Page 22 of The Debutantes
I groaned. “Seriously?”
Her smile fell into a defensive frown. “What?”
“I thought we were past the thing where people think smoking is cool.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. I don’t smoke them.”
“Then why do you have them?”
Margot was picking at the plastic around the cigarette pack, looking almost embarrassed.
“I just think it’s fun to get away with shit.” She met my eyes and frowned. “It’s, like, a statement. This school is so fucking uptight. Sometimes I just like to mess with the natural order of things, okay?”
Before I could think better of it, my jaw dropped into a look of delighted surprise.
Her cheeks tinged pink. “What?”
“Sorry, I just didn’t realize you were a John Green character.”
She chucked the cigarettes at my head, making me duck. For a stomach-dropping second, I was worried I’d actually hurt her feelings and that she was about to bludgeon me in this darkroom, but when I looked up, her smile was wide.
“Fuck you.”
Vivian’s voice yanks me back to the present. “You okay?”
I nod. I can’t bring myself to lie out loud.
Piper, on the other hand, has no patience for my well-being— which I guess I can understand. She’s committed to the mission. “Is there anything in there?”
I reach my hands into the hole in the ceiling, feeling around the edges, but all my fingers brush is dust. With a strange mix ofrelief and disappointment, I’m about to tell them so when there’s a sharp bang from the classroom outside, followed by a loud clatter.
“What the—” Vivian starts, but Piper holds up a finger, silently shushing her with a wide-eyed expression that sends a chill down my spine.
We’re not alone.
The classroom door slams, and it’s undeniable. Someone else is here, maybe has been this whole time. Panic fizzes under my skin as Vivian runs for the darkroom door.
“Wait,” Piper tries. “What are you—”
But Vivian’s already pushing through to the classroom, and there’s nothing for us to do but follow her.
On the other side, the brightness is jarring. Whoever was here is gone, but they’ve left a mess behind. The drying rack is toppled over, my pictures scattered on the linoleum floor like dead leaves. I track them all the way to the classroom door, where a crisp white envelope is taped. It’s addressed, in fancy looping script, toThe Maids.
I get there first, tearing it off the door and ripping it open. Vivian and Piper crowd in as I pull out the paper inside. It’s thick and heavy like the Les Masques invitations. Actually, it’s identical to those invitations, except for the logo. Instead of the Krewe of Deus seal at the top, there’s a familiar image: a clown mask with painted lips and jagged eyebrows, one single tear dripping from an eye-shaped void.
A wheel spins in the back of my memory, igniting. I know exactly where I’ve seen this image before. Margot tracing it with her thumbnail, its chipped blue-black polish. This sad clown is exactly the same as the one on her lighter.
I’m so struck by it that it takes me a second too long to register the message beneath it, neat and handwritten.
My dearest Maids,
Isn’t it time we let the dead stay buried?
After all, we all know how hard it is to keep a body underground in this city.
Yours,
The Jester
