Season of the Witch (21 page)

“What do you …?” I say.

“I’m not sure. I have to think about it.” She pauses. “Are you in?”

You have to help me. I helped you
. The words hang between us like a heavy smog—even a little whiff makes you sick.

Stalling, I say, “I want to hear what ‘it’ is.”

“Okay. I’ll think about it over the weekend. Monday, I’ll tell you,” she says.

The weekend, I think. That’s how long I have.

Sunday night, I sit in my sweatpants and T-shirt and move my creatures around. Mimi has been standing with Aura for weeks; now I separate them, put each on opposite corners of the windowsill. Mimi is in shadow. But the streetlights hit Aura with a bright glare. I switch them. Mimi doesn’t look happy in the harsh light. Or with being alone. Sorry, Meems, that’s how it goes right now.

I still feel it, the little empty space that belonged to Phoebe. Being the crazy person I am, I swear the other animals are angry with me. They saw me destroy her. I wonder if they worry they could be next.

Guys, I won’t do that, I think to them. No matter what happens, no matter how angry I get, I will never, ever hurt any of you again.

I promise.

I go to bed. I don’t sleep well. But at some point, I do wake up.

And it’s Monday.

Cassandra says as we climb up to the rock, “So then Ms. Kramer was like, Well, this isn’t what I had in mind when I gave this assignment, and I said, Well, I can’t help what you had in your mind. Like if you think I’m going to be ruled by that, you’re loony-bin bound. And she said, Comparing Beowulf to Kurt Cobain isn’t a real argument. And I said, Well, we’re arguing about it now, aren’t we? Just because her frame of reference is limited to things that occurred prior to 1970, we should all be ignorant. Makes me insane.…”

Nervous, I realize. Cassandra is actually nervous. Normally, she never discusses school. Teachers, classes, they’re minor irritants in her day while she lives her real life elsewhere. But right now, school is the only safe thing to talk about.

“So what’d she say?” I ask. Cassandra’s walking ahead of me, so I speak to her back. She doesn’t answer right away, concentrating on those last few steps, which can be tricky because of the weird bumps and crevices.

She reaches the top. Turns around and looks down at me. I smile—
Just let me get there
.

And she says, “You’re not going to help me, are you?”

I take the last big step. Out of breath, I plant my hands on my hips. “I will help you—”

“No, you won’t.” The wind catches her hair, whips it around.

“I
will
. Just not the way you wanted.”

I would like to come off super strong as I say this. But instead, my chin falls to my chest, I stare at the ground.

“Ella deserves to be punished, you know that.”

I gulp air, shake my head. “I don’t want to punish anymore. Not after what happened to Chloe.” Now I can look up. “I don’t have that right.”

“You don’t have the guts,” Cassandra says in a pleasant voice. “But I do.”

I can’t tell if she means the guts or the right. Maybe they’re the same thing to her.

I try, “Doesn’t it upset you, even the slightest bit, what happened to Chloe?”

“No.” The shake of her head is immediate. “I really don’t believe in false sentiment. Some people should not be on this earth. When they go, all you can do is say, Yeah, good. We’re all better off.”

“Well, I don’t think we get to decide that,” I say. “And I really don’t think Ella deserves anything so extreme.”

“Oh, well, that could be a problem.”

“What do you mean?”

Cassandra shrugs as if it’s obvious. “I’ll have to go stronger if you’re not helping me.”

“Why?”

“Well, when you have the energy of two people, you can work a milder spell to better effect. Like that little silencer act we pulled on Oliver. If you or I had done that on our own, it probably wouldn’t have worked.”

She nods to herself. “So it’ll have to be a powerful spell, I think. Too bad, I was kind of hoping to let Ella off with a sore throat, bad rash, something like that.”

I can’t tell if Cassandra’s serious or not. Maybe this is a trick to get me to say, Oh, is that all you were planning? Sure, I can help with that.

But I don’t trust her anymore.

“Why don’t you just talk to her?” I try again. “I could come with you guys, be the peacekeeper.”

“No,” says Cassandra simply. “I don’t want to make peace. I want to hurt her. The same way you wanted to hurt Chloe. The only difference is, I’m honest about it and you’re chickenshit.”

