Spells & Sleeping Bags #3 (20 page)

Nothing feels right anymore.

“Can I talk to you?” Raf asks, sneaking up behind me on my way out of the mess hall after lunch.

“No.”

“Rachel, please.”

I stomp down the stairs, pretending he isn't behind me.

“I can't stand that you're mad at me,” he says.

“Well, do you blame me?” So much for not confronting him. But hey, he was the one who brought it up.

And then I have a thought. A small happy thought. What if
she
kissed
him
? What if he was on the porch waiting for me, and then she attacked him or something, and he was just about to push her away when I came along and misinterpreted? It happens on TV all the time.

I wave him over to the picnic table and I sit on the bench. “Go ahead,” I say, unable to mask the hope that's crept into my voice. “Talk.”

He follows me like a puppy with its tail between its legs. “I like you, Rachel,” he begins. “A lot.”

I wait for him to say,
And Liana attacked me.
I stare into his eyes and wonder if I can forgive him. I think I can. If she came on to him, I mean. And if he was about to pull away.

“And I don't understand why you're mad at me.”

What? Is he insane? “You kissed Liana,” I say. “Is that a good enough reason?”

He shakes his head. “Why would you think that?”

“Because I saw!”

He looks like he's been slapped. “You couldn't have! It never happened!”

Is this some kind of plot that he and Liana concocted to make me think I'm going crazy? I might be a little unnerved, but I'm not ready for the funny farm just yet. “You're a liar, Raf. An awful liar. You make me sick.”

His face pales. “How could you say something like that?”

“I. Saw. You.” I can barely speak. The lump in my throat is so large that I can't even swallow. I can't see, either, because my eyes are brimming with tears. First he kisses her and then he lies to me?

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You're a complete jerk! I can't believe I was so wrong about you! I don't want to speak to you ever again.” Saying these words breaks my heart in two, but what else can I do?

I turn away and see Miri and Liana walking out of the mess hall together, laughing and deep in conversation.

I look from Raf to Miri and then back to Raf. Who is this Liana, and why is she stealing my life?

At least I have Poodles and Carly. For the next few days, they're the only people I hang out with. Liana and Morgan have formed a tight little twosome, essentially ripping our bunk in half.

And I won't even look at Raf. I keep expecting to see him and Liana together acting all couple-y, but it doesn't happen. He spends all his time with Anderson, Blume, and Colton and with Will's bunk. It's almost as if Liana was never interested in a relationship with him to begin with. All she wanted was to ruin what I had with him.

Miri and I still aren't speaking. I'm too hurt to talk to her, and she hasn't made even a tiny effort to apologize to me. She can go hang out with her new friend, Liana, for all I care. I have another sister at camp. An adorable, cheerful sister.

Prissy is having a blast. At any hour of the day, she and her five starter camp bunkmates can be found laughing, jumping, and cheering, “We're bunk one, and we like to have fun! We're as sweet as a flower, but we don't like to shower!”

Her arms are weighed down with dozens of lanyard bracelets, her princess white dresses and outfits are caked with dirt, her hair looks like a bird's nest, and I'm pretty sure she has yet to crack open her toothpaste, but she's having a ball, so what the heck?

I take lots of pictures to freak out Jennifer with when I get home. They'll be my payback for all the embarrassing packages. This week I got foot deodorant spray. I mean, hello? It's camp; our feet are supposed to smell.

Since I'm zapped, I spend all my free time in the bathroom, practicing my megels. By the end of the week, I am much improved. I mean really improved. I can lift and lower that toilet paper roll with my eyes closed and one hand behind my back. Not that I need both hands to do it, but it's a neat trick. It might be useful the next time I'm in a public bathroom and the person in the next stall reaches under and asks for some paper.

The Saturday after visiting day is a scorcher. Head staff calls for an afternoon sun and swim, which means that the entire camp gets to hang out at the beach in lieu of participating in indoor activities. We can swim, we can go boating, or we can tan.

Poodles, Carly, and I are lying on our towels, trying to relax.
Trying
being the operative word. How can I possibly relax when Liana and Miri are together in the middle of the lake in a paddleboat?

