Who'll make the pyre?
I, said the moth,
I'll oil the gravecloth,
Then spark the fire.
—
"Take me home," was all Duke said. She refused to speak again, and Veronica didn't feel much like talking either.
The street lights flashed across Duke's pale face and trembling lips as Veronica glanced across at her in the car. It occurred to her that Duke had been absolutely terrified of Kurt and Ram, on top of everything else. Veronica had thought of the two football stars as pathetic bumbling assholes for so long that it seemed hard to fit her brain around it. Veronica had been incandescently angry about the rumor they had dared spread about her, but she'd never felt afraid of Kurt Kelly scrabbling over cow shit trying to reach her in the dark. Yet she knew the familiar risks and fears: how not to get roofied, how to duck under a guy's outstretched arm, how to clutch your keys as if you could use them to stab a man's eye out. The fears that being popular and beautiful meant attracting the people no one wanted to attract ever. And by people, she meant violent aggressive men who wouldn't take no for an answer. Fuck men. Non literally.
Now Kurt and Ram were dead. Suddenly, bloodily, and violently. They don't publish articles on how to deal with the murders of your classmates in Cosmo. Especially if you were an accessory after the fact.
Yet I'm not sorry they're dead and I'm not going to pretend to be, Veronica thought.
Duke's house was empty, a big black lump of darkness with all the lights off. Veronica knew that since her parents' divorce, her father had decamped with her younger brother and her mom lived mostly in her office. Duke was Chandler's favorite in terms of utter lack of parental involvement at home; no one offered them paté or even bothered to show up, so her place was good for talking secrets or hosting the sort of parties that no parents could know about.
Something about Duke's look made Veronica decide she shouldn't leave her alone for a moment. Duke slammed the car door and turned the key on her front door, stalking up the stairs without a backwards glance. She barely seemed to notice she was followed. Veronica watched Duke plunder her closet and desk, laying out every last one of her packs of tarot cards and books on magic in a giant pile on her bed. She took out her green lamé cloak and used it to wrap everything in. Duke stopped at the garage to take out some engine oil, then flung her large bundle into the barbecue pit at the back of her garden.
"Give me a match," she said.
They watched the fire consume it all, delicate painted cards and flamboyant books of stage-magic tricks and melting black wax sculptured candles. The green lamé cloth sent up spitting sparks while it blackened and faded away.
"I don't have any real power," Duke repeated, flames lighting her face in the dark. "The only time I did, it was Martha. Fuck Heather. When I accused you of murder, I should've sent a congratulations card. Someone should have killed her long ago. You can even feel what her grandmother dearest did to us."
At least it seemed possible to resist Heather and people like her, Veronica thought, perhaps especially if you knew that she had power. But Heather Duke had been exposed to her for a very long time.
"Heather's grandma wasn't wrong," Veronica said. "She ordered us not to get hurt and - God. You saw more than I did of it all. That really wasn't Heather McNamara, was it? School is going to be so much fun."
It occurred to Veronica that she had glimpsed the ghost herself, before. She'd painted the lockers red with her own murder, humming a strange children's rhyme, and left Heather McNamara lost and confused when she'd stepped out of her.
"I hate her," Duke said. She faced the fire, her eyes staring at the black spaces between the dancing red and gold. "I always hated her. I hate you and Heather McNamara about equally. You knew how Heather treated me and you both gave into her. Before she picked you, at least I was the third Heather. Then Heather liked you best, so you pushed me down to the lowest and last Heather. I had to thank you for sticking your fingers down my throat. You used my back for a table. I'd have watched you go to prison and laughed. Martha was actually nice to me. Once she punched a boy at camp for me because he threw mud and yelled at me. Of course, now Martha wants me dead for betraying her, but she wasn't all bad."
"I fantasized about killing Heather," Veronica offered. "Wrote about it in my diary. But when it came down to reality, I settled for trying to make her puke. Of course, that's all water under the bridge now she's still breathing. When I joined her, I sold Betty Finn out. Betty was a true friend. She still apologizes like it was her fault I ditched her."
