Silver is for Secrets

Title Page

Copyright Page

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Transcript from therapy session with Dr. Atwood
Entries from Jacob’s journal

Anonymous note to Jacob (stuck inside his journal)
About the Author

Laurie Faria Stolarz was raised in Salem, Massachusetts, and educated at Merrimack College in North Andover. She has an MFA in creative writing and a graduate certificate in screenwriting, both from Emerson College in Boston. She currently teaches writing and French. Her other books include
Blue Is for
Nightmares
and
White Is for Magic
. Visit her website through teen.llewellyn.com.

To Write to the Author

If you wish to contact the author or would like more information about this book, please write to the author in care of Llewellyn Worldwide and we will forward your request. Both the author and publisher appreciate hearing from you and learning of your enjoyment of this book and how it has helped you. Llewellyn Worldwide cannot guarantee that every letter written to the author can be answered, but all will be forwarded. Please write to:

Laurie Faria Stolarz c⁄o Llewellyn Worldwide

P.O. Box 64383, Dept. 0-7387-0631-0

St. Paul, MN 55164-0383, U.S.A.

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Silver Is for Secrets
© 2005 by Laurie Faria Stolarz. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

FIRST EDITION

First Printing, 2005

Editing by Megan C. Atwood, Andrew Karre and Rebecca Zins Cover design by Gavin Dayton Duffy

Cover image (candle) © Stockbyte

Llewellyn is a registered trademark of Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stolarz, Laurie Faria, 1972-Silver is for secrets
Laurie Faria Stolarz.—1st ed.<
p>

p. cm.

Summary: During a summer vacation at the beach with friends, eighteen-year-old hereditary witch Stacey has more nightmares which involve Clara, a new girl with a talent for causing trouble.

ISBN 0-7387-0631-0

[1. Witchcraft—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Dreams—Fiction.

4. Extrasensory perception—Fiction. 5. Revenge—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.S8757Si 2005

[Fic]—dc22

2004057816

Llewellyn Worldwide does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business transactions between our authors and the public.

All mail addressed to the author is forwarded but the publisher cannot, unless specifically instructed by the author, give out an address or phone number. Please refer to the publisher‟s website for links to authors‟ websites and other sources.

Llewellyn Publications

A Division of Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd.

P.O. Box 64383, Dept. 0-7387-0631-0

St. Paul, MN 55164-0383, U.S.A.

www.llewellyn.com

Printed in the United States of America

For Ed, Mom, and Ryan,

with love and gratitude

Acknowledgments

How do you thank the person who‟s been there since the first word of
Blue;
who‟s read all your drafts, every single one; who turns your pages around, often within a twentyfour-hour period, regardless of how busy she is? The person who supports you and cheers you on; who‟s often more excited about your work than you are, even twenty drafts later? Lara Zeises, I real y don‟t know how to thank you. You‟re an invaluable friend and critique partner, and one of the most talented writers I know.

Special thanks to my fabulous Llewellyn editors, Megan Atwood, Andrew Karre, and Becky Zins. Your attention to detail, continuous encouragement, invaluable suggestions, and sense of humor make the writing and editing process all the more enjoyable.

Thanks to Lee Ann Faria for reading one of the final drafts of
Silver
—I appreciate your careful attention to detail. Thanks to Tea Benduhn and Steven Goldman, who have been there since
Blue
, and read pieces of
Silver
. Thanks also to Lieutenant Fran Hart of the Burlington, Massachusetts, Police Department for answering my questions regarding nautical law.

Finally, many, many thanks to all the friends and family members in my corner—

you know who you are—and to all the fans I‟ve met, who‟ve e-mailed, and who‟ve written me letters of support and encouragement; it‟s real y the best part.

It‟s late, past 3 AM, but I can‟t fal asleep. I feel like there‟s this tugging inside me, like an invisible rope is attached to my gut and someone‟s pul ing at it from the other end, urging me to stay awake.

I do my best to temper the feeling—I flip-flop a couple times in bed, rub patchouli and peppermint oils at the pulse points on my neck, and even haul my butt out of bed to make a dream sachet out of dried lavender and rosemary— normally surefire fixes for temporary insomnia. But it‟s just no use. The more I try to ignore it, the tighter the knot in my gut becomes. I just can‟t shake it—the gnawing, incessant feeling that something horrible is about to happen.

I crawl out of bed, once again, and step into a pair of fuzzy slippers, doing my best to keep quiet so I don‟t wake Drea and Amber, asleep in their beds only a few feet away. I throw a sweatshirt on over my cotton PJs, grab a few spell supplies, and head out to the beach behind our cottage.

The moon is in full view, smack dab in the middle of a blue-black sky, the two dark colors swirling together like a giant slab of marble. I find myself a spot just in front of the water where the outgoing tide meets the sand and sit back on my heels. The warm, salty breeze sweeps over my face and combs at my hair tangles, sending spicy tingles all over my skin.

