Page 9 of Sweet Nightmare

Eva’s and mine has two cracked windows and a family of mice in the pantry, but at least the air conditioning works, so we don’t complain. It’s part of that style to which we’ve become accustomed.

Eva’s not home yet, so I strip off my disgustingly sweaty uniform the second I hit the door before running for the shower. A quick soap and scrub of the chrickler bites is all I have time for—the luxurious shower of my daydreams will have to wait for later. Then I towel off, throw my wet hair up into a bun, and grab my dress uniform from the basket of unfolded laundry at the bottom of my closet.

One white button-down blouse and red plaid skirt later and I’m almost ready to go. I pull on socks, slide my feet into the black loafers my mother insists on, and grab my phone before making a mad dash back toward the admin building.

Conclave starts in five minutes, and unfortunately, it’s a ten-minute jog, so I lay on the speed. The one time I was late I ended up with chrickler duty until graduation. I definitely don’t want to level up to the bigger monster enclosures.

I’m sweating profusely—fuck humidity—and gasping for air by the time I make it to the conference room on the fourth floor of the admin building, but I’ve got ten seconds to spare, so I call it a win. At least until my phone rings as I slip into the room and all twelve members of my extended family turn to stare at me in obvious disapproval.

CHAPTER SIX

GASLIGHT AT THE

END OF THE TUNNEL

My phone keeps ringing in the total silence of the room. To spare further familial humiliation, I pull it out of my pocket to decline the call. It’s my friend Serena, who graduated last year and is now living in Phoenix, so I fire off a text telling her it’s Conclave and I’ll call her when it’s over. Then I slide into my seat—third from the left on the far side of the table, same as always.

“Nice of you to join us, Clementine,” my mother says coolly, brows raised and crimson-painted lips pinched. “Perhaps next time you’ll make sure your uniform is clean before you do so.”

She’s staring at my chest, so I follow her gaze only to find a large brown stain directly over my left boob. I must have pulled this uniform out of the dirty clothes basket and not the clean one.

Because that’s just the kind of day I’m having.

“I’d offer you some tea,” my cousin Carlotta snickers, “but it looks like you’ve already had some.” She’s in tenth grade this year and is downright sophomoric about it.

“Don’t listen to them, Sugar,” my grandmother tells me in her syrupy-sweet Southern accent. “The nice boys like a girl who doesn’t put too much stock in her appearance.”

“Don’t be talking to my sweet girl about boys now, Viola,” my grandfather scolds her with a wave of his hairy-knuckled hand. “You know she’s too young for all that business.”

“Yes, Claude,” my grandmother replies even as she winks at me.

I give them both a grateful smile—it’s nice to have someone in my corner. Sometimes I wonder if things would be different if my dad hadn’t left before I was born. But he did, and now my mother has made it her mission to punish him by taking his fuck-ups out on me—whether she realizes it or not.

“Now that Clementine is here, I hereby call this Conclave to order,” my uncle Christopher says, banging the gavel on the table hard enough to rattle all the tiny porcelain tea cups my mother insists we drink out of. “Beatrice, please serve the tea.”

Within seconds, the conference room is filled with kitchen witches pushing tea carts. One is loaded down with tea pots and all the accoutrements. Another is piled high with finger sandwiches, while a third has a variety of scones and elaborate pastries.

We all sit in silence as everything is perfectly arranged on my mother’s favorite floral tablecloth.

Flavia, one of the youngest kitchen witches, smiles as she puts a plate of small cupcakes on the table next to me. “I made your favorite cream cheese pineapple icing for the carrot cakes, Clementine,” she whispers.

“Thank you so much,” I whisper back with a large smile, drawing an annoyed frown from my mom.

I ignore her.

Flavia is just being kind—something that’s not exactly prized here at Calder. Not to mention she makes a crazy good carrot cake.

Once the oh-so-pretentious Calder family Wednesday afternoon tea is served and everyone has filled their plates, my mother ceremonially takes the gavel from Uncle Christopher. She’s the oldest of the five siblings currently gathered around the table. It’s a position she takes very seriously since she inherited it from their oldest sister when she died, sometime before I was born…and something she doesn’t let any of her brothers or sisters—or their families—forget.

Though she has the gavel in hand, she doesn’t do anything as gauche as bang it. Instead, she just holds it as she waits for the table to fall silent around her. It only takes a second—I’m not the only one in the room who has suffered one of my mother’s endless lectures or diabolical punishments—although I still maintain that chrickler duty is way better than when she made my cousin Carolina clean the monster fish tank for a month…from the inside.

“We have a full agenda today,” my mother begins, “so I’d like to break protocol and start the business part of the meeting before we finish eating, if no one objects.”

No one objects—though my favorite aunt, Claudia, looks like she wants to. Her bright-red topknot is quivering with either indignation or nerves, but she’s so shy and introverted that it’s hard for me to tell.

My mom, Uncle Christopher, and Aunt Carmen definitely like to be the center of attention at these meetings, while Uncle Carter spends most of his time trying, and failing, to focus the spotlight on himself. It’s a manticore trait, one that only Aunt Claudia and I seem to be lacking. Everyone else fights for center stage like it’s the only thing standing between them and certain demise.

“The first two weeks of classes have gone exceptionally well,” my mother intones. “The new traffic patterns that the hall trolls have instituted appear to be keeping the flow of students orderly in between classes as well as keeping fights from breaking out in the hallways, just as we’d hoped. We’ve had no injuries.”

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