Spell Check

by Julie Wright

  Robison did as asked and locked the door with a definitive click behind us.

  “We’ll have to finish the chess game when we get back,” Jake said as he led me to his dad’s car.

  “What will you do if I win?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer immediately, but unlocked the door and let me in, waiting until I was settled before closing it and going around to the driver’s side. “I’d be impressed.”

  “You wouldn’t be insulted you lost to a girl?”

  “I’d be impressed,” he repeated. “But I’d challenge you to another game to see if I could win the second round.” He smiled and started the car.

  “What if I beat you the second time?”

  We pulled out of my driveway, heading toward the school. “Then I’d probably challenge you to another game.”

  “Just so you could beat me?”

  His smile deepened. “Not really.”

  “Then why would you—”

  “Because I think I like you too. If we keep playing, I’ll get to spend enough time with you to find out for sure.”

  My stomach swallowed my heart where it turned into all those butterflies that people talk about. “Oh,” I said, not capable of anything more intelligent—just oh.

  Had I felt bad about our date not being romantic enough before?

  After getting to the school, we hurried into the building since we’d arrived a little late. The air horn was going off, and the cheerleaders were trying to pump the crowd into a frenzy. I hesitated at the doors to the gym. Did I really want to go inside, knowing full well that Lisa was in there?

  Jake tugged at my arm. “Let’s get a seat.”

  The urge to pull out the wishing troll and drop it in the garbage can so I could wish myself invisible to the cheer team was overwhelming. But I trailed after Jake as he settled us on a bench near them. I felt physically ill at his seating choice but should have seen it coming. It was where he usually sat at games. Jake said hi to several people and turned his smile on me. “You know, I never see you at games.”

  That was because I usually sat at the top where I was out of the way and unseen. “I’m usually around. I come to support Kristin.” I nodded to where the girls clapped and jumped in front of us. Kristin saw me and smiled big as she called out, “Let’s go!” while she clapped along with the other cheerleaders.

  Lisa was just coming out of a cartwheel when she locked eyes on me. The smile on her face immediately melted into a snarl. There was no mistaking the way her eyes burned as they flitted between Jake and me.

  She stiffened and looked away, clapping along to the cheer the rest of them were doing. Lisa, Amanda, and a couple of other clingers were the only ones who seemed to be bothered by my presence, but they were enough. I should have stayed home and read my magic books.

  Jake clapped along as our team scored points. We were playing against Swampscott High and were already winning, but not by a ton. The players’ shoes squeaked across the floor as they chased the ball around the court. Jake didn’t notice the way Lisa had glared at us. He called out encouragement to the team and booed when the Swampscotts made a basket. He was entirely oblivious to the fact that Lisa Snoddy was going to kill me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Note to self:

  Even Snoddy girls look redeemable when they cry.

  The game ended with the Witches conquering the Swampscotts.

  Corinne, the editor of our high school paper, Witches Brew, snatched up Jake, asking him to do a quick interview about being in Harvard Model Congress. Corinne’s red Salem High T-shirt looked pressed as though she’d actually ironed it. She was a total tidy freak. My mom wouldn’t hesitate to trade me in for a daughter like her. “I’ve got my camera set up in the library so we can take a quick picture too. You don’t mind, do you, Ally?”

  I smiled at her. “Of course not. Go right ahead.” I would have gone with them except Kristin hurried over to talk to me.

  “Shouldn’t take long,” Jake said. “I’ll be right back.”

  I nodded and watched them scurry away, praying he was telling the truth about it not taking long. Kristin squealed about how cute Jake and I looked together. She did it quietly, just in case any of Lisa’s clingers were listening. She looked so happy to be back in her uniform and doing what she really enjoyed, that she took some of the edge off my fear of Lisa coming back to punch me in the head.

  In fact, most of the team glowed with that same relief and thrill to be out there in front of the school instead of missing the game. Quarantine must have been hard on them all—especially the ones who’d actually been sick. I felt glad they were all better.

