“You’re talking about murder. I don’t think –”
Hazel shook her head sharply. “It doesn’t matter what you think. They already tried once, and it nearly killed Noah trying to stop them. I’m certain they were about to try again in New York.”
“Yeah, but since we returned to Hackensack, she hasn’t done much more than try to trick me.”
“Right,” Hazel said with a nod, as if I’d made her point. “It’s all about ability and opportunity. Think of how she controls Noah. She can only do so when she’s recently cast a spell. It’s not constant. They are bonded, for reasons we’ve yet to uncover. But trust me – that sort of thing doesn’t happen on its own. Because of that, he can’t move far from her, though at least it seems she cannot control him all the time.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“What does it have to do with anyone?” Hazel countered. “This is who Sarah is. She’s calculating. She sets things up before she knocks them down. She’s not going to run after you in the middle of the school day. Her attacks are planned meticulously. Even more so now that her last one has failed.”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “But Sarah hasn’t gone after me herself. It’s always someone else.”
“Right,” Hazel said again. It was amazing how often I could be right but still not actually know anything. “Noah said you already found out she’s doing voodoo, and you learned what voodoo is and how it works. If Sarah went after you herself, she would upset the balance of her ability. That’s why she has her friends do everything.”
“Because she doesn’t care about mucking up their balance,” I guessed.
“Exactly. They probably don’t understand their own magic the way she does, and she’s taking advantage of that. She’ll use them to do all the dirty work, unless the person wronged her and she can do it herself.”
“And Noah wronged her?” I asked boldly.
Noah gave me a sheepish look as Hazel shook her head.
“You shouldn’t have to ask that,” Hazel said, “but I get it. No, Noah didn’t do anything to her. Which makes it a lot harder to figure out how and why Sarah is controlling him.”
“Probably would have better luck guessing the winning numbers to the lottery,” I mumbled.
Hazel sat up straighter. “I’m sure you’re a very sweet girl, but I will tell you right now – I’m only helping you to help Noah, so you won’t get any assistance from me if you don’t take this seriously.”
“I am taking this seriously.”
“Good,” Hazel said, spreading open a scroll of plain white paper. “Then let’s begin.”
The method was simple.
I took the image she had me trance sketch on the scroll and held the chain with the crystal over it, allowing the crystal to rock in something like a circular pattern. Hazel suggested I close my eyes, which she said might help me better feel the magnetic pull between the drawing and the crystal.
I felt nothing.
“Eventually you should see new images in your thoughts,” she said. “Images related to the one already given to you. Keep your mind open.”
“Be open-minded,” I repeated. “Check.”
“It takes time,” she said softly. “Patience. Trust.”
Trust. Hah. A small bit of laughter bubbled out of my mouth. I couldn’t help it. Hazel frowned.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I feel like an idiot.”
She sighed, but nodded. “Try it every day. It may sound weird, but the best time to learn new things is when you’re tired – like, completely, can-hardly-see-straight wiped out. You’ll get in that state between being conscious and awake. Eventually you’ll learn to get to that place any time of day. It’s like meditating.”
I’d experienced the mental headspace she was speaking of, but couldn’t imagine ever getting there on purpose. Let alone staying there long enough to do anything without falling asleep.
“I’ll keep trying.”
“Good.” Hazel rubbed her eyes. She looked as exhausted as I felt. “I’m going to go to bed, but if anything happens, you can wake me up. I left some spare pillows and blankets on the couch.”
I glanced behind me to the stack of two pillows and one quilt. “There’s only one blanket?”
Noah stood and stretched. “I don’t need a blanket. You take it.”
Hazel pointed to a slatted door in the hall. “There’s another in the closet. Night, you guys.”
Then she stumbled away sleepily, snapped off a light, and shut herself in the only room.
I pursed my lips and rubbed my thumb over the crystal. I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this tonight.
I turned to Noah. “Where are you sleeping?”
He’d already pushed aside the coffee table, since I had taken to working at the kitchen table, and was now pulling out the sofa bed. “You take this. I’ll take the floor.”
I pushed my work aside and turned toward him. “You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s okay.” He patted the mattress beside him. “Wanna watch a movie before we turn in? Hazel has a sick movie library.”
“Sure.” I climbed onto the bed and propped a pillow behind me.
Noah switched on the TV and flipped through Hazel’s digital movie database. “Let me know if you see something you like.”
“There,” I said. “At the top. A Walk to Remember. It’s the original Fault in Our Stars, don’t you think?”
Noah wrapped his arm around me. “No idea, brat. None at all.”
His voice was as soft as his embrace. I leaned into him. “We should just hide out forever. Sarah can’t touch you here.”
Noah swallowed. “We can’t hide forever, Emily. Remember?”
There was a time where hiding had been enough for him, but not for me. How had things reversed themselves so quickly?
I gazed up into his familiar sky-blue eyes. The movie played in the background, but it was immediately lost on us.
