The Grave Winner by Loucks Lindsey R

Author:Loucks, Lindsey R [Loucks, Lindsey R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crescent Moon Press
Published: 2013-05-12T03:00:00+00:00

13

I jerked awake with a gasp. Sunlight striped the mermaid bedspread through the window blinds. I sat up, the haze of sleep lingering in my brain, and looked around. Darby wasn’t there. After untangling myself from the covers, I stood and opened the door.

“Darby?” I called.

“What?” Her voice echoed from across the hall inside the bathroom.

I pressed the side of my face against the wood of the door. Relief flooded my voice. “Just making sure.”

“Huh?”

My gaze slid down the hallway to the living room. “Just making sure.” I could hardly hear my own words as my feet followed my stare. Rounding the corner, I stood face to face with the front door. The white-painted wood seemed to dare me to open it, narrowing its engraved rectangle eyes at me. I twisted the doorknob.

The note was gone.

Swallowing hard, I nodded. That was the way it had to be. Even so, spikes of trembling fear stabbed through me. I grabbed hold of the screen door handle for support.

To the left of the sidewalk that led to the front door, patches of Sarah’s black gloom burned a path as wide as a semi-truck through the grass to Darby’s window. Black tendrils licked up the tree trunk. I placed my palm against the cool glass as if to cover up the gloom. “Shit.”

“What did you say?” Darby asked.

I yelped and whirled around, clutching my chest. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

Darby eyed me for a moment, her bed-head hair falling over her shoulders in a tangled mess. “Are you sick again? You’re all pale.”

“No,” I said, and willed myself to breathe. Turning around again, I shut the door and locked it. “Everything’s fine. Go take a bath, and I’ll comb your hair.”

“Will you braid it like Mom used to?”

I didn’t miss the note of hope in her voice, or the ‘used to’, which fell on my heart like a fat raindrop. “I’ll try.” Mom was master of all things girly. I hadn’t even reached apprentice level yet.

Darby hurried down the hallway. With another quick glance at the front door, I followed behind.

* * * *

As soon as I stepped onto the bus, a group of junior high kids at the back moaned, “Braaaains.”

“You dead too, Baxton?” some other kid near the middle yelled. “Or did you spill your black nail polish on your yard?”

I stared them all down until they gulped or looked away while I made my way down the aisle towards Jo. Dad’s yelling about the yard still buzzed in my ears. Worse though was that Darby had seen it, too. Her horrified face festered in my brain like an open wound.

“That’s just the blood of last night’s sacrifice,” I told them. That ended the discussion. No one said anything or looked at me again after that.

Jo beamed when I sat next to her. “Who should we sacrifice tonight?”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” I mumbled.

“What happened?” Jo asked in a low voice.

“I’ll tell you later.” Later meaning never. Jo would fall apart if she knew what had happened.

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