Blue Moon (10 page)

that someone will find out about you. And you also have to look at how it affects the people around you.

Right now you’re letting your parents think things about Cooper and Annie that aren’t true. And in a way

you’re letting them think things about me—and about us—that aren’t true.”

Kate let go of his hand and held hers in her lap. She’d wanted him to tell her that everything was okay

and that he understood and would stand by her while she decided what to do. But now she felt as if Tyler

was putting her in a position of choosing: Wicca or her family, him or her family, Cooper and Annie or

her family.

“I don’t know how to tell them,” she said. “I just don’t know how. This isn’t something they’ll

understand. I know that.”

“I can’t tell you how to do it,” Tyler said. “If you recall,
I
told my father while we were driving to

Christmas Eve services at his church. That probably wasn’t the best method. You’ll have to decide for

yourself how to do it. But I can tell you that the longer you wait the harder it’s going to be. Eventually

something will happen and you’ll be forced to tell them. I can almost guarantee that. Then they’ll be upset

that you hid it from them. But if you tell them about it on your own terms, that will make things a little

easier.”

“And what if they tell me I can’t go to class anymore?” asked Kate.

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Tyler took a deep breath. “I can’t tell you that either. You’ll have to cross that bridge when you come to

it.”

“And if they tell me I can’t see
you
anymore?” Kate said.

“Can we talk about something that isn’t depressing?” asked Tyler.

“Only if you can think of something,” said Kate. “Right now I feel like everyone is trying to force me to

do something I’m not sure I can do.”

“Sort of like the way you’re asking us to cover for you?” Tyler responded.

Kate looked away. She knew he was right. She felt as though the time was coming—and soon—when

everything was going to blow up unless she made a choice. She’d been telling herself that it would all

work itself out, but now it looked as if that wasn’t going to happen unless she did something. She just

didn’t know how—or if—she could do it.

“Look,” Tyler said, “I know that this really isn’t what you want to hear, but I don’t want you lying to

your parents about me.”

“Meaning what?” Kate asked, turning to look into his beautiful golden eyes. Usually his eyes shone with

happiness, but now they seemed clouded over, dulled by worry.

“I don’t think we should see each other unless you’re going to tell them we’re seeing each other,” he

said. “I don’t want you telling them that you’re going to the library or to see some other friend or

anything. That makes me feel bad, like we’re doing something we’re not supposed to be doing.”

“But it’s not like they don’t know we’re dating,” Kate protested. “They know that.”

“I understand,” said Tyler. “But I don’t want to be a secret you have to keep, even if I’m just a

part-time secret. I want your parents to know who I am, Kate. I’d like to be able to come over and feel

comfortable there. Right now I don’t. And now that I know you don’t always tell them when we see

each other, I’ll worry that someone you don’t want to see us together will see us. I don’t want to see you

under those circumstances.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Kate asked, a terrible feeling growing in her chest.

“No,” Tyler said. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. But I think we should cool things off until you

sort out what you want to do about all of this.”

Kate sat on the bench, wanting to cry. She’d begun the conversation wondering how she was going to

tell Tyler that he had to keep a lower profile for a while. But now
he
was telling her that he wanted to do

the same thing, but for an entirely different reason.
Is this how he felt about what I was asking him to

do?
she wondered. If so, it hurt horribly. She felt deeply ashamed that she might have made her

boyfriend feel the way she was feeling right then. Was this how Cooper and Annie felt when she

pretended to not know anything about what they were all doing?

“I feel really awful right now,” she told Tyler.

He put his arm around her and hugged her close while he kissed her on the cheek. “Welcome to your

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next big challenge,” he said.

CHAPTER 10

“What are they doing?” Annie asked Mrs. Abercrombie as she watched some workmen taking things

out of Ben Rowe’s old room while two other men carried things in.

“There’s a new guest coming,” the nurse told her.

“A new guest?” Annie said. “Why?”

The nurse smiled. “We can’t just leave the rooms empty,” she said. “There are a lot of people who need

to live here.”

Annie relaxed. “I know,” she said. “I guess I just thought that it would always be Ben’s room. So who’s

coming?”

Mrs. Abercrombie looked at her list. “Miss Eulalie Parsons,” she told Annie.

“Eulalie Parsons?” Annie said. “What kind of name is that?”

“It’s a Southern name, young lady.”

Annie turned around and saw an old woman standing behind her. She was short—only about up to

Annie’s chest—and very, very thin. Her curly white hair was gathered into a small knot at the nape of her

neck, and she peered at Annie through small round spectacles, her chocolate-colored eyes magnified by

the thick lenses so that they appeared to be much larger than they were. She wore a light blue dress the

color of the summer sky, and around her neck she wore a beautiful necklace containing a large sapphire.

“Oh,” Annie said, startled at the power in the old woman’s voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend

you.”

“You didn’t offend me,” said Eulalie. “Not yet anyway.”

