Thank God I aced my environmental science class freshman year. “Fir. Maple. Spruce. Evergreen. Elm. Pine—”
“Elm! It was the Elm. Or maybe Elm Street. No, it was definitely the Elm. They didn’t say where it was exactly, but it seemed like it was kind of close to here.”
I pumped my arms in the air in victory. Then I remembered that I was alone in my room, and I let them drop back down to my sides. I could celebrate later, when I’d found our parents. The important thing was that we had a name of the last place the Cleri was before . . . well, before they never came home.
But I couldn’t think about that right now. I had to keep my focus on the job at hand. “Peter, you’re amazing,” I said happily. “And if you weren’t total jailbait, I’d definitely kiss you for this.”
I hopped off the bed and scurried over to my computer, quickly typing in “The Elm” and the city Peter lived in as well as the surrounding areas. I had no idea what I was looking for: a restaurant, a hotel, a church. It could be just about anything.
My heart sank when only a few listings popped up. One was for a dance club about an hour away. The second for a diner right off Highway 64. And the last appeared to be a warehouse that stored construction equipment. None of them sounded like places where the Cleri would meet.
But this was the only lead we had.
So we had to narrow it down. No way were a bunch of old people hanging out in a club, so I crossed that one off the list. And when I called the diner to find out the hours, an answering machine message told me that it had closed earlier that year. So that left only the warehouse.
Once again I dialed Peter’s number and waited for him to answer. When he did, I started right in. “Give your aunt and uncle an excuse so you can get out of the house. We’ll pick you up in an hour.”
It ended up taking longer than I thought to round everyone up, and I didn’t pull up to Peter’s until an hour and a half later. By that time, my stomach was upset over the fact that I was running so late. It had already grown dark and I could barely see Peter standing in front of some bushes just out of eyeshot of the house, behind him. I hadn’t even come to a full stop when he pulled open the back door and jumped inside.
“Whoa, Speed Racer, what’s the rush?” Jasmine asked Peter sarcastically before I sped off down the street.
“My aunt thinks I left forty-five minutes ago to work on a school project,” he explained, throwing back the hood of his sweatshirt. “They’d freak if they saw me get into a car full of kids.”
“But we’re not just kids, we’re twitches,” Sascha said from the passenger seat.
Peter looked at her like he had no idea what she was talking about.
“She means teen witches. Twitches,” I said.
“Ohhhh,” he said, nodding. I saw Jasmine roll her eyes and then look out her window, already bored with the conversation. Her requisite black ensemble made her nearly disappear into the darkness of the backseat.
“Well, twitches or not, they’d freak if they knew what we were doing,” Peter said, settling back into his seat. “Ever since my parents . . .” His words trailed off as if he didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
I instantly felt awful about what Peter must be going through. Here we all were, freaking out over having not heard from our parents in less than a day when Peter’s family had been gone for twice as long. And in the Glovers’ case, there was proof of a struggle. A struggle that had ended badly. At least the rest of us still had hope that our parents were just holed up somewhere.
I knew it was a long shot, but it was better than the alternative.
“It’s all right, Peter. We get it. They’re a little overprotective right now because of everything going on,” I said.
He just nodded from his place in the back.
“Not to change the subject or anything, but do we know where we’re going?” Sascha asked, chomping on her gum. I’d picked her up first and she hadn’t shut up since she got in the car. If it were anyone else, I’d think it was simply nervous energy, but Sascha was a bit of a chatterbox to begin with. I’d just never been stuck in a car with her for a half hour before. Still, a nonstop monologue was better than silence. My mind tended to wander to dark places when it wasn’t occupied. Sascha usually kept things light—her favorite topics of conversation were celebrities, boys, or celebrity boys. I typically thought this was endearing. But tonight I couldn’t help but feel there were more important things going on than Taylor Swift’s latest relationship.
“We’re headed to the Elm warehouse over on one-nineteenth,” I answered for the third time that night. The GPS said we’d be arriving at our destination in nine minutes, but it wasn’t fast enough for me. Not when I had no idea what was happening to our parents.
“I think what Glinda here means is, why are we going to some random warehouse?” Jasmine chimed in. I waited for Sascha to make a noise like she was offended by Jasmine’s comment, but it never came. I guess I was still getting used to Jasmine’s sense of humor. Or total lack of a filter. But the others seemed to accept her—probably because they all hung out together pretty frequently—so I was going to try too.
I locked eyes with Peter in the mirror and at first neither of us said anything. When it became clear he wasn’t going to explain, I cleared my throat.
“We’re pretty sure that’s where the elders went last night. And that means it was the last place we know they were.”
“But why a warehouse?” Sascha asked, wrinkling up her forehead. I’d been wondering the same thing since I’d decided that this was the only possible place they could’ve gone. We drove in silence as the question hung in the air.
“Ohhhhh!” Jinx said finally, surprising us all. “I totally get it now.”
She’d been silent since I picked her up, and I had to admit, I’d forgotten that she was even in the car. When she didn’t elaborate, I shot her a look in the mirror, urging her with my mind to clue the rest of us in.
