Seriously Wicked

by Connolly, Tina

  I got along well enough with those girls when they weren’t under Sparkle’s influence—as in, we weren’t BFFs, but we were friendly enough. I knew one from biology, a couple from grade school, and I’d shared a laugh or two with all of them at one point.

  So whatever their deal was today, I refused to play those Sparkle-driven games. I tied my damp hoodie around my waist and opened my locker.

  “Was it second base?” said Reese.

  Go back four places and lose one turn. “What did you say?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Camellia,” said Reese. I should have been alerted by the open hostility in her tone. “We all know you were on the rooftop making out with Devon after school.”

  And then, the double whammy.

  “How’s it feel to be left for someone more popular?”

  11

  Who Was Where with Whom

  Shock waves ran through me at the implications of that last sentence, and then, backing up, for the flat-out horrid feeling of being accused. Ten girls surrounding you and laughing about something you did will have that effect on you, no matter what the something or how true it was.

  Fumbling, I said: “I was not.” My policy of ignoring Sparkle’s girls when they were obnoxious was suddenly in shreds. Everything was in shreds. I was splayed open in a crowded green-painted hallway while a group of miniskirted tigers circled, watching to see what I’d do.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, dumping textbooks in my locker.

  Reese’s eyes narrowed. “Got it from the source.”

  The source? The only other person who’d been there was—“You!” I rounded on Sparkle.

  Sparkle laughed in my face, black hair tumbling. “I didn’t say one word,” she said.

  “Liar,” I said. “You know perfectly well what I’ve got here.” I tugged my phone from my damp jeans pocket.

  “Not a clue,” said Sparkle. I saw her glance behind me but I was too late. Three girls slammed into me. My phone squeezed from my fingers, banged to the floor. Another girl grabbed it and tossed it to Sparkle.

  I felt my wrist where someone’s shoulder had crunched it. I was going to be a mass of bruises by Halloween. “Wow, way to ambush me with lies,” I said. “Bravo.”

  Sparkle smirked. “I’m not the idiot who was snuggling with a boy on a rooftop in broad daylight,” she said. “You know how rumor spreads. I didn’t have to say anything.” She pressed buttons on the phone, which apparently had turned off again. “How do you get this thing on?”

  “You could’ve said it wasn’t true,” I muttered, even though that made me feel all mixed up inside because of course I wished it was. How is it that you could want two completely opposite things to happen? I didn’t want this scene to happen, where a gaggle of Sparkle’s minions accused me of kissing Devon … but of course I would’ve liked to have kissed Devon. And would’ve much rather had that happen than what did happen on the rooftop. Even if it meant the teasing would be true.

  “What’s wrong with your stupid phone?” said Sparkle.

  “You dropped it,” I said calmly. “Congratulations.”

  Reese was standing off to the side, eyeing me. She looked half-sad, half like she would like to gouge my eyes out with her manicure.

  “Devon and I didn’t do anything,” I offered. “This was just a setup by Sparkle to get my cell phone and you know it.”

  But Reese in love was not-nice Reese. She stabbed a finger into my shoulder. “He’s my crush,” she said. “I’m paying for him. You’d better back off.”

  “Or what. You’ll poke me to death?” Several of Sparkle’s girls giggled at that. They wouldn’t have sided with me against Sparkle, of course, but I was irrationally heartened to know they would against dim-bulb Reese.

  “Oh, take your stupid brick,” said Sparkle, and she shoved the phone into my chest.

  “Thanks, chum,” I said. “Catch ya later, girls. This was fun. Let’s do it again sometime.” I ignored the fuming blond chick an inch from me.

  Several girls grabbed Reese and pulled. “C’mon. Crane’s coming.”

  Reese sent one more parting shot: “At least he met me in public.”

  Reese. He’d met Reese? I was dying to know what they were talking about, but damned if I’d ask. “Where was that? The petting zoo?”

  Sparkle smiled nastily. “Wouldn’t you like to know what he does when he’s not with you?”

