Page 40 of Hallowed Bones

Elodie looks away as she leans closer to the mirror and finishes applying her bright red lipstick. She’s hiding it better today than recently, but I can still see the shadow in her eyes. Only one thing can help for a little while. It’s the only thing I craved when I lost my parents.

Normalcy. A chance to forget what’s happened. A chance to pretend like you’re not sad even if, at the end of the night, you’ll come back and be the same exact person. Just as depressed. Just as lost. Just as empty.

I get up from the bed and move for the door.

“Be good, birdy!” Elodie chirps, trailing after me.

“We’re not calling him birdy.”

“How do you know it’s a ‘him’?”

I lock the door behind us, and together, we head down the hall. “I don’t,” I answer honestly. “It just … felt like it.”

Outside, the stone buildings of Ipswich College glow dimly beneath the moonlight. Elodie loops her arm through mine, but her grip is too tight. She’s putting on a show. This is her first party since Jonah. I remember why we’re doing this. I push the crow—and the dread—down deep.

“We’re going to have all the fun,” I declare.

Elodie grins. “Now that I’ve got you? These parties don’t stand a chance.”

I try to smile, to match her bravado.

But even as we walk away, my attention keeps drifting back.

Back to the dorm.

Back to the window.

Back to the creature that came for me through glass and night like a message.

Like a sign.

CHAPTER 16HAVEN

The lacrosse team’s off-campus rental is a monstrosity of an old house that’s a twenty-minute walk from our dorm. Cool autumn air slips down my arms and over the exposed skin of my collarbone, lifting a trail of goose bumps in its wake. I tilt my head back and take in the house, wondering how the fuck the owners had managed to rent it out to not just one person but several.

I fold my arms around myself, as if I could ward off the chill crawling beneath my skin.

Three redbrick chimneys claw their way toward the sky, crooked and uneven, like rusted stakes driven into a grave—the tallest one looming like a monarch over the rest. The exterior is painted an unsettling shade of black, the kind that seems to drink in the last of the light. It makes the glow behind the windows appear somewhat strange, not welcoming but watchful—like the gleam in the eyes of something alive.

Why does everything in this town have to be so … creepy?

“So the lacrosse team lives here?” I ask Elodie as we join the crowd that’s lined up to be let inside.

“Not the whole team,” Elodie says, absently scanning the crowd around us. “But a lot of them—there are a ton of these old houses around Ipswich and Salem. They cost a lot to keep up, so most owners rent them out by the room instead of as a whole.”

I grimace at the face of the house. It’s big, that’s for sure. I can see how it’d be hard to manage. The line shuffles forward, and so do we. A man stands at the open front door wearing jeans and a navy polo shirt. There’s a white-and-blue ball cap on his head, turned until the bill faces backward. He holds up the bright orange bowl in his hand, and the people in front of us drop their keys inside.

“Oh, have you seen one of those?” Elodie’s question is followed by the long line of her finger in my face as she points up. I follow it to see a narrow window set into the slanting side of one of the exterior walls. “Those are called witch windows,” she says. “People used to believe that witches couldn’t fly through windows like that because their broomsticks wouldn’t fit.”

I snort. “If witches have enough magic to fly around on broomsticks, I doubt a slanted window is going to stop them.”

Elodie chuckles. “It’s just an old folktale,” she muses. Her eyes drift back up the house. “They were probably added later as the family who owned the house built on. There was no air-conditioning back then. They needed better airflow and light in their rooms, especially for the summers.”

I hum my agreement as we move forward and reach the front of the line. “Drivers?” Ball Cap Guy asks, holding out his bowl.

“Nope,” Elodie responds cheerfully, popping the word out. “We walked.”

He nods and waves us in, shifting the bowl out of the way. “Good call. Have fun!”