Blood Witch

CHAPTER 9 Trust

The magick is working as I knew it would. The Seeker no longer frightens me as much. I believe I am the stronger of us two, especially with the power of the others behind me.

Soon I will join with my love. I do understand the urgency, though I wish they would trust me to do it my way, at my pace. More and more, lately, I want to do this for my own sake. But the timing must be perfect. I dare not frighten her; there is too much at stake.

O have been reading the ancient texts, the ones about love and union. I have even copied down my favorite passage from Song of the Goddess: "To give pleasure to yourself and to others, that is my ritual. To love yourself and others, that is my ritual. Celebrate your body and spirit with joy and passion, and as you do so, you worship me."

— Sgath

"I hope you know that you can't trust Bakker," I said to Mary K. the next morning. I tried not to sound snotty, but it came out that way anyhow.

Mary K. didn't answer. She just looked out her car window. Frost covered everything in lacy, powdered-sugar patterns.

I drove slowly, trying to avoid the hard patches of black ice where the newly plowed roads had puddled and frozen. My breath came out in a mist inside Das Boot.

"I know he's really sorry," I went on, in spite of my sister's stiff face. "And I believe he really cares about you. But I just don't trust his temper."

"Then don't go out with him," Mary K. muttered.

Alarm bells went off in my brain, I was criticizing him, and she was defending him. I was doing what I feared: pushing them closer together. I took a deep breath. Goddess, guide me, I said silently.

"You know," I said finally, several blocks from school. "I bet you're right. I bet it was just a onetime thing. But you guys have talked, right?" I didn't wait for an answer. "And he is really sorry. I guess it will never happen again."

Mary K. looked over at me suspiciously, but I kept my face neutral and my eyes on the road.

"He is sorry," my sister said. "He feels terrible about it. He never meant to hurt me. And now he knows he has to listen to me."

I nodded. "I know he cares about you."

"He does," said Mary K.

She looked transparently self-assured. Inside, my heart throbbed. I hated this. Maybe everything I had just said was true. But I couldn't help fearing that Bakker would try again to force Mary K. into doing something she didn't want to do. If he did, I would make him pay.

I got to school early enough to see Cal before the bell rang. He was waiting for me by the east entrance, where our coven gathered during better weather.

"Hey," he said, kissing me. "Come on, we found a new place to hang out. It's warmer."

Inside, we passed the steps leading to the second floor and turned a corner. There another set of steps led down to the building's cellar. No one was supposed to go down here except the janitors. But Robbie, Ethan, Sharon, and Jenna were sitting on the steps, talking and laughing.

"Morganita," Robbie said, using a nickname he had given me in fifth grade. I hadn't heard it for years, and I smiled.

"We were just talking about your birthday," said Jenna.

"Oh!" I said in surprise. "How did you know about it?"

"I told them," said Robbie, drinking from a carton of orange juice. "Let the cat out of the bag."

"Speaking of cats, how's Dagda?" Jenna asked.

Matt's long, black-jean-clad legs obscured my view for a moment as he came and sat on the step above Jenna. She gave him a faint smile but didn't respond when he rubbed her shoulder.

"He's great," I said enthusiastically. "And he's growing really fast!"

"So your birthday's this weekend?" Sharon asked.

"Sunday," I said.

"Let's have a special birthday circle on Saturday, then," said Jenna. "With a cake and all."

Sharon nodded. "That sounds good," she said.

"Um, I can't make it Saturday night," Matt mumbled. He ran a hand through his thick black hair, lowering his eyes.

We all looked at him.

"I've got family stuff to do," he added, but the words were empty.

He is the worst liar in the world, I thought, seeing Jenna staring at him.

"Actually, could we do the birthday thing some other time?" Robbie asked. "I'm thinking I wouldn't mind skipping Saturday night's circle, too."

"Why?" I asked.

"Bree's been after me to come to one of their circles," Robbie admitted. I was surprised by his honesty, not in a bad way—but I felt a renewed rush of anger toward Bree. Robbie shrugged. "I don't want to join their coven, but it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to go to one of their circles, see what they're doing, scope it out."

"Like spying?" Jenna asked, but her tone was soft.

Robbie shrugged again, his hair falling onto his forehead. "I'm curious," he said. "I care about Bree. I want to know what she's doing."

I swallowed and forced myself to nod. "I think that's a good idea," I said. I couldn't believe that Bree would try to poach from our coven, but on the other hand, I was glad that Robbie wanted to keep an eye on her to make sure she wasn't doing anything crazy.

"I don't know," said Cal, shifting and stretching his legs out two steps below. "A lot of what's important in Wicca is continuity. It's about getting in touch with the day-in, day-out stuff, the cycle of the year, the turn of the wheel. Meeting every Saturday, being committed to that, is part of it. It's not something you should skip whenever you want to."

Matt stared at the floor. But Robbie looked back at Cal calmly.

"I hear what you're saying," Robbie said. "And I agree with it. But I'm not doing this just for me, and it isn't just because I feel lazy or I want to watch the game. I need to know what's going on with Bree and her coven, and this is how I can find out."

I was impressed with the air of quiet confidence Robbie projected. His acne and glasses had been gone ever since I'd put a healing spell on him. But something seemed to have healed inside him as well, something that didn't have anything to do with my magick. After years of being a somewhat awkward geek, he was growing into himself and finding new sources of strength. It was great to see.

Cal was silent for a while, and he and Robbie regarded each other. A month ago I would never have thought that Robbie would be a match for someone as strong as Cal, but now they didn't seem that different in a way.