“I think I get the warehouse thing. Remember Phil Clinton? He graduated from Putnam a few years ago? Well, our families used to summer together in the Hamptons while we were growing up,” Jinx explained. “Anyways, they own a construction company, so his dad has a ton of equipment warehouses scattered around. I bet that’s where we’re going.”
I faintly remembered Phil. He was four years older than me and had graduated from high school before I’d gotten there, so we hadn’t exactly run in the same groups. Apparently, he’d headed off to college on a basketball scholarship. Either Dartmouth or Berkeley or something like that.
People said he’d refused to go to Cleri classes. Claimed that he was too busy spending his dad’s money to care about advancing his powers. It was hard to imagine that he and Jinx were from the same world. I hadn’t known his dad, but the connection made sense. Members of the Cleri were still active even if their kids weren’t attending classes anymore.
“In three hundred feet, turn right onto Fitzgerald Street. Continue to 10128 Fitzgerald Street, on left,” said Jane, otherwise known as the voice of my GPS. Not long after my parents gave the tech toy to me, I’d taken to calling her Jane. The computer-generated voice had the tiniest hint of a British accent, and I imagined the owner of the voice to be about twenty-five years old, sophisticated, and super-intelligent. Jane was most likely single—but it was by choice, not because guys weren’t into her. In other words, I sort of pictured her as being an older version of myself, but with a way cooler accent.
“Arriving at 10128 Fitzgerald Street,” Jane said.
As she said it, the five of us looked out our windows expecting to see acres of flat, indiscriminant buildings. But there was nothing there.
“What are we looking at?” Peter asked.
“I have no idea,” I muttered, straining my eyes to see in the dark. I pulled the car over and turned off the engine. Getting out, I let the door slam behind me, not even waiting for the others to follow. The street was empty as I crossed it, and all I could hear was the
sound of crickets as they chirped in the night, followed by the echo of my heels hitting the pavement.
As I made my way to the other side of the road, I started to get a nervous feeling in my stomach, which always told me when something bad was about to happen. My fear threatened to turn into panic and my breath caught in my throat as I stepped up onto the sidewalk. I didn’t even realize that my hands had covered my mouth to stifle a scream. But the scream came anyway, a shrill cry in the quiet night. Only it wasn’t me; it came from one of the other girls just behind me.
Funny, I hadn’t even heard them come up.
I tried to speak, but for some reason I couldn’t. My mind had shut down and the rest of the world was quickly slipping away.
Because in front of me, on that chilly, dark evening, I was standing out on the sidewalk and looking at the last place my mom was known to be.
And the whole thing was burned to the ground.
Chapter Seven
I don’t remember the drive home. At some point I must have told Jasmine to call an emergency meeting with the other twitches. Someone tried reaching Jackson again, but only succeeded in getting his voice mail. Either he’d been with the rest of the elders, which was highly possible, or he was out there and unable to connect with us. Whichever it was, it became clear at that point that we were on our own.
By now, I would’ve done just about anything to get away from the wreckage that used to be the construction warehouse. Even if it meant going home and telling the others what I feared had happened.
There had been so much wreckage.
As soon as I had realized exactly what it was I was looking at, I’d gone numb with fear. The place was a charred mess. Everything was burned to the ground, and what wasn’t completely incinerated was covered in black soot, masking any evidence of what had once been standing in its spot. One look at the steaming acre of burned wood and steel and I knew nothing had survived.
And no one.
Before I knew what I was doing, I began to stagger forward, stepping onto the brittle remains of the grounds, not realizing until I’d already walked a few feet that the remnants were hot enough to melt the bottoms of my shoes.
That’s when I knew I was officially out of it. I was aware that my brand-new Jimmy Choos were being destroyed and I didn’t stop walking. I just didn’t care. I kept moving forward, even as I slipped on the loose pieces of debris below my feet. I slowed down only when something caught my eye among the sea of black.
It was shiny and small.
I veered over to see what had been reflecting the light of the moon, approaching where I thought the glint was coming from. The ground wasn’t as hot here and I crouched down, hoping to see a little better.
There it was again. Just a tiny hint of gold among the darkness.
I got down on my hands and knees and began to pick through the ashes and toss burned-up objects behind me. Clawing through the debris, I briefly wondered if I’d been seeing things, and then my hand hit something warm and smooth in the dust. Carefully withdrawing my hand from the mess, I knew from the feel of it that it had a chain. Either a necklace or a medal, maybe. Pulling the scarf out of my hair, I spit on the object and begin to polish it. A thought came to mind about how disgusted my girlfriends would be to see me crawling around in the dirt and spit-shining trash, and I found I didn’t care.
All I cared about was trying to figure out what the hell had happened here. And whether our worst fears had actually come true.
When I was sure I’d gotten the object in my hands as clean as I could without taking it to my jeweler, I tossed my scarf aside and held it up in front of me—and gasped.
It was a gold necklace, thin and delicate, with a pendant about an inch in size attached. The medallion read, “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” and it hung from a fourteen-inch chain. The piece was beautiful and obviously handmade.
And completely familiar to me.
