So Mote it Be (20 page)

She stormed off, leaving Kate standing alone in the hallway. Kate looked around and saw that one of her Valentine's Day queen posters was staring back at her. Her smiling face seemed to mock her, laughing stupidly. Looking at it made Kate furious, and she ran up and snatched it from the wall. Ripping it in half, she threw the pieces on the floor. Then she ran to another one hanging farther down the hall and ripped that one off the wall, too.

She found herself running through the school, looking for pictures of herself and tearing them down. Tears of frustration streamed down her cheeks as she sought out every last poster and ripped them to pieces. As she destroyed each one, she felt herself letting go of something inside. It was like each piece of paper she tore off was a piece of the unhappiness that had been building up in her ever since things began to go wrong.

When she found the last poster and destroyed it, she knew what she had to do next. Getting her things from her locker, she ran out the front doors and down the street. She didn't care that she was skipping school. She didn't care that she might get into trouble. She had something more important to do.

She ran until she got to Annie's house, where she held the buzzer down until she heard someone coming. When the door opened and she saw Annie standing inside, she started crying again.

“Oh, Annie,” she said. “I'm so sorry for everything. I'm sorry about asking for your help and then hurting your feelings. I'm sorry about letting you take the blame for me and not standing up for you. I'm sorry about pretending to not know you. I'm sorry about it all. Can you please forgive me?” She was sobbing now, and she knew she must look awful.

“Come inside,” said Annie. “You'll catch cold standing there like that.”

Kate went in, and Annie shut the door.

“I'm sorry for coming over like this,” Kate said. She was afraid that if she stopped talking Annie would tell her to go away. “But after Archer did the Tarot card reading and Cooper yelled at me and—”

“Slow down,” Annie said. “Who's Archer? And what Tarot card reading?”

Kate tried to stop crying. She wiped her eyes on her coat sleeve and then remembered the card in her pocket. She took it out and showed it to Annie.

“See,” she said. “It's you and me and Cooper. It's what's supposed to happen. But I was afraid of letting it happen. I still am, I guess. But I know we have to do a ritual. At least one more, to make everything okay again.”

“I think you should start at the beginning,” Annie said, looking at the card. “This sounds like a good story.”

She and Kate went up to her room and sat down. Kate began by telling Annie how Cooper had chased after her the day before, and how she'd then gone to Crones' Circle and talked to Archer.

“I really can't tell you how sorry I am about everything,” Kate said. “I don't expect you to understand or to forgive me. I know I acted like a real jerk.”

“I can't argue with that,” Annie said. “But I do sort of understand. Believe me, I know what it's like to have people think you're weird.”

“But you're not weird,” Kate said, taking Annie's hand. “You're really great. I can't imagine anyone else who would still talk to me after all of this. Cooper sure won't.”

“Let me talk to her,” Annie said. “But you still haven't told me what your big plan is for this ritual.”

Kate told Annie about the ritual she had thought of the night before. When she was done, she looked at Annie expectantly. “So, what do you think?”

“I think it sounds great,” said Annie. “How did you think of it?”

“I was looking at the card Archer gave me and thinking about my Tarot reading,” Kate said. “And suddenly I had this vision of what we could do. Do you think it will work?”

“Has anything else we've tried?” said Annie. “It can't hurt. And what better night to do it than on the full moon.”

“Then you'll talk to Cooper and try to get her to come?” asked Kate.

Annie promised to try. Then Kate walked back to school, sneaking in just in time to get to her art class. As she worked on the painting she was doing, she thought more about the ritual she had in mind. She hoped that Cooper would agree to participate. But she couldn't worry about that. She and Annie could do it alone if they really had to. Either way, she had a lot of planning to do so she would be ready.

After school she went home and got to work. Going into her mother's sewing room, she opened the big trunk that contained all the material her mother used for her various projects. Kate looked through the different pieces of cloth and selected three that she really liked. One was a dark blue, another forest green, and the third a rich purple. She took the material and laid it out on the table her mother used for cutting out patterns. Then she got out the scissors and went to work.

