Bad Creek, page 28
“Did you put on lotion?” Joanna asked.
Iris had been absentmindedly scratching her leg. At some point, between giving statements to the police, a rash had developed. “Uhhh . . .”
Joanna sighed and dug through the pile on the living room table until she found the lotion—which did little to help Iris’s poison ivy—but the gesture was appreciated. While Iris loaded the milky stuff over her splotchy leg, April sat on a suitcase, struggling with the zipper. Joanna sat on the couch, rubbing her knees anxiously. That was what she did when she needed to have “a talk.”
She waited for Iris to finish applying the lotion and patted the plaid cushion beside her. “I should have told you before. I should have told everyone. And maybe then . . .”
“It’s not your fault,” April said.
Joanna nodded, still clearly battling herself. She squeezed Iris’s hand.
“I told you the Clavey twins found that house,” she continued. “That was a lie. I found it, but it hadn’t felt like me because I was asleep. The summer before my senior year, I woke up standing in the middle of this meadow, and Bruce was watching me. I didn’t know what that meant, in that moment. Now I guess I do.”
It was supposed to be Joanna. She was the first girl who got away.
“Of course, Paul wanted to see the house for himself,” Joanna continued. “He loved creepy stuff. I did, usually. But I hated that place. I couldn’t get the way Bruce looked at me out of my head. Like I was prey.”
“Did he try to—”
“No. Never. Bruce avoided me after that. Avoided this place altogether. For years Beth presented all these weird excuses for him. He just didn’t come back with the rest of us. For years. And then one summer—God, it was so cold. You had a horrible colic and stayed in the cabin the whole week. Beth had been acting . . . off. We were having a bonfire, like normal, when she flipped out. Said the reckoning was coming. That she was going to have to pay for Bruce’s sin. The next morning, Bruce pulled Beth out of the water.”
Joanna stopped to take a breath.
“When she had her accident, I wasn’t surprised. Just like when I woke up with Bruce behind me. It all felt so inevitable. But I never said anything. And I kept coming back. After the accident, Paul started to get suspicious. He noticed all these weird symbols. He tried to get me to look into it, to question the Claveys, but . . .” She shut her eyes and squeezed Iris’s hand again. “I couldn’t let myself see it. Even though, in my gut, I knew it was always going to come for me. Even after last year. I couldn’t imagine just leaving it all behind. I felt tethered to this place.”
“It pulled me to the water,” Iris said. “It’s probably always been pulling us back here. With all the other regulars.”
The Spirit had to keep them as its consistent food supply.
“I’m so sorry,” Joanna choked.
“It’s okay,” Iris said.
April gave Joanna kiss on the forehead. “You don’t need to be forgiven.”
“Still,” Joanna said. “I want to be better. More present. I’ve been so terrified of what I’d see if I really looked back. But I haven’t been looking forward either.”
“Me too,” Iris admitted. She didn’t need Joanna to apologize, but it felt good to hear her speak her grief out loud. The Garrens didn’t have to be three islands, each surviving alone, anymore.
Joanna gave a pat to Iris’s knee and stood. “Do we have any firewood left?”
“I’ll get some,” Iris said. Usually, when they ran out, the Disasters would borrow wood from another cabin. Or steal from the Claveys. She stopped by her room and looked under the floorboard. Glory’s things were already packed up. All that remained was Hudson Clavey’s wallet. Iris put it in her pocket and headed toward Cabin 1, where the Great White was parked out front. The door opened, and Hudson stepped out carrying a suitcase.
He smiled when he noticed her. The bruise under his eye was worse, but still, Iris’s heart did a little flutter.
“Hey,” she said. “You guys are leaving?”
“Yeah.”
The cabin door opened and a little girl came barreling out, dragging a baby-blue roller bag. Hudson’s mom was behind her, looking at Iris with suspicion. Years ago, she’d threatened to call the cops on Iris and Glory for playing music too loud on the dock. And now Iris got her husband arrested.
“Want to go on a walk with me?” Hudson asked, despite his mother’s glare.
“Sure.”
They made it to the end of the gravel drive, past the Landings sign. Iris didn’t know what to say, or what would happen between them now that she was leaving and never coming back. She was grateful that Hudson spoke first.
