Book of Shadows (18 page)

My anger at her was still white-hot. I couldn’t believe her incredibly arrogant notion that she could kick me out of the circle. It only highlighted the harsh fact that in our relationship, she had always been the leader. I had always been the follower. I saw that now, and it made me angry with myself, too.

I dreaded going to school the next day.

“May I help you?” A pleasant-faced older woman, inches shorter than me, stood smiling at me as I looked at candles.

I decided to jump in headfirst. “Um, yes. I need a black candle for Samhain,” I said.

“Certainly.” She nodded and reached for the black candle section. “You’re lucky we still have some left. People have been snapping these up all week.” She held up two different black candles: one a thick pillar about a foot tall, the other a long, slim taper about fourteen inches tall.

“Both of these would be appropriate,” she said. “The pillar lasts longer, but the taper is very elegant, too.”

The pillar was much more expensive.

“Um, I guess I’ll take the . . . pillar,” I said. I had meant to say taper, but it hadn’t come out that way. The woman nodded knowingly.

“I think the pillar wants to go home with you,” she said, as if it was normal for a candle to choose its owner. “Will this be all for you?”

“Yes.” I followed her to the checkout, thinking how un-creepy she was and how much more I liked her than the other clerk.

“If I brought flowers on Samhain, what kind should I bring?” I asked her a little self-consciously.

She smiled as she rang up my purchase. “Whichever ones want you to buy them,” she said cheerfully. Then she looked closely into my eyes, as if searching for something.

“Are you—” she began. “You must be the girl David was telling me about,” she said thoughtfully.

“Who’s David?”

“The other clerk here,” she explained. “He said a young witch comes in here who pretends not to be a witch. It’s you, isn’t it? You’re a friend of Cal’s.”

I was stunned. “Um . . .”

She smiled broadly. “Yep, it’s you, all right. How nice to meet you. My name’s Alyce. If you ever need anything, you just let me know. You’re going to walk a difficult road for a while.”

“How do you know that?” I blurted out.

She looked surprised as she put my candle into a bag. “I just do,” she said. “The way
you
know things.You understand what I’m talking about.”

I didn’t say anything. I took my bag and practically flew from the store, equally fascinated and unnerved.

 

On Monday morning I went defiantly to the benches where the Wicca group gathered and sat down, dropping my backpack at my feet. Beyond looking surprised to see me, Bree ignored me.

“We missed you Saturday night,” Jenna said.

“Bree said you weren’t coming anymore,” Ethan put in.

There. It was right out in the open. I felt Cal’s eyes on me.

“No, I am coming. I want to be a witch,” I said clearly. “I think I’m supposed to be.”

Jenna giggled nervously. Cal smiled, and I smiled back at him, aware of how Bree’s jaw tightened.

“That’s cool,” Ethan said. “Here, push over,” he said to Sharon, nudging her thigh with his knee.

With a put-upon sigh Sharon made room, and Ethan grinned. I watched them, suddenly recognizing a certain awareness between them. It blew my mind: Sharon and Ethan? Could they be interested in each other?

“Uh-oh, an outlander,” Matt muttered jokingly, and Raven smirked.

Tamara walked up.

“Hi,” I said, genuinely pleased to see her.

“Hi,” Tamara said, looking around at the group. “Hey, Morgan, did you do all the functions homework last weekend? I really got stuck on number three.”

I thought back. “Yeah, I did it.You want to go over it?”

“That’d be great,” she said.

I grabbed my backpack. “No problem. See you all later,” I said to the group, and followed Tamara inside to the school library. For the next ten minutes we worked on the problem, me and Tamara, and it was so nice. I felt almost normal.

 

“I’m glad you’re coming to Samhain,” Cal said.

I looked back to see him following me out of calculus class. My locker was outside the lunchroom, and I had to switch books before Wednesday’s chem lab.

I nodded and spun my locker combination. “I’ve been reading up on it. I’m looking forward to it.”

“You think you want to be initiated as a student,” he stated. “You need to think about whether you want to be part of this new coven.” Tiny lines crinkled around his eyes as he smiled and leaned against the locker next to mine. “I know it’s complicated for you at home.”

I let myself look deeply into his eyes. There was a tide there, and it was pulling me strongly.

“Yes, I want to be a student,” I said. “Even if you aren’t a high priest. And yes, I want to be in your new coven. I’ve agonized over this. My parents are terrified of Wicca. They don’t want me to do it, but I can’t let them make this decision for me any longer. I’m feeling more certain every day.”

“Give yourself a chance to think about it,” he advised.

“I hardly think about anything else,” I admitted.

He held my eyes and nodded. “See you in physics.” He pushed off and left me there with a tingly, fluttery feeling in my stomach.

Bree wasn’t my friend anymore, and that gave me the space to ask a simple question I’d been terrified to ask myself. Could Cal love me the way I loved him? Could we be together?

 

“Quick! Quick! Give me the tape!” Mary K. said, waving her hands. She was up on a ladder in our dining room. My mom was due home soon, and we were decorating for her birthday.

“Hang on,” I said, twisting the two streamers together. “Here.”

“Dad’s picking up Thai food?” Mary K. asked, taping the streamers in place.

“Yep. And Aunt Eileen is picking up the ice-cream cake.”

“Yum.”

I stood back.The dining room looked pretty festive.

“What’s all this?” my mom asked, standing in the doorway.

Mary K. and I both screamed.

“What are you doing home?” I cried.“We’re not ready yet!”

Mary K. waved her hands. “Shoo! Go upstairs! Change! We need ten more minutes!”

My mom looked around and laughed. “You two,” she said, then she went to go change.

