The May Queen Murders Read Online Free

rollers. When I was younger,
    our church in the Glen had held classes in the basement, but some
    uproar about it not being official closed our vil age school and the
    county opened their doors to us — never their minds, though. We
    were outcasts.
    Shutting my locker, I nodded at August Donaghy, or rather his
    fuzzy mound of blond hair. He was the only sophomore bearing a
    18
    full beard, which paired with his burly frame, gave him all the tatters
    of a well-loved teddy bear. Violet Crenshaw stood with him, a ban-
    danna covering the crown of her ice-white hair.
    “They’re talking about us,” she said and slouched against the lock-
    er beside mine.
    That wasn’t a surprise. “They” often talked about us. “They”
    pulled our long hair or stepped on our skirt hems to trip us.
    “It’ll die down again,” I reminded her.
    Violet looked pointedly at August, who balled his hands into fists.
    His parents peddled tie-dye shirts at the market. The vegetable dyes
    left his fingertips discolored, so kids teased that he was diseased and
    his fingers would fall off.
    “Tell her what happened,” Violet said.
    August glanced around. “Some rollers heard about Bart. Said we
    was practicing animal sacrifice down in the Glen. Heather told them
    to shut up, but they turned on her.”
    Away from the security of the Glen, things were different. We’d
    heard every insult thrown at us: that we were inbred, hippies, or
    backwoods hil billies. But if those names got too loud and persisted,
    then trouble might come. We couldn’t have that.
    “Is Heather okay?” I asked.
    “The name-calling got bad, Ivy,” Violet replied. “At least she had
    the sense to bail before it got worse.”
    Violet’s lips pressed tight. As if by habit, she rubbed her left cheek
    — the side of her sister Dahlia’s face had been ruined after she made
    the mistake of standing up to the rollers. I reached for Violet’s free
    hand, but she pulled back.
    19
    “Heather’ll be okay,” I said, more to myself than my friends. “She
    always is.”
    “Rook went after her,” August added. “We thought maybe they
    grabbed you and headed back to the Glen.”
    My breath hitched. Rook went after Heather, and no one had seen
    them since? Anytime Heather got flak from outsiders, she came to
    me. I listened. We went everywhere together. If she’d left, why hadn’t
    she taken me along?
    A pain twinged in my chest when I thought of Heather and Rook
    without me. I didn’t have a claim on him. Neither did she, but she
    saw my sketchbook. She left comments in the margin about the thin
    scar on his upper lip and the cowlick he tried but failed to straighten
    above his widow’s peak. She knew what those sketches meant.
    “He’s p-probably making sure she’s okay,” I muttered. “I’d know if
    she wasn’t okay.”
    “Keep telling yourself that.” August walked backwards down the
    hal way. He side-eyed the rollers who chatted with a townie, chuck-
    ling at us. “And watch your back.”
    Violet hugged herself. “Don’t let yourself be alone, Ivy. I’d stay, but
    I gotta get to class.”
    I didn’t know what to say. Normal y, I wasn’t alone.
    With Violet and August gone, I let myself into the stairwel , where
    the steel door thudded shut. I pressed my back to it, scanning from
    the base of the stairs to the second story. No windows for sunshine, a
    red glow radiated from the exit signs. The lone halogen light flick-
    ered before dropping the stairs into half-dark.
    20
    No one from the Glen went off alone to school. Most of us even
    walked to class in pairs. The trust that we’d make it up and down the
    stairs, back and forth through the hal ways undamaged was a farce.
    Threats and taunts were just that until they weren’t. Dahlia Cren-
    shaw needed a scarf to cover her scars. Those boys were arrested,
    but Dahlia never came back to school. She rarely left her home at
    al .
    I climbed several steps. Without any ventilation, the stairway was
    a hot