Midnight Games(31)

Her nightshirt was tossed over the bed. A pile of jeans littered the floor in front of the closet. The black candles had been removed. I saw spots of black candle wax on the carpet.

I glanced around. Shoved to the other side of the bed, I saw the big spell book. The old book we had used to try to call up Cindy from the grave.

The book was open to two pages of tiny type. I dropped down to the floor and raised the book to my lap.

I squinted at the narrow columns of type, trying to find what Jamie had been chanting last night. It didn’t take long. At the top of the right-hand page, I found what I was looking for.

A spell to fog a person’s mind.

I ran a trembling finger over the ancient words.

Yes. A spell to make a person feel faint. To make their minds go blank.

Had Jamie been using this spell on me?

A hundred thoughts shot through my mind at once—all of them horrifying. I pieced together an insane story—just crazy enough to be true.

Jamie used the spell on me to make me go faint. Then she murdered those two girls. She made it look as if I was the murderer. And I was left with no excuse, except that I’d blacked out.

Why?

That was the unanswered question. Why kill her own friends? Why try to put the blame on me? Why would Jamie do that?

A big piece of the puzzle was missing. But I was too terrified to stick around and find it.

I slammed the book shut and jumped to my feet. I had to get out of the house. Had to find someone who would believe me, who would help me.

I stepped out into the hall.

“Dana?” I heard Aunt Audra call from downstairs. “I reached Dr. Wilbur. I’m driving you there in half an hour. Why don’t you come down and have some breakfast?”

No! No way.

I pulled on my parka and sneaked out the front door. I took off running, down the driveway and then along the sidewalk. I crossed the street and kept running.

Gasping for breath, my chest aching, I stopped a few blocks later. I realized where I was running. I was running to Nate’s house. He was the only one who could help me. He had to help me.

I knocked on his front door and waited. No answer. I rang the bell. No one. I peeked into the front window but couldn’t see anyone. The garage door was open. The car was gone.

He must be on his way to school, I decided. So I took off once again, running hard, not thinking, unable to think about anything but finding Nate and begging him to help me escape.

A few minutes later I spotted him in the student parking lot behind the high school. He was climbing out of his mother’s blue Accord.

“Thank goodness!” I cried breathlessly.

But then I saw that he wasn’t alone. Standing between two cars, he was talking to someone.

I moved closer, keeping low, hiding behind the parked cars. And I recognized Jamie. She was shaking her head, wiping away tears.

I knew she was telling him about me.

Nate slid his arm around Jamie’s shoulders. I could see he was comforting her. And then I heard him say, “Dana trusts me. Maybe I can trick her or something. You know. Help get her to the mental hospital.”





28

Around four o’clock that afternoon, I saw Jamie lift the garage door and disappear into her sculpture studio. The door slid down noisily behind her.

I watched from the side of the garden shed. I’d wandered aimlessly all day, trying to make a plan. Trying to decide what to do, where to go. Trying to make sense of everything.

I’m not crazy.

I told myself that a hundred times. I don’t belong in a mental hospital. I didn’t imagine the spellbook. And I didn’t imagine Jamie sneaking into my room and spreading powder on my clothes.

Because of my dear cousin, everyone thought I was a murderer. And everyone thought I was insane. And Aunt Audra and my father probably planned to lock me away in some kind of hospital.

I realized I had no choice. I had to confront Jamie. I had to force her to tell me the truth. And so I waited in the cold, waited by the side of the shed. Waited till she went into her studio.

And now, I took a deep breath and stepped up to the garage door. I slid it open slowly, as quietly as possible, hoping to surprise her.

A blast of warm air greeted me. Jamie had her back to me. She stood at the open door of a huge, flaming pottery kiln, as big as a furnace. I watched her lean toward the kiln, lowering a piece of pottery into the blazing heat.

I let go of the garage door and took a few steps into the studio. A long, well-lit worktable filled the center of the room. A potter’s wheel stood at the far end. I glimpsed shelves of red clay pottery—vases and bowls and heads and—

Whoa.

My eyes stopped at the pedestals in front of the worktable. Slender, stone pedestals holding three sculpted heads.

Heads of girls . . .

“Ohhh.” I raised my hands to my mouth to stifle the sound of my shocked cry.