by Isobel Bird
“I need to talk to you about that,” Kate said, interrupting Annie before she could get started. “I don’t think we really need to do another ritual.”
Annie looked at Cooper with a puzzled expression. “What do you mean?” she asked Kate.
Kate looked around to see who might be watching them. She didn’t want too many people to see her talking to Cooper and Annie, especially Annie.
“I just don’t think we need to do any more spells,” she said.
“But what about stopping what’s going on?” Annie asked.
Kate suddenly felt uncomfortable. Her plan had seemed so sensible the night before. But now, facing Annie and Cooper, she wasn’t so sure. Part of her wanted to talk about magic and plan another ritual, but she also wanted to put it all behind her.
“Things don’t feel so bad right now, that’s all,” Kate said. She couldn’t explain how she felt to Annie. Annie had never been part of the in crowd. She wouldn’t understand.
“Maybe not for you,” Cooper said. “But what about for Annie? And what about for everyone else whose lives have been affected by what you did?”
“Could you keep it down?” Kate said. Several people had heard Cooper’s raised voice and turned to look at them.
“Cooper’s right,” said Annie. “Maybe things are calming down for you, but that doesn’t mean everything is fine. We can’t just have your spell turning things upside down forever.”
“It won’t be forever,” Kate said. “Things are already getting back to normal. Not even one guy has said hello to me this morning.”
As if on cue, a boy passing by turned to Kate and smiled. “Hi, Kate,” he said. “You’ve got my vote for queen.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Cooper. “Things are all perfectly normal. What’s gotten into you, Kate? Yesterday you were all into this, and today you’re saying you don’t want to do it anymore.”
“All I said was that I don’t think we need to do another ritual right now,” said Kate.
“When then?” asked Annie. “After the dance, when you don’t need to have Scott around to be your date? After the next chemistry test, when you don’t need to do well? I guess we’ll just wait until it’s convenient for you.”
Kate was shocked that Annie would say those things to her. “You know I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” she said.
“I know that,” said Annie. “But now you don’t seem to be in any big hurry to stop it.” She paused for a moment, waiting for Kate to say something. When she didn’t, Annie continued. “Remember when I said that Cooper was afraid of magic?” she said. “I was wrong. You’re the one who’s afraid, Kate. You’re afraid of things changing.”
“Maybe I am,” Kate said. “But I have a lot more to lose than the two of you do.”
There was a shocked silence as Cooper and Annie stared at Kate. Nothing was going the way Kate had planned it. She thought that maybe Cooper and Annie would understand. But just as Sherrie, Jessica, and Tara would never understand her interest in witchcraft, she knew that Annie and Cooper would never understand her wanting to have a normal life. She wanted to make them see what she was going through, but she didn’t know how.
“Look,” she said finally. “Can we talk about this later? This isn’t the best place for this conversation.”
“Right,” said Cooper, her eyes flashing. “You might be seen talking to someone your friends wouldn’t approve of.”
Kate opened her mouth to argue, but at that moment Tara, Sherrie, and Jessica really did come around the corner. When they saw Kate standing with Annie and Cooper, they stopped.
“I see your biggest fan is back,” Sherrie said, sneering at Annie. “What does she want this time, an autograph?”
Tara and Jessica snickered at Sherrie’s joke. Annie turned bright red and looked at the floor.
“Don’t you three have somewhere else to be?” Cooper said.
“What are you, her keeper?” asked Sherrie.
“Her friend,” said Cooper.
“You’d better watch out, Sher,” said Jessica. “They might push you down some stairs too if you’re not careful.”
Sherrie looked at Kate. “Is there a problem here?” she said.
Kate looked at Annie and Cooper. Annie seemed ready to burst into tears, and Cooper was staring at Kate angrily.
“Yeah, Kate, tell us—is there a problem here?” Cooper said.
Kate knew Cooper was challenging her. So was Sherrie. They both wanted her to choose which side she was on. It wasn’t fair. She wanted to be friends with everyone, but they wouldn’t let her, and she felt trapped in the middle. Her mind raced with thoughts as she tried to come up with some way out of the situation. But she knew there was only one way. She had to pick.
“No,” she said. “There’s no problem.” She looked over at Sherrie. “I was just telling them that I wouldn’t be able to join them for lunch.”
Sherrie tossed her head triumphantly. Annie burst into tears and ran off. Cooper looked at Kate with disgust and then turned away to go after Annie. Kate wanted to run after both of them and try to explain why she’d had to do what she’d done. But her old friends were already sweeping her down the hallway.
“That was a good one,” Tara said. “Did they really ask you to have lunch with them?”
“Wasn’t that Cooper Rivers?” asked Jessica. “That girl is a serious sociopath. Who does she think she is with that pink hair?”
“She and the Crandall chick are a perfect pair,” said Sherrie. “They can form their own freak show.”
Kate didn’t say a word. She felt miserable, turning on Annie and Cooper like that. But she hadn’t had a choice. She’d been friends with Sherrie, Jessica, and Tara way longer. Besides, Kate had much more in common with them than she did with Cooper and Annie. They’d just been thrown together because of a bad situation. She liked them, but when it came down to it, she couldn’t see them being the same tight group that she and her other friends were.
