“Of course I am,” Jack said, jerking out of her grip. “He’s going to die. He’s going to be lying in a coffin for real, and no kiss will bring him back. She’s going to kill him, Belle.”
“She won’t. I won’t let it happen.”
Jack looked up, her eyes narrowing in the moonlight. “How are you going to stop it?” she asked, the fluttering in her chest going still. Belle hadn’t sounded angry then, or scared.
She’d sounded determined.
Quietly, Belle reached into her dress. It was a black lacy thing with tons of ribbons and even more pockets. Perfect for a witch. But she didn’t pull out a potion, or a bottle containing the wings of a bat. She pulled out a scrap of paper with something scribbled on it.
Recipe for the Perfect Murder
One petal of belladonna
One petal of poppy
Drop into a teacup and stir three times.
“What is this?” Jack demanded. But she knew what it was. Like the changing of her name, this recipe needed no explanation. “You want us to poison Raven’s stepmom?”
“She’s poisoning him. She’s poisoning his mind, all because he has his mom’s eyes and his mom’s laugh. Every time his dad looks at him, he’s reminded of the woman he lost in the snow. The woman he loved more than he’ll ever love Evely—”
“Are you two done talking about me?” a voice called from the north. Raven’s voice. He was too far away to hear them, but still, Jack took the recipe and crumpled it in her hand. “You should burn this before Raven sees it,” she said.
“No time.” Belle plucked the ball of paper from Jack’s fingers and tossed it into a nearby creek. “The water will wash away the ink,” she promised, flashing a grin. A wicked grin, Jack thought, because Belle had always loved playing the witch. Jack had never been happier than when she was playing the knight. She’d rescued Raven from his third-floor bedroom, and from the tallest branches in the orchard.
Now he needed her to rescue him one more time.
“When?” she murmured as Raven tromped loudly through the orchard. He was doing it on purpose. Raven could sneak up on you in the dead of night, and Raven could walk through a pile of leaves without making noise.
He wanted them to hear him.
“I don’t have all the details yet,” Belle said, pulling Jack to her feet. “But we need to keep him distracted, playing dead instead of actually hurting himself. All right?”
Jack nodded, and then Raven had joined them by the creek. Just like it always did, the moonlight found him. Cut a pathway to his face. His skin was pale brown, his hair as black as midnight. Lips as red as a rose—at least, they were after Belle was done planting a kiss on him.
“I figured someone should do it,” she said with a laugh, and Jack slunk away from them. Into the shadows where she belonged. Once Belle had Raven all to herself, she wrapped her arms around his waist, standing behind him.
He is mine, her stance seemed to say. Try to take him, and I’ll drop a poisonous blossom into your tea.
Jack shuddered, turning away from them. The night had been unseasonably warm, but seeing her closest friends entangled was making her feel cold. Lonely. At Jack’s prompting, the three of them made their way back to the great stone manor, where Raven lived with his father and stepmother. His wicked stepmother, Jack thought, and she wasn’t playing a game anymore. Ever since Evelyn Holloway had moved onto Raven’s estate, he’d grown pale. Gaunt. People blamed it on the death of his real mother, but the truth was, months after his mother’s funeral, the color started returning to Raven’s cheeks. Light had sparkled in his eyes again. Then that woman had moved into his house, and Raven had started to whisper about joining his mother in the dirt.
A few weeks later, he’d snuck into his father’s bedroom and stolen a bottle of sleeping pills from the bedside table. When Belle had discovered the pills under Raven’s pillow, she’d simply shrugged, tossing three into her mouth. “Let’s sleep together,” she’d challenged. Then she’d held the pills under her tongue until Raven flushed the contents of the bottle down the toilet.
And earlier that night, when Raven had found a massive aquarium at a yard sale, Belle had helped him carry it into the orchard in front of his house. Together they’d adorned it with roses from his mother’s garden, and then Raven had climbed inside, his dark eyes closing. Jack had watched from the edge of the clearing as Belle leaned over him, cackling the way she had when they were scrawny sixth graders playing make-believe in this same orchard.
“Finally!” Belle had shrieked, gliding her fingernails along Raven’s cheek. “The precious prince is mine, to have and to hold, for all eternity. Unless you’d like to wake him up?” She’d turned then, catching Jack’s eye, and Jack had blushed furiously. She hadn’t wanted to kiss Raven. Raven was her oldest friend. For years, the two had lived as brothers, dangling from the tall trees of the orchard or wrestling in the rose garden. The thought of pressing her lips to his was shocking. Appalling. But also…
“Someone’s watching us,” a voice whispered, pulling her out of her thoughts. Jack slammed into the current moment like she’d fallen from a tree. Her lungs struggled to take in breath. Her cheeks were blazing, and she wondered if Belle could see it in the light of the full moon.
But Belle was watching someone else. Jack turned, and Raven turned too, their eyes finding the girl spying on them from the back of the orchard. Fourteen-year-old Lily must’ve had a complicated relationship with clothing, because she always wore multiple layers under her bulky sweaters. Amidst the pale blossoms of the apple trees, her white-blond hair made her look perfectly at home, like she belonged there. Like she’d been born there. In reality, Lily had moved onto the Holloway estate a few months earlier along with her mother, and in Belle’s mind that made her an interloper.
A trespasser on sacred lands.
“Raven,” Belle cooed, her voice as sticky as maple syrup, “I’m feeling a bit parched from bringing you back to life. Would you get me some cider?”
Raven eyed her a minute, wary of leaving her alone with his new stepsister. “Play nice,” he told her, hand lingering on the door. “If I come back here to find her hanging in the orchard by her feet—”
“She’d deserve it after sneaking into your bedroom,” Belle snapped, turning to Jack. “Raven found his stepsister hiding in his closet. How’s that for ominous?”
Jack’s head swiveled toward Raven, her mouth agape. “What? Lily’s been sneaking into your bedroom?”
“Almost every day.” Belle cocked her head to the side, touching Raven’s cheek. “Do you think she’s looking for something? Or… hiding something?”
“I think she’s hiding from her mother,” Raven replied, striding through the door.
“You’re probably right.” Belle watched him disappear into the house. “Or she’s hiding something for her mother,” she murmured, softly closing the door behind Raven. “Something that will scare him. Make him want to disappear.”
“Belle,” Jack began, a warning.
“If Lily heard us talking, our plan will be ruined,” Belle pointed out, jogging down the steps of the wraparound porch. Then she was off. She darted through the orchard, racing toward the girl with white-blond hair. Poor Lily had barely pulled herself into the branches of a tree when Belle grabbed her by the ankle, yanking her toward the ground.