So Mote it Be (13 page)

“You'd better have a really good reason for doing that,” Cooper Rivers said as Annie and Kate barged into the practice room. At the sound of the door opening, she'd stopped singing and looked up to see what was going on. “I just about had the last lyric I need to finish my song.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Annie said.

“Yeah, sorry,” added Kate. “We didn't mean to ruin your concentration.”

“Great. Now that we've established that, can I get back to what I was doing?” Cooper started to put her headphones back on, but Annie began talking.

“Wait,” she said. “We need to talk to you.”

Cooper rolled her eyes. “No, I don't want to buy candy bars to support the chorus,” she said. “No, I don't want to sign a petition trying to get the cafeteria to go vegetarian. No, I don't want to get involved in student government. 'Bye now.”

Annie looked at Kate. “What do you know about witchcraft?” Annie said to Cooper.

Cooper stared at them for a moment without saying anything. Kate held her breath, waiting to hear the response. Cooper looked at Annie, then at Kate.

“Nothing,” she said sharply. “Now, get out of here and let me get back to my song.”

“I think you do,” Annie said, staying put. Kate was surprised at how forceful Annie was being. She would have been happy to leave Cooper alone. But Annie was pushing.

“Look,” said Cooper. “I don't know who you are. I don't
care
who you are. And I don't know anything about what you're talking about.”

“You mean about
witchcraft
?” Annie said, emphasizing the last word.

“Right,” said Cooper, meeting her gaze. “About that.”

“Well, we do,” Annie said. “We've been doing some spells.”

Kate was horrified that Annie had given out so much information to Cooper, who clearly didn't want anything to do with them. Cooper didn't respond to Annie. She just sat there, her green eyes revealing nothing and her guitar resting against her hip.

“We've been doing some spells,” Annie said again. “And they haven't been coming out quite right.”

“Sorry to hear it,” Cooper said sarcastically. “Maybe you should ask Santa and the Easter Bunny to help you out.”

Kate could tell that the conversation was going nowhere. “Come on, Annie,” she said. “We made a mistake. Let's go.”

“We didn't make a mistake,” Annie said. “She's just scared.”

“What are you talking about?” Cooper said angrily.

“You're scared,” Annie said. “I don't know why, but I know you are.”

“You're out of your mind,” Cooper said. “I don't even have the first clue what you're talking about. There's no such thing as witchcraft.”

“That's where you're wrong,” Annie said. “It's real. And I think you know that. But if you don't want to help us, that's up to you.”

Kate waited for Cooper to respond. A long minute went by during which no one spoke. Finally, Cooper said, “Sorry. Like I said, I can't help you. Try someone else.”

“We don't need someone else,” Annie replied. “We need you. If you want to help us, come to this address Friday night at nine. We'll be there.” She ripped out a piece of notebook paper, wrote her address on it, and held it out to Cooper. Cooper didn't take it.

“You've got the wrong girl,” she said. “Keep it.”

Annie folded the paper in half and tossed it into the open guitar case at Cooper's feet. “Just in case you know who the right person is,” she said.

Kate and Annie left the practice room, closing the door behind them. Annie was angry, and as they walked down the hallway she kept stopping and turning, as if she wanted to go back.

“I know she's the one,” she said, balling her hands into fists. “I just know it.”

“What do you mean, she's the one?” Kate asked, not understanding. “The one what?”

“The one we need,” Annie said. “There's a reason her name is in that book, and there's a reason we need her help. Just like there was a reason for you to come ask me for help.”

“A lot of good that did,” Kate said, leaning against the wall.

“Yeah, well, it was nice meeting you, too,” Annie said.

“Calm down,” Kate said, surprised at the vehemence of Annie's response. “You know what I meant. Why are you so mad about this?”

“Because that girl knows something,” Annie said, still fuming. “She knows something, and she's holding out on us. We've got to get her to come to my house Friday night.”

