The Witch Is Back (3 page)

“Hopefully we won't have to test that theory,” I said, willing myself to believe my own words.

Ever since we'd been back, the Cleri had been getting together at night to perform protection spells and location spells to ensure that we wouldn't be caught off guard again. So far, it looked like Samuel and the rest of the Parrishables were gone, but none of us were naive enough to stop with the precautions.

“I agree,” Asher said, looking into my eyes. “But if it's not him, you know it could be somebody else. There are a lot of bad people out there who, just like Samuel, are itching to get their hands on our power.
Your
power.”

I frowned. He was probably right, but the last thing I wanted to do was worry about all the bad things that could happen. Not when things were finally starting to feel normal again. I wanted to get back to being a
normal
twitch, with a
normal
—but abnormally hot—boyfriend, whose only worry was leading her
normal
coven and heading off to the
normal
college of her choice. I didn't want to be carted off to some summer intensive I'd never been to before, where I was going to once again be forced to focus 100 percent on spells. It sounded too much like summer school, and tests and homework were
so
not my idea of a good time. I wanted to find a balance, a way to have it all.

But I couldn't ignore what Asher was saying. We had to stay on top of our magical game, and since Jackson, who'd been in charge of training us, had expired in the fire along with our parents, there was no one to run our magic classes anymore. So, after a few emergency meetings between the guardians of the remaining Cleri members, the adults had decided the best thing to do would be to send us all off for the summer, where we could learn more about our heritage in a safe and supervised environment.

Just the way I fantasized spending my first summer with Asher.
Not
.

The only catch was that the Brighton Summer Intensive was an
exclusive
program—one that twitches had to be invited to attend. Which meant that it wasn't as simple as our parents just handing us over for a month. We had to prove that we were among the best and brightest in the witching world. I'd received invitations to attend in the past, but since it fell during the same time that I was away with my squad at cheer camp, I'd always politely declined. Still, it was an honor to be invited, and this year, most of the Cleri had made the cut. This was mainly due to their ability to survive the war with Samuel, but none of them were complaining.

So me, Asher, his sister Abby, Sascha, Jasmine, Fallon, and Jinx were all welcomed to come to the witch-owned cabin in Colorado for the summer. Peter had been invited as well, but was stuck in summer school. Poor kid was totally broken up about it, worrying that he was going to lose his place in the coven if he didn't go. No matter how many times I told him this wasn't true he wouldn't believe me.

“Maybe you're right,” I said, with a sigh.

Asher smiled at me, brushing my long dark hair out of my face. “Think of it this way: It'll be like our first vacation together . . . just us and sixty strangers.”

It was going to take us roughly two and a half hours to get to Colorado. Asher, Abby, and I were the only ones who'd ever been on a plane before, so that was an interesting experience for all involved. Jasmine, the goth-looking girl in our group with a badass attitude to match, turned out to be terrified of flying. We were all more than a little surprised to see her squeezing her eyeliner-smudged lids shut on takeoff and chanting the same thing over and over again.

“Please don't let me die in this flying tin can,” Jasmine prayed as the jet took off down the runway. Her pleas didn't stop until we'd been in the air for at least a half hour. And even then, she gripped her armrests so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

I would've laughed if she weren't so clearly terrified.

Sascha saw this as her chance to bond with her polar opposite, chatting nonstop from the time she sat down next to Jasmine in their assigned seats to the time we landed. With bouncy blond hair and a look similar to Glinda from
The Wizard of Oz
, Sascha couldn't have been more different than Jasmine. Upon first look, you'd probably think she was a bit of a dumb blonde, but underneath her bubbly exterior was a smart witch with natural talents that allowed her to juice up fellow witches who'd been depleted of their powers. Sascha had the uncanny ability to fight her enemy one minute, and then apply lipstick meticulously without a mirror the next.

We'd barely gotten through the in-flight movie when the captain announced that we were beginning our descent into Colorado. As the plane started dipping lower and lower, I felt an uncomfortable tickling in my stomach.

Nerves
.

It was something I rarely felt when heading into new situations. In fact, maintaining my high level of confidence at all times had always been easy given my natural ability to charm those around me. My mom called it the gift of
persuasion
. Not that I could control people—they still had basic free will—but you know how some people can convince others of anything? Well, that was me. The joke in our family was that I could sell ice cubes to an Eskimo.

Even though I imagined that camp would be no different, here I was with butterflies. And I had no idea why.

Of course, I knew enough by now not to ignore these feelings. After having been betrayed by our former Cleri member, Emory, I'd begun to read up on honing one's intuition. I couldn't help but think if I'd just quieted my mind back then and listened to my gut, I could've somehow known that Emory wasn't our ally. Unlike psychic phenomena—man, I wish I had
that
power—intuition, according to scientists, was something each of us had within us, but didn't necessarily use. Children were so much better at utilizing this skill, because they hadn't yet been bogged down with what adults called “logic.” So lately I'd been trying to look at the world with childlike faith and listen to my instincts. All of them.

And right now my instincts wanted me on guard for some reason.

Asher must've noticed that I'd grown quiet over the course of the trip, because he squeezed my hand and gave me that smile of his that always stopped my heart.

The butterflies started fluttering even harder. But in a good way this time.

“Everything okay?” he asked. I was still amazed how in tune we'd managed to become in just a few months.

“I'm fine,” I said, forcing a smile onto my face. No use stressing anyone else out with my
intuition
. “I'm just itching to see what this place is like.”

“I can't wait to be around other twitches,” Fallon said, obviously eavesdropping from the seat in front of us. He'd just turned sixteen, but I still saw Fallon as the immature, little pain in my ass that was constantly challenging me. True, we no longer looked at each other as
enemies
, considering that we'd saved each other's butts on more than one occasion, but we weren't besties, either. Fallon might not have turned out to be evil, but it didn't mean he couldn't still push my buttons.

