The Devil You Know by Trish Doller Page B

quick, like we’re doing it in secret—“can put your feet anywhere you want.”
    My imaginary road trip had us holding hands and kissing at stoplights, but in reality, Molly and I both fall asleep against Noah and I don’t wake until his voice burrows its way into my brain. “Cadie, we’re here.”
    My eyes open and his face hovers above mine, and I smile because I’m pretty sure I could get used to looking at that face. “Hi, you.”
    â€œHey,” he says, as I sit up and finger-comb through thesnarls in my windblown hair. My face is warm from the sun, and my nose stings a little, making me wonder if it’s burned.
    â€œSo what do we do until midnight?” Matt asks, as we pass the welcome post for the Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp. Established in 1894 by a medium who was led to the area by three ghosts after being told during a séance he would found his own spiritualist community. The whole thing sounds hokey to me, but the street is lined with new age shops—with names like Purple Rose and Sixth Sense—offering gemstones, spiritualist books, and psychic readings. Clearly there are many here who believe.
    Tarot. Palm. Crystals. Astrology. Some of the mediums even claim to be able to contact loved ones on the other side. The thought of being able to talk to my mom again cuts a keen sadness through my heart.
    â€œWe could take a ghost tour or go to a psychic.” I don’t really believe I could communicate with my mother through a medium, but having my palm read or my tarot done might be fun. I’ve never done anything like that before, except the time Hallie Kernaghan brought an old Ouija board to soccer camp and a bunch of us tried to make it do something. We spent half the night accusing each other of pushing the pointer and just gave up. “Maybe a psychic can tell us who tied Jason to a tree,” Isay. “Or maybe she can channel your grandma’s spirit so we can ask her how she feels about you driving the car.”
    â€œOh, I’m sure she’ll tell us tonight at the Devil’s Chair,” Matt says. “I mean, imagine it. The stroke of midnight, when the veil between worlds is thin enough for the devil to send a message. It’s dark and silent in the cemetery until a disembodied voice from the deepest pits of hell shrieks, ‘That car was in mint condition!’ ”
    Noah laughs so hard that tears trickle from the corners of his eyes, and every time he tries to speak, his words get lost in a new fit of laughter. In the end we agree to grab lunch, pitch the tents at a local park, and then come back for a psychic reading—and maybe even a ghost tour—before we try out the Devil’s Chair. But the first thing on my personal to-do list is call home, and it’s no exaggeration when I say I’d rather speak to the devil himself than tell Dad I’m not coming home yet. I borrow Noah’s phone.
    â€œWhere the hell are you?” My dad is so mad his words surely must have rattled the satellites on their way to my ear. The last time he was this upset with me was when I stole Mom’s favorite perfume to wear on a date with Justin. She always let me borrow it when she was alive, but afterward Dad hoarded the bottle in his magpie nest of memories, hidden away behind his bedroom door.
    He caught me red-handed and shouted at me, tellingme I had no business going in his room. That I had no right to touch Mom’s belongings, as if she’d been only his. I tried to explain that if she were still alive she would give me permission to use her perfume, but he just wouldn’t listen. Finally, I hurled the bottle at the living room wall and it shattered, raining glass onto the carpet and releasing Mom’s scent in the house, where it hung like a ghost for days. We didn’t speak to each other until it was gone, and even then neither of us apologized.
    â€œCassadaga,” I