  A wave of red Salem High T-shirts flooded out of the gym—people anxious to get to their parties, their homes, their lives.

  Nathan came to collect Kristin. There were still plenty of people around, but effectively I was alone. A few people said hi to me in passing—even a couple of the clingers had taken the effort to toss a smile and a wave my direction. Maybe the magic wasn’t such a bad thing since it meant that not all the clingers hated me anymore. Thinking of the magic reminded me that I still had a book to read. I stuffed the earbuds into my ears to start listening.

  A familiar voice came over my iPod. Mine. It was my voice reading the book of magic. I didn’t remember auditioning for an audio book voiceover. How had she done that?

  I knew the answer was she’d done it by magic, but still . . . I was impressed. I listened as my voice read me the introduction to magic.

  The Troll Kvinna must follow the laws instituted by her ancestors. The first law of the Troll Kvinna: we cannot tamper in governments, kingdoms, economies, love, or death—either preventing or causing. True magic is a unification of our senses and the connection we have to the world around us. True unification comes when we work for the betterment of mankind and the world in which we exist. People speak of dark magic and light magic, but there is no such thing on either side—there are only people who practice in darkness and people who practice in the light.

  Man, was I ever boring. My voice droned on and on and on in a long, lecturing monotone. That settled it for me. A career in teaching was not in my future. I absolutely did not want to put poor defenseless students through the torture of listening to me.

  I looked around as my voice continued its lecture about elements, nature, and consequences to every action . . . I listened for what felt a long time. Jake still hadn’t come back for me.

  I gathered my purse and made my way through the basically empty halls to the library, when I turned the corner and found Jake standing right in front of me.

  Well, more exactly, he was standing with his back to me. Lisa was with him. Faint mascara lines trailed down her cheeks, and her voice sounded as high and terrified as it had when she’d found herself in the jungle with me.

  “You can’t mean that!” she said.

  “I just can’t believe you’d do something like that—that you’d hang some poor girl on her birthday—that you’d treat another human being like that. And you expect me to understand?”

  If Lisa took her eyes off of Jake for even a second, she’d see me there witnessing this conversation, which would be bad. “I wish to be invisible to every person in this school,” I whispered after carefully settling my purse with the wishing troll on the floor by the wall.

  Lisa glanced up, and for a moment, it was like she’d locked that horrible look of hate on me. I inhaled, thinking I hadn’t been fast enough, but she went back to Jake, dismissing whatever she might have heard or seen as nothing. I silently let out my breath and looked at my hands to verify they were invisible. They were—totally and freakishly invisible.

  “So you’re what? You’re with her now?”

  It was pretty obvious that her meant me.

  “I’m not with anybody. I just wanted to see what there was about her that made someone like you act like some wicked mental patient. What you did was seriously insane.”

  That hurt a little to
hear him say he wasn’t with me, and to find he was only hanging out with me out of curiosity.

  “It isn’t like she got hurt. It was just a joke.” Lisa looked defiant and pleading at the same time.

  “A joke?”

  “A prank. Haven’t you ever pranked someone before?”

  “Jokes are things where everybody laughs. Ally wasn’t laughing when I found her in that tree.” He started to walk away.

  She grabbed at his arm, her eyes swelling with tears. “Jake, please! I don’t want to lose you!”

  He pulled his arm out of her grasp and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, if you hadn’t hanged her, you’d still have me. I guess I should thank you for revealing the real you. Anyway, I gotta go. She’s waiting for me.”

  Jake passed me as he moved back down the hall towards the gym.

  I stepped back, nearly tripping on my purse and falling into the drinking fountain in an effort to stay out of his way since he’d nearly walked right into me.

  Lisa stood alone in the hall looking forlorn and lost. She hugged her arms to herself and let a couple of sobs escape her. Her shoulders hunched over as if she were collapsing in on herself.

