by Ariella Moon
“No it’s not.”
Zhù sat down and popped five more beans into his mouth. After he swallowed, he said, “But she acted all crazy about Jordan. She even asked him to the dance.”
The stones piled up on my heart again. “Because she was mad at us.” And crazy. “I told you to tell her the truth about your dancing.”
“You know why I can’t.”
Risking a beating by the Smash Heads was a problem. Then again, so was directing a love spell at someone against his will. “Parvani needs your help,” he continued. “Have you seen her? She looks worse than Jordan. Yesterday, she wore a belt that clashed with her shoes.”
“Are you sure you’re not gay?”
Zhù threw a bean at my forehead.
I plucked a couple of beans from the bowl and contemplated starting a food fight, but this was too serious. “I can’t help her.”
“Why not? She’s your friend. Jordan is your friend. You have to do something. The dance is in six days.”
Frost tinged my voice. “I’m well aware of how many days are left until Halloween.”
Zhù paused mid-chew. I could see him flipping through his mental file marked Evie. He swallowed hard. “Your dad. I’m an idiot. How is your mom holding up?”
“She’s on the phone all the time with Dad’s agent.” Anguish, raw as an untreated sore, welled within me. “Several of Dad’s photos will be featured in a new anthology about the war.”
“Hey, great.”
I nodded, unable to speak.
Zhù fished his Spanish book out of his backpack and opened it.
“Hallie volunteered to photograph the dance,” I said, changing the subject.
“Good. Then neither of us will have to go. Maybe I’ll take Ming trick-or-treating.”
“Cool. Dress as a ballet dancer and stop by Parvani’s house first.”
Zhù threw a couple more soybeans at me. This time I retaliated and bounced one off his glasses. It fell on the floor and Baby snapped it up.
After Zhù left, I sat on the floor and plowed my fingers through Baby’s hair. “The sky will be dark tonight,” I whispered. “It’s the new moon. A ripe time for casting a counter spell.”
Chapter Thirty-One
I figured it would take a pretty heavy-duty spell to counter the one Parvani had cast. I didn’t want to wing it and risk possible karmic repercussions, or accidentally summon a demon or something.
The library was closed. None of the bookstores were within walking distance, and Mom was too busy working on her next batch of cards to drive me. I thought of searching online for info on spell busting, but Mom kept working at the kitchen table. Probably she didn’t want to be alone, especially not in the studio. Not this week.
I needed to call an expert, which pretty much meant Miss Ravenwood, or Nana. I snuck off to my room and dialed Nana’s number. She answered on the third ring.
“Hi Nana. It’s Evie.”
“Hello, Precious. What a pleasant surprise. How are you?”
“Not so great, Nana. I need your help.” I decided to just dive in. “Do you know how to counter a bad love spell?”
The line went silent.
“Nana, you there?”
“Yes, sorry. Just trying to recover.”
“Mom told me you dabbled in the Craft. Can you help me?”
“How like Olivia. ‘Dabbled .’” Nana snorted. “Sounds so frivolous. Who cast the spell?”
“A friend of mine.”
“Then your friend has to be the one to undo it. Did this friend bind someone against their will?”
I thought of Jordan. “Yes.”
“Bad karma, kiddo.”
“I know. I tried to warn her.”
“She must be a new soul. Too bad about the boy, though.”
“There has to be something I can do.”
“Hmm. All I can think of is severing the spell link.”
“Spell link?”
“It’s a thin magical cord, like a vapor trail, left by the spell. It connects your friend to the boy. Severing it with a black-handled knife might set both of them free. But that’s pretty advanced magic, being able to see a spell link.”
“I haven’t noticed it so far. Besides, I’ll get expelled if I run around school with a knife, black-handled or otherwise.”
“I’m sorry, Precious. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Thanks anyway, Nana. If you think of anything else, call me, okay?”
“Promise. Love you.”
“Love you, too.” I hung up and put on Dad’s cap. I could use some luck, or a miracle.
The rest of the weekend dragged. My Worry Meter hovered between Meltdown and Calm-Down-Or-You’ll-Die. I wondered what effect Parvani’s casting had had on Teen Wytche? Had the book shrunk? Grown horns? Did it pulse like a broken heart?
