Blue Moon (18 page)

people. And it seemed the longer she let Freya have some say in how she behaved the worse things got.

Maybe it was time to end things before they went too far.

“No,” she said to Eulalie. “I’m not really all that happy, but I don’t know if it’s because I’m afraid of

letting go of something or because I’m holding on to that something when I shouldn’t be.”

Eulalie laughed, but not unkindly. “Child, it’s like that old saying goes,” she said. “If you let something go

and it comes back to you, it was yours all along. If it doesn’t, it wasn’t yours to begin with. Hanging on to

something that doesn’t really belong to you is just going to make you unhappy.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Annie said. “But that doesn’t make letting go of it any easier.”

“No one said this was easy,” Eulalie answered. “I think you know that.”

“Yeah,” Annie said. “I guess I just wish I didn’t have to keep being reminded of it.”

“I’ve got some things to do now,” Miss Parsons said. “I’m going to be on my way. But you think about

what we’ve been talking about. Then you let me know what happens. Oh, and by the way, Ben’s mighty

glad you’ve been using his recipes.”

“Tell him the peach cobbler is out of this world,” Annie replied.

Miss Eulalie smiled. “Why don’t you tell him yourself? He’d be glad to hear from you.”

That evening Annie sat in her bedroom. Once again she had lit pink and white candles. She had already

cast the circle. Now she was just sitting inside it, enjoying the feeling of security being in sacred space

always gave her. But still there was a knot of tension in her stomach as she prepared to do what she was

going to do. She’d put it off long enough, she realized. Now it was time to begin.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Freya,” she said. “I want to thank you for hearing me

when I called to you on the blue moon, and for coming to me and lending me your gifts of beauty, daring,

and confidence. I’ve enjoyed them, and I’ve enjoyed the experience you’ve shared with me.”

She paused. This was the hard part. “But now it’s time for me to go ahead on my own,” Annie said

slowly. “I’ve learned a lot from you, and I will try to remember all the things you’ve taught me. I hope

you’ll stay by me and come again if I call you. But right now I ask that you go and leave me to my

journey.”

She opened her eyes. She didn’t feel any different, but she didn’t know what she was supposed to feel.

It wasn’t like Freya had been living inside her or anything. Yet still she thought she should feel
something.

Had the ritual worked? Was Freya’s presence still within her, influencing how she acted?

She sat for a while, being still and silent and trying to decide if she’d accomplished anything. How would

she know? Would she suddenly be afraid to talk to people? Would Brian not want to go out with her

anymore? Would she just fade into the background and be forgotten by the people who had been paying

attention to her?

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She was afraid, she realized. She was afraid of losing everything she’d gained by invoking Freya. She’d

never felt that way about magic before, and it startled her. Now she understood a little bit how Kate must

have felt that first time, when she didn’t know if neutralizing her misguided love spell would mean losing

Scott. And she understood how Cooper might have felt when the Midsummer Eve magic had gone out of

control and she’d been afraid of what it meant.

But they both came out fine,
she reminded herself.
They both risked losing everything and they came

out stronger because of it.

Miss Eulalie was right. If she was meant to keep any of the gifts that Freya had given her, she would. If

not, she would have to find a way to go it alone, and she could do that. She wasn’t positive of that, but

she was pretty sure. And the more she thought about it, the more sure she became. Maybe those things

she’d wanted had been inside of her all along. Maybe she’d just needed help reaching them. Freya had

helped her do that.

“But now it’s up to me,” she said confidently.

She stood up and walked to her mirror. Looking at her reflection, she smiled. “Hello, gorgeous,” she

said. “Welcome back.”

CHAPTER 18

“Are you really you?” Kate asked Annie when she walked in the door of Crones’ Circle the next night.

She and Cooper eyed Annie nervously.

“I don’t know,” Annie said. “Let me check.” She ran her hands all over her body as if searching herself

for clues. Then she held up her hands. “All me,” she said lightly.

Kate sighed. “So you did the ritual? Glad to see you’re yourself again. Back to normal. The way I wish

Tyler and I were.” She sighed again, and her attention turned back to Annie.

“But you still look the same,” Cooper said suspiciously.

“Not
everything
was Freya’s doing,” Annie replied. “Some things are staying, like them or not.”

“No, we like them,” Kate said. “I think.”

“What’s that?” Cooper asked, indicating a package that Annie was carrying.

“Oh, just my project for tonight,” Annie answered. “I didn’t know what I was going to do but then I got

inspired.”

Sophia came up to the three of them, and Annie greeted her warmly. “Welcome back,” she said.

“It’s good to be here,” replied Sophia. “How was everything while we were away?”

“Oh, you know,” Annie said. “The same old, same old.”

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Kate and Cooper suppressed laughter. Sophia, noticing, looked at Annie and said, “Somehow I think

things were a little more exciting than that. But I’m not going to ask any questions. Why don’t you three

come on into the back? We’re about ready to start.”