In chemistry she tried to catch Annie’s eye as she walked by her seat, but Annie kept her head in her notebook and didn’t even look up. She didn’t even volunteer when Miss Blackwood asked for someone to help out with an experiment she was doing. Kate had never known Annie to be so silent in chemistry class, and she knew it was because her feelings were hurt.
Despite feeling bad about what she’d done to Annie and Cooper that morning, Kate had to admit that things did appear to be more normal. No one else seemed to be angry with her. Scott walked her to several classes, and at lunch everyone joked around and gossiped like they usually did. By the time the end of the day rolled around, Kate was convinced that the magic had settled down once and for all. More and more she was sure that she’d made the right choice. And although Annie and Cooper might be disappointed, Kate thought she might still be able to repair her friendship with them. They could never be the same kind of friends that Sherrie, Jessica, and Tara were. They just needed time to calm down, she told herself. Then they would see that it was all for the best.
She was walking home, thinking about the work she had to do on her Valentine’s Day dance costume that night, when she heard someone running behind her. She turned and saw Cooper coming toward her. Her breath formed clouds in the frosty air, and her cheeks were red.
“I need to talk to you,” she said.
Kate looked around.
“Don’t worry,” Cooper said. “Your friends aren’t here. I made sure of that before I followed you.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Yes, you were,” Cooper said. “But I’m not here to talk about them.”
“Then what do you want to talk about?” Kate asked.
“Annie was right when she said I was scared of witchcraft,” Cooper said.
“That’s what you had to tell me?” Kate said. “You ran after me for that?”
“No,” said Cooper. “I ran after you to tell you why I was scared. Why I am scared.”
“I don’t think I want to hear this,
” Kate said.
“Why?” said Cooper. “Are you afraid you might hear something you can relate to?”
They stood on the sidewalk, neither speaking. Kate wanted to go home, but she couldn’t. She knew it had taken a lot for Cooper to come after her.
“Remember how I told you that magic runs in my family?” Cooper said.
Kate nodded. “I didn’t know what you meant,” she said. “And you didn’t seem to want to talk about it.”
“My grandmother was a witch,” said Cooper. “She probably wouldn’t have called herself that, but it’s what she was. She came here from Scotland. When I was little, she used to tell me stories about fairies and goblins and stuff like that. My mother hated it when she did that, but I loved it. And sometimes she would play these little games with me. At least I thought they were games for a long time. Now I know they were magical exercises.”
“What kind of exercises?” Kate asked. Cooper had never revealed so much about herself before, and Kate was intrigued.
“She would have me close my eyes and imagine different things,” Cooper said. “Different places. Different people. She would talk to me softly and teach me little rhymes. I always thought it was just make-believe, but she was really trying to teach me to focus my thoughts. When I got older, she taught me some basic spells—protection spells she’d learned from her mother and things like that. She didn’t call them spells. She just said that everyone knew them where she came from.”
“Why did that make you afraid of Wicca?” Kate said.
“Once I asked my mother about all the things my grandmother was teaching me,” Cooper said. “She got really angry, and she yelled at my grandmother. They had a huge fight. My mother told her not to fill my mind with superstitious nonsense. My grandmother cried and was really sad. She thought she’d done something bad. No matter how much I asked her to, she wouldn’t tell me any more stories or teach me any more of her secrets. Worst of all, she and my mother barely spoke for the next couple of years, and my grandmother died before they could patch things up.”
“You didn’t make her die,” Kate said.
“I know,” said Cooper. “But in a way I felt responsible for their fight. And I also blamed witchcraft. I thought that if my grandmother had just been normal, like everyone else’s grandmother, she wouldn’t have had the fight with my mother and maybe she wouldn’t have died with them not talking. I also saw how embarrassed my mother was by her mother, and how she totally rejected everything my grandmother tried to share with her. She wanted a normal mother, and she didn’t get one, so she tried to make her normal by pretending and by fighting. But it didn’t work.”
“I’m not pretending to be something I’m not,” Kate said. “I’m not a witch.”
“Maybe not,” said Cooper. “But you’re never going to find out who or what you are if you keep running from something because you’re afraid it doesn’t make you what everyone else is. You’re like my mother was. You’re afraid of being different.”
“I’m sorry I hurt your feelings this morning,” Kate said. “And I’m sorry about your grandmother. But I still don’t think doing more magic is going to change anything.”
“Annie’s the one you should apologize to,” Cooper said. “She thought you were her friend.”
Kate was silent.
“Stop trying to be like everyone else,” Cooper persisted. “You felt what we did the other night. That was real. There’s something in you that needs to get out, and if you keep bottling it up you’re going to explode.”
Kate sighed. Cooper was giving her a chance to change her mind. But was she ready to do that? Was she ready to not care about what people thought of her? Was she ready to find out if she was really a witch?
She looked at Cooper. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “Tell Annie I’m sorry.”
CHAPTER 14
When Kate got home, she discovered that her mother had spent the day sewing her costume for the dance. It was almost done, and it was hanging on the back of Kate’s door with a note telling her to try it on so that they could make whatever adjustments were necessary when her mother came home from the party she was catering.
