That Witch!

by Zoe Lynne

  Brynn giggled, the sound eliciting a broad smile from Cassidy.

  The three women in Cassidy’s life were all standing in the sunshine, laughing despite the catastrophe that had just befallen her precious car. It made her realize nothing was really as bad as it seemed, and for a moment, she even contemplated letting Laura get away with what she’d done. That only lasted a moment, though.

  When Nana offered to make a batch of her famous white chocolate chip macadamia cookies, Cassidy explained they were going to Brynn’s house for a minute but they’d be back to have a sleepover and eat plenty of cookies in a little while.

  Her mother walked over, closing the distance between them. The soft smile on her beautiful features made her big blue eyes crinkle at the edges, but it didn’t diminish the dynamics of her mesmerizing stare. She lowered her forehead to rest against Cassidy’s. “I won’t pressure you about it, but you do know that you can talk to me about anything, right?”

  “Yes, Mom. I know. And I will. Promise.”

  “Okay, sweetheart.” Miranda pressed her heart-shaped lips to Cassidy’s warm cheek in a loving kiss before pulling away and smiling over the roof of the car at Brynn, who still stood on the passenger side.

  “Brynn, I’ll see you later?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Brynn said.

  “Call me Miranda, please. Ma’am is for my mother.”

  Nana snorted. “Not even. You can call me Nana.”

  For the second time since discovering Laura’s handiwork, Brynn smiled. “Okay, Miranda and Nana it is. Um… I guess we’ll be back in a little bit?” It was more of a question than a statement, one directed at Cassidy, who took that as her cue to close the car door behind her before walking around and boldly lacing her fingers through Brynn’s.

  “Yep. Be back in no time.”

  Nana smiled proudly. “Before cookies, let’s get back to those petunias, shall we? They won’t prune themselves, you know.” With that, Cassidy’s still-smiling grandmother took Miranda’s arm and led her back to the garden bed and the step where she’d dropped the basket of tools moments before.

  Cassidy turned to Brynn. Even though Pinky was still smiling, a hint of worry remained in the depths of her gorgeous gaze. If she could take a stick to Laura’s head for every time she had caused that needless worry to blossom, the chick would be a puddle of pulp by now. That was what irritated Cassidy the most—no matter how many times she tried to convince Brynn that Laura couldn’t do anything, she still let worry over the possibilities cloud her happiness.

  Chapter 21

  THE moment Brynn’s house came into view, she let go of Cassidy’s fingers and stuffed both hands down into the tight pockets of the white jeans Cassidy had dressed her in before leaving for the mall. She didn’t want her parents to see the two of them holding hands, didn’t want them getting any ideas—whether their ideas were wrong or right. No way could Brynn begin to explain the relationship that had formed between her and Cassidy.

  She felt Cassidy staring at her, though Brynn didn’t want to acknowledge it. It was bad enough she couldn’t come clean to her folks, but to have to apologize for being so afraid of everything made the situation ten times worse.

  “We’ll just tell them I’m spending the night at your house so we can work on our project,” Brynn offered, keeping her nervous stare trained on the house.

  “Whatever you wanna do.”

  “It’s not exactly what I want to do. It’s kinda what I need to do right now.”

  “I understand.”

  And she was so glad Cassidy did understand. Most people would’ve been completely put off by having to sneak around and hide, but apparently, Cassidy wasn’t most people—a point she continued to make every time they hung out.

  Brynn opened the front door, and she immediately heard her little sister’s video game screeching through the otherwise peaceful house. They rounded the corner into the living room and were met with the seizure-inducing strobing lights bouncing off the TV.

  “Where’s Mom and Dad?” Brynn asked.

  Her little sister didn’t even raise her head. “Mom’s outside, and I think Daddy is in his office.”

  “Thanks.”

  Nothing. Not so much as a “You’re welcome.” Brynn rolled her eyes, then nodded, signaling for Cassidy to follow her to the backyard. They found Brynn’s mom kneeling down in the grass on the edge of one of her many flowerbeds, tilling or digging or whatever people did when they worked in the garden.

  “Mom?” Brynn said softly.

