I sure wasn't hearing anything deeper than a bedpan.
"Anyway, even if Archer was insane enough to have a thing for
Sophie, after the All Hallow's Eve Ball, he won't even think about looking at another girl."
"Why?"
"I've decided to give myself to him."
Oh, gross. Who says stuff like that? Why didn't she just say "delicate flower" or "carnal treasure" or something equally stupid?
But Anna, of course, squealed. "Omigod, that is so romantic!"
Elodie giggled, which was a weird sound coming from her. Girls like
Elodie should cackle. "I know, right?"
I'd definitely heard enough, so I tiptoed away and softly opened the door to my room.
Jenna was, as usual, curled up on her bed, one of her hot-pink throws pulled over her. She was doing this a lot now, pretending to be asleep so that
I wouldn't talk to her. Normally I just gave her what she wanted and didn't attempt a conversation. But tonight I sat on the edge of her bed hard enough to bounce her a little. "Guess what I just overheard?" I singsonged.
She pulled down one corner of the blanket, and one eye blinked owlishly at me. "What?"
I repeated the conversation between Anna and Elodie, finishing up with, "Can you believe that? 'Give myself to him'? Ugh. What's wrong with just saying sex, you know?"
I was rewarded with a tiny smile. "That is pretty stupid," Jenna said.
"Totally stupid," I agreed.
"Did they say anything about Chaston?"
Surprised, I said, "Uh . . . no. Not that I heard, at least. But you heard what Mrs. Casnoff said at dinner a few nights ago. Chaston's fine and resting in the Riviera or some other glamorous place with her parents. She'll be back next year."
"I just can't believe they're gossiping about boys when one of their coven is dead, and another one nearly died just three weeks ago."
"Yeah, well, they're shallow jerks. Not exactly news, that."
"Yeah."
I stripped out of my clothes and pulled on a Hecate-issue blue tank top and a pair of pajama pants my mom had sent me last week. They were white cotton covered with tiny blue witches riding brooms. I think they were her way of saying she was sorry for the fight; I was sorry too, and had called her to tell her so. It felt nice to be on good terms with her again.
"Wow, I really bruised your shoulders," Jenna said, sitting up.
I glanced down. "Oh . . . right. No big deal. They don't even hurt."
They did still hurt a little.
Jenna's eyes were bright, and I think she was trying not to cry. "I'm still really sorry about that, Soph. I was just so freaked out and hurt, and . . . and sometimes I lose control."
Icy fear ran down my spine, but I tried to ignore it. Jenna was my friend. Yes, she'd vamped out on me, but she'd snapped out of it immediately.
But you're her friend. Chaston definitely wasn't. And who knows about Holly?
Nope. Not going there.
Instead I said with mock confusion, "Lose control of what? Your bladder? Because you might want to get that checked out. I'm so not loaning you any sheets."
"You're such a freak." She giggled.
"Takes one to know one!"
For the next couple of hours, we chatted and attempted to study for
Magical Evolution. By lights out, Jenna seemed almost like her old self again.
"Night, Jenna," I said when the lights finally blinked off.
"Night, Soph."
I stared at the slanting ceiling, my head full of thoughts: Archer, Elodie and Anna, Jenna, that conversation with Cal by the pond. I fell asleep wondering if Archer knew he was about to become the proud recipient of
Elodie's virginity.
I didn't know what time it was when I awoke to find the girl in green standing at the foot of my bed. My heart in my mouth, I was sure I had to be dreaming, that there was no way this could be real.
Then she gave a exasperated sigh and, in a British accent, said, "Sophia Mercer. What trouble you've been."
CHAPTER 21
I sat up in bed, blinking.
It was the girl I'd been seeing since I'd started at Hecate, but she didn't look anything like a ghost; she looked very much flesh and blood.
"Well?" she asked, raising one perfect eyebrow. "Are you coming or not?"
I glanced over at Jenna. All I could make out was a dark lump. By the sound of her steady, even breathing, I knew she was still asleep.