Noah had already kissed me at least a dozen times, but this impending kiss seemed suspended in time, our faces inching closer together at a record slow speed. It was as if we were too afraid to do it. Maybe it had something to do with us both being on this bed, a blanket draped across our laps. It was more intimate, more private.
His hand traced along my hip, over my jeans. His fingertips skimmed my belly, just under the hem of my shirt. I shivered. Now was the moment I could pull away, but I didn’t want to.
“You don’t ever have to be jealous, Emily,” he whispered in my ear, sending goosebumps up my arms. “Not ever.”
“I know,” I lied.
He pulled away a bit. “Good, because for me it can only be you.”
“I don’t know what to do with that,” I replied honestly. My emotions and my hormones were a wild mess.
Noah sighed deeply, the warmth of his exhalation caressing my neck and shoulder. “I’ve never felt this way,” he said, his hand slipping from my hips to let his fingers entwine with mine. “Not even under Sarah’s spell. Your hold on me is greater than any enchantment.”
My throat jumped to my heart. Or my heart to my throat. I didn’t even know anymore because I couldn’t think straight. It didn’t matter. Or maybe it mattered more than anything.
“T-thanks,” I replied lamely. Then, “I like you. A lot.”
Noah chuckled. “I know. I like you a lot, too. It’s made me strong enough to fight back. But you’re my weakness as much as my strength, and Sarah sees it, too.”
“That makes it harder, huh?”
“For both of us,” Noah said. “If only she realized that losing you would kill me. That might be the only thing that would stop her now.”
“Don’t you get it? That’s precisely why she wants me dead.” It was the first I’d admitted it out loud.
Noah leaned his forehead a
gainst mine. “I won’t let that happen.”
His lips met mine again, his longish brown hair tickling my forehead. He propped himself on one elbow, letting the fingers of his other hand trace circles up my leg. Right above my knee, then higher and higher.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to happen. More of his kiss, more of his touch, more of him? Yes to all of it, but I knew I couldn’t encourage him to take things even a smidge further because I was so damned nervous.
Apprehensive though I was, I continued to kiss him back, breathlessly trying to figure out what to do with my own hands. I settled for resting them on his shoulders, which felt awkward but was better than leaving them at my sides.
Many times, Noah seemed so lost. I always attributed that to Sarah’s hold over him…except when he was kissing me. Whenever he kissed me, I was the one who was lost.
He deepened the kiss, his lips insisting I give in to him, but I fought back every urge to explore his body, certain my self-control would cause me to explode.
Being a teenager was dangerous. Somehow, though, we survived the night on nothing more than that kiss – a kiss that made me understand why teens have sex but also made me think kissing could be sexy enough forever.
Noah and I fell asleep before the movie ended, and there was definitely something intoxicating about waking up in his arms.
But instead of basking in that feeling, my mind sought out trouble as I envisioned the drawings. The sketches sent to me by my curse. The pictures that foretold a grim future. The ones that promised Noah’s death.
14
THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS
There was one thing we could count on after our visit with Hazel. Thanks to a spell she’d cast, I would now be able visit her again – eyes wide open – without Sarah or the other It Girls stealing the location from my mind.
Unfortunately, on my list of priorities, that wasn’t at the top. I was more concerned with how to stop Sarah. As of right now, I didn’t have a clue. I hadn’t even accomplished what we’d originally visited Hazel for: I still couldn’t use that little crystal to get more from my trance drawings.
Maybe it was because I couldn’t stop thinking about Noah. My dad always said teenagers shouldn’t use the “L word” because they didn’t know what it meant. Surely that applied double when the people knew each other only a month. I wouldn’t for a second consider my feelings for Noah as love, but maybe love was a process. Or maybe it was on the other side of this journey we were on. Or something. But damn if I wasn’t in serious, serious like with Noah Caldwell.
I sighed heavily and stared out the window as he drove us home. I was sad to be leaving one of only two places we could be together. It would have been nice if Hazel could have protected my knowledge of the lake too, but she told us she couldn’t cast that spell unless she met me at the location as she had done with Noah when casting the spell for him.
Glancing over at Noah, I studied the familiar contours of his chiseled face. Naming my emotions wasn’t near as important as admitting they existed. I wanted to be with him. It was that simple. And Sarah stood between us, with no way to stop her. It was that complicated.
“You’re quiet,” Noah said, switching off the radio.
I gave a wistful smile. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
“About how not in love with you I am.”
Noah chuckled. “Thanks. Because I’m definitely not in love with you, either,” he teased.
For reasons I couldn’t explain, knowing the feeling was mutual made me giddy. But before long, reality came crashing down. “Was going to see Hazel a waste?”
He pressed his lips together and focused on the road, his head moving ever so slightly side to side. “I guess that’s up to you.”
I blew air out of my lips. “I have to figure out what I haven’t been able to figure out my entire life. No pressure, right?”
His gaze cut away from the windshield to meet mine. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know.” I pulled up one knee and angled my body toward him. “But what if I don’t figure it out?” A chasm opened up in my stomach. “Or what if I figure it out and it’s too late?”
