Grim anthology. Christine Johnson

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СКАЧАТЬ what I tell you. We are not a democracy. But if you follow the rules, I’ll watch out for you. Agree?”

      Now Liv hesitated. She didn’t like being told what to do. She thought she saw the shadow again, but this time she also saw wings unfolding from it. She blinked, and it was gone.

      “Liv,” Harley said.

      There was a feverish insistence in Harley’s eyes that made Liv’s contrary nature soften. She felt as if the only thing she had ever wanted was to make Harley happy. “I agree,” she said.

      Harley’s shoulders slumped uncharacteristically, and for a second Harley didn’t look invincible; she only looked tired. But the moment passed as quickly as it had come. “Good,” Harley said. “Then you go back to your room and pack your things. Bring them over to Castle Hall before lights-out.”

      “Tonight? Don’t I have to fill out some paperwork or something?”

      “I’ll take care of it. It’ll take a couple of days to process, but you can still move in tonight. You can stay in my sister’s room.”

      “Where’d your sister go?” Liv asked, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth she knew she shouldn’t have said them.

      Harley’s face closed up and she looked away. “None of your business. Go get ready. We’re going out tonight.” She began to leave, heading toward the administration building.

      “Wait,” Liv called after her. “What should I wear?”

      Harley glanced over her shoulder but didn’t slow down. “Dress to impress,” she said.

      A blackbird fluttered down from the branch of the oak tree above Liv’s head and landed on the ground a few feet away. It turned to look at her, and as it folded its wings along its body, Liv felt a deep, dark cold inside, as if she had made a bargain with someone or something she did not understand.

      * * *

      Casey’s room was on the third floor of Castle Hall, and she had left her sheets and blankets on the bed. The first thing Liv did was swap out Casey’s flowered sheets for her own yellow ones. As Liv changed out of her school uniform and into black jeans and a glittery black tank top, she had the unsettling feeling that the room wasn’t empty. It still smelled like another girl’s shampoo.

      There was a knock on the door, and Harley called out, “Liv, you ready? Party’s starting.”

      “Coming,” Liv answered, and she checked her makeup one last time in the mirror. She had always thought of herself as confident; she had never been a wallflower. Tonight, though, she was nervous. The anticipation of what might happen spread over her cheeks in a rosy flush. She didn’t need any blush.

      The girls were all waiting in Harley’s room when she arrived. Harley said, “Say hi to Liv,” and they did, each one of them. Paige, Carmody, Ruby, Skyler, Devin, Sarah, Angela, Tara, Brooklyn and Kirsten. Liv was glad she had worn black, because that seemed to be their favorite color. Black jeans, black leggings, black tanks, black lace, black boots, black eyeliner, black nails. The only spots of color were on their lips and eyes—crimson and purple and blue—and in the jewelry each girl wore. Carmody had a shining steel cuff embedded with blue stones on her right wrist. Paige put up her blond hair with garnet pins. Sarah had a gold mesh bracelet studded with what looked like diamonds. Harley wore a gold ring set with a faceted black jewel on her left hand. Every time she raised her hand, it sparkled.

      They passed around a bottle of vodka while they waited for midnight. “We don’t go out till then,” Paige informed Liv. Liv’s mouth grew numb from the liquor, and she wondered if she was going to be drunk before the party even started, but then Harley put the bottle away, and it was time.

      “These are the rules,” Harley said to Liv as the girls stood up. “We have to return by three in the morning. No exceptions. And nobody brings anything back with them.”

      Liv nodded, and then Harley did something very strange: she pushed her bed aside along well-worn grooves on the wooden floor, revealing a trapdoor. Harley lifted the door’s black iron ring and pulled it up, and Liv saw a flight of stairs descending into the dark. Liv wondered if she was seeing things because of the vodka. They were on the third floor of Castle Hall. Did those stairs go to the second floor?

      Nobody questioned it, so Liv didn’t, either. As the girls began to troop down the stairs, Harley caught her eye and said, “Don’t forget what you agreed to, Liv.”

      Warmth suffused her skin. “I won’t,” Liv said, and she stepped into the hole in the floor beneath Harley’s bed.

      The stairs seemed to go on forever—well past the point where they should have struck the first floor. Liv gripped the metal railing as she followed the girls ahead of her, listening to them chatter about where they were going, who would be there, whether the music would be good. “It’s always good,” said one of them, and the others laughed in agreement, their voices throaty in the dim stairway.

      Finally the stairs ended in a steel door like an emergency exit, and Paige pushed the bar to open it. They spilled out into a rain-slicked alley that smelled faintly of gasoline. As Liv looked around, the world seemed to spin. She didn’t understand how they could have climbed all the way down those stairs from beneath Harley’s bed to emerge in this alley in a city that was clearly not Middlebury.

      “Where are we?” she asked, feeling dizzy.

      Harley grabbed her arm, steadying her. “This way,” she said, and led Liv down the alley to another door. There was a flyer taped to it that depicted a stylized girl’s face with spiky hair and a big, full mouth. Across the place where her eyes should be were four letters: AARU. Harley reached for the handle of the door and pulled it open. Music blasted into the alley.

      Liv and the other girls followed her inside. In front of a velvet curtain, a bouncer waited with a flashlight. Harley pulled Liv forward and said, “She’s new. The twelfth girl.”

      The bouncer swept his flashlight over Harley’s hand, and her ring glowed. Then he turned the light on Liv’s face, and she winced at the brightness.

      “All right,” the bouncer said, flicking the light away.

      Harley grabbed her arm again. “Come on,” she said, and pulled her through the velvet curtain.

      It was like stepping into another world. The music was overpowering, the bass so heavy it seemed to snake up her body from the floor to shake her from the inside out. The lights that strobed over the crowd obscured as much as they revealed: dancers in glitter and vinyl and fur, their bodies glinting with metal in places she would never think to pierce, their hair caught up in crowns and headdresses that looked like antlers. Instead of mirrored disco balls, there were trees made of glass rising from the floor, reflecting the lights. Crystal leaves hung from the clear branches overhead, making it seem as if the ceiling was heaving in time to the music.

      The other girls slipped around Liv and Harley, disappearing into the crowd. Harley—who was still holding Liv’s wrist as if she were a child—leaned over to say, “This is the main room. There are two more. I’ll show you.” Then she began to lead Liv around the edge of the dance floor.

      The next room seemed to be made of gold. The walls were hammered gold, and gold leaves hung from weeping golden willows while golden spotlights illuminated a dancer in a cage hanging above the crowd, her whole body painted gold. After that was the room made СКАЧАТЬ