At school, I watched Jordan and Parvani, searching for the spell link. If it was there, I sure couldn’t see it. As the days passed, the spell’s repercussions became more evident. Jordan and I resorted to doing our lab work during lunch, since the spell seemed to prevent him from coming to my house. First, he’d injured his leg during football play-offs, so he couldn’t skateboard over. Then his mom had had a series of committee meetings for a fall fundraiser, so he’d had to stay home and watch his grandfather. So we worked in Mr. Ross’s room while Parvani sat nearby, pretending to study Honors Geometry.
No sign of the spell link.
Dejected, I took down my Shay Stewart shrine and stuffed the pictures into a file folder marked Faces. Baby snored on the rag rug while I hung up the laundry piled on my floor. Anything that had lain there for more than two weeks I tossed in the washer. Parvani would have been pleased.
Halloween and the anniversary of Dad’s death loomed. I missed having a best friend to talk to. If only Parvani would undo the spell—I missed her and Jordan. Nothing seemed right. Salem hadn’t called or come home, either.
I cleared off my desk and dusted it. Then I dug through boxes of old photos until I found the shot of Jordan and me at Disneyland with Excalibur. I put it in a silver frame next to a picture of Mom and Dad.
Nana called. Mom lied and told her we were fine. “Any luck?” Nana asked when I got on the phone.
“None”
“Sorry, kiddo.”
“Me, too, Nana.”
On Halloween Eve, the doorbell rang. My heart leapt. Jordan? Parvani? Salem? I raced behind Baby, but Mom got to the door first.
“Hi, I’m Lilith, Sarah Miller’s cousin.” She appeared about nineteen. Someone had buzz-cut the left side of her head. The hair on her right side grazed her jaw. “I’m in cosmetology school,” she explained. “Sarah said Evie wanted back her natural hair color. It won’t cost you anything. I need the practice hours to graduate.”
Mom gaped.
Lilith held out a bulging tote bag. “I brought all my stuff. Are you free? I should have called, but I lost your phone number. All I could remember was the address.”
“Well, um.” Mom raised her eyebrows at me.
I clasped Mom’s hand and held it to my heart. For added measure, I blinked several times and did my best wounded-puppy impression. “Please? If she does it right, I’ll look like my old self again.” I’ll look more like Dad.
Doubt and hope warred in Mom’s eyes. Would Lilith fry my hair? Turn it magenta? My strawberry roots were two inches long—things couldn’t get much worse. I took off Dad’s cap and pointed to my outgrowth. “Can you get me back to this color?”
Lilith poked her tongue against the inside of her cheek. I got a brief glance at her silver tongue stud. “Sure thing. The results will be pure magic.”
Mom sighed. “Okay. Come in.”
****
When I woke the next morning, my mind was on Jordan and Teen Wytche. So when I entered the bathroom and confronted my reflection in the mirror, my heart jolted. Dad’s blue eyes stared back at me, framed by his strawberry blonde hair. No wonder Mom teared up last night when L
ilith was finished. I blew out a long breath. This was going to take some getting used to, especially today.
Halloween.
“The art crowd and goths dress up and hold sort of an anti-dance in the quad at lunch,” I told Mom over breakfast. “I have to cover it for Yearbook.”
“You’re going to take pictures?”
“If I don’t freak again. Wish me luck.”
She kissed my forehead like I was a little kid or something. Her lips were soft and reassuring, and her mom smell engulfed me. “Good luck, sweetie. I know you’ll do fine.”
“How about you?” I asked. “Because Hallie can cover the ghouls if…”
“No need for you to worry. Baby will keep me company. Now get dressed. We’re falling behind schedule.”
I got moving. I figured it was Halloween, the best possible time to detect a spell trail.
At Jefferson, unlike middle school, students didn’t have to wait until last period to don their costumes. We were, however, forbidden to wear fake or actual weapons. So, of course, no black-handled knives. Middle school had the same rule. It had always posed a problem for the Smash Heads.