“Right now we need to get to class,” Kate said. “I just hope the whole thing with Terri has settled down a little.”

The thing with Terri had not settled down. Within half an hour of her accident, the story had spread all over school, and the most popular version of the story had Annie shoving Terri and then running away. It hadn't helped any that Kate and Annie had both skipped chemistry. That just made Annie look even more guilty, and for the rest of the day Kate felt like she was harboring a known criminal.

“I can't believe you're standing up for that freak,” Sherrie said at lunch. “You were there. You saw what happened. There's no way Terri just fell. Someone pushed her.”

“I'm telling you, Annie wouldn't do that,” Kate said, wishing she'd decided to sit with Scott like he'd asked.

Kate didn't know what else to say. She knew that Annie had had nothing to do with Terri's accident. But if she tried to defend her, Sherrie and the others would think that Kate had done it. Everything was falling apart, and there didn't seem to be any way to fix it.

“Face it, Kate,” Jessica said. “You have a stalker.”

“What?” asked Kate.

“A stalker,” Jessica repeated. “This Annie wants to be just like you, so she's trying to impress you by taking out your competition. I saw a movie like this on Lifetime once. Valerie Bertinelli played this single mom who was really nice to a babysitter she hired to watch her kids. The next thing she knew, all of her neighbors were turning up dead.”

Kate knew that nothing she could say would make her friends think anything but what they already believed. She took a bite of her sandwich and chewed it furiously. She knew that Annie was eating lunch by herself, but she didn't dare even turn around to look for her. Getting back into her friends' good graces had been hard enough; she couldn't risk alienating them again.

As she ate, her thoughts turned toward Cooper Rivers. Annie was so sure that Cooper was the missing piece of the puzzle. But how could she know that? She hadn't even known who Cooper was until Kate had told her. Yet she had seemed almost frantic to get Cooper to talk to them earlier. Did Cooper really know something, or was Annie just grasping at straws? Kate didn't have a clue. She'd been through so many ups and downs in the past week that she didn't know what to think anymore.

“Earth to Kate,” she heard someone say, and immediately all thoughts of Cooper went out of her head.

“What?” she said.

Sherrie, Jessica, and Tara were staring at her.

“I asked what you and lover boy are going to the dance as,” Sherrie said.

“Oh,” said Kate. “I don't really know yet. We haven't had a lot of time to discuss it.” Of course, she had already talked about it with Scott, but she didn't want anyone to know what her idea was yet. She wanted it to be a surprise.

“Well, you'd better decide pretty soon,” Sherrie said. “The dance is next Saturday night. We're going shopping for costumes this weekend. You're coming, right?”

“Sure,” Kate said, trying to sound cheerful. “Definitely.”

“Good,” said Sherrie. “It will be the old gang together again.”

“We were starting to worry about you a little,” Jessica said to Kate. “You know, what with all of your new interests. We thought maybe you didn't want to hang with us anymore.”

“What new interests?” Kate said.

“You know, Scott and studying for chemistry tests,” Tara said. “We haven't seen much of you lately.”

“I'm sorry,” Kate said. “I've just been really busy. But I promise this weekend we'll all hang out.”

“We can start Friday night,” Jessica said. “We're having a sleepover at my house.”

“Oh, I can't do Friday night,” Kate said. “I have other plans. Sorry.”

Her three friends looked at her. “Other plans?” Sherrie said. “They wouldn't happen to involve a big stupid football player, would they?”

“No,” Kate said, anxious to keep the peace. “They wouldn't. I have to do something with my parents. But I'm definitely on for Saturday shopping.”

“You're the only person I know who spends Friday night with her parents,” Tara said. “I'm not sure if I think that's cool or insane.”

Again, Kate felt terrible about lying to her friends. But there was no way she could tell them that she was staying over at Annie's house. They'd think she was a traitor for sure, and until she and Annie were able to fix whatever had gone wrong with the spells, she wasn't taking any more chances. Besides, she really did miss her friends. The past few days had been hard on her.

