The Five Paths

by Isobel Bird

  “Well, it wasn’t what we were hoping for,” Mr. Rivers said to Cooper.

  “No,” Cooper answered. “But it’s not over yet.”

  She and her father turned to leave the room. As they did, Cooper saw a familiar figure stand up and walk toward them. She groaned.

  “What is that nosy reporter doing here?” Cooper said.

  Amanda Barclay walked over to Cooper and her father. She was smiling broadly. “Hello, Cooper,” she said.

  Cooper nodded in reply. She didn’t have anything to say to Amanda, who wrote for one of the local papers. It had been Amanda who had leaked the story about Cooper’s helping the police solve the disappearance and murder of Elizabeth Sanger, a local girl, earlier in the year. In the process she had also almost cost an innocent man his life by reporting false facts about his involvement in the crime. Cooper had no love for Amanda and had hoped she would never see her again. But now the reporter was standing in front of her, the familiar fake smile plastered to her face.

  “What can we do for you, Ms. Barclay?” asked Mr. Rivers.

  Cooper noted with some satisfaction that her father seemed as uninterested in talking to the reporter as she was. Before everything that had happened surrounding the death of Elizabeth Sanger, Stephen Rivers had been a huge fan of Amanda’s writing. Now, though, he seemed to see her for what she really was.

  Amanda ignored the coldness of his response. “I’ve been covering local politics for the paper,” said Amanda. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “You mean you were given the school board beat when you got in trouble at the paper for writing those bogus stories,” Cooper said.

  She could tell from the brief lapse in Amanda’s smile that she was right. But the reporter quickly regained her composure.

  “I write about what’s going on in the schools and in city government,” she said. “I think we have a great story here.”

  Cooper sniffed. “Right,” she said.

  “No,” Amanda said. “I really do. Your dad is right—this is a case about freedom of speech and freedom of religion. I’d like to write about it.”

  “You don’t know anything about Wicca,” Cooper said. “You’d just make up a lot of nonsense to try and be sensational.”

  Amanda shook her head. “No,” she said. “I really want to write about this. And if you help me, we can put something great together.”

  Cooper looked at the reporter. She didn’t trust her. But getting some coverage for her case in the local paper might not be a bad idea. She needed to influence people’s opinions if she was going to have a chance of winning. If only she could get someone other than Amanda to do it.

  “I don’t know,” she said hesitantly.

  “Would you promise to let us see everything you write before it goes to print?” Mr. Rivers asked.

  “Absolutely,” Amanda said. “Every word. I’m serious when I say that I want to do a good job on this. I really do think it’s an important topic.”

  Mr. Rivers looked at Cooper. “What do you think?” he asked.

  The members of the school board were walking past them as they left the room. Most of them avoided looking at Cooper as they went by. But Ralph Adams looked right at her, and on his face Cooper saw an expression of disdain. It was people like Ralph Adams she wanted to show up.

  “Okay,” she said to Amanda. “Let’s talk.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “Where is it?” Annie asked Kate and Cooper anxiously.

  “Let me at least open it,” said Kate as she flipped over the first few pages of the Sentinel. The girls scanned each page, looking for Annie’s editorial.

  “There it is,” Cooper said, pointing.

  Annie’s column took up the left-hand side of page 3. The three friends stood reading it as other students walked by on their way to classes. Annie looked up and was both anxious and thrilled to see that a lot of other people had grabbed copies of the school paper from the stack by the front door and were reading them.

  “It’s great,” Cooper told Annie when she had finished reading.

  “Not as great as the piece Amanda Barclay did on you in the Tribune this morning,” said Annie.

  As promised, Amanda Barclay had indeed written an article about Cooper’s run-in with the school board. Cooper couldn’t even find anything in it to complain about, except perhaps for the fact that it was buried on page 17 instead of being closer to the front. Amanda had even mentioned the fact that Cooper was starting a petition to get the school board to reconsider its decision. Cooper was hoping that might make it easier for her to get signatures. She’d written up the petition with her father’s help and had it in her backpack, ready for signing.

