“I’m sorry.” I dropped to my knees, pushing my purse behind me, and started to pick up the pieces.
“It’s okay.” Isaac moved his hand as if waving a thought aside. His powers brushed past me, sweeping the pieces into a neat pile. He used a dustpan to pick them up. “Is that what you wore to school?”
I looked down at my faded jeans and T-shirt. He was not going to tell me there was a dress code for preparing the doll. If there was, then Kaylee was underdressed too.
“Yeah,” I replied cautiously.
“You didn’t take any more jewelry from Mark, did you?”
“Of course not.”
“Check your pockets.”
“What?”
“Just check them.”
I did—empty with the exception of Kevin’s number. I quickly stuffed it back in my pocket. “Is there a reason you’re—”
The rest of my sentence never made it past my lips. Isaac slipped my purse off my shoulder and tossed it to Josh.
Before I could ask what he was doing, Isaac had swept me off my feet, tossed me onto the end of the bed—nothing romantic about it—and proceeded to yank off my right boot. “I would have taken them off upstairs if your mom had asked me to,” I said. The unexplained pat-down was starting to annoy me.
Isaac, however, either didn’t notice or didn’t care. I debated which it was as he turned my boot upside down and shook. He reached inside it next, groping around the toe. I’m not sure what he expected to find. He did the same with the left one.
“Here it is.” Josh held up a small brown sachet that he’d pulled out of my purse. He untied the strap holding it closed. “Red pepper, black yarn, bird talon, and hair.”
“A hex bag,” Isaac said. “It explains the sudden streak of bad luck.”
Isaac only knew the half of it. I couldn’t believe it: the near-miss car accidents, me falling down the stairs, dropping the knife—all the work of a spell.
“He tried to curse me again? That jerk!”
The talon was stained with blood as if it had been freshly ripped from the bird and placed in the hex bag. I remembered the crow Chase found at the park. How many birds had died for their body parts?
I stuffed my feet back in my boots. “So he killed an innocent bird to make that thing?”
“There are a lot of spells that require a talon from a raven or a black bird. Most of them are for dark magic,” Isaac said absently.
Josh created fire in his hand, burning the contents of the hex bag in his blue flames. “Come on. Let’s do this before he makes another one of these things.”
Isaac handed me another plate. We took a seat on the pillows.
“I want to cast a summoning spell first,” Isaac said. “Madison, put the plate on the floor in front of us and give Kaylee the salt.”
I did.
“A summoning spell is a way for a coven to know if one of its members is in trouble,” Isaac said. “It will connect our wills, and if we need help, we can call each other without a phone.”
He then explained the steps to the spell. We sat cross-legged on the pillows, hands palm-up on our knees, eyes focused on the plate. Kaylee began to build the circle.
“By the power of earth.” Kaylee poured a large pile of salt onto the plate.
All eyes turned to me, my cue to perform my step of the spell.
“By the power of air.” I drew a cross in the salt with the knife and placed the candle on top of it, twisting it from side to side to make sure it was stable.
“By the power of water.” Josh poured water around the edge of the plate, leaving the salt in the center like an island surrounded by a shallow pond.
“By the power of fire.” Isaac waved his hand over the candle, pushing out a small amount of power and lighting it.
I could hear our circle close around us with a snap.
“Kaylee and I made these today.” Isaac handed each of us a hemp bracelet. He placed his on the plate and told us to do the same.
We did. Isaac then pricked the tip of his finger with a pin and gave the pin to Josh, who did the same and passed it to Kaylee. I got it last. I stabbed my finger fast, getting the sting over with quickly, and watched as a bead of blood formed.
Isaac held his finger over the plate. “Swift as the wind, in times of need, let my cry be heard.” He used his thumb to force more blood out of the pinprick and let it fall in the salt. We each did the same.
Kaylee and I looked at a sheet of paper on the floor between us. It contained the words to the spell. We then nodded to the guys. Together, the four of us said, “By the powers of three times three, so we will it, so mote it be.”
