The Promise (The Coven Series)

by Baker, Apryl

  My heart sped up at the sight of him and I felt butterflies begin to flutter in my stomach. His eyes pinned me, darkening as his gaze raked over me from head to toe and caused me to fidget. I swallowed thickly.

  Kay’s “OH” nearly knocked her over. I snickered. Little did she know he’d seen her covered in puke.

  A smile tugged at Ethan’s very kissable lips. He knew exactly why I was laughing.

  “Hey.” My teeth snagged my bottom lip. Jeff’s fingers tightened around my arm. His expression was not at all happy. Tough. Neighbor Boy was not my boyfriend.

  “Ethan,” Billy greeted him. “I thought you said you wouldn’t be here until tomorrow.”

  He looked at me and grinned. “Changed my mind.”

  Kay looked ready to burst at the seams. She was shooting me looks that promised death if I didn’t dish.

  I could feel the blush start to creep up my neck and bloom onto my cheeks as Ethan continued to stare at me. His smile widened, showing a mouthful of even white teeth.

  “This is Ethan Warren,” Billy introduced him. “He just moved here from Virginia. His granddad is Andrew Warren.”

  Huh. I didn’t know Old Man Warren had any living relatives. Wait, Ethan was going tonight? He believed in all that nonsense? And did he really sound like he was disappointed I wasn’t going?

  “CJ never goes,” Jeff said with a note of irritation in his voice. “That’s cool. She doesn’t have to.”

  Ethan’s eyes flickered to Jeff’s arm strapped to me like a life vest and arched a brow. My blush deepened. If I tried to shrug Jeff off now, it would hurt his feelings, but I so did not want Ethan to think I had a thing for Jeff. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t do that to Jeff. He might not be boyfriend material, but he was my friend.

  “Never?” Ethan asked.

  “Never,” I told him.

  “That’s a shame, Cassie Jayne Bishop,” he grinned at me.

  “There’s the bell!” Kay groaned in relief and grabbed me. She dragged me down the hall toward our first period Physics class. “Where…how…and you told him your full name…spill, CJ!”

  “I met him last night,” I told her. I rolled my eyes at her horror over the name thing. Even though I didn’t buy into the nonsense, I usually didn’t tell complete strangers my full name. I still couldn’t figure out why I’d told him. Weird.

  “He was at the party? Why didn’t I see him?”

  “Maybe because you were wasted?” I asked her dryly as we took our seats.

  She rolled her eyes. “When did you meet him?”

  I shifted in my seat, making a point to look down at my book and away from her face.

  “Come on, CJ, you have to tell me,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, catching sight of Mr. Mason coming through the door.

  “Later.”

  “Now!”

  I sighed. “He helped me get you home when you passed out.”

  Her eyes went as huge as mine did whenever I saw a shoe sale at the mall and her expression became one of absolute horror. “NO!”

  I winced. I knew it would upset her. I could feel the waves of horror coming off of her. It filled me up and I shuddered as the feelings washed through me. Kay and I shared some kind of weird connection. Sometimes, we could feel what the other felt. We’d decided a long time ago we were twins separated at birth.

  “You said we walked, CJ.” Blatant accusation filled her voice.

  “We did. Ethan showed up when we got to Gallows Lane. You passed out and he carried you home.”

  “NO!” she wailed.

  “Something you care to share with the rest of the class, Miss Martin?” Mr. Mason asked her.

  “No, sir, Mr. Mason, sir.” She buried her head in her book. She had to be remembering what she’d looked like this morning when she’d woken up covered in puke, her hair reeking of it. I’d die of embarrassment too.

  Mr. Mason started his lecture on our newest unit and I tuned him out. Instead, I thought about Ethan. I reacted to him in a way I didn’t to other boys. He made me feel nervous, giddy, a little shy. No one had ever done that to me. Usually it was me who caused those reactions in a guy I was hunting. Mr. Melt In Your Mouth Gorgeous was an oddity, but a sinfully delightful one. I wanted him and I would have him.