  The other girls laughed again as they tugged Reese off. Sparkle slipped through and to the front of the pack, marching them off to class or further mischief or wherever. Her black hair swung against her relatively subdued black beaded dress.

  “That was interesting,” said Jenah behind me.

  “You saw?”

  “Not live and in person, but Elly Sinclair got a blurry video, and then Barry sent me three texts about it.” She tested the air with a finger. “Of course, it’s obvious from the disturbances in the hallway that some girl-girl altercation went down. And way to play into stereotypes, girls! It was about a boy.”

  I groaned and tugged on my damp hair. “Why didn’t I think on the spot? I should’ve laughed and said something like, ‘Of course we were making out on the roof. It was awesome.’ That would’ve stopped them. And what did Reese mean by meeting him in public? Tell me. Do you know?”

  “You aren’t going to like it,” said Jenah. “Francie told me that Ellen saw Reese and Devon at Blue Moon Pizza together last night. They were holding hands over the cheese sticks.”

  “Last night. Last night while I was worrying about him? While I was obsessing to you about how I could rescue him from Estahoth? That last night?”

  “They didn’t kiss, if that’s any consolation. Francie said Reese kept trying to scoot in and tilt her lips into prime kissing position, but he blocked her. Checked her with his shoulder.”

  “I didn’t get my English homework read because I was talking to him on the phone. He did not say one word.”

  Jenah looked at me like, duh, of course he wouldn’t. “So were you making out on the roof?” she said. “Because we’re sharing everything now, you know.”

  That made me laugh, despite the horrid shamed feeling. “No, we didn’t.” I pondered. “I guess he must’ve just flat out told Reese about the rooftop. How obnoxious. Because I could see some people in the park, but they were pretty far away, and they wouldn’t have known who we were, even if they saw us. Not that there was anything to see, because nothing happened.”

  Jenah pursed her lips. “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “Okay, maybe I believe you.” She said that matter-of-factly, like she was keeping me up-to-date on the situation.

  “Hells, Jenah. I never lied to you about anything but the witch, and I just couldn’t tell anyone about that. What?”

  “You didn’t tell me any of this roof stuff.”

  I didn’t? I scoured my memory. “Ack,” I said. “Only because I got derailed by Sparkle’s nose, and then you interrupted to say that—” I lowered my voice—“Moonfire was talking to you.” And maybe also because the memory of poor Devon forced to destroy those pixies was so horrible that deep down, I hadn’t wanted to talk about it.

  Crap.

  I’d always thought of myself as honest. Why was my subconscious working against me? Why were some things so difficult to push past your lips?

  “So I left Sparkle, and went into the auditorium—” I said.

  “But first, you saw me,” said Jenah. She smoothed her filmy green skirt over her black leggings.

  I endured the embarrassment. “Yes. I saw you. I’m sorry. And then I found Devon on the roof with the box you saw yesterday…” In a couple sentences I outlined the rest of that horror.

  “Oh,” said Jenah. She swallowed. “Magic isn’t all fluffy butterflies, is it?”

  “No. But please. I am telling you the truth. As quickly as I can. So bear with me.”

  “I know,” Jenah said. She patted my shoulder a
couple times. “Look, we’re going to be late to algebra. We better go.”

  So that was like ice in my gut. Jenah did trust me and she didn’t, all at once. The frustrating thing was that her caution was, logically, the right thing. I could tell she wasn’t just trying to piss me off, trying to get back at me. She would try to take me at my word, but she wasn’t necessarily going to believe 100 percent of everything I said until she’d proven it for herself. Or maybe till great oceans of time passed and we were old and gray, or at least in college.

  How the heck did I deal with that?

  * * *

  No Devon in algebra, and you’ll think I’m an idiot, but I slid the demon book into my binder and studied it instead of algebra. Okay, so I’m an idiot. But I had one day to put a spell together, and that meant I needed lunch today to gather any ingredients I might need.

