Envy (Fury) (17 page)

“What did you say?” she demanded. But they’d already breezed off, chortling.

She held the cup of beer to her forehead, letting its cold condensation sweat onto her skin, then gulping down what was left. Her mouth was parched, and licking her lips did nothing to moisten them. Questions hurtled through her brain. Why had they said that? Of all things . . . But no. They
couldn’t
know. There was no way that anyone could possibly know. It was a coincidence. Her Dot-Crotch days were dead and buried. That Skylar was gone. She touched her curled hair as if to convince herself.

Still, she couldn’t shake the anxious, horrible feeling that people were watching her and snickering. That her secrets were unraveling, that old ghosts were emerging from shallow graves.

Suddenly the music cut off. Skylar whipped her head over toward the speakers, which were sitting on a pile of cinder blocks. Without the background music and its rhythmic beat, the staccato bursts of conversation sounded erratic and awkward. The night was suddenly filled with silent spaces, like black holes.

And then, into those holes, a tinny sound began to trickle and spread. Skylar froze, horror seeping through her whole body. It was a sound she’d recognize anywhere—an off-key warbling that she’d heard for years in her nightmares. Her own voice. Her own young, stupid, embarrassing self, singing “Let Me Entertain You.”
And if you’re real good, I’ll make you feel good . . .

She spotted a cluster of people hunched over a glowing iPhone screen. The air felt thick around her. She felt like she was moving through mud, drowning in the sticky darkness. The bonfire was no longer casting a glow—its flames had gone harsh, like a lashing strobe light cutting into the night. It made her feel dizzy.

She struggled toward the crowd around the phone, hating the way the machine’s muffled sound made her terrible performance even worse.

“Found it on YouTube . . .” she heard one of the boys say.

There, over their shoulders, she saw it: her own mortifying routine, as a chubby eighth grader, singing loudly and—she recognized this now—desperately, attempting to keep a lipstick-coated smile on her face as she performed her ridiculous choreography. Some spins, some kicks, an attempt at a seductive shimmy that made the group roar with laughter. The song was about a
stripper
, for god’s sake. Why had she ever let Lucy convince her that it was a good choice for the talent portion? Why hadn’t her mother (who was visible on the sidelines in the video, watching her daughter with an expression of disappointed disgust) told her it was inappropriate?

And then the song’s grand finale, with Skylar landing in an ungraceful split. You could hear the fabric tearing even over the music.

Skylar watched the train wreck as though she was seeing it for the first time. She watched her face—younger, pudgier,
but unmistakably hers—crumble into confusion and fear as her pants, tight and spangled to match the bustier top that only highlighted her complete lack of a chest, split open, revealing her underwear. Purple and polka-dot. She watched her mother’s face fall in embarrassment and then assume an expression of detached concern, almost as though Skylar was someone else’s kid. The video zoomed in for a close-up as young Skylar scrambled to her feet, trying to minimize the exposure. It was impossible. The polka dots were practically all you could see, which is why her fellow contestants, mini-divas happy to see their competition go down in flames, had started shouting, “Dot-Crotch!” It followed her as she ran from the stage, and it continued until the host asked everyone (politely, barely concealing his own smirk) to stop.

Now Skylar was shaking. She remembered the event, of course, as if it was tattooed on her brain. But she hadn’t known there was a video of it. Where did it even
come
from? She felt like everything she’d worked for was about to get sucked away.

It was Sean Wagner who was actually holding the phone in the middle of the giggling group. She grabbed his collar and dragged him to his feet.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa—Dot-Crotch is mad!” Sean’s eyes were wide; he looked genuinely surprised at the strength of her reaction.

“Wheredidyoufindthis?”
Her lips trembled as the words came pouring out. “Did you hear me? Where did you get this?”

“So it
was
you!” Sean started laughing harder. “Some chick showed it to me,” he said between laughing gasps. “Some chick in the library. It’s Dot-Crotch, right?” He held out his hand as though he was going to introduce himself.