The girls followed Sophia into the rear of the store, where the other members of their weekly study class

had already gathered. They took their seats and waited to see what was going to happen.

“How are things with Tyler?” Annie asked Kate as they waited. She knew that he was with his own

coven, having their Lammas ritual now that all the members had returned.

Kate sighed. “Still up in the air,” she said. “We’re sort of at a standstill right now. You know, over my

not being out to my parents about all of this. I know I promised you guys I would start dealing with

that—and I will.”

“And T.J.?” Annie asked Cooper.

Cooper smiled. “He’s good,” she said simply. “But the big question is, what about
your
man?”

“I don’t know yet,” Annie said, “I haven’t talked to him since I did the ritual last night. Who knows if

he’ll still think I’m all that now that I’m on my own.”

“You don’t sound too worried about it,” commented Kate.

“You know,” Annie said, “I’m really not. I learned a few things from all of this, one of which is that I am

a
very
cool chick. If Brian doesn’t see that, that’s
his
problem.”

“Are you sure Freya isn’t still in there somewhere?” Cooper asked, giving her friend a nudge with her

elbow.

Sophia walked to the front of the room and stood there with Archer. “Okay, everyone,” she said.

“We’re going to start. As you all know, we missed Lammas because we were away at witch camp.”

There was a chorus of moans from the assembled group as people pretended to be upset about missing

the sabbat. Sophia played along by making a hangdog face. Then she held up her hands.

“But fear not. We’re going to make up for that right now. As some of you surely know, Lammas is a

harvest festival. It’s the time of year when farmers celebrated the bringing in of the first of the summer

crops. Since there are no cornfields nearby, we thought we’d do something a little different and use

tonight to celebrate a different kind of harvest.”

“That’s right,” Archer said, taking over. “Tonight we’re going to celebrate the gifts of our magical work.

For four months now you all have been studying Wicca. I know all of you have had interesting

experiences. That’s why we asked you to come up with some kind of creative way to express what

you’ve been doing. Not only are you celebrating the gifts of the Goddess but you’re celebrating your

own creative gifts. So tonight is a talent show of sorts. You’re going to find out a little bit about what your

fellow students have been up to and you’re going to get a chance to share what you yourself have been

doing. Who wants to go first?”

“I will,” said Cooper when nobody else raised their hands.

She got up and went to the front of the room. “I’ve been doing a lot of writing about my experiences,”

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she said. “Mostly spoken word stuff. But as some of you know, my first love is music.”

She walked over and picked up a guitar case that had been hidden behind a desk. Opening it, she slung

an acoustic guitar around her neck.

“Usually I do the electric thing,” she said as she played a few notes and tuned the guitar. “But I’ve been

feeling very unplugged lately, so I thought I’d give this a try. I’ve learned a lot of things since we started,

and there’s a lot I could have written about. But the most important thing I’ve learned is that you’re really

lucky when you have people you can trust, people who like you even when you’re kind of a pain.”

The class laughed as Cooper continued. “I have two really great friends,” she said. “This is for them.”

She began playing, closing her eyes as she plucked out the notes. Then she opened her mouth and sang.

“Standing in the circle, hand in hand in hand. Our friendship binds us, makes us strong, and helps us

understand.”

Annie watched Cooper sing. No one had ever written a song about her, and it was nice to hear

someone talk about their friendship that way. As Cooper continued Annie shut her eyes and listened to

the chorus.

“As the Goddess turns the wheel and we travel on the path, you walk beside me as my sisters, day by

day as seasons pass.”

Cooper sang two more verses of her song and then ended, the last note dying away before everyone

applauded, Kate and Annie the loudest among them. When Cooper came back to sit by them Annie

gave her a big hug.

“Now, don’t get all touchy-feely on me,” Cooper said, hugging her back. “It’s just a song.”

“It was beautiful,” said Annie.

The three of them sat together, watching as each of their classmates went up and presented their work.

Some, like Cooper, sang songs. Others read poems. One woman had created puppets that looked like

Sophia and Archer, with which she did a performance that had them all laughing and rolling on the floor.

Finally, only Annie and Kate were left.

“I have to go last,” Kate said mysteriously. “So, you’re on.”

Annie stood up and walked to the front of the room, holding the wrapped package in her hands. She

was nervous standing in front of everyone while they looked at her expectantly.
I guess now I know one

of the gifts Freya took with her,
Annie thought as she fought her stage fright and tried to remember

how she had ever done the performance at Big Mouth.

“I’ve never really felt very creative,” she said. “I’ve always admired people who could sing or dance or

play the piano, but I’ve never thought of myself as being an artistic type. I’m better at math and science.”

She took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. “But one of the things that being involved in Wicca

has taught me is that sometimes you just have to dive in and try new things.”

