Season of the Witch (26 page)

Chloe was insecure and unhappy before anything happened with me and Oliver. She was taking her fear out on other people and the school threatened to suspend her. And yeah, she got drunk that night, and yeah, her friends should have looked out for her better. Chloe died for a million things that had nothing to do with me.

But I was another one of those things. And I didn’t have to be. And I have to live with that and remember that. Cassandra’s right. We do have power to hurt and sometimes kill with our feelings. And if you don’t understand that, you could end up doing a lot of damage.

Find the weak spot and press. That’s what Cassandra’s doing to me right now, trying to distract me by playing on my guilt about Chloe. I have to stay focused.

I say again, “What happened that night, Cassandra?”

She opens her mouth and I can see from her expression, she’s going to be flip. But then she stops. When she speaks again her voice is soft, as if it’s coming from far away.

“It wasn’t the greatest week. Eamonn was probably coming down with a cold and it made him really cranky. My parents had a work thing to go to. Normally, they don’t both go to those things, but …”

“But.”

She takes a deep breath. “My dad was like, We need to get out of the house. And I said, Yeah, go. Because I could see they were on the verge of losing it. Eamonn had been … tough that week.” Her eyes darken and I can see it hurts to admit that.

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Were you on the verge, like your mom and dad?”

“I’m stronger than they are,” she says simply. “They’re the parents. There’s a lot of emotion for them, a lot of guilt. Not to mention it hurt their pride to have a kid who wasn’t, in their eyes, a high achiever. Ella may have mentioned that’s a thing with our family.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” she echoes, returning to the story. “So, like I said, Eamonn had a cold, everyone was wrecked, my parents went out—only Eamonn didn’t want them to go.”

“Why not?”

She shrugs. “Who knows? Just kept screaming, ‘Not Cassandra, I don’t want Cassandra!’ Hanging on to them, flapping, hitting, the whole lovely deal. And my mom’s looking at me suspiciously, like, Why doesn’t he want you, why aren’t you making this stop?”

“
Maybe
you’re imagining that?”

“Oh, no,” she says cheerfully. “At one point, she snapped, ‘Cassie, just
do
something.’ So I took Eamonn by both arms and pulled. Really, really hard. Not recommended in the autism handbook, by the way. I looked at my parents and thought, You want him out of your hair? Fine, he’s gone. Have a nice time.”

“Then what?”

“Then they left.”

“And what did Eamonn do?”

“Oh, he had a complete meltdown. Screamed. Kicked. Pulled his hair. Bit his arms. Pulled my hair. Bit my arms. It was really
fun. I did the blanket thing, tried to hold his head, sang ‘Yellow Submarine.’ And it was almost starting to work—I think? When this jerk from downstairs started banging on the door and yelling, ‘You shut that kid up! He should be in an institution!’ And I totally lost it and screamed, ‘Really? You should be euthanized.’ ”

“And after that?”

“Uh, after that, I kind of felt like my head was going to explode. Like, yay me, defending Eamonn, but the yelling really did not improve the situation. He was worse than before.”

She looks at me for a long time, as if leaving it up to me to end the conversation. When I don’t, she continues in an odd, detached voice. “Normally when Eamonn freaks, I get very, very calm. Like he takes all my crazy energy and burns it for me so I can be totally Zen. But that was not working this time. His energy was, ah, really getting into my head. He just kept thrashing around and yelling, ‘No, no, not you! Not you!’ I tried to give him some meds, he threw them across the floor. And I’m trying to get my hands on more and freaking out about the guy downstairs. Plus being scared for Eamonn,
and
mad at him for scaring me.”

“What’d you do?”

“Here’s where I got really brilliant. I came up with this crazed notion that I could out-scream him. You know in those absurd Harry Potter movies, when people hurl energy at each other? That’s what I was thinking. Like, Oh, you’re slamming me with your rage? I’m gonna slam you with mine, and we’ll see who’s bigger, huh?”

“And then?”

“I yelled at him, ‘Oh, give me a break, Eamonn, you’re just doing this because you can. Must be nice to have everyone under your spell, totally in your power all the time.’ ”

Cassandra’s voice breaks. There’s so much pain in her eyes as she remembers her words. “You’d had enough,” I tell her.

“Yeah, that’s a really good excuse,” she says in a low voice. “Right up there with ‘I didn’t mean to.’ ”

She’s quiet a moment, then says, “He was crying so much, I started hitting myself. So I wouldn’t hit him. That’s when I realized, This is crazy, this is awful and it’s all going to get so … much … worse.”

Now the tears are running down her face, but she doesn’t bother with them.

“So I was like, Honey, honey, we need to get you into a bath. But he … he was still gonzo and it was really hard to get him in the bathroom and I was trying to fill up the tub and get him undressed and keep him from slamming his head against the sink. And the screaming was really piercing my brain and I—”

The horror of it jams up her throat; I can feel it, a ball of sharp, tangled wire cutting her inside. In a shred of voice, she says, “And I just pushed him into the tub and I yelled, ‘Now stay there! You stay there!’ And I went to my room and I put on my headphones because I needed not to hear him for just a little while and—”

She sobs. “And I didn’t hear him. He must have seized in the bathtub, and I didn’t hear the thrashing or the water or anything. I didn’t hear him and he died, and I made him die, I did, I … killed him and …”

I scramble to my feet, wrap her up in my arms. “You didn’t mean for him to die—”

She shoves me away, hard. “Stop it! Do not—” She strangles on the rage. “Do not tell me I didn’t mean for that to happen. I
knew
. I knew better. I had power and Eamonn had no power and I used my power and he died.”