“You’ll have to excuse my aunt,” said a tall woman standing beside the old lady. “She’s a little nervous

about moving in.”

“I’m not nervous at all,” Miss Parsons said. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Well, I’m sure Annie will be happy to help you get settled while your niece and I go over the final

paperwork,” Mrs. Abercrombie said.

“Sure,” said Annie. “I’d be happy to.”

“Come on then,” Eulalie said to Annie as she walked toward her room. “I want to make sure those big

lunks carrying my things in don’t drop anything.”

Annie followed the old woman into what used to be Ben Rowe’s room. Eulalie stopped and looked

around.

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“I like this color,” she said, eyeing the blue walls.

“Ben and I painted the room this color,” Annie said.

“Ben?” Miss Parsons asked.

“The man who used to live here,” explained Annie.

Eulalie nodded. “You and he were friends?”

“Yes,” said Annie. “He meant a lot to me.”

The old woman nodded but didn’t say anything. She went to the window, opened the curtains, and

looked outside. “Very nice,” she said. “If I have to be locked away it might as well be someplace pretty.”

“Don’t you want to be here?” Annie asked.

Miss Parsons turned around and fixed Annie with a look. “Nobody wants to be here, do they?” she

asked. “Isn’t this where they put people when they want to forget about them?”

Annie didn’t know what to say. She’d often thought that same thing, but she’d never said it out loud, at

least not to any of the residents.

“Oh, don’t take me too seriously,” Eulalie said, waving at Annie. “I’m sure it will be fine. At least I won’t

have a great big house to clean anymore.”

She walked to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer, examining it as if to see if everything she

wanted to put into it would fit. Then she shut it and looked in the mirror that hung behind the dresser.

Annie, standing behind her, was reflected in it. Miss Parsons looked closely at the reflection, wiped her

hand across the surface of the mirror as if wiping something away, and then turned to peer at Annie with

a strange expression on her weathered face.

“You’re touched,” she said gently.

“Excuse me?” Annie said, not understanding what Eulalie had said.

“Touched,” she repeated. She walked closer to Annie and looked at her face. “I saw it in the mirror just

now. Can’t see it directly, you know. But sometimes in reflections it shows up.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Annie told her, feeling slightly nervous.

Miss Parsons laughed. “I think you do, girl,” she said. “We just probably use different words for it.

Touched is what my grandmother would have said. What I mean is, you’ve got the powers. Do you

know what I’m saying?”

Annie smiled. “Yes,” she said. “I think I do.”

“Folks have different words for it, of course,” Eulalie continued. “The shining. Witchcraft. Being blessed.

Voodoo. Doesn’t matter what you call it, it’s pretty much the same. ’Course, what you
do
with it differs

from person to person. I myself never went in for any of that dark stuff.”

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“You have powers, too?” asked Annie excitedly.

Miss Parsons laughed. “Don’t sound so surprised, child. A lot of folks do. I just don’t go blabbing it

around.”

“Are you a witch?” Annie asked.

Eulalie laughed, her voice light as a feather. “I’ve been called that,” she said. “I don’t call myself anything

really. Like I said, I can do a thing or two. See spirits mostly, and talk to ’em. Tell what’s going to

happen sometimes. I used to be pretty good with a healing tonic when I had my own garden. Still could

be, I suppose.”

“Did you ever belong to a, you know, a group or anything?” Annie pressed.

Miss Parsons sighed. “A few of us used to get together and do a bit of work,” she answered, smiling

slightly as if she were remembering a wonderful moment. “I haven’t done that in some time, though.”

“I study with a group of other people,” Annie told the old woman.

“Do you now?” Eulalie said.

Annie nodded. “Maybe sometime you’d like to meet them,” she said. She couldn’t believe that Miss

Parsons knew about Wicca, even if that’s not what she called it.

“Maybe I would at that,” Eulalie replied. “But let me tell you something, child. This power around you

right now. It’s not all your own, is it?”

Annie didn’t understand her for a moment. Then she remembered Freya and the ritual she’d done. “I’ve

been working with one of the goddesses,” she told Miss Parsons.

“I thought as much,” the old woman said. Then she laughed again, but not unkindly.

“Why is that funny?” Annie asked her.

“I’m not laughing at you, girl,” said the old woman. “It’s just that you’re fair near glowing with whatever

it is you’re playing with. It must be something powerful.”

“It is,” Annie said, thinking about all of the changes that had occurred since her ritual.

“Just you be careful,” Miss Parsons continued. “Don’t let it get
too
powerful, now. You don’t know

what might happen.”

“Oh, I think everything is fine,” said Annie.

Just then she heard Mrs. Abercrombie’s voice in the hallway. She was coming toward the room, and

she had Eulalie’s niece with her.

“I think you and I will have a lot to talk about in the days to come,” Miss Parsons said to Annie. “But

now I get to make my niece feel guilty for leaving her poor old aunt in a place like this.”

