Ruined

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  Rebecca decided to try a different approach. "Do people sleep in the cemetery?" she asked. Jessica, her mouth full of sandwich, wrinkled her nose. "Alive people, you mean?" she asked, and Amy pursed her lips.

  "It's only open in the mornings," Amy replied. "And off-duty police patrol it. You could get locked in there, I guess. Nobody goes in that cemetery much but tourists and criminals, anyway."

  The look she gave Rebecca suggested that one, or possibly both, of these labels applied to Rebecca herself.

  But Rebecca didn't really need any help from the Plebs after all. That afternoon, walking home with Aurelia, she found her little cousin had plenty to say about the Bowman curse.

  "They did some really bad things a long time ago," said Aurelia, dangling her almost-empty bag from one hand and jumping along the sidewalk to avoid the cracks. They were passing the long line of SUVs -- Mercedes, Lexus, Porsche -- that were parked outside the school every day, driven by the glossy blonde mothers of Temple Mead girls who lived farther uptown. "And they were cursed in perp ... in perp ..."

  "In perpetuity?"

  "Does that mean forever? Then, yes. And their house will burn down, and they'll all die, all seven of them."

  "There are seven of them? But I thought Helena just had an older brother?"

  Aurelia looked confused.

  "I'm not sure about that part," she confessed. "Will your mother know?" Rebecca asked, and Aurelia looked horrified.

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  "Don't ask Mama about this," she said, clutching Rebecca's sleeve. "We're not allowed to talk about the Bowmans, ever." "Why not?"

  "We have to ... to keep away from them." Aurelia sounded less than certain. "Because they're not our kind of people."

  "Well, I believe that," Rebecca said, "if you mean they're rich and snobby and --"

  She stopped midsentence and came to a dead stop: There across the street, standing by the Prytania gate of the cemetery, was the girl she'd been looking for. In the daylight, her clothes looked even shabbier. She was dressed in the same waitresslike gear of white shirt and black skirt, and her feet were still bare.

  "What is it?" asked Aurelia, who was still walking, but Rebecca didn't reply.

  "Hey!" she called, waving frantically. The girl across the street glanced toward Rebecca, looking just as startled as she had on Friday night. Rebecca began crossing the street, walking toward her, but she had to wait for a moving truck to lumber by. By the time the truck had passed, and Rebecca could scamper to safety, the girl had disappeared.

  For an instant, Rebecca thought she'd gone into the cemetery, but then she remembered that the gates were locked by this time every day. Could the girl have climbed over, somehow? She was nowhere to be seen along Prytania. Strange. Rebecca stood at the cemetery gate, peering through the bars, but the mystery girl was nowhere in sight.

  "What are you doing?" Aurelia had followed her across the street. She gazed up at Rebecca, wide-eyed.

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  "I wanted to say hi to that girl," Rebecca explained. Aurelia looked puzzled. "What girl?"

  "The black girl standing right here. Didn't you see her?" Aurelia shrugged.

  "There's nobody around," she pointed out.

  "Not now -- she ran off. She's somewhere in the cemetery, I guess. Didn't you see her?"

  "I didn't see anyone," said Aurelia, slowly shaking her mop of curls. "And the gate's locked."

  "But you must have seen her!" Rebecca insisted. "She was standing there at the gate! I waved to her, and then she disappeared. She had long hair, and she was wearing ... you must have noticed her!"

  Aurelia shook her head again.

  "Is this a game?" she asked Rebecca. "Are you trying to trick me?"

  "Maybe you're going blind," said Rebecca, rolling her eyes.

  "Or maybe you're seeing things," retorted Aurelia.

  Maybe the girl had taken off so quickly that Aurelia didn't have time to notice her. Or maybe, Rebecca thought, her little cousin was right. Perhaps all those voodoo charms had worked their magic on her already, and she was going as crazy as Aunt Claudia, seeing things that weren't really there.

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  ***

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ***

  That friday night, rebecca waited until her aunt was asleep and then crept into the front parlor. As soon as Helena and her friends unlocked the cemetery, Rebecca was going to sneak back in.

  All week, Rebecca had been planning this. If the strange girl was sleeping in the cemetery, she wouldn't want to be found out. That's probably why she ran away when Rebecca saw her during the day: Maybe the girl thought Rebecca was trying to get her into trouble or report her or something. But if they met again at night, when the cemetery was locked up and nobody else -- no adults, at least -- were around, she'd know that Rebecca was acting in good faith. Both would be somewhere they weren't supposed to be.

  Sure enough, not long after midnight, the little band appeared again, headed for the Sixth Street gate. There were more kids than last week -- eight, Rebecca counted -- but no Helena. This wasn't really surprising: Helena had been out of school all week with the flu.

