Blood Witch (3 page)

“Picketts Road it is,” I said, taking the turn. I preferred this route, too: it was hilly and winding, and there weren’t many houses. People kept horses back here, and though most of the trees were now bare, colorful leaves still littered the ground, like the patterns on an Oriental carpet.

Up ahead were two cars parked by the side of the road. My eyes narrowed. I recognized them as Matt Adler’s white jeep and Raven Meltzer’s beat-up black Peugeot . . . parked right next to each other on a road few people used. That was odd. I hadn’t even realized that they spoke to each other. I looked around but didn’t see either one of them.

“Interesting,” I muttered.

“What?” said my sister, fiddling with the radio dial.

“That was Matt Adler’s jeep and Raven Meltzer’s Peugeot,” I said.

“So?”

“They’re not even friends,” I said, shrugging. “What are their cars doing out here?”

Mary K. pursed her lips. “Gosh, maybe they killed someone and are burying the body,” she said sarcastically.

I smirked at her. “It’s just kind of unusual, that’s all. I mean, Matt is Jenna’s boyfriend, and Raven . . .” Raven doesn’t care if a guy is someone’s boyfriend, I finished silently. Raven just liked to get guys, chew them up, and spit them out.

“Yeah, but they both do this Wicca stuff with you, right?” said Mary K., flipping down the sun visor mirror to check her appearance. It was pretty obvious that she didn’t want to look me in the eye. She’d made it very clear that she disapproved of “this Wicca stuff,” as she liked to call it.

“But Raven’s not in our coven,” I said. “She and Bree started their own coven.”

“Because you and Bree aren’t talking anymore?” she asked pointedly, still looking in the mirror.

I bit my lip. I still hadn’t explained very much about Bree and Cal to my family. They had noticed, of course, that Bree and I weren’t hanging out and that Bree wasn’t calling the house nine times a day. But I’d mumbled something about Bree being busy with a new boyfriend, and no one had called me on it till now.

“That’s part of it,” I said with a sigh. “She thought she was in love with Cal. But he wanted to be with me. So Bree decided the hell with me.” It hurt to say it out loud.

“And you chose Cal,” my sister said, but her tone was forgiving.

I shook my head. “It’s not like I chose Cal
over
her. Actually, she chose him over me first. Besides, I didn’t tell Bree she had to get out of my life or anything. I still wanted to be friends.”

Mary K. flipped the visor back up. “Even though she loved your boyfriend.”

“She
thought
she loved him,” I said, getting prickly. “She didn’t even know him, though. She still doesn’t. Anyway, you know how she is about guys. She likes the thrill of the chase and the conquest much more than any long-term thing. Use them and lose them. And Cal didn’t want to be with her.” I sighed again. “It’s complicated.”

Mary K. shrugged.

“You think I shouldn’t go out with Cal just because Bree wanted him?” I asked. My knuckles whitened on the steering wheel.

“No, not exactly,” said Mary K. “It’s just, I feel kind of sorry for Bree. She lost you
and
Cal.”

I sniffed. “Well, she’s being a total bitch to me now,” I muttered, forgetting how much I had been missing Bree just minutes ago. “So she obviously isn’t all broken up about it.”

Mary K. stared out the window. “Maybe being a bitch is just how Bree acts sad,” she murmured absently, watching the barren trees pass. “If you were my best friend for about twelve years and you left me for a guy you just met, maybe I would be a bitch, too.”

I didn’t answer. Just stay out of it, I thought. Like my fourteen-year-old sister knew anything. She’d allowed herself to get involved with a sleazebag like Bakker, after all.

But deep down, I wondered if I was irritated because Mary K. was right.

After lunch I was in my room, twisting my long hair into a braid, when I felt Cal’s presence. A smile spread across my face. I focused my senses and felt my parents in the living room, my sister in the bathroom—and then Cal, coming closer, tickling my nerves as he approached. By the time I snapped an elastic around my braid, he was ringing the doorbell. I dashed from my room and down the stairs.

Mom answered the door.

“Hello, Cal,” she said. She’d met him once before, when he’d come to visit after Bree had practically broken my nose with a volleyball during gym. I could feel her giving him the standard maternal up-and-down as he stood there.

“Hi, Mrs. Rowlands,” Cal replied easily, smiling. “Is Morgan—oh, there she is.” Our eyes met, and we grinned foolishly at each other. I couldn’t hide the pleasure that I took in seeing him, not even from my mom.

“Will you be back for dinner?” Mom asked, unable to resist giving me a quick kiss.

“Yes,” I said. “And then I’m going to Jenna’s tonight.”

“Okay.” Mom took a deep breath, then smiled at Cal again. “Have a good time.”

I knew that she was trying hard not to ask Cal to drive safely, and to her credit, she managed it. I waved good-bye and hurried out to Cal’s car.

He climbed in and started the engine. “Still want to go to Practical Magick?” he asked.

“Yes.” I settled back in my seat. My thoughts instantly turned to the night before, to finding Maeve’s Book of Shadows.

As soon as we were out of eyesight of my house, Cal pulled the car over and reached across to kiss me. I moved as close to him as I could in the bucket seats and held him tightly. It was so strange: I had always counted on Bree and my family for grounding, for support. But now Bree was out of my life, and my family and I were still coming to terms with the fact that I was adopted. If it weren’t for Cal . . . well, it seemed best not to think of that.

“Are you okay?” he asked, pulling back to kiss my face again. “No worries with the BOS?”

“Not yet,” I told him, shaking my head. “It’s really amazing, though. I’m learning so much.” I paused. “Your mom isn’t mad I took it, is she?”

