Written in the Stars

by Isobel Bird

  “And I’m what?” Kate said warily. “If you say the pretty one, you’d better be ready to run fast.”

  “We’re all the pretty ones,” said Cooper tactfully. “I was going to say that you’re the athletic one.”

  “That’s better,” Kate said happily.

  “Although if we ever needed to go undercover at a fashion show, you are the one I’d send,” Cooper added.

  Kate chased her all the way to the bus stop, with Annie following them yelling, “Slow down.” When they got there the bus was just pulling up. The three of them got on and collapsed into seats in the back, laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe. When they finally regained their composure Annie said to Cooper, “You never told us how things went with Jane yesterday.”

  “Badly,” Cooper said, sobering up. “I really stepped in it. But I think things will be okay. I’m just giving her a few days to cool down.”

  “You should invite her to Kate’s party this weekend,” Annie suggested.

  “Am I having a party?” asked Kate.

  “It was going to be a surprise,” Cooper said, smacking Annie’s knee.

  “Whoops,” said Annie. “I forgot. Surprise!” she added, beaming at Kate.

  “You shouldn’t have,” Kate said, feigning shock and delight. “So, what are we doing?”

  “We’re having a little get-together at my house,” Annie said. “Saturday night. Is that okay?”

  Kate nodded. “Mom has a catering thing that night, so we’re doing the family thing on Sunday.” And my therapy appointment is in the morning, so that will be out of the way, she thought to herself.

  “It will just be us girls,” Annie said. “Nothing too big.”

  “Sounds perfect,” said Kate. “And by all means invite Jane,” she added to Cooper.

  “I will,” Cooper replied. “And now here’s our stop.”

  They got off and went in their respective directions. When Annie got home she found her aunt in the kitchen with Meg.

  “Hey there,” Sarah said. “I was just about to send someone off to bed.”

  “That would be me,” Meg said. She gathered the homework she’d been working on and headed up to her room. Annie went to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of water.

  “Do you know where my birth certificate is?” she asked her aunt.

  Sarah nodded. “It’s in the fireproof box in the closet,” she said. “Do you need it?”

  Annie nodded. “It’s nothing major,” she said. “We’re learning about astrology in class. The woman teaching us wants to do my chart, and I need to give her some information.”

  “How fun!” Aunt Sarah said. “Let’s go get the birth certificate.”

  They went into Aunt Sarah’s office and she opened the closet. It was piled with boxes, half of which tumbled out onto the floor.

  “I’m going to have to do something about this mess before we combine households,” she remarked as she shoveled some loose papers back into the boxes with her hands.

  Annie almost took the opportunity to ask exactly where the households would be combining, but she didn’t. Nor did her aunt say anything else about it. Instead she rooted around in the back of the closet, finally emerging with a metal box.

  “Here it is,” she said. She flipped the latch and opened the box. Inside there were all kinds of papers. Aunt Sarah riffled through them. “Wills. Deed to the house. Marriage license,” she said as she looked at the various papers. “Ah, here we are. Birth certificates.” She took out a faded piece of paper and handed it to Annie. “There you go.”

  Annie looked at the paper in her hand. She’d never seen it before, and it felt weird to be holding the document of her birth. There was her name, and below it her parents’ names and their signatures.

  “You were born at two twenty-three in the morning,” Aunt Sarah said. “I’ll never forget it. Chloe went into labor at 8:00 in the morning the day before. We thought you’d be such an easy birth. But it was like you were determined to hang on until you were good and ready to come out. Your father was actually trying to coax you out by talking to your mother’s belly.”

  Annie laughed. “I wish I remembered it,” she said.

  “You finally came out when he started singing to you,” her aunt told her. “And we were all glad you did. Your father had a terrible voice.”

  “That I do remember,” Annie said.

  Aunt Sarah took the birth certificate and made a copy of it on the small copier next to her desk. She gave it to Annie and put the original back in the box, which she then returned to the closet.

