Revealers (4 page)

We both laugh. “In mine, Connor just tells his mother to shove it and we move to Canada, where there aren’t so many nightmares.”

“Actually, there’s that nasty black arts coven in Montreal—not to mention more than a few werewolf packs up north,” Dani says. “There’s that inbred group in Alberta, and the one in northern Manitoba that’s always ripping apart the newest alpha male during the full moon. Oh, and—”

“I know! I know! I can fantasize about a werewolf-free Canada, can’t I?”

Dani sighs. “I guess if I can imagine Evan buying me doughnuts, you can have a supernatural-free Canada.”

The bell rings, and we uncloak and head out.

“Hey, what are we going to get Margo for her birthday?” I ask.

“I know what I want to get her.”

“What?”

Dani looks around, and then whispers in my ear. “A spell to remove the stick from her ass.”

I stifle a laugh—and look around, too—hating that I’m afraid of Margo sneaking up on us.

“I’m dreading the meeting this weekend. It figures Margo turns eighteen first. She’s bad enough as it is—once she’s part of the inner circle, she’ll be insufferable.”

“Look,” Dani says, pointing down the hall. “There’s Connor.”

I follow her hand and meet Connor’s eyes. Goose bumps run up my arm as I wave to him.

He turns away, and continues walking down the hall.

“I don’t think he saw you,” Dani says softly.

My stomach does a slow, uneasy turn as my blood turns cold. “Yeah, I guess he didn’t,” I say, but I know it’s a lie. I’m thinking I’m the biggest idiot in the world for listening to Connor last night—for doing what we did.

But maybe I was wrong. Maybe he didn’t see me.

“Hey, Jules! Dani, wait up!”

We turn around and Michael comes puffing up to us. “What’s the matter, ladies? You two look like you couldn’t conjure up a pair of glass slippers with a fairy Godmother’s wand.”

I roll my eyes. “That’s so lame.”

“Sorry,” Michael says. “Growing up sheltered in an enclave of witches has limited my exposure to real humor. And let me tell you, the guy’s locker room isn’t a much better source. At least not in mixed company.”

“We were just trying to think of what to get Margo for her birthday,” I say, scanning the hall to see if Connor will come back.

“Ah, yes, the she-devil comes of age,” Michael says, waggling his eyebrows. “And Saturday she gets to go where no male coven member will ever set foot—Mrs. Keyes’ inner sanctum to learn the dark secrets of the coven. Mwha-ha-ha!”

“Aw, you guys get no respect,” Dani says.

“Damn straight we don’t! We track the haunts down, we liquor them up, promise them all sorts of unspeakable things, and then we get to be the coven garbage men, cleaning up the mess after you ice them.”

Dani shakes her head. “Not with the vampires. They just turn to dust, so there’s really nothing to clean up after.”

Michael and I look at each other, and shake our heads. ” We know,” we say together.

“Seriously,” Michael says, “if I were you, I’d skip the presents for Margo, and arm yourselves with bitch-repellent because after Saturday she’s gonna ride your asses like a broomstick through a hurricane.”

I nod. “That’s what we’re afraid of.”

“Hey, Connor wanted me to give you this,” Michael says, reaching into his coat pocket. He pulls out a piece of paper folded into a two-inch square. I take it and try to keep my hand from shaking.

“Uh, thanks.”

I let Dani and Michael walk ahead of me as I unfold the note.

We need to talk—

Connor

Shit.

Dani stretches out oft my bed and leans over my night table, reaching for a handful of pretzels. “So, any luck getting through to Connor?”

“No. For someone who thinks we need to talk, he’s doing a damned good job avoiding me.” I look at myself in the mirror, and realize I’m way overdressed for a coven meeting, even if we are

“celebrating” Margo’s birthday and initiation.

“He’s probably just scared. I mean if his mom found out you guys were messing around, who knows what she might have said to him? Can’t you just picture it—Helena looking up at him with her beady little eyes, ‘Darling, if you so much as touch that girl again, I will magically shrink your balls until they look more like raisins than testicles.’”

“Oh, my God, Dani!”

“What?”

“What you just said!”

Dani rolls her eyes. “Well, maybe I’m not the goody-goody everyone thinks I am! And tell me you couldn’t picture Helena saying that.”

“OK, actually I could, but Connor said he’d do everything possible to make sure we’d be together. He said he’d stand up to her if he had to.” I sigh. “Of course, that was before I got half naked.” I take off my sapphire earrings, and pull the black cashmere sweater over my head, and hang it back up. “I don’t know what to wear.”

