Page 7 of Carnival of Crows

CHAPTER 4

Damien

“Okay, spill. Who is the smokeshow with the orange streaks in her hair?”

I leaned toward Cassie, keeping my voice low enough that the guests milling through the tent couldn’t overhear. She followed my gaze.

The woman with the streaks of orange framing her face and the rest of her raven hair had reunited with her friends and were making their way toward the back of the tent.

Cassie smiled. “That’s Luci.”

I waited. “Yes, I gathered as much. Who is she? You obviously know her.”

She blinked. “Luci Addams?”

She waited, expecting an “ah ha!” moment of recognition from me, but I got nothing.

“You know…” She made a snapping motion with her fingers. “…Spooky Ooky Luci?”

I stared at her. “Cass.”

“What?”

“I have absolutely no idea what any of that means.”

Luca’s head snapped around so fast I thought his neck might actually pop.

“No fucking way, dude.”

“There is, in fact, a way,” I answered.

“You don’t know who Spooky Ooky Luci is?” Jack chimed in from the other side of our brother.

“I just said I didn’t.”

“You really live under a fucking rock,” Luca said with a head shake.

“Someone get this man on Instagram,” Jack added. “Though, I will admit, it took me a sec to figure out who she was without her Wednesday braids.”

“The what?” I questioned.

Everything they were saying right now sounded like gibberish. I just wanted to know who she was and how everyone but me seemed to know her.

“The braids!” Luca exclaimed, as if that explained everything. “In all her reviews she does her own version of Wednesday Addams.”

He held his hands beside his face, mimicking braided pigtails.

“Black-and-white outfits. Deadpan humor. The whole spooky aesthetic.”

Daniele agreed. “Yeah, I don’t know why I expected her to show up like that. I didn’t expect fishnets and a Camp Crystal Lake shirt.”

“Her leather jacket was badass though,” Cassie chimed in.

“Oh, and her last name is actually Addams,” Luca added. “She’s basically horror royalty around New England right now.”

“Royalty,” I repeated flatly.

“Local royalty,” he corrected.