“Mackie!” Alice was sitting on the sofa, smiling, waving at me. “Mackie, come over here.” Everything about her was so effortless, a glossy island, normal, relieving. Just what I needed.
When I sat down next to her, she moved closer, so that her leg pressed against mine. She smelled like tequila and some kind of powdery perfume that made my eyes water.
She was dressed like a cat, which I thought was a very obvious costume. It was easier to think of her in a cotton tennis uniform, far away and spotless. But there was no avoiding the clip-on ears and the waxy black whiskers drawn on her cheeks. Every third girl was a cat.
“Hey,” she said leaning closer. Her hair had come loose from one of the clips and it skimmed my arm in tangled waves. “We should go somewhere quiet.”
Her lips were slick and shiny looking. In her mouth, the barbell still hummed at me—a mean, wicked little song. I wondered if the Most Beneficial Hawthorn was strong enough to protect me from the steel. Whether I even really wanted what I thought I wanted. I wanted to kiss her and not in the pure, longing way you want to kiss someone. I wanted it the way you sometimes want to jump into very cold water, even though you know it won’t feel good. I wanted to go numb. To see what it felt like to be someone else.
She moved so that her chest was against my shoulder. “Do you want to go sit somewhere?”
“We are sitting.” My hands were sweating.
She gave me an annoyed look and tipped her head to one side. “I bet there’s someplace more private, though—upstairs? Bedrooms or something.”
I didn’t know how to answer. Yes and yes and no and yes.
I glanced in the direction of the stairs and then I almost stopped breathing.
Two girls were standing halfway up the stairs, leaning their elbows on the banister and whispering to each other.
One was pretty, wearing a huge, puffy dress, complete with a crown and a silver star wand. She looked soft and pinkish, the kind of girl who gets kissed awake at the end of a fairy tale, but she was short. Really short. Standing next to me, she wouldn’t have come up to my elbow. Also, she had the biggest ears I’d ever seen on a real person.
She was standing up on the baseboard with her feet struck through the slats, holding on to the banister. She was talking up at the other girl, who wasn’t small or pink or cute.
The second girl’s face was shiny, like skin after a bad burn. There was a jagged ring around her neck. No blood, just torn flesh and raw edges. Her grin was lunatic, almost as wide as the gash.