Noah didn’t respond. His knuckles whitened as he clenched the steering wheel tighter in his hands. Minutes later, he pulled over on the side of the highway. At first I thought he was going to say something reassuring, but instead he hunched over and gritted his teeth.
“Noah?”
He shook his head. I put my hand on his back, between his shoulder blades. He was burning up, his body so tense it felt hard as wood. He yanked away.
“Noah, are you okay? Say something.”
He hissed, grabbing his sides, rocking back and forth.
My ears filled with the sluggish thudding of my heartbeat. What the hell was wrong with him? He was fine a minute ago. Visions of that day in the cafeteria flooded my mind.
“Should I call 9-1-1?” My voice cracked. “Tell me what to do. Noah, you’re scaring me!”
“No,” he shouted. His next words came out strained: “Don’t…call…anyone.”
I wanted to comfort him, but every time I touched him, his pain seemed to worsen. Like a broken record, I kept asking what I should do. I asked if he wanted me to drive him home. He shook his head. After a couple minutes, I went numb, dying inside, completely paralyzed by fear.
Who would I call for help anyway? Heather? And if I didn’t call someone, would he die?
Next thing I knew, I was standing outside, pacing along the roadside, then stumbling through patches of grass, my legs rubber beneath me. I didn’t remember getting out of the Chevy. I ran my hands through my hair and spun back toward the truck. Noah was slumped over the driver’s seat, still hunched over, sweating and rocking. I was helpless to save him.
I dug my phone out of my purse and paced some more until I found a signal. One bar. Where were we that I only had one bar of service? I sucked in a breath and tried gathering my wits long enough to make a call.
He didn’t want me to call 9-1-1. I couldn’t call my dad or Heather. I barely knew anyone else. I didn’t have Hazel’s number, and Noah was in no condition to give it to me. I started googling for some answers, but didn’t know what to search for.
Sudden pain caused by voodoo magic? I was certain that’s what brought it on. How much longer could Noah’s body take this torture? I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. Pull yourself together, Emily. He needs you.
With a deep inhale, I walked back to the truck. There was nothing for me to do than be by Noah’s side until this passed. However painful it was to watch, it was infinitely more painful for him to go through. Somehow I needed to stay strong.
And somehow, I did. We survived the next twenty minutes of the attack, and then it came to an end. As if it had never happened. Except it had, and my whole body buzzed with anxiety at the thought of it happening again.
“Sorry,” Noah mumbled, his sweat-soaked hair matted against his forehead, his skin clammy. “I better get you home.”
He pulled back onto the road, and neither of us spoke for the next few miles. I was the one to finally break the silence.
“It was Sarah, wasn’t it?”
His words came out in an angry growl. “Of course.”
“What does she want?”
“More like what she doesn’t want – us to be together.”
By the time we pulled up down the street from my house, Noah’s pallor had improved.
“You okay?” he asked.
I was pulling at a loose thread at the cuff of my sweater. “Yeah,” I mumbled to my lap. “You?”
He reached over and turned my face toward him. “I’m going to be. Hey, I wanted to ask you about the Valentine’s Day dance. It’s next weekend. But –”
“But Sarah.”
“Right,” he said, his tone dro
pping an octave. “I’m ruining high school for you.”
I scoffed a laugh. “Not true. Also, not even remotely possible.”
He smirked then nodded toward my house. I could just make out a car parked in front of it. “Looks like you have company.”
I stared into the darkness, trying to make out the car. Whose was it? Not Heather’s.
Noah was squinting now, recognition setting into his expression. “What the…is that Sarah’s car?”
No idea,” I said, a sinking in my stomach telling me it was. “I’m gonna go in. I’ll call you later, okay?”
I was already outside the truck. I didn’t even say goodbye. The closer I got to the front door of my house, the faster my feet moved, until I was nearly running.
I burst through the entrance, no longer able to control my panic. “Dad?”
“Squirrel? Is that you?” Dad’s voice was accompanied by the aroma of freshly brewed coffee.
I stepped through the foyer, bringing the kitchen table into view. There with a mug in his hand, Sarah sitting across from him.
I glared at her. “What is she doing here?”
“She’s worried about you, Emily. She told me about Noah.”
I shook my head, trying to make this particular nightmare go away. I lunged toward Sarah, but she didn’t flinch.
“Get out of my house,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Emily!” Dad shouted.
“Dad, you don’t –”
“Mr. Bishop, I should probably go,” Sarah said, rising. Her blonde hair shimmered beneath the dull yellow light of our kitchen. I hated her. Every tall, glamorous inch of her. “Thank you for the coffee.”
“You don’t have to go,” my dad said, glaring at me.
Ugh. If only he knew.
“It’s okay, really. You two probably have a lot to talk about.” Sarah grabbed her coat from where it lay folded over the kitchen chair. “Thanks again for your hospitality.” She twisted toward me. “I’m so glad you’re all right, Emily. See you at school.”
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