Jinx (8 page)

“Seriously loves me, eh? That sounds like she wants to be more than just friends…with benefits.”

He was laughing. I couldn't believe he was laughing.

“Zach,” I said. “You don't understand. She isn't messing around. She—”

I almost told him. About the doll. I don't know what stopped me, exactly. Except that I felt like Tory deserved to have some dignity left to herself, in spite of her silly behavior.

“She could make life really uncomfortable for me,” I said, instead, “if she thought…well, that you and I…”

Zach stopped laughing. Next thing I knew, his hands were on my shoulders.

“Hey,” he said, giving me a little shake. “Cousin Jean. Cheer up. I was just kidding. The last thing in the world I want to do is make life any harder for you. I know it's tough being a preacher's kid. It must be even tougher starting a new school and living with a new family on top of your…well…”

He didn't say the word
stalker
out loud. He didn't
have to. We both knew what he was talking about, even though neither of us had ever mentioned it since that first time Tory threw it out, so casually, the day of my arrival.

“Besides,” Zach said, dropping his hands away from me. “What does it matter? Considering who I'm supposed to be in love with, remember?”

Oddly enough, this reminder, instead of jabbing a stake of jealousy through my heart, did cheer me up…a little.

“That's right,” I said. “I mean, it's totally ridiculous of those girls to think we're going out, when your heart belongs to another.”

“Not just any other, either,” Zach said. “But the finest piece of womanhood on the planet.”

“Yeah,” I said. “If they say anything about seeing us to Tory, I'll just remind her that Petra's your one true love.”

“And I'll have no choice but to back you up on it,” Zach said. “Eternal servitude, remember?”

Feeling a thousand times better, I turned to start back up the street, swinging my bag from Enchantments…

…and heard whatever it was the saleslady had given me rattle again. I paused, reached into the bag, and started unwrapping the tissue.

“What's that?” Zach asked.

“I don't know,” I said. “Some kind of free sample or something the lady who worked there gave me…”

But then I saw what the tissue contained, and I
stopped in my tracks, halting so abruptly, I caused him to practically run me over.

“What?” Zach asked. “What is it?” And he looked down at what I held. “Oh, that's nice. She gave you a Satanic symbol. That's excellent customer service.”

“It's not a Satanic symbol,” I said in a tight voice. In the slanting rays of the setting sun, the silver necklace winked from its nest of tissue. “The pentacle is an ancient magical symbol, meant to offer spiritual protection for its wearer. It has nothing to do with Satan.”

Zach said in a gentle voice, “Hey, Jean. I was kidding again, all right?”

Horrified to find my eyes welling up with tears right there on the sidewalk outside a small body-piercing boutique, I slipped the necklace back into the bag, then hugged the bag to my chest.

For luck
, she had said.
Just something I think you're going to need soon
.

How had she known?

A better question, though, was
what
did she know that I didn't?

“What are you doing in my room?”

Tory's voice was laced with venom. She'd flicked on the overhead light, and now she stood in the doorway, her leather jacket shrugged half-off, staring at me.

Coming awake slowly, I lifted my head from where it had sunk onto one of Tory's pillows, and blinked in the sudden flood of light. I must, I realized, have fallen asleep waiting for Tory to come home. The book I'd purchased earlier that evening lay across my chest, open, I knew, to the chapter on banishing spells.

“Tory,” I said groggily, sitting up. “Where have you been? What time is it?”

“What does it matter what time it is?” Tory snapped. “What are you doing in my room? That's the real question.”

I shoved some hair out of my eyes and squinted at the digital alarm clock on Tory's nightstand. “Jeez,” I said.
“It's almost midnight. Your parents are going to be mad—”

“They're not even home yet themselves,” Tory said. She flung off her leather jacket, letting it fall to the floor, where most of the rest of her clothes would lay until Marta came in to clean. “What are you doing in here, anyway? And why aren't you with
Zach
?”

So they'd told her. That hadn't taken long.

“Tory,” I said, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. I'd grown so tired waiting for Tory, I'd changed into my pajamas. Now my bare feet sank into the deep lavender pile that carpeted her room as I stood up. “Nothing's going on between Zach and me. We're just friends. You know as well as I do that he's in love with Petra. We need to talk about something else. It's important.”

Tory had gone into her walk-in closet the minute I'd mentioned Petra, having lost interest in the conversation. She must have known, the whole time Gretchen or whoever was telling her about seeing Zach and me together, that it couldn't be true about the two of us.

Because now, having emerged from her closet wearing only a black bra, her miniskirt, and a lot of necklaces, her heavily—but expertly—made-up eyes went wide. That's because she'd finally noticed the book.

