The Coven
Page 14
pried my fingers away from my face, and when she did, I saw
Bree, standing over her, peering at me In alarm, a horrified
expression on her face.
I looked at her, trying not to swallow blood. Her mouth
opened, and silently she said, "I'm sorry." She looked so much
like her old self for a minute that I almost felt happy. Then all
of a sudden the shock subsided, and my face was filled with
pain. "Are you all right?" someone asked.
"Um " I mumbled, putting my hands up to my nose.
"Hurts."
"Okay, Morgan," said Ms. Lew. "Can you stand up? Let's
get you to my office so we can put some ice on it. I think we'd
better call your mom." She helped me up and called, "Get back
to the game, girls. Bettina, get some paper towels and wipe
that blood up so someone doesn't slip on it Ms. Warren, see me
in my office after class."
I cast a last look at Bree as I left Bree looked back at me,
but suddenly every remnant of friendship or emotion was gone,
replaced by calculation. It made my heart sink, and tears filled
my eyes.
When Mom came to get me, she was still in her work
clothes. Clucking with worry, she took me to the emergency
room, where they x-rayed my face. My nose was broken, and
my lip needed one tiny stitch. Everything was swollen, and I
looked like a Halloween mask.
It had come to this, between me and Bree.
17. The New Coven
April 14, 1983
My peas are coming up nicely—I thought I might have put
them in too early. They're a symbol of my new life: I can't
believe they're growing on their own so strongly, without
magickal help. Sometimes the urge to get in tough with the
Goddess is so strong, I ache with it—it's like a pain, something
trying to get out. But that part of my life is over, and all I have
from that time is my name. And Angus.
We have a new addition to our household: a gray-and-
white kitten. I've named her Bridget. She's a funny little thing,
with extra toes on each paw and the biggest purr you ever
heard. I'm glad to have her.
--M.R.
That afternoon, as I lay in bed with an ice pack on my
face, the doorbell rang. I immediately sensed that it was Cal.
My heart thumped painfully. I listened as he spoke to my mom.
I focused my attention, but I could still barely make out their
words.
"Well, I don't know," I heard Mom say.
"For Pete's sake, Mom. I'll stay the whole time and chaperon
them," said Mary K., much louder. She must have been
standing right at the bottom of the steps. Then footsteps
sounded on the stairs. I watched nervously as my door opened.
Mom came in first, presumably to make sure I was
properly dressed and not, say, wearing a sexy, see-through
negligee. In fact, I was wearing stretched-out gray
sweatpants, an undershirt of my dad's, and a white sweatshirt.
Mom had helped me wash the blood out of my hair, but I
hadn't dried it or anything like that It hung loose in long damp
ropes. Basically, I looked as awful as I had ever looked in my
life. Cal came into my room, and his presence made it seem
small and young. Note to self: Redecorate.
He gave me a big smile and said,"Darling!"
I couldn't help laughing, though it hurt and I put my hand
to my face and said,"Ungh—doan make me laugh."
As soon as Mom saw I was decent she left, even though
she was obviously uncomfortable about my having a boy in my
room."Doesn't she look great?" Mary K. said. "Too bad
Halloween's over. I bet by Thursday everything will be yellow
and green." I noticed she was holding a white teddy bear
wearing a heart-shaped bib.
"For me?" I asked.
Mary K. shook her head, looking embarrassed. "It's from
Bakker."
I nodded. Bakker had been sending flowers and leaving
notes on our porch all day. He'd called several times, and when
I had answered the phone, he had apologized to me. I knew
Mary K. was weakening.
She perched in my desk chair, and I gave her a look.
"Don't you have homework?"
"I promised to chaperon," she objected. Then, seeing my
expression, she held up her hands. "Okay, okay, I'm going."
As the door closed behind her I looked at Cal. "I didn't
want you to see me like this." Because of the swelling in my
nose, my voice sounded clogged and distant
His face grew solemn. "Tamara told me about what
happened. Do you think she did it on purpose?”
I thought of Bree's face, of the fright in her eyes when
she saw what she'd done to me.
“It was an accident,”I said, and he nodded.
“I brought you some stuff.” He held up a small bag.
“What?”I asked eagerly.
“This, for starters,”Cal said, taking out a small potted
plant. It was silverly gray, with cut, feathery leaves.
“Artemesia,”I said, recognizing it from one of my herb
books. “It's pretty.”
Cal nodded. “Mugwort. A useful plant. Also this,”He
handed me a small vial/
I read the label. “Arnica montana.”
“It's a homeopathic medicine,”Cal explained. “I got it at
the health-food store. It's for when you're had a traumatic
injury. It's good for bruises, stuff like that.”He leaned closer.
