Phil seems to digest this. Then he snaps his fingers. “Cast party on Wednesday,” he says to her. “My place.” A smile showcases the brilliance of this idea.
“Oh, yeah?” Elena is, of course, aware that he is just looking to get laid, but she also senses an opportunity.
“Extras—I meanbackground actors—are part of the cast.” He glances at Cal, a challenge in his eyes. “Extras are part of the cast, aren’t they, Cal?”
“Where exactly isyour place?” Elena asks. If she goes to this cast party, she can continue her charm offensive, then do a little bait and switch.
“The hideous glass house up the side of that mountain.” He flails a hand in the direction of the door.
Elena finishes her drink. “I know the one.”
Cal Pierce claps a hand on Phillip Granger’s back. “You’re a true man of the people, Phil,” he says coolly. Then, “Okay, let’s hit it. I’m beat.”
Once the Hollywoods are gone, Elena sits alone at the bar. Ken raises his eyebrows at her as he wipes the taps down. She glares at him until he looks away.
***
Fifteen minutes later, Elena is scrubbing the makeup off her face in Barbara’s low-lit guest bathroom. Gael and Barbara are both long asleep. Being back here has been more full-on than she’d expected. Getting Phillip Granger to consider her for future projects is going to take some creativity, but she can manage a man like him. It’s more everything else. Last night, Sophie insisted they humor Joey because she seems fragile, but Elena refuses to live in the past, always has. Shealways assumed Quinn’s death was an accident, just like everyone else. Only, now, she keeps picturing Tom Winter pushing Quinn off the crag. It’s fucked up, but it is playing on repeat. Just the mention of Quinn’s death has had dark thoughts battling for space in her head. And then there was that creepy word carved into the deck.Bloodspell.It sounds like a word they should know—its allusion to magic is obvious—but none of them do.
From the counter, her phone chirps at her. Low battery. She searches her purse and suitcase before remembering she used her charger on the drive from the airport. She curses and tiptoes past Gael asleep on the upstairs couch, stopping to cover him with a throw blanket. Down the stairs, then through the front door. She feels the cold of the front walk on her bare feet. Wind hisses between trees, but otherwise, the night is silent. And that smell. She’d forgotten it, but it hits her now, piney and cool and filled with memories. She wrinkles her nose and tries to recall smoggy LA, but somehow she can’t. Whisper Ridge’s high-altitude crispness, the distinct odor of dry wood and cold stone, overwhelms everything.
When she opens the car door, the click echoes, and the yellow overhead light flickers on. She yanks her phone charger free from the port and crawls out backward, closing the door and snuffing out the light. It’s then that she feels it. A creeping feeling, like someone has just said something to her. She spins around, clutching the small white cord to her chest. But she is alone in the driveway. Nothing but darkness swimming around her. In the distance, a lonely streetlight illuminates a neighbor’s house and—she takes a small step closer, heart skittering—the outline of a figure. It’s no more than a dark shadow, but it’s in the shape of a person. Her chest goes tight, and her breath momentarily leaves her. She glances back at Barbara’s house and the darkened windows, wondering if she is being watched.
But when she looks toward the streetlight again, just a few secondslater, no one is there at all. She scrubs at her face.
She waits five minutes, listening to nothing but the chirp of a frog somewhere in the dark. Then she runs back into the house and double-locks the door.
“Never channel without another present.”
–Rule #3,The Book of Aspens
16Quinn
May 2011
Three weeks before the fall
Sunshine pours in through the tiny bathroom window as I wash my hands. The four of us stand in a row before the mirror, pink-painted stalls like gates at our back.
“Sleepover at my house tonight?” Sophie says. She examines her reflection and adjusts her shirt, tugging it down as far as it will go. Elena leans in and applies a sticky gloss. The room begins to smell of cotton candy.
“I can’t,” I say, and I catch Joey’s eye in the mirror. She’s glaring at me with her arms firmly crossed at her chest. She steals a look at Sophie and then Elena, and in a second, they’re all standing around me. I take a step toward the sink. I’m not sure what’s going on, but it seems like they’ve planned this. They followed me in here with the intention of cornering me.
“It’s been, like, weeks since you’ve hung out with us.” Elena puts her lip gloss away and zips up her bag without taking her eyes off me. She flicks an eyebrow up in question.
“Sorry,” I say. I don’t want to tell them why, so I just say, “Maybe next weekend?”
Joey examines her feet. “If it’s River, just tell us. We won’t care.”
“It’s not River,” I say. “It’s…my dad. He needs me. I’m working up to an intervention.”
“Oh, wow,” says Sophie, softening. “Do you need us there for support?”
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
Sophie rubs my arm. “I think you’re absolutely doing the right thing. He needs professional help. But make sure you have your mom and maybe a friend or two of his there. And call us. You shouldn’t do it on your own.”
“So we’ll hang out next weekend then,” says Joey. “You won’t back out at the last second?” Her words cut, as I assume they’re meant to. I can hear the shouts and laughter from students lining up at their lockers.
