CHAPTER SEVEN

Theo waited on Skeeter’s front porch.

Felicity and Kade looked at him expectantly. It had been a full thirty seconds and the doorbell remained unrung.

“I’m holding food,” Theo pointed out. “You guys aren’t holding anything.”

“I still think we should break in,” Kade grumbled. He held out a fist to Felicity. “Rock, paper, scissors? Friendly game of chopsticks? Unless you cheat, like Skeeter says.”

“Ughhh.” Felicity stabbed the doorbell.

Theo readjusted his grip on the lasagna, which was pleasantly warm in his hands. Sundance had helped him make it. And by ‘helped,’ he meant he let her grate the cheese. Sundance was a lovely person, but not a great cook. Theo needed the lasagna to be perfect for Skeeter’s parents. It was the least he could do, after stealing their daughter’s body and convincing her not to tell them she was still around. Only for another week and a half. But still—a week and a half was a long time to believe someone you love was gone.

The door stayed closed.

“Maybe they’re not home,” Kade suggested.

Theo concentrated. He could hear the muted tones of conversation from inside the house. A faint shuffling coming closer.

Kade asked Felicity, “How do you keep winning your chopsticks games with Skeeter?”

“I don’t,” Felicity said. “Whenever she wins, she insists I let her. I just nod.”

Theo shushed them. The shuffling was getting closer.

The door opened. Mr. Bass blinked owlishly at them. He looked like the kind of guy Theo would’ve made fun of last year: polyester shirt, pocket protector, glasses magnifying his watery little eyes.

“I’m Theo,” Theo said. “This is Felicity and Kade. We played chess with your daughter.”

“Big chess fiends, us,” Felicity agreed. “And chopsticks!”

Theo fought the urge to step on her foot. Her smile was far too wide.

“We wanted to drop by and offer our condolences,” Theo continued.

Kade nodded silently. He’d mentioned in the car that it was better if he didn’t say anything. He tended to offend townsfolk just by existing, and was convinced that talking would make it worse.

Theo held out the lasagna.

Mr. Bass stared at it like he’d temporarily forgotten what a lasagna was. Theo shifted uncomfortably, remembering the grief haze he’d plummeted into when he thought Victor had been murdered. Everything took a second too long to process. The world had dropped into another language and he had to stop to translate it before responding.

“Right,” Mr. Bass said finally. “Come in.”

He led them into the tiny kitchen. The peeling countertops were piled high with potato salads, deli meat, casseroles. Mr. Bass placed their lasagna on a tray of sandwiches. The sandwich filling oozed out, coating the bottom of Theo’s lasagna dish in mayonnaise and cucumber.

“Right,” Mr. Bass repeated. “Well. Thank you for coming over. Um. We appreciate?—”

A voice rang out from the living room. “Who is it this time?”

“Chess fiends,” Mr. Bass called back. “I mean, friends. Chess friends.”

There was a pause. “Bring them in, then.”

Mr. Bass walked wordlessly past them. He didn’t look at them, and for a second Theo wasn’t sure if Mr. Bass wanted them to follow. But it was that or stand here in a kitchen full of room-temperature food that was slowly but surely expiring, so Theo headed awkwardly down the hall after him.

“This was a bad idea,” Kade whispered as he followed Theo. “They’re going to throw us out. They’re going to call the cops. We should’ve snuck in a window!”

“Which is way less likely to get the cops called on us,” Theo whispered back.

Felicity shushed them. Less for silence, Theo was certain—since both Mr. and Mrs. Bass definitely heard it as they came into the living room—and more out of panic. Her smile was way too big yet again as she folded onto the couch opposite the grieving parents.

“I love your kitchen,” she said. “Very sixties chic.”

Theo nudged her, disguising it as an accidental bump as he sat down next to Kade.

“And we’re so sorry for your loss,” Felicity continued. “ God . We’re going to miss Skeeter so much. Playing chess with her was the highlight of our week. Right, guys?”

Theo and Kade nodded obediently. Theo could smell Kade sweating, but his worry at getting caught out was fading by the second. Mr. Bass was staring vacantly at Felicity, and Mrs. Bass wasn’t even looking at them. She gazed into the middle distance, twisting her cross necklace absently. She had the same mousy brown hair as Skeeter, styled into a sleek hairstyle that hung down around her neck.

“Sucks that the funeral got delayed,” Felicity said brightly. “Whenever it gets changed to, we’re there .”

Mr. Bass’s knobby fingers tightened on his knees. “The cops aren’t doing anything. The security cameras are gone, they said the thieves wore gloves, but there has to be something . I just don’t know why someone would do this.”

