by Alex Flinn
“My point…” I stared at her, and my voice came out a whisper. “My point is that you’re a witch.”
It sounded crazy.
She raised her hand like she was swearing an oath. “Guilty as charged.”
I gasped. I hadn’t expected her to admit it. Even in the face of all that evidence, I really hadn’t believed it was true. I mean, could there really be magic in the world?
“Trust your instincts, Emma. This is the dress I was wearing when my family died in the plague. The year was 1666.” She waved her hand, and her outfit changed to a form-fitting wine-colored dress, her hair a perky bob. “And this is what I wore when I met Herr Schoenberg in 1934.” She stared at me, at my open mouth. “Now, what are you going to do about it, Emma? Burn me at the stake? Organize a boycott of all the Harry Potter books because they gave me ideas?”
A witch. She was really a witch. What did that mean, exactly? Why was she here? Calm down. I wanted something from the girl. “Of course not, Kendra. You’re my best friend.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet. What is it you want, Emma?”
“Help getting my boyfriend back.”
She smiled indulgently, like I was a four-year-old asking for a toy. “Faced with my tremendous powers of bewitchment, she asks not for world peace but, rather, wants her boyfriend back.”
“Can you do world peace?” If she could, I should probably go for that.
“Not really.”
“I just want Warner to love me again.”
“Do you want me to do something to Lisette?”
“No, I…” Did I? Of course not. I just wanted her to leave Warner alone.
“Because I can’t kill her off. I mean, I can, but I won’t.”
“Of course not!”
“Good. It wouldn’t help anyway. He’d be all upset about her dying, and he might even blame you.”
“That’s fine.” I didn’t want to harm Lisette. In some secret, shameful, weak place, I still loved Lisette, still wanted to be her sister.
“The thing about help is, it doesn’t always work.”
I shrugged. “I’ll take my chances.”
“Sometimes it backfires.”
“Backfires how?”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’ve had my successes. Only recently, I turned a selfish pretty boy into a beast … and helped him find true love. But there have been other cases where it hasn’t worked as well.” She got a faraway look on her face, and I waved my hand to rouse her.
“Like what?”
“Sometimes, I help people, and they get ridiculed or baked or turned into seafoam.”
“Seafoam?” She wasn’t making sense.
She saw my confusion. “I’m just saying it’s not without risks.”
“But sometimes your magic works, right? I mean, other than humiliating Courtney.”
She thought about it a second and smiled.
“It does!” I said. “It works. Can you do a love potion?”
She shook her head. “You have to keep taking anti-rejection drugs forever, like a kidney transplant.” She thought about it. “I could make you really beautiful.”
“Could you?”
“Sure.” She turned and stared a long time, then said, “Check your rearview.”
I glanced at it and almost crashed my car. Kendra grabbed the wheel. “Whoa!”
“I’m sorry.” The girl who stared back at me wasn’t me. I mean, she looked a lot like me, but … heightened. She had a thin face, straight chestnut hair, higher cheekbones, green eyes instead of my usual greenish-hazel. “How could you…?”
“Magic.”
“Wow.” The other stuff, like with Courtney, never seemed as big as this. I glanced at the mirror and almost swerved again. “I can’t believe it. It’s really real.”
“Want me to make it permanent?”
My heart was doing backflips, and I didn’t dare look again because I’d probably end up wrapping the car around a telephone pole, but finally, I said, “No, no. Warner… I liked that he loved me for me. He said he thought I was beautiful anyway. I sort of…” I stared at the road, remembering how it had felt when he’d said it.
“What?”
“I sort of believed him. I thought he meant it.”
“He did.” Her voice was unexpectedly kind.
“How do you know?”
“I just do. Boys are like that sometimes. He loved you.”
“He just didn’t trust me.”
“Maybe he didn’t trust himself.”
I thought about that, and it made sense. Warner had dealt with his dad’s lies, and then what he thought were mine. If he only knew what Lisette was really like, he’d forgive me.