The flame grew brighter, then returned to its original glow. The salt had absorbed the water, and the fire—filled with Isaac’s, Josh’s, and my magic—had dried our bracelets. When the candle flickered out, the spell was cast, and we were to keep our bracelets on at all times. Josh slid the plate to the side as we moved on to our next spell.
There was no way our sock poppet could be mistaken for a child’s doll. We stuffed it with dirt from the crossroad, sulfur, a spider web, Mark’s hair, shredded newspaper, and a few other items Isaac had ready. An unraveled piece of hemp rope separated its head and limbs from the body. Its arms were uneven, its torso too short, and its legs—which Kaylee had sewed after carefully cutting the top of the sock—were too long. If we penciled in a mouth and beady little eyes, it would have looked frickin’ creepy.
Isaac believed Mark would know within seconds that someone was binding him. We needed to cast the spell quickly.
Isaac twisted black ribbon around the poppet’s legs as he spoke the words to the spell, stopping halfway up its legs and handing the poppet and ribbon to Josh. Josh twisted the ribbon further up the poppet and repeated the spell, then gave it to Kaylee, who did the same and gave it to me. When I finished, the poppet’s head was wrapped. I gave it back to Isaac, who said the spell one more time as he wrapped the ribbon back down its body.
“What’s next?” I asked.
“We’ll bury it,” Isaac said and wrapped the handkerchief around it. “In a graveyard would be best, but under the corkscrew willow out back should work too. We better make sure Mark can’t bind us first.”
The spell to protect us was easier to cast than the spell to bind someone else. We already had the dirt from a crossroad and hair from the person we wanted to protect ourselves from. Add ash, salt, and spit, wrap in a cloth, tie closed with hemp rope, say a quick spell, and instant protection. We didn’t even have to get a shovel to bury it.
The trickiest part of the day came when it was time to leave. Kaylee couldn’t stay missing forever, and with Mark’s powers bound, she was safe. She had to go home. One look at her, and her parents were going to know she hadn’t spent the last twenty-four hours wandering aimlessly around Gloucester. She was showered, her hair and make-up were done, she was wearing the clothes I’d given her, and it was obvious she wasn’t starving.
“Can’t you cast a spell to make her parents forget the last few days?” I asked—more like groaned and pouted.
“No.” Isaac tied my hemp bracelet to my wrist and pushed me toward the stairs. “You can do this.”
I didn’t want to face Mr. and Mrs. Bishop, but I’d been elected to go with Kaylee for support. “How about turning back time?”
“You can’t relive the past,” Josh called over his shoulder as he followed Kaylee up the stairs. “Let’s just get this over with.”
I didn’t miss Josh’s choice of words: You can’t relive the past. Nor did I miss the look Isaac gave Josh after he’d said it. I gave the subject some quick consideration. I’d have been willing to bet that while you can’t relive the past, it isn’t impossible to visit it. Just my gut feeling; I knew Isaac would never confirm it, so I didn’t ask.
Isaac heaved a sigh. “I told you, time moves in one direction, forward. Besides, if we could turn back the clock—which we can’t—but if we could, the poppet wouldn’t be made becaus
e we wouldn’t know it needed to be made.”
Isaac picked me up and placed me on the bottom step.
I quickly wrapped my arms around his waist. “Couldn’t we hang out for a while? Pop some popcorn? Watch a movie?” With me standing on the first stair, I could look directly into his dreamy brown eyes. “With all this curse stuff going on the last few days, we really haven’t spent much time together.”
Isaac kissed my upper lip then nibbled on my lower one before the corner of his mouth pulled upward into a knowing smirk. “You’re stalling.”
“No. I’m trying to spend a little time with a pretty cool guy.”
He bellowed out a laugh. “Is that so?”
“Definitely.”
“You coming?” Josh called back down the stairs.
Isaac gave me a quick peck on my lips. “Just cast the calming spell I taught you.”
Easy for him to say; all he had left to do was bury the poppet.
“Fine.” I spun on my toes and marched reluctantly up the stairs after Josh and Kaylee.