I don't understand why Liana wants to hang out with my sister. It makes no sense.

“Did any of you see the way Liana told Morgan what to wear today?” Carly asks. “She's so bossy.”

“Morgan has been acting like an android,” Poodles says. “It's like she's under Liana's spell. And bunk fifteen is no better. They still follow Liana around, and they're not even in the same bunk anymore.”

They do act kind of . . . bewitched.

Miri.

No.

You think?

My own little sister a traitor? A Benedict Arnold?

But why?

I gaze at the paddleboat. Liana is laughing at something Miri is saying.

Liana is why. I shift uneasily on the sand. What if Miri told Liana she's a witch, and now, eager for the attention, she's doing whatever Liana asks her to? Miri told me she didn't care if anyone found out. Unfortunately, it was Liana, someone who'd just love to get her greedy little hands on all that power.

Poodles adjusts her towel. “If I have to hear about her glamorous life in Switzerland one more time, I might have to shoot her. And why is she so obsessed with her water bottle? She's constantly trying to get us to drink from it.”

“Maybe it's spiked.” Carly laughs. “Maybe she's trying to get you drunk.”

Why
is
Liana so obsessed with that water bottle? Come to think of it, Morgan drank from it. So did all of bunk fifteen, during soccer, way back on the third day. Deb drank from it too. Poodles, Carly, and I haven't.

A spell?

No—impossible. Miri wouldn't do such a thing.

Goose bumps cover my body.

Maybe I'm wrong about Miri. Maybe there's another explanation.

Funny how Liana has so many clothes and yet her cubby is so sparse.

Funny how Alison doesn't smoke yet was caught smoking—by Rose, who just happened to appear in our neck of the woods.

Funny how Raf can't remember that he was kissing Liana. (Well, not so funny.)

My heart hammers harder and harder until I'm afraid I might explode. “I have to go,” I say, yanking on my shirt and shorts and stuffing my feet into my flip-flops.

“Go where?”

“To the bunk. To the bathroom. I, um, don't feel so well. Can you tell Deb I'm leaving?” Without waiting for an answer, I take off. I run all the way up the hill to the bunk and head straight for Liana's bed.

I need to find proof. I rifle through the stuff on her shelf. A brush. A hand mirror. Lipstick. Mascara. And then I spot her jewelry box. I know it's a long shot, but anything is better than thinking my sister is a traitor. I grab Liana's baby powder, sprinkle it on the box, and recite:

“From a caterpillar, a butterfly you became,

Now let this powder absorb your change!”

As soon as the powder hits the box, the box begins to morph, the month-old-milk smell becoming more and more pungent.

The jewelry box becomes a copy of
A
²
.

Liana's a witch.

15
THE TRUTH IS OUT
THERE (IN THE MIDDLE
OF THE LAKE)

I open her spell book to the first page and read
Property of Liana Graff.

How come everyone has a spell book but me? No fair.

I pace the length of the bunk. Liana's a witch.
Liana's a witch!
How could it have taken me so long to realize this? You'd think a witch would be able to spot another witch in a crowd. Where was my witch radar?

Miri is going to be so excited that we have someone else to talk witchcraft to.

Unless Miri already knows.

I continue pacing, looping through fifteen, the cubby room, and the bathroom, then back into the cubby room and then back through fourteen, trying to make sense of this situation. Miri and Liana have been best buddies lately, so it's possible Miri knows. But how would it have come up? Did Liana spot Miri doing a spell, get my sister to spill her secret, and then share her own? Or was it the other way around? Or maybe Miri just blurted it out, as I originally suspected.

If Miri knew, why didn't she tell me?

I mean, this is huge. We haven't met any other witches besides those in our immediate family. We haven't even heard of any other witches. I mean, we knew they existed, but we've never been given specifics on any other than our departed grandmother and our aunt.

I heave the spell book into my knapsack (it peeks out on top but I don't care), throw it onto my back, and run to the beach. My plan is to take out a canoe, find them in the middle of the lake, and confront them.

For someone who hates confrontations, I'm sure having my share of them.

I change my plan when I spot them tying their boat to the dock. I grab a life jacket, hurry down the dock, and jump into the boat before they can get out. “Pedal,” I order.