“I don’t think my sister knows what’s going on,” he said. “She’s mad she has to go to public school next month.”
Iris gasped. “You guys are gonna be mingling with the poors? I’m so sorry.”
“It’s great, actually. I’d prefer to go to a school where no one knows me.”
“You’ll regret that when you try the food. It’s all stale brownies and cold broccoli. Not filet mignon and crème brûlée.”
“Oh shit, really? If I don’t get my daily crème brûlée, I’ll spontaneously combust.”
They turned onto Meller Road. Iris smelled grilling burgers. Turns out, news of the Killer Claveys wasn’t going to stop anyone from barbecuing. Then she spotted the Mustang, in all her Pepto-Bismol-pink elegance, and they sat on its hood. The sun was setting now, but the metal was still warm from baking all day.
“I have a confession to make,” Iris said. “I may have accidentally stolen your old wallet.” She pulled it out of her back pocket and presented it to him.
He took one look at it and said, “Keep it.”
“There’s like fifty bucks in there. I owe you for saving my life.”
“You saved your own life, Iris. I would never have tried to kill it. I didn’t think there was a way out.”
He scooted closer to her; her thigh was touching his shorts. They were the kind of preppy pastel shorts she usually would have made fun of. Hudson might have denounced the Claveys, but he was still dressed like he had to go golfing at a moment’s notice.
“I hate your shorts,” she told him, trying to distract from the sudden intimacy.
“That’s fair.” She waited for him to roast her outfit, call her out for her socks not matching. Instead, he took her wrist and lifted it up. He gently brushed his fingers against her braided red bracelet. She had needed something to do with her hands during the unending blur of yesterday, and she still had a lot of red string left over.
“Will you make me one of these?” he asked her.
“I thought about it,” she said. The bracelets had always been exclusive to the Disasters. But who cared? The rules could be rewritten. “Do you want one?”
“Would that make us officially friends?” he asked. He still had his hand on hers.
“Is that what we are?” she asked him breathlessly.
He looked at her and didn’t turn. He leaned in closer, and Iris’s dragonfly heart was traded for a rabbit’s. Fast, strong, but too small to support her body. Her heart was going to explode. Her blood would seep from out of her pores, from out of her fingernails and ears and eyes, and then he would finally see her as this pathetic, bleeding thing who wanted too hard. Who cried too loud.
“Iris?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I kiss you?”
Iris put her lips against Hudson’s, then remembered she was supposed to close her eyes and tilt her head. He put his hands on the back of her neck, pulling her in closer.
When they came up for air, he smiled at her as if to say, Finally. Her brain felt gooey, like a marshmallow that melts off the stick before it can turn into a s’more. She melted into him like one too. The next kiss was more desperate, like both of them thought the other would die if they stopped.
They broke away as a golf cart zoomed past, startling them. Iris grinned at him. They probably weren’t seen, but she didn’t care either way. Let them all start rumors about the Garren girl and the Clavey boy breaking all the rules.
“We’re gonna have a campfire. You should come,” Iris said.
“Can’t. We’re leaving.”
“Now?”
He nodded. “Yeah, my mom’s probably looking for me. Will I see you again?”
“Yeah. Just not here.”
Iris pulled out her phone and had him type in his number, texting him so he had hers. Then they walked back to the gravel road, hands clasped. The big white Escalade’s engine was running, Hudson’s mom impatiently waiting behind the wheel. Hudson squeezed Iris’s hand before he let go of her and got in the passenger seat.
“Send me your address,” Iris told him with a wink. “I’ll mail you a bracelet.”
* * *
Even though it had rained for most of yesterday, this was their biggest bonfire yet. Flames licked the edges of the firepit rocks. April was too scared to get close enough and roast her marshmallow, so Iris volunteered. Usually she helped prep the graham crackers and chocolate, but Aidan had taken over for her. Iris was now the marshmallow cooker. Gum poked at the flames and threw in more firewood. Every few minutes there would be a sudden pop, and embers flew into the air. Someone would utter, “Whooaaa,” and tell Gum to stop messing with the fire, but he never listened, and Iris loved him for it.
