by Apryl Baker
Chapter Twelve
~ Date Night ~
Jeff waited for me on the porch. I could see the frustration on his face, even from in the car. He looked ready to hurt someone. Uh-oh, wonder what happened? He looked up when he heard me shut the car door. I walked up the steps and quirked an eyebrow at him. I’d learned he hated the cold as much as I did, so why was he sitting out here, freezing to death?
“What’s up?” I asked him, taking a seat beside him on Gran’s porch swing.
“She doesn’t want me to go out with you, but yet she refuses to tell me she feels more for me than just friendship. Why?”
“I’d say because she loves the guy she’s with.” Even though he didn’t want to hear it, and I did promise to try to help him out, I had a feeling nothing we did would tear Cassie and her yummy mountain of delicious guy apart.
“But she loves me too.”
He was right about that as well. I saw it when she looked at him, but I don’t think it was enough for her to leave the other guy. Jeff’s big old blue eyes were so full of hurt and anger that it made me want to go upstairs and beat the girl black and blue myself. Jeff was a genuinely nice guy who’d done so much to prove himself to Cassie. He and I had a long talk about it, and I was personally team Jeff. I mean, the boy took a bullet for her and that had to count for something.
“You know what I could really use right now?” I asked to try and distract him.
“Hmm?”
“Ice cream, loads and loads of ice cream.”
He gave me a look that said I was crazy. “Ice cream? It’s freezing already, and you want to eat something to make you colder?”
“Trust me, ice cream helps any situation. It’s a girl thing.” I laughed and then took his hand to drag him to the car. “Don’t try to understand it, just go with it.”
The front door opened and Cassie stuck her head out. “Jeff?”
He turned in her direction. “Yeah?”
“Ethan and I are getting ready to watch a movie. Do you want to join us?”
“Sorry,” I yelled from the driveway. “I got dibs on him for the night.” Before he could say anything else, I shoved him into the passenger side and then hurried to climb in the driver’s door.
“How in the name of the Fates do you fit into this thing?” he grouched as he shifted his legs, trying to find a comfortable position.
“It’s a classic,” I told him defensively. “Don’t complain about Herbie. You’ll hurt his feelings.”
“Herbie?” he choked out between laughs.
“It’s not funny!”
“Oh, yes it is!”
I gave him a good shove on the arm and started the car. Cassie stood on the porch glaring at us. Her golden eyes were spitting fire, but hey, if she didn’t want him, she needed to stop leading him on. Maybe if this didn’t help her realize she might love him more than the other guy, it might at least help Jeff a little.
We ended up going to a movie before we got ice cream. I couldn’t convince him to eat any until we were warm. Such a wuss. He seemed surprised I didn’t want to watch a girly movie. Instead we saw a Bruce Willis flick that we both enjoyed immensely. I didn’t think I’d laughed so hard in a long time. Bruce Willis was one of my favorite actors despite being an old guy.
The ice cream shop was packed when we pulled in. Jeff and I were both shocked. It was literally twenty-one degrees outside, and yet everyone sat eating ice cream and drinking milkshakes like it was the hottest day in August. It had to be a northern thing. They’d gotten so used to the cold, a little more didn’t even register.
“Okay, so what’s the story?” Jeff asked me once we were settled into a back booth.
“Story?”
“I’ve seen your pictures, Melinda. You did not look like this a year ago.”
“People change, Jeff.” I shrugged. “That was a phase I was going through to piss off my dad.”
“Uh huh.” He gave me a knowing look. “You are not Miss America.”
“Miss America?” I laughed, not expecting that analogy.
“You know, the perfect teenage boy’s dream. Blonde, beautiful, and very not you. She will always say and do all the right things, never disagree with you, and be all the things you think she should be.”
“Oh, so you’re saying I’m not beautiful?” I didn’t know if I should be insulted or not.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. You know you’re beautiful. You’re just not the type of person to be a clone.”
“A clone?”
“Look around, Melinda.” He waved at the crowd of kids in the ice cream shop. They were all very different, but had a sameness to them. All the girls acted alike. While they were dressed differently and stylishly, their clothes screamed one word: sameness. The guys behaved similarly as well. They all had that high school good ol’ boy thing going most towns did. There wasn’t a unique one in the bunch. I could definitely see what Jeff was getting at.
“I look pretty much like them too,” I pointed out.
“No, not really.” He shook his head and gave me a shrewd look. “I think you are trying your hardest to be that girl, but that’s not you. You can wear the same kind of clothes, go blonde, and even try to behave like that lot, but you can’t quite manage it. There’s something about you that’s just too original to ever be snuffed out. You’re not a clone, Mel, and you never will be.”
If he could see through me so easily, I wondered if the rest of them could too. I’d been trying so hard to blend in, to be part of the crowd. Now Jeff was telling me it didn’t wash. Well, hell.
“I just don’t understand,” he sighed. “Why would you want to be like them? They’re boring, and you’re anything but.”
“I have to be like them,” I murmured more to myself than anything, but it caused Jeff to look more closely.
