The Coven (5 page)

“I want you to be my sister, too,” I said, standing up. “But I don’t know what’s going on anymore—what’s real and what’s not.”

Mary K. burst into real sobs and threw herself on Dad’s shoulder.

Mom tried to come over to me, to take me in her arms, but I backed away. I couldn’t stand her touch right at that second. She looked stricken.

“Look, let’s not say anything right now,” Dad said. “We need some time. We’ve all had a shock. Please, Morgan, just hear me on one thing: Your mother and I have two daughters whom we love more than anything in the world. Two daughters.”

“Mary K. is your daughter,” I said, hating hearing my voice crack. “Biologically. But I’m nobody!”

“Don’t say that!” Mom said, looking devastated.

“You’re both our daughters,” said my dad. “And you always will be.”

It was about the most comforting thing he could have said, and it made me burst into tears. I was so exhausted, physically and emotionally, that I stumbled upstairs to my room, lay on my bed, and began to drift toward sleep.

While I was half dreaming, half awake, my mom came into my room and sat on the bed next to me. She stroked my hair, her fingers gently working through the tangles. It reminded me of my dream, my other mother. Maybe it wasn’t a dream, I thought. Maybe it was a memory.

“Mom,” I said.

“Shhh, sweetie, sleep,” she whispered. “I just wanted to say I love you, and I’m your mother, and you’ve been my daughter since the first second I laid eyes on you.”

I shook my head, wanting to protest that it wasn’t true, but I was already too close to sleep. As I drifted off into a deep, blessed numbness I was aware of warm tears soaking my pillow. I don’t know if they were hers or mine.

 

The next morning was bizarre in how ordinary it seemed. As usual, Mom and Dad got up and went to work early, before I was even awake. As usual, Mary K. yelled for me to hurry as I drifted through my shower, trying to brace myself for the day.

Mary K. looked pale and pinch-faced and was unusually quiet as I gulped down a Diet Coke and threw books into my backpack.

“I want you to stop what you’re doing,” she said so softly, I could barely hear her. “I want us to go back to being how we were.”

I sighed. I had never felt jealous or competitive when it came to Mary K. I’d always wanted to take care of her. I wondered if it would be different now. I had no idea. But I knew that I still hated seeing her hurt.

“It’s too late for that,” I said quietly. “And I need to know the truth.There have been too many secrets for too long.”

Mary K. raised her hands, and they fluttered for a moment in midair as she tried to think of something to say. But there wasn’t anything to say, and in the end we just got our backpacks and headed outside to Das Boot.

Cal was waiting for me at school. He walked over to my car as I parked and met me as I opened the door. Mary K. looked at him, as if to measure his involvement in all of this. He met her gaze calmly, sympathetically.

“I’m Cal,” he said, holding out his hand. “Cal Blaire. I don’t think we’ve really met.”

Mary K. looked at him. “I know who you are,” she said, not taking his hand. “Are you doing witchcraft with Morgan?”

“Mary K.!” I started, but Cal held up his hand.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Yes, I’m doing witchcraft with Morgan. But we’re not doing anything wrong.”

“Wrong for who?” Mary K. sounded older than fourteen. She slid past Cal and got out of the car. She was immediately surrounded by her friends, but she looked unhappy and withdrawn. I wondered what she would tell them. Then Bakker Blackburn, her boyfriend, came up. They walked off together.

“How are you?” Cal asked, and kissed my forehead. “I’ve been thinking about you. I called last night, but your mom said you were asleep.”

I saw people looking at us, Alessandra Spotford, Nell Norton, Justin Bartlett. Of course they were surprised to see Cal Blaire, human god, with Morgan Rowlands, Girl Most Likely to Remain Dateless Forever.

“Yeah—I think my brain just shut down. Thanks for calling. I’ll tell you about everything later.” He squeezed my shoulder, and together we walked up to where the coven—we were a coven now and not just a group of friends—hung out, on the cement benches by the east side of the school. The redbrick building looked reassuringly familiar and unchanged, but that was about the only thing in my life that was the same today.

Seven pairs of eyes were on us as we came up the crumbling brick walkway. I sought out Bree’s face. She was studiously examining her brown suede boots. She looked beautiful and remote, cool and aloof. Two weeks ago she had been my best friend in the world, the person I loved most besides my family, the person who knew me the best.