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She smiled broadly and Annie smiled back. She knew that any complaining Eulalie did about Shady Hills

was an act. Really, the old woman seemed happy to be there. And Annie was happy to have her there,

especially in Ben’s room. If he couldn’t be alive, she couldn’t imagine anyone more suited to take his

place in her life right now than Eulalie Parsons. It had never even occurred to her that any of the old

people might be involved in witchcraft or anything like it. She wondered if there were others at Shady

Hills. She pictured a group of them holding sabbat rituals in the great room, and she giggled.

“Is everything okay in here?” Mrs. Abercrombie asked as she entered.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Annie said. “I was just helping Miss Parsons get settled.”

“And how
is
everything?” Eulalie’s niece asked.

“The bed’s hard and the view stinks,” Miss Parsons announced as her niece’s face fell.

“Well, we’ll just have to see what we can do about that,” Mrs. Abercrombie said in her most cheerful

voice.

Annie looked at Eulalie, who winked at her.
This one is going to be an experience,
Annie thought as

she left the room and went back to her duties.

Later that evening, Annie was in the bathroom at home. She’d filled the big old clawfoot bathtub with

warm water and added some rose-scented oil she’d purchased on the way home from work. The room

was filled with pink and white candles and the voice of Sarah Vaughan rippled through the doorway from

Annie’s bedroom, where she’d put the CD on her stereo.

The bathroom was steamy and relaxing, and Annie sang along with Sarah as she reclined in the tub and

let the water roll over her. She was thinking about her upcoming second date with Brian, and about

Eulalie. Everything in her life seemed to be going really well all of a sudden. Ever since the ritual she’d

done she seemed to be having extraordinarily good luck.

It’s not luck,
she told herself as she lifted a handful of sweet-smelling water and poured it over her

shoulders.
You’re just letting the goddess inside you come out.

That’s really what it felt like. It wasn’t like she was a different person or anything; it was more like she

had let the strong, powerful, beautiful woman inside of her emerge. And Freya had helped her—
was

helping her. Annie knew that. She had asked the goddess to lend her some of her strengths, and she had

done so.

But what was it Eulalie had said about not letting the power around her grow too big? What had she

meant by that? It wasn’t like Annie was doing a spell or anything. She was just working with Freya,

asking for her help. How could that grow out of control? Well, she couldn’t worry about that now. She

had a date to get ready for.

Annie climbed out of the tub and wrapped herself in a big fluffy white towel. Still humming, she went into

her room, sat in a chair in front of her mirror, and began putting on makeup. As she applied some color

to her cheeks she looked at her reflection. What was it Eulalie had seen that had made her ask Annie all

of those questions? Annie put the makeup brush down and stared at her face in the mirror. Had there

been some kind of a sign? Did something about her look weird?

She couldn’t see anything different about herself. Sure, she looked a little different with makeup on.

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Well, a lot different. But it was still
her
underneath all of that. And Eulalie didn’t even know how she’d

looked before, so what had made her take notice?

Annie looked more closely. The mirror seemed to be clouding over.
It’s probably the steam from the

bathroom,
she thought idly. She reached out and wiped away the film of vapor. As she did she saw

herself in the mirror beneath, and she gasped. For a moment her face had been replaced by another one.

It was just for a second, but it had definitely been there. She’d been looking not at her familiar features

but those of a much more beautiful woman.

Now her own face was reflected in the glass and the steam had disappeared. Had it all been a trick of

her imagination?
It must have been,
she thought as she resumed putting on her makeup. Whatever Eulalie

had seen, Annie couldn’t see it herself. But she could ask the old woman about it the next time she saw

her. Right now she had to get ready for her date with Brian.

Two hours later she was standing on the floor of the Junebug. More precisely, she was being thrown up

into the air by Brian as the band played a swing number. As she came back down and he caught her in

his arms, she said, “I told you this would be fun.”

Brian swung her around, and she spun to a stop as the number ended. “Let’s get something to drink,” he

said.

She followed him to the snack bar, where he ordered sodas for them. Then they went to sit at one of the

little tables while the band launched into their next number. Annie sat, listening to the music, as she sipped

her drink.

“How did you know about this place?” Brian asked.

“I read about it in the paper,” said Annie. “Most of the time it’s a bar, but one night a week they open it

up to everyone and teach swing dance. I thought it would be interesting.”

“Well, it sure has been an experience,” Brian answered. “I don’t think I’ve ever done anything quite like

it.”

They’d spent the first part of the evening taking a quick lesson in the basics of swing dancing. At first it

had seemed complicated, but after the instructor ran through a few steps with them Annie found that it

was actually really easy. Brian was the one with the hard part. He had to dance and think about what

step they would do next. But he was a good lead, and he had gotten the hang of it with only a few minor

mishaps.

Then the band had started playing and the real dancing had begun. At first Annie had been hesitant to

join in. Everyone else seemed to know what they were doing, and she’d been afraid of messing up. But

the music was infectious, and soon she’d been dancing right along with everyone else. Before long she’d