The Five Paths

by Isobel Bird

  * * *

  Kate printed out Tyler’s E-mail and read it again. Reading Tyler’s words, she felt like crying. She missed him so much. But he was wrong. Nothing that had happened was his fault. Yes, he’d told her that she should tell her parents about studying witchcraft. But she’d known for a long time that she would have to tell them eventually. She couldn’t let Tyler think that he was responsible for her situation.

  She hit the reply button and began to type a response to Tyler.

  Dear Tyler:

  I’m so glad that you wrote. Yes, things have been a little rough. But I don’t want you to think that any of it is because of you. You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me. It’s not your fault that my parents don’t understand what Wicca is and why it’s important to me. That’s their problem.

  I don’t know what’s going to happen. But whatever it is, I want you to know that I

  “Kate? Are you ready to go?”

  Kate jumped, startled by her mother’s appearance in the doorway. In her nervousness, she accidentally dropped the printout of Tyler’s E-mail on the floor. Her mother bent down and picked it up.

  “Here you are,” she said, starting to hand it back. Then she looked at it more closely and retracted her hand. She read the printout as Kate watched her face.

  “What is this?” Mrs. Morgan asked.

  “Just an E-mail,” said Kate, knowing there was no point in trying to lie. It was pretty obvious what it was her mother had in her hands.

  Mrs. Morgan walked over and snapped the computer’s off switch. The screen blanked out and the room filled with the sound of the motor winding down. I didn’t get to send my reply, Kate thought as she stared at the black screen.

  “I thought we told you—no contact with those people,” her mother said.

  “But it’s Tyler,” protested Kate.

  “I see that,” said her mother. “So he’s involved with them, too, is he? I suppose I should have known. Your father never did like him. And there I was, defending him and saying he was a nice boy.”

  “He is nice!” Kate yelled.

  “Don’t speak to me that way,” snapped her mother.

  “Why?” Kate said. “Because you’re too narrow-minded to listen to what anybody else thinks?”

  Her mother glared at her. Kate glared back. She’d never spoken so harshly to her mother before. In fact, they rarely fought about anything. But things had changed. Over the past few days her mother had turned into someone Kate didn’t recognize. While she was sure her mother felt the same way about her, that didn’t stop her from being angry.

  “What’s going on?” Kate’s father stuck his head inside the door of her room.

  “Nothing,” Mrs. Morgan told her husband. “Kate and I were just having a discussion.”

  “Well, let’s get going,” replied Mr. Morgan. “We’re going to be late if we don’t hurry.”

  He left the room, leaving Mrs. Morgan with Kate.

  “Thanks,” Kate said, knowing that her mother had done her a favor by not telling her father about the E-mail from Tyler.

  “Don’t thank me,” said Mrs. Morgan. “Just get ready.”

  She left the room, shutting the door behind her. Kate was tempted to turn on the computer and rewrite her E-mail to Tyler, but she knew she’d get in huge trouble if she did. Instead she got up, put on a sweater, and went downstairs.

  “We’ll be back in a couple of hours,” Mrs. Morgan said to Netty as she, Kate, and Mr. Morgan headed out the door.

  “Okay,” Netty called from her place on the living room couch, where she was sitting and reading a book. “I’ll see you later.”

  Kate caught her aunt’s eye as she left the house. Good luck, Aunt Netty mouthed silently.

  Kate smiled back at her and nodded. She would need some good luck. Her parents were taking her to see a therapist recommended to them by Father Mahoney. Kate had protested, telling her parents that she didn’t need to talk to a shrink, but they had insisted.

  The whole way there she didn’t say a word. Neither did her mother. Mr. Morgan, though, kept up a steady stream of conversation, talking about everything from the weather to the latest sports scores. He’s trying to pretend that everything is fine, Kate thought as she sat scrunched into the backseat. In a way she felt sorry for her father. He really didn’t know the first thing about Wicca, and she was sure he was really confused. If he’d just listen, maybe I could explain it to him, she thought. But every time she even tried to bring up the subject he changed it.