“What’s going on, Mel? What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing’s going on,” I denied. The boy, while sweet, could be a major problem. I had to get him off this line of questioning. “So tell me what’s up with you and Red.”
He blinked, not expecting that. I watched his face go from easygoing to depressed in five seconds flat. I kicked myself. He’d been having a great time, and I had to go and ruin it. Granted, I couldn’t afford to have him ask too many questions about my plans, but I should have found something else to distract him with.
“Nothing’s up with us,” he said darkly. “Have you ever hated someone so much you wished them dead?”
“Yes.” My tone was just as dark as his in that moment. I saw all their faces flash in front of my eyes, and my blood burned with the need for vengeance, for death.
“Damn, Mel,” Jeff whispered. “Your eyes went all black there for a minute.”
“What?” My eyes went black? That was a sign of a dark witch, someone infected with the darkness that eats away a soul. No way could my eyes do that.
He nodded. “I’ve seen that before. Our old Coven Master’s eyes did that the night he tried to sacrifice CJ and Kay to fulfill a curse. He was the darkest witch I’ve ever met. What’s going on, Mel? Your eyes tell me one thing, but you don’t act like a dark witch.”
“I’m not,” I denied hotly. I wasn’t. No matter what I planned on doing, I wasn’t a dark witch. No way.
Jeff just stared at me, and then his eyes became focused, hard somehow, and before I could ask what was wrong, he started to speak.
“Tree of wisdom, tree of knowledge,
leaves of truth, leaves of change,
I call upon thee to bend your branches unto me and listen as I speak.
Show me now the truth of which I seek.”
His spell flowed over and through me. I felt the power of it bathe me, and I shuddered. This was not an ordinary spell.
“Now tell me what you’re really doing here, why you changed everything about yourself.”
“I’m here to murder the kids who murdered my sister.”
My hand clamped over my mouth seconds
after I spilled the truth. The little bugger cast a truth spell on me? How dare he?
“There go your eyes again, Mel.” He frowned. “They’re going black.”
My eyes widened. Was I turning into a dark witch? No, I refused to believe it.
“Tell me what happened to your sister.” His voice still held that commanding tone, and the spell he cast compelled me to answer him.
“They forced her to kill herself by using magic against her.”
“So now you think they should pay the same price?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you think there’s another way?”
“No,” I told him. “The regular police won’t believe that they used magic to force her to kill herself. They already ruled it a suicide. The witches’ council won’t make them pay the same price because of their age. This is the only way. I have to do it.”
“How do you know they forced her to do it?”
“Her diary. She wrote it down in her diary.”
Jeff stared at me for a long time, his eyes thoughtful. I hated him just a bit right then. He’d cast a freaking truth spell on me. On me! He was so gonna pay for that.
“Melinda James, I release you from this spell.”
My hand came up to hit him, but I restrained myself. We were in a public place, and hitting him, no matter how good it would make me feel, would only cause me problems later.
“I’m sorry,” he told me, his eyes shining with sincerity. “I knew something was wrong and you weren’t going to tell me. Sometimes you need to tell people stuff, Mel. This is big, and if you do this, it will eat you up inside, and it might make you turn dark.”
“I won’t,” I told him. “I’m not a dark witch, and I will never be a dark witch.”
“I know you think that,” he whispered, paying attention to the kids who’d just come in and taken a seat in the booth two down from us. “Taking a life by way of magic is a surefire way to become a dark witch. I’m sure none of them meant to be dark. They were only doing something for the greater good, but when you use dark magic or even good magic to do harm, there is always a price to be paid. You know that.”
“What would you do if it was your sister they killed? Would you just let it go, let them go merrily on their way laughing at what they’d done? Or would you do everything in your power to make them pay for what they did?”
“I’d hurt anyone who even tried to hurt Megan,” Jeff said automatically. “No one messes with my little sister.”
“Exactly,” I said, nodding. “Only I didn’t know what was going on to stop it. They used magic to kill her. Magic, Jeff. What else can I do?”
“I don’t know,” he told me thoughtfully. “Can I get you to promise not to do anything stupid until I can think about it?”
“Sure,” I agreed. Not that he was going to remember this little conversation anyway. Memory spells were a bit of niche for me.
“Don’t even think about it,” he warned, reading my intentions. “It won’t work on me. Emily used to hit me with those all the time when I was a kid. My mom put an anti-memory charm on me after I forgot my way home. You can throw memory spells at me all day, and they’ll bounce back off.”
Well, dammit. “Who’s Emily?” I asked instead of screaming in frustration. I knew these people were going to get in my way.
“CJ’s sister,” he replied, his eyes going softer, taking on a sad hue. “She was killed in a car crash about three years ago. We found out recently that our old Coven Master was responsible for her death.”
“Why did he kill her?”
“You remember me telling you he almost succeeded in killing CJ last month trying to fulfill a curse?”
I nodded.
“Emily found out that either CJ or her best friend Kay was the thirteenth daughter, the person the curse specifically referenced. She tried to save them. Mr. Martin, Kay’s father, found out and killed Emily.”
“Wait, CJ”s best friend’s father killed her sister and then tried to kill her?” And here I thought my life was screwed up.
