Jinx

by Meg Cabot

  Great. So now my cousin Tory thinks she’s a witch. This was just so…typical—of my luck, anyway.

  Not knowing what else to do, I picked up the hand mirror and looked at my bruise some more. There was no doubt about it. It was a bruise, not a bump. It was butt-ugly and no way was it going to be gone in time for my first day at my new school. My exclusive new PRIVATE school in Manhattan. The one that, every time I thought about it, made me feel like throwing up.

  Oh, well. It’s not like I was any beauty queen to begin with. What had Tory’s friend Shawn called me? Oh, yeah. Red. Was that what I had to look forward to on Monday? People mocking me because I have red hair and I come from a traditionally rural state? Am I destined to be Cousin Jean from Iowa for the rest of my life?

  Well, it’s better than being called Jinx. I guess.

  Tory came back into the room, carrying a cardboard shoe box. She closed the door behind her, then brought the shoe box to the bed. There was something in the delicate way Tory was handling the box that made the bowling ball in my stomach feel like it was morphing into something even bigger. A basketball, maybe.

  “If you open the lid to that box,” I said, “and something comes jumping out at me, I swear I’m going to kill you.”

  “Nothing’s going to jump out at you,” Tory said. “Don’t be an idiot.” She sat down and gently removed the lid from the box. I found myself leaning forward, straining to catch a glimpse of what lay amid the white tissue paper, despite the fact that I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know.

  And then Tory reached into the box and pulled out……a doll.

  My insides churned. I was barely able to make it out of bed and to the side of the toilet before every bit of kung pao chicken and spare ribs that I’d eaten an hour earlier came right back up.

  How long I knelt there, heaving, I don’t know. But when I came out of the bathroom—feeling, I have to admit, a bit better, the basketball-sized jumble of nerves in my stomach had shrunk to the size of an acorn—Tory was still sitting on the side of my bed, the doll in her lap.

  I tried to keep my gaze averted from that doll.

  “Are you okay?” Tory asked, looking genuinely worried.

  I just nodded and crawled back under the covers. The sheets—they were way softer than the ones we have on the beds back home—felt cool and soothing to my skin.

  “That was gross,” Tory commented.

  “I know,” I said, my head sinking into the deep, down-filled pillows. “I’m sorry.”

  “Do you want me to get my mom?” Tory wanted to know.

  “No,” I said, closing my eyes. “I’ll be all right.”

  “Good,” Tory said. “Anyway. About what I was saying…”

  “Tory,” I said.

  “Torrance,” she corrected me.

  “Torrance,” I said, my eyes still closed. “Can we do this later?”

  “I’ll be really quick,” Tory said. “Anyway. See this doll?”

  I nodded, my eyes still closed. It didn’t matter, because I’d gotten a good look at it before my little trip to bow down before the porcelain god. It was one of the most crudely made dolls I had ever seen. Tory had probably sewn it herself. It was stitched together from some flesh-colored material. It had on a white shirt and gray pants, and a red-and-blue-striped tie. There was something familiar about the outfit it was wearing. The strangest thing about the doll was that on top of its head was a weird assortment of what looked like real human hair, some dark brown, and some aggressively black, much like…

  …much like Tory’s.

  There was pride in Tory’s voice when she asked, “Recognize him?”

  I had no choice but to open my eyes.

  “I don’t know…” I said. Then I got it. It was wearing a Chapman uniform. “Is that supposed to be Shawn?” I asked, in a small voice.

  “No, silly,” Tory said, with a laugh. She clearly didn’t notice that anything was wrong. With me, I mean. “It’s Zach. See the dark hair? I got him to let me give him a trim last month. He thought I was crazy! Then I took some of his hair and mixed it with some of mine, and made this doll. As long as I keep our hair together, he can’t fall in love with anybody else. It’s a spell, see? A love spell. I got it off the Internet. Cool, huh?”

  A love spell. Off the Internet.

  For a second I thought I was going to heave again. Fortunately, the wave of nausea passed.