  Twenty minutes later her father pulled the car into the parking lot of a nondescript office complex. They all got out of the car and walked toward the entrance of one of the buildings. When they arrived, Kate looked at the names on the directory: Dr. Sylvia Hagen, Dr. J. Phillip Olberman, Dr. Carolyn Joyce. I wonder which one gets to probe my brain, she thought unhappily.

  Her father opened the door and they went inside into what could have been the waiting room for any doctor’s or dentist’s office. A receptionist sat behind a counter, and there were chairs and a couch arranged around a coffee table littered with magazines.

  “Can I help you?” asked the receptionist.

  “I’m Joseph Morgan,” said Kate’s father. “I’m here with my daughter, Kate.”

  The receptionist looked at a list attached to her clipboard. “Okay,” she said. “Could you have Kate fill this out, please?” She handed Mr. Morgan another clipboard with a pen attached to it. “Then Dr. Hagen will see you.”

  Dr. Hagen, thought Kate. At least now she knew the identity of the person who would be torturing her. She walked over to one of the chairs and sat down as her father handed her the clipboard.

  Kate looked at the form. It was a list of questions, all of them apparently pertaining to her mental health. For each one she was supposed to circle yes or no. She read the first question: Have you recently been feeling depressed?

  Not until my parents accused me of cavorting with the devil, she thought as she circled no.

  She went through the list quickly, mostly circling no for them. Who makes up this stuff? she wondered as she looked at question 7: Have you ever felt like there was no point to life? Only like every other day, Kate thought, circling no. She wasn’t about to give Dr. Hagen anything to work with. She did, however, answer yes to question 13 (Do you ever wish you were someone else?) and 22 (Do you think the idea of therapy is a waste of time?).

  “All done,” she said, handing the form back to the receptionist.

  “Thanks,” the woman said. “Have a seat and we’ll call you in a minute.”

  Kate returned to her chair and flopped into it. Her mother and father sat on the couch, not saying anything. Her father was thumbing through a back issue of Cosmopolitan.

  “Looking for tips on how to ease the embarrassment of stretch marks?” Kate asked, feeling hostile.

  Mr. Morgan tossed the magazine onto the coffee table.

  A moment later a woman walked into the waiting room. She was a little shorter than Kate, and very skinny. Her salt-and-pepper-colored hair was cut short, almost in a brush cut gone out of control. It stuck up at odd angles, almost like Cooper’s did. She wore glasses, and when she smiled Kate could see that her teeth were a little crooked.

  “Kate?” she said.

  Kate stood up, as did her parents.

  “Hi,” said the woman. “I’m Dr. Hagen. Are you ready to come in?”

  “I think so,” said Mrs. Morgan.

  “Oh, not you,” said the doctor. “I’ll just be talking to Kate today.”

  Mrs. Morgan looked a little surprised at the doctor’s announcement, but she didn’t say anything. She sat back down as Dr. Hagen smiled at Kate. “Shall we?”

  Kate followed her down a hallway and into an office. The doctor shut the door and indicated a large armchair. “Have a seat,” she
said.

  “No couch?” Kate asked.

  The doctor laughed. “Those went out with Freud,” she said.

  Kate looked around the office. It wasn’t at all what she had expected. It was more like sitting in someone’s living room than it was being at a shrink’s. Then again, she’d never been to a shrink before. The only one she’d ever seen was on television, on The Sopranos, and that woman always looked like she had either just peed herself or was about to. Dr. Hagen wasn’t like that at all.

  “Tell me why you’re here,” the doctor said straight off.

  So much for the small talk, Kate thought as she searched for an answer. I guess when you pay by the hour every second counts. “Don’t you know?” she said finally, hoping she could find out exactly what her parents had told Dr. Hagen.