In English, a quiet and unassuming girl who sat to my right showed up in a black-and-red corseted goth fairy costume. I had never seen her in anything other than a sweatshirt and jeans. Who knew she had cleavage? I kept wondering if she was freezing in her miniskirt and black spider web tights. Even Mrs. Knapp seemed to find her distracting, and kept losing her train of thought mid-sentence. Having everyone hyped up on purloined candy and anticipation didn’t help.
In Gym, failure to wear a Wildcats gym shirt, even on Halloween, could result in a grade drop. So there we stood, thirty-seven freshmen packed into the multipurpose room. A guy smeared with fake blood, wearing vampire teeth, and a green mesh gym shirt hurled a dodge ball at me.
Psycho.
Jordan and Parvani entered my peripheral vision. It may have been my imagination but, when I squinted and blocked the glare of the gym lights, I thought I saw a pale blue cord connecting Parvani’s heart to Jordan’s back. The spell link! Was it some sort of Halloween trick? Had the concoction Lilith had smeared on my hair given me super powers?
It didn’t matter. I needed to sever the link.
Jordan’s athletic grace and his warm, inclusive smile were gone. His lake-blue eyes had dulled to a stormy gray. He seemed lost, as if he couldn’t remember how to play the game—or any game.
Parvani’s perfect posture had abandoned her. Shoulders hunched, she shrank. She had twisted her thick black hair into a haphazard bun held together by two yellow pencils. In place of her designer frames, she wore her rimless glasses from seventh grade. Karma had kicked her in the teeth. Watching her and Jordan, my stomach burned. There had to be a way to cut the spell link without using a lethal weapon.
The answer didn’t appear to me, not even in Spanish where I tend to be brilliant. When the lunch bell sounded, I raced to Yearbook to retrieve a camera from Miss Roberts. By the time I walked back down the ramp, Thriller blared from speakers in the quad. I followed the driving beat, encountering the pixie from Parvani’s French class.
“Amazing Corpse Bride costume!” I said, snapping her picture.
She made her eyes huge. “Tim Burton rules.”
In each picture I took, at least one of the obnoxious orange posters for the Halloween dance appeared in the background. I fought the urge to tear them down. In the future, I think the social committee should channel their revolting energy and enthusiasm toward a better cause. I vote for world peace.
Distracted, I didn’t notice the sudden drop in temperature or the stench of evil until I almost crashed into Miss Ravenwood. She’d painted her face green and wore a tall witch’s hat. For a heart-stopping minute, her gaze roved over my newly restored hair color. Her stern expression crumpled.
“You look like Deaman.”
“I know.”
Miss Ravenwood swallowed. Her lips curled inward, almost disappearing. Regret and grief welled in her eyes. I realized then what my father must have meant to her. My heart constricted.
The brimstone smell faded. “Miss Hyde-Smith and Mr. Kent are flunking Honors Geometry,” Miss Ravenwood said in a shaky voice.
“They are?” I imagined she’d broken some major privacy rule by telling me.
She leaned closer, giving me a good view of the fake wart on her nose. “They need your help.”
“I’m in remedial math.”
“A different kind of help, Miss O’Reilly.” Her gaze pierced me like a pin through a butterfly. The flecks in her watery blue eyes darkened. In that moment, I knew. Miss Ravenwood had once cast a binding love spell and had suffered similar results. I had the uneasy feeling my father had been the recipient.
I wondered if Mom knew.
“Karma,” Miss Ravenwood said, her brow arching. She swept off in a rustle of long skirts.
“Yours, or theirs?” I called after her.
She angled her head, displaying a razor-edged profile. “Yes.”
I wanted to stomp my feet in frustration. At the last minute, I whipped the camera to my eye and shot Miss Ravenwood’s striped stockings and ruby heels before she disappeared.
I followed the pounding Michael Jackson beat to the pale standing stones and sticky benches ringing the quad. A black-winged fairy of the night danced with a freshman version of Garth from Wayne’s World. A blonde senior dressed in a body-hugging designer dress and four-hundred-dollar stilettos I had seen in a department store window wore a Trophy Wife sign beneath her diamond necklace. She danced with Nazario, dressed as himself. Knowing Mia would be hurt, I didn’t take their picture. Instead, I shot an overenthusiastic Raggedy Ann as she jumped on the back of a boy with vampire fangs, dressed as a surgeon.