Dot-Crotch. Dot-Crotch.
Suddenly those words seemed to be everywhere, murmured and whispered and blurted out, spreading around the party. She heard Gabby asking what was so funny. She didn’t see Pierce, but she knew it was only a matter of time until he found out.
Dot-Crotch. Dot-Crotch.
Lauren’s and Fiona’s faces blurred past. Even the trees seemed to be whispering it. The humiliation and devastation crashed over her as freshly as they had that night. She kept seeing her mother’s face, harsh and humiliated. She had to get out of here.

“Skylar, wait!” Gabby called out to her as she ran away from the party. Tears were streaming down her face now, and she could barely see as she turned around.

“What do you want?” she sobbed, standing at the edge of the clearing, not caring whether all of Ascension could see her.

“Sky, I’m so sorry,” Gabby said, approaching her with a pitying look in her eyes, coming around to cut off her escape route. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay,” Skylar snarled, staggering a bit. She tugged at her dress, which now felt too short.

Gabby nodded. “Of course not. . . . But this’ll blow over.”

Only someone like Gabby would think that way: that it
would blow over. Skylar knew differently. She had built a structure of lies; this was just the beginning, the first wind that would blow everything to pieces.

“You know, I went out for social VP last year,” Gabby offered gently. “And I was so sure I was going to get it. I was already planning things I would do and whatever. I even made this Facebook group for people to tell me their ideas for dances and stuff. It was mortifying. There was this group of older girls—”

Skylar cut her off. “Just stop.” It was so condescending for Gabby to compare the Dot-Crotch humiliation to a minor social dilemma that obviously hadn’t affected Gabby’s popularity in any way.

She thought of Lucy’s comforting arms when she’d run offstage that night—holding her, petting her, telling her that it would be okay and that everyone would forget about it sooner or later. But of course she thought that way. If
Lucy’s
pants had ripped, if
Gabby’s
underwear had been polka-dotted, it would be a whole different story. If you were unremarkable, it was the disasters that made you stand out. And even as Lucy told her not to worry about what people were calling her—because the nickname stuck, of course—she still encouraged Skylar to go on a diet, telling her about how her muffin top rolled over her jeans.

“But maybe if you just—” Gabby started to say. Here it came, the “friendly advice” with a clear message:
If you were more like me, these things wouldn’t happen to you.

“I said,
stop
.” Skylar tried to push past Gabby. She couldn’t take this anymore. She didn’t care how loud she was, didn’t care that everyone was probably staring at them. She didn’t care that she was acting like her own mother—belligerent and irrational. Gabby reached out to stop her, catching Skylar’s arm and throwing her off balance.

It all happened in slow motion. Skylar felt herself leaning sideways, losing her footing, realizing that there was no standing back up. As time dragged, she found herself wondering what her face looked like as she fell. Surprised? Scared? Angry? She landed half-draped over a log, her dress hitched up and her entire backside on display.

Her underwear was showing through her tights, she could tell. The air was cold against her butt. She was certain she heard mean laughter from behind her. She stood quickly and turned on her heel, yelling, “Show’s over, assholes!”

“Skylar, stop, no one is—” Gabby tried to hush her.

Then Skylar heard someone shout out, “What happened to the polka dots?”

And then another jeered, “Is that a thong? Can we call you Thong-Crotch now?”

It was over. Her night was over. The party was over. The progress she’d been making—over.

“You did that deliberately,” Skylar hissed at Gabby as she got up, scraping her hands on the rough bark of the fallen tree.
She didn’t know if it was true, but it might as well have been.

“It was an accident! I didn’t want you to fall!” Gabby protested.

But Skylar, her eyes blurred again with tears, didn’t listen. She didn’t stop running until she was out of the woods.

Everyone else had already forgotten about “the ghost,” but Em stood at the edge of the clearing, looking into the forest, still on high alert. The screams, as short-lived as they’d been, had frozen her blood. She didn’t see anything unusual. But she
sensed
that something was wrong.

She wished she could just forget about it—rejoin the party, have a good time, gossip with Gabby or maybe fend off a football player or two.