  “I know your parents are concerned about you,” replied the doctor.

  Kate snorted. “I’m sure they are,” she said. “Concerned parents always assume their children need psychological help.”

  “You don’t think you do?”

  “No,” Kate said. “I don’t. I think I was doing pretty well until they freaked out on me. I was doing okay in school, I had friends I really liked, and everything was cool.”

  “Why did your parents freak out?” asked the doctor, only when she said “freak out” it sounded normal, not like when most adults said it, trying to sound like they were with it.

  Kate looked at her. The doctor was sitting with a pencil in her hands, not writing anything down or anything but just holding it. She looked back at Kate with a totally neutral expression, and Kate had no idea whether she knew about the witch thing or not.

  “I told them that I’m interested in Wicca,” she said, deciding that being honest would save time.

  Dr. Hagen nodded. “And they were upset by this?”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “You’re right,” said the doctor. “I retract the question. How about why do you think they were upset by that?”

  Kate sighed. That was the million-dollar question. “They think it’s dangerous,” she answered. “They think I’m doing something bad, I guess.”

  “Have they said that?” the doctor asked.

  “They said that they don’t think it’s right to be playing around with things like that,” said Kate. “Those were their exact words.”

  “But they never really said what it was exactly those things are?” Dr. Hagen said.

  “No,” Kate said. “There was basically just a lot of yelling. And grounding.”

  Dr. Hagen wrote something in her notebook.

  “Let me ask you something,” Kate said. “Do you know what Wicca is?”

  Dr. Hagen nodded. “In addition to my degree in psychology, I also hold a master’s in comparative religion,” she said. “I met Dennis when he was studying at the seminary and I was using their library.”

  “Dennis?” Kate asked, confused.

  “Father Mahoney,” Dr. Hagen told her. “We’ve known each other for more than thirty years.”

  “That explains why he told my parents to bring me to you,” Kate said. “So you studied Wicca?”

  Dr. Hagen shook her head. “Not really studied it, no,” she said. “But I do know what it is.”

  “And do you think it’s dangerous?” Kate asked.

  “I’m supposed to ask you the questions,” answered the doctor. “Why don’t you tell me how you feel about it.”

  Kate leaned back, relaxing for the first time since she’d entered Dr. Hagen’s office. Did the doctor want to know how she really felt about Wicca, or did she want to hear something that would make her declare Kate totally fine and send her home with a clean bill of health?

  “I think it can be dangerous,” Kate said, thinking about her first early attempts at casting spells and how badly they’d turned out. “But only when you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “And you know what you’re doing?” asked Dr. Hagen.

  “I’m getting better at it,” Kate said. “I’ve learned a lot from the study group I’m in. Those people have been practicing a lot longer than I have. That doesn’t mean I don’t screw up sometimes. I do. But that’s sort of how it works, right? You make mistakes and you learn from them.”

  “That’s what we hope,” the doctor commented.

  Kate and the doctor talked at length about Wicca and Kate’s rituals. Kate felt herself relaxing with the low-key therapist. Kate leaned forward in her chair. “Look,” she said. “I know my parents brought me here so that you would get me to say that witchcraft is bad and that I won’t do it anymore and that I’ll be a good girl and go to church and all of that. But I like Wicca. I like what it stands for. I like my friends in the Craft and I like who I am when I’m involved in it.”

  “You didn’t like yourself before?” Dr. Hagen said.

  Kate sat back. “I thought I did,” she said. “But I think what I actually liked was who people thought I was.”

  “And who is the real you?”

  Kate thought about the question. “I guess that’s what I’m finding out, isn’t it? I mean, do you ever really find out who you are?”

  “But you believe that your involvement in Wicca is helping you do that?” the doctor asked, as usual answering Kate’s question with another one.

  “Yes,” Kate said. “I do. I just wish my parents understood that.”

  A buzzer sounded, making Kate jump. “What was that?”

