Read Paula Morris for Free Online Page B

AND AURELIA ARRIVED HOME from school that day, Aunt
Claudia was still out, reading tarot cards down in the French Quarter. Rebecca
was glad: She wasn't in the mood to answer any "how was your first week at
school?" questions. Amy and Jessica sat with her at lunchtime because
they'd been told to, but they were never going to be real friends. Nobody else
talked to her much. And in all her classes, Rebecca felt out of step: The
curriculum in Louisiana was completely different from the one she'd been
following in New York. In every subject she was either way ahead and bored --
or way behind and confused.
    It wasn't hot -- more like a mild day in spring rather than a late
fall afternoon, something else to confuse and frustrate her -- but Rebecca's
school uniform felt as though it was stifling and scratching her half to death.
Hanging up her blazer, she accidentally jostled one of the voodoo decorations
on her bedroom wall, almost knocking the stick doll to the floor. These stupid
things were just one more irritation. "Right," she said aloud.
"That's it."
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    Aurelia's curly head poked around the bedroom door.
    "Were you talking to me?" she asked, wide-eyed.
    "I want to clear these things out of here," Rebecca told
her, pointing at the gaping mask and a rough-edged hanging box added by Aunt
Claudia just this week. "I'm sick of bumping into them, and they creep me
out, anyway."
    "We could put them up in the attic," suggested Aurelia.
At least she was always friendly. "If you can help me get the
ladder out."
    Rebecca was surprised to hear a house this small had an attic, but
once they'd climbed the stepladder, moved aside a panel in the hallway ceiling,
and hauled themselves up into the triangle below the roof, she realized that
"attic" was a slight exaggeration. This was an unfinished crawl
space: Aurelia was small enough to walk around hunch-shouldered, teetering on
the narrow beams, but Rebecca had to stay on her hands and knees, careful to
stick to the grid of rafters so she didn't plummet through the insulation tiles
into the room below.
    The small space was already crowded with boxes and suitcases and a
dusty trunk. With some difficulty, Aurelia held up an axe with a wooden handle
to show Rebecca: This, she said, was there in case the Mississippi ever burst
its banks and they had to escape into the attic and hack their way onto the
roof to be rescued. As far as Rebecca knew, this was their one concession to a
"hurricane preparedness" kit.
    Rebecca pushed the cardboard box packed with the relics into one
corner, getting more grumpy by the second. It was so stuffy up here, and her
knees ached, crawling over the
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    wooden rafters. Her fingertips brushed the spiky legs of a dead
cockroach: It was all she could do not to cry out.
    When the box was stashed in the corner, next to a dusty plaid
suitcase that looked as though it had been there since 1962, Rebecca lay on her
back for a moment, worn out. Aurelia sat down, too, picking at the fluff of an
insulation pad.
    "Guess what?" She looked at Rebecca and then glanced
away again. "I know where Helena and her friends are going tonight."
    Rebecca closed her eyes.
    "I don't care about them, Relia. They're just mean snobs who
need to get out of this town and get a clue." What was the point in
knowing where Helena conducted her social life? It would just be another place
for Rebecca to get snubbed or looked down on. She'd had enough of
"Them" at school today.
    "Not just Helena -- boys as well. The ones from St.
Simeon's." Aurelia lowered her voice and leaned toward Rebecca. "They
go to the cemetery."
    "Really?" This wasn't what Rebecca was expecting to
hear.
    "Last Friday, I woke up in the middle of the night because I
could hear people laughing outside. And then I thought I heard Marilyn cry, the
way she does when she's caught something she wants to show me. Sometimes it's a
bird, sometimes a rat. So I got up to look for her and ... and ..."
    Rebecca opened her eyes and gazed up at