Witch Ways

by Tate, Kristy

  “Okay. Let’s meet up when you figure out where Dylan is.”

  #

  My phone started buzzing when I got out of the shower. The international number told me it was my mom.

  “Pansy?”

  “Mom!” I pinned the phone between my ear and my shoulder while I stepped into my clothes. “I have so much to tell you!”

  Mom’s comforting laugh sounded over the airwaves. “I’ve missed you, baby. How are you?”

  “So strange . . . so many crazy things have been happening.” I pulled my sweater over my head and glanced out the window at the dark clouds forming over the horizon.

  “Mmm, sounds like you need a trip to India, you’d love it here. There are monkeys, poppy fields that stretch forever, endless blue skies, and warm trade winds.”

  A few raindrops pinged against my window.

  “That sounds nice, but I—”

  “You know you don’t have to take care of your Uncle Mitch, right?”

  “I know . . . Mom, Uncle Mitch is . . .” I didn’t know how to find the words.

  “He’s what, baby? Sick? Difficult?”

  “No, he’s . . . Birdie gave me some of her spell books.”

  “Evie! I told you not to listen to her!”

  “You told me everything she said was a lie, so what harm could a love potion do?”

  “You made a love potion?” Mom sounded more amused than concerned.

  I told her about me and Bree making the potion, letting it steep in the moonlight, and leaving it out on the counter.

  “And Mitch drank it?”

  “Janette, too, I’m pretty sure.”

  Mom huffed or laughed, I couldn’t tell which. “And now they’re in love?”

  “Uncle Mitch is downstairs, right now, practically swallowing Janette Starks whole.”

  Mom’s laughter rang out, and I had to hold the phone away from my ear.

  “It’s disgusting!”

  “I bet he doesn’t think so! I assume Janette doesn’t mind being swallowed?”

  “No, she’s been bringing him baked goods for years and years. But don’t you think it’s strange that now, the morning they drank a love potion, they’re suddenly all kissy?”

  “Don’t you think it’s strange your uncle waited until he was almost fifty to get kissy?”

  “There’s more weirdness.” I told her about the sudden appearance of the dog and about Bree falling out of the tree after I told her to.

  The laughter in my mom’s voice faded. “Sweetie, there’s a thing call connectivity. It’s a principle that thoughts are tangible and real—like organized energy.”

  “That sounds like, as Uncle Mitch would say when he isn’t so dopey with love hormones, malarkey.”

  “Ask him. He’ll tell you thoughts are degrees of light, invisible to our human eye, just like molecules, atoms, or protons. Thoughts are just as tangible as the chair you’re sitting on.”

  “I’m not sure I believe that, but even if I did—so what?”

  “Sweetie, when you control your thoughts, you control your world.”

  “But I can’t control Uncle Mitch.”

  “Of course not. But maybe by making the potion and leaving it available for him to drink, you subconsciously gave him permission to act on his pent up emotions.”

  “Sounds like the M word, Mom.”

  “Maybe so, but I promise you, your mind is much more powerful than a book of spells, or your grandmother and her voodoo.”

  “Mom, what happened between you and Birdie?”

  Mom sighed. “It’s complicated, but what it really boiled down to was that your grandmother had expectations I couldn’t meet.”

  “You mean she wanted you to be a witch.”

  “Well, yes. That was part of it.”

  “And you thought the whole witch thing was bogus.”

  Mom laughed again. “Bogus Birdie—that’s a good name for her.”

  “I think she misses you.” I told her about how Birdie had enshrined her room.

  Silence fell over the phone. “Your grandmother and I . . . when you’re older, I’ll tell you about it.”

  “Don’t you think you should tell me now?”

  “How’s this—you come and stay with me, and we’ll talk about my rocky relationship with your grandmother.”

  “I want to go to school here. I don’t want to go to school with monkeys.”

  “There are monkeys in every high school, no matter where you are.”

  “But I want to stay here.”

  “Even if you can’t go to Hartly?”