The girls watched the magic gear burn to the ground. For two people who hated each other, it was an oddly warm and companionable silence. They stared into the dying fire, standing close enough to feel each other's heat.
"Cigarette?" Veronica offered. She lit two and gave the other one to Duke. Duke stared at it as if it were an alien device from Mars that she'd never seen before. It took a while for her to figure out a good way to hold it. She gingerly stuck it in her mouth and breathed in.
She coughed and spluttered for a good minute, dropping the cigarette to the ground and grinding out the fire with the heel of her shoe.
"That was beyond disgusting. You're a lousy friend," Duke said.
"So are you," Veronica said.
—
J.D. couldn't resist anything. Someone carrying him, no, dragging him. Hands, not his father's, spreading cool greasy stuff on the burn. Lukewarm water forced down his throat. He saw a red ceiling, unfamiliar to him, when the blackness dragged him down again. He felt crackling fire consume him in reality and dreams alike. He wouldn't have minded it all going black, but another part of him was fighting its way back to the waking world.
The exact source of his burning headache was much too familiar. He could pinpoint it without needing to open his eyes. He let himself wake up, his attention and the direction of his body fixed on her even before he looked. She still blazed like the sun.
"Chandler. Fill me in," he said.
"I told that bitch you were faking it," Chandler said. "She sat down on the sidelines and forced me to patch you up and told me what to do. It's been two whole days. It was repulsive."
She looked healthy and free, wearing a red coat J.D. had seen on Tree-Climbing Heather at school. The room they were in was full of crocheted antimacassars on fussy chairs, knick-knacks, jewelled eggs and old photos and china kittens crammed on heavy maple shelves, all below an ornate red ceiling with egg-and-vine mouldings across the cornices. It smelt of potpourri.
"Your dad's not here. Not going to be, either," Chandler said. "On the bright side, Heather says that Heather's math teacher is happy with her improvement. Because she's possessed by some fucking spite ghost that I accidentally created, because no one told me about this power of mine to make people do as I say. Thanks a whole bunch, Grandma."
She turned to the older woman who'd entered. A small and wrinkled old lady with sharp deep-set sapphire eyes, heavy gold around her neck, leaning on a weighty cane. J.D. frowned. He felt as little from her as he'd done from his father. Not necessarily a bad thing.
"Imagine that," Chandler's grandmother said. "Not wanting to tell a particularly spoilt and bratty child that she has the power to turn people into her dolls and puppets. Surely this would cause no harm to society at large. Oh, the humanity."
She wasn't wrong, J.D. thought, part amused.
"Welcome back to the land of the conscious, Mr. Dean," the old woman said. "We have a lot to talk about. Are you able to hear it, or should I postpone until you're better able to understand?" He shook his head. "Very well." She lowered herself to one of the frilled chairs with the dignity of a Russian empress. "I assume you're a good influence on my granddaughter, as it's difficult to imagine her finding a child worse-behaved than herself."
"Shut up, Grandma," Chandler said, to no avail.
"You'll call me Miss Chandler," she told J.D. "I was never married; I assure you I was the chief scandal of both town and county." She swung the cane to point at an old photo of a very pretty woman wearing little but a few strategically placed roses. She'd looked a lot like her granddaughter, back in the day. "And of course this beautiful face I have now is what you have to look forward to, Heather. Do enjoy yourself.
"Heather inherited more than that from me," Miss Chandler said, turning serious again. "I've known of the family curse almost all my life. There are few people like us, scattered and seeded through small and obscure places across the world, but we find ways to share pieces of our lore and our ways. Your father is one of several I've corresponded with, over the years. He calls himself Burton Firestarter. When Heather told me about you, I took it upon myself to get you away from him. Like my granddaughter, I can be very persuasive. I convinced him to see things my way."
"Grandma means that your power's worthless to your dad, so she bought you," Chandler said. "He sold you for about the price of a new car. I told her she should've negotiated down more."