Josh dropped Kaylee and me off in front of her house and sped away.
Coward. Not that I blamed him; Kaylee and I wished we were still in the car too.
We walked nervously up to the front door. Kaylee fidgeted with her keys as she looked at me, her eyes wide with worry. I dried my sweaty hands on my jeans and tried to relax. Not only did I have to face Kaylee’s parents, I had to face my dad. While simply telling my dad that Kaylee was home was tempting, I knew Kaylee’s parents would eventually call him. I knew it was better to tell the truth, or our version of it, right away. I could hear my dad now: You’re grounded until you turn eighteen!
I uttered the words to the first half of the calming spell Isaac had taught me while Kaylee unlocked the door. Her parents bolted out of the kitchen as we stepped into the foyer. Her mom’s hand flew to her mouth as she gasped. Her dad turned as white as the walls. Tears streaked their faces. I nonchalantly held my hand in front of me and mumbled the rest of the spell, pushing my powers out in all directions. Her parents’ shoulders relaxed, and their tears stopped. Even I could feel the effects of the spell. I let out a sigh of relief.
I admitted to sneaking Kaylee out of the hospital, swearing I’d only done it because she’d begged me to. Kaylee explained that the medications the doctors had her on had made her hallucinate, and each time she’d started to feel better, it had been time for another dose. If it weren’t for how totally sane Kaylee was as she said this, we probably wouldn’t have been able to convince her parents. The calming spell helped as well.
“Where have you been all this time?” her father asked. His tone was much more placid than the vein popping out of his forehead would have made you think possible.
“I was afraid you’d just take me back to the hospital.” Kaylee glanced over at me. “So I talked Madison into letting me stay at her house.”
“Her father would have known if you were there,” Mrs. Bishop said. “He would have called us.”
“He didn’t know,” I replied. “I snuck her into the house when he was at work, and she hid in my room until she felt better.”
Our story provided an explanation for how Kaylee had been able to shower, why she was wearing my clothes, and why she wasn’t starving. We also offered a theory as to what had happened at school, which included someone dropping some type of drug into Kaylee’s mocha.
You can bet I cast the calming spell before I said anything to my dad too. I’m sure he noticed the holes in my story, but the spell made him unwilling to argue. I dismissed myself as soon as I could, afraid if I kept rambling he’d break free of the spell and I’d be in big trouble.
I spent the rest of the evening trying to catch up on my reading for English.
That didn’t go well. By no fault of the author, I was snoring before I reached the end of chapter one. Considering I should have been halfway through the book by now, I was so screwed when it came to passing English this semester.
Chapter 14
Guilt
KAYLEE’S PARENTS DROVE HER to school the next day. They wanted to have a talk with Principal Douglas to let him know Kaylee had been drugged. No doubt it would launch an investigation, but we’d deal with that later.
I got a ride from Isaac.
“How’d it go?” he asked when I got in the Jeep.
“I would have been grounded for the rest of my life if it weren’t for the calming spell.” I exhaled, blowing my bangs out of my eyes, and shuddered at the thought of only being allowed out of the house to go to school. “My dad looked as if he wanted to yell, but only managed to squawk out a Do you know what you and Kaylee put everyone through? and I’m very disappointed in you. Kaylee’s parents just seemed relieved to have her home. I hope they didn’t wake up this morning and realize they were way too relaxed about the whole situation.”
Isaac rested his hand on mine and squeezed. The warmth of his powers wrapped itself around my hand, my arm, and then my entire body. It was an awesome feeling.
“What’s done is done. Latte?” he asked.
“Yes, and I’ll grab Kaylee one too. I bet she’ll need it.”
In an effort to ease Kaylee’s return to school, I spoke to Mr. Chapin before class to let him know our version of what had happened. She arrived twenty minutes after the bell. Mr. Chapin stopped his discussion long enough to welcome her back. All eyes followed Kaylee as she made her way to her desk. I handed her the lukewarm mocha.
