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“We’re observing doom,” Vesper adds.
“That’s worse.”
“Usually,” Vesper agrees.
I lift my hand. “Hi. I’m Sweet.”
Both old women go very still. Their eyes move over me, sharp and bright and strange. For one second, I feel like they can see the scratched word on my car from inside the building, like they can see Razor’s name tucked behind my teeth, like they can see the girl I was before I learned to smile pretty while planning exits.
Then Mourning grins. “Mercy named you.”
“She did.”
“Good name.”
Vesper steps closer and takes my hand before I decide whether to offer it. Her fingers are cool and dry, rings clicking against mine.
“Sweet outside. Flint inside.”
I blink. “Thank you?”
“She takes everything as a compliment,” Mercy says. “It’s unsettling.”
Mourning nods approvingly. “That’ll irritate Bitter.”
“Why is everyone so interested in irritating Bitter?”
“Because he was born irritated,” Vesper says.
“Came out scowling,” Mourning adds.
“With pretty eyelashes.”
“And a grudge against daylight.”
I bite my lip.
Mercy catches me. “Laugh. He ain’t here to enjoy scaring it out of you.”
I laugh, and it feels easier this time.
The twins are supposed to be helping with the fortune-telling booth near the swap meet, which I learn only after Mourning pulls six velvet bags of charm bones out of her purse and Vesper asks if the school has any spare candles that smell like “legal innocence.” Miss Mercy says no. Lark says yes. Petal says absolutely not near the oxygen tanks. Junie suggests moving them to the old viewing room, and somehow I get recruited to carry a box of black tablecloths outside.
I’m not supposed to go outside alone. I know that, and Mercy knows it too because she calls, “Petal, go with her.”
Petal waddles over with one hand on her belly and a look that says she may be pregnant but she can still fight. “Come on, Sweet. I’ll protect you with maternal rage and low blood sugar.”
“That sounds effective.”
“It is. My man cried last week because I asked him why the pickle jar was empty.”
“Was it?”
“Yes, but that ain’t the point.”
We step through the side door into the festival noise.
The town has changed while I was inside. What was trucks, half-built tents, and men arguing over extension cords earlier has become a strange little carnival blooming around a funeral home. Booths line the gravel and spill toward Main Street. Someone strings orange skull lights between poles. A banner for tomorrow’s coffin races snaps in the breeze. Men test wooden race coffins on wheels, one painted with flames, another shaped like a hot dog, and one black-and-pink number that says TILL DEATH DO US PARTY.