I remove the necessary spell supplies from my bag—a jar of sea salt and a Thermos full of moon-bathed rainwater. My grandmother, who taught me most of what I know about spells, used to stress the importance of offering up gifts to nature. She used to say that what we offer up to the universe comes back to us threefold.

I sink down into the cool, powdery sand and stare up at the moon‟s ful ness, imagining the light soaking into my skin, the energy awakening my soul. I pour the sea salt into the Thermos and hold it up to the moon‟s light. Then I say, “O ful est moon, on this night of dread, please accept this gift from the ocean‟s bed. And I ask thee, with a heart so pure, to help my body tel me more. Blessed be the way.” I dig a six-inch hole in the sand and pour the mixture inside, patting a layer of rocks over the top as a cover. Then I lie back and stare up at the moon, thinking how much I‟ve changed these past couple years, how it wasn‟t so long ago that I used my spells to try and stop what my body and senses were trying to warn me.

Now I‟m using my spel s to summon forth these same instincts. I close my eyes and concentrate on my body and what it can tel me, imagining the moon‟s energy drawing forth the answers from deep within my core.

But I don‟t feel anything. After several minutes spent meditating on the spel , I have no better idea of why I can‟t sleep than I did before coming out here. So what is it? What‟s this feeling inside me? Why can‟t I relax? Why do I feel like the seams of my world are about to rip wide open?

But unfortunately the answers don‟t come that easily. I know I need to get some sleep. I grab my Thermos and head back to my room, leaving the moon‟s gift on the beach.

I lie back against the coolness of my sheets, suddenly feeling a bit more centered, more relaxed. I imagine the moon‟s energy penetrating through the ceiling and my bed covers, casting right over me, easing me to sleep.

The next thing I know, I‟m covered in it.

I wake up a couple hours later and find it everywhere—on my pillow, the bed sheet, matted to the tips of my hair. I sit up in bed and notice dark cherry-red stains on my forearms and wrists. A knot forms inside my chest. I do my best to unbind it, to inhale a calming breath.

“Stacey?” Drea asks, rol ing over in bed. “Are you okay?” But I can‟t answer. I go to wipe my face, noticing more stains. My hand trembles over my lips, trying to hold it all in, but then a trickle of blood rolls over my fingers.

The light clicks on in our room. “Oh my god!” Drea rushes out of bed. “Stacey, what happened?”

I pinch my nose closed to try and make the bleeding stop and look around the room for a box of tissues.

Amber sits up in bed and leans over her Superman blow-up doll to get a better look.

Still holding my nose, I end up swiping a sock from the floor and pressing it to my nose. “I‟m fine,” I tel them through a wad of cotton. “I dust hat a little dosebeed.”

“A
little
nosebleed?” Drea questions.

“You look like Carrie freakin‟ White at the prom,” Amber says.

“Who?”
Drea asks.

“Carrie White. You know? Stephen King‟s
Carrie.”
I ignore their banter and press the sock into my nose to try and clot the bleeding, knowing that I should be grateful, that this is obviously the response I was praying for, that I did the spell for. I wanted my body to communicate to me, to give me insight—a clue, basically—into why I‟m feeling so unhinged. And so this is it. I look down at the spattering of blood on my pillow, wondering what it could possibly mean.

“You‟re supposed to tilt your head back,” Drea says.

“Not unless you want to drink it down,” Amber corrects.

“So disgusting.” Drea reaches into the mini-fridge for a pint of Ben & Jerry‟s.

“Here,” she says. “I think you‟re supposed to hold something cold at the back of your head to stop the bleeding.”

I place the Chunky Monkey against my nose instead and glance at the clock; it‟s just after six—at least two hours of sleep, and yet I can‟t remember what I dreamt about.

I blot my nose to make sure the bleeding has stopped and move over to the dresser mirror to have a look for myself. It‟s even worse than I thought. It looks as though I‟ve been beaten. There are patches of blood at the sides of my nose and over my lips. I grab a strand of my long, dark hair, the end now soiled with red. I wonder how long my nose was bleeding before I woke up, how I possibly could have slept through all this mess.

I sit down on the edge of my bed and silently count to ten. I wonder if I even dreamt anything at all. And, if I did, if it had anything to do with blood. I shake my head because I just don‟t know. Because the only thing that seems sure is that I can‟t break this feeling—this morguelike heaviness that sits on my heart and presses down into my gut.

“Um, Stace, no offense, but you‟re total y grossing me out here.” Drea sweeps her hair up and secures it with an elastic; the loopy golden mass sits like a crown atop her head. “Don‟t you think you should clean yourself up?”

“Not to mention the crime scene you‟ve got going on your pil ow,” Amber adds.