“So that's why you went to Enchantments,” she said. “I knew it wasn't to get a birthday present for Courtney. Courtney's birthday's not till February. Did you change your mind?” she asked eagerly. “You thought about what I said, about joining our coven?”

I shook my head. This, I knew, was going to take some guts. But I had no choice. I really didn't.

No matter how much my stomach hurt.

“No,” I said. “I want to talk to you about this.”

From inside the front cover of the book I was still holding, I pulled Petra's photograph, the one from the litter box, and held it out for Tory to see. It was in a sealed Ziploc bag, but you could still see what it was.

Tory squinted at it, then made a face.

“Ew,” she said. “You TOUCHED it? That isn't very hygienic, you know. I hope you washed your hands.”

Then, when I didn't say anything more, she shrugged. “So. You found it. I wondered if you would. Well. You want to know why it was in there?”

“I know why it was in there,” I said. “What I want to know is why you did it.”

Tory just shrugged again, then sat down on the tasseled swivel stool in front of her dressing table, where she began brushing her thick black hair.

“Why do I have to explain myself to you?” she asked my reflection.

“Because this is serious.” I crossed the room to stand beside the dressing table, and looked down at her. “Maybe you didn't know, but what you did—taping Petra's picture to the bottom of Mouche's box like that—it's black magic, Tory. It's bad.”

Tory stared at my refection incredulously for a beat. Then she let out a whoop of laughter.

“Listen to you!” she cried. “Black magic! You kill me!”

“I'm serious, Tory,” I said. I held up the book I'd bought. “It says so right here. Magic spells used to bring harm to another are really dangerous. It inevitably comes back to the person who cast it, like a boomerang. But times three.”

“Well, look at you.” Tory grinned up at me, her smile distinctly feline. “And I thought you didn't believe.”

“Seriously, Tory,” I said. “I'm worried about you. Why would you do something like that, and to Petra, of all people? Petra is one of the sweetest, kindest people I've ever met. She's never done anything to you. So what have you got against her? Is it just because Zach likes her? Is that it? Because what you're doing…it's wrong. It's mean-spirited and wrong. I don't know why you did this to her, but I'm telling you right now, it's over.”

“Oh,” Tory said, not smiling now. “It's over. Right.”

“I mean it, Tory. You and this coven of yours can play around at being witches all you want. You can make up little spells and perform them on each other and have a grand old time, for all I care. But not spells that manipulate or hurt other people. Especially people like Petra.”

“Oh, yeah?” Tory tossed her head. “And exactly how are you going to stop me?”

“Well.” I looked down at the floor. I had expected this to go so differently. I don't know why. I mean, knowing Tory, I shouldn't have expected her to be anything but mad.

But in my head, when I'd rehearsed this conversation, Tory had apologized and said she hadn't known what
she'd been doing to Petra was so harmful. She'd thanked me for telling her, and we'd hugged and gone downstairs for cocoa together.

It didn't look like it was going to go that way after all.

I was glad I'd made backup preparations, just in case.

I sighed.

“The truth is, Tor,” I said, raising my gaze to meet hers, “I've bound you.”

“You've bound—” Tory gaped at me. “You've
what
?”

“Bound you from performing evil.” I stood my ground. “You can still work positive spells. But not ones that manipulate anyone's will. They won't work. Not anymore.”

Tory looked as shocked as if I had slapped her. “You hypocritical little…are you telling me that this whole time—all this time—you really
have
been one of us?”

“I'm
not
one of you,” I said firmly. “I'll admit I might have been interested in magic once. But it…it didn't work out. Okay, Tory? It went really, really wrong, and someone got hurt, and I swore to myself I never would do it again. Magic, I mean. It's serious business, Tory, and not something anyone who doesn't know what they're doing should mess around with.”

Tory made a face. “Thanks for the tip,
Mom
. But it might interest you to know I
do
know what I'm doing.”

“No, you don't. Not if
this
is an example.” I held up Petra's battered photo. “Something like this could really hurt someone. That's why—even though I didn't want to—I had to break my promise to myself never to do
magic again, and bind you.”

“Oh,” Tory said, slapping both hands to her face in mock horror. “Oh, don't, Cousin Jinx! I'm so scared. I'm sure your stupid
hick
magic is so much more powerful than mine.” She dropped her hands and eyed me with total contempt. “Let's get one thing straight,
Sabrina
. This is New York City, not Iowa. I suspect my magic's just a teensy bit more sophisticated than yours. So whatever crappy little binding spell you've done on me, you better not count on it working. Because here in the big city, Jinx, we don't mess around.”

