White is for Magic (22 page)

Love, Mom

P.S. I've decided to stay an extra night so we can have more time together.

She's written the time in the corner of the note--7:45. And now it's after nine. I rush down to the hotel gym to find her, but she isn't there. Nor is she in the locker room. I check the parking lot; her car is gone. I figure she's out coffee-and-croissant shopping, but since time is really of the essence here, I can't afford to wait. I scribble her a message, 244

apologizing for my quick exit but stressing that I really need to get back to campus.

When I get back to the dorm, PJ and Amber are sitting on Amber's bunk.

"How was it with your mom?" Amber asks.

"Good," I say, confident in the reply.

"The phone's been ringing off the hook," she says. "Jacob wants to see you."

"Why?"

"I don't know," Amber says, "but he seems pretty urgent."

"Pant, pant," PJ says.

"What are
you
doing here?" I ask him.

"Freaking out." He plunges his hand into the box of Fruity Pebbles nestled in his lap and stuffs a pile into his mouth.

"Completely freaking," Amber agrees. She lays a hand on his shoulder and he looks away. "He's totally wigged."

"Why?" I take a seat on the edge of my bed. "What's going on?"

"There's some seriously smelly stew brewing up on this campus," Amber says.

"English, please."

"I went to that seance last night," PJ says.

"Great." I fold my arms in front.

PJ rolls his eyes toward the ceiling. "I'm not gonna get into the who, where, and why again with you, Stacey-bee. And how I was really doing this for you. We should be so far beyond that at this point."

245

"Well, then, what 15 the point?"

"The point is that they're freaking nuts. A freaking can of cashews ready to explode."

"What happened?"

"Can you believe it?" He crosses his legs at the knee. "They only wanted me there to use me."

"Imagine that," I say.

"I mean, I feel so robbed."

"There, there," Amber says, rubbing his forearm.

"So I went," PJ begins. "We met in the basement of the Hangman, a little after eleven last night.

Which was fine-- late enough for the required spirit-calling ambiance, but early enough so I'd be back before the
Real World
marathon."

"How did you get in?"

"Tobias," he says. "He works there."

"So--"

"So, they only wanted me there to help get Veronica's spirit all wiggy and bothered so she'd do some crazy shit."

"Like what?"

"You know . . . blink the lights, shatter the windows, take over someone's body and make them chant verse in Latin?"

'And did those things happen?"

He shakes his head and crams his mouth with another fistful of cereal. The whole picture of it, of him, so freaked out, chain-eating Fruity Pebbles like some cereal junkie, tells me there's much more to it.

"They wanted me," he says between chews, "since they knew Veronica and I didn't exactly see nose to nose on things."

246

"Or eye to eye," Amber corrects.

"They want to reenact that night," PJ continues.

"What night?"

"You know," he says, his eyes all big from fright.
"That
night. In O'Brian? In the French classroom? You, walking down the hallway, calling out her name? Veronica's body sprawled out on the floor, prune juice running from her hair. . ."

"Blood," Amber whispers.

"The night Donovan killed her?" I say.

"Is there another night that matches that description?" he asks, frustration high in his voice.

"Why are they doing this?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "Because they're messed. Because they're obsessed with what happened last year. They see Veronica as some sort of twisted idol, victimized by her peers. They seem to think she's looking for revenge, and they want to help her get it."

"Cory and Tobias have actually been in contact with Donovan," Amber says.

"What?" I feel my chest constrict; my lower lip trembles. I bite at the quivering--a meager effort to try and retain some sort of control.

"They've been brainstorming ways to get him out of that juvenile detention center," Amber says.

"So he can participate in the reenactment." PJ swallows hard and makes a face, like he's just ingested a spoonful of sludge.

"But they haven't been successful," I say. "I mean, you can't just break someone out of one of those places. Right?"

247

"I don't know," PJ says, chewing on the tips of his fingers now. "They had all sorts of letters from him. They wouldn't show me everything, not until I proved my loyalty."