  “The timer,” said Dr. Hagen, holding up a plain old egg timer that had been sitting beside her chair unnoticed by Kate. “It means our time is up, at least for this week.”

  “You mean I have to come back?” Kate said.

  “Only if you want to,” the doctor replied. “Do you?”

  Kate looked at her. Dr. Hagen had barely said anything during the session, and even then she’d only asked questions. But somehow Kate felt a little better than she had when she’d come in. Finally someone besides her friends was listening to her talk about why it was important for her to be involved in witchcraft. Although she didn’t see how this was going to help her with the situation with her parents, it felt good to be able to talk and have someone listen.

  “Yes,” she said, surprised at her answer. “I’d like to come back.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “It was really horrible,” Sasha said. “They were all yelling and everything was a mess.”

  At first Annie thought that Sasha was telling Kate about the incident with the three college guys on Friday night. She had missed the first part of the conversation, walking in as Kate was taking her books from her locker on Monday morning.

  “Did you tell her how you kicked that guy?” Annie said.

  “You kicked the social worker?” Kate said, clearly shocked.

  “Social worker?” repeated Annie. “He was no social worker. He was some jerky frat boy.”

  “Wrong story,” Sasha said. “I was filling Kate in on what went down over the weekend.”

  “You mean there was more?” said Annie. It was her turn to sound shocked.

  “What do you mean, more?” Kate asked Annie. “Did something else happen? I’m really confused here.”

  “So am I,” Annie said.

  “What’s going on?” Cooper asked, walking up with T.J.

  “What happened to you?” Kate asked T.J., sounding even more surprised than she had the first time.

  Annie looked at T.J. She could see why Kate sounded so confused. T.J.’s eye was all black and blue, and his mouth was puffy. He had assorted scrapes on his cheek and chin.

  “Will someone please tell me what’s going on here?” Kate said in exasperation. “Who beat up T.J.?”

  “The college guys,” Annie said. “Well, one of them.”

  “Hey,” T.J. said in protest. “I go
t him worse than he got me.”

  “And who came to your house?” Kate said, turning to Sasha.

  “Social Services,” she answered.

  “Social Services came to your house?” said Cooper. “Why?”

  Sasha held up her hands. “Time out,” she said. “Rewind. Start over.”

  Everybody shut up and waited for her to speak. When she was sure they weren’t going to interrupt her, she continued. “I’ll let T.J. or Cooper or whoever fill you in on the college guy thing. My story is about Social Services. On Saturday afternoon this car shows up at our house. It was one of the guys from Thea’s office.”

  “Thea’s a social worker for the city,” Cooper informed T.J., who nodded.

  “This guy had two other people with him. Apparently, they’re case investigators.”

  “What did they want?” asked Annie.

  “To take me away,” Sasha said flatly.

  “What?” Cooper exclaimed. “Why?”

  “Because of the letter my mom wrote to the paper,” said Sasha. “This guy she works with read it and decided to use it as evidence that she’s an unfit parent.”

  “Because she’s a witch?” said T.J.

  Kate nodded. “Tyler’s dad tried to use that excuse when he and Tyler’s mom divorced,” she said.

  “So what happened?” Annie asked Sasha.

  Sasha sighed. “Lots of drama,” she replied. “I guess this jerk has had it in for her for a long time because he thinks she’s weird. He tried to get her fired when she put up a notice about one of the open rituals on the community bulletin board, and he makes all kinds of stupid comments about her being a witch.”

  “But those things aren’t illegal,” said Annie.

  “Right,” Sasha said. “There’s nothing he can do about it. But this time he tried to convince these caseworkers that an ‘admitted witch,’ as he called her, should not be allowed to be the legal guardian of a minor. He called them and told them that Thea was doing all kinds of weird rituals and stuff with me in the house and insisted that they investigate.”

  “Man,” Cooper said. “Thea must have gone nuts on him.”