  “I thought you were going out with Shawn,” I said weakly.

  “I am,” Tory said. “But I’ve always had a thing for Zach—God, he’s so hot, don’t you think? Of course, he’s been my neighbor since, like, forever. So for the longest time, he’s barely seemed to know I’m alive. As a girl, anyway. I’ve just been chubby little Tory from next door. But things have been looking up since I discovered magic…and since I made this doll. I think he’s finally starting to come around.”

  “He doesn’t,” I said, thinking about Zach’s comment—I don’t like to cop a buzz before dark—“seem like your type, exactly.” At least, not the type this new and—in her opinion, anyway—improved Tory would like.

  “Yeah,” she admitted. “He’s pretty much more into school than he is into partying. But, you know. That’s just because he needs me to liven him up. All that will change when I make him mine.”

  When I make him mine.

  I said, closing my eyes again, “I don’t think messing around with witchcraft is a good idea, Tory.”

  “Why not?” Tory asked, genuinely surprised. “It’s in our genetic destiny. And it’s working, you know. He hasn’t been out with anybody else since I made it. And he comes over after school practically every day.”

  I thought about what Robert and the others had said. It seemed to me that a far more likely reason Zach came over to the Gardiners’ every day was not the fact that Tory had made this doll, but the fact that Petra was here.

  I didn’t say so out loud, however. I just said, “It seems pretty…I don’t know. Stalkerish.”

  “Well,” Tory sneered. “You would know.”

  I opened my eyes to shoot her a dirty look, but said nothing. What could I say? She was right.

  In more ways than she knew.

  “Whatever,” Tory said, with a shrug. “Watch this.”

  Then Tory removed a needle that had been stuck to the inside of the shoe box, and drove it through the doll Zach’s head.

  “Hey!” I cried, sitting bolt upright in my bed, my heart hammering. “What are you doing?”

  “Relax,” Tory said. “I’m piercing his thoughts. See? Now he can’t help but think of me.”

  I will admit, I half-expected to hear some kind of shrieking from Zach’s room in the house next door. Fortunately, I heard only the burbling of the fountain in the garden below, and a police siren from somewhere in the city.

  “Jeez,” I said. I watched as Tory rotated the needle around in the doll Zach’s cotton-stuffed skull. “I wouldn’t be so sure it’s you he’s thinking of. I’d guess he’s thinking of taking an Excedrin.”

  “Zach hasn’t been out with anybody else since I made this doll.”

  “You said that already,” I pointed out. Then, reluctantly, since I wasn’t sure how Tory would react, I asked, “But has he asked you out?”

  “Well,” Tory said, putting the doll back into the shoe box. “Not exactly. But I told you, he comes over every—”

  “—day after school. Yeah, you said that, too.” I shook my head. “Look, I’m sorry, Tor. But this…this witch thing? It’s not a good idea. Trust me on this. Okay?”

  “It’s not a witch thing,” Tory said. “And it’s not an idea. It’s a fact. I’m a witch. You are, too, probably, being a first daughter.”

  The acorn in my stomach turned into an orange.

  “Tory,” I said. “I mean, Torrance. I’m serious. Can we talk about this some other time? Because I really don’t feel too good.”

  Tory put the lid back onto the box. “If you’re feeling anything, it can only b
e relief. That at last, you’re not alone.” Tory leaned forward and laid a hand over mine. “You’re not a freak, Jinx.”

  If only she knew.

  “Gosh,” I said. “Thanks. That’s…comforting.”

  “I realize it’s a lot to digest all at once,” Tory went on. “And I’ll admit, it was a shock to me, too. The fact is, ever since Grandma first told me that story, the last time we all went down to Florida to see her, I thought I was the one. The one Branwen was talking about, the granddaughter her gift would be passed down to. But there’s no denying that, after what I saw today, you, Jinx, have the gift as well. And you have to admit, it is pretty likely that, after traveling down through so many generations, Branwen’s prediction might have gotten a bit garbled. She must have meant Grandma’s daughters’ daughters. Not Grandma’s daughter’s daughter. Because Grandma has two daughters, and they each have a daughter. So it must be both of us. We’re both witches. There can be room for two witches in one generation, right?”