Maintaining an appearance of innocence meant not speaking to Annie for the rest of the day. Several times Kate passed her in the hallway going to and from classes, but Annie just walked by as if she'd never seen Kate before. Kate did the same, and every time she did it made her feel worse. She had to listen to people talking about Annie everywhere she went, and she couldn't say a word in Annie's defense.

The only good thing to come out of the accident involving Terri was that, for a change, people weren't talking about Kate. And although she hated having to watch her friend suffer, Kate was also a little bit relieved at not being the one everyone was staring at and spreading rumors about. People seemed to think that Annie was just trying to impress Kate by harming Terri. Several students even came up to tell her how sorry they were.

“It must be awful,” said a girl Kate recognized as one of the girls who had confronted her a few days before about flirting with the boys.

“You have no idea,” said Kate. As she watched the girl walk away, she thought,
It's like they're all bewitched. One day they're accusing me of trying to steal their boyfriends, and the next they've forgotten all about it and are ready to blame Annie for Terri's accident.

Everything seemed to be spinning out of control. It was almost as if the magic had taken on a life of its own once she'd set it loose. She knew that Annie hadn't pushed Terri, but
something
had happened on that stairway. Terri hadn't just fallen. Something had made her fall. And if it hadn't been Annie, then what had it been? Was it possible that the magic was doing everything? And how could they stop it before things really started getting dangerous? Were she and Annie carrying around some kind of negative energy that could cause people to have accidents? If magic really was energy, maybe it could act like static electricity, zapping people when they got too close. The idea that she might be able to cause even more damage made Kate feel sick to her stomach. For the first time since she'd opened the spell book, she felt afraid. She'd thought that magic was harmless, but now she wasn't sure.

Kate had basketball practice that afternoon, and all anyone could talk about was Terri Fletcher and Annie Crandall. Kate was so tired of hearing the story of Terri's fall repeated over and over that when she was done practicing she dressed and left, telling Tara and Jessica that she had to help her mother get ready for a catering event.

As soon as she was home she went to her room, picked up the phone, and dialed Annie's number.

“How are you doing?” she asked when Annie answered.

“Okay,” Annie said. “But I got called down to Principal Browning's office this afternoon. She wanted to know what happened.”

“What did you tell her?” Kate asked.

“The truth,” said Annie. “I told her that I was walking up the stairs, Terri was walking down the stairs, and that I didn't know how she managed to fall.”

“Did she believe you?” Kate said.

“I don't think so,” Annie replied. “But there was nothing she could do about it. She kept telling me how much pain Terri was in, as if that would make me confess.”

“I'm really sorry, Annie,” Kate said. “I know you wouldn't be involved in any of this if I hadn't dragged you into it.”

“It's okay,” Annie said. “It really is. After all, you and I became friends because of it.”

“I'm afraid I don't feel much like a friend,” Kate answered. “Ignoring you in the halls. Pretending I don't really know you.”

“Just think of it as a game,” Annie said. “Eventually it will all be over, and then things can be normal.”

“Will it ever be over?” Kate said. “We've tried everything we can think of, and nothing seems to be working.”

“We have to keep trying,” Annie said.

“You mean another ritual?” said Kate. “I'm not sure that's a good idea.”

“Not if we do it ourselves,” Annie said. “But maybe if we get Cooper to do it with us . . .”

“Forget it,” Kate said. “She's not going to help. You heard her this morning. She said she doesn't know anything about witchcraft. I bet she checked out the book, decided it was a lot of nonsense, and returned it without trying anything in it. If I were her, I'd pretend not to know anything, too.”

“I still think she knows more than she's letting on,” Annie said stubbornly.

“Well, I have homework to do,” Kate said, trying to change the subject. “I should go.”

“Right,” said Annie. “Well, I guess we won't be able to talk much for the next few days, at least at school. We're still on for Friday night, right?”

“I wouldn't miss it,” Kate said.