“I just have to stop at my locker and get my book,” Lena said. Her hair began to curl around her shoulders. I was suspicious, but I didn’t say anything.

Emily, Savannah, Charlotte, and Eden were standing in front of their lockers, primping in front of the mirrors hanging inside the doors. Lena’s locker was only a little farther down the hall.

“Just ignore them,” I said.

Emily was rubbing her cheek with a Kleenex. The black moon-shaped mark was only smearing bigger and blacker, not coming off at all. “Charlotte, do you have any makeup remover?”

“Sure.”

Emily wiped her cheek a few more times. “This isn’t comin’ off. Savannah, I thought you said this stuff came off with soap and water.”

“It does.”

“Then why isn’t it comin’ off?” Emily slammed her locker door, annoyed.

The drama got Link’s attention. “What are those four doin’ over there?”

“Look’s like they’re having some kind of problem,” Lena said, leaning against her locker.

Savannah tried to wipe the black moon off her own cheek. “Mine isn’t comin’ off, either.” The moon was now smeared across half her face. Savannah started digging around in her purse. “I have the pencil right here.”

Emily pulled her purse out of her locker, searching through it. “Forget it. I have mine in my bag.”

“What the—” Savannah pulled something out of her bag.

“You used Sharpie?” Emily laughed.

Savannah held the marker up in front of her. “Of course not. I have no idea how this got in here.”

“You’re so lame. That will never come off before the party tonight.”

“I can’t have this thing on my face all night. I’m goin’ dressed as a Greek Goddess, Aphrodite. This will completely ruin my costume.”

“You should’ve been more careful.” Emily dug around in her little silver purse some more. She dumped her purse on the ground under her locker, lip gloss and nail polish bottles rolling around on the floor. “It has to be here.”

“What are you talkin’ about?” Charlotte asked.

“The makeup I used this mornin’, it’s not here.” By now, Emily was attracting an audience; people were stopping to see what was going on. A Sharpie rolled out of Emily’s purse into the middle of the hall.

“You used Sharpie, too?”

“Of course I didn’t!” Emily shrieked, rubbing her face frantically. But the black moon only grew bigger and blacker like the others. “What the hell is goin’ on?”

“I know I have mine,” Charlotte said, turning the lock on her locker door. She opened the door and stood there for a few seconds, staring inside.

“What is it?” Savannah demanded. Charlotte pulled her hand back out of her locker. She was holding a Sharpie.

Link shook his pom-pom. “Cheerleaders rock!”

I looked at Lena.

Sharpie?

A mischievous smile spread across her face.

I thought you said you couldn’t control your powers.

Beginner’s luck.

By the end of the day, everyone at Jackson was talking about the cheer squad. Apparently, every one of the cheerleaders who dressed up as Lena had somehow used a Sharpie to draw the innocuous crescent moon on her face, instead of eyeliner. Cheerleaders. The jokes were endless.

All of them would be walking around school and the rest of town, singing in the church youth choirs, and cheering at the games, with Sharpie on their cheeks for the next few days, until it faded away. Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Snow were going to have a fit.

I just wished I could be there to see it.

After school, I walked Lena back to her car, which was really just an excuse to try to hold her hand a little longer. The intense physical feelings I had when I touched her weren’t the deterrent you might have expected. No matter what it felt like, whether I was burning or blowing out light bulbs or getting struck by lightning, I had to be close to her. It was like eating, or breathing. I didn’t have a choice. And that was scarier than a month of Halloweens, and it was killing me.

“What are you doing tonight?” As she spoke, she pulled her hand absentmindedly through her hair. She was sitting on the hood of the hearse and I was standing in front of her.

“I thought maybe you’d come over, and we’d stay home and answer the door for trick-or-treaters. You can help me watch the lawn to make sure no one burns a cross on it.” I tried not to think too clearly about the rest of my plan, which involved Lena and our couch and old movies and Amma being gone for the night.

“I can’t. It’s a High Holiday. I have relatives coming in from all over. Uncle M won’t let me out of the house for five minutes, not to mention the danger. I’d never open my door to strangers on a night of such Dark power.”

“I never thought of it that way.” Until now.

By the time I got home, Amma was getting ready to leave. She was boiling a chicken on the stove and mixing biscuit batter with her hands, “the only way any self-respectin’ woman makes her biscuits.” I looked at the pot suspiciously, wondering if this meal was going to make it to our dinner table or the Greats’.

I pinched some dough, and she caught my hand.

“P. U. R. L. O. I. N. E. R.” I smiled.

“As in, keep your thievin’ hands off a my biscuits, Ethan Wate. I’ve got hungry people to feed.” Guess I wouldn’t be eating chicken and biscuits tonight.