"I spelled It to help you heal faster," he whispered. "It's
Just what the doctor ordered."
I sank back gratefully on my pillows. "Cool."
"One more thing," Cal said, taking out a bottle of Yoo-
Hoo. "I bet you can't eat much, but a Yoo-Hoo can be sucked
down with a straw. And it's got all the major food groups-dairy,
fat, chocolate. You could say it's the perfect food."
I laughed, trying not to move my face. "Thanks. You
thought of everything."
Mom called upstairs: "Dinner will be ready in five
minutes." I rolled my eyes, and Cal smiled. "I can take a hint,"
he said. He sat carefully on the edge of my bed and took my
hand in both of his. I swallowed, feeling lost, wanting to hold
him to me. Muirn beatha dan, I thought
"Is there anything you want me to do for you?" he asked
with quiet meaning. I knew he meant Do you want me to get
back at Bree?
I shook my head, feeling my face ache. "I don't think so,"
I whispered. "Let it go."
He regarded me evenly. "I'll let it go so far and no
farther," he warned. "This sucks."
I nodded, feeling very tired.
"Okay, I'll get going. Call me later if you want to
talk."
He stood up. Then he very gently put his hands on my face,
barely touching me with his fingertips. He closed his eyes and
muttered words I didn't understand. Closing my eyes, I felt the
heat from his fingers warm my face. As I breathed in, some of
the pain dissipated.
It took less than a minute, then he opened his eyes and
stepped back. I felt much better.
"Thanks," I said. "Thanks for coming." "I'll talk to you
later," he said. Then he turned and
left my room.
As I sank back down in bed my face felt lighter, less
swollen. My head hurt less. I opened the arnica and popped
four of the tiny sugar pills under my tongue. Then I lay quietly,
feeling the pain wash out of me.
That night before I went to sleep, both my black eyes
were almost gone, the swelling had gone way down, and I felt
like I could breathe through my nose.
I stayed home from school the next day, although I
looked tons better, except for the ugly black stitch on my lip.
At two-thirty that afternoon I called Mom at work and told
her I was going over to Tamara's house to pick up some
homework assignments.
"Are you sure you feel up to it?" she asked.
"Yeah, I feel almost fine," I said. "I'll be back before
dinner."
"Okay, then. Drive carefully."
"I will."
I hung up the phone, got my keys and my coat, put on my
clogs, and set off toward school. It's pretty much impossible to
hide a huge white whale like Das Boot, but I parked on a side
street two blocks away, where I thought I could see Bree's car
pass as she left school. I could have waited for her at home,
but I wasn't sure she'd go straight there.
It wasn't like I had a totally fleshed out plan. Basically I
was hoping to confront Bree, to hash everything out In the best
of all possible worlds, it would have a positive result I felt like I
had reached a breakthrough with my parents, and Mary K. and
I had bonded again after the Bakker incident Now I wanted to
get things straight with Bree. The habits of a lifetime aren't
easy to erase, and I still thought of her as my best friend.
Hating her was too much to bear. The scene in gym showed
how desperately we needed to work things out
But it wasn't only that I had other reasons for wanting to
mend things between us, too. Magick was clarity. According to
my books, to work the best magick was to see the most clearly.
If I lived with an ongoing feud in my life, it could seriously
hamper my ability to do magick.
I almost missed Bree's car as it passed the corner at the
end of the block Quickly I started up mine and crept slowly
behind her, as far back as I could.
Luckily Bree headed straight home. I knew the way well
enough that I could hang back at a great distance, staying
behind other cars. Once she had pulled into her driveway and
parked, I pulled over myself at the very end of her block,
behind a big maroon minivan, and shut off my engine.
Just as I was about to get out, though, Raven pulled up in
her battered black Peugeot Bree ran back out of her house.
I waited. The two girls talked for a while on the sidewalk,
then headed to Raven's car and got in. Raven roared off,
leaving a trail of foul exhaust behind her.
I was nonplussed. This hadn't been in my plan. Right now
I was supposed to be talking to Bree, possibly arguing with
her. Raven hadn't figured into it Where were they going?
A sudden fierce curiosity took hold of me, and I started
my car again. After four blocks I caught sight of them once
more.
They headed north, out of town on Westwood. I followed,
already suspecting where they were headed.
When they reached the cornfields at the north of town,
where our coven had had its first meeting, Raven pulled off
onto the road's shoulder and parked.
Slowing, I waited until they had disappeared into the
recently stripped cornfield, then drove to the other side and hid
Das Boot under the huge willow oak. Though the branches
were almost bare, its trunk was thick and the ground dipped
slightly so that no one casually glancing over would spot my
car.
Then I hurried across the road and began to pick my way
through the crumpled, messy remains of what had been a tall
field of golden feed corn.