  Mr. Mason interrupted my silent musing by daring to ask me a question. I was forced to focus on the lecture. Sigh.

  The rest of the day passed quickly and much to my dismay, I didn’t see Ethan at all. I did, however, manage to somehow get trapped with Jeff at every turn. He latched on, and no matter how hard I shook, he stayed there. Dammit!

  The only thing that made me hesitant was Ethan’s question about my not going tonight. It’s not like it was strange for him to go or anything. Most of the kids in New Salem would be there. Well, except for me.

  Maybe Billy was right. Maybe I should go tonight. I could be wrong about everything, though I doubted it. Would it really hurt anything? It was a part of my family history after all and Ethan had hinted at going.

  But I’d promised Emily.

  What to do…

  Chapter Three

  I heard the shouting match as I walked up the flagstone path to the front porch. My parents seemed to think civilized conversation consisted of screaming at each other these days. I debated going in. I hated it when they fought. They hadn’t always been like this.

  There was a time when Dad brought Mom roses just because, and Mom used to smile all the time. Not anymore. She filled her days with committee meetings while he worked himself to death in his shop. They’d grown to hate each other. Why they just didn’t get a divorce and put everyone out of their misery was beyond me. It had to be better than this constant fighting.

  I heard something crash against the wall and then the distinct sound of tinkering glass as it fell. That made up my mind for me. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and started back the way I’d come. I had no doubt Dad would start drinking soon and I didn’t feel up to dealing with that right now.

  Instead, I strolled down the sidewalk and watched the activity going on around me. It was October 1st, the official start of Halloween, Samhain, in New Salem. We’d had our own celebration by the lake last night, but today decorations were going up everywhere all over town. We were definitely a Halloween town. We even had a huge contest every year to find the scariest house. Homes and lawns, storefronts, and even the parks were transformed into scenes of terror and mayhem. Witches, ghosts, goblins, ghouls, tombstones, corpses—there was nothing off limits.

  I was surprised Mom hadn’t dragged our stuff out of storage by now. She was always one of the first to decorate. She loved Halloween more than I did, I think, and that was saying something. Halloween was my holiday. I loved the decorations, the scary movie marathons, the candy corn, and especially the costumes. I loved them all—funny, scary, or just plain weird. There was just something about that night of magic and make believe that struck a chord within me. Then again, it could just be because it was my birthday.

  I waved to Mr. Corey as he strung the bushes in front of his drugstore with orange lights. His wife worked in the front window of the shop crafting her magic. Beginning on the first day of October through Halloween, they created a new scene each day in the big front display window of the drugstore. Those window scenes attracted people from all over just to get a glimpse of them. October brought in more revenue to the town than some of the beaches did all summer, and it was all thanks to the Corey’s amazing window displays. I couldn’t wait to see what she was doing. Hopefully by the time I came back, she’d have it finished.

  I stopped a moment as I stepped off Main Street and onto McKelter Avenue to take in the view of the rolling hills it offered. Fall was in full force, which only added to the ambiance of the town. The trees blazed with a life of their own, as if to defy the death of summer at winter’s cold hands. The leaves that fell to the ground were a glorious myriad of browns, yellows, oranges, and reds.

  The monument caught my
attention as it always did when I passed by this way. A stone circle surrounded a smaller stone pillar that stood about four feet high. A plaque rested on its top. The old plaque had been crafted when the town was first established in 1693 and now resided in the library under a glass case. My dad had replaced it with a newer one a few years back.

  The original settlers were from Salem Village, Massachusetts. Our town, New Salem, had been settled shortly after the Salem Witch Trials. The plaque held the names of the thirteen innocent people who had been persecuted during the trials. Their deaths had been the reason their family and friends fled here to North Carolina.

  My feet turned away from the monument and started upon a well-worn path they knew intimately. I slipped quietly through the massive gates of the cemetery and trudged up the west hill. A sharp wind whistled through the trees and I shivered. It was getting colder now with the onset of fall. I should have grabbed a jacket this morning, but had been in such a hurry to get to school, I’d forgotten.