It was the same necklace my mom had worn as far back as I could remember. My dad and I had both bought her other jewelry over the years—some expensive, some one-of-a-kind, one piece was even priceless—but she never took off the necklace engraved with the quote from Gandhi.
Except she wasn’t wearing it now, because it was here in my hand, covered in soot and still warm from the fire. As I thought about what that meant, my head drooped to my chest, defeated.
That was when I officially checked out.
After that I somehow made it back to the car. The others filed in after me, everyone dealing with their grief in different ways. Without my suggesting it, Jasmine told the rest of the coven to meet at my house ASAP. Her usually sarcastic tone had been replaced with one that was softer, kinder. The last thing I wanted was a bunch of kids running around my house—my parents’ house—but I didn’t have the energy to argue. I was having a hard enough time keeping us on the road because my eyes kept blurring with tears.
“Throw your stuff wherever,” I mumbled as we walked inside. The monotone voice that came out didn’t sound like my own and I had to look around to confirm that I’d actually spoken. I locked eyes with the four of them for the first time since we’d left the Elm, and froze. I had no idea what to say. So I said what my mom would have if she’d been there.
“There’s food in the kitchen. Help yourselves. I have to . . .” I looked around for an excuse to leave the room but was having trouble forming complete sentences, let alone being creative. “. . . go somewhere,” I finished lamely. Not even waiting for a response, I turned away from my coven and trudged over to the stairs, climbing them slowly. I felt like I was moving through quicksand and by the time I’d reached the top, I was exhausted. And I was usually always energetic. A few kids had even nicknamed me the Energizer Bunny back in freshman year.
But now just existing felt hard.
My room was exactly how I’d left it a few hours before and I felt minor relief as soon as I saw all my stuff. I needed to feel the familiar. See things that gave me even a tiny bit of comfort. But before I could fully enjoy the homecoming, I heard someone follow me into my room.
“Hadley?” said a quiet voice. I recognized it as Sascha’s. She sounded much less peppy than usual and for this I was thankful. “I’m sorry to bug you but, um, everyone’s downstairs and we’re not sure what to do or where anything is.”
I looked at her blankly. I guess in my haste to get upstairs, I’d completely forgotten to show them where things were. I forced myself to concentrate on what she was asking and tried to be a better hostess. “There are pillows and blankets in the closet down the hall. People can either find a room or a chair to sleep in. The couch downstairs pulls out into a bed. It’s been a long day . . . let’s just regroup tomorrow.”
I turned around and walked over to my bed and collapsed face-first onto it. With minimal movement, I kicked my destroyed Choos onto the floor and buried my head in one of the pillows.
Sascha didn’t say anything else as she watched me retreat to my mattress, and after a few seconds I heard the shuffling of feet and then the door close.
I was finally alone.
I wasn’t sure exactly what woke me, but once my eyes sprang open, I lay in bed listening for what it might have been. But it was quiet. Well, except for the white noise ringing in my ears, which was almost more frightening than if I’d heard something go bump in the night. I wasn’t used to the stillness.
I stared up at the ceiling, willing myself back to sleep, but finally stopped trying when I heard a noise. It sounded like the scraping of a chair across the kitchen floor, followed by glass clanging against tile. Someone was in the kitchen.
I groaned. The banging continued and so I weighed my options. I could stay in bed and most likely run over the events of the night or I could head downstairs to see what was happening. Sighing, I threw my legs over the side of the bed and yawned as I pushed my feet into my slippers. The sooner I got them to cut out the noise the sooner I could get back to bed and try to forget that this whole suck
y day had ever happened.
I walked quietly down the stairs and peeked around the corner into the kitchen, expecting to see Sascha or Peter, or even annoying Fallon. But when my eyes adjusted, I saw the back of a woman as she worked her way around the cabinets. I stood frozen as she pulled out a box of cookies and then moved over to a steaming mug that was waiting for her on the counter.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I watched her pull out a bag of chamomile-and-peppermint tea. My heart immediately started to race as recognition hit me.
It couldn’t be.
I lurched forward, stumbling over my own feet as I tried to close the space between us.
“Mom?”
She turned around at the sound of my voice and I couldn’t even describe the joy I felt at seeing her face. I fell into her arms and buried myself in her hair before starting to cry. As I blubbered, I thought about all the questions I had for her.
Where were you? What happened? Are you okay? What’s going on? What happened at the Elm? Where are the others?
But none of that came out of my mouth. “I’m sorry, Mom” was all I could manage before squeezing her even tighter. All my other questions could wait. The important thing was that she was there with me. What I’d thought had happened in that burned-down mess had just been a big misunderstanding. She was okay. We were okay.
“Aw, sweetie, I know,” she replied, rubbing my back soothingly. “Me too.”
“I love you and I’ll do whatever you want me to,” I told her. “I’ll train. I won’t argue with Jackson anymore. I promise. I’ll be better.”
“That’s good, baby,” she answered softly. “Because I’m going to need you to be strong. I need to know you’ll do whatever it takes. That you’ll fight.”
“I will,” I promised, pulling away from her and looking straight into her eyes. I still couldn’t quite believe she was standing there in the kitchen with me. “If anything happens, I’ll be ready.”
Life's a Witch Page 7