I glanced in the mirror. Kendra’s makeover would be just another lie.
I sighed. “I’ll have to take a rain check.”
“You sure?”
I took one last look at my pretty, straight hair.
“Just the hair?” Kendra offered. “You could tell people you got a keratin treatment.”
“It wouldn’t help.”
“Okay.” She flicked her fingers, and I watched myself come back, cheekbones droop, eyes darken.
“Heavy sigh,” I said, as my hair poufed up.
“Maybe when you go away to college. It could be a graduation gift.”
“I just want Warner back. You have to help me.”
She patted my hand, which was weird for her. She wasn’t a huggy-kissy girl, um, witch. “Just come up with a risk-free plan, and I will.”
But what plan was risk-free?
“Where am I taking you, anyway?” I asked her. “Do I have to go to an enchanted train platform to get there?”
She shook her head. “Now that you know, I guess I don’t have to pretend anymore.”
“Pretend what?”
She reached over and put down the car window. Then, she disappeared.
I heard a noise, a sort of squawk. I glanced down at the seat where she’d been sitting. A huge black bird, bright-eyed and bigger than a grackle, sat there. A crow?
Did she just turn into a crow?
“Kendra?” I said.
The bird blinked one beady black eye. Then, it flew out the window.
3
Well, that was weird. Somehow, it just never occurs to you that the girl at the next desk could be an actual witch, even in the face of really obvious signs. It’s sort of like, when there’s a big shooting or bombing, and they interview the killer’s neighbors on TV. They always say they never thought the guy would do something like that. Well, of course they didn’t. It’s unthinkable. So is being a witch.
And yet, for the first time, I had hope. If there was magic in the world, anything could happen.
And that night, it did.
We were sitting in the dining room, eating chicken. Lisette had already finished hers and was standing in the kitchen, waiting to clear our dishes, when Mother said, “I have big news.”
“What’s that?” I picked at my broccoli. Since Daddy had been gone, dinners were awkward. Mother would ask about school, and I’d tell her, filling the silence created by his absence. Food would be choked down, and after the shortest allowable time, I’d make my break.
But now, Mother actually seemed excited, looking over her shoulder to make sure Lisette was listening, and nervously shaking one foot over another before announcing, “One of Daddy’s clients had a connection. We’ve been invited to a party…” She paused for dramatic effect. “… for Travis Beecher!”
“Travis Beecher?” I said.
“Travis Beecher!” Lisette burst from the kitchen, where she’d been listening.
Let me explain Travis Beecher, in case you’ve been living in outer space for the past few years. Travis was a teen star so famous even I knew about him. He got his start when he was a kid. His father, Riley Beecher, was the front man for the rock band Barrel of Toads, and Travis had gotten his own cable TV show, Trav and Me, coincidentally about a rock star, played by Riley, with
a young son, played by Travis when he was eight or nine. Now, at sixteen, he was a rock star too and had made several direct-to-video movies (maybe you’ve seen Trav in New York, Trav Takes Europe—my personal favorite, in which Travis thwarts an international spy ring with only his trusty guitar—and Trav and the Chimp, which was about Trav and, well, a chimp), and they said he was making a feature film, his first, in Italy over the summer. He also toured. I’d seen him at the American Airlines Arena. He was actually completely awesome, and not just because he was hot. He had real musical talent and even wrote some of his songs!
Mother handed me something about the size of a coffee-table book that turned out to be an invitation. My hand sunk under the weight of it. After paging through the cover and several layers of tulle and feathers, I got to the writing part. It read:
Yo! If you’re getting this, and you’re a (hot) girl between the ages of 15 and 17, we know you want to come and meet our good friend, Trav. Yes, that’s THE Trav. He’s in Miami a few weeks, and he wants to meet girls to hang with and whatever, maybe even offer a part in Trav’s new feature film, Got No Valentine (in theaters next Valentine’s Day).