The girl followed my gaze. "Oh, don't worry about her," she said with a dismissive wave. "She won't wake up and sound the alarm. No one will;
I've taken care of that."
Before I could ask what she meant, she turned and swept out the door.
I sat frozen until she reappeared in the doorway and said, "Oh, for
Christ's sake, Sophia, let's go!"
Now, I knew that following a ghost was a Very Bad Idea. Everything in my body said that. My skin felt clammy and my stomach was in knots.
But I found myself pushing off my covers, grabbing my Hecate blazer off the back of my chair, and catching up to her at the top of the stairs.
"Good," she said. "We have a lot of work to do and not much time."
"Who are you?" I whispered.
She flashed me that irritated look again. "I told you, you don't have to whisper. No one can hear us."
She stopped on the stairs and threw her head back, shouting, "Casnoff! Vandy! Sophia Mercer is out of bed and up to mischief with a ghooooooooooost!"
I instinctively crouched down. "Shhhh!"
But just as she'd promised, there was no sign that anyone had heard her. The only sound was the muffled ticking of the grandfather clock in the main foyer and my own hard breathing.
"See?" she said, turning to me with a bright smile. "Taken care of.
Now come along."
She ran down the last few steps, and before I knew it, we were outside on the front lawn. The night was cool and damp, and the grass squished unpleasantly under my feet. I looked down to make sure I was only standing on grass and noticed that my feet seemed a weird shade of green. Then I noticed I could see my shadow even though there was no moon.
I whirled around to look back at Hecate and gasped. The whole house was encased in a huge opalescent bubble that glimmered with dull green light. The bubble was in constant motion, undulating and shooting off pale green sparks. I had never seen anything like it; never even read about a spell like that.
"Impressive, isn't it?" the girl said smugly. "It's a basic sleeping spell that renders the victims totally insensible to the world for at least four hours.
I just . . . enlarged it."
I didn't like the way she said "victims."
"Are they . . . are they okay?"
"Oh, perfectly safe," she answered. "Just sleeping. Like in a fairy tale."
"But . . . Mrs. Casnoff has spells all over the place. No one could just come in and do a spell that big."
"I can!" the girl said. Then she grabbed my hand. Hers was as solid and real as mine. I was sure Mrs. Casnoff had said ghosts couldn't touch us.
But before I could ask, the girl started pulling me away from the house.
"Wait. I can't go anywhere with you until I know who you are and what you're doing here. Why have you been following me?"
She sighed. "Oh, Sophia, I had hoped you were a little more perceptive. Isn't it obvious who I am?"
I studied her knee-length flowered dress and bright green cardigan.
Her hair was shoulder length, curly, and held back from her face with bobby pins. Glancing down, I saw that she was wearing heinous brown shoes. I felt a little sorry for her: ghost or no, no one should have to go through eternity in ugly shoes.
But then I looked into her eyes. They were large and wide set, and even though the green light was reflected in them, I could tell that they were blue.
My eyes.
British, from the forties, and had my eyes.
"Alice?" I
asked, my heart in my throat.
She smiled broadly. "Excellent! Now, just come with me and--"
"Wait, wait, wait," I said, holding a hand to my head. "You're telling me that you're the ghost of my great-grandmother?"
That irritated look again. "Yes."
"So what are you doing here? Why have you been following me?"
"I haven't been following you," she answered hotly. "I've been appearing to you. You weren't ready for me before, but now you are. I've worked very hard to get to you, Sophia. Now, can we please stop all this chattering and get down to business?"
I let her drag me away, mostly because I was afraid she might zap me if I didn't, but also because I was genuinely curious. How many people get pulled out of bed by their great-grandmother's ghost?
We walked away from Hecate and down the steep hill toward the greenhouse. I wondered if she was taking me there for training, but when we arrived, she veered off toward the left and pulled me into the woods.