  Her mother raised her head, strawberry blonde curls framing her rosy, freckled face. The sweat on her forehead glistened in the afternoon sun. She stood from the foamy pad she’d been kneeling on and pulled off her gloves, smiling as she looked the two of them over.

  “That’s a cute outfit. Where did you get it from?” her mother asked.

  “It belongs to Cassidy.” Brynn thumbed over her shoulder to Cassidy, who’d been quietly standing behind her. “This is Cassidy Rivers, Mom.”

  Both Brynn’s mother and Brynn’s new gal pal/girlfriend-type-person took a step forward, offering their hands. Brynn’s mother smiled and said, “Nice to finally meet you, Cassidy.”

  “The pleasure is all mine, Mrs. Michaels,” Cassidy replied with a polite smile.

  “So, Mom,” Brynn said. Her mother released Cassidy’s hand. “I’m gonna spend the night with Cassidy, if that’s cool. We have that project thingy still, and we both want to get a jump on everyone else. Is that okay?”

  “Did you ask your father?”

  “No, ma’am. I didn’t see him.”

  “Well, I’m sure it won’t be a problem.” Brynn’s mom looked over at Cassidy and asked, “You live just around the corner, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Cassidy nodded, pointing in the direction of her home. “At 6830 Briarwood Lane. At the end of the block and around the corner.”

  “Well, I suppose it’s okay, as long as Cassidy’s mother doesn’t mind. Just leave the home phone number on the whiteboard on the fridge, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Brynn responded dutifully.

  “It was nice to meet you, Cassidy,” her mother said.

  “Likewise, Mrs. Michaels.”

  “You girls have fun.”

  “We will,” Brynn said as she grabbed Cassidy’s wrist and quickly dragged her back into the house before her mother had a chance to ask any more questions or make any more demands.

  They stopped at the fridge, and Brynn handed Cassidy the dry-erase marker so she could write down the number, then they headed upstairs and into Brynn’s bedroom.

  It was the first time Cassidy had ever been in her room, and Brynn was so anxious to grab her things and haul out of there, she hadn’t stopped to consider what Cassidy might think of the dark, emo design of the cave where Brynn often hid away from the world. Brynn chewed her bottom lip as she looked over the black and purple decor. Surely, Cassidy had plenty of little quips just begging to spill from her lips. God, if Cassidy started cracking jokes….

  “Let me just grab something to sleep in and my laptop, then we can go back to your house,” Brynn said.

  Cassidy walked over to the big beanbag and plopped down, seemingly comfortable with her surroundings. Her gaze shifted from one end of the room to the other. She looked like she was taking in every last little detail in order to better arm herself with commentary. When she looked back at Brynn, there was a hint of a smile tugging the edges of her lips upward.

  “You know, this isn’t what I expected at all,” Cassidy finally said. “I was thinking there’d be sparkling vampires and skulls everywhere. This is… serene. I like it in here.” She leaned over and picked up one of the books at the base of the purple beanbag.

  Brynn frowned. She waited for the punch line, waited for a snippy joke, but Cassidy only sat there thumbing through the book she’d picked up. Brynn opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “No jokes?”

  “Jokes about what?”
/>
  “About my Batcave room….”

  “Um… do you want me to joke? I already pointed out the lack of sparkly fangers.”

  “No. No jokes, please.” Brynn went back to digging in her dresser for some pajamas. “I’m already freaked out about you seeing my room.”

  The book landed on the floor with a soft thud. Brynn heard it but didn’t turn around. She assumed Cassidy was off to do a little more exploring, which honestly scared the hell out of her. Not that she had anything to truly be embarrassed about. She just didn’t want Cassidy Rivers thinking her any stranger than she already did. But then she felt Cassidy’s arms wrap around her waist and felt Cassidy’s chin on her shoulder. She smelled the floral perfume and the strawberry scent of her lips, and the breath caught in Brynn’s throat.

  “Why are you so freaked about me seeing your room?” Cassidy whispered. “It’s nice. There’s touches of feminism, and there aren’t any bloody, headless bats anywhere. Chill, yeah?”