I’m almost grateful for the nastiness. It makes it easier to realize that our friendship is over.

“What are you going to do, Cassandra?”

“I really haven’t decided,” she says lightly. “So many fun choices. Ella’s such a klutz, almost anything would be believable. Ooh!” Her eyes light up. “Maybe something with a bathtub. She slips, falls …”

“It’s not funny.”

“Who’s being funny?” She takes a step toward me. There are still a few feet between us, but I back up. My heel lands lower than I expected: the rock slopes here. I throw out my arms for balance.

Cassandra takes another step. “It is amazing, isn’t it? How many places there are to fall? So many insecure spots where the unexpected can happen.”

Is there anything solid behind me? I don’t dare look down.
I can’t take my eyes off Cassandra, in case I miss a raise of her hand, a sudden lunge.

She just wants to scare you, I tell myself. Wants you to feel her power. Just like any bully.

“I’m not going to let you hurt Ella, Cassandra.” I blurt the words out without thinking. As they fade into the air, I think, So melodramatic, for God’s sake.

Cassandra’s totally still. Then her hands slide into her pockets as she draws her body tight and compact.

“So it’s war?” she says calmly.

“I—I’m not saying that,” I stammer, knowing full well that I will lose any war with Cassandra. She’s stronger than I am in every way.

“I want to do something, you want to stop me. That means war.”

“I’m just saying,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice steady, “that I’m not going to let you hurt anyone.”

She rolls her eyes. “And what’re you going to do? Tell Teacher?”

“I’ll do what I have to,” I say.

Her eyes gleam. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll win, you know. I am stronger.”

I know. “We’ll see.”

She starts climbing down the rocks, her steps jaunty and sure. For a moment, she stops, looks back up at me.

“It’ll be fun,” she calls. Then trit-trots down the hill.

“FUN,” I THINK ON THE way home. What will “fun” feel like? Will I wake up tomorrow and not be able to see? Or move? Will I wake up tomorrow at all?

What am I fighting here? I ask myself. What can Cassandra really do?

Whether the magic is real or not, Cassandra has power. Because anger has power.

She’s going to attack Ella, obviously. She’s already got the hex going, and it’s working. Ella’s frightened, feeling weak. Eventually, Cassandra will cast a spell. But what kind? And will I see it coming?

One thing I’ve denied her is a coven. Cassandra has told me spells are way more powerful when you work with others. She might say she can work a spell by herself, but the fact that she brought it up tells me she’s not sure what the result will be.

If she does try to find an ally, who would she choose? I was Cassandra’s only real friend this year. Ella is a natural target at our
school, people do make fun of her and roll their eyes. Cassandra’s an outsider, people think she’s weird. She can’t get someone else to pick on Ella the way Chloe used the whole school against me.

How does Cassandra think this war will be fought? If she sees this as a battle between two witches, how do we attack? How do we defend?

How do I win?

The next day, it hits as I walk into school, the gut-tightening feeling of terror I had at the beginning of the year. The knowledge that someone in this building wants to hurt me. I feel like Cassandra can sense that I’m here, she knows where I am. And when she’s ready, she’ll …

Okay, chill, chickarina. It’s Ella, not you, who is Cassandra’s target. And this is a school. Cassandra can’t bring a truck into a school.

I used to be miserable that I had no classes with Cassandra; now, obviously, I’m relieved. No heavy textbooks dropped on my hand. No acids thrown in my direction. But I have no classes with Ella, either: I can’t watch out for her.

I have study period before lunch, and I head to the library. Before now, the library was just a fun place to see if you could make out without anyone spotting you. Now I actually want to find a book. A very particular kind of book. Something that might help me fight a very powerful, pissed-off witch. I don’t have time to write my own Book of Shadows. But Cassandra must have gotten
her spells from somewhere. Maybe if I can find a book with the spells, I can learn how to beat them back.

I glance over at Mr. Hallows, the librarian. He’s cool in a goony kind of way. But I don’t see asking him if he has a witchcraft battle manual.

Witches, I think, letting my fingers trail over the books’ spines. What do witches do? Where do they get their power?

