The twins were not sick. Eureka was the one who’d had a cramp across her entire being, the kind she used to get before cross-country meets when she was a freshman. She couldn’t stop reliving the encounter with Ander and his truck, the four pedestrians from hell glowing in the darkness—and the mysterious green light Ander had turned on them like a weapon. She’d picked up her phone three times the night before to call Cat. She’d wanted to set the story free, to unburden herself.
But she couldn’t tell anyone. After she drove home, Eureka had spent ten minutes pulling sugarcane from Magda’s grille. Then she ran up to her room, shouting down to Rhoda that she was too swamped with homework to eat. “Swamped in the swamp” was a joke she had with Brooks, but nothing seemed funny anymore. She’d stared out the window, imagining every headlight was a pale psychopath searching for her.
When she heard Rhoda’s footsteps on the stairs, Eureka had grabbed her Earth Science book and opened it just in time before Rhoda carried in a plate of flank steak and mashed potatoes.
“You’d better not be messing around in here,” Rhoda said. “You’re still on thin ice after that Dr. Landry stunt.”
Eureka flashed her textbook. “It’s called homework. They say it’s highly addictive, but I think I can handle it if I only try it at parties.”
She hadn’t been able to eat. At midnight she’d surprised Squat with the kind of meal a dog on death row might request. At two, she heard Dad come home. She got as far as her door before she stopped herself from rushing into his arms. There was nothing he could do about her troubles, and he didn’t need another weight to drag him down. That was when she checked her email and found the second translation from Madame Blavatsky.
This time, when Eureka read from The Book of Love, she forgot to wonder how its story might apply to Diana. She found too much strange symmetry between Selene’s predicament and her own. She knew what it was like to have a boy burst into your life out of nowhere, leaving you haunted and wanting more. The two boys even had similar names. But unlike the boy in the story, the boy on Eureka’s mind didn’t sweep her off her feet and kiss her. He slammed into her car, followed her around, and said she was in danger.
As sun rays tentatively fingered her window that morning, Eureka had realized that the only person she could turn to about all of her questions was Ander. And it wasn’t up to her when she saw him.
Brooks leaned casually into Eureka’s locker. “Did it freak you out?”
“What?”
“The twins’ being sick.”
Eureka stared at him. His eyes wouldn’t hold hers for more than a moment. They’d made up—but had they really? It was like they’d slipped into an eternal war, one you could retreat from but never actually end, a war where you did your best not to see the whites of your opponent’s eyes. It was like they’d become strangers.
Eureka ducked behind her locker door, separating herself from Brooks. Why were lockers always gray? Wasn’t school already enough like a prison without the trimmings?
Brooks pushed the locker door flush against Sarah Picou’s locker. There was no barrier between them. “I know you saw Ander.”
“And now you’re mad that I possess eyesight?”
“This isn’t funny.”
Eureka was amazed he hadn’t chuckled. They couldn’t even joke now?
“You know, if you miss two more Latin Club meetings,” Brooks said, “they won’t put your name in the yearbook on the club page, and then you won’t be able to put it on your college applications.”
Eureka shook her head as if she’d misheard him. “Uhhh … what?”
“Sorry.” He sighed, and his face relaxed, and for a moment nothing was weird. “Who cares about Latin Club, right?” Then a glimmer came into his eye, a smugness that was new. He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a Ziploc bag of cookies. “My mom is on a mad baking spree recently. Want one?” He opened the bag and held it out to her. The smell of oatmeal and butter made her stomach turn. She wondered what had kept Aileen up baking the night before.
“I’m not hungry.” Eureka glanced at her watch. Four minutes until the bell. When she reached into her locker for her English book, an orange flyer fluttered to the ground. Someone must have slipped it through the slats.
SHOW YOUR FACE.
TREJEAN’S FIFTH ANNUAL MAZE DAZE.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, AT 7 P.M.
DRESS TO SCARE THE CROWS.
Brad Trejean had been the most popular senior at Evangeline the year before. He was loud and wild, redheaded, flirtatious. Most girls, including Eureka, had crushed on him at some point. It was like a job they worked in shifts, though Eureka had quit the first time Brad, who knew about LSU football and nothing else, actually spoke to her.
Every October, Brad’s parents went to California and he threw the best party of the year. His friends constructed a maze out of haystacks and spray-painted poster board and set it up in the Trejeans’ sprawling backyard on the bayou. People swam and, as the party went on, skinny-dipped. Brad mixed his signature drink, the Trejean Colada, which was horrible and strong enough to guarantee an epic party. Late in the night, there was always a seniors-only game of Never-Ever, exaggerated details of which were slowly leaked to the rest of the school.
Eureka realized Brad’s younger sister Laura was carrying on the tradition. She was a sophomore, less notorious than Brad. But she was nice and not a label-whore, unlike most of the other sophomores. She started on the volleyball team, so she and Eureka used to see each other in the locker room after school.
For the past three years, Eureka had heard about this party on Facebook a month in advance. She and Cat would go shopping for their outfits the weekend before. She hadn’t logged in to Facebook in forever, and now that she thought about it, she remembered a text from Cat that proposed shopping last Sunday after church. Eureka had been too preoccupied with her fight with Brooks to consider fashion.
She held up the flyer and tried a smile. Last year she and Brooks had had one of their most fun nights at that party. He’d brought black sheets from home, and they’d turned invisible to haunt what was known as the Maze. They’d terrified some seniors in some compromising positions.
“I’m the ghost of your father’s eyesight,” Brooks had warbled heavily to a girl in a half-unbuttoned blouse. “Tomorrow you’re off to the convent.”
“Not cool!” her companion had shouted, but he’d sounded scared. It was a miracle no one ever figured out who was behind the Maze haunting.
“Shall the spiritus interruptus return again this year?” Eureka waved the flyer.
He took it from her hand. He didn’t look at it. It was like being slapped.
“You’re too cavalier,” he said. “That psycho wants to hurt you.”
Eureka groaned, then inhaled a whiff of patchouli, which only meant one thing:
Maya Cayce was approaching. Her hair was woven in a long, intricate fishtail that draped down her side, and her eyes were lined with heavy kohl. She’d pierced her nasal septum since the last time Eureka saw her. A tiny black ring looped through her nose.
“Is that the psycho you’re talking about?” Eureka asked Brooks. “Why don’t you protect me? Go kick her ass.”
Maya stopped at the door to the bathroom. She flicked her braid to the other side and looked over her shoulder at them. She made the bathroom look like the sexiest spot on earth. “Did you get my message, B?”
“Yeah.” Brooks nodded, but he didn’t seem interested. His gaze kept moving toward Eureka. Did he want to make Eureka jealous? It wasn’t working. Not really.