by Isobel Bird
She sighed. “One more time,” she said. “Am I making a big mistake?”
This time she shook the ball harder, deciding that she just hadn’t been doing it quite right. But when she looked, the familiar “maybe” filled the window.
Kate looked at the Magic 8 Ball in her hands. What am I doing? she thought. Why am I trusting my decision to a stupid toy? All it was going to say was “maybe.” But what if it had answered “no” to any of her questions? Would she have accepted that? And if it had said “definitely yes”? Would she have considered that sufficient justification for making a choice?
The more she thought about it, the more Kate realized that maybe “maybe” was as good as it got. She was never going to have firm answers to anything. All she could do was follow the path that made the most sense to her, that provided her with the things she needed. As for the rest of her questions about what she believed or didn’t believe, they could never really be answered. Like Father Mahoney said, she thought, that’s why they call it faith.
She looked up at Mary again. “I guess you just had to take a chance, too, right?” she said.
She put the Magic 8 Ball back into her pack, picked up the book, and stood up. It was time to go. She had come there to find an answer to the question that had no answer, and she might or might not have done it. If the answer is that there will never be an answer, I’m all set, she thought as she walked through the sanctuary and headed for Father Mahoney’s office to return the book. And if the answer is that I still don’t know if this is the right thing but I’m pretty sure it’s not the wrong thing, then I’m good to go. She had come with doubts and she was leaving with doubts, but she was sure of one thing: She wanted to become a witch.
CHAPTER 16
“I am so glad you guys are back.”
Kate gave Annie a big hug, then did the same to Cooper. She had just arrived at Annie’s house, where the three of them were getting together for a Saturday night sleepover. Annie and Cooper had just returned from New Orleans a few hours before, and it was the first time all three of them had been together in more than a week.
“How did it go without us?” Annie asked. “Did you get lots of work done on your science project?”
“All finished,” replied Kate. “And I didn’t even kill Sherrie.”
“Thank Goddess,” remarked Annie. “It would be really hard to explain having that on your school transcript.”
“I don’t know,” Cooper mused. “I hear colleges look very favorably on girls who murder.” She winked at Kate. “Did you like your care package?” she asked.
“Oh, it was big fun,” Kate said. “Thanks so much.”
“What was your favorite thing?” Cooper inquired.
Kate thought for a moment. “The bubbles,” she said. Really, it had been the Magic 8 Ball, but she couldn’t get into a discussion about that without getting into a discussion about her challenge, and she was trying to avoid doing that. For one thing, she wasn’t sure it was allowed. For another, she wasn’t sure how Annie and Cooper were progressing on their challenges, and she didn’t want to look like she was bragging by saying she’d figured hers out. So instead she asked, “How was New Orleans?”
“Fantastic,” Annie said instantly.
“Amazing,” added Cooper.
“Tell me everything,” Kate said. “I want every single detail.”
“Upstairs,” Annie said, nodding toward her room.
They trooped upstairs and into the bedroom, where Annie shut the door. Cooper took a seat on the floor with her back against the wall, while Kate threw herself onto Annie’s bed. Annie sat on the end of the bed.
Cooper and Annie told Kate all about their visit, beginning with the flight there and ending at the moment when she’d walked through the door and greeted them. Kate listened raptly to Annie talk about Juliet and to Cooper talk about the food. As they gave her more and more details, she found herself wishing she’d been there to witness it all firsthand. But there was a reason for you to be here, she reminded herself. And she knew she wasn’t just trying to make herself feel better. It was true. If she had gone with them, she never would have figured out her challenge. Well, she might have, but it was doubtful. Cooper’s gift had been a big part of her being able to do that.
“I’m really glad everything went well with Juliet,” Kate told Annie.
“I know,” Annie said. “It was so hard saying good-bye to her at the airport. But she’s going to come for Aunt Sarah’s wedding, and that’s not too far off. Besides, we took a lot of pictures. I’ll show those to you as soon as they’re developed.”
There was more Annie wanted to say. She wanted to tell them about the strange girl in white, and she especially wanted to tell her friends that she’d told Juliet about being involved in Wicca. But that would mean telling them about her challenge, too, and she knew she wasn’t supposed to do that, not until Tuesday’s class, anyway. Still, she was just about to burst with the news. She wanted to tell them how Juliet had said, “That is so cool” when Annie had made her announcement, and how Annie had practically cried with relief. It had all been so easy. Well, the ending had been easy. Everything leading up to it had been incredibly hard. While she was telling Juliet about her possible upcoming initiation, she’d been convinced that she was making a huge mistake. She’d been certain that Juliet wouldn’t be able to accept that her little sister was going to become a witch, and that she’d lose Juliet the way she’d lost Brian. But that’s not the way things happened at all, and Annie was proud of herself for taking the chance, meeting her challenge despite her fears, and in the process becoming even closer to Juliet.
“I can’t believe you made up your lines for that play,” Kate said to Cooper, allowing Annie to breathe a little easier now that the attention had shifted to someone else.
“I can’t either,” Cooper replied. “It was kind of unreal.”
“How did you even come up with stuff to say?” Kate asked.