Kate took the dress from the hanger and pulled it over her head. It fluttered down around her in soft waves. It fit perfectly, and as Kate stood in front of the mirror looking at herself she really did feel like a princess from a fairy tale. She couldn’t wait until Saturday night, when everyone would see her in her costume and she and Scott would dance together. Maybe she would even be elected Valentine’s Day queen. She had been upset when Scott first showed her the posters, but now it didn’t seem like such a bad idea. In fact, she sort of hoped she would win. It would be the perfect ending to the evening.
She removed the dress and hung it back up. Then she sat down to do some homework. But as she worked, she kept thinking about Annie. Kate really hadn’t meant to hurt Annie’s feelings, but she knew she had. Annie had been a good friend to her. Kate hated to think about her being sad. And Cooper’s words kept running through her head, making her feel even worse. Partly because she felt so badly about Cooper and Annie, and partly because, deep down, she knew she was responsible for all the mayhem of the last several days, she decided to get some help, and she knew exactly where to go.
She grabbed her jacket and headed for the door. It was still early. If she hurried, she could get to Crones’ Circle and back before her mother came home and wondered where she was.
When she reached the shop, it was just starting to get dark. There was a light on inside the store, and the window shone invitingly. Kate pushed open the door and went in. The same gray cat was sitting on the counter, but there was no sign of Sophia. Then someone emerged from the back of the store. It was another woman, thin and elfin looking. She had short, brown hair and dark eyes, and she was dressed in a soft peach-colored sweater and faded jeans.
“Is Sophia here?” Kate asked.
“I’m afraid not,” the woman said, regarding Kate with interest. “It’s her day off. Can I help you with anything? I’m Archer.”
“My friends and I were in here on Saturday,” Kate said. “Sophia helped us pick out some books.”
Archer smiled. “Yes, she told me about you,” she said. “She said that you had lots of questions.”
“I had a few more I was hoping she could help me with,” Kate said.
“Well, maybe I can answer them,” suggested Archer. “Are they about witchcraft or something else?”
“Witchcraft,” Kate replied nervously. “Are you a witch, too?”
“Yes,” said Archer. When Kate didn’t respond, she added, “Why don’t you come in back and we can talk. I was just making some tea.”
Kate was relieved that Archer seemed to understand her nervousness. She didn’t really know what she wanted to ask, but she knew she needed some advice. She followed Archer through the curtain that hung behind the counter and found herself in a small room. A little table sat in the center, covered with a red cloth. Several candles were burning on it, and the room was filled with the scent of vanilla. Two comfortable-looking armchairs, covered in dark green velvet, were arranged on opposite sides of the table.
“This is where we do Tarot readings,” said Archer. “I don’t have any appointments tonight, though, so tonight it’s just the tea table.”
She motioned for Kate to take one of the chairs, then went through a doorway and returned a moment later with a kettle and two mugs. She poured water into the mugs and the smell of mint rose with the steam.
“I hope you like mint,” Archer said. “I find it makes these winter nights a little less frigid.”
Kate took the mug and held it in her hands, breathing in the mint. It did make her feel better. So did being in such a cozy room. She took a sip of the tea and felt it warming her as it went down.
“What is it you have questions about?” Archer asked as she sat down.
“You said you do Tarot readings,” Kate said, hesitating. “Could you maybe do o
ne for me?” She hadn’t even thought about having a Tarot reading before Archer had mentioned it, but suddenly it seemed like a good idea.
Archer reached behind her and took something from a shelf. It was a box wrapped in a scarlet silk scarf. Archer untied the knotted scarf and pulled the top off the box. She turned it upside down and a stack of cards fell into her hand. Kate saw that each one had a different picture on it.
“Have you ever had a Tarot reading before?” Archer asked.
Kate shook her head. “I’ve seen the cards before,” she said. “At least I’ve seen them in the boxes. But I never knew exactly how they were used.”
“We use them as a divination tool,” Archer said.
“You mean to see the future?” said Kate.
“Not exactly,” Archer explained. “They show what the circumstances around a situation are and what might happen if the person asking the question acts in certain ways. Would you like me to show you?”
Kate nodded. Archer took the cards and sifted through them. She picked one out and put it in the center of the table. The card depicted a young person holding a sword.
“That’s the Page of Swords,” Archer said. “It represents a young woman or man like you. So think of that card as representing you.”
She took the remaining cards and shuffled them several times. Then she divided them into three piles on the table. “Now, choose a pile,” she said to Kate.
Kate picked the middle pile, and Archer put it on top of the other two. Then she picked up the first card and turned it over, laying it over the Page of Swords. The picture on the card showed an angel blowing a trumpet.
“Judgment,” Archer said. “It’s a powerful card. It represents a shift in consciousness. Have you been doing a lot of thinking about spiritual things lately?”
Kate nodded. Archer turned over the next card and laid it crosswise over the angel card. This card showed an unhappy-looking man sitting in front of three wooden cups. A hand holding another cup reached out from a cloud over his head, but he didn’t seem to see it.
“What does that mean?” Kate asked. For some reason, the image troubled her.