Circle of Three #6: Ring of Light

by Isobel Bird

  “I’ve seen a lot of guests die in all the years I’ve been in this business,” Mrs. Abercrombie said as they sat waiting at a light. “It never gets easier.”

  Annie didn’t say anything. She couldn’t explain to the nurse just what Ben Rowe had meant to her, what he still meant to her, even though she had known him for only a few days. He hadn’t been just a patient, or just another bed whose sheets needed changing. He’d been someone she’d been looking forward to knowing for a long time. But now he was gone, just like that, and she couldn’t get him back. All those chances she’d thought she’d had to know him better were gone in an instant.

  “I know this won’t help right now,” the nurse said. “But try to think of Ben the way he was when you saw him at his happiest. That’s the way he would want you to remember him. Then again,” she added, “since it’s Ben Rowe we’re talking about, maybe he’d prefer it if you remembered him at his crankiest moment.”

  Annie laughed in spite of her sadness. She looked over at Mrs. Abercrombie.

  “It would be hard to pick just one,” she said.

  When they reached Annie’s house, Mrs. Abercrombie said, “Take the day off tomorrow. I’ll call you to let you know about funeral arrangements.”

  “I didn’t think there would be one,” Annie said, surprised. “He didn’t have any family, did he?”

  The nurse shook her head. “No, but all the guests receive services as part of their stay with us.”

  Annie nodded. “Thanks,” she said. “For everything.”

  Mrs. Abercrombie drove away, and Annie let herself into the house. Her aunt and Meg were gone, but there was a note for her on the kitchen counter.

  Annie:

  Kate called. Said she had big news.

  We’ll be back around 6:00 for dinner.

  AS (and Meg)

  Annie put the note in her pocket and went upstairs to call Kate. Whatever Kate’s news was, she hoped it was better than hers.

  CHAPTER 15

  T.J. was playing when Cooper arrived at his house. He was listening to a tape they’d made of a song they were working on, and he was playing his bass line along with her guitar. His long fingers moved up and down the neck of his bass quickly and confidently, and Cooper stood in the doorway watching him for a few minutes before he even noticed she was there.

  “It sounds good,” she said when he looked up, saw her, and turned off the tape.

  “Not bad,” he agreed.

  That was one of the things Cooper liked best about him—he knew when what he played worked and when it didn’t. There was no false modesty with T.J., and there was no empty boasting. When they played, it all came together because they both knew that it was about the music and not about them.

  Cooper unpacked her guitar, plugged into the amp that sat across from T.J.’s in the empty garage, and started playing around. T.J. listened for a minute and then joined in. They played like that for a while, each of them trying different things, and then T.J. stopped and looked at her.

  “You’re not really into it,” he said. “What’s up?”

  Cooper picked a few more notes, then let her guitar hang against her chest. “Is it that obvious?” she asked.

  T.J. nodded. “I think you started playing the new Britney Spears single,” he said. “That means bad news.”

  Cooper gave him a half smile. “It’s nothing major,” she told him.

  T.J. nodded. “Uh-huh. Should I be worried here? Is this where you tell me it’s been fun but we make better friends?”

  Cooper laughed. “No,” she said. “Is that really what you thought?”

  T.J. shrugged. “You never know,” he said. “So if it’s not me, or us, then what is it?”

  “Do you have to know everything?” asked Cooper.

  “I think it’s sort of traditional to care about the person you’re going out with,” answered T.J. “But if you don’t want to talk, that’s okay. We can just play, as long as you cool it with the teen queen pop music stuff.”

  “No,” said Cooper. “It’s okay. We can talk about it.”

  She was surprised that she wanted to tell T.J. what was going on. But she trusted him. And ever since Kate’s call that afternoon she’d wished she had someone to discuss it with. But it was going to take a lot of explaining, and part of her was apprehensive about telling T.J. too much.

  “You remember all the stuff with the dead girl, right?” she said. “Elizabeth Sanger.”