“Who cares?” Dani says through a mouthful of pretzels. “This is Margo’s big night, no one will be looking at us.”

I turn and give her a “do I have to spell it out for you” look.

“Oh, Connor,” she says nodding. “What are you so worried about? He never cared what you looked like before.”

I give her another look. “Thanks—not that I really care what he thinks anymore.”

“Oh, you’ve been agonizing over what shirt to wear for the last hour for my sake?” She bites down on another pretzel, and shakes her head. “But you know what I mean—Sascha’s got the regal-freaking-gorgeous hair thing, and Z’s got the hard-ass-exotic Amazon look—I have no clue what Margo’s got, beside a pointy face and a bad case of the bitches, but Connors always been into plain old you. Uh, not that you’re plain.”

“I think I felt better before you tried to cheer me up.” I grab the sweatshirt I wore two nights ago off the floor and bring it to my face, breathing in Connor’s sandalwood aftershave.

“You’re not going to wear that, are you? It was on the floor.”

I throw the sweatshirt into my empty laundry basket and take out my purple wool sweater—not too fancy, but not too casual. “How about this?”

Dani nods. “Perfect. Margo hates purple.”

I put the sweater on and run my fingers through my curls to tame the static. “Do you think Margo will like our presents?”

“I’m still iffy on the book.”

“As Margo likes to say, ‘it’s just a joke.’ Anyway, let’s pack it all up and get something to eat before the meeting.” I sit at my desk and open the black gift bag we bought, and hand it to Dani. “One bar of lavender soap, lavender oil, and lavender lotion—for improved mood.”

Dani takes each one, wraps them in pink tissue paper, and drops them in the bag.

“One copy of The Crucible.”

Dani grabs the book and laughs. “It is kind of funny,” she says, wrapping it up. “At least she’ll like the necklace—I think.”

“She’ll like it,” I say, holding the silver star necklace up. The opal in the middle flickers with color as it swings from my hand. Dani and I bought a necklace for each of us to celebrate our upcoming birthdays, and to try to recapture some sort of cohesiveness in the group. Not that I really believe matching necklaces will turn us back to the tight-knit group we used to be, but who knows?

“What does the card say about opals?” Dani asks.

I take the small card out of the box and open it up. “‘The opal, October’s birthstone, is thought to contain captured lightning. Opals bring the wearer inner beauty, success, and facilitate the abilities of foresight and prophecy.’”

“Well, Margo could sure use a dose of inner beauty. What does mine say?”

I take out the boxes with Dani and Zahara’s names on them. ‘“The topaz, November’s birthstone, protects the wearer against enemies, untimely death, and is a symbol of beauty and splendor.’”

Dani gets up and takes her box. “You know—with all the night calls we’ve been going on lately, I think I’m going to put mine on now.”

“It’s supposed to be for your birthday!”

Dani sticks her tongue out and snatches her necklace out of the box before I can pull it away. She fastens the clasp and looks at herself in my mirror. “Why don’t we give them all out tonight?”

“I guess we could. It’ll steal a bit of the spotlight away from Margo.” I take my necklace out of the box and rub my fingers on the blue stone. “Mine says ‘Turquoise, Decembers birthstone, protects the wearer from evil, and warns of approaching danger.’ Do you really think the stones do what the cards say?”

“Do you believe in witches?” Dani says with a laugh.

“Ha-ha, but seriously—stones and crystals are so Wiccan, and most of that stuff is nonsense and luck, right?”

Dani shrugs. “Let’s ask your mom.”

“Gemstones in themselves are just vessels for power,” Mom says. “They need to be activated to be useful.”

“Why don’t we ever use them, then?” I ask.

Mom puts the necklaces back in their boxes and pushes them across the kitchen table toward Dani and me. “Oh, it’s a bother. You need blood to activate them, and the duration of the power is unpredictable. A person might head out not knowing their vessel had emptied—so to speak. Then they confront someone or something, thinking they’re protected and I’m sure you can imagine the unpleasant results.”

We both nod.

Mom gets up and I can’t help but roll my eyes. She’s wearing her lame initiation robe embroidered with moons and stars, and a hideous crocheted silver scarf wrapped around her neck.

After I go through my initiation, the first thing I’m going to do is petition to do away with the moronic ceremonial uniforms.