“Lock is a strange town,” Mrs. Bass said. “These things happen.”

Mr. Bass pulled himself out of his grief haze long enough to give his wife a baffled look. She didn’t acknowledge him. She was staring at Theo with a strange, distant curiosity. Theo wondered how many rumors she’d heard about him.

“And how are you doing?” she asked. “Since your dad passed.”

“Fine,” Theo said, automatic.

Mrs. Bass nodded. “I thought it was very strange your mom didn’t take you on vacation with her. You were always such a loving family.”

Theo’s throat tightened. If he got a C on a test, they made him stay up overnight and lift weights until he cried. If he lost a basketball game, they made him practice until he could barely move the next day. When he was six, he broke Carol’s favorite glass and they made him pick up every tiny shard without gloves. There was still a dent in the living room ceiling where Victor had pressed him into the plaster.

Even with all that, the terrible truth was this: he missed them. He missed coming home to his parents celebrating another case won. Dad ruffling his hair, no painful grip, just joy. His mom buying unripened bananas for Theo because she knew they were his favorite. Hikes on the weekends. Driving him to games, helping with his homework before they decided he was too old for it. Walking into the kitchen and seeing his parents waltzing to no music, so lost in their own little world they didn’t notice him at all.

Kade touched his leg. Theo blinked hard. He couldn’t tear up here.

Mrs. Bass was still watching him with that same detached curiosity. Like she couldn’t decide which rumors she believed about him, but she had bigger priorities.

Theo cleared his throat. “Could I use your bathroom?”

He fled into the hallway, hand pressed to his cold chest.

Kade followed.

“Told them I needed your help taking my contacts out,” he said with a wince. “What do you think? Are we screwed?”

“What, do you mean do they suspect we have their undead daughter hiding out in Felicity’s living room?” Theo shook his head. “I think you could’ve danced naked in front of him and he wouldn’t have noticed anything. The mom—I don’t know what’s up with her. Liss can take care of it. We have a spell book to find.”

Kade’s contact-less eyes lit up. Sometimes all you had to do was say a word that belonged in a fantasy video game and Kade would get as giddy as a middle schooler. It would’ve been cute, if Theo wasn’t still rubbing away the horrible weight in his chest. He didn’t want to think about his parents. Didn’t want to think about Kade admitting that sometimes he wished he didn’t have any good times with his dad, so it would be easier to hate them. Theo had so many goddamn good moments with his parents. Until Victor faked his death, they outweighed the bad so much that Theo could pretend the bad stuff didn’t exist.

They headed down the hall, Theo mentally picturing the map Skeeter had drawn for them. Grandma’s room is the third door on the left. Theo turned the doorknob. It stuck, like Skeeter had warned him it would. Nobody had been inside in years.

The door creaked open to reveal a bare white room. A single bed and a desk drawer and an empty bookcase tucked in the corner, bolted to the wall.

“There goes my first plan,” Kade said, pointing at the empty bookcase. “What else is there to search?”

“You take the closet,” Theo said, getting on his hands and knees. “I’ll check under the bed.”

He poked around the slats hopefully. Nothing popped out to reveal a secret drawer.

“I really should be under there,” Kade said. “You have shoulders.”

“ You have shoulders,” Theo replied. He liked Kade’s thin, bony shoulders. He stared at them often, watching them strain through his shirts.

“You’re broad ,” Kade argued. “Probably gonna get stuck down there and we’ll have to break the frame to get you out.” He squatted, meeting Theo’s eyes under the bed. “Hello there. Stuck?”

The weight in Theo’s chest didn’t vanish, but it stopped feeling like Victor had him shoved into the ceiling, plaster cracking around his head.

“Not yet,” Theo replied softly. He squeezed out from under the bed, scraping his shoulders against the bedframe. “Okay. I’m going to check the…”

He trailed off. There was an embroidery hoop hanging above the door. Plain white with simple black stitch in the center: WHEN THEY BITE US LET THEM CHIP THEIR DAMN TEETH.

“Oh hell yeah,” Kade said, tracking Theo’s gaze. He stretched up to reach it. His fingertips barely skimmed the bottom of the embroidery hoop. He turned to Theo with a comical pout. “Sunshine?”

“On it,” Theo said. He drifted into the air and tugged on the hoop. It was bolted into the wall. Theo tugged harder. The embroidery hoop snapped off, the wood cracking around the nails.

Kade let out the world’s quietest whoop. Tied to the back of the hoop was a thin, worn notebook. It had no title, but Theo knew what it was even before he landed on the floor and flipped it open: faded pages filled with sketches and writing so heavily cursive that Theo couldn’t even begin to read it.