  T.J. nodded. “How could I forget?” he asked.

  When the newspaper had printed a story about Cooper and her visions of Elizabeth Sanger, Cooper had feared that it would end her friendship with T.J. and the other band members. But T.J. had been really cool about it, and he had never brought it up again. Cooper had always appreciated that, because she knew he must have wondered what it was all about. Now she was going to tell him.

  “Well, that was all true,” she said. “I did see her ghost.”

  T.J. raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  “There was a lot of weird stuff that happened around that time,” Cooper continued. “Kate and Annie were all mixed up in it, too.”

  “They see dead people, too?” asked T.J.

  Cooper shook her head. “Just me,” she told him. “But we’re all in this group together, and it all kind of goes together.”

  “A group like Scooby and the gang, or something else?” T.J. asked. “I’m not following you.”

  Cooper sighed. “It’s going to sound a little weird,” she said. “So just listen. Kate, Annie, and I were in this group that studies Wicca. You know what that is, right?”

  “I saw The Blair Witch Project,” T.J. answered.

  “It’s not like that at all,” said Cooper. “This is a group that studies real witchcraft, as in the religion. It’s run by these cool people who own a bookstore in town. Anyway, we were going to this group and—”

  “You keep saying you were going,” T.J. interrupted.

  “Right,” said Cooper. “I don’t go anymore.”

  “But Kate and Annie do?” T.J. said.

  Cooper nodded. “It’s just me who’s opted out.”

  T.J. was looking at her with an expression that made it clear he was wondering why she wasn’t still in the group.

  “We’ll get to why I’m not in it anymore later,” Cooper said. “The point is that the three of us were in this group. We also did stuff together—rituals and things. Is this getting too freaky?”

  “Not so far,” T.J. replied. “I’m still a little fuzzy on what it’s all about, but I think I get it. You guys were witches.”

  “No,” Cooper said. “Just studying it. We, I mean they, Annie and Kate, don’t have to decide if they want to do the full-blown witch thing until the year and a day of study are over.”

  “Which is when?” asked T.J.

  “April,” Cooper said. “After the Spring Equinox. But that’s not the point either. The point is that Kate and Annie are still going to the class and I’m not. That’s made things a little sketchy between us. And now it’s gotten even sketchier. I told you about Kate’s aunt having cancer. Well, they want to do this healing ritual for her, and they want me to help.”

  “Help how?” T.J. asked her.

  “Lend my energy,” Cooper said, unable to think of a better way to describe it to him. “Kate and Annie already did one ritual themselves, and I said I wouldn’t do it with them. Now Kate wants to do one with some other members of the group. She called today and asked me if I would do it with them.”

  She stopped her narrative, looking at T.J. for any sign of what he was thinking about all of this. But he just looked back at her with the same open expression he usually wore.

  “I really thought I was done with all of this,” Cooper continued. “But then I had this dream the other night. It was about Kate, and she needed me to help her and I didn’t because I was afraid. And then today Kate told me that she had a vision where Athena had my face. Then there’s the whole t
hing with the candle. Am I making any sense here?”

  “Up until those last couple of sentences you were,” he said. “You lost me on the vision-Athena-candle part.”

  “But the rest of it?” Cooper said.

  “Mostly clear,” he said. “Let me see if I have it straight. You were part of this group that studied witchcraft. Then you dropped out for some reason you’ll explain to me later. But your friends are still involved in it, and they’re going to do this ritual that they want you to help out with. Only you don’t want to.”

  “Right,” Cooper said, relieved that somehow her disjointed story had all come out in the end.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?” asked Cooper.

  “Why don’t you want to help them?” T.J. elaborated.

  Cooper frowned. “That’s the hard part,” she told him. “I kind of had a bad experience. With magic. It wasn’t fun. Actually, it was really scary. That’s why I stopped.”

  “Before that happened, did you like it?”