“And what are we?” I asked, hitting the back of his chair lightly. His brown hair, which had grown longer over the last few months, went flying around his face. When he turned to glare at me, I noticed that he was starting to grow into his features. His hair was getting lighter now that the weather was warm again and his locks fell into his blue eyes haphazardly. He still looked especially young to me, but I swore he was getting taller every day. Pretty soon he'd tower over me. “You realize you won't find a better group of twitches than us, right? Who do you want to impress, anyway?”

Fallon licked his lips nervously and his eyes darted over to his right, briefly settling on Asher's sister, Abby. She'd opened up a book right after sitting down in her seat and had barely looked up the whole trip, except to stare out the window listlessly a few times. Even now, as this exchange was going on, Abby seemed glued to her page. Not that I could see her face, since it was currently being covered by the same dark hair that Asher had, falling around her shoulders like a curtain. When you were able to see her face, though, she was surprisingly pretty.

I had to admit, her looks matched her personality. Ever since we'd brought her home after vanquishing the Parrishables, she'd pretty much kept to herself. It was like she didn't want to be noticed at all. Asher said this was how Abby had always been, but it felt like something more than that. I couldn't imagine what she'd been through while being held by Samuel Parris and his cronies, and wondered if this was why she wasn't as outgoing as the rest of us. She was still dealing with what had happened while she was gone. Per Abby's request, Asher dropped the subject and let her be. He explained to me that it was the least he could do considering he let her get taken in the first place. Of course this wasn't true, but his guilt was alive and strong.

And I wasn't so self-absorbed as to think her actions were all about me, but I did worry that it was
me
that Abby didn't like. That she just didn't approve of her brother's choice in girlfriends and that's why she never hung out with us. But there was no way that was the whole story.

Since we were rooming together at Brighton, I was hoping it would give us more of a chance to bond. Because although I wouldn't admit it to her—or even to Asher for that matter—I wanted her to like me. She was the most important girl in Asher's life besides me, and I knew our getting along meant a lot to him.

But the look on Fallon's face just now made it clear that I wasn't the only one interested in getting to know Abby better. Fallon stole another look at Asher's sister before rolling his eyes at me.

Interesting
.

“Calm down, Princess. You know I'm Team Cleri all the way,” he said, his usual snarkiness back. “I just think it'll be cool to see how other twitches do things. We're not the only ones on this planet, you know. Contrary to
popular
belief, I mean.”

I heard Abby snicker, but I couldn't tell if it was at Fallon's comment or at something she was reading. Apparently Fallon thought it was the former, because a satisfied smile crossed his lips before he turned back around in his seat and prepared for the plane to hit the tarmac below.

I frowned, but let the comment go as everyone got to their feet and gathered their things from the overhead bins. Asher took both of our bags in his hands and led us off the jet. Jasmine practically ran up the ramp and didn't stop until she had reached the terminal. This time, I
did
laugh, and so did the rest of the twitches.

As soon as we stepped into the baggage claim area, I knew exactly where we were going. Bouncing in the air not ten feet away from the exit was a highly decorated sign. Glitter, foam letters, painted images, and stickers were strewn across the three-foot poster board. It read
WELCOME BRIGHTON CAMPERS
! in all caps.

The color assault didn't stop there. Attached to the welcome sign was a woman in her mid-forties, dressed like a walking collage. Waving her arms spastically, she had dozens of pins covering every available inch of space on her vest. They clanked against each other like an off-key tambourine. My eyes drifted down to the final touches of an already unfortunate outfit: old, faded acid-wash jean shorts that stopped just above her kneecaps. The overall effect was nearly too much to bear.

“I thought witches were supposed to fly
under
the radar,” Asher said, quietly.

“They are,” I answered as I plastered a smile on my face and walked forward to meet our TGI Fridays tour guide.

“Hi! I'm Hadley Bishop and this is the rest of the Cleri group,” I said to her.

“Oh, super-duper-iffic!” the woman said, jumping into the air as if she were making an exclamation point with her body. I winced at the sudden movement and took a slight step back. “I'm Miss Peggy, one of your counselors, and we're
so
happy to have you at Brighton this summer! Why don't we get you all packed up and into the van, and we'll be on our way! You're the last to arrive, so you have the car
all
to yourselves!”

“Goody!” I said, clapping my hands together and then making a face at the others.

Every word Miss Peggy said was delivered with major enthusiasm and I could practically feel the energy buzzing off of her. The stimulation was almost too much to handle, and besides Sascha, who seemed to have found her emotional doppelganger, the other Cleri appeared hesitant to follow such an
enthusiastic
person to an unknown cabin in the woods.

“Is she for real?” Jasmine asked quietly as Miss Peggy ran ahead to start the engine of the big rainbow-colored van.

“Do you think it's safe to get into a car with her?” Jinx asked me nervously.

Jinx wore worry on her face like it was an extra layer of makeup and I instantly felt guilty. Because I knew that if I'd been stronger and quicker and smarter, I could've prevented everything that had happened to her.

And Jinx wouldn't be the scared little girl she was now.

With light brown hair that always lay perfectly in its place and a string of delicate pearls that fell just above her clavicle, Jinx looked every bit the part of classy witch on the rise. But underneath the sophisticated clothes and naturally pretty looks, she was damaged. The wounds she'd incurred while fighting the Parrishables had almost killed her. A particularly nasty spell had blown her side wide open, charring the skin surrounding the gaping hole and leaving her in the hospital for weeks. Even though the injury had been healed for a while now, the black tint to her skin in the spot where the magic had hit her was a daily reminder that she'd come close to dying.