Page 152 of Tricky Girls

She nods to the coffin. I peer in. No bones, but a tunnel of dark, dusty steps.

‘What…the…fuck.’

‘Mascs first.’ She hauls herself up and over. ‘That way you’ll have a soft landing if you fall.’

‘You mean if some vengeful ghost pushes me?’

‘Oh yeah, we’re totally cursed, allMummy-style. But that’s fine.’ She puts her torch under her chin and smiles. ‘I was born cursed.’

I follow more gingerly, accepting Haz’s hand to help me over. She peeks up my skirt and grins.

‘That is so disrespectful,’ I admonish.

‘Please. These fuckers areMafia.’

I glance up at the sliver of grey light above our heads. ‘It’s not just going to snap shut, is it?’

‘Oh, totally. This place is boobytrapped to fuck too. Watch your step.’

My head shake goes unseen as Haz jogs down the stairs, leaving me in pitch blackness. I switch on my phone torch again, not trusting her not to leg it and leave me stranded in the dark. Glad I charged it before coming out.

At the bottom of the stairs is a wide corridor with chambers coming off it.

‘Ready to see some bones?’ Haz asks.

Surprisingly, I am. I have a tiny tattoo of a femur on my side, the best-looking bone in the body, hands down. Apart from the skull, of course. Plenty of which I spot as we enter one of the chambers.

‘Shit. I was expecting them to be buried or something.’

‘Boring.’ Haz steps up to the centremost collection of bones, and certainly the most embellished. ‘So, this is Mr Zaccaro himself. The OG.’

He’s behind a dusty film of glass, a Latin inscription arcing above him and two wolves stationed either side. ‘The guy who founded Hazelhurst?’

‘The one and only.’

‘Why here though if they’re all Italian?’

‘Sorry. That’s all I’ve got. Maybe they inherited the castle from a rellie.’

‘Nice. All I got from my grandad was his collection of brass crucifixes.’

‘Well, these guys would approve. All Catholic, aren’t they?’

‘Catholic with a literal den of iniquity just across the water.’

‘Pretty much tracks if you ask me.’ She slides the torch to the body next door. ‘This is wifey. She was a Witch. The first of them. She lectured here even though it was a big no-no for women at the time. Even the students were all men back then.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘Fina. We were all pissed Halloween before last. Asked her for a peek. Think she regretted it the next day. We all got threat emails from Daddy Zaccaro.’

‘Yet here you are again.’

‘Here I am again.’ She raps on the glass above the woman’s bones. ‘She said it’s a family tradition that the Wolves all end up marrying Witches. Arranged marriages for the win. Guess her mum must’ve been one too. RIP to her.’

‘She’s dead?’

‘Yep. Pretty recent too. Don’t know how. Don’t care. We went to her funeral though, me and Nic. Something to do.’ She looks around the crypt with pursed lips. ‘She’s probably here. There was a covered coffin back there. Bet that’s her. Bet she’s not even fully decomposed yet. Anyway—onwards.’

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