  Cooper shrugged. “Yeah,” she said. “I did.”

  “And this thing that happened, did it have anything to do with the group?”

  “No,” Cooper answered. “Not really. It was more of a free-form bad magic kind of thing.”

  T.J. didn’t say anything for a while. He stood across the room from her, silently fingering his bass.

  “What?” Cooper said finally, unable to stand the silence.

  “I was just thinking about it all,” T.J. said. “Kate and Annie are still your friends, right?”

  “For the moment,” Cooper said.

  “And they want you to help them?”

  Cooper nodded.

  “But you’re afraid to because of this thing that happened?”

  “That’s pretty much it,” said Cooper. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re a coward,” T.J. said.

  Cooper stared at him. “What did you say?” she asked, not sure she’d heard him correctly.

  “I said I think you’re a coward,” he repeated.

  “How can you say that?” Cooper said indignantly. “You don’t even know half the stuff that happened and—”

  “How long have I known you?” T.J. asked, interrupting her.

  “I don’t know,” Cooper stammered. “Almost two years, I guess.”

  “Right,” said T.J. “And in all that time I have never once seen you back down from a challenge.”

  “I’m not backing down!” Cooper said.

  T.J. folded his hands across his chest. “Then what are you doing?”

  “I’m being careful!” Cooper said. “This stuff isn’t a game, T.J. People can get hurt. I almost got hurt.”

  “But you didn’t,” he said. “So what are you really upset about?”

  She glared at him, fuming. Who did he think he was, anyway? Here she was trying to be the good girlfriend and ask him for his opinion and he had the nerve to . . . to . . . To give it to you, a voice in her head said.

  “So?” T.J. asked. “What is it you’re afraid of?”

  Cooper started to say something and stopped. She opened her mouth, trying to think of some smart retort. But she couldn’t come up with one. The fact was, T.J. was right. She was afraid. But no one had made her say it, and she’d been hiding behind her usual shield of bravado and self-righteousness.

  “I’m afraid it won’t work,” she said finally. “I’m afraid that I’ll get into it again and it will all spin out of control like it did before.”

  “If someone told you that it wouldn’t, would you do it?” he asked.

  Cooper thought about that. For a while Wicca had been the best thing in her life. Doing rituals with Annie and Kate. Attending events with the members of the coven. Even the first frightening encounters with Elizabeth Sanger’s ghost. They had all changed her life in dramatic and wonderful ways.

  “Yes,” she said. “I would.”

  “Then like I said, you’re being a coward.”

  “But no one can promise me it won’t go bad again,” Cooper countered.

  “No one can promise you that anything won’t go bad,” said T.J. “No one can tell you that your music will be good, or that you’ll always be able to write lyrics, or that you and I will always be together. But you took chances on those things. Are you going to give up on them now because one day they might not work out the way you expect them to, or the way you want them to? Because if you are, then I don’t see much point in us making music or in us being a couple.”

  Cooper didn’t respond. She just stood there, staring at T.J. and thinking about what he’d said. It made sense. There were no guarantees in life. She had turned her back on something because it hadn’t worked the way she wanted it to, because for a couple of hours one night she hadn’t been in control and that made her angry. It wasn’t the magic she was afraid of; it was of not being one hundred percent in control of everything that happened to her. But that was stupid. She didn’t need to give up something that had been important to her just because her pride was wounded.

  “I hate it when you’re right,” she said.

  “And that’s why I like it even more,” replied T.J., grinning at her.

  “You know, if I’d known this going-out thing was going to mean you get to lecture me, I would never have signed up,” Cooper commented.

  “You can always back out,” he said. “I mean, if you want to be a coward and all that.”

  “Nah,” Cooper replied. “I think I kind of like having a guy who stands up to me when I’m being an idiot.”

  They spent a couple of hours playing. Now that Cooper had made up her mind about what to do, she found that everything was a lot more fun. The weight she’d been feeling had been lifted, and she saw for the first time just how much she had really missed the idea of practicing Wicca with Annie and Kate. She just hadn’t let herself admit that until T.J. had forced her to.

