for the sins of her mother

Complacency

The clubroom brought new meaning to the word 'clutter'. Stacks of paper reached the ceiling or collapsed in mini avalanches. Sitting down was a dangerous activity with every other chair dedicated to storing artefacts. Posters adorned every spare inch of wall, most of them yellow with age. One of their attempts to draw a pentagram had never rubbed out. Vera was convinced it was the ghosts, Chiyo thought it may have had more to do with using something marketed as 'Permanent Chalk'. The one window was tiny and everyone had heard mice in there. In short, it was paradise.

Vera's lipstick was electric blue and her eyes were ringed with dark shadow. Her shirt was ocean green gauze and her curls, platinum blonde since last week, gave her a halo. She was, as always, stunning. Mei had finished four sentences all afternoon. Mei got out her notebook and cleared her throat.

"Anyone found any ghosts in the past forty eight hours?" Vera clapped her hands and leaned forward. There was a feral quality to her excitement that made her more beautiful.
"I have found an excellent - and verifiable - story." Chiyo bit her fingernails. Her hairband matched her cardigan (lavender), her eyes took up ninety per cent of her face and her face was frozen in permanent worry.
"Is it sad?" Chiyo enjoyed the softer side of the supernatural, forest spirits and guides from other dimensions. It was difficult to balance with Vera's taste for blood and guts and the knowledge that the world was a cold, cruel place.
"At the start, but the ending's happy. She gets revenge, and all the bad people get caught." Mei held her pen at the ready. She took notes in fifty pence spiral notebooks that came in two colours, green or red. She wrote in the green ones. If the shop stopped selling them, she'd be plunged into an existential crisis. Vera had an incredible talent for storytelling. Every part of her was expressive, and every part of her was engaged when she told a story. Mei loved those moments, only half paying attention to the narrative. This was time to study Vera's face, archiving every detail. Vera was too perfect to exist, let alone to be her best friend. Mei was always prepared for the moment when Vera disappeared from her life, never letting herself get complacent. Vera had defined collarbones and glitter swiped across her cheeks. The story was generic, although improved by Vera's narration. Girl commits suicide, girl haunts those who wronged her, speak the words in the bathroom where she slit her wrists, et cetera more at six. Vera reached the dramatic conclusion with copious hand gestures.

"It's not the Iliad, but it's fun."
Mei nodded in agreement. "Why are ghosts always teenage girls, though?"
"Something something gender roles, something something Madonna Whore, something something else that makes me sound cleverer than I am," Vera replied with a half-smile. "There's a serious point there, but you're the one studying sociology. I'm some weirdo that believes in ghosts.
"I believe in ghosts!" Mei protested.

Vera shrugged. "Who bought the bible here, anyway?" asked Vera, gesturing towards the one bit of clutter that didn't predate the light bulb; an ornate bible, A5. The kind of thing you could see a woman in a tweed pressing into the hands of her lover as he marched into certain death. It was open, the spine cracked enough to make them all wince. An orange petal marked the page. Book of Exodus, volume twenty, paragraph five.

"Probably whoever had this room before," offered Mei, trying to swing the conversation away from religion as soon as she could. Vera was raised Catholic, and had Opinions on religion. Mei could watch her rant for hours, her eyes lit up with passion, but it made Chiyo anxious. Vera accepted the change of subject.

"Anyway. Enough about Christianity, we've got shocking symbols of capitalist excess to break into-" Vera gathered all her drama for the last word- "tonight!" A thrill ran down Mei's spine. They were doing something. Something real, something exciting. Not something that would make a difference, but a small, quiet rebellion. One that could immortalise their friendship. Chiyo winced, having torn too harshly at a cuticle.
"Are we sure it's safe?" asked Chiyo, her voice half a decibel above a whisper. She stared at the ground. Mei smiled at her.
"Definitely. Anthony's dealt with the cameras, and he's basically a genius. We've found the gap in the fence, we know how the alarms work. We get in, we have a nighttime swim, we do a little righteous vandalism, we eat snacks and then we go home. It's going to be amazing." Chiyo brightened up, although her eyebrows stayed nervous. Mei contemplated whether they were separate entities to the rest of her face.
"What kind of snacks?"