I'd never been in the forest that surrounded Hecate, and for very good reason: it was spooky as hell. And of course it was doubly so at night. I stepped on a rock in my bare feet and winced. When something soft brushed against my cheek, I gave a little shriek.
I heard Alice murmur a few words, and suddenly a large orb of light appeared in front of us, bright enough that I had to shade my eyes. Alice muttered under her breath, and the orb jerked upward as if someone had it on a string. It floated away until it was about ten feet over our heads, casting light in all directions.
You would think that the light would make the woods less creepy, but actually it was worse. Now shadows moved across the ground, and I caught the occasional flash of animal eyes. We came across a dry creek bed, and to my surprise, Alice leaped nimbly into it. I followed, a lot less gracefully, tripping on loose soil and cursing.
If I'd thought the woods were spooky, they had nothing on the dry creek. Rocks were sharp against my bare feet, and it seemed that everywhere
I looked, there were dark hollows and exposed roots that looked like the entrails of some giant animal. In the end I just grabbed Alice's hand and kept my eyes shut until we came to an abrupt stop.
I opened my eyes and immediately wished I hadn't.
In front of me was a small wrought-iron fence flecked with rust.
Behind the fence were six gravestones. Four were slightly crooked and covered in moss, but the other two stood straight and were as white as bone.
The gravestones were unsettling enough, but it was the other thing in this tiny graveyard that had my heart in my stomach, and the metallic taste of fear in my mouth.
The statue was about eight feet high, maybe a little taller. It was an angel carved in light gray stone, its wings spread wide. They were so finely carved you could make out every feather. Likewise, the angel's robes seemed to ripple and float in a nonexistent wind. In one hand it held a sword. The hilt was carved out of the same stone as the rest of the statue, but the blade was some sort of dark glass, which shone brightly in the light from the orb. The angel's other hand was held out in front of it, palm forward, as if it were warning others to stay back. The look on its face was one of such stern authority that it would have put Mrs. Casnoff to shame.
The angel was very familiar to me, and I realized with a start that it was the same one depicted in the stainedglass window at Hecate. The angel that cast out the Prodigium.
"What . . ." I broke off and cleared my throat. "What is this place?"
Alice was gazing up at the angel with a faint smile. "A secret," she answered.
I shivered and pulled my blazer tighter around me. I wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but there was a steely look on her face that told me I probably wouldn't get an answer. Hadn't the brochure said that one of
Hecate's big rules was to never go into the woods? I'd just assumed the woods were dangerous or something.
But maybe it had been more than that.
The wind picked up, rattling the leaves and making my teeth chatter.
Why hadn't I thought to grab shoes, I wondered as I rubbed one numb foot on top of the other.
"Here," Alice said, pointing to my feet. They tickled for a moment, and as I watched, my feet were suddenly encased first in wooly white socks and then in my favorite pair of fuzzy red slippers. Slippers that, as far as I knew, were still sitting in the bottom of my closet in Vermont.
"How did you do that?"
But Alice just smiled mysteriously.
And then without warning she whipped her hand through the air.
I felt a heavy blow right in my chest that knocked me off my feet. I hit the ground with a startled, "Oomph!"
Sitting up, I glared at her. "What was that?"
"That," she said sharply, "was a ridiculously simple attack spell that you should have been able to block."
I stared at her in shock. It was one thing to get laid out by Archer in
Defense, but being attacked out of nowhere by my great-grandmother was just embarrassing.
"How could I have blocked it when I had no idea you were going to do that?" I fired back.
Alice walked over to me and offered her hand to pull me up. I didn't take it, mainly because I was pissed, but also because Alice looked like she weighed about ninety pounds, and I thought I'd probably end up pulling her down with me.
"You should have been able to sense that I was going to do that, Sophia. Someone with power as great as yours can always anticipate an attack."
"What is this?" I asked, dusting the dirt and pine needles of my now-
sore butt. "A Star Wars thing? I was supposed to 'sense a disturbance in the
Force'?"