  “Hey there,” Sasha said, walking up to them. “How does it feel to be celebrities, you two?”

  Cooper and Annie pretended to be shielding their faces from paparazzi. “Please,” Cooper said breathlessly. “No pictures.”

  “You’ll have to speak to my agent,” Annie added as both of them laughed.

  “Freaks,” someone muttered.

  The girls turned to see who had said it, but nobody was speaking to them. It could have been any of the students walking by, but since none of them actually stopped to say anything, they couldn’t tell who had spoken.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to get a lot of that,” Kate told her friends.

  “Maybe for a while,” said Cooper. “Then it will all blow over.”

  “I see you agreed not to wear the pentacle,” Sasha commented to Cooper.

  “Yeah,” Cooper replied. “My dad said I should play nice for now, at least until we see if this revote comes off.”

  “Do you think you can actually get enough signatures on that petition?” asked Annie.

  “We’ll find out,” said Cooper. “Why don’t you guys be the first three to sign it.”

  “How about the first four?”

  Cooper turned and saw T.J. standing behind her. “Did you see the article?” she asked him.

  “Both of them,” he said. “Good job, Annie.”

  “Thanks,” said Annie happily.

  “And what did you think of the one about me?” asked Cooper.

  “You know what I think about that,” answered her boyfriend. “But I’m going to be supportive and not say anything.”

  “Good boy,” Cooper said, kissing him. “Now sign.”

  She handed him her petition, and he wrote his name on the first line. Then Annie, Sasha, and Kate added their names after T.J.’s.

  “Only a hundred and forty-six to go,” said Cooper confidently. “Then I can wave it in Ralph Adams’s face. Even if they don’t change their minds, it will be fun just to see him get angry.”

  “Oh, here comes Brian,” Annie said excitedly. “Let’s see what he thinks of the article.”

  “You didn’t tell him?” Kate said.

  Annie turned red. “Not exactly,” she said. “I meant to, but it seemed easier this way.”

  She really had meant to tell Brian. She’d promised herself that she would do it right after dinner on their date Wednesday night. But somehow she’d kept putting it off, first until after dessert, then until after their walk along the beach, then until after he walked her to the bus stop. By the time she knew it she was home in bed and she still hadn’t told him.

  “It’s not a big deal,” she said confidently. “He’ll be okay with it.”

  Brian walked up to the group. “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” Annie said. “Did you see my article? The one I told you about?”

  “Yeah,” answered Brian. “But you didn’t exactly tell me everything about it.”

  “What do you mean?” Annie asked, not understanding.

  “You didn’t tell me that you were into this . . . you know.”

  “Wicca?” Annie said, filling in the bla
nk he’d left at the end of his sentence.

  “Yeah,” Brian said again. “That.”

  “I didn’t think it was all that important,” said Annie.

  Brian didn’t say anything. The others looked at him, and then at Annie, as she waited for him to speak.

  “Can we talk?” Brian asked her. “Alone?”

  “Sure,” said Annie.

  She followed Brian as he walked to the side of the hall, away from her friends.

  “Look,” he told her when they had a little privacy. “I really like you. But I’m just not into this kind of stuff.”

  “You don’t have to be into it,” Annie said. “I’m not asking you to be.”

  “But you’re into it,” Brian said.

  Annie shook her head. “So?”

  “What am I supposed to tell people, Annie?” said Brian.

  “Tell them about what?” Annie asked.

  Brian sighed. “People are talking,” he said. “They’re saying you and your friend are witches.”

  “And that matters why?” Annie queried.

  “You want me to tell people I’m dating a witch?” said Brian. “You want me to tell my parents that I’m going out with this really great girl who happens to practice witchcraft? I don’t think so.”

  “You’re talking about it like it’s something bad,” Annie said defensively.

  “Well, maybe I think it is,” said Brian.