  “Thanks,” Annie said. “I’ll let you know what I find out about myself.”

  “I’m sure it’s all good,” Aunt Sarah said as they left her office and returned to the kitchen. Annie headed for the stairs, but her aunt called her back. “I want to talk to you about something,” she said.

  Annie sat at the kitchen table across from Aunt Sarah. Her aunt picked up a cookie from the plate on the table and nibbled at it. She offered one to Annie, but Annie shook her head. She was too worried about what her aunt was going to say to eat.

  “I’m sure it’s crossed your mind that someone will have to move when the wedding happens,” her aunt said.

  Annie nodded. “I kind of figured that different cities wouldn’t be the way to go,” she joked.

  Aunt Sarah smiled. “I just want you to know that Grayson and I haven’t made any decisions about that yet,” she said. “There are a number of factors involved, and we’re trying to weigh everything and decide what makes the most sense.”

  “Fair enough,” Annie said.

  Her aunt took another bite of cookie. “This is pretty weird, isn’t it?” she said.

  Annie nodded. “A little,” she said. “Not in a bad way or anything. Just a little weird.”

  “It’s funny how life works out,” Aunt Sarah said thoughtfully. “I really never thought I’d get married. I always thought of the three of us as a little family. Now that family is going to get bigger. If someone had told me a year ago that this was going to happen I would have bet a million bucks they were wrong.”

  “Fate,” Annie said softly.

  “What?” her aunt asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” said Annie, realizing she’d spoken out loud. “It’s just something Cooper said the other night.”

  Aunt Sarah nodded. “Anyway, I just wanted you to know that no one has made any decisions yet,” she said. “And we won’t without talking to you and Meg and Becka.”

  “Thanks,” said Annie. “And whatever happens, I love you, Aunt Sarah.”

  “I love you, too,” her aunt said.

  Annie stood up, gave her aunt a kiss good-night, and went up the stairs to her room. She put the copy of her birth certificate on her desk. As she looked at it sitting there, at her parents’ names below hers, she thought about everything that had happened to get her to where she was. Is it really fate? she asked herself. When she was honest, she had to admit that she didn’t really know. Then she looked at the piece of paper on which Olivia Sorensen had written her number. But maybe I’m about to find out, she thought.

  CHAPTER 7

  “Still here?” Kate dropped her backpack on the floor next to the couch and walked past Kyle, who was sitting in one of the armchairs and holding the television remote in one hand as he flipped listlessly through the channels.

  “Some of us don’t have to go back until next week,” he said. “That’s one of the advantages of not being in high school anymore.”

  “I see,” Kate called from the kitchen. “Along with not having to do any of your own dishes, apparently.” She looked at the collection of plates, cups, and silverware in the sink and shook her head.

  “I was going to get to those,” said Kyle, coming into the kitchen.

  “Right after you do all the laundry you left by the machine, clean the house, and do the grocery shopping to replace all the food you’ve been eating, right?” snapped Kate.

  “Al
l right,” said Kyle. “What gives? You’ve been coming down on me ever since I got home. Not to mention snitching on me to Mom about the tattoo, which I’ll probably never hear the end of.”

  Kate took a bite of the apple she’d pulled out of the refrigerator and gave Kyle a fake smile. “That just slipped out,” she said. “Sorry.”

  Kyle groaned. “Just so you know,” he said, “sarcasm is not attractive in a girl.”

  Kate stormed past him and out of the kitchen. Kyle followed her as she headed up the stairs. “I’m just kidding!” he called after her. “Talk to me, Kate.”

  Kate stopped on the stairs and wheeled around. Kyle was standing at the bottom of the steps, looking up at her.

  “Okay,” she said. “You really want to know what’s bothering me?”

  Kyle nodded. “Yeah, I do,” he said.

  “Fine,” said Kate. “What’s bothering me is that my brother has apparently turned into a narrow-minded, insensitive jackass.”

  Kyle’s face fell, and he stared at her in confusion. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “What did I do?”