  I watched in fascination. She really does care about him. The thought seemed so bizarre. Lisa—the black widow spider to my fly, the tsunami to my day at the beach, the nemesis that I’d battled again and again and again—the battles I’d always lost.

  Lisa cries. Lisa loves. Lisa has real feelings. Her hair was really normal underneath that dye job. So maybe under the façade of her cruelty, there was a real person.

  I used to think it would be awesome to watch Lisa fall off her self-imposed pedestal. But being faced with the actual moment didn’t feel as satisfying as imagined. I almost felt bad for her losing Jake—not bad enough to stop seeing him or anything, but enough to feel responsible for the fragments of her broken heart lying on the ground at her feet.

  “Hey!” A huge voice echoed down the hall at us.

  Startled, we both looked up to see one of the janitors.

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” the janitor said, not loud enough to be a shout, but pretty close to it. “Game’s over. Time to go home.”

  “Right. I’m going.” She wiped her eyes and cheeks on the cuff of her shirtsleeve and straightened. It was crazy how she transformed herself like that—amazing how she looked so utterly broken one minute and totally in control the next. She trailed off the same direction Jake had gone.

  I almost called out my own apology to the janitor, having nearly forgotten he hadn’t caught me hanging out in the hall. Hard to get caught when no one sees you. I waited for Lisa to pass, waited for the janitor to go away, and was about to make myself visible again when I felt the shiver in my skin—the kind that comes from being watched. Another girl leaned against the wall across from me. She had a smirk on her face, and she stared right at me.

  It was the girl Farmor had called Elva, with her tight black clothes and her white head of hair. “You better go,” she said at last, her tone light, as though something amused her. “Prince Charming’s waiting for you.”

  I remained motionless. Farmor had said she was just a shadow, a memory echo. But if that was the case, why did it feel like she spoke to me directly?

  She straightened. “Or maybe you’re too shy to put your skin on with an audience? Fine. I’ll give you your privacy.”

  She disappeared.

  I sucked in air hard. Did that just happen? How could a memory echo see me—especially when I was invisible?

  I checked the hall for anyone else before whispering, “I wish I was visible to everyone again.” It relieved me to be able to once again see my hands and body. I worried a little that something might go wrong, causing me to end up that way permanently. Elva had freaked me out, and being in the empty halls only added to the creepiness. I picked up my purse and hurried to find Jake.

  Jake stood in the doorway of the gym, shifting from one foot to the other and darting his gaze back and forth. He looked worried, and even if he was only with me out of curiosity, it made me feel good to know he cared enough to worry.

  “Hey, where’d you go?” It took some effort to sound breezy and unconcerned and to keep the accusation out of my voice. He’d ditched me for a long time to hang out with Lisa. But accusatory was hardly considered an attractive trait.

  “Sorry, I . . . I got held up by some people. We should get out of here, though. The janitor’s already chewed me out twice.”

  I didn’t ask who held him up, and he didn’t volunteer the information. Still, we were both pretty quiet on the drive home. He must’ve forgotten any offers to get a bite to eat because he took me straight home. I wondered if it was because he’d filled up on Farmor’s snacks or if he was tired of my company and wanted to just be done with the night.

  When he walked me to the door, but made no movement to go inside, I figured he was just done. Before we’d left to the school, he’d mentioned wanting to finish the chess game, but he made no mention of it now. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

  “It was fun,” he said.

  “Yeah. Fun,” I agreed. I waited for him to say more, to offer me a chance at another date, but he didn’t. After several awkward moments of just standing there, I finally said, “I had a good night. Thank you.”

  I turned to let myself into the house where I could cry myself to sleep, but he stopped me.

  “What do you think of Lisa?” he blurted out from behind me.

  Really? He really wanted to know what I thought of her? I slowly turned back to him. She’s an evil, demonic pig who has no heart and no soul. She likely kicks babies in the park for sport and sacrifices puppies for her own dark purposes, and if you were smart, you’d stay away from her. “I feel sorry for her,” were the words I actually said.

