chilled forehead. “Goodbye, Jo, but not forever.” Tears spilled down my cheeks as I rose.

  Callum took my hand and squeezed. I squeezed back, gratefully accepting his comfort.

  “I could put your bike in my trunk,” he said once we were outside again.

  “No thanks. I need some air.”

  I righted my bike and hurried it to the middle of the road. Raindrops stung my cheeks. Callum’s car door slammed behind me, then his engine roared. Soon his car crawled beside me with the window down.

  “Your bloody bra is still in here.”

  Puddles on the street splashed up on my bare arms, and my red hair soon plastered my head. “Keep it.”

  He snorted. “You’ve also got this creepy picture in here you stole and this dead looking seed thing with your blood all over it.”

  “Just leave it.” I pumped harder. It was probably about time I get back to the motel after my supposed day at school.

  “Don’t think you’re going to escape from me on that thing. You’re the pirate, I’m the parrot, remember?”

  I nodded. Worry for Jo, Tram, myself, and Callum fueled my feet and stole my breath. A nod was all I could give.

  When I turned onto Sarah’s street, I slowed and gripped the handlebars until my knuckles threatened to poke through skin. My stomach fluttered. I wasn’t quite sure what I would find in Sarah’s yard, but the last time I was here scared the shit out of me. But curiosity pedaled me forward, anyway.

  A few news vans had parked upwind. The stink was probably too much for most people since the rain couldn’t wash the dead smell away.

  But Sarah’s yard was no longer black. Rain sprayed every enormous blade of grass, which welcomed it as if with open mouths. Wind tickled the heads of a rainbow of flowers lining the sidewalk, the front of the house, and circling the enormous tree. Its branches reached to the sky while raindrops drummed a fast beat on its emerald leaves. It looked like the Wizard of Oz had landscaped Sarah’s yard.

  On either side of her front porch, purple lilacs swayed happily. Cold steel dropped in my gut, freezing my insides. I choked on a sob. Tears pooled and traced my cheeks.

  It wasn’t fair. None of this was. Sarah died and killed everything around her. I was Three and killed Mom’s lilacs. So did Sarah do this or did someone help? Would she fix my yard, too? Mom’s lilac blooms with their faces tilted to the sun for a kiss powered the cord that plugged me into sanity. I needed them alive again.

  I brushed the tears and rain away and sat up straight. Callum idled behind me, the concern in his eyes penetrating between the swipes of the windshield wipers. I nodded to him and kicked a pedal into position. With another glance at the yard, I paused. Brown ash tree keys scattered the sidewalk. They seemed out of place with all the bright colors.

  What did the keys mean? Why were they important to Sarah? I sighed. Even if I banged on the door to talk to Sarah, I couldn’t understand her. She might not even be here since boards covered the windows and a moving van sat in the driveway. Where were she and her family going to go?

  With a shuddery breath, I stepped on the pedal. My death loomed over me like one of the dark clouds that swelled overhead. Maybe Tram would capture the Sorceressi at Whaty-Whats, but if not, I was no closer to figuring out how to beat them at their own game.

  Callum stayed close behind, except when he was forced to stop at a stoplight and I sailed right through it. I could practically hear him grind his teeth together. He didn’t have to worry, though, at least not about me giving him the slip. Wild parrots couldn’t keep me away from the motel and saying goodbye to Dad and Darby, and he knew that.

  I arrived in our stale smoke-smelling non-smoking room just before Darby. When I stripped out of my wet clothes, bruises covered the back of my thighs and hips where I’d hit the ice. My back wound gaped ugly and red, but the bleeding had stopped. I found some band aids and put six of them across the worst part.

  With my clothes changed and a towel wrapped around my wet head so Darby couldn’t see my red hair, I waved over the balcony railing at Mrs. Gonzalez and Maria, and then over at Callum parked a few spaces over from them.

  As soon as Darby was inside, I closed the door and faced her. Trying to keep my voice cheerful, I asked, “How was your day?”

  Darby threw her backpack onto the nearest double bed. “Horrible.”

  “What happened?”

  Her blue eyes narrowed behind her glasses. “Everyone made fun of me about our yard.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  “The kids at school say it was just like the Henderson’s. Is it?”

  I nodded.

  “Why?”

  Now wasn’t the time to lie. She was too smart, and I didn’t want any of my last words to her to be anything but the truth. Still, I chose my words carefully. She could handle Merlin because it was fiction, but real witches? That could haunt her dreams forever.

  “Do you remember when people said it was Lazarus Syndrome that brought Sarah back?”


  Darby plopped next to her backpack and gave me her full attention. “Yeah.”

  “That wasn’t it.” I sat stiffly across from her on the other bed.

  “What was it then?”

  “Magic.”

  Darby’s eyes widened.

  “Not Merlin magic. Morgan le Fay magic. Dark magic.” My elbows dug into my knees when I leaned toward her. “And the only reason our yard is like Sarah’s is because I made a choice.”

  “What choice?” Darby whispered.

  “To protect you.”

  She looked down her nose at me. “Why?”

  “Because I love you, you big dork.” I shot up from the bed and looked out the window so she couldn’t see my tears. Krapper’s sky was still crying, too. The whole town was a big bucket of sadness.

  “Oh. Well, I love you, too.” After a long pause, she asked, “Maybe Merlin can help you defeat the dark magic.”

  I turned and smiled, my tears sort of dried. “Maybe.”

  We snuggled together in one of the beds with the fat Merlin book. The sheets and blankets smelled like bleached smoke and weren’t nearly as soft as what I was used to, but Darby made up for it. I didn’t realize how cold I’d been all day until Darby’s warmth melted the sharp edges of the block of ice that surrounded me—a block that resembled a cold grave.

  Later, Dad walked into the motel room looking tired and pissed. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” we said.

  “Why is Callum in the parking lot? He said something about a pirate and a parrot, but I have no idea what that meant.” Dad hung his jacket in the closet and loosened his tie, the creases in his forehead trapped in his cloudy mood.

  “Uh, we have a study group tonight.” So much for my last words being the truth. “We’re doing a project about pirates.”

  Dad rubbed his stomach like he was hungry. Without his jacket, I noticed how thin he looked. Less like Barbie’s beefcake boyfriend Ken and more like stick Ken, probably because his Barbie wasn’t around to feed him her amazing cooking.

  “But he’s a senior and you’re a sophomore,” he said. “How can you be in the same class?”