  “Do you?” asked Annie.

  Brian didn’t respond. “I just don’t think we should go out anymore,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  Annie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was Brian dumping her?

  “But I’m the same person I was before you knew about this,” she said.

  “No,” Brian said. “You’re not. Now you’re a girl who’s into something I don’t really want anything to do with.”

  Annie stared at him. He had to be kidding. Just a few nights before they’d been holding hands and making plans for the future.

  “What about the Cassandra Wilson concert?” she said dully.

  “I think we should skip it,” came Brian’s reply.

  “So that’s it?” Annie asked. “I say that I’m interested in Wicca and—bang—suddenly I’m not good enough to date?”

  “You’re still good enough to date,” Brian told her. “You’re just not the kind of girl I want to date. It’s nothing personal.”

  Annie laughed sharply. “Nothing personal?” she said loudly enough for people to turn around and look at her.

  “I’ve got to go,” said Brian. “Maybe we’ll talk later. I’d still like to be friends.”

  He turned and walked away from her, leaving her speechless. She watched him go, unable to move. Kate, Cooper, and Sasha came over. Kate put her arm around Annie. “What happened?”

  “He broke up with me,” Annie said quietly.

  “Because of the editorial?” Cooper asked. “What a jerk.”

  Annie shook her head. “That’s the thing,” she said. “He’s not a jerk. He’s a nice guy. But he still dumped me.”

  She looked at her friends, her eyes wet with the tears that were beginning to roll down her cheeks. “I think I made a mistake,” she said. “I think I made a horrible mistake.”

  Cooper put her arm around Annie’s other shoulder, so that Annie was sandwiched between her and Kate. “You didn’t make a mistake,” she said. “He just couldn’t handle it.”

  “But what if other people can’t handle it?” she asked, wiping her face with her hand. “I never thought Brian would turn his back on me because of this.”

  Kate looked at Cooper. “This is exactly what I was afraid of,” she said.

  “If you say I told you so I’m going to shriek,” Cooper answered. “So one person freaked out. We knew this wasn’t going to be totally pain free.”

  “Could you have maybe an ounce of sympathy here?” Kate said. “It wasn’t just anyone who freaked out—it was Annie’s boyfriend. And now he’s dumped Annie because she tried to help you.”

  “I thought he would understand,” Annie said numbly, as if she wasn’t even listening to the conversation going on around her.

  “It will be okay,” Cooper said, trying to console her.

  “Right,” Sasha added. “And who knows, maybe Brian will come around.”

  The bell rang, interrupting their talk.

  “Time to go,” Kate said. “Come on, Annie. Sasha and I will walk with you to class.”

  Cooper gave Annie another hug and then left with T.J. Kate, Annie, and Sasha walked in the other direction, toward the English and Spanish classrooms. Annie didn’t say a word as she trudged along between them.

  “It really is a great editorial,” said Sasha. “You should be proud of it.”

  “And you couldn’t know that Brian would get freaked out,” Kate added.

  “I just don’t get it,” said Annie after a minute. “It doesn’t bother Aunt Sarah. It doesn’t bother Meg. It’s not even an issue with them.”

  “That’s because they know you,” said Sasha. “Brian was just getting to know you. You turned out to be something different from what he thought you were. Guys are always freaked out by that.”

  “If it helps any, I know how you feel,” Kate told her friend. “I know Tara and Jessica are going to read that editorial, and I’m going to have to tell them something.”

  “Great,” Annie said. “So now you’re saying that I’ve ruined your life as well as mine. That makes me feel a lot better.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying at all,” Kate said. “All I’m saying is that, for better or for worse, we’re all having to deal with this issue now. It would have happened whether you wrote that editorial or not. This whole thing with Cooper and the pentacle wasn’t going to go away just because we wanted it to.”

  “I wish she’d never bought that thing,” Annie said in response.

  “I can’t say I haven’t thought the same thing,” said Kate. “But I know it’s important to her, and on some level I’m glad she’s doing this.”

