by Meg Cabot
“I was too worried to sleep,” I said.
“Well, you don’t have to worry anymore,” Uncle Ted said, glancing up at Tory on the stairs. “She’s fine. Thanks to you.”
Hearing this, Tory’s face lost some of its paleness and turned a sort of mottled red color. Then, looking down at me, she spat, “I will get you for this if it’s the last thing I do, Jinx!”
“Tory!” Uncle Ted looked appalled. “Your cousin might possibly have saved your life tonight. The appropriate thing to do would be to thank her.”
“Oh, I’ll thank her, all right,” Tory said, with a sneer. “I have a very special thank-you I’ve been saving up, just for Jinx.”
“Torrance!” Aunt Evelyn’s voice was so hard, it could have cut glass. “Go to your room. We will discuss this in the morning. With your therapist.”
Tory shot me one last baleful glare, then ran up the stairs. When her door had slammed, Petra, who’d been standing quietly by the French doors to the living room, said, “Well. I’m tired. If it is all right with you, I think I will go to bed.”
“Oh, of course, Petra,” Aunt Evelyn said in an entirely different tone. “Thank you so much for everything you did tonight.”
“It was no problem,” Petra said. “I’m just glad that…well. I’m just glad. Good night.”
She vanished through the door that led to her cozy basement apartment. As soon as she was gone, I turned to Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Ted.
It was time. I’d done it with Zach. Now it was their turn.
I didn’t want to. But I didn’t have a choice.
“I know you’re both tired and probably want to go to bed,” I said. “But I just wanted to say that I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the drugs. That I knew Tory had them, I mean. And…and…” I added this last part in a rush, having rehearsed it virtually nonstop in my head since seeing Tory being carried out of the house on that stretcher. “And if you want to send me home, I totally understand.”
Both Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Ted stared down at me as if I’d suggested they lop off my head.
“Send you home?” Uncle Ted echoed. “Why would we do that?”
“Oh, Jean, honey.” Aunt Evelyn, smelling as exotic as always, and looking beautiful in a long, black evening sheath, put an arm around me. “What happened tonight wasn’t your fault. Tory’s been having…difficulties…for some time now. I’m sorry I lashed out at you on the phone. I was just upset. But we don’t blame you. Not at all.”
“But”—how could I explain this without making Tory hate me (not that she didn’t already) forever if she found out about it?—“it’s just that…well, this thing with Zach—”
Aunt Evelyn’s pretty face hardened, and she dropped her arm from me. But not, as I first thought, because she was angry with me.
“Is that what this is all about?” she asked. “We wondered. Tory’s had a crush on him for quite a while. It’s unfortunate he doesn’t return her feelings, but I’ve explained to her…that’s life. It isn’t your fault he chose you and not her.”
I blushed to the roots of my hair.
“Oh, no,” I said, horrified. “Zach and I…we aren’t going out. We’re just friends. I don’t know why Tory thinks it’s anything more than that.”
Aunt Evelyn raised her eyebrows. “Really?” she said. “Well, maybe because he always seems to be—”
But she didn’t get to finish, because Uncle Ted interrupted.
“Wait. I can’t keep up. I thought Tory had moved on from Zach,” Uncle Ted said. “What about this Shawn guy?”
“They’re just friends, I think,” Aunt Evelyn said.
Yeah. Friends with benefits.
“The thing is,” I said, feeling as if the point of my speech had been lost somehow, “I think my being friends with Zach is what made Tory do what she did. So maybe if I just went home—”
“You can’t go back to Hancock yet, Jean,” Aunt Evelyn said, looking troubled. “Ted and I love having you here. And Teddy and Alice adore you. Petra can’t say enough good things about you. Even Marta says you’re like a breath of fresh air through the house. You’ve become such a fixture here, I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
“And,” added Uncle Ted, “frankly, I think your being here has been good for Tory. I know tonight was rough. But imagine how much worse it might have been, if you hadn’t…well, done what you did.”