Mom’s birthday was fun, and nothing went wrong. She opened her presents, exclaiming over the Celtic-knot pin I gave her, the CD from Mary K., the earrings from my dad, and two books from Eileen. She wasn’t recognizable as the person who had screamed at me just a few weeks ago. I smiled as she cut her cake, feeling a sense of doom about what was coming up on Saturday. But tonight we were all happy.

 

On Thursday, I was slumped in a chair in the school library during study hall, reading the Samhain chapter in one of my books. Tamara came up and tipped the book back to see its title.

“Are you still doing this stuff?” she asked softly, friendly interest in her face.

I nodded. “It’s really cool,” I said, the words lame and inadequate. “We’ve been holding circles every week, although I haven’t been able to get to many.”

“What’s it all about?” she asked. “What is Cal trying to do?”

I hesitated. “He’s trying to find people who are interested in creating a new coven,” I said.

Tamara’s brown eyes grew wide. “
Coven
sounds pretty scary.”

“Kind of,” I admitted. “But that’s just because of . . . bad publicity,” I guessed. “It’s not scary at all. His coven will be more like a ...study group.”

Tamara nodded, not seeming to know what to say.

“Want to go to a movie tomorrow night?” I asked suddenly.

Her face broke into a wide smile. “That would be great. Can I ask Janice, too?”

“Yeah. Let’s see what’s playing at the Meadowlark,” I suggested.

“Cool,” said Tamara. “See you later. Happy reading.”

I grinned, feeling lighthearted as she sat down across the room.

A moment later, with no warning, Bree dropped into the chair next to me. I tensed. “Relax,” she said. “I just wanted to tell you that phase one of Bree and Cal is complete. I need a little more time, and then you can come to circles all you want.”

I stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

“He’s given in,” she said happily. “He’s mine. Give me a few more weeks to solidify it, and this will all be behind us.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, sitting up straighter. “This will
never
be behind us. Don’t you get it? You chose a guy over our friendship. I don’t even know why you’re talking to me now.” I looked into her beautiful face, once as familiar as my own.

“I’m talking to you to tell you to quit overreacting.” She stuck out her booted foot and tapped my knee gently. “We both said things we didn’t mean, but we’ll get over it. We always do. All I need is a little more time with Cal.”

I shook my head. I just wanted her to leave.

“You know what I’m talking about,” she said softly, watching my face. “Cal and I finally went to bed. So we’re going out. In a few weeks we’ll be a solid couple. Then you can come back to circles.”

A piercing pain in my chest startled me, and I swallowed and rubbed my shirt between my nearly nonexistent breasts. Twenty lightning-flash images of Cal and Bree intertwined on his bed, lit candles surrounding them, zipped through my brain, leaving it feeling raw and wounded. Oh God.

“How nice for you,” I managed, pleased with the steadiness of my voice. “But I don’t care if you’re screwing everyone in the circle. You can’t tell me what to do. I will be at Samhain.” Anger fueled the words spooling out of my mouth. “You see, Bree, the difference between us is that I really am interested in becoming a witch. Not just pretending to be so I can seduce a good-looking guy.”

“When did you become such a bitch?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe I hung out with you too long.”

She unfolded herself from the chair and moved off with such feminine grace that I felt like a rock sitting there.

It’s true what they say. There’s a thin line between love and hate.

“Where’s Bree?” my mom asked as Mary K. and I got dressed in our costumes. We were going to the school Halloween party since we had finally admitted to being too old to go trick or treating. It was barely seven o’clock, and already our front porch had been besieged by small pirates, devils, princesses, brides, monsters, and yes, witches.

“Yeah, good question,” Mary K. said, drawing a fake Frankenstein scar on her cheek. “I haven’t seen her all week.”

“She’s busy,” I said casually, brushing my hair. “She has a new boyfriend.”

My mom chuckled. “Bree certainly is a social butterfly.” That’s one way of putting it, I thought sarcastically.

Mary K. looked at my outfit critically. “Is that it?”

“I couldn’t decide,” I admitted. I was dressed up as me. Me, all in black, but me nonetheless.

“For heaven’s sake, let’s paint your face at least,” my mom clucked.

They painted my face as a daisy. Since I was wearing black jeans and a black top, I looked like a daisy on a wilted stem. But no matter. Mary K. and I went to school and danced to a really bad local band called The Ruffians. Someone had spiked the punch, but of course the teachers found out about it right away and dumped it in the parking lot. No one from the circle was there, but I saw Tamara and Janice, and I danced with Mary K., with Bakker, and with a couple of guys from my various math and science classes. It was fun. Not thrilling, but fun.

We were home by eleven-fifteen. Mom, Dad, and Mary K. went to bed, and I arranged some pillows in the traditional columnar lump in my bed before I washed my face and sneaked out into the chilly darkness.

 

Bree and I had sneaked out before, to do stupid things like go to the twenty-four-hour QuikStop to get doughnuts or something. It had always seemed so lighthearted, like an acceptable rite of passage.

Tonight the moon shone down brightly like a spotlight, the cold October wind went bone deep, and I felt very alone and confused. As I crept toward the dark driveway, our jack-o’-lantern sputtered out on the front porch. Without its cheerful candlelit grin it seemed somehow sinister and garish. Pagan and ancient and more powerful than you’d think a carved pumpkin could be.

I breathed the night air for a moment, looking around for signs of people stirring. It came to me to try something—to sort of throw my senses out in a net, out into the world. As if they would pick up signals, like a TV antenna would or a satellite dish. I closed my eyes for a minute, listening. I heard—almost felt—dry, crumpled leaves floating to the ground. I heard the squirrels frantically scrambling. I felt the breeze carrying mist off the river. But my senses found no sign of parents or neighbors stirring. All was quiet on my street. For the moment I was safe.