  When they were done, she packed up and told T.J. she would call him later on. “I’ve got something I need to do first,” she said, giving him a kiss and leaving him in the garage.

  She drove home, parked the car, and went inside to her room. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the phone and dialed Kate’s number. As the phone rang and she waited for someone to answer, she looked at the statue of Pele sitting on the table.

  “I suppose you knew all along this would happen,” she said.

  Someone picked up the phone at Kate’s house. It was Kate’s father.

  “Hi, Mr. Morgan,” Cooper said. “Is Kate around?”

  “Kate?” he yelled. “Phone for you. It’s Cooper.”

  There was a pause as Kate came to the phone. Then Cooper heard her say, “I’ve got it in my room, Dad. You can hang up.”

  The second phone clicked as Mr. Morgan replaced it in the cradle.

  “Hey,” Cooper said, suddenly unsure of what to say.

  “What’s up?” Kate asked, not sounding particularly excited to hear from her.

  “I’ve been doing some thinking,” Cooper began. “Actually, I’ve been doing a lot of talking. To T.J.”

  “T.J.?” Kate said.

  “Yeah,” Cooper said. “We’re kind of going out.”

  “What?” Kate exclaimed, suddenly sounding more like her old self. “You have a boyfriend?”

  “Well, yeah,” admitted Cooper. “But I didn’t call you to talk about that. I wanted to apologize.”

  “You don’t have to,” Kate said. “I understand how you feel.”

  “I didn’t understand how I felt,” said Cooper. “That was the problem. I was all freaked out about what happened up in the woods. But it wasn’t about the magic. It was about me. Me not being in control. That’s why I bailed. I didn’t like not being in charge, you know?”

  “That sort of makes sense,” Kate told her. “And T.J. helped you realize all of this?”

  “Amazing, huh?” Cooper answered. “And you thought Tyler was the only cool guy left. Anyway, I want to talk to you about the r
itual.”

  “What about it?” Kate asked hesitantly.

  “Can I still help?” asked Cooper.

  Kate paused. “Are you just back for this, or for everything?” she asked.

  “I haven’t quite decided,” Cooper admitted. “I think one step at a time is the best way to go.”

  “And you’re doing all of this because of T.J.?” said Kate.

  “Not just him,” Cooper told her. “I had a dream about you, too. I didn’t say anything before because I still wasn’t convinced it meant anything.”

  “What kind of dream?” Kate said.

  Cooper told her about the nightmare she’d had. When she was done Kate said, “You and your dreams. But if it made you think twice about giving up on us, I’m glad you had it, even if you did let me plummet to my death.”

  “Sorry about that,” Cooper apologized. “So, do you still want me?”

  “More than ever,” said Kate. “We’ve missed you. Besides, I think we’re going to need all the help we can get on this one.”

  “Have you told your parents yet?” asked Cooper.

  “That’s next on my list,” said Kate. “I think I’d rather tell them that I’m pregnant.”

  “Just tell me what you need,” Cooper said.

  “I’m not even sure they’ll go for it,” said Kate. “So right now just think nice thoughts about them not going through the roof when I bring it up.”

  “Good luck,” said Cooper. “Give me a call when you know what’s going on.”

  “I will,” said Kate. “And Cooper?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Welcome back.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Kate sat on the couch, trying to figure out the best way to say what she had to say. She held her hands in her lap, the right one clutching the left one tightly so that she wouldn’t rub them together nervously. She wanted to appear as calm as she possibly could.

  Her parents sat across from her, waiting for her to speak. She’d asked them to sit and talk to her for a minute, and she knew they were wondering what she had to say. Kyle was there, too, leaning against the doorway to the living room. While normally Kate would be thrilled that he’d decided not to go back to his summer job for at least another week, she sort of wished he wasn’t there.