Now it was Alice's turn to blink in confusion.
"Forget it," I mumbled. "Anyway, if you've been watching me at all over the past six weeks, you've probably picked up on the fact that I don't have any 'great power.' I'm like, the least powerful witch here. Clearly, the awesome family superpowers passed this gal by."
Alice shook her head. "No they didn't. I can feel it. Your powers are every bit as great as mine. You just don't know how to use them yet. That's why I'm here. To help you sharpen and mold them. To prepare you for the role you must play."
I looked up at her. "So you're like, my own personal Mr. Miyagi?"
"I have no idea what that means."
"Sorry, sorry. I'll try to stop with the pop culture references. What do you mean the role I must play?"
Alice looked at me like I was stupid. And in her defense, I felt pretty stupid.
"Head of the Council."
CHAPTER 22
"Okay, why would I want that?" I asked with small laugh. "I know nothing about Prodigium, and I'm a crappy witch."
The wind caught my hair, blowing it into my mouth and eyes.
Through the strands covering my face, I saw Alice flick her hand toward me.
My hair swept back from my face and gathered itself into a bun on top of my head. It was so tight my eyes watered.
"Sophia," Alice said in the tone used to placate a tantrum-throwing toddler, "you only think you're crappy."
The word "crappy" sounded ridiculously classy in Alice's cut-glass accent, and I had to smile a little. I guess she saw that as a good sign, because she took my hand. Her skin was soft and ice-cold to the touch.
"Sophia," she said in a softer voice, "you're incredibly powerful.
You're just at a disadvantage because you've been raised by a human. With the right training and guidance, you could put those other girls--what do you and your half-breed friend call them? 'The Witches of Noxema'?"
"Jenna's not a half-breed," I said quickly, but she ignored me. "You could be far, far more powerful than any of them. And I can show you how."
"But why?" I asked.
She smiled in that enigmatic way again and patted my arm. Even though I knew Alice had died at eighteen, which made her just two years older than me, there was something very grandmotherly in her touch. And after a lifetime of havin
g just Mom as family, it felt nice.
"Because you're my blood," she answered. "Because you deserve to be better. To become what you are meant to be."
I didn't know what to say to that. Was head of the Council what I was meant to be? I thought of my onetime fantasy of owning one of those New
Age bookshops, reading palms and wearing a big purple caftan. That seemed very far away now and, honestly, kind of stupid.
And then I thought of Elodie, Chaston, and Anna glowing and levitating in the library. They had looked like goddesses, and even though I'd been scared, I'd envied them. Was it really possible that I could become better than them?
Alice laughed. "Oh, you'll be much better than those girls."
Great, she could read my mind.
"Come, we haven't much time left."
We walked past the cemetery and into a clearing inside a ring of oak trees. "This is where we'll meet," Alice said. "This is where I'll train you to be the witch you should be."
"You do know that I have class, right? I can't stay up all night."
Alice reached down and slipped a necklace off her neck. Her hands glowed with a light brighter than the orb still floating above us. Then the light abruptly went out and she handed the necklace to me. It was almost too hot to touch. Just a simple silver chain with a square pendant about the size of a postage stamp. In the center was a teardrop-shaped black stone.
"There. Family heirloom," she said. "As long as you're wearing that, you'll never become too tired."
I looked at the necklace with appreciation. "Will I learn that spell?"
And for the first time, Alice smiled a real smile, a broad one that lit her whole face and made her slightly plain features beautiful.
She leaned in and took both my hands in hers, pulling me close until our faces were inches apart. "All that and more," she whispered. And when she broke out into giggles, I found myself laughing too.
Several hours later, I was not laughing. I wasn't even cracking a smile.
"Again!" Alice barked. How did a girl so tiny have a voice so loud? I sighed and rolled my shoulders. I focused as hard as I could on the empty space in front of me, willing with all my might for a pencil to appear. For the first hour, we'd just worked on blocking spells. I'd done pretty well blocking
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