Cooper thought about the gris-gris Sunny had made for her. She still had it, tucked into her duffel bag. She hadn’t told anyone about it yet. She wasn’t sure why, since her challenge was over and it couldn’t possibly change anything for her friends to know, but she felt she should keep it her secret.
“I guess I just decided that I couldn’t possibly look any stupider than I would have if I’d just stood there,” Cooper told Kate. “I don’t really remember much about it.”
Of course she remembered it. She remembered every single moment of it. It had been her greatest fear, brought to life and put on a stage for everyone in the audience to witness. And she’d overcome it. She’d won. That made her feel really good about herself. And Tuesday they’ll know all about it, she thought happily.
They sat in silence, looking at one another for a while. All three of them were thinking about their challenges, and how they’d managed to figure them out and meet them head-on. Each one wondered if the other two had succeeded or failed. Finally, Annie cleared her throat.
“I know we’re not supposed to discuss our challenges,” she said. “But I want to say that I hope you two have learned as much from yours as I have from mine.”
Cooper and Kate looked at her. They knew she was telling them—without actually saying anything—that she’d completed hers. Kate grinned. “I definitely learned a lot,” she said simply.
“That makes three of us,” Cooper told them.
Annie nodded, maintaining her composure. Then she smiled broadly. “In that case, I suggest we do something.”
“Such as?” asked Cooper.
“A ritual,” said Annie. “A final ritual together before Tuesday. After that we’ll all be officially almost-initiated.”
“Assuming we all passed our challenges,” Cooper added carefully.
“Right,” Kate said emphatically. “Assuming we passed.”
“Of course,” said Annie. “Anyway, assuming we passed, we won’t be amateurs anymore, really. I think it would be fun if we did one l
ast one as our little baby selves. You know, for old times’ sake.”
“Sounds fun,” Kate said.
“What do you have in mind?” Cooper asked her.
Annie looked thoughtful. “I think we should do a friendship circle,” she said. “Sort of like the first one we ever did. It will be like going back to the beginning again, only this time we’ll be celebrating everything we’ve learned together.”
Cooper and Kate nodded in agreement.
“Let’s do it,” Cooper said.
Annie went to her closet and brought out some candles and incense. She also brought out a cardboard box.
“What’s in there?” Kate asked as Annie set the box on the floor.
Annie answered her by opening the box and holding something up. It was a robe made out of bright blue satin.
“Oh, Goddess,” Kate said in surprise. “I can’t believe you still have that.”
“I have all of them,” Annie told her, reaching in and pulling out pink and green robes to go with the blue one.
Cooper groaned. “I thought I’d never have to see that again,” she said, looking forlornly at the pink robe.
“Come on,” Annie said. “You can’t tell me these don’t hold at least a few good memories for you.”
Cooper sighed. “Okay,” she said. “Maybe they do.”
“Good,” said Annie. “Then put it on.”
She tossed the pink robe to Cooper, who reluctantly pulled it over her head. Kate put on the blue one, while Annie donned the green. When they were all dressed they looked at one another. Then they started laughing.
“They seemed like a good idea at the time,” Kate said when she was able to speak again. She’d made the robes for the Valentine’s Day dance that had started her thinking about doing spells, which in turn had brought her, Annie, and Cooper together. Ultimately, the three of them had gone to the dance together, dressed as the three fairy godmothers from the Disney cartoon Sleeping Beauty. They had gotten a lot of attention that night, and it had been the first time the three of them had gone out in public together.
“I thought we might want them someday,” Annie said. “So I stored them.”
Cooper looked down at her pink robe. When Kate had made it, the color matched the pink color that Cooper had recently dyed her hair. Now that her hair was back to its real blondish color, she looked a little silly. Still, she couldn’t help grinning.
“Remember the look on Sherrie’s face when she saw us in these?” she said.
Kate hooted. “I thought her head was going to explode,” she said, recalling the sight. At the time, she had worried that Sherrie would guess that she and her friends were involved in witchcraft. Now she couldn’t care less. She’d come a long way in her thinking, and in her attitudes, since that night.
“It seems like such a long time ago,” remarked Annie. “Can you believe it’s been only a little less than a year?”
Cooper and Kate stopped their giggling and looked more serious.
“So much has happened,” said Cooper.
“And it’s not over yet,” Kate remarked.
“Let’s get this circle started,” Annie said after they’d stood quietly for a moment.
She began arranging the candles in a circle, and the others helped her. Soon they had their circle. As Cooper lit the candles and Annie burned some incense in the little cauldron they used for such things, Kate went and turned the lights out. Then she returned to the others, and they stood outside the burning circle.
“How shall we cast?” Cooper asked.
“Let’s stand at equal points around the circle,” suggested Annie. “Then we can go around and each say a direction. We’ll just keep going around until we feel like we’ve raised enough energy.”
They spread out around the circle of candles until they were an equal distance apart from one another. Facing inward, they held their hands up.
“Earth,” said Annie.
“Air,” continued Cooper.
“Fire,” Kate called.
“Water,” intoned Annie, completing the first circle.