“What are you doing?” Liana demands.

“Joining you. We're going to have a little talk.”

“About what?” Miri asks.

I pull Liana's spell book from my knapsack and lift it in the air. “This.”

Miri gasps. I'm not sure if she's gasping because she didn't know that Liana was a witch or because she thinks my bringing an
A
²
to the beach violates some sort of witchy code of ethics.

“Careful!” Liana says, and starts pedaling.

Since the paddleboat has only two seats, I'm forced to lie across the container area in the back. When we reach the middle of the lake, they stop pedaling and turn to face me. “So,” says Liana, staring into my eyes.

“You're a witch,” I say matter-of-factly.

She doesn't break our gaze. “Yes.”

I blink a few times and turn to my sister. “Did you know?”

Miri's face breaks into a wide smile. “Isn't it amazing?”

Huh. So she did know. A pang of something unpleasant (neglect? resentment? jealousy?) shoots through me like an arrow. “Why didn't you guys tell me?”

“We were going to,” Miri says. “I swear.”

“When? Next summer?” I kick the side of the boat in annoyance.

“There's more,” Miri says, her eyes gleaming. She squeezes Liana's arm. “Should I tell her, or do you want to?”

More? What more could there be? I'm not sure how much more my brain can take. “Tell me what?”

Liana cocks her head to the side. “You go ahead.”

Miri takes a deep breath and then shrieks, “She's our cousin!”

And that's when my head explodes. Okay, not really, but it feels like it.
“What?”

“Liana”—Miri pauses for effect—“is Aunt Sasha's daughter.”

I look from Miri to Liana and back to Miri. Liana is the daughter of my mother's only sister? The aunt I don't remember? Mom says I saw her only once, when I was a year old. “What are you talking about?”

“Aunt Sasha has a daughter. Liana. Who you must have met when you were a baby.”

“But why wouldn't Mom tell us we had a cousin?”

“Who knows? After the fight, she didn't want us to have anything to do with that side of the family.”

A million different emotions are tugging and pushing inside me. On one hand, yay! A cousin! I've always wanted a cousin my own age. How much fun is that? It's like having a twin but you don't have to share a room or identical DNA. On the other hand, of all the people who could be my cousin, does it have to be Liana, my new nemesis?

Not that I'm totally convinced she really is my cousin.

“Don't you think she looks like us?” Miri asks.

Her hair is darker and straighter than ours. More witchy. But her eyes and chin are kind of the same shape, I guess.

And she does have our genetic predisposition.

I suppose it's possible. . . .

“I look a lot like my mother,” Liana says. “That's why I couldn't let your mother see me on visiting day. She hasn't seen me since the fight, but why take a chance?”

“How do you know about their fight?” I ask her. Their big
secret
fight.

Miri laughs. “Liana was the one who brought it up. And that's how I knew she really was our cousin!” She gives Liana an adoring look. “Not that I thought you weren't.”

“But how did you know we were your cousins?” I ask.

“My mom didn't keep your existence a secret. I knew that I had two cousins, Rachel and Miri Weinstein, but she wouldn't let me contact you.”

It's so unfair that her mom told her about us while my mom kept her a secret. “Do you know what the fight was about?” Finally, the skeleton gets to come out of the closet!

Liana shrugs. “My mom never told me.”

Oh well. It's back to the closet for Ol' Bones.

“Isn't this incredible?” Miri continues excitedly. “After the fight, our mothers never spoke to each other again, and then we randomly meet at camp thirteen and a half years later! It's like a movie.”

Yeah, a movie I've seen twice,
The Parent Trap
and then its remake. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to think. “It's kind of unbelievable,” I say finally. How did we possibly end up at the same camp? “How did you hear about Wood Lake?”

Liana smooths her hair back and smiles at my sister. “I wanted to go away for the summer and I read about it on the Internet. As soon as I saw it, I just knew. I felt that this was the place I needed to be.”

“It's destiny,” my sister says. “It has to be.”

Sounds suspicious to me. Wait a sec. “Mir, how long have you known about this?”