Be at Riley Beecher’s house on Star Island (ask at the gate—they’ll tell you where), Saturday, May 12, 7:00 until whenever.
Bring your parents if you have to, a date if you must. Really, though, it’s all about Trav.
I put it down. “Daddy’s … business associate wrote that?”
A shriek ripped my eardrums. “Oh! This is so exciting!”
Mother and I both turned and stared at Lisette.
“What is?” Mother asked.
Between shrieks, Lisette spit out, “Travis Beecher! Are you kidding? We’re going to meet Travis! Beecher! Travis Beecher! Travis Beecher! This is sooooo exciting!”
And then, I swear, she hugged me. She tried to hug Mother, but Mother isn’t huggable.
When the screaming finally stopped, Mother said, “And what, may I ask, would make you think you’re going to this party?”
Lisette pointed to the envelope on the table. Mother glanced at it. It said, “To Andrea Bailey and daughters.”
“Daughters,” Lisette said. “That means we’re all invited.”
Mother laughed. “A mistake. Clearly, I don’t have daughters. I only have Emma.”
“But they invited three. You could bring me.”
“I could, couldn’t I? But I won’t. Besides, what would you wear to a party like this?”
I knew that would be no problem for Lisette. She’d find something even if she had to borrow from Courtney.
“And how would you get there?” Mother continued.
“You witch!” Lisette screamed. “I’d have clothes and a car if you hadn’t stolen them.”
“Your name isn’t on the guest list, only mine. You don’t go unless I say so.”
Lisette lunged for the envelope in Mother’s hand, the proof of her invitation. I wanted to run from the room, but my feet felt rooted to the floor. Mother turned away and ripped the envelope into two, four, eight pieces.
Lisette wailed. “Please, Andrea, please let me go. Please!” She was on the floor now, sobbing like a child. “You have to take me. This is my big chance, my only chance!”
Mother laughed. “There’s no possibility that you’re going.”
Then, she walked out.
“Witch!” Lisette screamed. “Heartless witch!” Her face was red with disappointment, grief, and anger. For the first time, she didn’t look pretty. I felt sorry for her.
But I stopped with her next words. She stood and pointed at me.
“You. You’re the one who shouldn’t be going, Emma. It clearly says the girls should be hot. They’ll turn you away at the door.”
I smiled. “At least I’ll get to the door.”
I took the invitation I was still holding and started to walk out, but her voice stopped me.
“Warner told me he was never attracted to you. He dated you because he thought you were nice, even if you were ugly.”
I didn’t, couldn’t turn around. I felt tears bubbling up in my eyes. Had he said that?
“He said you weren’t actually that fat, but your body was so pasty and flabby, he didn’t know why you never worked out. You grossed him out so much.”
It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. He had loved me. I knew it wasn’t a lie. She was just saying that to hurt me. And yet, I believed her. I wanted to run, but I stood there, frozen. My throat hurt. I couldn’t have said anything even if I’d had anything to say.
“He says he can’t believe someone as beautiful as I am would like him. We sit around and talk about you all the time. He said he couldn’t stand the thought of touching you.”
Finally, I was able to lift my foot. I made myself slow down. I couldn’t let her see how she’d hurt me. Still, it was too much to have all my secret hopes and fears laid bare by my enemy. Had Warner really said that? Had he never loved me?
I wished I was dead. I wished I was dead.
I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. Lisette’s voice followed me, making fun of every body part of mine that wasn’t as perfect as hers (which was all of them), my hair, my nose, everything. Finally, I reached the stairs. I took off my shoes, so she wouldn’t hear me run.
When I reached my room, I held my cell phone in my hand. I wanted to call Warner, to ask him if it was really true, had he really said those things?
I stared at the invitation in my hand. At least I had something Lisette wanted too.
Finally, I hit *67 and called Warner, just to hear his voice saying, “Hello? Hello?” Pathetic. He’d know it was me.