  I nodded, even though I knew she couldn’t see me. “Did you like going to Faith Despaign?”

  “It’s an excellent school, despite its peculiar past.”

  “I know. I read about Faith Despaign.”

  “But it doesn’t pretend to be a witch school. Almost everyone there was normal when I went there.”

  “There wasn’t like a witch coven?”

  “Of course there was. But I dare you to show me a school full of teenage girls without a few witches! I know you won’t find one.”

  “And the dog and the love potion—”

  “Connectivity, sweetie, connectivity.”

  “I miss you, Mom.”

  After telling her I’d think about coming for Christmas break, I turned on my laptop. While I waited for it to boot up, I glanced out the window. Drizzle had turned to full-fledged rain. Through the streams of water pouring down the window, I noticed the cat sitting on a branch, looking sad and wet.

  I opened the window and it leaped inside. Ignoring me, she padded over to my bed, jumped up on my pillow and began to lick her wet fur. I thought about telling her she couldn’t stay, but then decided to call her Amber, after her eyes. When I closed the window, I saw Dylan’s car pull into the Hendersons’ driveway.

  I grabbed my phone and shot Bree a text. “Test monkey is on his way!”

  Bree replied immediately. “Get over here!”

  I considered slopping through the mud and rain and decided against it. “No. You deliver the package. I need to work on my English assignment.” My mind itched with possible things I could write about. But before I even thought about my paper, I Googled connectivity and discovered Wallace D. Wattles and his Science of Getting Rich.

  “Man can form things in his thought, and by impressing his thought upon formless substance can cause the thing he thinks about to be created. In order to do this, man must pass from the competitive to the creative mind; otherwise he cannot be in harmony with the Formless Intelligence, which is always creative and never competitive in spirit. Man must form a clear and definite mental image of the things he wishes to have, to do, or to become; and he must hold this mental image in his thoughts, while being deeply grateful to the Supreme that all his desires are granted to him. All that is included in his mental image will surely be brought to the man whose faith does not waver.”**

  Turns out, Wallace Wattles wasn’t alone in his thinking. A bunch of others agreed with him. I read some of their writings as well. And even though I found it interesting, I was pretty skeptical. Uncle Mitch and his M word kept crossing my mind.

  Thinking of Uncle Mitch made me curious. I went down the stairs, pausing on the landing to watch for my uncle, neighbor, and their raging whatevers. No sign of them. I padded into the kitchen and snagged a muffin.

  Uncle Mitch wandered in. He blushed when he saw me.

  “So, you and Janette?”

  His blush crept a little higher to his cheeks and he ducked his head.

  “Why now?” I asked, thoughtfully chewing my muffin. “I mean, she’s been bringing us treats for years. What changed?”

  “It was an experiment,” he said, taking a muffin for himself. “The results were most surprising.”

  “What? You kissed her and you liked it? And that surprised you?”

  “No, I happened to read an article on the science of love. The author proposed you could make anyone fall in love
with you. I was naturally skeptical, so I tried it.”

  “Huh.” I poured a glass of milk to go with my muffin. “To get into the journalism class at school, I have to write an article. If it’s good, they’ll let me transfer out of Sophomore English. Maybe I should write an article on your experiment.”

  Uncle Mitch peeled a banana, considering. “I don’t think so. I think it would be dangerous for a bunch of teenagers to fall in love.”

  “News flash! They do it all the time. Practically every day.”

  Uncle Mitch shook his head. “No, they just think they do. This was a powerful experiment. It would be highly irresponsible for you to introduce it to impressionable youths in the throes of puberty.” He bit into his banana, chewed thoroughly, before saying, “You should write an article on the Thornhill Theater.” He tapped on the Woodinville Observer. “Do you see any articles on love experiments in here?”

  I glanced over his shoulder at the newspaper. Woodinville Murderer Found, the front-page headline read. Relief zipped through me. I didn’t need to worry about the shoes.

  “That’s boring. I was thinking about witchcraft.”

