Page 102 of Skalterra By Nightmare
“Weirdly enough, I slept great.” He frowned at the binder, then pushed it towards me. “What do you think? I don’t really like the lilies. They feel too… I don’t know. Final?”
“Lilies are funeral flowers.” I nodded in agreement. “Is this for the memorial?”
“Yeah. Aunt Olive is Team Lilies, but I like the more leafy ones. I guess Riley’s her son though, so she should get final say.” Despite insisting he’d slept well, his eyes were heavy and his hair messy. “She picked out lilies for my parents too. She is— well,wasmy mom’s sister.”
I looked back at Olive. The librarian, Mr. Lane, had come down the hill to get breakfast, and she laughed with him at the counter while Teddy made Mr. Lane’s order.
“Which ones would Riley like?” I asked.
“None.” Liam flipped the binder shut. “He’d call it a waste of money because he isn’t dead.”
My phone buzzed on the table and the screen lit up. I thought maybe Gams was getting impatient for her bagel, but the name on the screen sent my heart plummeting.
Why the hell was Linsey Harper texting me?
Adrenaline buzzed in my extremities like fresh Skalmagick, and I fought the instinct to throw my phone across the bagel shop. Instead, I took it in my hands and opened the message.
“What is it?” Liam asked. I shook my head, and tilted my phone towards him so he could see.
A web link glowed under Linsey’s name, and while the thumbnail was pixelated and blurry, I recognized the woman in the image.
I tapped it, and Liam shifted closer to watch the video load.
The video title loaded first, in all caps, at the base of the screen: “ROMANCE AUTHOR GOES ON RAMPAGE”.
“No,” I whispered. Mom appeared onscreen, wearing her favorite green robe with her hair disheveled, and standing on Linsey Harper’s front porch. The angle of the video suggested the footage was taken from a security camera, and I held my breath as Mom hammered on Linsey’s front door.
“Is that your mom?” Liam hissed. I shushed him, but he continued. “Wow, she looksjustlike Ethel.”
“You better get your ass outside in the next three seconds, Teresa, or I’m breaking your goddamn windows and coming in there myself!” Mom screamed in the video. She kicked over a potted plant with a slippered foot before rapping on the door again.
“Get off my porch before I call the police, Eliza.” I recognized Mrs. Harper’s voice speaking over the camera’s intercom.
“Oh,pleasecall them so I can tell them what your cheat daughter did to Wren!”
“This is on the internet,” I said blankly. Mom lifted the upturned plant pot and smashed it against the concrete porch.
Liam patted my shoulder and leaned in closer to better watch.
“Linsey hasn’t been home all night,” Mrs. Harper chided. “Andyourdaughter got mine kicked out of school, so—”
Mom launched into a tirade that drowned out Mrs. Harper’s words, and I cut the volume on the phone. Mom ripped the welcome mat from the ground and frisbee-threw it into the front yard, still yelling.
“It could be worse,” Liam said, watching Mom destroy the Harpers’ porch decorations.
“How, Liam? How could this be worse?”
“It’s not like you’re ever going to see anyone from high school again,” Liam said. “And no one would be dumb enough to give you crap about it because your mom might come murder their lawn flamingos.”
Mom punted a garden gnome across the screen.
We watched in horrified silence as Mrs. Harper turned on her garden sprinklers, forcing Mom to abandon the porch as water blasted her from all angles. She lost her slippers on the lawn in her hurry to escape, but still found time to turn back and flip the Harpers’ house the double bird before retreating to her car and peeling away from the sidewalk.
The video ended, and the screen turned black to reflect our stark faces back at us.
“I have to go.” I sprung away from the booth, grabbing the brown bag with Gams’s breakfast. I left my half-eaten bagel on the table. I didn’t have much of an appetite anymore.
“Wren—” Liam reached for my hand, but I drew away. Blood pounded in my ears, and the shop, so dark and cozy before, now seemed too bright.