But he didn’t even pick up, just his voice mail. I listened to that before hanging up.
I missed him.
4
So I spent the next week reliving every kiss, every touch Warner and I had shared, second-guessing whether he’d been hating me all along. Now, even my memories of him were ruined. And no, it didn’t really help to know that Lisette was suffering too. I wondered if my suffering made her feel better about her life. Probably not.
I thought he’d loved me and dumped me based on a misunderstanding. If he just dumped me because he met someone prettier, he wasn’t who I thought he was. It was all a lie.
I didn’t want to go to school and face Warner. But I didn’t want to stay home with Mother either.
Mother was ridiculously happy. This party put her into overdrive, and she spent hours poring over fashion magazines, showing me pictures of anorexic models wearing clothes on Nordstrom’s website or in the pages of Vogue. She bought me outfits to try on, dozens of them, all for skinny boobless girls. I’d have the perfect one, even if it cost a thousand dollars.
“Couldn’t we give the money to Haitian orphans instead?” I asked when she shoved yet another photo under my nose.
“You were always such a downer, Emma. Can’t you see what an opportunity this party is? If Travis Beecher likes you, he might—”
“Might what? Marry me? I’m sixteen. Besides, he’s a movie star. There will be hundreds of flashier-looking girls there. He’ll pick one of them.”
“But you have things they don’t have. Intelligence. A quick wit.”
Wit? Still, it was interesting to know she even noticed something like that, considering she spent her days griping about my looks. Nice to know she appreciated my brain.
“I’m just asking you to try. Do you think it’s been easy for me, seeing you being passed over for things, being dumped on by those mean girls who don’t understand how special you are? This would show them all.”
Unbelievable. My mother actually sort of understood.
And then, she wrecked our little moment.
Wait for it.
“If you went on Slim-Fast, I could buy this in a size three.”
Doubtful, considering I wore a seven, but I said, “I should probably try it on first.”
“Terrific. Let’s go to the mall.”
I actuall
y didn’t mind. At least shopping took my thoughts off Warner for an hour or two. Every day at school, I had to watch them, strolling hand and hand in the halls. I used to try to decide if he seemed happy. Now, after what Lisette had said, I couldn’t even look at him.
One day, at lunch, I asked Kendra, “Can you tell what people are thinking?”
“Like read minds like Professor Snape in Harry Potter? No one can do that.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t believe my best—and only—friend was a witch and there wasn’t a single thing she could do to help me get my boyfriend back.
But she said, “Oh!” and pulled something from her backpack. “There is one thing I can do.” She held up an object.
It was a silver mirror, old-fashioned and ornate with a border of silver roses. “I just got this back from a friend in New York. Look at it.”
I did. I was shocked at how bad my complexion looked. It had been my greatest asset, but now I had three big zits already out and two more breaking below the surface. Mother had made appointments for facials, hairstylists, and makeup artists before the party. They’d probably charge extra when they saw me. “Blech. What is this, a mirror that makes you look worse?”
“No, unfortunately, that’s your skin. I can fix it, but you really need to get a good night’s sleep and lay off the Doritos.”
She laid her hand on my cheek. When she removed it, my complexion was clear again.
Amazing. “Thanks. Now, what’s the deal with the mirror?”
“With it, you can see anyone, anywhere.”
“Right.”
“No, it’s true. Pick someone.”
I thought a second, trying to come up with a name other than Warner’s. “Tayloe.”
In an instant, the image in the mirror changed from my own face to a girl who may have been Tayloe. Except I couldn’t see her face because she was crouched over a toilet in the girls’ room. She stuck her finger down her throat.
“Ick. Is that really her?” Tayloe had been the only one who was sort of nice. Ish.
Kendra nodded. “Someone should tell her mother. Maybe an anonymous note.” She stared into the distance a moment. “Done! Want to choose someone else? The president, maybe?”