  I found the part about pentagrams straight off, and the good news there was that the spell didn’t need anything besides the pentagram itself, one breath from the witch, and the touch of her wand. It wasn’t even written in code, either. I guess because it was so straightforward—and so important. Besides demon-summoning, pentagrams could also contain witches, humans—even phoenix and dragons. The only catch for using a pentagram as a jail was that you had to get the entity inside first.

  Some catch.

  Still, it was the only plan I had. And the fact that a pentagram wasn’t much of a spell meant I really only had to figure out one spell, the big spell, the tremendous spell.

  A spell to get the demon out of Devon.

  If such a spell even existed.

  I skimmed pages, looking. There were several pages of different summoning spells, and I thought I recognized the one the witch used, with the basil and salamander. Then several pages of how to lock demons into bodies. Was getting the demon up to Earth all that witches cared about? How could the book have pages and pages of how to get a demon here, but nothing about controlling your demon once you’ve got him? Nothing about damage control? I supposed because demons couldn’t get into witches unless they let them in, they didn’t give two hoots for the regular humans in danger. Typical.

  On the very last page I found the spell I sought.

  The title was: Ye Olde Demon-Loosening Spell for Feebleminded Witches Who Have Changed Their Minds About Which Puny Human Should Hold Said Demon.

  Then there were the caveats, a whole bunch of “We’ve heard this works, but the demon had already gotten himself embodied so that’s probably why it failed,” and, “We’ve heard this works, but the witch disappeared and so did the demon.”

  Yeah.

  We’ve heard this works but—help, help, I’m being eaten, I thought sourly.

  There was a list of ten ingredients and then the complex instructions, as usual. I didn’t have time to attempt to “solve” the recipe and see which ingredients were needed and which weren’t.

  Hastily I scribbled them all on a sheet of torn-out notebook paper. Three of them were grocery items we didn’t have at home: eggplant, oysters, apples. One of the ingredients was goat’s blood. I sighed. Why didn’t the witch just keep a goshdarn goat, if it was going to be this important? I scanned the complex directions and saw immediately that the required amount of goat’s blood was one ounce and the number of apples was two. But I was going to have to decipher the rest of the spell to see how much of the other items I needed.

  So I’d go to Celestial Foods and get the grocery items, plus the stuff off the list Sarmine had left out for me. After a moment’s thought I added pears and maple syrup to the list, for the self-defense spell. The bell rang and I scrambled up.

  “Camellia? Up here a moment.”

  Hells.

  Well, I wasn’t going to break down for Rourke. If he was still mad from yesterday, he was still mad.

  But Rourke, oddly enough, was smiling. I suppose he liked delivering bad news.

  “I talked to your aunt last night,” he said. “She was kind enough to stop by.”

  “Crap, you saw her?” Rourke frowned. “Er. Sorry. I mean, I figured you would’ve gone home. How late do you stay here?” I didn’t say, Don’t you have a life? but I was thinking it, along with, WITCH HERE WITCH HERE OMG OMG.

  His eyebrows merged quizzically. “Football practice? I’m the assistant coach.”

  Pride absolutely suffocated his voice, so I managed, “Of course! I knew that. We’ve got a great team, really great.”

  “Your aunt watched the entire practice. She was really enthusiastic. Kept asking me all sorts of questions about the school’s history.”

  “Mmm,” I said.

  “Look. The point is we’ll try this once more tonight. Your aunt pled your case, and against all odds, your tutor pled your case,” said Rourke. “Your aunt said you had been busy of late helping her out on a project. She is quite charming, you know. Why haven’t we seen her around here more often?”

  “She’s been in Nepal. She’s not that charming once you get to know her. She’s busy trying to overthrow the government. She’s shy. She’s frightened. She’s frightening.”

  Visible Undershirt actually laughed. “I see where you get your sense of humor,” he said. “Well, tell your aunt I look forward to seeing her tomorrow.”