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  Once again, Anton let them all in with his key. Rebecca watched, holding her breath, to see if he would lock it this time. But after everyone stepped through the gate, Anton closed it and then, after a moment's hesitation, opened it again, leaving the gate slightly ajar. At first, Rebecca was relieved, but then she wondered if this was a trap. Maybe Anton was luring last week's intruder in, lying in wait to surprise her. She decided to hang around for a while, checking the time on her phone every few minutes until the longest quarter hour of her life had passed. Then she left the house, closing the door behind her quietly, and creeping down the street to the open gate.

  This time Rebecca came prepared for her cemetery adventure. At the hardware store down on Magazine Street she'd bought a small flashlight. She paused at the entrance to the cemetery, shining her light in to see if anyone was around, and breathing a deep sigh when it revealed nothing but magnolia trees and tombs. Trying to make as little noise as possible, Rebecca made her way to the Grey family vault.

  As she approached the tomb, Rebecca could hear the girls and boys talking and laughing as usual. Toby Sutton's obnoxious barking laugh boomed out, and she was well acquainted with Julie Casworth Young's annoying giggle by now -- she sounded like a hyperventilating mouse. Rebecca clicked off her little flashlight, and ducked into the narrow, dank space between two tombs to make sure nobody could see her. All she wanted to do was make sure they were all there, all eight of them: Rebecca didn't want to bump into one of them when she began her exploring. And yes, the eight people she'd

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  seen slipping into the cemetery all seemed to be there -- nobody was waiting by the open gate to catch her, after all. Anton sat on the steps, his long legs stretched out, wincing at something Marianne was saying.

  "I don't see what the big deal is," he said. "We spend all our time obsessing over these stupid things, when they're exactly the same every year."

  "Excuse me if I don't see my best friend's party as stupid." Marianne sounded offended.

  "What I mean is, all we talk about is Helena's party and the Septimus parade and the Spring Dance as though they're earth-shattering events, when the same people go to them every year and the same things happen every year. And there are so many other things we could be thinking about, you know?"

  "Like what? Something manly like college football, I suppose?" Marianne was only pretending to be annoyed, Rebecca realized; really, she was trying to flirt with Anton. So much for Helena being her best friend.

  "Look around you," Anton said, his voice serious. "This city is a mess. Three years after the storm and everything's still in chaos. Businesses are shut, houses are empty. Stoplights don't work. There are potholes as big as ponds in every street. The population's half what it used to be."

  "Good riddance," sneered Toby. "We don't want poor p
eople or criminals coming back to the city, anyway."

  "You mean black people," said another guy, snickering. Rebecca tensed: These people disgusted her. How could Anton hang out with them? He seemed so much smarter.

  "Oh my god," said Julie. From her hiding place, Rebecca

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  could only see Julie's feet; she was still wearing her school shoes, with their usual -- decidedly nonregulation -- purple laces. "You know, our gardener is living in Atlanta now, and the new guy my mother hired is from Mexico."

  "Honduras," said someone else. "He's the same guy my mother hired."

  "Whatever! He doesn't speak a word of English. I'm totally sure he's an illegal."

  "Who cares? Someone has to cut the hedges!" said Toby, and Anton rolled his eyes, stirring as though he was about to get up. Marianne settled one long, pale hand on his leg.

  "You can't drive yourself crazy about all this," she said in her silkiest voice. A slight breeze lifted wisps of blonde hair away from her face. "Remember what Helena says. We can't fix all the problems of New Orleans. They were there long before the storm, and long before we were born. But we can make New Orleans prettier and more fun."

  "More fun for us, anyway," muttered Anton. He stood up, dusting down his jeans. "And that's all that matters, right?"

  "I know you think parties and parades are silly...."

  "Yeah, but he still goes to them, don't you, buddy?" said Toby. He cracked open a bottle of beer and handed it to Anton. "He just likes to look down at everyone else."

  "Shut up, Toby," said Marianne. Clearly, there wasn't much love lost between the Sutton siblings, Rebecca thought -- or maybe Marianne really did have designs on Anton, and needed to take advantage of Helena's absence to make her big move.

  "He's right," said Anton. He looked pensive, almost depressed.

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  "Don't say that!" cried Marianne, tapping him playfully, but Anton seemed morose now, swigging from his bottle and not saying anything else. This was Rebecca's cue to leave: She wasn't here to ogle Anton, however good-looking he was, and she certainly hadn't come here tonight just to eavesdrop on this horrible conversation. She was here to retrace her steps from last week, to try to find her mystery friend. Stiff from crouching behind the grave, she crept away.

  It was hard to find the route she'd taken a week ago. Suddenly, Rebecca was in a blind panic, running and twisting and turning around, desperate to find the gate. Now she had more time, but even with the help of her miniflashlight, the cemetery in darkness seemed to have grown into something vast and mazelike. It took her a long time to come upon a stretch of concrete, and she wasn't sure at all if this was the spot where she'd fallen the week before.

  Rebecca shone her pinpoint-sized light around, hoping to see something familiar. The light picked out some words etched into white stone -- aha! She was standing at the foot of the Bowman family tomb.