  Brynn stopped worrying with her bottom lip long enough to smile, even though Cassidy probably couldn’t see it. The sincerity in Cassidy’s words and the softness of her voice was enough to make anyone “chill.” It made Brynn relax in her arms.

  “I can totally chill,” she said a little airily. “Totally.”

  “Totally, huh?” A soft snicker left Cassidy before she unwrapped her arms from Brynn, then squeezed between her and the dresser. “You’re totally starting to sound like me.”

  Heat exploded in Brynn’s cheeks. She knew right then just how bad she was crushing on Cassidy Rivers. Before, it had been a faint feeling, like wishing for chocolate, but not really craving it. Oh no, now, she knew just how badly she craved Cassidy.

  Brynn licked her suddenly dry lips, lowered her eyes, and stammered through a bunch of “uhs” and “ums” before finally saying, “I don’t know how to respond to that.”

  “Don’t worry ’bout it. The blush on your cheeks is speaking for you. Finished?”

  “Yeah, I, um… I think I am.”

  “Well then, let’s go. Nana’s cookies are waiting for us,” Cassidy said in her usual take-charge tone.

  She took a step back, giving Brynn enough space to zip up her bag and sling it over one shoulder. Brynn barely had enough time to look around for something she might be missing. Cassidy’s fingers wrapped around her wrist, and she tugged her out of the room, down the stairs, and outside into the warm, California sunshine.

  Clearly, Cassidy was pretty excited about her grandmother’s cookies. Brynn had never seen her walk so briskly for anything. She usually just paced along, taking an interest in her surroundings. This time, she could have broken a land speed record for how quickly she made it back to her house.

  At the front porch, Cassidy turned to Brynn, beaming brightly. “I’m so excited for you to sleep over! I can’t wait!”

  Whoa. Maybe it wasn’t the cookies that had Cassidy in such a hurry after all.

  Chapter 22

  “MOM? Nana? We’re back,” Cassidy called out, still holding onto Brynn’s wrist as she led her through the contemporary home.

  Her grandmother called out from the kitchen in a soft, singsong tone. “Those petunias were a bit—well, they were damn difficult. I just now started on the dough, so you girls can go get ready for your sleepover or do whatever it is that girls do nowadays to hang out.” She put emphasis on the “hang out” part of her statement, almost as if the older woman was silently implicating something else.

  God, her family rocked.

  “Okay, we’ll be in my room,” Cassidy replied before continuing to tug Brynn along like a rag doll, all the way up the stairs, past the second floor landing, and straight into her bedroom. Only when the door shut behind them did she seem to finally take a breath and relax.

  “Um… well, jeez. Now what?” she asked with a little giggle.

  Brynn crossed the room and set her bag down on the floor next to Cassidy’s dresser. Her little Pinky looked so at home there now, almost as at home as she appeared in her own room. “We could…. I don’t know. Watching a movie seems so lame.” Brynn shook her head. “So does working on our project.”

  “No, none of that stuff.”

  Cassidy had been thinking about her mother’s words from a few nights before. The way her anger sparked her magic earlier at the mall with Laura really made those words sink in. It was apparently time to start coming to terms with the gift she’d inherited. There was really no way to do that without telling Brynn about it, since she truly wanted Brynn involved in every aspect of her life. Besides that, she didn’t want to hide anything from her.

  “I have a better idea, but you have to trust me, and you have to promise not to freak out. Can you do that?” she asked, as she walked to where Brynn stood, staring cautiously at her from behind the part in her light pink bangs.

  “You’re asking me to trust you.” Brynn frowned, thumbing at her own chest.

  “Yes. I am. With something very, very important.”

  “Cassidy, we kissed. You’ve seen me mostly naked. I think it’s safe to say I trust you.”

  Well, she had a point there. Still, Cassidy needed to hear Brynn say those words. Three little, not so big of a deal words, but for some reason, it meant so much to her. Maybe it was because for the longest time, she didn’t think Brynn would ever really come to trust her at all, let alone even a little bit. Now, standing in front of her, she felt like the last of her secrets were about to be spilled. The very last thing she kept hidden away from the whole world, save for her family, was about to become something else she could share with Brynn. There really were no words to explain how that made Cassidy feel.

