“You shouldn’t be up here by yourself,” Gemma stated simply as she clutched her worn, wool petticoat closer to her body. She plopped down beside Claire on the cold tiles of the floor of the Astronomy Tower. “Killer on the loose. You might have heard of it?”
Alert was merely a mild term to what Gemma had become since the second killing. If her friends disappeared somewhere without telling her where they were going, it sent her in a mad search to find them. Claire slipped off after dinner, and Gem had practically combed all of their usual haunts before trudging herself up to the tower. “You know I don’t like getting dressed up, so you’re not allowed to kick the bucket. I don’t have anything to wear to your funeral.”
Normally Gemma used humor to lessen the tension of the situation, but once the words came out of her mouth it didn’t seem funny at all. Lye’s passing was still too raw.
Shaking her head to clear it, she glanced briefly at her friend’s book of choice. Human Transfiguration: From Foot, to Flippers, to Flight by Judas Frintzenburg. Gemma had always been a bit fascinated with the subject. One of her goals before she died was to become an animagus. Now, she only hoped that she wouldn’t need to seriously pursue the topic because of possibility of her death looming around the next corner.
As if to amplify the sudden shiver that ran down her spine due to her riveting thoughts, the sound of the foot step reached her ears. Both she and Claire quickly whipped their heads toward the entrance, preparing themselves for either friend or foe….