by Isobel Bird
They sang the song through, their voices blending together. Cooper’s was the strongest, confident and self-assured; Annie’s was pleasant and soft; and Kate’s was determined, if a little off-key. They sang happily and unself-consciously, the words rising with the flames and the smoke from the fire. Then, as if by unspoken agreement, they stood and joined hands. Circling the fire, they did a slow dance, raising and lowering their clasped hands as they continued to sing. Their voices spiraled up, wrapping around one another and soaring toward the moon.
“We all come from the Goddess, and to her we shall return like a drop of rain, flowing to the ocean.” The simple song captured the moment perfectly with its message of renewal and celebration. The girls had sung it at numerous rituals throughout the year, but now it belonged entirely to them, and to the moment. It was as if they were the only ones who had ever sung it.
When the song finished, they stopped dancing and stood still. The girls looked at one another, still holding hands. Annie squeezed Cooper’s hand and said, “Blessed be.” Cooper then did the same to Kate, who in turn gave Annie the traditional witches’ greeting. Then all three of them joined together in saying, “Merry meet, and merry part, and merry meet again. The circle is open but unbroken.”
With that the ritual was over, at least the official part. There was still more, but it had to wait until they had dismantled the circle, removed their robes, and put away all of their magical items in the backpacks they’d carried with them. Then the three of them left the cove, walking across the beach to the stairs that led to the wharf.
They trudged up the steps and walked to Cooper’s car, where they put their stuff in the back. Then they went to the Frozen Moo, their favorite ice cream shop, where they commandeered a booth at the back and ordered hot fudge sundaes all around. When the ice cream came, Cooper held up her spoon.
“A toast,” she said. “To surviving a year of friendship.”
“That’s not exactly positive, is it?” Kate said. “You make it sound like an ordeal.”
Cooper looked thoughtful. “I think it was more like boot camp,” she said.
“Oh, that’s much better,” Annie teased. She held up her own spoon. “How about to a year of living magically?”
Kate groaned. “That’s so New Agey,” she complained.
“Let’s see you come up with something, then,” said Cooper.
Kate hoisted her spoon. “To a year on the path,” she said, looking at her friends for approval.
Annie and Cooper nodded. “That will do,” said Cooper.
The girls clinked their spoons together and then plunged them into their sundaes. They each took a big bite of ice cream and hot fudge and savored the taste.
“This is how all rituals should end,” remarked Annie.
“Let’s suggest it in class next week,” Cooper replied.
“Do you guys realize there are only a few more weeks until the initiation ceremony?” asked Kate, licking her spoon.
Annie nodded. “I know,” she said. “I’m getting a little nervous. I’m not sure I know enough to make this decision.”
“Come on,” Cooper said, giving her friend a look. “It’s not like this is a chemistry test. You don’t have to study for it or anything.”
“I know,” Annie responded. “But it’s a big deal. I just want to make sure I’m doing the right thing.”
“What do you think happens at the ceremony?” Kate said.
The others were quiet, clearly thinking about the possibilities. The truth was, they had no way of knowing. The initiation ceremony was a secret, and no one who had gone through it would tell them anything. “Besides,” Archer had told them, “it changes every year.”
That didn’t stop the girls from thinking about what might be in store for them should they decide to go through with the ceremony. But they rarely discussed it among themselves. This was the first time any of them had actually brought it up for debate.
“I have so many other things to worry about right now,” said Annie. “That’s sort of the last thing I can think about.”
“Have your aunt and Grayson made any decisions about moving yet?” asked Cooper.
Annie’s Aunt Sarah was getting married shortly before the initiation ceremony, and a decision had to be made about whether the family would remain in Beecher Falls or move to San Francisco, where Grayson Dunning and his daughter, Becka, lived in the Crandalls’ old house. Annie and her friends hoped that the couple would choose to remain in Beecher Falls, but this was something else they rarely talked about openly because none of them could bear thinking about her leaving.
“No,” Annie said shortly. “They haven’t made up their minds. Becka and I have stopped talking about it because it just makes us stress out. I’m trying to concentrate on only positive things, like Juliet.”
“How is your big sis anyway?” Kate inquired.
Juliet was Juliet Garrison. A few weeks before, Annie had discovered that her mother had once had a child and that she’d given it up for adoption. After contacting an adoption search service, she’d received a call from Juliet. The two had talked, and after exchanging information had determined that Juliet was, in fact, Annie’s older sister.
Annie was still adjusting to the idea of having a big sister. While she was excited, there were still some issues, namely that she hadn’t told Aunt Sarah that she’d found Juliet. Her aunt, who had been the one to tell Annie about the adopted baby, didn’t know that her niece had taken things a step further. Neither did Annie’s little sister, Meg, who didn’t even know about their missing sister. Annie was trying to decide how to tell them about locating Juliet, and she hadn’t figured out yet what she should do.
“She’s great,” Annie said, answering Kate’s question. “We’ve talked a few times now. I really like her. But I’m not sure what happens next.” She sighed deeply. “This is a big deal.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Cooper said reassuringly. “You always do.”
