“Is it okay if I come with you?”
“Yeah, that’s fine. Not with the clothing thing, though, right? I mean, that’s kind of a one-man job.”
I laughed and was relieved to find that I sounded almost normal.
Roswell went on in a fake-conversational voice. “So, you remember that I called you fifteen minutes ago, right? And during the course of that conversation, I asked if you wanted to go to a party and get chemically altered and possibly ravish Alice—I mean, I think I really sold the ravishing—but you said no? I mean, you do remember that, right?”
I cleared my throat. “I changed my mind.”
He was quiet on the line for a long time. Then he said, “You sound like shit, though. Do you feel okay?”
“No, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Mackie. Are you sure you actually want to go to a party?”
I took a deep breath. “All I want right now is to get out of the house.”
After I hung up, I closed my eyes and tried to get my head together. Then I rolled off the bed and stood up. If I was going to go with Roswell, I needed to do something about the rumpled state of my hair and also put on a shirt. I crossed the room and started going through my dresser. Usually, sleeping all day would be enough to get rid of the spins, but every time I turned my head, the room seemed to execute a lazy half turn, and I had to keep my hand on top of the dresser for balance.
“Mackie?”
When I glanced over my shoulder, Emma was standing in the doorway watching me. She was wearing sweats, and her hair was twisted into its customary knot. It looked soft and messy, like it had since we were kids. She didn’t go out much, and it looked like she was all set for a night of reading.
I closed the drawer and turned to face her. “You can come in, you know.”
She took a couple steps, then stopped again.
“Janice—my lab partner, Janice—she gave me something,” she said. She was holding a paper bag. “She said it was a special kind of . . . holistic extract.” The sound of her voice was weirdly shrill, like I was making her nervous. “She said—she just said it would be good for you.” She crossed the room to my desk.
“Thanks,” I said, watching as she set the bag down and backed away. “Emma—”
But she’d already turned and walked out of my room.
I picked up the bag and opened it. Inside, there was a tiny bottle made of brown glass. It had a paper label, and someone had written: Most Beneficial Hawthorn. To drink.
Instead of a cap or a cork, the bottle was sealed with wax. When I cracked the seal with my thumbnail, the odor of leaves was sharp, but it didn’t smell spoiled or poisonous.