The only books I find are on the Salem witch trials. I did a report on them in fifth grade, but all I really remember is a bunch of girls freaking out that witches were after them, and anyone who didn’t go to church fifty million times a day was condemned to death, because hey, it was the sixteen hundreds and the Puritans were batshit crazy.

I open one of the books to an image of a young girl in a dark, heavy dress. She’s rolling around on the courthouse floor, supposedly possessed. Behind her, other girls are screaming and pulling their hair out as they accuse their neighbors of casting evil spells on them. I wonder, was it all a game to them, a way to get at people they didn’t like? Did they really talk themselves into believing witches were torturing them? Maybe some sixteen hundreds version of me and Cassandra were actually zapping them with evil energy.

I read:

Chloe, I think, believing I was out to get her. Then I remember her fight with Hannah, her outrage when she couldn’t control everything. And she convinced her friends that she was my victim. I remember how Chloe, Zeena, and Isabelle pinned me against the wall, the creepy way they moved as one, like zombies.
Must. Get. The. Slut
. Talk about mass hysteria.

Poor Princess Chloe, the evil slut out to get her.

Or the evil witch, I think. And let’s be honest, we did get her.

Or did we? We got drunk and had a satanic slumber party. Chloe got hit by a truck because she was drunk and not paying attention. Alcohol, that’s the big “magic” here.

But that’s not all, I think uneasily. It’s not that simple.

Looking back at the book, I think how weird it is that everyone believed these girls. No one said, Hold up, wait. Just because these chicks say they’re getting pinched and poked by demons doesn’t make it so. It’s like people wanted to believe that their neighbors were evil, that they deserved to be hanged and burned and crushed. It’s like, Aha—there’s the danger! If we just stamp that out, everybody will be safe. If you get rid of the man-stealing slut, no one will get dumped by their boyfriend again.

Not to mention, people enjoy a good hanging. How much was happening in old Salem in the sixteen hundreds? Kind of fun to whip yourself into a frenzy and drag anyone who doesn’t strike you as “your kind” to the hangman. How do you know you’re righteous unless someone else gets pegged as a sinner?

All it takes is a few kids deciding another kid is creepy or lame or weird, and the whole school agrees. How many times do any of us say, “Hey, I like so-and-so,” once the hex of unpopularity has been set? And if so-and-so gets teased or ignored or …

 … gets her head shoved in the toilet …

how many of us say, “Hey, not cool”?

Ella, meanwhile, is a nervous wreck. All her life, she may have felt Cassandra hated her—but now she knows it for sure. This does not make spending eight hours a day in the same building with her at all easy. So far, Cassandra has made no major moves. But the hex campaign is still going strong—and working, big-time.

On the walk to school, Ella says, “I’m terrified of bumping into her in the hallway. I can’t even go to the bathroom.”

“Just be happy you don’t have classes or homeroom with her.”

“Yeah, but the other day? I was in the cafeteria having lunch. Cassandra was sitting a few tables away and just … staring at me. Like she was wishing I would choke. I couldn’t even finish eating, she weirded me out so much.”

She looks at me, hoping I have advice, something that can help her. I wish I did.

“Maybe once they get into therapy, this will all die down,” I say.

“Maybe,” says Ella doubtfully. “God, why did I have to say anything? Seriously, sometimes I think my life would be better in every way if I just kept my mouth
shut
.”

Every day feels like a waiting game. I walk down the hallways wondering if I’ll catch Cassandra doing … what? I don’t even know what I’m watching out for. Other than giving Ella the evil eye, Cassandra seems to be avoiding her. All I can hope for is that once her family starts the sessions, the grief and weirdness will ease up. Maybe one day, Cassandra will feel like Ella did her a favor.

And one day, maybe I’ll be besties with Zeena.

Then one night, Ella calls me. She’s crying.

“What?” I say. “What happened?”

“I’m scared,” she says.

“Okay, I’m here. Why?”

I hear her sniffle as she tries to get it together. “Well, this weekend’s my mom’s birthday, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And we always go out to dinner. To celebrate. Only this time, my mom says my aunt, uncle, and Cassandra are coming too.”