  Not waiting for me to answer, Tory went on, “So all you have to do now is learn how to use it. The gift Branwen left for us, I mean. I can totally help you with that. You just have to come to one of our coven meetings. With our powers—yours and mine combined—there’s no telling what we’ll be able to do. Rule the school, for one thing. But why stop there? God, Jinx. We could rule the world.”

  I said quickly, “No.”

  Tory looked surprised. “Why not?”

  “Because.” I took another deep breath. She was going to be angry. I knew it. But Tory’s anger was better than her finding out the truth. “I don’t think messing around with magic is such a good thing, you know? I mean, I don’t know much about it, but let’s just say it really is true—our great-great-whatever-grandmother was a witch, and passed her powers on to us. Is it really fair of us to use them to trap guys? I mean, from what I do know about witchcraft—doesn’t it kind of mandate that practitioners use their powers for good instead of evil?”

  “How is getting the guy you’re crushing on to like you back evil, exactly?” Tory rolled her eyes. “Please. Don’t even get me started on that respecting nature, worshiping trees crap—”

  It was all I could do to keep from slapping her.

  “It isn’t crap,” I said, keeping my hands to myself, with an effort. “From what I understand, witchcraft is all about using nature—its energy. If you don’t respect what you’re drawing power from, that power’s going to turn on you. And if you’re using that power for something negative—like that doll of yours, the basic purpose of which is to rob Zach of his free will to like whoever he wants to like—then negativity is all you’re going to get back.”

  Tory didn’t look surprised anymore. Now she looked mad.

  Tory’s pretty lips had all but disappeared, she was pressing them together so tightly. “Fine,” she said. “Fine. I’d hoped you’d be a little more open-minded about all of this. After all, it is your heritage. But if you want to be an unsophisticated hick your whole life, that’s your prerogative. Just remember, Jinx. We’re here, when you change your mind.”

  She stood up, holding the box containing the doll of Zach, and walked away.

  “In fact,” she added, when she got to the door. “We’re everywhere.”

  Like I didn’t already know it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Outta my way.”

  I veered to the left of the path, only to hear someone else behind me bark, “Hey, move it!”

  I hurriedly stepped out of the way, and the runners passed me by. They were all passing me by. I know I’m not the world’s most athletic person, or anything, but this was ridiculous.

  The whole thing was ridiculous, actually. My school system back home in Iowa requires only one year of high school physical education, and I’d done mine freshman year.

  At the Chapman School, it turns out, only the senior class is exempt from P.E. Which is great—obesity is rampant in America, it’s important to stay fit, and all of that.

  But that’s how I now found myself, my first day at my new school, slogging along the dirt path around the Central Park reservoir—because the Chapman School does not have a gym, and so they hold their physical education classes in the world’s most famous park—in a white T-shirt and a pair of royal blue running shorts that were, in my opinion, embarrassingly short.

  As if it’s not bad enough that I’m the world’s slowest runner. I have to look stupid doing it, too.

  So typical of my luck.

  “Move over,” someone panted behind me. So I did. This time, it was a fleet-footed blond girl who jogged past. I watched her bobbing ponytail as it disappeared around a gentle bend in the trail, and wondered what it was about me that had already made me such a social outcast at the Chapman School.

  At first I thought it couldn’t be my clothes that were making me such a pariah, since everyone at Chapman has to wear a uniform.

  Then I realized it could be my jewelry—or lack thereof. Most of the girls in my classes—including the blonde who’d just passed me—had diamond studs in their ears, some of them the size of my pinky nails. I highly doubted they were cubic zirconium.

  And their watches…I had been amazed to learn that Tory’s was a Gucci. Chanelle owned a Rolex. Nobody at Chapman seems to have ever heard of Swatch or Timex.

