Ring of Light (9 page)

Cooper knew that this was a veiled reference to Sasha's involvement in the witch community and its transforming effect on her life. She was happy for her friend, but she wasn't about to get into a conversation about the Craft with her, especially not with T.J. there.

“Sasha, do you know T.J.?” she asked, looking for a diversion.

“I've seen you around,” Sasha said.

“Me, too,” T.J. answered. “Are you here for the show?”

Sasha shook her head. “Just passing through,” she said. “But I'm glad I ran into you, Coop.”

Cooper felt herself instinctively bristle at Sasha's use of the nickname she hated. Sasha knew she didn't like to be called Coop, but she did it to try to get a rise out of her. Cooper had given up telling her not to call her that.

“You heard about Kate, right?” Sasha continued.

Cooper shook her head. “No,” she said. “I haven't talked to her in a while. Why? Has something happened?”

“Not to her,” Sasha answered. “It's her aunt. She has cancer. Kate just found out. She was pretty bummed. I thought she would have told you.”

“I've been kind of busy,” Cooper said, but inside she was wondering the same thing Sasha was. Why hadn't Kate called her if something was wrong?
Probably because she thinks you don't want her to,
she thought guiltily.

“Well, she's taking it hard,” said Sasha. “You should call her if you get a minute.”

Cooper nodded. “Yeah,” she said, “I will. Thanks for telling me.”

“I should go,” said Sasha. “You guys have a great time.”

“Thanks,” Cooper responded as Sasha waved and walked away.

“Wow,” Cooper said, looking at T.J. “Cancer. That's rough. Poor Kate.”

“If you want to go see her, that's okay,” T.J. said. “We can skip the show.”

Cooper shook her head. “No,” she said. “That won't help anything. But I probably should go call her. I'll be right back.”

She left T.J. in line and went to find a pay phone. There was one right down the block, and she was surprised to find it actually working when she picked up the receiver. She rummaged around in her pocket for the right change and dropped the coins into the coin slot. Then she began dialing Kate's number.

Wait a minute,
she thought as she punched in the numbers.
What am I doing?
She hadn't talked to Kate in two weeks. Kate hadn't bothered to call
her
to tell her what had happened. What made her think Kate wanted to hear from her now?

She stood there for a moment, the phone in her hand, thinking about what she should do. Kate was her friend. Normally, Cooper would have been right there supporting her. But maybe Kate had stepped back for a reason. Maybe she didn't want Cooper involved in this.

Cooper hung up the phone and heard the coins clatter into the return slot. She fished inside and took them out, holding them in her palm for a minute as she considered making the call again. A big part of her wanted Kate to know that she was thinking of her. But maybe that connection, like some of the others in her life, needed to be cut. Maybe by leaving the group she'd gone too far away from Kate and the others in the Wiccan community and couldn't go back.

She put the coins in her pocket and walked back to T.J.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Cooper lied. “Fine.”

A minute later the doors opened and people began filing into the club. Cooper showed her license at the door and let the attendant snap a pink plastic bracelet around her wrist indicating that she wasn't yet old enough to buy alcohol. T.J. got one as well, and then they went inside, bypassing the table of overpriced T-shirts and other souvenirs.

Their seats were great, only a couple of rows from the stage and dead center. Cooper was amazed at how good they were.

“How did you get these tickets?” she asked T.J.

“A buddy of mine at a record store had them,” he said. “It pays to have friends sometimes.”

It sure does,
Cooper thought. But what kind of friend was she being, not even calling Kate? She didn't want to think about it.

Fortunately, she didn't have time to dwell on the subject. Not long after they sat down, the lights dimmed and the crowd leapt to its feet as Blink-182 took the stage. Cooper stood with them, enjoying the roar in her ears.

Mark and Tom launched into one of her favorite songs, “All the Small Things,” while Curtis's tattooed arms beat the drums with a vengeance. Cooper sang along with the guys, screaming the words. There was so much cheering, and so many other people singing along as well, that she knew no one would hear her, or mind if they did. Everyone was there to have a great time, and that meant getting into things as much as possible.

For the next hour and a half she was on her feet, dancing and singing. From time to time she watched Tom's hands, trying to watch how he played his guitar and seeing if she could learn anything new. All other thoughts left her mind, and she found herself enveloped by the music. The familiar sense of peace filled her, the feeling that nothing else mattered except singing and playing. It was a magic all its own, and she welcomed it, embraced it. For the first time since that awful night in the woods, she was enjoying music again. The throbbing chords of Blink-182's songs had driven the eerie faerie melodies right out of her head.

When the show ended, after three raucous encores during which the band did a bizarre but fantastic cover of the theme song from
Josie and the Pussycats,
Cooper and T.J. walked out of the theater and on to the street. Cooper was still pumped from the show, and she was thrilled that the concert had managed to knock the lingering taste of the faerie music out of her system.

“That was the best,” she told T.J. as they walked toward the bus stop. “Thanks for asking me to go.”

“Any time,” he said.

They reached the bus stop and stood there, waiting for their respective buses. T.J. lived in a different part of town from Cooper, so they wouldn't be riding home together. When a bus pulled up, Cooper saw that it was hers, not T.J.'s. As the doors opened she turned to him.

“Thanks again,” she said. “I really needed this.”

T.J. smiled without saying anything. Then, before she realized what she was doing, Cooper leaned forward and kissed him. It was a quick kiss, but when she pulled back she was shocked at herself for doing it.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

“Why?” T.J. asked.

Before he could say anything else Cooper turned and got onto the bus. As the doors closed and the bus pulled away, she looked out and saw T.J. watching her, a little smile on his face.