After lightly toasting a marshmallow for April, Iris worked on Beth’s.
“How do you like it?” she asked.
“Well done.”
“She likes it charred,” said Paul. “Or claims to. I think it’s an individuality complex.”
“You don’t even like marshmallows,” Beth said. “You’re not allowed to criticize.”
“Do you know what they’re made of?” Paul teased. “I’d be happy to remind you.”
Joanna smacked Paul on the shoulder. “God, Paul. Let people enjoy things.”
Iris waited until the marshmallow looked crispy enough before pulling it out of the flame. She already knew marshmallows were cornstarch and ground-up bones. That was what this place was too—sugar and death. But the Disasters were together. Mostly. There were absences that hung in the air, but no more secrets, at last.
Their parents didn’t stay outside long. The mosquitoes were too bad, and the Garrens had a long drive tomorrow morning. Besides, they knew the tent between Cabins 3 and 4 was reserved for the ones with raging poison ivy rashes. Iris and the boys had aired out the cobweb-covered sleeping bags in the boathouse.
“So, what’s the verdict?” Gum asked.
“My moms were thinking Myrtle Beach next summer,” Iris answered. It was inexpensive and drivable. Most importantly, it was new.
“I’m down. Not sure about the beach part, but I like turtles.”
“It’s Myrtle,” Aidan corrected.
Gum pointed to the bandage on his forehead. “Sorry, I’m literally concussed? Mind being more sensitive?”
Aidan pointed his marshmallow stick at Gum. “Shut up.”
“I’m feeling a bit threatened by that weapon in your hand, actually.”
“Good.”
“Iris, I’m starting to think they locked up the wrong guys.”
“You’re not nearly as funny as you think you are,” Aidan said, but he was smiling. It had been his idea to have a make-up bonfire tonight. To have another go at their Poison Ivy Quarantine. Aidan, who’d wanted nothing to do with them a week ago, was now proudly wearing the new bracelet she’d woven him.
“I gotta admit, I’ve always hated yellow,” Aidan had said when she’d tied one of the red ones around his wrist.
They squeezed into the tent—which had felt much bigger when they were younger—and played the same game of war for hours. There were jokes, and fears admitted, and accusations about who had farted and, Oh my God what was that noise did you guys hear that? Once they were thoroughly delirious, they zipped themselves up inside their sleeping bags and Iris hugged Picasso tight. Savi had dropped off the stuffed rabbit this morning before saying goodbye.
When all was quiet but the hum of cicadas, Gum said, “I can’t believe this is our last Poison Ivy Quarantine.”
“Yeah,” Aidan agreed. “It’s weird.”
“Rex is letting us take a bike. I probably could take the tent too,” Iris suggested. “I’ll bring it wherever we go next summer.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.” And Iris meant it, though her heart ached. She was on the verge of an ending. She couldn’t stand endings. That was why she skipped the last episodes of her favorite sitcoms and started them over instead. Finality meant an imperfect cutoff, a frayed edge, ruining the comforting loop.
But there would always be something wrong. She would always have poison ivy or leeches or a raw mosquito bite she wanted to scratch. She would always be scared and messy and missing Glory. But she’d be okay.
Without this place, they wouldn’t be the Disasters anymore. Maybe they could be something else. Something more. Not beholden to the rules of their parents, or the curse they’d inherited.
After all, curses could be broken.
Acknowledgments
Whenever I get my hands on a new book, I read the acknowledgments first. Those last few pages are proof that books don’t just spawn fully formed. They’re the Oscars speeches of publishing.
Now it’s finally my turn.
Thank you to my agent, the brilliant Miriam Cortinovis, for seeing how far this book could go (and letting me keep the Fall Out Boy reference).
Thank you to my editor, Kristin Allard, who made my Disasters as messy and angry as they ought to be. And thanks to the rest of the team at Norton: Hana Anouk Nakamura, Rebecca Munro, Delaney Adams, Lara Starr, Naomi Duttweiler, and my copy editor, Dave Cole.
Thank you to Colin Verdi for illustrating this book’s killer cover.
Thanks to my WTMP mentors, Jenni Howell and Jamie Howard. Team JHow for life!