Annie nodded. “I hope so,” she said. “There’s so much going on that I feel like this would be like dropping a bomb on an unsuspecting village. But enough about that. How’s your mother doing?”
This question was addressed to Cooper. Her mother had, in the past month, begun drinking more than was good for her. Cooper knew it was a result of the stress she was under because of the divorce from Cooper’s father, but that didn’t make it any easier to take. Cooper had briefly moved out of the house to give herself some time to think, living with her friend Sasha and Sasha’s adoptive mother, Thea—a member of a local coven—for a while. She’d moved back into the house since then, mainly because her father had asked her to. He was worried about her mother, he said, and felt better with Cooper in the house to keep an eye on her.
Since then her mother’s behavior hadn’t gotten any worse—but it hadn’t gotten any better, either. She spent most of her time in her room. When Cooper did see her, she was sullen and uncommunicative. Several times Cooper had tried to discuss the situation with her, but each time her mother had simply gone into her bedroom and shut the door.
“She’s the same,” Cooper told her friends. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. Right now I think she’s keeping things at least a little under control because she has to teach. But once school is out for the summer, I don’t know what will happen.”
Annie put an arm around Cooper and silently leaned her head against Cooper’s for a second. Then she let go. “All right, Kate,” she said. “We’ve outlined our dramas, so spill it. What is Kate Morgan dealing with right now?”
Kate shook her head. “I feel a little weird because for once there isn’t any drama in my life,” she said. Not that there wasn’t last month, she thought to herself. Although her friends didn’t know about it, she’d just recently stopped going to the therapist her parents had sent her to after discovering her involvement in Wicca. Kate had never told Cooper and Annie about that. She didn’t know why, really, except that having a therapist ha
d embarrassed her. But now it was over. And so was her relationship with Tyler. Another secret her friends didn’t know was that Tyler had asked her to get back together.
“Well, don’t worry,” Cooper told Kate. “Things might seem okay now, but something is bound to happen. It always does.”
“What a cheerful thought,” Kate said. “Can we get back to having a good time now?”
Cooper and Annie laughed at the serious face she was making. “Fine,” Cooper said. “But when whatever it is that’s going to happen happens, don’t forget we told you so.”
“How could I?” asked Kate. “You’d never let me.”
CHAPTER 2
“Can you even believe the lame theme they came up with for the dance this year?”
Tara, who had just voiced the question, took a bite of her sandwich and rolled her eyes. Jessica, sitting across from her, nibbled on a carrot stick, pushed her long blond hair behind one ear, and nodded in agreement. “Very tired,” she said.
Kate contemplated the salad she’d brought for lunch. I think I put too much dressing on it, she thought critically as she licked her lips and tasted honey mustard. She’d been spending a lot of time helping her mother with her catering business, and as a result she frequently found herself rating the various items she consumed. It was, she thought, becoming something of a problem.
“I mean, hasn’t the whole famous lovers thing been done about a billion times?” Tara continued.
“Two billion,” Jessica said. “Our masquerade ball idea last year was so much better.”
As Kate listened to her friends talk she couldn’t help but think back to the previous year’s Valentine’s Day dance. That’s when everything had started. She and her friends had been responsible for coming up with a theme for the dance. More important, she had been just the tiniest bit obsessed with getting hunky football player Scott Coogan to ask her to the dance. That’s when she’d done the spell—the spell that had backfired so badly and gotten her in all that trouble.
Things certainly had changed since then. Scott was gone, off at college somewhere and out of Kate’s life. She, Annie, and Cooper were best friends. Tara and Jessica, two of her former best friends, were back in her life after an awkward and painful falling out. And Sherrie, the remaining member of their once-solid quartet, was now on the outs with everyone. That last fact made Kate particularly happy. Sherrie Adams was trouble with a capital T, and the less Kate had to deal with her, the better.
“What do you think, Kate?” Tara asked. “Want to run for queen again this year?”
Kate looked up and saw her friends grinning at her. They knew that the whole issue of the Valentine’s dance queen and king was a sore spot with her. One of the results of her misdirected spell the year before had been that practically every boy in school had nominated her for queen. It had enraged all the other girls, and Kate had found herself ostracized by her friends and even competing against Tara, who had been put forth as a candidate by the basketball team. At the time, her friends had had no idea that Kate’s sudden popularity was the result of magic gone wrong. Now that they did, they liked to tease her about it.
“Sure,” Jessica said. “Maybe this year you could do a spell to make all the other contestants’ hair fall out.”
Kate narrowed her eyes. “Or maybe I could just make sure you get nominated this year,” she said. She knew the idea of running for Valentine’s Day queen was shy Jessica’s worst nightmare. Sure enough, her friend paled at the suggestion.
“I’m not even going to the dance,” Jessica said testily.
“Me neither,” Tara added. “It just doesn’t seem all that much fun this year.”
Kate nodded in agreement with her friends. “The only person with a boyfriend is Cooper, and you know she won’t go,” she joked.
“We should just throw our own dateless Valentine’s Day party,” Jessica remarked as she picked up another carrot stick.
Kate looked at her two friends. “Why not?” she said.
“Why not what?” asked Tara, scratching her nose.