A couple of hours later she was finished. She looked at her handiwork and was satisfied. The robes weren't perfect, but they would do. She cleaned up the bits of cloth and pieces of thread and folded the robes. Then she went into her room, took out a notebook, and began to write.

When she finally went to bed that night, she was exhausted and happy. Now, if Annie had done her part everything would be okay. She would know in the morning.

Wednesday dawned clear and cold. When Kate looked out her window she saw a pure blue winter sky without a cloud in it. She hoped it would be the same way that evening.

While she was at her locker, Cooper approached her. “All right,” she said. “I'm in. Annie called last night and said the two of you made all nice and I shouldn't be pissed off at you anymore. She also said you had some great idea. Want to let me in on it?”

“Just be at Ryder Beach tonight,” Kate said.

“The beach?” Cooper said. “Are you nuts? It will be freezing.”

“I know,” said Kate. “But be there anyway. Do you know the little cove past the rocks at the far end of the beach?”

“Yeah,” said Cooper. “I go there to work on songs sometimes.”

“Meet us there at eight,” Kate said. “Here's what you need to bring.” She handed Cooper a list.

“Okay,” said Cooper after scanning the list. “It's your party.”

“See you at eight,” Kate said.

The rest of the day crawled by as Kate waited for the time when she could go home and get ready. She also had to get through basketball practice, so it was after six when she got home. She barely said a word during dinner as she wolfed down the lasagna her mother had made.

“What's the rush?” her father asked as she cleared her plate.

“I'm going to Tara's house to study,” Kate said. “We have a big test tomorrow, and I need to go over a lot of stuff.” She felt bad about making up a story, but it was partly true. They
were
having another quiz in chemistry, and she
was
going to see her friends, just not Tara. And she wouldn't be doing any studying.

In her room, she packed a backpack with the things she needed. Going into her closet, she took out the box containing the candles and the Ken doll. She put everything into the backpack, along with the robes she'd made and her notebook. Then she went downstairs, said good-bye to her parents, and left the house.

She took the bus through town to the waterfront area and got off. Going down the long wooden steps that led to Ryder Beach, she walked along the shore to the far end. The wind coming off of the ocean was cold, but Kate felt a growing sense of excitement as she climbed over the rocks that separated the little cove from the rest of the stretch of sand. The cove was protected by the rock walls that surrounded it on all sides, so it was less windy there. Plus, no one would be able to see them unless they crossed the rocks, and it was unlikely that anyone would do that on a February night.

Annie and Cooper hadn't arrived yet, so Kate began preparing the space by herself. She took a piece of driftwood and used it to draw a circle in the sand. She drew it far enough away from the water that the waves wouldn't erase it as they darted up the beach and retreated again. Then she took the small candles from her pack and set them in the sand around the circle. She was putting the last one in when Annie appeared, walking over the rocks.

“It took me longer than I thought to get here,” she said, setting down a bag. “But I brought everything you asked for.”

“Great,” said Kate. “I need more candles.” She opened the bag and took out the candles she'd asked Annie to get. She pushed the glass holders into the sand around the rest of the edge of the circle. Then she opened a box of matches and started lighting them. When she was done, a circle of light filled the cove, casting shadows on the sand and the surrounding rocks.

“Now help me make a smaller circle of stones in the center of the big circle,” Kate told Annie.

They gathered up a number of rocks from around the cove and placed them in the center of the circle. Kate dug a hole in the sand and placed the rocks around it, making a small fire pit. Then she and Annie got some pieces of driftwood and piled them in the ring of rocks. Kate balled up some newspapers she'd brought with her and tucked them beneath the wood. She lit the paper and watched as the flames licked the wood and it started to burn.