Something in me still cared about her, still wanted to confide in her, as impossible as that was. I thought about telling my problems to one of my other friends, like Tamara Pritchett or Janice Yutoh, but I knew I couldn’t.

“Hi, Morgan, Cal,” said Jenna Ruiz, her face as open and friendly as ever. She gave me a sincere smile, and I smiled back. Matt Adler was sitting next to her, his arm around her shoulders. Jenna coughed, covering her mouth, and for a moment Matt looked at her in concern. She shook her head and smiled at him.

“Hi, Jenna. Everyone,” I said.

Raven Meltzer was looking at me with open dislike. Her dark eyes, heavily rimmed with kohl and sprinkled with glitter, glowed with an inner anger. She had wanted Cal for herself, like Bree. Like me.

“Samhain was amazing,” said Sharon Goodfine, crossing her arms over her ample chest as if she were cold. She gave the word its proper pronunciation: Sowen. “I feel so different. I felt different all weekend.” Her carefully made-up face looked thoughtful rather than snobbish.

Without thinking about what I was doing, I cast my senses out, gently, carefully, feeling for the emotions of the people surrounding me. It was like what I’d experienced during the circle in the cemetery, but this time I directed it. This time I did it on purpose.

It occurred to me only in passing that perhaps my friends’ emotions should be private, belonging only to them.

Jenna was just as she appeared; open, good-natured. Matt seemed the same, but deep within him I sensed a dark space he kept to himself. Cal . . . Cal glanced at me in quick surprise as my sense net touched his mind. As I scanned him I felt a sudden, hot rush of desire from him, and I blushed and pulled back quickly. He gave me a look, as if to say, Well, you asked. . . .

Ethan Sharp was interesting—a colorful mosaic of thoughts and feelings, tightly held distrust, poetry, and disappointment. Sharon had a stillness to her, a calm center that seemed new. There was also a hesitant, half-embarrassed tenderness—for whom? Ethan?

Beth Nielson, Raven’s best friend, mainly seemed bored and wanted to be somewhere else. My best friend after Bree, Robbie Gurevitch, was startling: a mixture of anger, desire, and repressed emotion that didn’t show at all on his face.Who was it directed at? I couldn’t tell.

But it was Bree and Raven who almost blew me off the bench. Deep, intense waves of fury and jealousy came from both of them, aimed at me and, to a lesser extent, Cal. With Raven it was all jagged, snaggletoothed edges of anger and frustration and hunger. For all her reputation of being easy, she hadn’t actually ever been linked seriously to anyone. Maybe she had wanted Cal to be the one.

If Raven’s feelings were barbed wire, Bree’s were smoldering coals. Instantly I knew that as much as she had loved me two weeks ago, she now hated me to the same extent. She had been desperate for Cal. Maybe it wasn’t real love, but it was a powerful desire, that was certain. And she had never before wanted a guy without his wanting her back. Cal had deeply wounded her when he had chosen me over her.

All these impressions had taken only a moment. A heartbeat and the knowledge was within me.

It struck me that none of these people, the people in my coven, knew about my adoption, except Cal. It was such a huge, momentous thing, so life changing, so frightening, yet it had all happened in one day, yesterday. And yesterday had been just another Sunday for them. It made me feel disoriented and strange.

“So,” Bree said, breaking the silence. She didn’t look at me. “Did your parents enjoy their new reading material?”

I blinked. If only she knew what her revenge had begun. All I could do was shake my head and sit down. I didn’t trust myself to talk.

Bree smirked, still gazing at her boots.

Cal took my hand in his, and I held it tightly.

“What are you talking about, Bree?” Robbie asked. He took off his thick glasses and rubbed his eyes.Without his glasses he looked like a different person. The spell I had performed two weeks before had worked better than I could have possibly imagined. His skin, once pitted with acne scars, now was smooth and fine textured, showing a dim outline of dark beard. His nose was straight and classical, where it had been swollen and red. Even his lips seemed firmer, more attractive, though I couldn’t remember how they had been before.

“Nothing,” Bree said lightly. “It’s not important.”

No, it was just the destruction of my life, I thought.