My heart plummeted like a falling star when Jordan lurched by, dressed as a zombie. Parvani walked a few paces behind him, bedecked in a feather headdress. From the hip up, she was encased in a gilded cage. It was her most spectacular design yet. Awed, I ran ahead to photograph her. I had to twist past a goth eating a burrito in order to angle the photo so the spell vapor wouldn’t be visible. I should have taken Jordan’s picture as well, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
Thriller ended with zombie groans, a falsetto scream, and an evil laugh. After a pause, Beethoven’s Fifth blared from the speakers. Not your typical dance music… I lowered my camera. After some confused swearing from the goths, the focus shifted to a lithe form on the side of the quad. Parvani had rotated around to catch the spectacle. She gasped at the same time I did.
Zhù had skipped his Nutcracker rehearsal. His cut-at-the-midriff muscle tee revealed his sculpted biceps, and abs rivaling those of the cover models on Mom’s romance novels. The hem of his charcoal sweatpants ended at the ankle, revealing black ballet slippers.
The Smash Heads, Tommy in the lead, shouldered their way into the crowd. My stomach clenched. I had wanted Zhù to tell Parvani about his dancing, not to sign his own death warrant.
Tommy, whose vague attempt at costuming consisted only of zipper scars across his cheeks and hands, grabbed a freshman’s butterfly wings and flapped them as she shrieked. Evan ignored him and scanned the crowd. His glance flicked from me to Zhù. I willed Evan to look back at me. He did, and we held each other’s gazes.
Please, I silently pleaded.
The music stopped, plunging the quad into sudden silence. Evan had dressed like Shay Stewart’s famous pirate role. He looked good. I held my breath and waited.
“Yo ho, yo ho,” Evan sang. Some of the crowd joined in, proving there must have been a lot of the drama club and chorus kids among the sullen goths.
Tommy’s eyes lit like a hyena spotting a zebra with a limp.
Evan tried to dance a little pirate jig which, given his cast, was either Herculean or foolhardy. I didn’t care. It took everyone’s attention off Zhù.
Except Parvani’s. She tried to make her way to Zhù. I know she tried. But the spell kept her tethere
d to Jordan, and he had slumped onto a bench.
Looking dejected, Zhù slipped away. As I watched him go, I wondered how much worse things would have to get before Parvani would reverse the spell.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Mom gunned the Volvo up our street. “So, just you and me tonight?”
I hugged her arm, grateful she’d remained the same, no matter how much havoc the love spell caused with everyone else. “You, me, Baby, and who knows how many superheroes, firemen and princesses. Can we order pizza?”
“Again? Sure. Let’s eat early. Just like the old days.” Her smile faded and I knew she was thinking about Dad. He hovered between us, a ghost, stirring old memories and ripping open fresh guilt. Mom and I had just sat down to a thick crust, double cheese pizza when the doorbell rang. “It’s too early for trick-or-treaters,” we said at the same time.
Mom wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I’ll get it.” She grabbed the bowl of candy and headed with Baby toward the entry.
I didn’t hear the usual Halloween yells, just quiet conversation and footsteps heading my way. A familiar goth appeared, sans makeup and dressed in jeans and a subdued knit top.
“You’re back!” I hugged Sarah, which surprised me as much as it did her.
“Sit,” Mom commanded.
Sarah pulled out a chair. Baby sat on the floor.
“Did they feed you on the plane?”
Sarah snorted. “No, though we were free to purchase boxed gag-me lunches.”
Mom reached for the cupboard. “I’ll grab another plate.”
“I like your hair,” Sarah said.
“Lilith did it. And look at yours. It’s so long.”
“I should call Lilith. Maybe change my image. Everyone looks so goth these days.”
“It’s called Halloween,” I informed her.
Sarah swatted me with Mom’s greasy napkin.
“Can you stay for awhile?” I asked.
“Okay with you, Mrs. O’Reilly?” Sarah asked.
“Of course. Spend the night if you’d like. We could use the company.”
I squeezed Mom’s hand. I knew she had expected to have a quiet, sad Halloween, just the two of us.