And to R. L. Stine, for ensuring I grew up a freak; Radical Face, for sad ghost music to write to; and my camp girls, who taught me how to make friendship bracelets. I can never give enough thanks to the librarians. Y’all are the backbone of this country.
Thank you to Gabe Never and Isabel Burke for surviving that hideous draft from 2016. Max Nalow, owner of the biggest brain in Cleveland, for reading every version. Jimmie Carroll for Bad Movie Club and good advice and the most disturbing fan art. To Aunt Jen, for being the best Seattle tour guide and introducing me to oh so many magical stories at an early age. To Grandma Cathy and Grandpa Jim, for my first red Schwinn. My dear cousins, for enduring Vacation Bible School and firework burns on the barn roof. Em, please take this as an apology for slapping you in Barnes & Noble when we were middle school.
Thank you to Aunt Nikki, the family historian, for late-night cabin chats. To my mother, Sara June, for supporting my haunted doll collection and letting me steal your vacation lore. To Brooks Hinton, roomie, bestie, you may be a beta reader but you’re an alpha in my heart. Here’s to endless Brother Summers. Thank you to Olivia Pelletier, aka Kundo, for childhood afternoons skinning our knees in bicycle crashes. Can’t believe how much we’ve changed. Can’t believe how much we haven’t.
To Austin, my beloved, for pulling the overheating laptop out of my wretched hands at two a.m. and reminding me I can always write more tomorrow. Without you, this book would have rotted me from the inside out.
My sister, Liv Leatherman, for believing before you even read the damn thing. I know you’d solve my murder in like three days, tops.
And thank you to Grandma Suey, queen of the Landings, all-time putt-putt champion. You always promised there’s a great big world outside of my hometown. I found it. I found it.
Copyright © 2025 by Peyton June Leatherman
All rights reserved
First Edition
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact W. W. Norton Special Sales at specialsales@wwnorton.com or 800-233-4830
Jacket design: Hana Anouk Nakamura
Jacket illustration: Colin Verdi
Book design by Hana Anouk Nakamura
Production manager: Delaney Adams
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
ISBN 978-1-324-08293-4
ISBN 978-1-324-08294-1 (epub)
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
www.wwnorton.com
W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 15 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BS
Peyton June, Bad Creek
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Iris had been absentmindedly scratching her leg. At some point, between giving statements to the police, a rash had developed. “Uhhh . . .”
Joanna sighed and dug through the pile on the living room table until she found the lotion—which did little to help Iris’s poison ivy—but the gesture was appreciated. While Iris loaded the milky stuff over her splotchy leg, April sat on a suitcase, struggling with the zipper. Joanna sat on the couch, rubbing her knees anxiously. That was what she did when she needed to have “a talk.”
She waited for Iris to finish applying the lotion and patted the plaid cushion beside her. “I should have told you before. I should have told everyone. And maybe then . . .”
“It’s not your fault,” April said.
Joanna nodded, still clearly battling herself. She squeezed Iris’s hand.
“I told you the Clavey twins found that house,” she continued. “That was a lie. I found it, but it hadn’t felt like me because I was asleep. The summer before my senior year, I woke up standing in the middle of this meadow, and Bruce was watching me. I didn’t know what that meant, in that moment. Now I guess I do.”
It was supposed to be Joanna. She was the first girl who got away.
“Of course, Paul wanted to see the house for himself,” Joanna continued. “He loved creepy stuff. I did, usually. But I hated that place. I couldn’t get the way Bruce looked at me out of my head. Like I was prey.”
“Did he try to—”
“No. Never. Bruce avoided me after that. Avoided this place altogether. For years Beth presented all these weird excuses for him. He just didn’t come back with the rest of us. For years. And then one summer—God, it was so cold. You had a horrible colic and stayed in the cabin the whole week. Beth had been acting . . . off. We were having a bonfire, like normal, when she flipped out. Said the reckoning was coming. That she was going to have to pay for Bruce’s sin. The next morning, Bruce pulled Beth out of the water.”
Joanna stopped to take a breath.