"Fuck this. I - I can walk out of here," J.D. said. He could see his own clothes on a chair. He tried to get up. He winced as pain from the burn hit him, below the bandages crossing his side and hips. He drew the white dressing-gown he was wearing tighter around himself. He'd be able to run, if not now then later. He tried not to look too weak while he settled down again, though it was probably a lost cause. "What happens to Chandler Junior here - or Sunnyside-Up Heather?" he said.
"My granddaughter is safe with me," Miss Chandler said. "The other girl, or rather, girls, are far more complicated. You can sense the people around you?" she asked, leaning forward. "Feelings? Emotional state?"
There didn't seem much point in lying. "I guess so," J.D. said. He could feel Chandler as her usual pleasurably annoyed, grasping self, while her grandmother felt almost blank. "Your granddaughter's ... completely pissed off, but she normally is, so anyone could fake reading that from her. It doesn't seem to work on you."
He got a half-smile out of the old woman. "I'm eighty-one. It would be strange if I hadn't worked out how to control my emotions by now. I've heard of people with similar abilities to you, once or twice, and I like a modicum of mental privacy." She leant back, as if satisfied with all she'd said and heard. "Heather will heat up the soup on the stove for you," she said. "If my granddaughter's particularly awful to you, Mr. Dean, you ought to tell me. You're welcome to stay here while you recover. Keep out from underfoot, children, and don't disturb any of my visitors." She creaked as she got up, but made a dignified exit.
"I'm not sure I like the idea of trying your cooking," J.D. mused. Chandler was sulking, carrying up a steaming bowl and a glass of water on a red Tupperware tray.
"Don't worry, asshole, Grandma has people to do that for her," Chandler said. "There's her nurse, her masseur, her cook, and the mini squad of cleaners it takes to keep this place up. They come on alternate days or whatever; avoiding them all is fun like you wouldn't believe."
He'd probably have eaten the soup even if Chandler had made it. Hot enough to burn his tongue; pumpkin and leek; not that the flavor mattered as it disappeared quickly. He was very thirsty, too, and drained the glass in a moment. Movement still cost him a lot in pain.
"You said Newsmaking Heather stopped by," J.D. said. "What about Veronica?"
Chandler enjoyed him asking about that, which was a bad sign. "She's come and gone. She's developed a previously undisclosed interest in the supernatural, but she's not remotely interested in getting back together with you."
He'd liked Veronica, liked her enough to fantasize about getting her attention through more and more extreme stunts. He'd thought there might be more to their relationship than just teenage chemistry, but she'd dropped him so quickly and decisively he had to doubt that. He had to resign himself to letting go. He'd be damned if he let himself show Chandler a shred of what he felt.
"Ah, and the good old hometown boys with the fun senses of humor?" he asked.
"Kurt and Ram? Teenage tragedy, two best friends who thoughtfully taught us all how not to handle guns. They were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their deaths they were not divided. Fetch me a bucket to puke in," Chandler said. "Hey, what about thoughts? Can you read what I'm thinking as welll?" She sounded a touch concerned about that, leaning over him.
"Oh, definitely. You're thinking it's not so good to be legally dead when you find out how many people hate you, there's a walking ghost who wants to see you literally dead, your power might well get you killed as soon as people figure out what you are, and worst of all your grandmother actually makes you do chores," J.D. said, smirking, trying to get a rise out of her. Chandler blazed with more hot anger, as if she wanted to slap him for invading her. Part of him almost felt regret at hurting her - he would feel it too. Then she used her brain.
"You're a lousy liar," Chandler said. She tossed her medium-copper-blonde curls. "Let's face it. I got the cool power, and you got the one that wouldn't be out of place on Care Bears."
"Remind me to tell you no more often. It'll be good for your soul. Assuming you have a soul," J.D. said.
"And to think I was going to be nice and give you painkillers," Chandler said. "Any chance of some abject boot-licking as payment?" She waited for what wouldn't happen. J.D. felt something like a reaching curiosity in her, a sort of metaphysical game of checkers or chicken. He figured he'd trade up the possibility of her grandma's prescriptions for something else.
"You offered to help me, for the right price," J.D. said. "What's the going rate to fetch a hamster?"