“They really should start teaching us to read this shit again,” Kade said, swiping it out of Theo’s hands. “I wasn’t even sure that was English for a second.”

He flipped through the pages. More spidery writing, more sketches. A familiar woman with sharp cheekbones and even sharper teeth, her red hair twisted in a plait around her head. A sketch of a dress?—

Theo paused. There was something else tied to the back of the embroidery hoop. A small, dusty leather pouch, the drawstring pulled tight.

“Huh,” he said.

Kade hummed, still examining the sketches. “What?”

“Found a pouch.”

Kade gasped, snapping the spell book shut. “A magic pouch?”

“It looks magic-adjacent.” Theo tugged the drawstring open. Dark dirt, something that looked depressingly like bones. And flower petals, which the dirt didn’t stick to.

Theo took a petal out of the pouch, examining it in the dim light. They were so pink and plush they could’ve been plucked that morning.

“They should’ve rotted. This thing’s covered in dust.” He examined the petal’s diamond shape, going through varieties of pink flowers in his head and crossing out each one. “I don’t think it grows in Lock. I don’t recognize it.”

“I do,” Kade said quietly. He had that faraway look on his face that he often had after waking up from a dream: like time was unfolding on itself.

Finally, Theo realized: “The pink flowers you’ve been dreaming about!”

Kade nodded, dazed. “Should’ve rotted,” he echoed quietly. “Long time ago. But they’re still here. Still right… right here.”

Theo swallowed. He hated it when Kade got like this, so far away Theo couldn’t help him. Could only wait until he came back out.

“Kade?”

Kade blinked hard, and the unfolding expression was replaced by a shaky smile. “Are those bones? What kind of bones, do you think?”

He leaned in.

Something flickered past the window.

Theo grabbed Kade’s sleeve.

“What?” Kade’s fingers twitched, half an inch away from the bone lying at the top of the pouch.

Theo shushed him.

Kade sighed. “Everybody’s shushing me today.”

Theo shushed him again, urgent this time. “Something’s out there.”

Kade’s uncertain smile dropped. He stepped closer as Theo swayed unconsciously in front of him, gaze trained on the window. There was no movement, just distant trees. But he’d been so sure . It was the flash of a wing, the hint of a claw. It had been paler than the moon, which was hanging almost full in the sky.

Kade whispered, “Is it?—?”

“I don’t know,” Theo admitted. But there was this horrific bone-deep knowledge he hadn’t felt in months. I am his. Victor was nearby. He could feel it.

But seconds kept ticking away, and nothing happened. The bone-deep knowledge started to recede. Did he imagine it? Sometimes he felt it when he was out in the woods. He’d be so sure he was being watched, but he’d never be able to hear anything. Never spot a sliver of white through the trees, never those terrible eyes melting into the same color Theo saw in the mirror?—

“Theo,” Kade said, voice soft with horrible understanding. “I think we’re okay.”

Theo shushed him again. There was a new sound coming toward them: footsteps in the hall. Felicity’s light, athletic step trailing behind someone fast and determined.

“Shit.” Theo whirled. The bedroom window was too small to get out. There was no way to pass off being in the dead grandmother’s room as anything but suspicious or weird. They would have to lean into weird.

Theo messed up his hair. Then he shoved the book and the pouch down the back of Kade’s jeans.

Kade squeaked. “What’s happening?”

“Just go with it,” Theo said. He wrapped his arms around Kade and dropped his chin on his shoulder, tilting his head so it looked like he was kissing Kade’s neck.

Kade’s pulse fluttered deliciously. He swallowed, that bullseye mole rippling with the motion, and Theo had to fight back his fangs. He’d never been this close to Kade’s neck without sinking his teeth in.

He squeezed Kade’s waist. Kade made a noise like he’d been punched in the gut.

The door opened.

“Oh,” Kade said, high-pitched. “Shit.”

Theo turned, trying to look guilty for the right reasons.

Mrs. Bass was standing in the doorway, her expression unreadable. Felicity arrived behind her, a terror-smile plastered on her face.

“Wow,” Felicity said with a giggle. “Grief does such weird things, huh? You should’ve seen him after his dad died, he was dragging Kade into closets every five minutes. Let’s go, you messed up lovebirds!”

“Mrs. Bass,” Theo said, straightening his hair. “I’m so sorry.”

Mrs. Bass watched Theo as they headed down the hall. He still couldn’t tell if she was suspicious. If she was, it was buried under so many tangled layers of grief that it would take a long time to struggle to the surface.

Theo’s dead heart twisted in his chest. Skeeter’s parents wouldn’t have to mourn for long. They’d get her back to them soon.