“When she had her accident, I wasn’t surprised. Just like when I woke up with Bruce behind me. It all felt so inevitable. But I never said anything. And I kept coming back. After the accident, Paul started to get suspicious. He noticed all these weird symbols. He tried to get me to look into it, to question the Claveys, but . . .” She shut her eyes and squeezed Iris’s hand again. “I couldn’t let myself see it. Even though, in my gut, I knew it was always going to come for me. Even after last year. I couldn’t imagine just leaving it all behind. I felt tethered to this place.”
“It pulled me to the water,” Iris said. “It’s probably always been pulling us back here. With all the other regulars.”
The Spirit had to keep them as its consistent food supply.
“I’m so sorry,” Joanna choked.
“It’s okay,” Iris said.
April gave Joanna kiss on the forehead. “You don’t need to be forgiven.”
“Still,” Joanna said. “I want to be better. More present. I’ve been so terrified of what I’d see if I really looked back. But I haven’t been looking forward either.”
“Me too,” Iris admitted. She didn’t need Joanna to apologize, but it felt good to hear her speak her grief out loud. The Garrens didn’t have to be three islands, each surviving alone, anymore.
Joanna gave a pat to Iris’s knee and stood. “Do we have any firewood left?”
“I’ll get some,” Iris said. Usually, when they ran out, the Disasters would borrow wood from another cabin. Or steal from the Claveys. She stopped by her room and looked under the floorboard. Glory’s things were already packed up. All that remained was Hudson Clavey’s wallet. Iris put it in her pocket and headed toward Cabin 1, where the Great White was parked out front. The door opened, and Hudson stepped out carrying a suitcase.
He smiled when he noticed her. The bruise under his eye was worse, but still, Iris’s heart did a little flutter.
“Hey,” she said. “You guys are leaving?”
“Yeah.”
The cabin door opened and a little girl came barreling out, dragging a baby-blue roller bag. Hudson’s mom was behind her, looking at Iris with suspicion. Years ago, she’d threatened to call the cops on Iris and Glory for playing music too loud on the dock. And now Iris got her husband arrested.
“Want to go on a walk with me?” Hudson asked, despite his mother’s glare.
“Sure.”
They made it to the end of the gravel drive, past the Landings sign. Iris didn’t know what to say, or what would happen between them now that she was leaving and never coming back. She was grateful that Hudson spoke first.
“I don’t think my sister knows what’s going on,” he said. “She’s mad she has to go to public school next month.”
Iris gasped. “You guys are gonna be mingling with the poors? I’m so sorry.”
“It’s great, actually. I’d prefer to go to a school where no one knows me.”
“You’ll regret that when you try the food. It’s all stale brownies and cold broccoli. Not filet mignon and crème brûlée.”
“Oh shit, really? If I don’t get my daily crème brûlée, I’ll spontaneously combust.”
They turned onto Meller Road. Iris smelled grilling burgers. Turns out, news of the Killer Claveys wasn’t going to stop anyone from barbecuing. Then she spotted the Mustang, in all her Pepto-Bismol-pink elegance, and they sat on its hood. The sun was setting now, but the metal was still warm from baking all day.
“I have a confession to make,” Iris said. “I may have accidentally stolen your old wallet.” She pulled it out of her back pocket and presented it to him.
He took one look at it and said, “Keep it.”
“There’s like fifty bucks in there. I owe you for saving my life.”
“You saved your own life, Iris. I would never have tried to kill it. I didn’t think there was a way out.”
He scooted closer to her; her thigh was touching his shorts. They were the kind of preppy pastel shorts she usually would have made fun of. Hudson might have denounced the Claveys, but he was still dressed like he had to go golfing at a moment’s notice.
“I hate your shorts,” she told him, trying to distract from the sudden intimacy.
“That’s fair.” She waited for him to roast her outfit, call her out for her socks not matching. Instead, he took her wrist and lifted it up. He gently brushed his fingers against her braided red bracelet. She had needed something to do with her hands during the unending blur of yesterday, and she still had a lot of red string left over.
“Will you make me one of these?” he asked her.
“I thought about it,” she said. The bracelets had always been exclusive to the Disasters. But who cared? The rules could be rewritten. “Do you want one?”
“Would that make us officially friends?” he asked. He still had his hand on hers.
“Is that what we are?” she asked him breathlessly.