“You set a good example for her, Jean,” Aunt Evelyn agreed. “You’ve got your feet planted so firmly on the ground. I have to admit, Jean, I was really hoping some of your good influence might rub off on Tory.”
I bit my lower lip. A good example? They were hoping some of my good influence might rub off on Tory? God, no wonder she hated me so much! I hated me, hearing myself described in such a way.
But the truth was, I didn’t want to leave. Even if Aunt Evelyn was totally off the mark with her whole “feet planted so firmly on the ground” comment. She clearly didn’t have any idea where I was headed tomorrow—where I knew that, now that I was staying, I had no choice but to head.
And I wasn’t about to tell her.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll stay.”
After all, what was the worst that could happen? Nothing as bad as what had happened back in Hancock.
Or so I thought. Then.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The chimes over the shop door tinkled as I walked in. The woman behind the counter looked up from the book she was reading and said, “Blessings—”
Then she recognized me, and her face broke into a smile. “Oh, it’s you,” she said kindly. “How are you, sister?”
I approached the counter tentatively. I’d come alone this time, maneuvering the New York City transit system without Zach’s help. It had been scary, taking the train by myself—especially when the subway cars came thundering into the station, roaring so loudly I could hear nothing else.
But I’d done it. And now I stood in the shop on Ninth Street, feeling like I’d been foolish to come. Magic couldn’t help me.
And neither could this woman.
No one could help me.
The woman put down her book. I glanced at the cover. It wasn’t, as I might have expected, a book on witchcraft, but a plain old science-fiction novel.
“What is it, sweetheart?” the woman asked in a sympathetic voice.
I looked around. Except for the cat, who lay on a pile of books in the corner, busily washing herself, there was no one else in the store. I swallowed. I felt ridiculous. And yet…
“Someone I know is casting a spell,” I said, in a rush. After all…what could it hurt? It might even help. “All I know about it is that one of the ingredients is some kind of fungus that grows on headstones, and the, um, person who is casting the spell had to collect the fungus at midnight, under a waxing moon. I was wondering if you had any idea what kind of spell that might be.”
The woman, who looked to be in her thirties, with perfect skin and long, dark hair, knit her brow thoughtfully. I was worried she was getting ready to give a speech about how the practice of witchcraft was really all about empowerment, and that spells were just a witch’s way of focusing her energy on solving a certain problem, when instead, the woman said, “Well, a waxing moon is when the moon is getting fuller, so a spell done in that period would indicate growth of some kind. It’s a good time for new beginnings.”
“So…it could be a good spell, then?” I brightened. “I mean, new beginnings are good, right?”
“Not always,” the saleslady said, looking at me sympathetically. “Is this person angry, by any chance?”
I swallowed again. I have a very special thank-you I’ve been saving up, just for Jinx. “Yes.”
She nodded and said, “That’s a problem, then. But nothing you shouldn’t be able to handle.”
I gaped at her. “Me? Hardly.”
The woman looked amused.
“I can tell just by looking at you that you’re a natural witch…and powerful, too, I
sense,” she said.
I shook my head so hard my curls slapped my cheeks. “No. No, you don’t understand. Any power I have…it’s bad. Everything I touch gets messed up. That’s why they call me Jinx.”
The woman smiled, but at the same time, shook her head. “You’re not jinxed,” she said. “But I do sense…pardon me for saying it, but I do sense that you fear it. Your power.”
I couldn’t help staring. How did she—
Oh. Right. She was a witch.
“I cast a spell once,” I said, my throat suddenly very dry. “My first spell. My only spell, really, except a binding spell. That spell—my first one…it went wrong. Really, really wrong.”
“Ah.” She nodded knowingly. “Now I see. It frightened you, this power you discovered in yourself. That might be what’s causing your so-called bad luck. You’re bringing it on yourself, through your fear.”
What? I was causing my bad luck? Impossible. Why would I do that?