“Well, I better head out—I told Helena I’d help set things up,” Mom says. “Don’t wait up for me after you get home.” She takes her dress cape out of the closet, and grabs her broom.

“How long does it take to say ‘Happy birthday, welcome to the club?’”

Mom looks at me like I’m three again. “It’s a bit more involved than that, though I’m sure with Margo, things will run smoothly.”

“Are you implying my initiation won’t go smoothly?”

Mom winks. “That all depends on you.”

“We’ll see you soon, Mrs. Harris,” Dani says. “We’re gonna grab something to eat, and then we’ll fly over.”

“Don’t be late, girls.”

Mom heads out the door and I look at the necklaces on the table. “Let’s do it!”

“What? Nachos?”

“No! Let’s activate the stones.”

Dani curls her lip and shakes her head. “Uh, no. I don’t like spells that need blood. It’s bad enough getting scratched or bit when we’re hunting, but drawing blood on purpose? I’ll pass.”

“Fine, we’ll use my blood.”

“We don’t even know how to activate the stones.”

“That’s what books are for.”

Dani looks at her watch. “We have to be at the meetinghouse in, like, forty minutes and I’m hungry.”

I get up and pull a couple of books off the shelf in the living room and bring them into the kitchen. “If we can’t find a spell soon we’ll skip it, okay?”

Dani reaches out for a red leather book titled Birth Signs, Stones, and Spells and opens to the table of contents. “I guess.” She looks down at the page, and sighs. “‘Chapter seven, page forty-six—activating birthstones.’” She flips through the book and shrugs her shoulders. “Actually, this doesn’t look too bad. We need to write down all of our birthdays on separate slips of parchment, wrap the necklaces in them, put them in a bowl with five drops of blood, and set them on fire. When the paper burns off, the stones will be activated.”

“Cool! I’ll get Mom’s spell bowl from the pantry. You cut up some paper, and I’ll write our birthdays down.”

I take the first piece of paper. “Margo—October twenty-fifth. Sascha—October twenty-ninth. Dani—November first. Zahara—November tenth. Julia—December third.”

“I want to wrap mine up,” Dani says.

We put the wrapped necklaces in the bowl, and Dani hands me a pin. “You sure about this?”

I look at the tip of my finger and jab it in. “Ow, yeah.” I squeeze out five drops of blood, landing one on each packet. Dani lights a match and drops it in the bowl. We jump back as fire shoots up two feet in air.

“Holy shit!” Dani yells. “That almost burned my bangs off!”

We watch the fire devour the parchment paper, and then I fish out the necklaces by hooking the pin in the chains.

Dani gingerly pokes hers. “Wow, it’s cold.”

I pick my necklace up and rub the turquoise. “Evil beware,” I say, fastening the clasp.

Dani puts hers on. “I feel safer already.”

“Let’s pack up the other necklaces and head out—if we hurry we can give them to everyone before Margo’s birthday candle is lit.”

Dani elbows me, and rolls her eyes when Helena calls Margo up to the front of the room.

Helena’s piled her white hair up in some sort of weird tangle—more bird’s nest than bun, and with her silver dress robe and scarf, she looks like a ghost about to disappear into a gray mist.

Helena nods and Margo’s mom joins them at the front of the room, taking Margo’s hand in hers. Her dad waves from the side of the room, and I remember how Margo used to lord it over us that she and Zahara were the only ones whose fathers were still around—as if that made them better than the rest of us.

I look at Sascha on my other side playing with the chain of her necklace. She turns and smiles at me. “Thanks again—it’s really cool,” she whispers.

Zahara leans forward and glares at us. “Shh!”

I look around the room, only one chair empty out of thirty-five. Everyone’s here except Connor.

“Tonight,” Helena begins, “we welcome Margo into our inner circle. I know I speak for all of us when I say we couldn’t be happier our girls are now coming of age, and ready to embrace their new roles in the coven.”

She nods her head at Dani, Sascha, Zahara, and me. I plaster a smile on my face and wish she’d just get on with it so I can head home and check my cell messages to see if Connor called.

“Let us start with Margo’s birthday candle.” She places a small black stub of a candle on the silver cloth covering the table.

Margo strikes a match and lights the candle.

“For eighteen years we’ve lit this candle as a symbol of Margo’s journey toward becoming a full member of our Revealer Sisterhood. Tonight, when the wick burns away the last bit of wax, Margo will join the inner circle and finally know her destiny.”