  “I know,” Annie said. “I guess I feel the same way. But that doesn’t make it any easier.”

  “No,” Kate said, clearly thinking about the conversations she herself would undoubtedly be having soon. “No, it doesn’t.”

  They reached the door to Ms. Lopez’s room, and Kate and Sasha said good-bye. Annie took a deep breath to make sure she wasn’t going to start crying and then went inside. As she took her seat she noticed a number of her classmates turning and looking at her.

  “Great editorial, Annie,” said Greta Mueller, who sat next to her.

  “Thanks,” said Annie. Hearing someone say that the editorial was good made her feel a little better, but not much. The fact that some people appreciated what she had to say didn’t really make up for the fact that her saying it had driven Brian away.

  Ms. Lopez walked into the room. “Buenos días,” she said. “Today we’re going to go over what we discussed last week. So if you’ll all turn to page twenty—”

  “Ms. Lopez?”

  Annie looked and saw Sherrie with her hand raised. It was the first time she’d spoken in class, and Annie wondered what she could possibly have to say.

  “Yes, Sherrie?” the teacher asked.

  Sherrie lowered her hand. “Before we start I just want to make a quick announcement. I’m sure a lot of you have already seen today’s edition of the Sentinel.”

  Annie felt herself tense up. Why was Sherrie talking about the newspaper?

  “Some of you may have also seen the piece in the Tribune,” continued Sherrie. “If you haven’t, there’s a petition going around attempting to get the school board to reverse a decision it made banning Satanic symbols from being worn in school. Well, I’m collecting signatures for another petition—one that
supports the school board’s decision. I just wanted to let people know that if they’d like to sign it they can see me after class.”

  “Thank you, Sherrie,” Ms. Lopez said, her voice even and empty of any discernible emotion. “I’m not sure this class was the proper place to bring that up, but since you did, I’m sure those students who support your petition will be happy to see you when we’re through.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Lopez,” Sherrie said in a voice Annie felt was dripping with fake sincerity. “I just thought it was important, that’s all.”

  Ms. Lopez ignored her and began the class. Although she feigned interest, Annie was thinking about anything but Spanish. First there was the response to her editorial to worry about. Then there was Brian’s response in particular. She didn’t know what to do about that. No, it was worse than that. She knew that there was nothing she could do about that. She couldn’t pretend that she wasn’t involved in the Craft. She couldn’t take back what she’d written.

  That’s what hurt the most—knowing that she’d been open about who she was and that Brian had rejected her. It would be easier if he just thought I was ugly, she thought. Or if he hated my laugh or something. It would even be easier if he thought my chest was too flat. But up until the moment he’d read the editorial Brian had liked her. He had seemed to like everything about her. It was just knowing that she was into Wicca that he didn’t like.

  I suppose this is my punishment for doing that blue moon ritual, Annie thought, continuing with her torturous train of thought. But deep down she knew that wasn’t true. She couldn’t blame what had happened on any sort of karmic mishap. It was all because she had told the truth, plain and simple. She’d told the world, or at least the world of Beecher Falls High School, that she was interested in witchcraft. Now she was finding out just what people thought about that.

  When class ended Annie got up and left quickly. As she exited the room she noticed that several students had remained behind to talk to Sherrie about her petition. Would they sign it? she wondered. Were people really afraid of what Cooper’s pentacle symbolized? She couldn’t believe Sherrie had dared to call it a Satanic symbol. No, she corrected herself. I’m not surprised at all. That’s exactly what she wants people to think. Hadn’t Cooper said that Sherrie’s father had been the one to give her the most trouble at the school board meeting? The petition was probably all his idea. And Sherrie had timed her announcement perfectly—waiting until Annie was around to hear it. So, she was trying to exact revenge after all, but she was doing it not by attacking Annie directly but by trying to destroy something that was important to Annie and her friends, all of whom happened to be the people Sherrie most wanted to see hurt.