“Whatever,” Robbie muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Damn. Anyone have some Tylenol? I have an incredible headache.”

“I’ve got some,” said Sharon, reaching for her purse.

“Always prepared,” said Ethan with a smile. “Like a Girl Scout.” Sharon shot him a look, then gave Robbie two pills, which he took dry.

Our coven had united cool kids with losers, brains and geeks and stoners and princesses. It was interesting to watch people who were so different from one another interact.

“I had a good time on Saturday night,” Cal said after a pause. “I’m glad you all came. It was a good way to celebrate the most important Wiccan holiday.”

“It was so cool,” said Jenna. “And Morgan was amazing!”

I felt self-conscious and gave my knees a tiny smile.

“It was really awesome,” said Matt. “I spent most of the day yesterday on the Web, looking up Wiccan sites. There’s a million of them, and some of them are pretty intense.”

Jenna laughed. “And some of them are so lame! Some of those people are so weird! And they have the cheesiest music.”

“I like the ones with chat rooms,” said Ethan. “If you get one where people know what they’re talking about, it’s really interesting. Sometimes they have spells and stuff to download.”

“There’s a lot about Yule coming up in a couple of months,” said Sharon.

“Maybe we could have a Yule party,” I said, caught up in their talk. Then I saw the looks that Raven and Bree were giving me: superior, snide looks as if I were an annoying little sister instead of the most talented student in our coven. My jaw set, and at that instant I saw a large, curled maple leaf that was drifting lazily earthward.Without thinking, I caught it with my mind and sent it floating over Raven’s head.

I kept my gaze on it, holding it in place while it hovered over her shiny black hair. Then it rested, ever so lightly, on her head, and it became a ludicrous, laughable hat.

I laughed openly, pleased with myself, and Raven’s eyes narrowed, not understanding. She couldn’t feel the large leaf perching there like a flat brown pancake, but it looked absurd.

Jenna saw it next, then our whole coven was looking at Raven and grinning, except Cal.

“What?” Raven snapped. “What are you looking at?”

Even Bree had to bite back a smile as she swept the leaf off Raven’s head. “It was just a leaf,” she said.

Flustered, Raven picked up her black bag just as the homeroom bell rang.

We all got up to go to class. I was still smiling when Cal leaned over me and whispered, “Remember the threefold law.” He touched my cheek softly and then left, heading toward the other school entrance for his first class.

I swallowed. The Wiccan threefold law was one of the most important tenets of the craft. Basically it stated that anything you sowed, good or evil, would come back to you threefold, so always put good out there. Don’t put bad. Cal was telling me (1) he knew I had controlled the leaf, and (2) he knew I was being mean when I did it. And it wasn’t cool.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled my backpack strap over my shoulder.

As soon as Cal was out of earshot, Raven said nastily, “Okay, so he’s yours—for now. But how long do you think that’s going to last?”

“Yeah,” Bree murmured. “Wait till he finds out you’re a virgin. He’ll find that pretty amusing.”

My cheeks flamed. I had a sudden image of his hand under my shirt yesterday morning and how I had jumped.

Raven raised her eyebrows. “Don’t tell me she’s a virgin?”

“Oh, Raven, leave it,” Beth said, brushing past her. Raven watched her for a second in surprise, then turned her attention back to me.

Bree and Raven laughed together, and I stared at Bree. How could she reveal such a personal thing about me? I kept my mouth stonily shut and kept walking to homeroom—which I shared with Bree, of course.

“Come on, Raven,” said Bree, behind me. “Anyone looking at her can tell
that
isn’t why he wants her.”

I couldn’t believe it. Bree, who had always told me I was too negative about my looks, who insisted my flat chest didn’t matter, who had worked for years to get me to see myself as attractive. She was turning on me so completely.

“You know what it is, don’t you?” Raven sniped on. Did either of them have any clue that I was ready to kill them both? I wondered. “Cal saw her, and it was witch at first sight.”

I ran to class, hearing the echoes of their laughter floating behind me.Those
bitches,
I snarled to myself. In class I sat for ten minutes, trying to calm my breathing, trying to release my anger.

For just a moment I was glad I had been mean to Raven. I should have been ten times as mean. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to wipe Bree and Raven out. I wanted to see them miserable.