  Kate crossed her arms over her chest. “What you did was make fun of me when I tried to talk to you about something important to me. But if you don’t remember, I guess it’s not that important to you.”

  Kyle shook his head as if he was trying to remember something. Then he looked up at Kate. “Are you talking about that witch stuff?” he asked.

  Kate didn’t reply. She continued to stare at him angrily.

  “Come on, Kate,” Kyle said. “Get over it already.”

  “See,” Kate said, pointing a finger at him. “That’s the problem. You think this is all some silly game. It’s not important to you, so you think it can’t possibly be important to me. Well, it is, Kyle. It’s very important. It took a lot for me to tell you about the class, and about Mom and Dad sending me to therapy. And what did you do? You laughed at me.”

  She was so angry she was shaking. Kyle continued to stare at her as if he’d never seen her before. Kate wanted to turn and run away, to hide in her room so she wouldn’t have to see him looking at her like that. You wanted to tell the truth, she reminded herself. Nobody said that was going to be easy.

  “That’s why you told Mom about my tattoo?” said Kyle. “Because I teased you about the witch stuff?”

  Kate nodded. She could tell that her brother really didn’t understand why she was so mad at him. That made her even more upset, but she knew letting her anger get out of control would make everything worse. She took a deep breath.

  “I could always tell you anything,” she said. “Even stuff I couldn’t tell Mom and Dad. Then when I told you the one thing that I really wanted you to understand, you made me feel like an idiot.”

  Kyle looked away for a moment. When he turned back he shrugged his shoulders. “What can I say?” he asked his sister.

  “You can start by apologizing,” Kate suggested.

  “I’m sorry,” Kyle said. “I guess I really thought this was just some crazy idea you had and you’d get over it.”

  “Well, it’s not,” said Kate. “It’s really important to me, and if you’d bothered to listen to me you would have realized that.”

  Kyle put up his hands. “All right,” he said. “So explain it to me.”

  Kate thought for a minute. Did she really want to try to explain Wicca to Kyle? She knew that no matter what he said, he still thought it was ridiculous. Would trying to change his mind just give him more ammunition to use against her the next time they fought? Probably, she told herself. But you started this, and it’s up to you to finish it.

  “Okay,” she said. “Come on.”

  She turned and went to her room. She heard Kyle come up the stairs after her. He came into her room, where she was putting her stuff down and trying desperately to think of a way to talk to her brother about the Craft.

  “Have a seat,” she said, indicating her desk chair.

  Kyle sat down and looked at her expectantly. Kate found herself growing more and more nervous. It was like she was giving a presentation in front of a thousand people who needed to be convinced that Wicca was a legitimate religion, not just talking to her brother. I wonder if this is how Cooper felt when she had to speak to the school board, she mused, thinking about the time her friend had to convince a lot of people that her wearing of a pentacle wasn’t something they should be afraid of. How had Cooper done it? Where had she begun?

  Start with your altar. A quiet voice echoed through her mind, like someone whispering to her from behind a curtain. The voice soothed her, and she felt her racing heart begin to slow down. A calmness began to replace the anxiety that had been roiling in her stomach. Suddenly she had an image in her mind of a woman standing behind her, smiling gently and encouraging her. She knew the woman was some kind of goddess, although she didn’t know which one. But it didn’t matter. The point was that it reminded her that she wasn’t alone.

  Start with the altar, Kate prodded herself. She turned to the small table she’d set up beside her bed. It wasn’t anything fancy, because she hadn’t wanted to freak her parents out too much while they were still getting used to the idea of her studying Wicca, but it did the job. She picked up the small statue that sat in the center of the altar and held it up.

  “This is the goddess,” she told Kyle, who stared at the statue blankly. “Well, one of them, anyway. This one happens to be Demeter.”

  “There’s more than one?” Kyle asked, taking the statue from Kate and looking at it.