  I dropped to my knees in front of the headstone and lovingly brushed the fallen leaves away. I shifted to a sitting position, wrapped my arms around my knees, and read the engraving on the headstone.

  Emily Rose Bishop

  July 9, 1991 – October 15, 2009

  Loving daughter and sister

  You will be missed

  The familiar cold knot of agony gripped my heart as I reached out to trace the words with shaking fingers. Three years. It had been three years since the accident and it still hurt as much now as it did then. I expected her to walk into my room at any second, demanding I give back the sweater I stole from her closet. I missed my big sister. It hurt so much sometimes, I couldn’t breathe. None of us could.

  Emily had been beautiful. Large sapphire blue eyes had dazzled a person as they glittered out of a heart shaped face. The best way I could describe her hair was to call it tawny, but that didn’t do it justice. It had been a mixture of browns, golds, and reds. People told me I looked like her, but I didn’t see it. I felt ordinary compared to her. She had been everything I wanted to be and I missed her.

  My family had died with her. Everything had just spiraled out of control when the officer had shown up at our door to tell us about the accident. Dad started drinking and Mom had just went around pretending everything was fine. It wasn’t. There was a hole inside all of us that would never be filled.

  Everyone said it would get better with time, that the pain would lessen. I didn’t believe it anymore. If it hadn’t been for Kay, I don’t think I would have survived those first few months. I didn’t even remember them really. I’d spent most of my time at her house. She understood better than anyone else. I couldn’t bear to walk into my house without Emily back then, when the pain was fresh and new.

  Kay had been there for me when no one else was. She and I had discovered just how close a connection we shared as it morphed to life after Emily’s death. She never asked me how I was, she could feel it, and had been a pillar of strength and support. That connection helped get me through those first awful months. I was better now, but I’d never lose this tight, curling ball of grief that lived inside me.

  Sighing, I took out my journal and a pen. I sat there for a while trying to write and then I started talking to Emily as I always did. I liked to think wherever she was, she could hear me.

  “You’ll never believe what happened to me,” I told her as I doodled on the paper. “I met the most amazing guy. His name is Ethan, but I call him Mr. Melt In Your Mouth Gorgeous. My own personal M&M. You’d be so totally jealous. His hair is the color of your favorite dark chocolate and his eyes…his eyes are the most beautiful gray you’ve ever seen. And the way he looks at me makes me get all weak in the knees and I can’t seem to stop blushing when he’s around.”

  I shifted, pulling my feet under me as I continued to tell her the story of how I’d met him and how mortified Kay had been when she found out he’d seen her covered in puke. I laughed and I could almost hear her laughing in return.

  I told her I spent over an hour getting ready for school this morning and my mind shifted to another scene when I had just turned thirteen.

  “What in the world are you doing, CJ?” Emily laughed when she barged into the bathroom.

  I looked at her curiously from underneath a mountain of makeup. Mom had finally relented and said I could start wearing makeup. So of course I’d rushed into Emily’s room and confiscated her huge makeup case. She had every color imaginable and I was in heaven.

  “What does it look like I’m doing, Emily? Mom caved and said I could wear it! Kay’s been wearing it for over a month now.” I gave her a huge smile, my eyes shining.

  She arched a brow. “Well now, let’s see if we can’t show you how it’s done, little sister.”

  For the next two hours she’d shown me how to put my face together. I’d learned how to apply lipstick, blush, and eye shadow—if it could be put on the face, we’d tried it. She’d never once laughed at my clumsy attempts. It was one of the best memories I had of her.

  “Slumming, Cassie Jayne Bishop?”

  My head whipped around and there he stood, watching me. Damn, he was going to give me a serious case of whiplash if he didn’t stop sneaking up on me. My eyes roamed over him. He’d changed into a pair of faded jeans and a red, Hard Rock Café tee-shirt. The wind blew his hair into his face and I sighed with the need to run my fingers through those wayward locks.