'And how are you supposed to prove that?" I ask.

"By getting
you
there."

"Me?"

He nods. "Tonight--for the reenactment."

248

thirty-wK.

We end up talking to PJ about the whole seance incident for another half-hour or so. Just until Drea comes in.

"I need to talk to you." She sits down next to me on the bed. Her normally perfectly pouted lips are now more grimaced, and her aura's a dreary olive color. She stares down at her shoes--melon-peach sneakers to match her scarf-- and then peeks at me.

"Okay," I say, even though I know I don't have much time.

249

We move outside, onto the front steps where it's quiet, and sit there a few moments, just looking out at the lawn.

"I'm sorry about what happened yesterday morning," she says finally. "You know, when you came in and I was with Chad."

"What
did
happen?"

She shakes her head. "Nothing, really."

"Then why do you need to apologize?"

"Because maybe I wanted something to happen."

"Oh."

She turns to face me. "I'm still in love with him, Stacey."

I clamp my eyes shut and look away, feeling her words burn straight through my heart.

"I'm sorry. I can't help it. I've tried. I've told myself that he's yours, that you're the one who's with him now. That I'm over him. But I'm not. I still love him. I think I always will."

I bite my lip and stare down at my hands, at the chapped skin on my palms. I feel a nest of tears hatch behind my eyes. I knew it would only be a matter of time before Drea and the had this conversation. It's just... I wasn't prepared for it to happen now, in the middle of everything, when I need more than ever for the constants in my life to stay just that--constant.

"Say something," she says, looking away.

"What do you want me to say?"

A part of me wants to ask her if Chad feels the same, but I can't, because I'm not sure I could handle the answer right now.

"Have you told Chad how you feel?" I ask.

250

She shakes her head. "But I think he knows. I think he's always known."

I nod because I know she's right. Because she
does
love Chad. Maybe even more than I do. "So what now?"

"I don't know. I don't know what he's thinking. Sometimes I feel like he feels the same, you know? But then he sees you and I feel like everything changes."

I sink back against the step and take a breath, thinking how this whole scene feels so familiar, how it was just last year that I put her through this exact same thing. And then I think how oddly okay I feel I am going to be about it, how maybe I've sensed it all along--that Chad and I aren't meant to be together, not the way the two of them are.

"Just tell me you don't hate me," she says.

I manage to look at her neck, at the brownish mole on her chin, and then up into her eyes. She's crying, too. There's a trickle of tears running down her cheek. "I don't hate you," I say, wiping away the last of my tears.

And I don't hate her. I can't. Even though a part of me wants to.

251

After my talk with Drea, I nurse my wounds as best I can with a few breaths of lavender, a couple dabs of patchouli oil behind my ears and at the front of my neck, and several droplets of rose water at my temples. I tell myself that it's good that Drea is being honest with me--because maybe it's forcing me to be honest with myself. This coupled with the aromatherapy recipe I've got swimming on my skin, helps center me a bit--helps me refocus on the essential.

252

I take a deep breath and return one of Jacob's many phone calls. He tells me he's reconsidered joining forces to do a spell and wants me to come to his room ASAP. I don't stop to ask him how he plans to sneak me inside. Instead I just hang up, grab the noose, the letters, and the cassette player, and cram a bunch of random spell supplies--a handful of vanilla beans, sandwich bags full of dried basil and dill, and a tiny bottle of sesame oil--into my backpack.

When I get to his dorm, he's standing outside, waiting for me. "I've got everything ready in my room," he says. "But you need to wait here until I can get rid of the RD."

I wait several minutes until Jacob signals to me that it's safe to go in. He ushers me through the lobby, up a couple flights of stairs, and down a narrow hallway. We end up passing by a few boys along the way--freshmen mostly, I think--who give me weird looks, ogling me extra hard like they've never seen a girl before.

Jacob's room is the last door on the left. He unlocks it and we go in. A typical boys' room.

