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26
I’m joking. She doesn’t. She doesn’t say that at all. Freya wouldnever— none of the girls here would, and that’s what makes them so insidious.
Their veneer of politeness is so flimsy that I’d almost prefer Freya to threaten me with a pair of scissors. At least it’d behonest.
I know none of them can stand me.
Freya works on my hair, clipping bits and tugging others. She sings under her breath like the sweetest cartoon princess, tossing her long blonde braid over her shoulder as though to emphasize how gorgeous her own locks are.
I roll my eyes.
She lasts three minutes before asking, “It must have been scary out there in the forest, Jessa. Did you see anything interesting?”
“No.” My voice is blunt, but then I remember our bargain. Information in exchange for a hairstyle, and if there’s anything that Freyacoulddo to me, it’s to fuck up my hair even more.
Right now, it hurts to even look at it. It’s why I’ve worn a hat ever since I found out. My long brown locks are gone. If Freya thought it had been sad before, it’s downright tragic now. My mousy brown hair has jagged, rough edges. It falls longer in some parts than others, and you can see from the remaining tangles where it’d been tightly wrapped around the branches. I get the feeling that Arabella really relished chopping my hair into little pieces.
“I mean,” I amend hastily. “I suppose I saw things. Scary things.”
Play with it, Jessa.
Freya’s scissors still. They resume with renewed vigor when I don’t speak. “Such as?”
“Obviously this is top-secret stuff,” I tell Freya solemnly. “You have to promise not to breathe a word of this to anyone.”
She nods, her big blue eyes widening.
I think about Freya critically, wondering which part of her to exploit the most. Her background? Her dad, who has something to do with the official whisky board or whatever? When I feel my resolve weakening, I think of her insistence about Operation Strike First. About all the detentions I’ve had to endure from her idiocy.
“Okay, so… I saw, um… a bottle.” I scratch my mind, trying to remember the style of bottle Li had been carrying that night. The one that had been given to her by Freya. “Big bottle. Brown. Label peeling off it.”
Freya’s cutting my hair slower than before, which isn’t what I want. I want this over with as quickly as possible.
“And?”
I take a deep breath. “It had spilled onto the grass. There was a crow — several crows, actually — all of them drinking from the bottle. Fighting to get to it.”
“Acrow,” Freya whispers faintly, clutching her chest like I’ve struck a physical blow. “But crows are the symbol of…”
“Of death.” I nod, enjoying her struck expression.
There’s a long silence. I meet Freya’s eyes in the mirror.
“Daddy’s been ill for quite some time,” she says softly, like it’s being dragged out of her. She perches on my bed, looking distraught.
This… This wasn’t supposed to happen.
I wasn’t supposed to be dealing withemotions.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say diplomatically, feeling kinda wretched.
But it’s notmyfault, exactly. If Freya wants to go off on a tangent by reading a bunch of stuff into some made-up words and symbols, then that’s up to her.
And yet Freya almost looks on the verge of tears.
Well, this is awkward.
“He had an appendectomy recently, and I’ve been so worried…”