  Kate nodded. “There are thousands of them,” she said. “Although really they’re all different forms of the same one. It’s like there’s one big Goddess and she has lots of personalities. At least that’s how I like to think of it. Other people have their own ideas about it.”

  “What does this one do?” asked her brother, holding up the statue.

  “Demeter is a nature goddess,” Kate said. Her reservations about talking to Kyle about witchcraft were quickly disappearing as she tried to remember everything she could about Demeter. She had gotten the statue as a Yule gift from the women at Crones’ Circle. Each class participant had been given a different goddess or god, and Kate had been particularly happy to receive Demeter. She’d always liked the story of the goddess, and as she told it to Kyle she found herself speaking easily.

  “Demeter had a daughter named Persephone,” Kate explained. “She loved her more than anything. The two of them used to walk through the fields together, and because Demeter was so happy the crops and flowers grew really well. Then one day, while they were walking, the fields opened up and the god Hades dragged Persephone down into the underworld.”

  “Why?” Kyle asked. He was studying the statue of Demeter closely.

  “He was in love with her beauty,” explained Kate. “He wanted her to be his wife.”

  “He couldn’t just ask?” said Kyle.

  Kate laughed. “The gods don’t seem to do a lot of asking,” she said. “He just sort of kidnapped her. Demeter was crushed. She walked all over the earth, asking people if they’d seen her daughter. In the meantime, Persephone was sitting around in the underworld being really freaked out about it all.”

  “Why didn’t she just leave?” Kyle inquired.

  “She couldn’t,” said Kate. “Hades wouldn’t let her. Besides, there are all these guardians to the underworld, and they wouldn’t let her get past. So she had to sit there while Hades tried to convince her that things weren’t so bad. Also, I think Hades must have been kind of cute, and Persephone sort of liked him in that weird ‘I shouldn’t like you but I do’ way. Anyway, back upstairs, Demeter was getting sadder and sadder, and the sadder she got the more the plants wilted. Finally nothing would grow and winter came for the first time. This didn’t make the farmers all that happy, and they begged her to make everything grow again. Only she was so heartbroken that she couldn’t.”

  “This all sounds like a giant soap opera,” Kyle remarked.


  “It gets better,” said Kate. “Finally everyone was so miserable that they all asked Hades to let Persephone go. He agreed, but first he offered her a pomegranate.”

  “Why?” Kyle asked.

  “Because no one had invented chocolate yet,” Kate said smartly. “Well, Persephone ate a few of the seeds from the pomegranate. Then she went on her way out of the underworld and back to her mother. Demeter was so happy that immediately spring came and everything started to grow again.”

  “Let me guess,” Kyle said when Kate paused. “There was a catch.”

  “Major catch,” Kate told him. “Because Persephone had eaten the pomegranate seeds, she was forced to return to the underworld for part of the year. So she spent six months here and six months there. When she was down there moping around with Hades, Demeter got all sad again and winter came.”

  “And because no one had invented skis yet, this was a big bummer, right?” Kyle said.

  “Right,” Kate said. She took the statue of Demeter from him and placed it back on the altar. “So that’s her story.”

  “And you have her on that table why?” Kyle asked.

  “She reminds me that things change,” Kate said. “Wicca is all about nature, and cycles, and how things are connected to one another. Having the statue there reminds me of that.”

  “And you do what with it?” Kyle said hesitantly.

  “Sacrifice goats and things to it,” said Kate, pretending to be serious.

  Kyle stared at her in horror. Kate smiled sweetly. “Just kidding,” she said. “But you almost bought it, right?”

  Kyle turned red. “It’s just that when you said you were into witchcraft—” he began.

  “Relax,” Kate said. “A lot of people have weird ideas about what witches do. So just to clear things up, no one sacrifices anything.”

  “Good to know,” Kyle replied, sounding relieved. “So, what are you into?”

  Kate sighed. This was the hard part. Explaining Wicca to people who hadn’t ever experienced it themselves was difficult. Many people thought it was a lot more complicated than it was, and sometimes the truth was harder to accept than the fantasy.