  “You feel sorry for her?” He looked at me, disbelief clearly written in those beautiful eyes of his.

  I thought of her, alone and collapsing in the hall, in a moment where she was totally vulnerable with no one to impress and no one to put down, and knew it was true. I felt truly, genuinely sorry for her.

  “This may sound weird, because Lisa’s done a lot of horrible things to me over the years, but for whatever reason, she thinks I’ve done horrible things to her too.” I almost outright denied doing anything horrible to her, but thought about the hair, nails, and unexpected jungle safari. Those could be considered horrible things. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I feel sorry for her because maybe if she didn’t hate me, we might have been friends.”

  It was true, and though every word I said would likely only make him think nice thoughts about her, after seeing her crying in the hall, there wasn’t anything else to say.

  He nodded, biting the inside of his cheek. The cheek biting thing had to be an actual habit. The study of Jake Warren was my best subject. How had I missed such a detail? His lip, on the side not being chewed on, turned upward in a hint of a smile. “You have been a great surprise, Ally.” He leaned in.

  Please kiss me. Please kiss me.

  He didn’t.

  Rats.

  But he gave me a hug. I all but melted against him, breathing him in, and feeling the whole monarch migration fluttering in my stomach.

  “You know, you kinda remind me of my mom,” he said, after pulling away and grinning in full force at me. “Goodnight.”

  I watched him bound down my front walk and to his car, feeling the smile slide off my face into a frown. “I remind him of his mom?” I said out loud. What kind of comment was that? Who tells a girl he’s dating that she reminds him of his mom of all people? That? Was just weird.

  The door was locked, as I’d instructed Robison to do, so I wished it open, and locked it back up behind me. The chessboard still sat on the table. My heart hoped he left it on purpose as an excuse to come back.

  Snoring and TV noise came from the TV room, so I followed it, assuming it would lead me to actual family members.

  “Hey
Sob-Rob.”

  Robison jumped, spilling his soda as I came into the TV room. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people!” he said.

  “I didn’t sneak. I walked.”

  “But it was locked,” he said flipping the TV to off with the remote. When I didn’t respond, he got the message. “Oh. Right.”

  I pried Dad’s eyelid open. He kept snoring, not seeming to notice the intrusion to his eyeballs. “He’s still sleeping?”

  “So’s Mom.” Robison looked troubled. “They will wake up, won’t they? I didn’t sleep this long after you spelled me.”

  “They’ll wake up. Maybe getting them together was harder on them than I thought.” I tried rolling Dad over, to give me room on the edge of the couch, but he wouldn’t budge, so I sat on the arm of the couch instead.

  “Did you study your books?” Robison asked.

  I sighed. “I started to.”

  Robison shook his head in disgust. “They totally wasted the cool stuff on the wrong child.”

  “I’ve still got time. I’ve got until tomorrow.”

  “Whatever. You’re the one going to court, not me.”

  “It’s not like I’ll be on trial or anything,” I insisted.

  He eyed me skeptically. “You sure about that?”

  I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure of anything. It bugged me that my little brother probably was a better option to bestow powers on. I dug in my purse to find my iPod and stuffed the earbuds in my ears, glared at my brother, and leaned against my dad’s legs. “Happy?” I asked over the sound of my own voice talking about chemical and spiritual reactions to spells.

  He blew a raspberry at me. Deciding his presence hampered my ability to concentrate, I wandered up to my room while my voice explained the elemental differences between alchemy and cosmology, and how Arthur C. Clark had it right when he said that any sufficiently advanced technology was indistinguishable from magic. I didn’t even know who Arthur C. Clark was, so it was weird to hear my own voice quoting the guy.

  I pulled my cape off its peg and used it to curl up in on my bed. It would be far more comfortable to close my eyes and relax a little while listening to myself give me a lecture. The first eight chapters dealt with elements and magical theory. My eyes were so heavy. I let them close, feeling immediate relief. So. Tired.