“Gets worse,” he said. “CJ’s mom was in on it all.”
“Damn.”
“Pretty much sums it up.” He took a drink of his Mountain Dew. “You know, it’s weird that both you and CJ had your sisters murdered.”
“Things happen all the time, Jeff. It’s not weird. We just live in a messed up world.”
“If we were random, normal humans, then yeah, I’d agree with you, but we’re not. We’re witches. We don’t do random.”
He was right about that. Coincidence in anything in our world was rare.
“Plus who could have guessed Ethan’s place would catch fire the exact same week you came home, and we’d end up staying at your grandmother’s house?”
My frown deepened.
“Maybe you and CJ are supposed to be here at the same time, to, I don’t know, to accomplish something? She’s working on a mystery her sister gave her. I think it’s just too coincidental that you are trying to destroy a force responsible for your sister’s death, and she’s trying to stop some oncoming darkness. Could be related.”
“It wasn’t a force. It was a group of wannabe witches.”
“Wannabes?”
“There isn’t a magical bone in their body. They’re humans playing with witchcraft.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Again, maybe they’re being guided by a force, and it’s the same thing CJ is looking for. Might want to talk to her about that.”
“I don’t know,” I told him, troubled. I could see his point, but I didn’t want anyone else involved in this.
“Think about it,” he said. “She’s great, she won’t judge you, and she might just empathize with you because of Emily. You might find a way to do what you want without killing anyone, Melinda. Taking a life, let alone several, will eat your soul.”
“I will,” I told him, more to get him to shush about it than anything, but he did have some valid points. I would think about it, but they would still pay for what they did with my sister. No one, not even the sweetheart across from me with his warm blue eyes, would deter me from that.
“So aside from mayhem and murder, what else do you do for fun?”
I blinked, the question catching me off guard. I picked up my strawberry milkshake and took a long pull from the straw. “Science. I’ve won the national science fair the last few years.”
“So, a geek like me, huh?” he laughed. “Math geek here.”
I laughed at his smug look. Most witches were math and science geeks. We had to be in order to be good at our craft. Spelling involved a lot of things, including mathematical equations sometimes, and our potions had to be exact. Chemistry was a forte of most witches. To be fair, though, most of us didn’t really do anything with it. We just used it in our craft. I planned to work for NASA. Star Trek Junkie that I am.
Jeff’s phone chimed, and he pulled it out of his pocket. CJ’s face appeared on the screen. He stared at it for a minute, then shoved it back into his pocket. I felt like a proud mama just then.
“So how long have you known her?” I asked. Maybe if I could get him to talk about her more, I could figure out how to best help him.
“For forever,” he said and shrugged. “We moved in next door to her right before we started kindergarten. I met her that first day of school.” A grin crossed his face. “I stole her blocks, and then Kay, her best friend, hauled off and kicked me. The two of them have been inseparable since.”
“This is the best friend whose dad tried to kill her?” I questioned. “If my best friend’s dad wanted me dead, I’m not sure we’d still be friends.”
Jeff’s looked uncomfortable.
“What?” I asked. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Well, Kay kinda sorta went along with the whole kill her plot.”
“What?” These people were so much more twisted than I was.
“You have to understand,” he tried to explain. “Our original Coven, back i
n Salem, betrayed thirteen members of its own to protect themselves. They stood by and watched our families burn to death at the stake. The curse that was cast was a vengeance curse, designed to make the decedents of the betrayers pay for what their ancestors did. It’s ingrained in everything we’re taught. Except for CJ. She never had anything to do with the Coven. For Kay, it was as natural as breathing to want to fulfill that curse.”
“Still, Jeff, this girl was her best friend,” I argued. “That’s supposed to mean something.”
“It did in the end,” he told me. “When CJ’s mom tried to shoot her, Kay threw herself in front of CJ. She took the bullet.”
So the girl had three people throw themselves in front of things meant to kill her. She was either incredibly lucky or one very special person. Luck had no part in witchcraft, so the latter was most likely true. She had to be meant for great things.
“So they’re still pretty tight then?” I asked.
Again, he looked uncomfortable. “Yes and no. CJ went to see her right after Samhain, but she hasn’t spoken to her since.”
“And they’re using you as the go between?” I guessed.
He nodded. “Yeah, it’s getting pretty old. Kay is, well, she’s Kay, and the only person who can put up with her for long is CJ, and I know CJ misses her.”
“Yeah, but there are some serious issues there, Jeff,” I told him. “I don’t know if I could get past that either, no matter how close we were.”
“I’ll kill them both if they don’t,” he said. “I can only put up with Kay’s whining for so long.”
I smiled. He sounded so aggravated. I hated to do it, but I had to find out how to help him, even if I was still a little mad about the truth spell. He was just too nice of a guy to not want to help him.
“So were you always in love with Red, or did you decide you loved her when Mr. Yummy showed up?”
He looked thoughtful, which was a good sign. Meant he was giving it some honest thought.
“I’ve always figured we’d end up together,” he said after a bit. “I’ve liked her for a long time, and the more I got to know her, the more I liked her. I realized I loved her, I guess, when Ethan showed up.”