CHAPTER  7

“She's right in here,” the nurse said to Kate, indicating a door on the left.

Kate paused a moment, the bouquet of flowers in her hands shaking as she tried to calm herself.
She's going to be fine,
she told herself. It was the mantra she'd been repeating ever since Thursday morning, when she and her mother had brought Aunt Netty to the hospital's cancer ward to begin a series of tests and treatment. That had only been a little more than thirty-six hours ago, surely not long enough for anything to have really happened yet.

Smiling broadly, Kate stepped into her aunt's room. Her mother was already there, sitting in a chair beside Aunt Netty's bed. Aunt Netty herself seemed to be asleep when Kate entered.

“How is she?” Kate asked her mother.

“The medication they're giving her makes her really tired,” Mrs. Morgan answered. “She's been dozing on and off all day.”

Kate looked at her sleeping aunt's face. Seeing her like that, she looked almost healthy. Except for her missing hair, Kate would never have thought that something had gone terribly wrong inside her. But something had. Now they were trying to stop it. But would it work?

Aunt Netty's eyelids fluttered and opened. For a moment she seemed confused, her eyes glazed over and unfocused. But then she saw Kate standing there and she smiled.

“Hey, sweetie,” she said, sounding a little hoarse. “Have I kept you waiting long?”

“I just got here,” Kate said as her aunt struggled to sit up. Kate helped her, propping her up with some pillows. “How do you feel?”

“Like someone put me through the spin cycle,” her aunt said. “What time is it?”

“Almost six,” Kate told her. “Dinnertime.”

Her aunt held up a hand. “Please,” she said. “I can't even think about eating. Especially not hospital food.”

“The medication makes her nauseated,” Mrs. Morgan explained.

Kate pulled up a chair and sat next to her aunt. “What exactly are they doing?” she asked.

“Injecting me with poison,” Aunt Netty responded. “Three times a day. It's supposed to knock out whatever is left of the cancer. Unfortunately, it seems to be knocking me out along with it.”

“It's just about time for your next dose,” Mrs. Morgan said.

As if on cue, a doctor appeared. She was young, Kate thought, and pretty. Her long blond hair hung past her shoulders, and she carried a file in her hand.

“Hi, Annette,” she said, smiling. “How's it going?”

Aunt Netty laughed. “No one calls me Annette now that Mom is gone,” she said. “Call me Netty. And I feel terrible.”

“That's what I expected to hear,” the doctor said.

“Kate, this is Dr. Pedersen,” Mrs. Morgan said.

“Nice to meet you,” the doctor said. “You must be the Kate I keep hearing about. Netty talks about you all the time, even when she's doing her treatments.”

“Especially when I'm sitting there with a tube in my arm,” said Kate's aunt. “It keeps my mind off of throwing up.”

“Thanks, I think,” said Kate.

There was a rattling as an aide appeared in the doorway of the room. He was a large, friendly looking guy, and when Aunt Netty saw him she smiled broadly.

“Hi, Nick,” she said. “Have you come to take me away from all this?”

“You bet,” Nick said, coming into the room and pulling a gurney behind him. “I even brought the stretch limo.”

Nick put his hands behind Aunt Netty's back and lifted her up. Kate was shocked to see how thin she looked in her nightgown as Nick carried her to the gurney and set her down. She'd lost a lot of weight, but Kate hadn't noticed it until now.

“I'll have her back by curfew,” Nick said to Mrs. Morgan as he wheeled Aunt Netty out of the room.

“You'd better,” joked Kate's mother. “I'll be waiting up.”

When they were gone, Mrs. Morgan turned to the doctor. “How is she doing?” she asked.

The doctor sighed. “It hasn't been that long,” she said. “We still don't know how the new chemotherapy is working.”

“You look like there's something else,” said Mrs. Morgan.

Dr. Pedersen opened the file she was holding. “I've been looking at the bone scan we did,” she said. “There are some spots on a few of the bones. That suggests that the cancer is spreading.”

“Can't you just take it out like you did the lump?” Kate asked anxiously. “Won't that make it go away?”

“Unfortunately, that's not how it works all of the time,” the doctor replied. “Your aunt has a particularly aggressive type of cancer. It's metastasized, which means that it's spread from the site of the original tumor to other parts of her body.”

“What parts?” asked Kate.

“First to her lymph nodes,” the doctor said. “That was to be expected with this type of cancer. But now it appears that it has spread. These spots on her bones are the first indications of that.”

“Does she know?” Mrs. Morgan asked.

Dr. Pedersen shook her head. “I'm going to tell her as soon as this treatment is over. Then we'll have to decide what to do next.”

No one said anything for a moment. Kate looked at her mother, who had a tired, sad expression on her face. Kate wondered what she was feeling, watching her little sister go through something so awful.

“I should get down there,” said the doctor. “I'll be back up when Netty's treatment is over and I've had a chance to talk to her. Why don't the two of you go get something to eat. She'll probably be an hour or so.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Morgan said as the doctor left. Then she turned to Kate. “You heard the doctor,” she said. “Let's go find something to eat.”

Kate stood up and followed her mother out of the room, walking to the elevator. Neither of them said anything as they waited for the doors to open, or on the way down to the first floor and the hospital cafeteria. As they wound their way through the line, looking at the unappetizing offerings, Kate wanted desperately to ask the question that was weighing heavily on her mind, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.

It wasn't until they were seated at one of the little plastic tables, chewing their cardboard-tasting sandwiches, that Kate finally asked, “Is Aunt Netty dying?”