by Isobel Bird
“Get over it,” said Kate. “If anyone gives you any trouble, just smack them with your wand.”
She took a bite of a cookie and chewed on it. “I’m glad Scott couldn’t come,” she said. “I can see him any time. But how often do I get to go out dancing with my fairy godsisters?”
As they were standing around talking a trumpet sounded, startling them. On the stage stood a boy dressed as a royal page. When he had everyone’s attention he held up an envelope.
“As you all know,” he said. “We’ve been taking votes for Valentine’s Day queen this week. We had a record turnout this year, and the race was close. But we have a winner, and it’s time to announce her name.”
“I forgot all about the queen thing,” Kate said, starting to feel slightly sick. “I wonder if we turned the spell back in time to stop something awful from happening.”
The boy opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of paper. The crowd was silent as they waited for him to read the name of the winner.
“This year’s Valentine’s Day queen is,” he began. Kate held her breath. It seemed to take forever for the boy to finish his announcement. “Terri Fletcher,” he said.
A spotlight searched the crowd, landing on the table where Terri sat with her friends. Her hand was over her mouth, and her friends were hugging her. Finally she stood and limped to the stage.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said as someone handed her a microphone.
“Who’s your king?” someone called out.
Kate held her breath, wondering what Terri would say. After all, if it hadn’t been for her, Terri would be at the dance with Scott. Did Terri still hold a grudge about how things had turned out, or had the magic taken care of that, too?
But Terri just laughed. “I guess I don’t have one,” she said. “Are there any volunteers?”
Several guys rushed forward toward the stage, with Jeff Higdon reaching it first. Taking Terri’s hand, he led her down the steps and onto the dance floor.
The band started to play, and as Terri and Jeff danced together a group of guys from the football team, all dressed as cupids, ran out and showered them with little red paper hearts.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Cooper said.
“I think it’s sweet,” said Annie, and Kate and Cooper looked at her in surprise.
“Well, that’s the last of the magic,” Kate said. “Everything is wrapped up and out of the way. Now it’s on to bigger and better things.”
She held up her glass. “I’d like to make a toast,” she said. “To magic.”
Annie lifted her glass beside Kate’s. “To magic,” she said.
Cooper added her cup to the other two. “To magic,” she said.
They stood there for a moment under the twinkling lights, the sound of the band and the noise of the crowd surrounding them. Kate looked up at their three hands holding the cups and thought once more of the final card in her Tarot reading. Archer had said that the Three of Cups represented the perfection of friendship and the beginning of something special. She knew that Annie and Cooper had come into her life for an important reason, and in a short time they had become good friends she felt she could trust. She had thought of their ritual as being the end of something, but maybe she’d been wrong.
“Well, it’s not Princess Aurora or Maleficent,” a strident voice broke in. “But it’s the next best thing.”
Kate looked over and saw Sherrie staring at her. Sherrie took in the three of them holding up their cups, and a cold smile spread across her face.
“My, my, my,” she said as she picked up the edge of her skirt and turned to go. “Just wait until the girls hear about this.”
An Interview with Isobel Bird, Part One
Isobel Bird, who are you?
I am thirty-two years old, and I live in New England. I like it here because I love experiencing the changing of the seasons. For almost ten years I have been involved in studying Wicca in its many forms. Apart from writing I enjoy dancing, cooking, singing, gardening, walking in the woods, and painting. I also like to travel, because it gives me the opportunity to meet many wonderful people and find out what life is like in places other than where I live.
What originally gave you the idea for this series?
I have been part of the pagan and Wiccan community for a number of years, and during that time many people within the community commented that it would be great to have books that featured people practicing real Wicca, not the made-up kind featured in so many books and TV shows. There are a lot of young people interested in studying the Craft now, and I wanted to write something for them that was both fun to read and that would also give them a glimpse into the world of Wicca so that they could see what it was all about. So I came up with the idea of three girls studying the Craft for the traditional length of a year and a day. The girls experience many of the things that people who are really studying the Craft experience, so reading the books is like taking a guided tour of life in Wicca.
What do you hope readers will get out of it?
I hope that readers will discover the magic inside themselves. Each of us has the potential to become whatever we want to become. That’s one of the biggest lessons of Wicca. The girls in the series come to discover that they have many strengths, both individually and as a group, and I hope that my readers will discover what their strengths are as well. Of course I also want them to have a fun read while they’re at it.
