Page 26 of Of Angels & Absolution

Or maybe she just thinks I’m a whore like everyone else.

Probably all of the above.

And just like that, I have an explanation for the messages. I found someone with motive and opportunity, someone with access to my dorm. Now that it’s solved, I just have to figure out what to do about it.

“By the way, Annabel Lee dragged us out of the library after you went upstairs the other day,” Manson says. “Just so you know.”

A mixture of relief and mortification swirls through me. Relief that they didn’t see what Angel did to me, which means maybe we can be friends, and I’ll still be able to meet their eye, and mortification that they know what happened. Word gets around on a small campus, and Manson wouldn’t feel the need to tell me he didn’t see anything if he didn’t know what everyone else saw.

“Why would she do that?” I ask, since it doesn’t make sense for her to protect my dignity if she hates me. She should want to humiliate me as much as Angel does.

“She said she can’t bear witness to her family’s crimes, and she was pretty sure her cousin was up to no good.”

“Thanks for telling me,” I mumble.

Manson taps an intricate pattern on the door to the room I thought left its Halloween decorations up. I’m not sure I want to enter now that I suspect she’s behind the bloody messages. They feel more threatening when I know a girl like her left them, someone with what looks like a voodoo doll hanging on her door, photos of candles set up in a pentagram shape, cutouts of crows and black cats and bats, a few plastic spiders, a poster from a very old Dracula movie, and a snake skin that sways gently, rasping over the paper decorations with an eerie rustling that sounds like slithering that makes my skin crawl.

Inside, the room looks more or less normal, though she has a half dozen plants and a series of stacked crates covered with different cloths against one wall, the last of which is strewn with strange items and candles. An odd, earthy smell lingers in the room, something wild and animal, like she might have been in the woods dancing around a fire or digging for poison roots recently.

A groan sounds from the pile of blankets on the bed, and Edward Gorey crawls out, looking annoyed. He stretches one back leg and then the other, then drops off the bed and lopes over to the crates before disappearing inside one.

“Please tell me you brought the chocolate,” Annabel Lee says, poking a finger out of the blankets and opening a space just big enough to peer out from. “I was about to eat Gorey.”

“One hundred percent cacao, as requested,” Manson says, handing her a small paper bag. He holds up the plastic bag on one finger. “Also, blueberry muffins, fried rice, and a friend. The monstrosity you call coffee should be delivered at any minute.”

“I hope you’re not including me in the food,” I mutter, glancing at the makeshift altar that looks suspiciously like it’sfrom some form of occultism. I’m pretty sure there’s a human tooth sticking up from a little bowl of dirt.

“We’re all cannibals here,” Annabel Lee says, wriggling to sit up and push her comforters down around her midsection. “Hadn’t you heard? We save the babies for special occasions, but adults are our everyday fare.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Manson says, handing over the bag. “We’re both vegetarians. No food with a face.”

Annabel Lee’s mouth curves up at the corners into a smile worthy of Harley Quinn. I wonder suddenly why she wasn’t the fifth member of the Quint instead of me, and that reminds me of Eternity, and a stab of guilt pierces into me. I’m supposed to be solving her murder, but all I’ve done so far is let myself become a victim of the boys we grew up with and look at files I barely understand. I need to go back, to ask Dynamo to help me go through them again, figure out their meaning. I need to know for sure if the boys are innocent, because if they are, that means her killer is still out there.

I shiver, and Annabel Lee cackles, taking it as a response to her evil grin.

“Sit,” Manson says, patting the foot of her queen bed and scooting onto the head of it beside her. “Our girlie here had a very interesting message. Tell her, Mercy.”

I glare at him, since I specifically told him not to say anything. He’s oblivious, already taking containers of food from the bag and setting them in the center of her duvet, which depicts the phases of the moon and some astrological shapes and symbols that I don’t know. Mom and Dad didn’t allow that kind of thing in the house, saying it was satanic. I’m not sure I want to sit on it, but then, Mom and Dad abandoned me at Aunt Lucy’s, so I decide I’m done following their rules. I’m done with all this.

I plop down on the foot of Annabel Lee’s bed. “Did you do it?”

She pauses, her expression indecipherable, but then it goes smooth and serene, completely devoid of expression. I’ve seen Angel do the exact same thing, and it creeps me out that it’s a family trait.

“Do what?” she asks, staring back at me, golden eyes unflinching.

“Did you write those messages on my door?”

“No,” she says. “Next question?”

I swallow hard. I thought she’d beat around the bush, avoid answering. “Are you… Do you worship the devil?” I ask, figuring I might as well get it out of the way if she’s being so boldly, bluntly honest.

“No,” she says. “Next.”

“Do you hate me?”

“No. Next.”

“You know who I am, right?” I press. “You know our history.”

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