He looked at her and didn’t turn. He leaned in closer, and Iris’s dragonfly heart was traded for a rabbit’s. Fast, strong, but too small to support her body. Her heart was going to explode. Her blood would seep from out of her pores, from out of her fingernails and ears and eyes, and then he would finally see her as this pathetic, bleeding thing who wanted too hard. Who cried too loud.
“Iris?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I kiss you?”
Iris put her lips against Hudson’s, then remembered she was supposed to close her eyes and tilt her head. He put his hands on the back of her neck, pulling her in closer.
When they came up for air, he smiled at her as if to say, Finally. Her brain felt gooey, like a marshmallow that melts off the stick before it can turn into a s’more. She melted into him like one too. The next kiss was more desperate, like both of them thought the other would die if they stopped.
They broke away as a golf cart zoomed past, startling them. Iris grinned at him. They probably weren’t seen, but she didn’t care either way. Let them all start rumors about the Garren girl and the Clavey boy breaking all the rules.
“We’re gonna have a campfire. You should come,” Iris said.
“Can’t. We’re leaving.”
“Now?”
He nodded. “Yeah, my mom’s probably looking for me. Will I see you again?”
“Yeah. Just not here.”
Iris pulled out her phone and had him type in his number, texting him so he had hers. Then they walked back to the gravel road, hands clasped. The big white Escalade’s engine was running, Hudson’s mom impatiently waiting behind the wheel. Hudson squeezed Iris’s hand before he let go of her and got in the passenger seat.
“Send me your address,” Iris told him with a wink. “I’ll mail you a bracelet.”
* * *
Even though it had rained for most of yesterday, this was their biggest bonfire yet. Flames licked the edges of the firepit rocks. April was too scared to get close enough and roast her marshmallow, so Iris volunteered. Usually she helped prep the graham crackers and chocolate, but Aidan had taken over for her. Iris was now the marshmallow cooker. Gum poked at the flames and threw in more firewood. Every few minutes there would be a sudden pop, and embers flew into the air. Someone would utter, “Whooaaa,” and tell Gum to stop messing with the fire, but he never listened, and Iris loved him for it.
After lightly toasting a marshmallow for April, Iris worked on Beth’s.
“How do you like it?” she asked.
“Well done.”
“She likes it charred,” said Paul. “Or claims to. I think it’s an individuality complex.”
“You don’t even like marshmallows,” Beth said. “You’re not allowed to criticize.”
“Do you know what they’re made of?” Paul teased. “I’d be happy to remind you.”
Joanna smacked Paul on the shoulder. “God, Paul. Let people enjoy things.”
Iris waited until the marshmallow looked crispy enough before pulling it out of the flame. She already knew marshmallows were cornstarch and ground-up bones. That was what this place was too—sugar and death. But the Disasters were together. Mostly. There were absences that hung in the air, but no more secrets, at last.
Their parents didn’t stay outside long. The mosquitoes were too bad, and the Garrens had a long drive tomorrow morning. Besides, they knew the tent between Cabins 3 and 4 was reserved for the ones with raging poison ivy rashes. Iris and the boys had aired out the cobweb-covered sleeping bags in the boathouse.
“So, what’s the verdict?” Gum asked.
“My moms were thinking Myrtle Beach next summer,” Iris answered. It was inexpensive and drivable. Most importantly, it was new.
“I’m down. Not sure about the beach part, but I like turtles.”
“It’s Myrtle,” Aidan corrected.
Gum pointed to the bandage on his forehead. “Sorry, I’m literally concussed? Mind being more sensitive?”
Aidan pointed his marshmallow stick at Gum. “Shut up.”
“I’m feeling a bit threatened by that weapon in your hand, actually.”
“Good.”
“Iris, I’m starting to think they locked up the wrong guys.”
“You’re not nearly as funny as you think you are,” Aidan said, but he was smiling. It had been his idea to have a make-up bonfire tonight. To have another go at their Poison Ivy Quarantine. Aidan, who’d wanted nothing to do with them a week ago, was now proudly wearing the new bracelet she’d woven him.
“I gotta admit, I’ve always hated yellow,” Aidan had said when she’d tied one of the red ones around his wrist.