  “And using your grandmother as a case in point?” He shook his head. “You don’t want to get on her bad side.”

  “Why would that put me on her bad side?”

  “Look at how she turned on your mom.”

  “Maybe she’d be pleased I’m showing an interest in her . . . thing.” Witchcraft—was it a religion? A lifestyle choice? A belief?

  “Do the theater and the acting troop. You’ve got an in. You can call it an inside exclusive.”

  “That’s so lame. I can’t even tell you how lame that is.”

  “A reporter has a responsibility to tell the news that will somehow be of use and benefit to her readers. People want to know about the renovations.”

  “Oh, snooze. Tell me about your love experiment.”

  He shook his head. “No. I’m telling you—it’s heady stuff.”

  I wanted to hear the heady stuff, and I was pretty sure that most of Faith Despaign’s students would feel the same. I decided to ask Janette the next time I saw her at play practice.

  “Excuse me, I have to write down my conclusions.” Uncle Mitch wiped his lips with a napkin and headed for his lab.

  “Conclusions? Already?” I asked him.

  With pink flooding his cheeks, he slunk out of the room, but he stopped in the hall. “Hello? Who’s this?”

  I went after him and found Amber and Uncle Mitch staring at each other in the hall.

  “I found a cat,” I told him.

  “I can see that.”

  “Can she stay?”

  “Will she try and eat my mice?”

  “Probably.”

  “This might be interesting,” he said. “I wonder how ingenious she’ll be. Although, I’m sure that will depend on how hungry she gets.”

  “Oh! She’s probably starving!” I ran back into the kitchen to find a can of tuna.

  “You don’t want to let her go hungry and see how resourceful she can be?” Uncle Mitch said, trailing after me.

  “No, I don’t. That’s inhumane.”

  “I guess you’re right.” Uncle Mitch headed for his lab with a sigh.

  My phone buzzed with a text from Bree while I opened the tuna can.

  “The package is wet.”

  “Any change in the weather?” I texted back after I placed the can on the floor.

  Amber ate hungrily.

  “Not yet, but a heat wave is on the horizon.”

  #

  The next day at school, I found Dylan Fox leaning against my locker.

  “Hey.” He didn’t budge, but smiled at me, his amber eyes reminding me of my cat.

  “Hey.” I slid my book bag to the floor, wondering what to do now. I didn’t want him to leave, but I did want to put my books away before the bell rang.

  “So Bree told me about your project.”

  “She did?” No. She wouldn’t do that.

  “Yeah, she said you’re writing a newspaper article on the Thornhill Theater renovations.”

  I thought back to last night’s conversation. What I had said was Uncle Mitch had a lame suggestion for my newspaper article.

  “I want to help you,” he said.

  “You do?” I wouldn’t have been more surprised if he had said he trained purple monkeys.

  “Sure. My mom is president of the historical society, and, as you know, the theater is on the register. And my dad’s real estate investment firm owns it.” He looked into my eyes.

  “Why do you want to help me?” I blurted out.

  Smiling, he pulled away from the locker, reached a finger out and tilted up my chin. “Why do you think?”

  He didn’t wait for me to answer, but sauntered away.

  I stared after him.

  Someone pinched me.

  “Ow!” I rubbed my arm, and turned to find Court frowning at Dylan’s retreating back.

  “Dude, when someone like Dylan Fox offers to help you do anything—anything—you don’t ask why. You just bat your eyelashes and act helpless.”

  “But—” I sighed, picked up my book bag, and deposited it into my locker, “writing about the theater is boring.”

  “Is Dylan Fox boring? No, he is not.”

  I watched his broad back disappear through the throng of students. “He doesn’t like me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Uh—it doesn’t matter what I’m thinking.”

  “I’ve been going to school here for a while now and this is the first time he’s even acknowledged me. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

  Court lifted her shoulder. “No. Hairless cats are strange. Techno music is weird. But Dylan Fox is not a hairless cat or techno music. If he wants to help you write an article about the Thornhill Theater renovations, then that’s what you write your article about.”