“I understand how it must be for you,” she went on sympathetically. “And you’re right to be cautious. A power as strong as yours…it is a lot of responsibility. You should never use it lightly. And never, as I’m sure you learned, to manipulate the will of another. Because it could go wrong…badly wrong, as your first spell seemed to. But that doesn’t mean you should be frightened of it. Careful, yes. Frightened, no. Because your power—your gift—is a part of you. A good part, not a bad part. By not embracing it, you are denying a part of yourself. It’s like saying you don’t like yourself. And that’s wrong. Surely you can see that’s what’s happening, why you have a sort of…well, as you put it, jinx?”
I found myself nodding. I didn’t trust myself to speak.
“The magic you possess,” the woman went on gently, “is very old, and very strong. I would guess that whoever it is that is casting this spell against you—the one with the mushrooms—she doesn’t have the slightest idea what she’s up against. You will defeat her…but not unless you embrace that which you fear.”
Embrace what I feared? She had to be kidding. I mean, it was easy for her to say. Maybe if she walked around in my shoes for a day—just a day—she’d see there wasn’t anything to embrace…only stuff to run from, screaming. Headless rats and bike messengers reeling out of control and dolls with pins in their heads and…
The woman smiled at me. “You don’t believe me,” she said. “I see that. And I don’t mind. But this binding spell of yours—did it work?”
I thought about Petra…and Willem winning that trip to New York, and her A in her Glyconutrition class.
“Y-yes,” I said hesitantly. “Actually, it seems to have worked. So far.”
“You weren’t frightened of your power then, were you?”
“No,” I said. “I was angry.”
“See? Anger can be healthy. When the time comes—and it will come—remember that. And what I said. Embrace your powers—love yourself the way Nature made you, and you will prevail. Always.”
I wanted to believe her. But how could I embrace something that for my whole life had just been screwing things up for me? It was impossible.
Still, to be polite, I smiled.
“Um,” I said, “the thing is, I’m not so worried about myself. I’m more concerned about…about a friend of mine.” I didn’t want to admit out loud that I was afraid Tory was going to try to do something to hurt Zach. Not on purpose, of course—but I couldn’t get the picture of that doll with the pin in its head out of my mind’s eye. I knew—only too well—how a spell could backfire and end up hurting the one person the caster never meant to harm. “I’m worried this…person…who’s doing the spell with the mushrooms might try to do something to him. I was hoping you might have something here that could protect him…without his being aware of it, if possible.”
“He’s not a believer?” the woman asked, with a wry smile.
“Um…not exactly.”
The woman’s blue eyes crinkled. “I see,” she said. “Well, as a matter of fact…”
And then the woman—who really was, I realized by now, an honest-to-goodness, practicing witch, although she wasn’t wearing a stitch of black, just a Wonder Bread T-shirt and blue jeans—slipped off her stool and came out from behind the counter.
“A little bit of powdered lemon rind,” she said, going to the far wall of the shop. It was lined with shelves, upon which were the kind of glass jars with the metal lids you lifted up to get at what was inside, like in an old-fashioned candy store. “That’s for cleansing.” She lifted a lid and spooned out a little bit of yellow powder into a small cloth bag. “Then some ginger, for energy.” She added a few slivers of a root to the bag. “Clove, for protection, of course—” A few sticks went into the bag. “And let’s not forget a little rosemary.” She turned and winked at me. “For love, as in ‘love thine enemy,’ impossible as that might seem at the moment. There.” She gave the top of the sack a twist, then tied it closed with a bit of red ribbon. “With luck, any spell that is cast against him,” she said, handing the bag over to me, “will bounce harmlessly off, and end up right back at the caster, as long as he carries this.”
With luck. I swallowed and took the bag. “Kind of like that thing you say when you’re a kid? ‘I’m rubber, you’re glue, anything you say bounces off me and sticks to you’?”
The woman laughed, her blue eyes crinkling at the corners again. “Exactly like that.”