Posters of classic rock bands line the walls--the Beatles, the Doors, the Police. There are also dirty clothes piled high on the floor, neutral shades of coffee and blue, and the requisite
Sports
Illustrated
swimsuit calendar thumbtacked to a bulletin board.

"My roommate's a slob," he says, closing the door behind us. "This is mostly all his stuff."

"Where is he?" I ask, looking toward the spell supplies gathered on what is obviously Jacob's bed.

"Out. He's always out. I barely ever even see the guy."

I nod, taking note of how nervous Jacob seems. He fumbles with his keys, dropping them once before managing them inside his pocket.

253

"Was it hard to get rid of the RD?" I ask, hoping to lighten the tension.

Without so much as glancing in my direction, he kicks a clear pathway through the piles of clothes on the floor leading to his bed. "Not really. I just told him one of the toilets on the first floor overflowed."

"Did it?"

He nods. "Thanks to a pair of briefs."

"Lovely," I say.

"Tell
him
that. I just hope he has a pair of galoshes handy." Jacob folds his arms and looks over the spell supplies sprawled out over a cranberry-colored square of fabric that takes up half the bed.

"I brought some spell stuff of my own," I say, unzipping the main compartment of my backpack.

"I have everything," he says.

"How about the noose and the letters and stuff?" I ask, ready to take them out.

He shakes his head. "We have all we need right here."

"What are we going to do?" I ask, taking a seat on the corner of his bed.

"I'd like to do a spell that focuses on your past. I'm thinking between your dreams about Maura and the letter, referring to some past promise, that that's where the answer lies."

"That's funny," I say. "My mother said the same thing."

He nods, almost like he knows.

"So where do we start?" I ask

Jacob turns to light a stick of incense. That's when I notice the chunky white candle sitting atop his night table. It looks exactly like mine.

254

"You have a white candle," I say.

"You seem surprised."

"It's just that it looks like one my grandmother gave me, that's all."

He swallows hard and turns around to face me.

'Are you going to light it?" I ask.

"No."

"Why?" I swallow.

He's looking at me so purposefully, almost through me, like he can see right into my soul.

"Because it's not time."

"Then when will be the time?"

"Don't you know?" he asks. "White is for magic."

I feel my lower lip quiver, just hearing my grandmother's words come from his mouth. "How do you know that?"

"What do you mean? Don't you think so, too?"

"I don't know. I mean, that's what my grandmother said it meant."

He nods like he understands completely, like this comes as no shock at all.

"But that doesn't make sense," I continue. "I mean, why does there have to be some special time to light a white candle? We do magic all the time. At least J do."

Jacob smiles like he can sense my frustration. "Magic is more than just spells, don't you think?

We'd be cheating ourselves so much if that's all we thought it was."

"No," I say. "I know there's more to it." And I do know there's more--like the magical elements of spirit and nature; like the moon, casting its light when you need to see. But I still don't understand what my grandmother was trying to tell me.

255

"True magic," he says, "encompasses so much. It encompasses all the wonderful little things that can't be explained--pure things."

I nod, still waiting for the light to click on in my head.

"So, maybe your grandmother wanted you to wait until you experienced some specific aspect of magic before you lit that candle."

"Like what?"

Jacob turns away to arrange a group of rocks on his desk. "Like love," he says, his voice low, like there's a part of him that doesn't want me to hear.

Love?
I gulp at the thought.

"At least that's what my uncle told me to wait for before lighting mine."

"Your uncle?"

He nods, gathering the rocks up into a clump. "My uncle and I were close growing up. He was really the only one I could relate to."

'And he's the one who gave you the candle?"

Jacob turns around to face me again. He nods, his cheeks a little flushed. "On my twelfth birthday."

f feel myself start to tremble. My heart quickens inside my chest, stirring up my nerves, rattling through my bones. I fold my arms and broaden my stance in an effort to regain composure. I wonder if he can sense it--how shaken I am, how much alike we both are.