  “Okay… I don’t really know how to tell you this, so I’m just gonna show you. But remember you said you wouldn’t freak out, ’kay?”

  One step. Two steps. Three steps back. When she was far away enough from Brynn that she couldn’t hurt or startle her, Cassidy nodded toward the book on her nightstand. Brynn’s piercing gaze shifted to the Dickens tome. She stood frozen in place with something in between confusion and intrigue gracing her features.

  Swiping her suddenly sweaty palms across the front of her T-shirt, Cassidy took one last, steadying breath before raising a hand, palm up, toward the book. The paperback began to gently shake. It started off as a barely visible tremble, really. Within seconds, however, it raised into the air, hovering just above the whitewashed wood of the table it had sat on. Slowly, Cassidy made a “come hither” motion with her hand, urging the book to float across the room until it rested in the open palm of her hand.

  When she looked back over at Brynn, her eyes were wide as golf balls and her mouth was agape. Uh-oh.

  “Please don’t freak out. I can’t help it. I was born this way. So was my mom and my grandmother and a whole line of women before us, dating back to before the eighteen hundreds.”

  Cassidy’s mouth suddenly went dry. She continued to stammer excuses at the still-silent Brynn, in hopes she could stop her from doing what she looked like she was going to do—bolt from the room.

  “It’s not evil or anything. I’m not bad, I swear. I… I just… it’s magic, but it’s not bad. I can’t cause harm to people or anything like that. I can only use it for good, because whatever I do comes three times back to me. Please, please don’t leave me,” Cassidy implored one last time, not really caring about how desperate she sounded at the moment.

  “That. That. That.” Jesus, she’d fried Brynn’s brain. So. Not. Good. “Was that—” Brynn swallowed so hard Cassidy saw the waving of her throat. “—real magic?”

  “Um, yeah. About as real as it gets. No potions or spells or chanting over voodoo dolls with pins inside. Just… magical power.”

  “You’re a… a… a real witch? Like, really real?”

  “Well, you won’t see any pointy hats in my closet, if that’s what you’re expecting,” Cassidy said, setting the book down on the bed beside her so she could reach out and gently take Brynn’s hands in
hers. “But yeah. We’re real witches. Are you scared?”

  “Not scared,” Brynn said, tightening her fingers around Cassidy’s hands. “I’m, um… surprised. I’ve read about witches, but I didn’t think they were real… like, really real. I mean, I know they’re real, but not like that.” She exhaled sharply, as if she’d been hanging onto that breath for a while. “I’ve heard of Wiccans and even read a bunch about it, but somehow, I think this is different. Isn’t it?”

  “Yes and no. I mean, kinda. Wiccans are Pagans, and we’re Pagan, but we’re not Wiccan. It’s kind of like saying Christianity and Catholicism. Like, all Catholics are Christians but not all Christians are Catholics.” Cassidy blinked, hoping that made sense to Brynn, who thankfully was still standing in the room and hadn’t run for the tree lines of Majestic Hills.

  “Brynn, please. Please, you can’t tell anyone about this, ’kay? For so many reasons, but mainly for my family’s safety. Please….” Cassidy’s voice had a vulnerable urgency to it. She could hear it in her tone, but she needed Brynn to know exactly how much was at stake if she spoke a word of what she’d seen to anyone.

  “I wouldn’t do that to you,” Brynn whispered. “I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

  Much like before with her trust, Cassidy had needed to hear Brynn say she would keep her secret. That she wouldn’t tell anyone. Once she had, the breath Cassidy had been holding in came blowing out past her glossy lips.

  “Thank you,” she said. For some reason, however, she kept talking. “It’s just that I’ve never told anyone about that before, and I’m kinda scared, ya know? I mean, the entire world is full of people like me, but we’re hidden. We keep that part of ourselves to family and only really, really close people like husbands, kids, etcetera—”

  Her words were abruptly cut off by a mouth pressing against hers. Her eyes widened. Never once did she expect Brynn to be the one to initiate a kiss, but as she lived and breathed, her Pinky had her in a lip-lock of unbreakable proportions.