It wasn’t how I’d put it, but the mark did look angelic if you didn’t know what it meant. In fact, I’d thought that very thing when I’d seen it on my ex, Lucas. Until the truth sank in.
“She alternated between withdrawal and bursts of excitement for a couple of weeks. Classic manic-depressive,” Petra said. “And then she slit her wrists.”
“Ugh.” I was silent, chilled by the bluntness of it—the statement and the act—and working up the courage to ask, “Can I come see her?”
Petra shrugged. “Sure. But you know you can’t tell anyone what I’ve told you.”
“Of course.”
“Visiting hours are four to seven. I checked her schedule and she’ll be around,” Petra said. “No therapy or anything.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling like I was literally pushing the words out. “I’ll come by after school.”
I moved here specifically for this, I told myself. To find someone like me who might know things about the mark and what I was supposed to do with it. But facing the possibility that maybe I had made me queasy. Did I really want to hear the things this girl might tell me?
“No Corpse Central tomorrow?” Petra asked.
I shook my head. “Not till Saturday. We’ve got a viewing.”
“Mmm. Delicious.” Petra licked her lips, grinning. She was alternately repulsed and fascinated by my job. Of course, so was I.
“Has anyone else been to see her?” I asked.
“Not sure,” said Petra. “I haven’t actually seen her myself. She was admitted last Tuesday and was in therapy when I had rounds yesterday. Want me to check?”
“Nah.” Not yet. Not until I confirm she’s what I think she is—a descendant of the Fates like the women of my family, all dead now. “I’ll just stop by, see what she’s all about.”
Petra nodded. “I think it’ll be good for you, Cass. Not that you’re not okay, but closure is good for all of us.”
“Right.” Except this was nearly the opposite of closure. It was like nudging a door sitting quietly ajar just to see what was in there.
Chapter 3
I sat in English by myself. Just like I sat in computers and Spanish and history. I was still getting used to the size of Franklin Parris High School. There were almost three hundred kids in my junior class. I’d made friends with three of them.
I started right after Thanksgiving break, eating lunch alone at one end of a long table each day. I kept my head down, pushing food into random patterns, and thinking about my small school in Ashville. About lunches with Tasha, who’d taught us geography via foreign curse words, and Jack, whose fingers laced through mine made me hate the two hours and fifty minutes separating us from another lazy afternoon together.
Not that it would have been like that anymore. Or could have been. I needed anonymity. But it sucked being this alone.
On Friday of my first week, a girl with a white-blond ponytail caught up to me after chemistry on my dreadful walk to the cafeteria.
“How’d you do on the quiz?” she asked.
“Not good.” It had been a surprise, to see if we were “on our toes.” I wasn’t.
“Yeah, me either,” she said. “Not my best subject.”
“Right. Mine either.” I glanced over. She was tall. Most people are to me, but this girl was at least five eight or nine. She had smooth, pale skin and almost colorless hair. Fluorescent light sparkled off rhinestones on her black cat’s-eye glasses. I looked away so she wouldn’t catch me staring and know how desperate I was for company. I’d never had to make friends in Ashville, having gone to school with the same kids for as long as I could remember.
“I’m Liv,” she said, rescuing me.
“Cassie,” I answered.
“Yeah, I know. You’re new.” We’d reached the lunchroom by then. I hesitated, scanning the crowd as if for friends. “Come sit with us,” Liv invited, adding with a wry smirk, “Unless you like sitting alone.”
I followed her to the food line and loaded my tray with spaghetti, Cheetos, and chocolate milk, hoping we’d have something to talk about once we sat. Liv turned, surveying my choices. “FYI,” she said, “Hannah and Erin are gonna tell you that’s gross.”
“What?” I studied my lunch. I loved Cheetos. And chocolate milk. As far as I was concerned they went with whatever was on the menu. But I could see how Hannah or Erin—whoever they were—might not agree. I checked Liv’s tray. “But”—I looked at her, confused—“you have the same stuff.”
“Yup.” She winked. “That’s how I know what they’ll say.”
She led me to a table near the middle of the cafeteria where two girls were hunched over half-slips of paper.
“Ugh,” Liv said, plunking her bag beside them. “You are not talking about the PSATs.”
The redhead looked up, freckles dusting her button nose. “Did you get yours?”
“Of course,” Liv said. “They sucked.”
The girl winced and bit her lip. “Sorry, Liv.”
Liv shrugged, waved it away. “Whatevs.” She gestured for me to take a seat. “This is Cassie. She’s new. From …”
“Pennsylvania,” I said.
“Pennsylvania,” Liv repeated. “Cassie, this is Erin …” She pointed at the redhead, who smiled. “And Hannah.”
“Hey,” the other girl said, twisting her dark, wavy hair into a thick spiral and eyeing my tray. “Did Liv make you get that?”
“Yup.” I nodded. “She said it’s what all the cool kids eat.”
Liv snorted.
“I’m just kidding.” Sarcasm might be more welcome later, I realized. After Hannah decided whether she liked me. I smiled and shrugged. “I guess we just have the same weird taste.”
Erin reached across the table for Hannah’s PSAT scores and slid them above hers for comparison.
“So how bad were they?” she asked Liv.
“My parents,” Liv said, meatball paused midair, “are going to completely freak.”
“Maybe you don’t tell them?” Hannah offered.
“As if they haven’t been asking every day if I’ve gotten them?”
“Yeah,” Hannah agreed. She looked at me, her blue eyes framed dramatically with dark shadow. “Are your parents as crazy about stuff like this as Liv’s and Erin’s?”