“No. She knows it’s yours. She should have told you about it.” He smiled ruefully. “It’s just—I don’t know. Mom is used to being in charge, you know? She leads her coven. She’s a high priestess. She’s always helping people solve problems, helping them with stuff. So sometimes she acts like she’s got to protect the whole world. Whether they want her to or not.”

I nodded, trying to understand. “Yeah. I can see that. I guess I just felt that it wasn’t really her business, you know? Or maybe it could be, but it should be my business first.”

There was a flash of faint surprise in Cal’s eyes, and he gave a dry laugh. “You’re funny,” he said. “Usually people are swarming all over my mom. Everyone is so impressed with her power, her strength. They blurt out all their problems and tell her everything, and they want to be as close to her as possible. She’s not used to people challenging her.”

“But I like her a lot,” I said, worried that I’d sounded too harsh. “I mean, I—”

“No, it’s okay,” he interrupted, nodding. “It’s refreshing. You want to stand on your own two feet, do things yourself. You’re your own person. It makes you interesting.”

I didn’t know what to say. I blushed slightly.

Cal pulled my braid out from underneath my coat. “I love your hair,” he murmured, watching the braid run through his fingers. “Witch hair.” Then he gave me a lopsided grin and shifted the car into gear.

Now I knew my face must be bright red. But I sat back, feeling happy and strong and unsure all at once. My eyes wandered out the window as we drove. The clouds had darkened, moving sluggishly across the sky as if trying to decide when to start dumping snow. By the time we reached Red Kill, they let loose with big, wet flakes that stuck to everything in clumps.

“Here we go,” said Cal, turning on his windshield wipers. “Welcome to winter.”

I smiled. Somehow the falling snow and thumping wipers made the silence inside the car even more peaceful. I was so glad to be here right now, in this moment, with Cal. I felt like I could tackle anything.

“You know, there’s something I meant to tell you before,” I said. “The other day I followed Bree because I wanted to have it out with her once and for all.”

Cal glanced over at me. “Really?”

I nodded. “Yeah—but it didn’t end up that way. Instead I saw her and Raven meeting Sky Eventide.”

His hand darted away, and he shot another quick glance at me. His brow was furrowed. “Sky?”

“Yeah, the blond witch I met last night at your mom’s.” The really good-looking one, I thought with an odd pang of jealousy. Even though I knew Cal loved me, that he had
chosen
me, I still felt insecure, especially when we were around pretty girls. It was just that he was so handsome, with his golden eyes and tall frame and perfect body. And I . . . well, I wasn’t so perfect. A flat-chested girl with a big nose could hardly be called perfect.

“Anyway, I saw Sky with Bree and Raven,” I continued, shoving my insecurities aside. “I bet she’s the blood witch they have in their coven.”

“Hmmm,” said Cal. He gazed forward at the road, as if thinking intently. “Really. Yeah, I guess it’s possible.”

“Is she . . . bad?” I asked, for lack of a better term. “I mean, I feel like you dislike her and Hunter, too. Are they, I don’t know, from the dark side?” I stumbled over the words. They sounded so melodramatic.

Cal laughed, startled. “Dark side? You’ve been watching too many movies. There’s no dark side to Wicca. It’s just a big circle. Everything magickal is part of that circle. You, me, the world, Hunter, Sky, everything. We’re all connected.”

I frowned. It seemed a strange thing to say, considering the way he’d glared at Hunter and Sky. “Last night you guys seemed not to like each other,” I persisted.

Cal shrugged. He turned onto Red Kill’s main street and cruised slowly, looking for a parking spot. After a few moments’ silence he finally said, “Sometimes you just meet people who rub you the wrong way. I met Hunter a couple of years ago, and . . . we just can’t stand each other.” He laughed as if it were no big deal. “Everything about him pisses me off, and it’s mutual. That doesn’t sound very witchy, I know. But I don’t trust him.”

“What do you mean? Trust him as a person or a witch?”

Cal parked the car at an angle and turned off the engine. “There isn’t a difference,” he muttered. His expression was distant.

“What about the big circle?” I asked, unable to help myself. “If you’re connected, then how can he piss you off so much?”

“It’s just . . . ,” he began, then shook his head. “Forget it. Let’s talk about something else.” He opened his door and stepped out into snowfall.

I opened my mouth, then closed it. Pursuing the conversation seemed important. After all, Hunter and Sky had both had a profound effect on me, and I couldn’t figure out why. But if Cal wanted to leave it alone, I could respect that. There were things I didn’t want to talk about with him, either. I hopped out of the car and slammed the door behind me, then ran to catch up with him.

“It’s too bad you don’t have anything else of your mom’s,” Cal remarked as we walked toward the cozy little shop. We both buried our faces in our coats to protect ourselves from the cold. “Like the coven’s tools, its athame
,
or wand, or maybe your mom’s robe. Those things would be great to have.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I guess all that stuff’s long gone by now.”

Cal swung open Practical Magick’s heavy glass door, and I ducked inside. Warm air wafted over us, rich with the scent of herbs. We stamped the snow off our shoes, and I took off my gloves. I smiled. Automatically I started scanning book titles on the shelves. I loved this store. I could stay here and read all day. I glanced at Cal. He was already reading book spines, too.

Alyce and David, the two store clerks, were both in the back, talking quietly to customers. My eyes immediately flashed from David—with his short gray hair, his unusually youthful face, and his piercing dark eyes—to Alyce. I’d felt a connection with Alyce the first time I had met her. It was Alyce who had told me the story of my birth mother, how her coven had been completely destroyed. From Alyce, I’d learned that Maeve and my father had fled for America and settled in Meshomah Falls, a town about two hours from here. In America they had renounced magick and witchcraft and lived quietly by themselves. Then, about seven months after I was born, they gave me up for adoption. Soon after that they had been locked in a barn, and the barn was set on fire.