Finally Cal nodded and let out a breath. "Yeah, okay. It won't kill us to take a break. Since there's only seven of us, if two of us can't make it, the circle will be kind of unbalanced. So let's all just take Saturday night off, and we'll meet again the week after."

"And that's when we'll have Morgan's birthday cake," said Robbie, smiling at me.

Sharon cleared her throat. "Um… I guess this isn't a good time to mention that next Saturday I'll be in Philadelphia for Thanksgiving."

Cal laughed. "Well, we'll just do the best we can. It's always tough around the holidays, with everyone having family stuff. How about you, Matt? Can you make it the following week?"

Matt nodded automatically, and I wondered if he'd even heard what Cal had said. The bell rang, and we all stood. Jenna put her hand in Matt's, staring into his face. He looked drawn, tense. I wished I knew what was going on.

As I headed to homeroom, the halls rapidly filled with streams of students, and Cal tugged on my coat sleeve.

"This Saturday we can have a birthday circle, just us two," he whispered into my ear. "This could be a good thing."

I shivered with delight and looked up at him. "That would be great."

He nodded. "Good. I'll plan something special."

In homeroom I noticed that Tamara was absent. Janice told me she had a cold. Everyone seemed to have colds lately.

Bree was absent, too, or so I thought before I saw her stop outside the class door. She was dressed all in black and was wearing vivid dark makeup, like Raven. It obscured her naturally beautiful face and made her seem anonymous somehow, as if she were wearing a mask. It filled me with an uneasy feeling. She stood outside, talking in a low voice to Chip Newton, and then they both came in and sat down.

I swallowed. Chip was cute and seemed like a pretty nice guy. He was brilliant in math, too—way better than me, and I'm pretty good. But Chip was also our school's biggest dealer. Last year Anita Fleming had gone to the hospital after overdosing on Seconal that she had gotten from him. Which made me wonder just how nice he really was.

What are you doing with him, Bree? I asked silently. And what's your coven up to?

Later that morning, while I was in the first-floor girls' bathroom, I heard Bree's voice, then Raven's, outside my stall. Quickly I pulled up my feet and braced them against my door so nobody could tell that the stall was occupied. I just didn't feel up to facing the two of them, having them sneer at me, right now.

"Where are we meeting?" Raven asked. I heard Bree rustling in her purse, and in my mind's eye I could picture her fishing out lipstick.

"At Sky's place," answered Bree. My interest perked up. They must be talking about their new coven.

"It's so cool that they have their own place," said Raven. "I mean, they're barely older than we are."

I breathed silently, intent on their voices.

"Yeah," said Bree. "What do you think of him?"

"He's hot," said Raven, and they laughed. "But it's Sky who knocks me out. She knows everything, she's so cool, and she's got awesome powers. I want to be just like that." I heard more rustling, then one of them turned on the water for a moment.

"Yeah," said Bree. "Did you think it was weird, what she was talking about on Saturday?"

"Not really," Raven said. "I mean, everything has a light side and a dark side, right? We have to be aware of it."

"Yeah." Bree sounded thoughtful, and I wondered what the hell Sky had been talking about. Was Sky pulling them toward dark magick? Or was she just showing them part of Wicca's big circle, like Cal had said? It didn't seem—

"You got the hair, didn't you?" Raven asked.

"Yeah," Bree answered. Now she sounded almost… depressed. I couldn't follow the conversation at all. What hair?

"What's wrong?" Raven demanded. "Sky promised no one would get hurt."

"I know," Bree mumbled. "It's just, you know, I found the hair in this old comb—"

"Morgan will be fine" Raven interrupted.

"That's not what I was talking about," Bree snapped. "I'm not worried about her."

My eyes flew open wide. I bit my lip to keep from gasping as everything fell into place. Bree was talking about my hair. I couldn't believe it. She was turning over a strand of my hair to a strange girl—a witch—behind my back.

There could be only one reason: Sky wanted my hair to put a spell on me. So why had Bree gone through with it? Did she really believe that Sky didn't intend to harm me? Why else would she want the hair?

Or did Bree want me to be harmed? I wondered miserably.

"We need more people," Raven stated in the silence.

"Yeah. Well, Robbie's going to come. And we might get Matt, too."

Raven laughed. "Yeah. Matt. Oh God, I can't wait to see Thalia's face when Robbie walks in. She'll probably jump him right there."

I frowned. Who was Thalia?

"Really?" Bree asked.

"She just broke up with her boyfriend, and she's trolling," Raven said. "And Robbie's really hot now. I wouldn't mind hooking up with him myself."

"Oh, Jesus, Raven," said Bree.

Raven laughed again, and I heard a purse being zipped shut. "Just kidding. Maybe."

Silence. I held my breath.

"What?" said Raven as the door opened.

"Thalia's not his type," Bree said as sounds from the outside hall filtered into the room.

"If she wants him, she's his type."

The bathroom door closed again, and air exploded from my lungs. I got to my feet, shaking with reaction. So Sky was manipulating Bree. They were definitely trying to get Matt and Robbie to leave our coven and join theirs. And Sky had her own place, where they were meeting. Did she live with Hunter? Was that who Raven thought was hot? Maybe. Then again, Raven thought most breathing males were hot And they knew somebody named Thalia who was going to jump Robbie. For some reason, Bree had sounded less than thrilled by that idea—as she had about turning over my hair to Sky. But her reluctant tone was small consolation.

I hated everything that I had just overheard. But more than that, now I was afraid.