From Bad to Cursed

“Going out tonight, Lyddie?” he asked, rubbing his hands on his jeans. “I’m working stock. Home before sunrise.”

She shrugged, staring at the wall over my head like she couldn’t bear to look at him.

“Well, leave a note if you do.” With a nod, he scooped the car keys off the table next to the door and started out. He paused at the last second. “Love you.”

Lydia gritted her teeth. “You’re embarrassing me,” she hissed.

He went out the door without another word.

Lydia shrugged, a contemptuous look in her eyes. “Tashi was having trouble dealing with things. She was really…sensitive. And kind of paranoid. You know, the prissy, artistic type? No offense.”

I let that go. “She never hinted that she was going to leave? She just showed up one night, handed you the book, and said she was heading out of town?”

“Basically,” Lydia said. “Look, she was nice, but we weren’t exactly BFFs. And I can’t say I’m thrilled that she dumped the book and ran—as much as I love Aralt. I mean, it is kind of her job.”

“Right,” I said. Never mind that the girl was essentially Aralt’s slave for two hundred years. God forbid she not do her job.

“Was there anything else you needed?” Lydia asked, standing up.

“Can I look at the book?” I asked, following her.

“Honestly, Alexis,” she said, stopping on the tile in front of the door. “I don’t mean to sound inhospitable, but I haven’t had di

“You heard what everyone said tonight,” I said. “Things are falling apart. We need to figure out how to stop this before it gets even more out of control.”

“Oh that’s what you care about?” Lydia raised her eyebrows. “And here I thought you were actually worried about Tashi.”

“Well, I am, but—”

“I know how to stop it, Alexis.” She shook her head. “Why didn’t you just ask? You come in here all CSI, like you’re trying to track down a missing person, and what you really want is to know how to fix your own problems?”

When she put it that way, it made me sound like a jerk. “I’m worried about Tashi and the rest of it,” I said.

“Well, let me ease your mind,” she said. “Tashi gave me the name of the graduation spell before she left.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Why, like it’s a secret? I have it written down upstairs.”

“Can you go get it?”

Lydia was teetering dangerously on the edge of Sunshine Club behavior, and every new request I made threatened to dump her back into Doom Squad territory. But she gave me a pained smile, said, “Wait here,” and headed up the stairs.

I looked around the room and at the dirty floors, imagining what I could do to this place with a few hours and a bucket of bleach. I took a step back and realized that there was something wet and sticky on the tile, right where Lydia had set her grocery bags. I knelt down.

Blood.

Glancing at the stairs, I wondered if I had enough time to get to the kitchen. I took a tentative step but heard Lydia starting her descent. So instead, I tiptoed to the small side table where she’d set her purse and grabbed the piece of paper sticking out of it—what I hoped was her grocery store receipt.

Going against every fiber of my being, I swiped the sole of my shoe across the blood on the floor until it was spread so thinly that you’d never know it was there.

“What are you doing?” Lydia asked, coming around the corner. “Tap dancing?”

“I’m just trying to keep moving,” I said, faking a tense little jig. “I’m nervous. We all are. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

“You know, Alexis, if you aren’t careful, you’re going to wake up one day and realize that you’re no fun to be around.” She pursed her lips. “I can’t find the spell. My room’s kind of a mess. But believe me, I’ll find it. I’m as eager to get this over with as you are. What do you think about having the meeting on Saturday?”

“I guess that’s fine,” I said.

“Now, not to be rude, but could you go? I’m starving.”

I left, but I waited until I was stopped at a traffic light a block away before opening the paper I’d grabbed.

Then I stared at it so long that the cars behind me started honking.

It was a grocery store receipt. The total was $139.24.

And all she’d bought was meat.

“So Lydia’s the new creatura?” Kasey asked, sca

“I guess so. That might explain why she’s been so ragged these days.”

Kasey shot me a wary look. “She looks fine.”

“I’m not being sunshiny. I’m just saying. Protecting the book is a big job. Even Tashi couldn’t handle it.”

“Well, Lydia won’t have to do it for long,” Kasey said.

Lydia had suggested we have the meeting Saturday, assuming someone came through with a new member. Whatever the graduation ceremony involved, we’d get through it. Then Kasey and I would find some excuse to get the book and destroy it.

It was such a simple plan that it kind of made me uneasy, to be honest.

Because nothing with Aralt was ever as simple it seemed.

MY CELL PHONE RANG at 6:30 the next morning. I turned over and answered it without checking to see who was calling.

The voice hit me like a freight train. “Alexis. Where is Tashiana?”

I sat up. “Farrin?”

“She’s not responding to my calls. Have you seen her?”

“No,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “Not this week.”

“Not this week? What do you mean?”

“She left.”

“She left,” Farrin repeated. Something in her voice took me from sleepy to vividly awake.

“Yeah, but it’s okay,” I said. “We still have the book.”

“That’s impossible. Tashiana would never allow the book to be unattended.”

“But…” I didn’t know how to sugarcoat it. “She did.”

“Never,” Farrin said. “She is physically unable to be away from the book for more than a few hours. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

For a moment, I didn’t understand. Then, in a flash, I did.

Tashi was dead. She had to be, if she couldn’t survive apart from the book.

Because it had been at Lydia’s house all week.

But that didn’t seem to be the part that concerned Farrin. “The book is unprotected,” she said. What scared me the most was how quiet her voice became. “The energy is untended. My God, Alexis. What have you girls done?”

“But it’s not untended. It’s…tended,” I said. “There’s a new creatura.”

“Excuse me?”

It felt like every word I said was one more spoonful of dirt out of a giant hole I was digging for myself. But I didn’t know what was wrong with what I was saying, so I didn’t know what not to say.

“There’s a new creatura,” I said. “She’ll look after the book.”

Farrin’s voice dripped acid. “Do you even know what that word means?”

Well—I thought I did. But maybe not. “It’s the creature,” I said. “She takes care of Aralt?”

“Creator, you dumb child!” Farrin snapped. “It’s Latin. Not creature! Creator.”

Creator?

“You can’t have a new creator! She was joined to the book—she was the only one who could properly direct Aralt’s energy. And now you foolish little girls are ru

I was reeling. I couldn’t speak.

We were all doomed.

“I’ll call you back in five minutes. Answer the phone!” Farrin slammed her receiver down so hard it hurt my ear.

Two minutes later the phone rang.

“Here is what you must do,” she said. “There is a spell in the book that you’ll find and read. Every one of you. Write this down. The spell is called Tuga

I went to my desk and wrote it down, fumbling the pen between my clumsy fingers. “Tuga