Part Two of “An Interview with Isobel Bird” is available in the HarperCollins e-book edition of Circle of Three, Book 2: Merry Meet
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with Book 2: Merry Meet
“You’re fifteen minutes late, young lady,” added Cooper, her arms across her chest in mock annoyance.
“Sorry, moms,” Kate said, pushing past her two friends and walking straight into the kitchen, where she knew there would be some hot chocolate waiting for her. Annie’s rambling old house had become her second home, and Kate even had her own mug that she used whenever she came over.
“I can’t believe you’re not giving us the deets,” Annie said plaintively, coming in right behind her.
“Deets?” said Kate, putting her backpack down and taking off her coat.
“You know, details,” Annie explained.
“Since when did you get all streetwise?” Kate asked, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the kitchen table.
“First things first,” said Cooper. “We have something to show you.”
Kate looked from Cooper to Annie. Sometimes she couldn’t believe that the three of them were really friends. Kate was as outgoing as Annie was shy. And Cooper, with her ever-changing hair color (it had recently gone from bright pink to bright blue) and loner attitude, was the last person Kate would have ever thought she’d be spending a Friday night with. But that, too, was before the whole spell thing. Now here she was, waiting for Cooper and Annie to spill the beans.
“While you were out with lover boy, Annie and I made a trip down to Crones’ Circle,” Cooper said, referring to the funky bookstore where the three of them had been spending a lot of time since their experience with the spell book the month before. The store specialized in books about Wicca and other esoteric topics, and they had learned a lot since first walking through the door in search of some much-needed help.
“And?” Kate said with exaggerated effect.
“And we found this,” Cooper said, handing Kate a flyer printed on grass-green paper.
Kate took the flyer and looked at it, reading it out loud as she munched on a cookie. “‘The Coven of the Green Wood invites you to a celebration of the Spring Equinox. Saturday, March 19. Ritual begins at five, with potluck after. Bring food to share.’”
“Doesn’t it sound great?” Annie asked excitedly. “It’s an open ritual. Anyone can go.”
“Sophia said it would be okay if we came,” Cooper added. Sophia was one of the women who owned Crones’ Circle, and she had answered many of their questions
about Wicca.
“I don’t know,” said Kate, staring at the flyer.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Cooper said irritably. “It’s our first ritual.”
“First one with real witches,” Annie corrected.
Kate looked from one to the other. They both seemed so excited. She wished she was as sure as they seemed to be. Getting together with real witches made everything feel a lot more serious, at least to Kate, who still wasn’t entirely sure what she thought about the whole subject of Wicca. She didn’t know if she was ready for it.
“I’ll think about it,” she said, and her friends groaned. They knew that whenever Kate said she’d think about something it really meant she didn’t want to do it but was afraid to hurt their feelings.
“Think fast,” Cooper said. “It’s tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow is tomorrow,” Kate said, thinking about what Scott had said earlier in the evening. “We have lots of time. Now, don’t you want to hear about this ring?”
Isobel Bird
Join the circle…
Book 2: Merry Meet
Joined by an uneasy bond, Kate, Cooper, and Annie are resolved to explore their newfound fascination with witchcraft. The three very different girls attend an open pagan ritual, and while each is drawn to the power of witches, it becomes apparent that they must come together as three before they might begin to learn the ways of Wicca.
0-06-447292-2
* * *
Book 3: Second Sight
As Annie, Cooper, and Kate begin to learn the Craft, a girl in their town goes missing. Cooper has what she thinks are nightmares about it—until it becomes clear that she is having visions about what really happened to the girl. Cooper knows what she must do, but is terrified that it will mean revealing the secret she and her friends have kept until now.
0-06-447293-0
About the Author
Isobel Bird has been involved in the world of paganism and witchcraft for many years. She lives and dances beneath the moon somewhere in New England.
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Credits
Cover art by Cliff Nielsen
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
SO MOTE IT BE Copyright © 2001 by Isobel Bird. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable license to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
AN INTERVIEW WITH ISOBEL BIRD, PART ONE © 2001 by Isobel Bird.
ePub edition May 2001 ISBN: 9780061756368.
Version 071312
Print edition first published in 2001 HarperCollins Publishers
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