  “What are you doing here?” I blurted in a breathless voice.

  “I could ask the same of you.” He gave me that devilish smile I was coming to love. “You won’t come tonight, but you’re hanging out in a cemetery?”

  Great. He thinks I’m some kind of weirdo.

  “I’m visiting.”

  His gaze flickered to the headstone and lingered. He gave me a curious look.

  “My sister,” I told him softly.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

  “No, it’s okay,” I said in a rush, afraid he’d leave. “I was about to head home anyway. I just wanted to talk to her for a bit.” Brilliant, CJ, I groaned as the words came out. Now he probably thinks you’re even weirder for talking to a headstone.

  He nodded as if that made perfect sense. He came over and sat down across from me, our knees just centimeters apart. He looked into my eyes, searching. I had the distinct feeling he could look into my soul with those piercing gray eyes. I shivered in response.

  “You were close?” he asked me.

  I smiled. “That’s putting it mildly. We were inseparable.”

  He took my hands into his own. I marveled at how dainty they looked wrapped in his larger ones.

  “You still miss her don’t you?” he whispered.

  “Every minute of every day.”

  “I know how much it hurts to lose someone you love,” he told me. “It never really goes away. You just learn to live with it.”

  I looked up into his smoky gray eyes and my breath caught. They were full of a sadness I knew intimately, a wound so deep, time would never touch it. This boy, this stranger, understood my pain better than anyone I’d ever met. Better than Kay. How could that be?

  “So, what are you doing here?” I asked him softly. I couldn’t take my eyes away from his face. He was staring at me with such a tender expression that I had the sudden urge to cry. His eyes told me he felt my pain and was sorry for it.

  “I was taking a shortcut and saw you sitting up here,” he told me, shifting our conversation to something lighter. “The opportunity to talk to you alone was too good to pass up.”

  “Were you heading over to the Hall?” I asked him, feeling suddenly shy, a first for me. His thumbs started to stroke my hands.

  “Yeah,” he nodded and leaned closer. “So tell me, Cassie, were you up here confessing your undying love for me?”

  “Certainly not,” I replied tartly. “How can I confess my undying love for you when I don’t even know you?”

  “That’s easi
ly fixed.” He stood and pulled me to my feet. “Come with me tonight. We can get to know each other better.”

  I sighed. He had to put it like that didn’t he? “Do you really believe in all that?”

  He shrugged.

  “I can’t,” I told him. I’d debated about it, but in the end, I just couldn’t. I’d promised Emily I’d stay away from the Coven and I wouldn’t break my word to her.

  “Sure you can,” he smiled. “It’s as easy as putting one foot in front of the other.”

  “I have stuff to do.” I tried to pull my hands out of his, but he pulled me closer instead.

  “Like what?” he purred.

  My mind went completely blank staring into his eyes. “Stuff.”

  “You already said that, Cassie Jayne Bishop,” he whispered, leaning even closer. “What kind of stuff?”

  “I…I have to wash my hair!” I blurted, and then died of embarrassment. Wash my hair? That had to be the lamest excuse ever. Could I be any dorkier? What was wrong with me?

  He laughed outright and the sound vibrated through me. “So washing your hair is more important than getting to know me?”

  “Yes…NO!” Crap. He had me tongue-tied. Dammit! No one had ever managed to do that to me before.

  “No?” He arched a brow suggestively. “Then come to the Hall with me.”

  I really, really, really wanted to, but I just couldn’t. “No.”

  “Why not?” He looked genuinely confused. “It’s who you are.”

  “No, it’s not.” I shook my head and tried again to pull away from him. His touching me was not helping me to resist the urge to give in and go. “I don’t believe in any of that.”

  He frowned, puzzled. “Don’t your parents…”

  “Mom goes to Coven meetings religiously,” I cut him off. “Dad hasn’t gone since the day we got the news about Emily. I never wanted to go.”