  “I want to get into the journalism class, and to do that I need a great article, not a boring one.” I got my biology notebook out of my locker and headed for class. Court kept up beside me.

  “Hey, did you bring the tennis shoes?”

  The tennis shoes. I had buried those in the back of my closet. “It’s raining outside.”

  “We need to practice if you’re going to make the team in the spring.” Her face brightened. “Hey, we can go to the club. Dylan works there.” She elbowed me, nearly knocking me into another student headed for the biology lab. “Good plan?”

  I rubbed my arm. “Your shoes didn’t really fit. I’ll have to get some new ones.”

  I spent the next hour wondering if somehow the elixir really had worked. Bree had given Dylan the elixir, not me. But maybe since I had made it, the spell had backfired. Which didn’t make sense. Under that theory, Uncle Mitch should have been in love with me, and not Janette . . . which was just too awful to think about.

  “Miss Marston.” Dr. Preston’s voice shook me back to class. “What can you tell us about ecosystems?”

  My mind raced. Then I remembered something Uncle Mitch had said and tried to repeat it. “Any introduction of a nonnative species can and will cause substantial shifts in the ecosystem function? It’s like putting a girl in the boys’ locker room. Things will change—pretty dramatically—just by her showing up.”

  #

  Dylan caught up with me after English. Putting his hand on my arm, he stopped me and poked his head into the classroom.

  “Mrs. Price,” he said. “Do you think it would be okay if I take Evie to the Thornhill Theater during lunch? She wants to get into your journalism class, and thought it would be cool to write about the renovations.”

  “That would be fine, I’m sure, Mr. Fox.” She turned her focus on me, and probably took notice of me for the very first time. “You do realize the journalism class is extremely competitive, Miss . . . It’s highly unusual for a sophomore to make the paper.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. She didn’t know my name, but she
did know my grade, which was a start.

  “She’ll blow the doors off your mind,” Dylan promised her.

  “I like to think I’m already fairly open-minded, thank you. Just a good, straight forward story that’s relevant and helpful to our community.”

  She sounded a lot like Uncle Mitch, but she did write us a pass that would get us off campus.

  “Did you have Mrs. Price?” I asked Dylan, hoping to learn more about her as we navigated through the crowded halls.

  He shook his head.

  “Oh,” I said, feeling a twinge of disappointment.

  “But I know her pretty well.”

  “Really? How?” Teachers and students didn’t tend to hang outside of school.

  “She’s . . .” he paused, obviously looking for the right word. After a moment, he finished with, “friends with my mom.”

  Outside, the rain fell in a steady, gray, drizzle. Neither of us had an umbrella, so Dylan took off his jacket and held it up over our heads. We ran to his car, his hip occasionally bumping against mine as we splashed across the parking lot. He opened my door first.

  “I’m not sure I can blow anyone’s doors off,” I said as I buckled my seat belt.

  “Don’t doubt yourself.” He grinned at me, inserted the key in the ignition and started the engine. Immediately, the heater blew, warming our confined space.

  I began to thaw, and my tense muscles relaxed a fraction, although I still couldn’t believe I was alone in a car with Dylan Fox. I wondered what Bree would say, but as I watched Dylan’s face, it occurred to me Bree would not be happy.

  He was talking. I needed to pay attention, but all I could think about was Bree. My best friend, Bree, who thought she was in love with Dylan Fox.

  “So do you want to go?”

  “Go?” My thoughts scrambled. Weren’t we going already?

  “To the ball?”

  “The ball?” The ball? Who goes to balls? Then I remembered the historical society was hosting a fundraising party for the theater. “Oh wow, yeah, great.”

  Janette would be there for sure, and maybe she’d be able to drag Uncle Mitch. Mr. and Mrs. Henderson would be there, too. In fact, at last year’s fundraiser, Bree, Josh, and Candace had been hired to help the caterer and would probably be expected to help this year as well.