  With the moonlight obscured by a nearby oak tree, the Bowman vault seemed to tower even more than the Grey's. Its high walls were a sheer cliff face of white plaster. Rebecca lingered on its broad steps, shining a light up at the carved angel balanced on the vaulted roof. The angel had a pouty face, kind of like Helena, and she seemed a little cowed by her carved wings, as though they were too heavy for her slender frame. From this vantage point, the angel looked almost as big as Helena -- and, Rebecca thought, just as stuck-up. She couldn't help laughing aloud at the thought of

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  Helena standing on the roof of the tomb, pinned down by giant, heavy wings. Helena was too lazy and spoiled to even carry her own umbrella to school.

  "You don't think she's pretty?" said a voice from deep within the darkness, and Rebecca jumped, so startled that she almost dropped her flashlight.

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  ***

  CHAPTER NINE

  ***

  Peeping at her from around the side of the tomb was the black girl, her eyes wide, her long dark braid velvety as the night sky.

  "Who ... who are you?" Rebecca stuttered. The girl sidled a little closer, still touching the side of the tomb. She gazed at Rebecca, apparently more curious than scared.

  "My name is Lisette." She sounded kind of foreign, Rebecca thought, but not in the same way as the French teacher at school. "Don't you remember me?"

  "Yes! I tried to say hello to you the other day, when you were at the gates of the cemetery. I thought you saw me, but you disappeared."

  "Oh." Lisette stopped moving. Rebecca waited for her to explain, but Lisette just stood, gazing at Rebecca's face with frank interest.

  "I just wanted to thank you," said Rebecca. "For telling me how to get out of here last Friday night. That's why I came back tonight, to look for you."

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  "Aren't you with the others?" Lisette gestured with her head in the general direction, Rebecca assumed, of the Grey tomb.

  "Them? God, no. I don't want them to know I'm here. That's why I was trying to get out, last week. I didn't want them to see me."

  Lisette looked puzzled.

  "You didn't come with them last week?" she asked. Her accent was hard to pin down. It was different from others Rebecca had heard so far in New Orleans -- softer, in a way, and drawlier. Some of the Cavalry at Temple Mead sounded like they could work in the Brooklyn dockyards, but Lisette had a much more musical accent.

  "No -- I followed ... Well, it's a kind of long and stupid story. I'm Rebecca, by the way." Rebecca stuck out her hand, but Lisette made no attempt to take it. She gave a shy smile, though, and at least this time, Rebecca thought, she wasn't running away. "Do you live here -- in the cemetery, I mean?"

  "Yes." Lisette nodded.

  "Was your house destroyed in the storm?"

  "Yes -- well, it was damaged." Lisette seemed uncertain. "Part of the roof is gone. And there was some water."

  "How awful!" It was bad enough being away from home for six months, Rebecca thought. But how could Lisette have slept in the cemetery for so long without anyone finding out or coming to look for her? "What about your family?"

  Lisette shook her head. "I don't have any family. There was just me and my mother, and she's been dead a long time."

  "I'm an only child, too," Rebecca told her. "It's just me and my father. We live in New York -- well, we do usually. He

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  had to go to China and I had to come here. That's another long and stupid story. Is your house -- I mean, was it close by? I thought this area didn't flood."

  "It didn't," said Lisette. "My house is a long way away, on the Creole side of town. It might be all right now. I don't really know."

  This confused Rebecca. She didn't know New Orleans well enough to know where, exactly, the Creole part of town was. Maybe Lisette had to walk all this way just to reach dry land, though that seemed unlikely. And why take sanctuary in a cemetery, of all places? Why not go back to see if your house had been fixed? Maybe Lisette was hiding from someone. Maybe she was too scared to go home.

  But before Rebecca could ask any more questions, Lisette's sweet smile disappeared and she held a finger to her lips. Above the steady singing of insects, there were other sounds -- the crunch of leaves and twigs underfoot, the hum of talk and laughter, the clinking of bottles. Rebecca flicked off her flashlight.

  "They come by this tomb sometimes," Lisette whispered. "Helena Bowman and the others."

  "Do they talk to you?"

  Lisette shook her head. "They've never seen me."

  Rebecca's mind started racing: Like Lisette, she'd rather make herself scarce than face Marianne and her smug band of friends. Sure, over here she couldn't be accused of eavesdropping, but Rebecca didn't want to have to answer any rude questions. They might say she'd followed them in; Anton might have seen her running down the street last

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  week. Maybe he'd recognize her and denounce her in front of his awful friends.

  "Helena's not here tonight," Rebecca whispered back to Lisette, and then she wondered: Why did a girl from a fa
r-off neighborhood -- who spent all her time, apparently, hiding out in the cemetery -- know Helena, of all people, by name?

  "Good," said Lisette, half to herself.

  "But we have to get out of here before the rest of them see us," said Rebecca, forgetting to lower her voice. The voices were getting closer, and Rebecca felt sick with anxiety, looking around for the best escape route. Strangely enough, Lisette didn't seem spooked at all. Didn't she always try to avoid them? "Quick -- they're coming!"