I couldn't see Raven and Bree ahead of me, but I knew
where they were going: to the old Methodist cemetery where
we had celebrated Samhain just ten days ago. Ten days ago,
when Cal had kissed me in front of the coven and Bree and I
had become true enemies. It felt like much longer ago than
that I stepped across the trickling stream and headed uphill
Into a stand of old hardwood trees. I went more slowly, casting
my senses, listening for their voices. I didn't really know what
I was doing and felt kind of like a stalker. But I had been
wondering about their new coven. I couldn't resist finding out
what they were up to.
When I reached the edge of the graveyard, I saw them
ahead, standing by the stone sarcophagus that had served as
our altar on Samhain. The two of them stood there, not talking,
end it came to me: They were waiting for someone.
I sank down on the damp, cold earth beside an ancient
tombstone. My race ached a little, and the stitch in my lip was
itching. I wished I had remembered to take more arnica or
Tylenol before I left the house.
Bree rubbed her hands up and down her arms. Raven kept
pushing back her dyed black hair. They both looked nervous
and excited.
Then Bree turned and peered into the shadows. Raven
grew very still, and my heart beat loudly in the silence.
The person meeting them was a woman, or rather a girl,
maybe a couple of years older than Raven. Maybe just a year.
The more I looked at her, the younger she became.
She was beautiful in an unusual, otherworldly kind of
way. Fine blond hair shone starkly against her black leather
motorcycle jacket, and she had very short, almost white bangs.
Her cheekbones were high and Nordic, her mouth full and too
wide for her race. But it was her eyes that seemed so
compelling, even from far away. They were large and deep set
and so black that they looked like holes, drawing light in and
not letting it out again.
She greeted Bree and Raven so quietly, I couldn't hear the
murmur of her voice. She seemed to ask them a question, and
her dark eyes darted here and there like negative spotlights
raking the area.
"No, no one followed us," I heard Bree say.
"No way." Raven laughed. "No one comes out here."
Still the girl looked around, her eyes flicking again and
again to the tombstone I hid behind. If she was a witch, she
might pick up on my presence. Quickly I closed my eyes, trying
to shut everything down, focusing on becoming invisible, on
trying to wrinkle the fabric of reality as little as possible. I am
not here, I sent out into the world. I am not here. There Is
nothing here. You see nothing, you hear nothing, you feel
nothing. I repeated this smoothly again and again, and finally
the three girls started talking again.
Moving a centimeter at a time, I turned and faced them
again.
"Revenge?" the girl said, her voice rich and musical.
"Yes," said Raven. "You see, there's..."
A breeze rustled the trees just then, and her words were
&n
bsp; lost They were speaking so quietly that it was only by using my
strongest concentration that I could hear them at all.
"Dark magic," Raven said, and Bree looked at her with
troubled eyes.
"... to wither love," were the next words to float to me on
the breeze. That was from the girl. I looked at her aura. Next to
Bree's and Raven's darkness, she was made of pure light
shining like a sword in the increasing shadows of the
graveyard.
"Their circle ... our new coven... a girl with power... Cal...
Saturday nights, at different places..."
They talked on, and my frustration grew at not being able
to hear more. The sun went down quickly, as if a lamp had
been dimmed, and I started to feel seriously chilly.
I leaned against the tombstone. What did this mean? They
had mentioned Cal's name. I figured the "girl with power" was
me. What were they planning? I had to tell Cal.
But there was no way to leave without their seeing me, so
I was stuck on that damp ground, feeling my butt and legs go
to sleep while my bruised face ached more and more.
At last, after about forty endless minutes, the girl left
silently the way she had come, with only her light hair visible
when she stepped into the darkness beneath the trees. Bree
and Raven walked back through the graveyard, passing within
ten feet of me, and headed back out through the cornfield. A
minute later I heard Raven's car belch and peel off, and two
minutes after that its exhaust drifted to me on the evening
breeze.
I got up and brushed myself off, anxious to get home to
take a hot, hot shower. The cornfields were now totally dark,
and I felt weirded out by the creepy scene I had just
witnessed. At one point I was sure I felt someone's
concentrated stare on the back of my head, but when I whirled,
nothing was there. Running back to my car, I jumped in,
slamming and locking my door after me.
My hands were so cold and stiff, it took me a second to
get the key in the ignition, and then I popped on my headlights
and did a fast U-turn on Westwood. I was scared and irritated,
and my earlier thoughts of clearing things up with Bree now
seemed naive, laughable.
What were they planning? Were they really so angry with
Cal and me that they would turn to dark magick? They were
putting themselves in danger, making choices that were stupid
and shortsighted.
I swung into my own driveway, shaken and chilled to the