“It’s a ‘freak in the sheets,’” Gemma corrected her.
“What?” Marcy shook her head. “No. I play the steel drums. I don’t do anything with sheets.”
“Marcy has had boyfriends,” Lydia said. She rubbed her neck and looked up from the notes. “She was really serious with this guy in high school. Keith.”
Lydia and Marcy were both nine years older than Gemma, so neither she nor Harper had known them in school. But Lydia had graduated with Marcy and had been really good friends with her, and Gemma just realized that Lydia might have all kinds of fun dirt on her.
“Keith?” Harper sounded dubious. “That’s such a normal name.”
“Yeah, I thought you would only date guys named Bram or Xavier or Frodo,” Gemma agreed.
Marcy rested her head against the seat and sighed. “Okay, first of all, I’m not gonna date a hobbit. And secondly, obviously those names would be way cooler, but I don’t get to pick my boyfriends’ names.” She paused, thinking. “Actually, I wonder how committed Kirby is to his name. He’s always looked like a Stanley to me.”
“How is Stanley better than Kirby?” Gemma asked.
Lydia leaned forward, resting her arms on the tray table, and gave Gemma and Harper an impish smirk. “Oh, and Keith was a football player.”
“He was third-string and benched the whole season,” Marcy said in an exasperated way, like she’d explained this a hundred times before. “He was also on the math league and a founding member of the paranormal society. It’s that last fact that attracted me to him, and I was willing to overlook the whole ‘jock’ thing to be with him.”
“Wow.” Gemma shook her head. “I just can’t picture you like going on dates or kissing or anything.”
“You shouldn’t picture me kissing. That’s gross and weird,” Marcy said.
“They even went to prom together,” Lydia added.
Marcy groaned. “Oh, my god. This is the longest flight of my entire life. When are we getting there?”
“Marcy went to prom? Seriously?” Harper snickered.
“I know!” Gemma agreed. “I couldn’t believe it when Marcy told me last week.”
“Right?” Lydia sounded as shocked as they were. “For a little bit, I was afraid that it might be some trick, and the football team was gonna go all Carrie on her. But nope. She didn’t win prom queen, and Keith really liked her.”
“That prom was horrible, though. Pig’s blood would’ve been an improvement,” Marcy muttered, and began typing on her phone again.
“There really is so much I don’t know about you, Marcy,” Harper said.
“What are you tweeting now?” Gemma leaned into the aisle, trying to read it.
“I’m not tweeting anything. I’m Googling to see if anyone has developed teleportation technology so that I never have to go through this again.”
The flight did feel long, like Marcy had said, but landing didn’t make things much better. In fact, being on solid ground only seemed to make the headache intensify. Gemma bought overpriced aspirin and a bottle of water at the airport and guzzled it down before they even went to the car rental.
Since Harper and Gemma were under twenty-five, Marcy rented the car in her name, and that meant they had to put it on her credit card.
“Thank you,” Gemma told Marcy for the twentieth time as they walked out to pick up their rented sedan.
“As long as I get to see some kind of all-knowing, all-powerful, magical being on this trip, then we’ll call it even,” Marcy said.
“This trip is really racking up,” Gemma said, and she felt guilty just thinking about it. “As soon as this is all over, I’m gonna spend the rest of my life paying people back and trying to make up for the hell that everyone is going through.”
“Getting back is the only repayment we need,” Harper assured her.
Marcy drove, while Harper navigated in the passenger seat using the GPS and the directions that Lydia had conjured up from Audra’s notes. Gemma was in too much pain to be as much help as she’d like, and she rested her forehead against the cool glass of the window and closed her eyes.
“So when we get there, I think you should let me do the talking first,” Lydia said, as they got closer.
“How will we know it’s Diana?” Harper glanced back in the backseat at Lydia. “Do you know what she looks like?”
Lydia shook her head. “No, Audra was careful not to have pictures or to describe her. But I usually just know.”
“How? Do you have like a divining rod for supernatural elements or something?” Harper asked.
“No. Audra and my gramma were really great about being able to sense things, but with me, it comes from experience.” Lydia shrugged. “When you’re around something enough, you eventually pick it up.”
“Do you know what kind of goddess she is? Is she gonna hurt us or be violent?” Marcy asked.
“She helped Audra and Thalia,” Lydia said. “But I can’t make any guarantees on how she’ll react.”
“She might kill us,” Marcy said.
Lydia sighed. “She probably won’t.”
“But she might,” Marcy persisted, but strangely, she didn’t sound that upset about the prospect.
“How are you holding up, Gemma?” Harper turned around fully so she could really get a look at her.