Found Read Online Free PDF Page B

or when I had a specific task.
    So what was my next task?
    Help Ema find her missing boyfriend, I guess.
    I walked up the long driveway and crossed the expansive front grounds. I’d barely put my fingertip on the doorbell in front of Ema’s enormous mansion when the door swung slowly open.
    “Master Mickey. Welcome.”
    It was Niles, the family butler, speaking with an accent so pronounced, it had to be fake. He wore a tuxedo or tails or something like that. His posture was ramrod straight. He arched one eyebrow.
    Ema ran to the door. “Cut that out, Niles.”
    “Sorry, madam.”
    Ema rolled her eyes. “He’s been watching a lot of British television.”
    “Oh,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I got it.
    It was funny watching the two of them standing there. Both wore black, but that was where the similarities ended. Niles wore formal wear. Ema was in full goth mode—black clothes, jet-black hair, black lipstick, white makeup. She had silver studs going all the way up her ears, a pierced eyebrow, and one skull ring on each hand.
    As we headed down the stairs, I couldn’t help but stare at the movie posters. They all featured films starring the gorgeous Angelica Wyatt. Some were headshots. Some were full body. Sometimes she was alone. Sometimes she was with some guy. On the bottom step, there was one for that romantic comedy she did with Matt Damon last year.
    Only a handful of people knew that Angelica Wyatt—yes,
the
Angelica Wyatt—was Ema’s mom.
    “So tell me what happened in California,” Ema said.
    We sat on oversize beanbag chairs. I told her everything. When I was done, Ema said, “Maybe it was your father’s wish.”
    “What? Being cremated?”
    “Right, a lot of people choose that,” Ema said. “It’s a possibility, right?”
    I thought about it. We had traveled all over the world. Most foreign cultures—most cultures my father admired—preferred cremation to burial. I remembered that my father once bemoaned the “waste” of good land, land that could have been used to grow crops, because it was being used as a graveyard.
    Could he have told Mom he wanted to be cremated?
    I thought some more. Then I said, “No.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “If Dad had wanted to be cremated, he wouldn’t then want to be buried too. He’d choose one or the other.”
    Ema nodded. “But it was your mother’s signature on the form?”
    “Yes.”
    “So?”
    “So I need to ask her about it. The problem is, she’s not allowed visitors in rehab right now. She’s going through withdrawal.”
    “How much longer?”
    “I don’t know.” I looked at Ema. Yes, she was interested, but I knew what she was doing. For some reason, she was asking all these questions to stall. “So tell me about your missing boyfriend.”
    “Before I do,” Ema said, “I wanted to show you something.”
    “Okay.”
    She started pulling up her shirt.
    “Uh,” I said, because I’m good with words.
    “Relax, perv. I want to show you a tattoo.”
    “Uh,” I said again.
    “You’ll see why.”
    Ema was loaded up with tattoos. This helped cultivate her bad-girl image. She wore them almost like a fence, warning people to stay back. Yes, I know a lot of people have tattoos, but Ema was only a high school freshman. Many of the kids were intimidated that a girl so young could have so many. How did she get her parents’ permission?
    I had wondered that myself.
    But more recently I learned the simple truth: The tattoos were temporary. She had a friend named Agent at a tattoo parlor called Tattoos While U Wait. Agent liked to try out designs before putting them on someone in a permanent way. He used Ema’s skin as a practice canvas.
    Ema turned her back to me. “Look.”
    There, in the center of her back, was a familiar image to Ema, Spoon, Rachel, and me.
    A butterfly. More specifically, the Tisiphone
Abeona
butterfly.
    That image haunted us. I had seen it on a grave behind Bat Lady’s house. I had seen it on Rachel’s hospital