Thanks, she mouthed, ignoring everyone else.
I could barely concentrate on the lesson. Kaylee looked well, not at all like a person who’d spent the morning being chewed out by her parents. I’d hoped for a few minutes to talk to her, but the day’s lesson centered on a debate over the differences between the writing styles of past and present authors. I tore a piece of paper from my notebook and scribbled a note to Kaylee on it instead:
How’d it go?
I folded it in half and passed it to Kaylee when Mr. Chapin had his back to us. Kaylee took a minute to write her reply and handed the scrap of paper back to me:
Okay. Principal Douglas is calling the police.
He wants a full investigation.
You might be called down to his office.
I nodded.
“Are you going to be okay?” I asked Kaylee after class.
The first couple of days back to school were going to be the worst. A lot of people had seen Kaylee hopping up and down on her desk, screaming for help. Even more had heard about it.
Kaylee rubbed the metal cross Josh had given her. “I’ll be okay. See you in History.”
I was more than anxious to get to Foods. I had to know if Mark would show his face in school now that we were onto him. I wouldn’t if I were as evil as him. Then again, he had shown no signs of remorse so far. Would getting caught even bother him? I had my answer soon enough.
“Madison,” Mark called to me when I entered the classroom.
He’d saved me a seat, as usual. If there’d been another open stool anywhere in the room, I would have sat on it. I sighed at my luck and headed toward his table. It did occur to me that his friendliness might be a trick. He might have figured out I was one of the people who’d bound him from harming others. What if he confronted me? What if he was waiting with another hex bag or a spell?
I brushed that thought aside. We bound him. Nothing he could do now could hurt me. Besides, I wasn’t afraid of him.
Not much, anyway.
“Hi,” Mark said as I plopped down on the stool.
I was careful to keep my backpack away from him. “Hi.”
“Is it true? Is Kaylee back?” He looked truly excited at the news. So excited, I wondered if he’d put a glamour on himself.
“Yeah, she’s back.” I pretended to be interested in my Foods book, hoping Mark would take the hint that I didn’t want to talk.
“That’s great,” he said. “So, what did the doctors come up with?”
Oh! I wanted to pu
nch him right in his freckled nose. I turned my head and looked into his beady, mud-colored eyes. “They believe someone dropped something into her mocha. Then she had an allergic reaction to the medication she was on.”
“I knew they’d figure something out.” Mark tapped his pencil on the table as he talked. “I’m glad she’s back,” he whispered before turning his attention to our teacher.
I had no idea how to take Mark’s comment. On one hand, he seemed to actually care. On the other, why would he be glad Kaylee was back if he wasn’t planning something else? I decided he had to be gauging my reaction, trying to figure out if I’d had anything to do with binding him. That’s when a terrifying thought occurred to me. Maybe our binding spell hadn’t worked. Maybe he was smug because we had no idea we’d failed.
No. I refused to let my imagination get the best of me this time. Isaac was sure about the poppet and the spell. If he believed in it, then I did too. That didn’t stop me from wondering, though, if Mark had realized he’d been bound. Isaac could have been wrong about Mark feeling the effects of the spell as we’d cast it. Mark might not know his powers were useless until the next time he tried to use them.
“Try all you want,” I mumbled under my breath. “It won’t work.”
“Did you say something?” Mark asked.
“Just talking to myself.”
I spent third period in the principal’s office, telling our story to him and a couple of officers, one of them being my dad’s friend, Joe Zimmerman. The younger officer with a buzz cut quizzed me over and over and over. I tried not to fidget as I answered his questions but kept rubbing my hands on my jeans. When he asked me why I was so nervous, I asked him if he was going to arrest me for helping Kaylee sneak out of the hospital. To my relief, he answered no. No one pressed charges. Kaylee’s parents were just happy to have her home and healthy. And the hospital didn’t want to be sued for misdiagnosing Kaylee, for not noticing the drugs they’d prescribed had made her worse, and then letting her walk out the front door unnoticed. My actions seemed heroic, really.
Embrace Page 14