  “Righto. And why will you be doing that?” If Visible Undershirt had asked Sarmine out on a date, I’d never live it down. He must be really lonely to even think of it. And where would he take her? I guarantee you there was no restaurant in town that served both two-liters of root beer and roc eggs on toast points. I could only think of one thing worse than the two of them dating, and that was …

  “She was interested in being a school parent for the Halloween Dance,” he said. “I sent her over to Miss Crane to sign up. I expect she’ll be delightful company.”

  Crap.

  Crap.

  Crap.

  “I expect,” I said.

  * * *

  I am normally very organized, but events this week had gotten a little out of hand. I made a list in English class while everyone else read out loud from the play.

  • Solve Ye Olde Demon-Loosening Spell (MOST IMPORTANT)

  • Get demon-loosening ingredients and self-defense ingredients

  • Retake algebra test

  • Figure out how the demon is planning to steal “the hopes and dreams of five”

  • Figure out why Devon is hanging out with Reese and her blue bra

  In a bleak moment I thought that no matter how many of those things I managed successfully, it didn’t matter, because the witch was going to show up at the dance on Friday and make whatever social life I had left a living hell. After my classmates found out I lived with somebody who chanted nonsense words and wore a fanny pack full of spices and, oh yeah, hexed people every time they looked at her wrong, my life would be shot. It would be worse than ten girls teasing me one day about a boy and forgetting about it the next. The humiliation would never end.

  And now I was going to try a spell, which I’d sworn I’d never do.

  As you can see, I was a little overwhelmed at this point. I’d gone my whole life managing to handle everything the witch threw at me. Fulfill crazy-ass demands for eel and unicorn hairs and puréed Chinese gooseberries. Juggle home life and school life and keep the two completely separate, one never intruding on the other.

  I guess this time I was just in over my head.

  But still, I knew deep down that taking a step toward evil witchdom was worth the risk to save Devon. And not just because I liked him, either.

  Because it was right.

  I was still stressed about it, though.

  I desperately wanted to find Devon at lunch and find out if the story about Reese was true, but instead I set off for Celestial Foods. No matter how many fluttering doubts were building up inside me, I was going to stick to my plan. If I could work spells, then I was going to get that demon out of Devon and nothing was going to stop me.

  I hurried out the side door, past the meta
l T-Bird, jumped over the little mouse. I had tripped on the mouse sculpture once and gone sprawling into a total make-out session. I swear, the school has this ivy and stuff pruned all the time to cut down on people sneaking over here, but it seems to grow back overnight. So I avoided the mouse and two different couples, but then my foot slid on the wet leaves and my next step took me into the bushes and sprawling over a leg.

  A leg attached to a boy who stood up hastily out of the shadow of the overgrown bushes.

  A boy I recognized.

  A boy-band boy.

  “Are you all right?” I said before I thought. “I was worried about you.” Then my face fell. How much was he hiding from me … and who was standing in front of me, hiding it?

  I peered into kind green eyes, searching. Devon smiled the typical Devon shy smile and I was instantly relieved. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m doing much better.” He brushed wet leaves from his shirt.

  “I was worried when I didn’t see you in algebra,” I said. And then forthright me just had to say it: “Look, I heard you were out having pizza with Reese last night. I mean, it’s none of my business, but I guess I was curious because you said you were at your band practice? Was that some sort of Estahoth-related thing, maybe?” Sure, I had reason to find out what the demon was up to, but the question came out all weak-sounding and I hated it.

  “Yeah, Estahoth made a hologram of me while I was at band practice,” he said. “He was working on the tasks.”

  “Ah. Cool,” I said. There was so much relief at that, that I didn’t want to acknowledge the niggling question in my head that said—why on earth was the demon taking Reese to pizza as part of a task? “Well, you’re looking tons better. Which is great. Because like he said yesterday, he’s here till Halloween anyway. Tomorrow. And … well, I guess he can hear or remember everything we say—Hi, Esty-snookums—so there are certain topics I’m not going to go into.” I was dying to tell Devon of my plan to trap him in a pentagram, but obviously that would be the dumbest idea ever.