They kept going, with Cooper saying “Earth” and Kate calling “Air” before returning once more to Annie and “Fire,” then Cooper completed the second circle with “Water.” The third circle began and ended with Kate, and in this way they kept going around, the beginning and ending point falling to a different girl each time.
The effect of the constantly shifting starting and stopping points was that the energy forming the circle seemed to rise up in a spiral shape, twisting to follow the voices of the three friends. Each of them envisioned it as a kind of tornado of white light, churning with power as it grew stronger and stronger, their voices bringing it to life.
“Earth. Air. Fire. Water.” Their voices were continually moving one step ahead of the previous rotation, until it became difficult to tell where they were beginning and ending. First Kate’s voice would call to an element, then Annie’s, then Cooper’s, in an endless chain that circled around and around. They had never cast a circle in this way before, but they found it to be a very simple and powerful means of doing so. When finally Cooper called out “Water” for the last time and Annie didn’t begin a new round, they let their voices fall silent.
“Wow,” Kate said. “That was like a spiral dance and circle casting all in one.”
“That was certainly easier than the first time we cast a circle,” remarked Cooper as the three of them stepped into the sacred space.
“Isn’t it cool how many ways there are of doing that?” Annie commented. “Remember how we used to think there was just one?”
They all laughed, remembering how nervous and tentative they’d been when they’d first started casting circles and working magic. Then they’d always been afraid that they were doing something wrong. But they’d learned pretty quickly that as long as their intentions were correct, and as long as they did a few basic things, the rest of their ritual could be done any way they liked. They’d experimented with a lot of different things over the past year, and each time they’d learned something new about working with energy.
Now they seated themselves within the circle. Again, because they had done it so many times now, they could feel the power of the energy they’d raised encircling them, keeping them safe and, more important, providing a space where they could work freely. Sitting in a magic circle always seemed to relax everyone, and it did that now. For several minutes they just sat in silence, enjoying the feeling of being together.
“What should we do?” Kate asked finally, making the others laugh.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” admitted Cooper. “We have this great circle going. What shall we use it for?”
“Since it’s a friendship circle, I think we should go around the circle and say what each of us values most about friendship,” said Annie. “Remember, this could be one of the last times we have our own little circle. Pretty soon we could be working with covens.” She paused. “And if we choose to be in different covens, we might not work together much at all again.”
A solemn silence descended over them as Annie spoke. It hadn’t occurred to any of them that they might wind up members of different covens. If that happened, they really wouldn’t work together all that often. They would hold circles with their respective covens, not with each other. It was a thought that made each of the girls realize just what the end of their year and a day of study might mean. It wouldn’t be the end of their friendship, but it would be the end of their particular circle.
“Let’s make a pact,” Kate said suddenly. “No matter what happens, we’ll all still be friends. And once a year, whether we’re in separate covens, or even in no covens, we’ll get together to celebrate everything that brought us together. It will be just us, just our little circle of three.” She looked at Cooper and Annie. “Deal?”
Annie and Cooper nodded. “Deal,” they said simultaneously.
Kate held out her hands, and Cooper and Annie each took one,
joining their other two together. They really were a circle of three, joined in body and in spirit. Each one felt the hands of the others holding hers, linking them together in a chain that had been forged out of friendship and tempered by shared experiences. It was an incredibly strong chain, and each girl knew that no matter what happened, it could never be broken. They’d been through too much for that to happen.
“I’ll go first,” Annie said. “I’m most thankful that the two of you have become like sisters to me. The hardest thing for me about being involved in Wicca has been dealing with what happened to my parents. The two of you have helped me do that, and that has meant a lot to me. I feel like I’ve been able to let go of one part of my family because you two are here to be another part of it. You’re like a kind of safety net for me, and I wouldn’t have done a lot of what I’ve done if it wasn’t for you two.”
Cooper and Kate squeezed Annie’s hands in response. Then Cooper said, “My turn. I’m most thankful that you two were the first people who really stood up to me and told me what a pain in the butt I can be.”
Annie and Kate laughed. “No, it’s true,” said Cooper. “Before you guys, I wouldn’t give people a second chance. Myself included. I thought I knew everything. I thought I didn’t need any real friends. But you wouldn’t give up on me. First you nagged me until I agreed to join your little foray into witchcraft, then you wouldn’t let me drop out when I ran off after that tragic Midsummer. Every time I tried to push you away, you held on tighter. I really appreciate that. It’s changed how I see other people, and it’s changed how I see myself.”
“Well,” Kate said after they’d reflected on Cooper’s words for a moment. “We’re all talking about how we’ve changed. I know I certainly have. When I did that first spell, I had no idea we’d be sitting here together a year later. I don’t think then I could even imagine talking to the two of you, let alone being best friends with you. But we are best friends. And what I’ve learned from you guys is not to take myself so seriously. I’ve also learned that I’m a lot tougher than I thought I was. Sometimes I can’t believe I’ve made it this far, and I know I would never have done it if you two hadn’t been doing this with me. I’d probably still be sitting up in my bedroom with that stupid Ken doll wondering if Scott Coogan really liked me or not.”