They squeezed into the tent—which had felt much bigger when they were younger—and played the same game of war for hours. There were jokes, and fears admitted, and accusations about who had farted and, Oh my God what was that noise did you guys hear that? Once they were thoroughly delirious, they zipped themselves up inside their sleeping bags and Iris hugged Picasso tight. Savi had dropped off the stuffed rabbit this morning before saying goodbye.
When all was quiet but the hum of cicadas, Gum said, “I can’t believe this is our last Poison Ivy Quarantine.”
“Yeah,” Aidan agreed. “It’s weird.”
“Rex is letting us take a bike. I probably could take the tent too,” Iris suggested. “I’ll bring it wherever we go next summer.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.” And Iris meant it, though her heart ached. She was on the verge of an ending. She couldn’t stand endings. That was why she skipped the last episodes of her favorite sitcoms and started them over instead. Finality meant an imperfect cutoff, a frayed edge, ruining the comforting loop.
But there would always be something wrong. She would always have poison ivy or leeches or a raw mosquito bite she wanted to scratch. She would always be scared and messy and missing Glory. But she’d be okay.
Without this place, they wouldn’t be the Disasters anymore. Maybe they could be something else. Something more. Not beholden to the rules of their parents, or the curse they’d inherited.
After all, curses could be broken.
Acknowledgments
Whenever I get my hands on a new book, I read the acknowledgments first. Those last few pages are proof that books don’t just spawn fully formed. They’re the Oscars speeches of publishing.
Now it’s finally my turn.
Thank you to my agent, the brilliant Miriam Cortinovis, for seeing how far this book could go (and letting me keep the Fall Out Boy reference).
Thank you to my editor, Kristin Allard, who made my Disasters as messy and angry as they ought to be. And thanks to the rest of the team at Norton: Hana Anouk Nakamura, Rebecca Munro, Delaney Adams, Lara Starr, Naomi Duttweiler, and my copy editor, Dave Cole.
Thank you to Colin Verdi for illustrating this book’s killer cover.
Thanks to my WTMP mentors, Jenni Howell and Jamie Howard. Team JHow for life!
And to R. L. Stine, for ensuring I grew up a freak; Radical Face, for sad ghost music to write to; and my camp girls, who taught me how to make friendship bracelets. I can never give enough thanks to the librarians. Y’all are the backbone of this country.
Thank you to Gabe Never and Isabel Burke for surviving that hideous draft from 2016. Max Nalow, owner of the biggest brain in Cleveland, for reading every version. Jimmie Carroll for Bad Movie Club and good advice and the most disturbing fan art. To Aunt Jen, for being the best Seattle tour guide and introducing me to oh so many magical stories at an early age. To Grandma Cathy and Grandpa Jim, for my first red Schwinn. My dear cousins, for enduring Vacation Bible School and firework burns on the barn roof. Em, please take this as an apology for slapping you in Barnes & Noble when we were middle school.
Thank you to Aunt Nikki, the family historian, for late-night cabin chats. To my mother, Sara June, for supporting my haunted doll collection and letting me steal your vacation lore. To Brooks Hinton, roomie, bestie, you may be a beta reader but you’re an alpha in my heart. Here’s to endless Brother Summers. Thank you to Olivia Pelletier, aka Kundo, for childhood afternoons skinning our knees in bicycle crashes. Can’t believe how much we’ve changed. Can’t believe how much we haven’t.
To Austin, my beloved, for pulling the overheating laptop out of my wretched hands at two a.m. and reminding me I can always write more tomorrow. Without you, this book would have rotted me from the inside out.
My sister, Liv Leatherman, for believing before you even read the damn thing. I know you’d solve my murder in like three days, tops.
And thank you to Grandma Suey, queen of the Landings, all-time putt-putt champion. You always promised there’s a great big world outside of my hometown. I found it. I found it.
Copyright © 2025 by Peyton June Leatherman
All rights reserved
First Edition
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Jacket design: Hana Anouk Nakamura
Jacket illustration: Colin Verdi
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
ISBN 978-1-324-08293-4
ISBN 978-1-324-08294-1 (epub)
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Peyton June, Bad Creek
