Free October Girls: Crystal & Bone by L C Glazebrook

she conjured up this time?
    “Momma’s going to be back any minute, but I’d be gone if I were you. She doesn’t take kindly to intruders and she rides a mean broom.”
    “I’ll be going as soon as I get what I want.”
    “Sorry, whatever-your-name-is, but you don’t look like you ever get what you want.”
    He slammed his fist against the cheap paneling. His blue stuffed-animal eyes shifted to red, with tiny streaks of lightning in them. Puffs of smoke jetted from his ears.
    Oops. The little tyrant has a temper to match his ego.
    “My”–he repeatedly pounded the wall to punctuate each word–”name—is—
Royce
.”
    Crystal contemplated fleeing to the bathroom and fumbling among Momma’s potions, hoping to come up with a concoction that would ward off minor-level demons, or perhaps make them disappear. But she’d shirked her studies. She was just as likely to turn him into a toad, or herself into a toad for that matter.
    “Okay, Royce. Chill a little.”
    The puffs of smoke thinned. Even his cigarette quit burning. “You know how it gets when some dollface messes with your head.”
    “I reckon. What did this ‘dollface’ do that was so horrible?”
    “Nothing.”
    “I see.”
    “I followed her here.” Now he simply looked lost, as if he’d been searching for something and had forgotten what it was. Or where he was. Or
what
he was.
    Happened a lot with Tweeners.
    “Well, sorry I can’t help you,” Crystal said. “Now, you be a good boy and get along home.”
    “I don’t know how to get back.” Now he looked wounded and a little cute. “I don’t have the script yet.”
    Damn. I
hate
it when guys do that. Just what I need. Another hottie in my life.
    “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. You go sit in the living room while I… uh, check my email… then we can figure this out.”
    “What if your momma comes?”
    It wasn’t the first time a guy had asked her that question, and she used the old stand-by answer. “Might be worth the risk, Royce.”
    “Sure.”
    “Maybe Dollface will come by while you’re waiting.”
    “Sure.”
    She closed the bedroom door behind her, wondering if Royce would steal the silverware. Not that they had any silverware. Most of their utensils were chewed-up plastic sporks from Bojangle’s.
    Bone was lying on the bed reading
Cosmopolitan
and wearing a lipstick-coated smile. She’d been playing in Crystal’s make-up kit and wore black smears of eyeliner and blotches of rouge on her cheeks. Her eyes resembled Roscoe’s, but the possum’s were closed in sleep. Roscoe would probably nap through Armageddon.
    “So, Dollface, where’d you pick up the boy toy?”
    “Just a coffin cutie I found in Darkmeet.”
    “And you let him follow you here? I thought that was against the rules.
    “I didn’t
let
him do anything. Besides, you know how I am about rules.”
    “I only know how you were. I don’t know
nothing
about how you are now. Ever since you died, you’ve been a little weird.”
    “Well, thanks for the unconditional love, Crystal. ‘Best friends forever’ has an expiration date, huh?”
    Crystal saw that her computer was booted up. “Were you messing with my Internet?”
    “Checking Facebook. Seeing who
else
unfriended me after I died.”
    “Score.”
    Crystal tossed her a bra, one of the white, unsexy ones. It was hard watching Bone strain her 16-year-old boobs into Crystal’s C cups without being jealous. She got her revenge with a hideous ensemble that was four months out of season and clashed with Bone’s red hair. She grabbed a floral-print blouse and lime-green Capri pants from the closet and flung them on the bed.
    “Make yourself decent so we can go out there and deal with this before Momma gets home,” Crystal said.
    “Hey, don’t get mad. I’m just a teen Tweener trying to make her way in the world. Whichever world it is.”
    Bone’s eyes were milky and gleaming, like twin moons on a foggy night. Crystal reached over and stroked her