But no. The new Em was fixated on ghosts. Always looking for them. Thinking about them constantly. Obsessed.

She heard the music die behind her and then loud laughter. As she turned around to see what the big joke was, she heard Skylar screaming, “Show’s over, assholes!” and tearing away from the party.

Damn it!
They hadn’t finished talking. Em had to get through to Skylar, had to let her know what was at stake. She tried to follow Skylar’s path toward the darkness of the woods that would lead to the party’s exit—maybe they could find a quiet place to talk. . . .

But in the time it had taken her to push her way through the party, across the clearing, she’d lost Skylar. She didn’t know where she’d gone—it was just gnarled, bony trees and blackness as Em peered down the path to the Behemoth, where most of the kids had parked.

She turned and started trudging back over the muddy leaves toward the center of the party.

On the opposite side of the bonfire, she saw a glint of blond hair shimmering against the shadows. Em would know it anywhere, that shade of brassy blond. She squinted. The flames flashed before her eyes like curtains being rapidly opened and closed; she wished she could reach out and still them, just for a moment.

Then, as though she had wished it, the flames parted precisely and perfectly, framing for one moment the heart-shaped outline of a smiling face whose eyes appeared sunken in the quickly shifting light. There was no mistaking the face. It was Ali—laughing, maniacal Ali—the Fury who had stalked her. The Fury who had placed bloody handprints all over her door.

Em gasped; her knees buckled. Ali was here. She was laughing
at Em—at Em’s stupidity, at Em’s delusion that the Furies were escapable. If Ali was here, the Furies, all three of them, were probably here.

She sucked in a deep breath and started toward the other side of the fire. She was going to find out what the Furies had in store—for her, for tonight, for Ascension. She might have heard Gabby saying her name, but she wasn’t sure, and didn’t care. She stumbled on a pile of rocks, nearly losing her balance, swaying dangerously close to the fire. She’d lost sight of Ali, but she could still see that sick smile. It seeped through her mind, turning her thoughts into tar.

She was at the other edge of the party now, where the crowd thinned out and the trees were closer together. A few steps away, in the woods, she heard something—a snapping branch, as from a footfall. She moved cautiously toward the noise and paused. Silence.

Em knew she should turn around. She was going to get lost out here if she kept going. But there was movement up ahead, she was sure of it. The flapping of a dress? The sinuous motion of a scarf? It was her. It was Ali.

She just knew it.

She pressed through the trees, branches springing back and stinging her face. A muddy trail, barely discernible, materialized below her feet, the underbrush parting just slightly; she followed it almost blindly, feeling roots and rocks through the soles of her
boots. She went deeper and deeper, her path twisting and winding. As she walked she found herself thinking of a camping trip her family had taken with JD’s years ago. Their parents had granted them permission to follow the river until it reached a small waterfall, but they’d strayed away from the water and gotten turned around in the woods. Em had gotten scared, but JD had reassured her. “Just be still for a moment,” he’d said. “We’ll hear the river.”

With a flash of conviction, she realized she would follow this path to its conclusion, wherever that was. She had to. She held still for a second and listened.

How was it possible for a place to be so silent and yet so full of sound? Her breath was ragged in her ears, and the twigs, leaves, and icy slush whispered ominously. There was a low drone in the distance—a generator? The highway? She was completely disoriented now, not sure that she could find her way back to the party if she wanted to.

Then, at her feet, she saw something move. With an involuntary shudder, she realized there was a snake writhing right in front of her, off to the side of the path. It was almost as though—and she knew how crazy it was to even
think
this—it was leading her. Beckoning to her. So she followed it a few more steps before it disappeared under a bush. And as it did the trail opened slightly. Em found herself in a clearing. Looming and lit by the half-moon was an enormous house—Colonial, boxy, once beautiful, now ruined and dark.

The hairs on the back of Em’s neck prickled.

Suddenly there was no doubt in her mind: The Furies were here. This was their home. She could feel them all around her.

I can do this. I must do this
. Drea’s face, and JD’s, and Chase’s—they crashed into her mind like waves, pulling her toward the door.