I opened my backpack, and put the fragrant-smelling sachet inside it, wondering how on earth I was going to sneak it onto Zach’s person without his knowing it…especially considering the fact that he didn’t seem to be speaking to me at the moment. “Well, thanks a lot.”
I failed, however, to see how a bunch of dried herbs was going to protect anyone from Tory’s wrath.
On the other hand, I had once failed to see how a different spell was going to work, and look where it had landed me.
“How much do I owe you?”
The witch laughed. “Nothing! It’s my pleasure to help you. I’m Lisa, by the way.”
“Jean,” I said, reaching out to shake the witch’s hand. “But you’re going to go out of business if you keep giving me things. You already gave me this.” I touched the pentacle at my neck. “Remember?”
Lisa smiled. “I remember. Wear it in good health. Come back in a few days, and let me know how everything turns out.”
I shouldered my backpack again and said, “Well, all right. Thank you.”
“And don’t forget,” Lisa said, as I was leaving. “Embrace your gift, Jean. Never fear it. It’s a part of who you are, after all.”
I nodded and left the store after thanking her again. There was a part of me, of course, that thought the whole thing was silly. Embrace my gift? Surely she couldn’t mean the gift Great-Great-And-So-On-Grandmother Branwen had left me…or us, if you wanted to include Tory. The gift about which Tory had said, so mockingly, that she wasn’t afraid to use, though I might be. The gift of magic. How could that woman have even known about Branwen, let alone her gift?
Did I have some kind of power—really and truly—as the lady seemed to think?
And was I really causing my own bad luck, by fearing and not embracing it?
There was only one way to find out.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I may have chronically bad luck—possibly brought on by my own insecurities—but I’m not dumb. I wasn’t about to tell Tory’s parents where she’d gotten the drugs. I was having a hard enough time fitting in at my school—considering the headless rat showing up on my locker door, and the rumors about my stalker back home—without also being labeled a narc.
So how Shawn ended up getting expelled, it had nothing to do with me.
When, during third period on Monday morning, word went around that school administrators were searching people’s lockers, I didn’t think anything of it.
But when, during fourth period (U.S. History, which I happened to have with both Tory and Shawn, though Tory wasn’t in
school on Monday, due to having to go to follow-up appointments with both her therapist and her doctor), the principal actually showed up at the classroom door and said to Mrs. Tyler, “May I see Shawn Kettering, please?” even I knew it wasn’t a good sign.
Then, at lunch, word got out he was gone. Booted. Done.
“Well, I for one am glad.” Chanelle was philosophical about the whole thing as she licked the filling from her Devil Dog. “Like, Robert will have a much harder time getting hold of it now. You know. Weed. Sure, he could go down to Washington Square to buy it. But half those dealers are undercover cops. He won’t risk it. If he gets busted, his parents’ll kill him. Now maybe he’ll even be straight for the formal. That’ll be a change.”
“I’m gonna have to be straight for the formal?” Robert actually looked a little queasy. “Dude, that’s just not right.”
“Oh, get over yourself,” Chanelle said. “It’ll be good for you to see how the rest of us live.”
“How the rest of you live sucks,” Robert said.
I was laughing over his chagrin when a familiar, gravelly voice very close to my ear went, “Laugh it up, NARC.”
I nearly choked on my chicken finger. I turned in my seat to see Gretchen and Lindsey scowling down at me.
“Are you happy now, narc?” Gretchen wanted to know. “Like it wasn’t good enough to steal Zach out from under Torrance’s nose? You had to get her boyfriend Shawn booted from school, too?”
I stared up at the two girls. “I didn’t steal Zach from anyone,” I said, when I finally found my voice. “He and I aren’t going out. And I don’t know what you’re talking about, with Shawn. It wasn’t me who told.”
“Oh, right,” Lindsey said, making a face. “Preacher’s daughter? Of course it was you.”
“It wasn’t,” I said.
“Whatever you say, narc,” Gretchen said. And then she and Lindsey took their trays and headed toward the far side of the cafeteria.