“I didn't know you were a Girl Scout,” she heard Cooper say as she climbed over the rocks and entered the cove. She was carrying three balloons tied to strings, and they bounced around as she walked.

“It's one of the bonuses of having a dad who owns a sporting goods store,” Kate answered. “You should see me pitch a tent.”

“Well, this is certainly cozy,” Cooper said, looking around. “At least as cozy as it gets on a winter night on a beach. Where do you want these? It took a lot of doing to keep them from flying away on the way here, I'll have you know. I don't see why you couldn't have asked for plain old balloons.”

“I'll take those,” said Kate.

Cooper handed her the balloons, and Kate wrapped the strings around a stick, which she stuck in the sand. Then she took the robes she'd made out of her backpack and handed them to Cooper and Annie. “I made them big so they'd go over our jackets,” she said as they pulled them on.

“Very witchy,” said Annie, spinning around in the green robe.

“How come I got purple?” Cooper asked.

“It goes with your hair,” Kate teased, flapping the sleeves of her blue robe like some kind of raven. She looked around. Everything was ready. It was time to begin. She motioned for Cooper and Annie to join her inside the circle of candles. They stood at different points in the circle, looking at each other across the fire that was crackling in the center. Above them, the full moon shone brightly in the black sky, its reflection floating on the waves like a giant, pale stone.

“Let's cast the circle,” Annie said. She and Kate had already planned that part of the ritual, and one of the things that Kate had put on Cooper's list was a request that she call one of the directions.

Cooper turned to the east and raised her arms high over her head. “East!” she called out dramatically. “Creature of air. Come join us in our circle, and bring with you the inspiration of the wind.”

As if hearing her call, a breeze moved through the cove, making their robes billow out and chilling their faces with its touch.
This is a good way to start
, Kate thought as she shivered slightly in the cold. It was almost as if the wind had run icy fingers down her back and whispered
I'm here
in her ear.

Then it was Annie's turn. As she invoked the south, standing with her hands over the flames, the firelight flickered over her face. “Creature of fire,” she intoned. “Come join us in our circle, and bring with you the flame of passion.”

Kate breathed in the smell of the smoke and let the fire warm her before she turned to face the sea. She held her hands out as if she were embracing the waves and the moon and the entire ocean. “West!” she said. “Creature of water. Come join us in our circle tonight. Bring with you the depths of mystery.”

Annie completed the circle by crying, “North!” in a strong voice. “Creature of earth. Come join us in our circle. Bring to us the strength of mountains.” Kate felt the sand beneath her feet and looked at the rock walls of the cove, trying to feel the presence of the earth.

Facing each other again, they stood for a moment, listening to the sound of the waves and feeling the coldness of the night and the warmth of the fire. Then they sat on the sand around the fire. Kate opened her backpack, which she'd carried into the circle with her, and took out some things.

“I thought a lot about what kind of ritual we should do,” she said. “This whole thing started because I asked for things I really shouldn't have asked for. So I thought that maybe I could stop what's been going on by giving some of those things back somehow. But I can't do it alone. That's why I asked you each to put something in the fire for me. We'll give them back by putting them into the fire and letting them burn.”

Cooper went first. She held up a scrap of paper. “This is a piece of one of the Valentine's Day queen posters,” she said. “You never should have tried to use magic to gain popularity.” She threw the bit of poster onto the fire and they watched it burn up.

Annie went next. She also held up a piece of paper. “This is your chemistry test,” she said. “You should never have used magic to get this grade.” She held the paper in the flames until it caught fire, then dropped the whole thing onto the burning driftwood.

Then it was Kate's turn. She held up the Ken doll, still wrapped in its red construction paper heart and tied with red ribbon. “This is the big one,” she said, sighing. “I should have known better than to try to make someone fall in love with me.” She took a pocketknife and cut the ribbon, unwinding it from around the doll. She took the ribbon and the paper heart with her name on it and held them in her hand over the flame. “So long,” she said, dropping them into the fire.