“Why not have our own Valentine’s Day party?” said Kate. “It would be fun. We could all go out to dinner and then do something we want to do instead of standing around at a stupid dance.”
“Okay,” said Jessica. “It sounds good to me.”
“Yeah,” Tara said after a moment. “It does. Count me in.”
“Great,” Kate said, suddenly feeling excited about having a project. “I’ll talk to Cooper and Annie and see what they think. But I’m sure it will be a go.”
The bell signaling the end of the period rang and the girls gathered up their stuff and left. As she walked to her next class, Kate was happy. For the first time in a long while, things seemed to be going smoothly. She was getting along with her family and her friends. She was enjoying the Wicca study group. She had a fun project to look forward to. Everything was fine.
Her good spirits held up all through Mr. Niemark’s math class, despite the fact that they had a surprise quiz. Totally by accident, Kate had actually read the material they were being tested on, and she did well on the quiz. When that period was over she walked confidently into Ms. Ableman’s science class feeling like nothing could possibly spoil her mood.
Not even Sherrie, although the two of them hadn’t spoken a word to each other all year, and most of the time Kate didn’t even think about the fact that they sat only a few rows away from one another in science class. As she took her seat, Kate looked at the back of Sherrie’s head and wondered what her former friend would think if she knew that Kate and the others were planning their own Valentine’s Day get-together. In the past, Sherrie would have been right in the middle of things. Now she might as well be a total stranger, and that’s just how Kate wanted it.
Ms. Ableman came in and stood behind her desk at the front of the room. She looked out at the class, taking mental note of who was absent, and then made some marks in the attendance book in front of her.
“All right,” she said, shutting the book. “Well, as I’m sure you all know, the middle of the semester is almost here again. That means we have another big test coming up.”
There was a collective groan from the class. Ms. Ableman’s tests were legendary at Beecher Falls High School. They always involved some elaborate project or experiment, and they also counted for half of a student’s grade in the course. Kate had done fairly well on the previous exam, and she was pretty sure she could pull it off again. Still, the thought of having to prepare for another test dampened her spirits, if only slightly.
“I know not all of you are looking forward to this,” said Ms. Ableman, smiling slightly as some of the students laughed. “That’s why I’ve decided to try something a little different.”
Kate perked up. Something different? What did Ms. Ableman have in mind, she wondered. Maybe it would be something interesting. Suddenly the idea of a test didn’t sound quite as bad as it had moments before.
“Your exam will consist of a practical and a written report,” said the teacher.
That’s not so bad, Kate thought.
“And you’re going to work in teams,” the teacher continued. “Your team will be graded as a unit, meaning that you will both receive the same grade.”
Kate liked that idea. Working with someone else would mean she had to do only half of the work. As long as you pick someone good, she reminded herself. She started scanning the room, thinking about who she could ask to be her teammate. She’d narrowed her choice down to Bob Hines or Jessica Brand when Ms. Ableman said, “I have taken the liberty of choosing your partners for you.”
Kate’s attention snapped to the front of the room. Ms. Ableman had already selected their partners? That hardly seemed fair. For a moment she panicked. Calm down, she told herself reassuringly. You could still get Bob or Jessica. When she thought about it, Kate realized that pretty much anyone would be fine as a partner. After all, they were doing a practical and writing about their findings. That wouldn’t
be hard at all. She was good about keeping detailed notes, and writing them up would be easy. You’ve as good as got an A, she told herself.
Ms. Ableman removed a piece of paper from her desk. “Here are your partners,” she said. “Vicki Harper, you’ll be working with Martin Beemer. Paul Tarrip, you’re paired with Alex Golden.” She went down the list, matching up students. Kate waited for her name to be called. Finally, it was.
“Kate Morgan,” said Ms. Ableman, nodding at Kate, “you’ll be working with Sherrie Adams.”
Kate’s heart seemed to stop in her chest. Had she heard correctly? Had Ms. Ableman just said what she thought she’d said? She was working with Sherrie? No, it wasn’t possible. There were twenty other students she could be paired with. It just couldn’t be Sherrie.
Ms. Ableman was reading out more names, oblivious to the fact that she had just done the one thing in the world that could make Kate’s day fall completely apart. As Kate listened, she wanted more than anything to raise her hand and ask to be reassigned. But how could she do that without making a scene? Everyone would know that she didn’t want to work with Sherrie. Sherrie herself would already know, of course. Kate stared at her, wondering what she was thinking. Was she as horrified by the prospect of their working together as Kate was? How could she not be? Kate thought. Surely having to talk to Kate, let alone work together on a project that was going to be half of their grade, was enough to push Sherrie over the edge. But at the moment Sherrie was simply staring out the windows that lined one side of the room.
When Ms. Ableman finished reading the list of teams, she picked up another stack of papers. “These are your project assignments,” she said. “Each team has a different one, so there won’t be any temptation for teams to share their results with one another. Now, I want you to pair up with your teammate, come get your assignment, and spend the rest of the period looking it over.”
All around her, other students stood up and went to talk to their partners. Kate found that she just could not force her legs to move. She sat in her chair, looking at Sherrie, who also didn’t make any move to come talk to her. Finally, Kate willed herself to stand.
