Blackfin Sky by Kat Ellis

lunch tray down opposite Bo, knowing that nothing would have escaped her friend’s notice, despite the fact that she appeared to be utterly engrossed in her phone.
Bo spoke without looking up. ‘Cam’s aunt found your coffin – you know, from the grave you said hadn’t been disturbed – in the Swivellers’ barn. When they opened it, all they found inside was the Swivellers’ dog, Clarence, dressed in your clothes. Officer Vega thinks they must have dug it up not long after you returned from the dead.’
‘Bo, I wasn’t dead.’
‘You were.’
Sky sighed.
‘Do you think they actually found a body in there when they first opened it?’ Bo asked, appearing more curious than disturbed by the possibility. Sky had no answer.
‘Do you think it was really them? I mean, could the Swivellers have dug up my grave?’
Bo set her phone aside and picked at her egg salad. ‘Of course it was them.’
‘But why ?’
Bo put down her fork, finally looking up at Sky, her almond-shaped eyes narrowed as she considered. ‘Because they’re bobble-headed weirdos who have nothing better to do than sneak around digging up corpses that aren’t there and filling their clothes with dead dog.’ Bo poked her egg salad again and grimaced. ‘How old do you think this shit is?’
Sky leaned over to examine it. ‘Well, it certainly looks deader than I do.’
Cam, can you sneak out with me l8r? Need to talk to M Curio. Wear climbing shoes. X
Sky hit send, then sat back against her headboard and waited. She’d gone up to her room early, claiming she was catching up on the homework she’d missed. That was another rotten thing about her situation – all the homework she’d done over the last three months had vanished along with that separate life she had been living. So now she re-scrawled her schoolwork by torchlight under her bedclothes while she waited until it was safe to sneak out.
But when half an hour had passed without a response from Cam, Sky began to get restless.
Cam??
Another half hour passed, and Sky heard her parents go to bed. Ten minutes later, the faint sound of her mother’s snoring told her at least one of them was sleeping. She felt a stab of guilt, thinking of how her mother had crept in, thinking Sky was asleep, and leaned to kiss her gently on the forehead.
The house creaked, a weary stretch of its bones before it settled for the night. It was time to leave, but Sky could admit that she was frightened by the prospect of confronting crazy old Madame Curio by herself.
Heading over to your place now in case you haven’t got credit to reply or whatever.
Sky laced up her flat-soled boots, put on her long coat and leather gloves – leather being the best option for scaling spike-tipped fences, she’d decided – and checked she had everything she might need in her book-bag. Which was really just the heavy-duty torch she’d been using to do her homework.
Moving stealthily, Sky opened the french windows and climbed over the rail before dropping with a thud into her father’s vegetable patch. She kicked and scuffed the soil a little so her parents would think the mess had been made by cats fighting again, then jogged away from the house as quietly as her boots would allow.
The Vega household lay in darkness when Sky reached the driveway. Keeping to the shadows under the twisted willow, Sky crept toward the house with her eyes fixed on Cam’s upstairs window – and her mind focused on figuring out how she could alert her friend to her presence without waking the police officer in the next bedroom.
‘ Sky .’
She jumped like a cat at Sean’s urgent whisper. Peering through the shadows she could just about make him out through the open window of his jeep.
‘ Get in.’
Embarrassed at being caught skulking around his front garden, Sky tiptoed around to the passenger side and climbed in. They both winced as her door closed with a snick.
‘Sean, what are you doing here?’
He held a finger to his lips and put the car in