“We don't mess around in Iowa, either,” I pointed out quietly. “In fact, my spells have always worked just fine.” Actually, I'd only done one. But still. It HAD worked. Unfortunately, a little
too
well.

“Oh, right!” Tory threw back her head and laughed. “You're clearly such a powerful witch! Let me see…you and your white-trash parents live in a house that's too small for you, with, like, one bathroom. You're not allowed to listen to rap or watch HBO. You're a straight-A, knock-kneed orchestra geek. And you had to move to New York to live off the charity of your rich relatives, because some boy in your town got a crush on you, and your parents freaked.”

She'd stood up now and was facing me with her hands on her hips, a scornful expression on her face, her nose just inches from mine.

“Oh, yeah,” she went on sarcastically. “You're a huge powerful witch, all right. I'm so scared. Because
you've obviously cast so many spells that worked. NOT.”

I thought about hitting her. I really did. Not so much because of the geek thing—let's face it: I
am
an orchestra geek (I'm not knock-kneed, though). But because of the thing about my family being white trash. I mean, my parents totally make enough money to get by. Okay, maybe we don't get Rolexes for Christmas like the kids around here do.

But my parents have never taken clothes for us from the church donation box. It's true Courtney's sick of getting all of my hand-me-downs. But not everyone can afford to buy their kids an all-new wardrobe every year….

But I didn't. Hit her, I mean. I've never hit anybody in my life, and I wasn't about to start with Tory, however sorely she might tempt me.

I wanted to hurt her, though. Seriously hurt her.

Which was horrible, because I could tell she was
already
hurting. On the inside, from completely self-inflicted wounds. I had no idea why Tory was so insecure, but that had to have been why she'd lashed out at me like that…why she would do—or try to do, anyway—what she had to Petra.

This witch thing—this story she'd heard about our ancestress, Branwen—it had gone to her head. She was clinging to it, like a life raft, because she felt as if she had nothing else to hold on to. She didn't like herself enough to…well, just
be
herself.

The thing was…I knew the feeling.

I also knew, only too well, where it could lead.

But what I couldn't understand was how she'd gotten this way.

“What
happened
to you, Tory?” I asked her. “You weren't like this five years ago. What happened to make you so…mean?”

Tory narrowed her eyes at me. “Five years ago? You mean when I was the most unpopular girl in school, because I was a fat, boring doormat who let the other girls walk all over me and the only thing boys wanted from me was help with their homework? I'll tell you what happened, Jinx. Grandma told me about Branwen. And I realized that the blood of a sorceress runs through my veins. I realized that I had power…real power, to make people do what I wanted them to do…or crush them if they didn't. I just had to take control. Of my life. Of my destiny.”

“Oh,” I said sarcastically. “Is that what you're doing in the boiler room with Shawn during your free period every day? Taking control of your destiny?”

Tory looked at me coldly. “God,” she said. “You're such a child. I should have known you wouldn't understand.”

It was pointless. I realized that now. I took my book and Petra's photo, and turned to go.

At the doorway, however, I hesitated, and gave it one last try. “About Zach…”

Tory glared at me. “What about him?”

I knew I should have just dropped it. It wasn't worth it. And it wasn't going to make any difference.

Still, that thing she'd said about my parents…it had gotten to me. A little.

“Just don't stick any more pins in that doll's head,” I said.

Tory cocked a hip. “And what if I do?”

“You'll just be wasting your time.”

“Oh, yeah?” Tory's voice was no longer derisive. Now it was filled with hatred. Pure and simple. “Well, we'll see about that, won't we? We'll see how big a waste of time you think it is, when Zach ends up with me—not Petra, and certainly not
you
. Because you know what? No matter how much you two hang around together, talking about freaking
Seventh Heaven
, or whatever, he's going to be mine. I've willed it.
I'm
the one with the gift, Jinx. You may have gotten the red hair, but I got the magic. I realize that now. Branwen meant Grandma's granddaughter, not granddaughter
s
, would have the gift. And that granddaughter is me. Because I'm not afraid to use her gift, the way you are. What do you think of that?”

I thought fleetingly of the woman behind the counter at the witch store, of her gentle greeting—“Blessed be!”—and the kindness with which she insisted I take the pentacle necklace, which I now wore. So different, so starkly different, from the kind of witch Tory thought she was. Or wanted to be.

“I don't know that I'd go around bragging about what you think you've inherited from our great-great-great-great-grandmother, if I were you, Tory,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Didn't Grandma mention how she died?” I asked.

Tory shook her head, looking curious, in spite of herself.

“She was burned to death at the stake,” I said. “For practicing witchcraft.”

Then I left her room, closing the door behind me.