Yes, I think helplessly, a lot of that is true. But it is also true that Cassandra loved Eamonn and she’d had no idea that he would die. Why won’t she see that?

Then I realize it’s better to decide that you have powers that you can control than admit you got overwhelmed and freaked out and a horrible, horrible thing happened. Better evil power than no power at all.

Cassandra has moved to the edge of the whale’s head. The broad slope starts off smooth and straight. At the bottom, the rocks break up, become jagged. She’s turned away from me. I have to get her back.

I move to sit behind her, giving her just enough room.

I say softly, “Can I tell you a story?”

“What kind of story?”

“A fairy tale. Sort of.”

In a raw voice, Cassandra says, “Oh, come on.” But she doesn’t move.

“Once upon a time, a baby girl was born. Let’s say she was a princess. And this princess grew up to be a good, strong, smart person. So strong and so smart that she took care of everyone around her. One day, her mother and father brought a new baby home. A little boy. But the prince was not like his sister. He had power, but a very different power. He frightened people—even his parents—with his terrible rage. Only his sister the princess knew how to calm him. And she did, because she was a good person and she loved him.”

Cassandra turns back to me.

“But she didn’t have a lot of help, and little by little, she got tired. Then one day, a handsome young man, a beautiful, dark-eyed lad, came to her village and said, ‘Hey, gorgeous. You want to have some fun?’ ”

“And what did she say?” Cassandra asks.

“She said, Hell yes. And off with him she went. Only a few weeks later, he vanished. Because he wasn’t strong and he wasn’t that smart or brave and he didn’t want to take care of anybody. So the princess was left on her own again.”

“Then what?”

“She went home. Back to her mother and father. Back to her baby brother. And she loved that baby brother and fussed over him and soothed him when he cried and made him laugh when he was lonely. Only then a terrible thing happened. The little prince died.”

Cassandra warns me with her eyes.

“People said it was an accident, a terrible accident. And the princess thought of the lad who’d left her and the little brother she couldn’t save, and she felt … helpless. Foolish. Powerless. And she hated that feeling more than anything.

“So she decided, Screw this. I’m not going to be a princess anymore. Princesses can’t do squat. I will be a witch. Because witches have power. I will punish and destroy, as proof of my great power. I will be stronger and smarter than everyone.”

Cassandra smiles brokenly. “I was always bummed when the witch died.”

Then the smile dissolves, and all of Cassandra with it. Her
breath comes in short, shallow waves as she gasps, “The very last thing he heard was me screaming at him. He must have been … so … scared.”

She starts sobbing. I slide my arms under hers, take her head on my shoulder. The waves of misery pound on my neck, her bristly wet eyelashes, the hot slick of tears on her face. Finally, the crying quiets. Cassandra sits back. She sits like a child, legs folded under her, head drooping, staring down at her knees.

“I want him back so bad,” she whispers.

“I know.”

“But I can’t make that happen, can I?”

“No.”

“I just—I just wanted to hear my own head, you know? That’s why I put on those earphones. Turned the volume way up. And all the time—”

She shakes her head sharply, refusing to cry again. She sniffles loudly, says, “I should die too. If we’re talking what I deserve.”

“I would not say that.”

“I would.” She looks at me. “If someone else did this to Eamonn? I’d want to kill them.”

I know that this is true. I don’t know how to make Cassandra not feel it. She is the prince who saves and the evil queen.

“Witches aren’t real, Cassandra,” I say. “Stupid is real. Selfish is real.”

“Cruelty,” she says.

“Yeah. And dying is easy. You know that.” I look pointedly at her wrists.

She looks too. “Yeah, the thing with the pretty boy? I had decided he was going to be my real life. That I’d move in with him,
and we’d take Eamonn out to the park, have him over. But I’d have one place that was mine.”

“Then Pretty Boy left and no more escape.”

“Yeah, except for this.” She frowns at her wrist. “Screwed that up.”

Cassandra breathes in, then exhales. “What the fuck am I going to tell my parents?”

That they asked too much? That it was all too much? And you all have to figure out how to deal with that?

“You’re cool with words, Cassandra,” I say. “You’ll figure it out.”

Cassandra stands up, brushes the dirt and twigs from her jacket. “It’d be awesome, wouldn’t it? If magic were real and you could bring people back to life.”

“Yeah.”

“So now what?”

I think of the kisses, the laughter in the cafeteria. All those people clustered around Ella, wanting to show her they can heal, not hurt. I think of Isabelle, the way she was so scared to stand up for me, but how she did it anyway. I think of the pain you feel when you do the wrong thing—and you can never take it back.

“Like you said,” I tell her. “Use your power wisely.”

I hold out my hand. Cassandra takes it. Her sleeve rides up as she does and I see the faint scars on her wrist. I turn my hand a little, to show my scar. Cassandra winces and smiles at the same time.

As we navigate our way down the rocky slope, she says, “Scary.”

“Yeah. Go slow.”

I squeeze her hand and we go together.

Mariah Fredericks was born and raised in New York City. She is the author of
The Girl in the Park
, which
Publishers Weekly
, in a starred review, called “profound, provocative commentary on what it means to grow up in the age of Facebook.” Mariah’s other books include the bestseller
The True Meaning of Cleavage
, as well as
Head Games
,
Crunch Time
, and the In the Cards series. Visit her at
mariahfredericks.com
.