She flushes and stares at her bitten fingers. “A few weeks.”

“What? Since before visiting day? Mom was here, and you didn't tell her that her niece was here too?” I stare at Miri in astonishment.

“I . . . we were afraid Mom would pull me out of camp if she knew. You know how she feels about Aunt Sasha. She doesn't want anything to do with her. I . . . we were afraid that the banishment would extend to Liana, too.”

“But I thought you wanted to leave camp,” I say. “This would have been your ticket out.”

“That was before.” She smiles at our cousin.

That pang of neglect/resentment/jealousy strikes me again. “You could have at least told
me.
”

“I wanted to, but Liana said not to. She said you didn't like her.”

True, I didn't and still don't. She kissed my boyfriend! Why would my cousin try to steal my boyfriend, anyway? But more important, why would my sister keep a secret from me?

Liana takes her arm.

Ah. Of course. Miri finally had someone all to herself, and she didn't want to share her.

“You weren't very nice to her,” Miri persists. “Like when you told your friends not to trust her after she moved into your bunk.”

“How do you know that?” I ask.

“News travels fast in this place,” Liana says.

“See?” Miri continues. “You started rumors about her for no reason. Liana's never been anything but nice to you.”

Is she kidding me? “Liana, you stole my boyfriend!”

She widens her eyes innocently. “Honestly, Rachel, I don't know what you're talking about. I swear, I never kissed Raf.”

“I saw you!”

“You couldn't have. You must have imagined it. New witches sometimes have hallucinations when their powers are just kicking in.”

Miri nods. “It happens to a lot of witches, so don't get upset.”

“Miri told me all about your problem,” Liana says. “So I forgive you for making up rumors about me.”

First of all, I can't believe that Miri told her about my problem. I take a moment to give Miri a good glare. Second, I did not hallucinate the kiss. Did I? “I don't know what to think.”

“I'm sorry, Rachel. Jealousy can often trigger the hallucinations. So I forgive you. Sometimes I think my looks are a curse. Sometimes I wish I looked more like you, Rachel.”

Gee, thanks. Is it possible? Did I imagine the whole thing? Raf has been denying it. . . . And my magic has been a bit fickle.

My newfound cousin is conceited, obnoxious, and manipulative, but—sigh—she's still my cousin.

“You have to believe her,” Miri says. “Give her the benefit of the doubt! She's our cousin!”

I look at Liana. “All right.” I'll give her a chance. I do like her version of events—the version in which Raf doesn't kiss her. Yay! Now I wish I hadn't gotten so angry at him. . . .

“You guys are going to love each other!” my sister gushes. “You just need to spend some quality time together. I bet you played together as babies.”

Rose's whistle echoes over the lake. “All boats in!” she screams.

“Guess this is the end of our little chat,” Liana says. “Miri, pedal backward and I'll turn us around.”

Miri complies happily.

There's that pang again.

Liana might be her cousin, but I'm her sister. Who does this girl think she is, telling my sister what to do?

That's
my
job.

“Oh, say can you see . . .”

Instead of singing, I study all the campers and counselors at flagpole. If Liana is a witch, are other people at camp witches too?

Deb? Tilly? Will?

Raf?

I catch Raf looking at me and quickly look away. I'm so
embarrassed
about everything I said to him. I haven't quite figured out how to apologize for my crazy accusations.

I watch as Rose pulls a Koala boy out of line and yells at him to be quiet. Ha. If anyone else here is a witch, it's probably her.

Or maybe she didn't actually yell at the kid. Maybe I just imagined it. Maybe the kid yelled at her.

I keep looking around the circle. Prissy is singing at the top of her lungs in pig Latin.
“O'erway ethay andlay ofway ethay eefray andway ethay omehay . . .”
Speaking in pig Latin is Prissy's new favorite activity. “Ymay amenay isway Issypray” is how she now introduces herself. After she finishes the song, she sticks her finger into her nose, then wipes it on Tilly's sleeve.

For Tilly's sake, I hope I'm hallucinating.

While Carly stacks (her left arm wobbled during freeze), Deb stands at the head of our table, clapping. “Guess what, girls!” she squeals.

“What?” we say in unison.