  And apparently loafers from Nine West are not considered appropriate footwear for a Chapman sophomore. Even though the only difference I could detect between my shoes and Tory’s Ferragamos was about four hundred dollars, there’s something wrong with mine, whereas Tory’s are acceptable.

  Apparently the fact that my shoes are from the wrong place, and I own no expensive jewelry, coupled with the giant bruise on my forehead—always an attractive accessory—and my complete inability to enter or exit a classroom without either tripping over or banging into someone or something were largely to thank for my loser status.

  Even this far from home, it turned out, I could not escape my nickname, since Tory scathingly called me by it when I dropped a can of soda—which promptly exploded—at lunch in the cafeteria my very first day, and everyone, since then, had followed her example by calling me Jinx.

  Jinx. I’m always going to be Jinx.

  You’re not a hundred-dollar bill, Grandma was fond of telling us kids during her frequent visits from her retirement community in the Sunshine State. Not everybody’s going to like you.

  Wasn’t that the understatement of the year. Like it wasn’t hard enough being a preacher’s daughter. I mean, people either expect you to be a priss, or totally slutty, like Lori Singer’s character from the movie Footloose.

  And it was like people could just…tell. About the preacher’s daughter thing. Maybe it really was my country-fresh looks. Maybe it was the violin—I’d joined the school’s orchestra, the only class where I remotely seemed to fit in…although waves had been made when I scored second chair straight off the bat.

  Like it’s my fault I’m a geek who actually enjoys practicing.

  Or maybe it was my unfamiliarity with Kanye West and The Hills and other music and shows we aren’t allowed to listen to or watch in my house, because of my younger siblings.

  Whatever it was—all of the above or something I hadn’t even considered yet—it was like someone had rubber-stamped OUTCAST across my forehead, and most of the student population at Chapman responded accordingly.

  But at least, out here in the wilds of Central Park, there weren’t a whole lot of people to see me mess up, trip over a tree root as I ran, or whatever. Of course, it was just my luck that I’d started school on the first day of the Presidential Fitness test, part of which entailed a timed run. I had really thought the P.E. instructor was joking when he’d pointed at the reservoir—which is more like a lake, in my opinion—and informed us that we were to run around it twice.

  Was he kidding?

  Apparently not, since the rest of the class—with so many people, and all dressed the same, and me so shy, unwilling
to meet anyone’s gaze, I hadn’t even been able to get a good look at any of them to size up the competition, so to speak—took off, pounding along the dirt trail. I’d had to hurry to catch up.

  Still, it wasn’t completely unpleasant. It was weird to be in so much wilderness—with trees so thick all around me—and yet still be able to see skyscrapers towering above the top branches.

  And there were other people on the trail besides the ones from my class. There were tourists, enjoying a stroll in the park with their fanny packs and cameras, and groups of little school kids, visiting with their teachers on their way to the American Museum of Natural History, and even horseback riders, in their jodhpurs and black helmets, trotting right alongside the joggers.

  It was actually all kind of cool.

  Well, except for the running part.

  And then a guy’s voice from behind me said, “Hey.”

  Thinking it was someone else who wanted me to move over—even though I was as far over on the trail as I could get without going off it—I looked back, annoyed…

  And stumbled over a root.

  “Whoa.” The runner slowed and bent over. “You all right, Cousin Jean from Iowa?”

  I hadn’t fallen—at least. I’d stumbled, but I hadn’t fallen flat on my face, or even hurt myself, for once. I straightened and said, hoping he couldn’t see how hard my heart was thumping (and not just from the exercise) while at the same time trying not to smile too broadly—“Hi, Zach.”

  He grinned down at me. Like me, he was dressed in a white T-shirt. But unlike me, his royal blue shorts didn’t look too short at all. They looked just right.

  More than all right. They looked great.

  “I didn’t know you were in this class,” I said. Then I knit my brow. “Why are you in this class? I thought you were a junior.”

  Zach shrugged. “Chapman requires three years of P.E. So here I am.”

  “Oh,” I said intelligently.