She pulled at the corner of the paper covering her package. “My mother was a painter,” she said.

“Some of you have seen her work. Sophia has one of her paintings hanging behind the desk out in the

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store. Well, my mother meant a lot to me, and so did her painting. It’s one of the things I remember most

clearly about her.”

The paper came off the package, and Annie held her project in her hands. “For the first time in my life I

left an assignment until the night before it was due,” she joked. “I stayed up late last night finishing this.

Well,
starting
and finishing this. I guess I just needed a little inspiration.”

She turned her project around and showed it to the group. It was a small painting. It depicted three

figures standing in a circle, holding up cups in a toast to one another. The figures were done in quick,

bold strokes, one in green, one in pink, and one in blue. The cups, done in thick lines of yellow, stuck out

in sharp contrast to the other colors, as if sunlight were gleaming off them.

“I know it’s not great,” Annie said. “It’s my first try at this. I used my mother’s brushes, and I think

maybe I got the paint on too thick. But it’s the thought that counts, right?”

“Why don’t you tell everyone what it represents,” Archer suggested.

“Oh, right,” Annie said. “Well, the three figures are me and my friends, Cooper and Kate. I made us

these colors because they’re the colors of the costumes Kate made us to wear to this masquerade dance

we all went to together right after we met. It was kind of the first thing we ever did together. And the

cups are from the Three of Cups in the Tarot. That card had a lot to do with the three of us coming here

together. So it’s kind of a mix of things.”

Now that she was showing the painting to everyone, Annie felt a little embarrassed. She saw everything

about it that she didn’t like, and she was convinced that they were seeing those things, too. She wanted

to take the picture and hide it away so that no one would comment on it and say anything that might

make her feel bad.

I knew I should have written a poem,
she thought.

Then she looked out and saw Kate and Cooper looking at her. Kate’s eyes were damp and Cooper

was beaming. They kept looking from the painting to her and back again. Then they started clapping.

Everybody turned and looked at them while they applauded.

“Way to go!” Cooper said.

“Woo-hoo,” said Kate, wiping her eyes.

Annie looked at her friends. Suddenly a warm glow came over her. It was the same feeling she’d had

when she’d done the ritual invoking Freya.
Oh, no,
she thought.
She’s still here.

But something about the feeling was different. At first she couldn’t figure out what it was. Then it hit

her—it was coming from inside her. It wasn’t coming from the outside, like it had during the ritual. It

started deep inside her and spread throughout her body.

It’s me!
she told herself.
It’s coming from me!

It was like a little piece of the magic Freya had loaned to her had remained behind, and now it was

growing. Annie looked at the painting and she smiled. She had made it. She had done it on her own, and

she could definitely do it again. She didn’t need magic to create something beautiful. She didn’t need

magic to
be
beautiful. She already was.

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She leaned the painting against the wall and returned to her friends as Sophia stood up again.

“That brings our talent show to an end,” she said.

“What about Kate?” Cooper asked. “She hasn’t gone yet.”

“My contribution isn’t something you need to see,” Kate said, getting up and walking over to the desk.

She picked up a large box and showed it to them. “It’s something you need to eat.”

Kate opened the box and picked out what looked like a pale yellow brownie. “I made lots of these,”

she said. “The past few weeks have been all about cooking, and I realized that magic feeds me the same

way my mother’s cooking does. So I thought I would make something for all of you. Those of you who

have tried my cooking in the past are probably
very
worried right now. But give these a try. I’ve come a

long way.”

She held out the brownie thing to the nearest person, then began walking around handing out more of

them. “I call these my Lammas lemon squares,” she said. “Since this sabbat is about the harvest and

eating, I thought it would be fun to make something we could all enjoy. Because the thing I’ve learned

about Wicca is that it’s a lot more fun when you have people to share it with.”

She handed Annie and Cooper lemon squares.

“Are you sure they’re safe?” Cooper asked, looking at hers doubtfully.

“Eat,” Kate ordered.

Cooper took a bite as Annie watched. She chewed for a moment and then nodded. Encouraged, Annie

tried hers. She took a big bite. The tart taste of lemon filled her mouth. It was quickly followed by a

buttery sweetness as she crunched into the shortbread crust, and all of it was wrapped in a sugary taste

of powdered sugar.

“Perfect,” she said as soon as she could speak.

“They should be,” Kate said. “I had to make five pans of them before they came out right.”

“She really does cook the way she does spells,” Cooper joked.

As they were eating their second lemon squares Sophia came over to them. “Annie, that picture is

beautiful,” she said. “I know you don’t think it’s perfect, but artists never do.”

“I guess it’s not bad for my first one,” Annie admitted.

“I hope it’s not your last one,” said Sophia. “Your mother would be very proud.”

“Thank you,” said Annie, beaming.

“What are you going to do with it?” Cooper asked when Sophia was gone.