Spellcaster (3 page)

She gave me an entertained look,
shaking her head.

“Did you think
you
moved your
bag?”

“Kinda,” I admitted,
embarrassed. I started inspecting my dark nail polish so I wouldn’t have to
look at her. I didn’t have to see her face to know she was frustrated with
me. I could hear it in her voice.

“You’re not concentrating nearly
hard enough. Born witch or not, you’re new to this. Just shouting out spells
isn’t going to work,” she said sternly, adding, “as I’ve told you about a
thousand times.”

“It did in the beginning.” I
sulked, thinking of some early spells that I’d successfully pulled off.
It’s probably because the spell is in Latin. And
you
hate
Latin.

“Well, your focus was a lot
better then,” she retorted. I looked up as Angelique stood and tossed the
bag on the bed next to me, adding, “And the spell is a repulsion spell. It’s
meant to make something move away from you, not go sliding across the floor
to you.”

She took an oversize blue pen
out of the bright yellow souvenir Florida mug on her desk and cleared a
space for it on the messy surface.

“Watch,” she instructed, turning
to her desk with her eyes slitted in concentration. She held her left palm
out and took a deep breath.

“Emoveo,”
she whispered, her fingers splaying out as she
focused.

My breath caught in my throat as
the blue pen twitched.

“Emoveo!”
Angelique repeated more forcefully, holding her arm
out straighter, locking her elbow at the joint. The pen flung backward as if
someone had tugged it off the surface with an invisible string. It hit the
wall before falling down behind her desk.

She turned to me with a
self-satisfied smile while my eyes were about as wide as bagels. Angelique
rarely flaunted her skills just for the sake of showing off. Sure, her
empath side would occasionally get slammed with someone’s mood on the
subway—and she’d elbow me with a whispered “They totally just did it” and
nod toward two people sharing shy glances—but generally, Angelique thought
it was an abuse of the craft to just show off.

“Have you always been able to do
that?” I asked, awed at her display.

“Of course not. I wanted to show
you what a little practice can do,” she said, her voice dripping with a
“nyah-nyah-nyah-I-told-you-so” tone.

“Message received.” I bowed
slightly to her. “I’ll practice on focusing my emotions more.”

“Good,” she replied, a big grin
on her face. “Remember, dabbling with witchcraft is like playing with guns.
It’s
dangerous.
Besides, the more you practice, the more quickly you
should be able to find your emotional center. It’s something you have to
feel out…it’s not really a tangible thing. Once you can access that
emotional place, your spells will come together more, um—” her eyes darted
to the burn mark in her rug “—effectively. Which is why I asked you to bring
the dress. Did you?”

I nodded, digging in my backpack
and pulling out the item she had asked me to pack—the black tulle dress I’d
worn to the dance where Anthony had attacked me. I didn’t know why I’d even
saved it. It was ripped and dirty, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it
out. I felt like I needed a reminder—like I couldn’t get too comfortable
with my current, blissful situation. So it had spent the past few months
tied in a plastic bag in the back of my closet.

“Well, considering our last
couple of potions haven’t gone so well,” Angelique began, cautiously eyeing
the burn again, “I was thinking we should go back to the basics.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, not
looking directly at the dress as she inspected the tulle and satiny
liner.

“Well, your most effective
spells were, um, ones that happened when your emotions were running very
high. And since you’re so happy these days, you’re having a little trouble
finding your center to do these spells, so I had an idea…” Angelique trailed
off. I had a sinking feeling that I knew where she was going with
this.

That night on the rocks, I was
able to somehow summon my brother’s spirit to help me pull Brendan to safety
as he dangled more than one hundred feet above Turtle Pond. Thinking about
my brother, and how I felt like I lost him twice—Angelique knew the kind of
pain that caused me. And there was no way I was going to reach out to his
spirit, especially if he was finally at peace.

“No,” I interrupted. “I don’t
want to disturb Ethan or do anything like that.”

“I don’t mean…summoning
spirits,” Angelique said, raising her palms. “The spell I have in mind, you
need
for
this to work. I’m hoping this dress will just be a prop to remind you, kind
of a shortcut to take you to back to that emotional place.”

“So this dress is my GPS
system?”

“Basically.” Angelique
nodded.

“I was able to levitate that
highlighter. I mean, that was cool, but it wasn’t exactly
crucial
that I do it,” I
countered. I was
not
looking forward to reliving that battle in Central
Park with Anthony.

“I don’t want to take any
chances. The spell I have in mind, you
need
to do.”

Her ominous tone sent shivers
through my body, and I nervously began tugging on the row of small silver
hoops in my earlobe as she pulled a large boot box from underneath her bed.
She plopped it next to me, the weight of the box causing the comforter to
pillow and plump on the sides. Angelique lifted the lid to reveal the worn,
intricately carved leather cover of
Hadrian’s
Medieval Legends,
nestled among some
tissue paper and small jars filled with herbs.

“You still have it? I thought
your mom had to return it!” I exclaimed, staring at the book in awe. It was
in that old book that I had learned about the ancient curse that bound my
soul to Brendan’s—and doomed me. It was also where we figured out that we
had broken the curse—but our story shared space with tales about dragons,
demons and witches. And those weren’t real…well, except for the witch
part.

“She’s a little scatterbrained,
as you know, and forgot that I even have it,” Angelique confessed. “She’ll
remember when the school asks for it.” Angelique’s mom, Dr. Evelyn Tedt, was
a professor of Medieval Studies at Fordham University, and one of the
brightest minds in her field. She could tell you the date an illuminated
manuscript was created just by inspecting the scrollwork in the border. But
where Angelique had a photographic memory, Dr. Tedt couldn’t remember to put
the milk back in the fridge. It had caused many an unpleasant surprise when
Angelique and I tried to have cereal.

“Won’t you get into trouble with
your mom? That book is ancient, I thought!”

“Not ancient. Just an antique.
It’s from the late 1800s.” Angelique shrugged casually, as if the book was
merely an old magazine.

“Still, Angelique—she’s going to
kill you when she finds out.”

“I don’t care. I’m glad I kept
it. Especially since I can tell you’re feeling a dozen emotions looking at
it—that bodes well for the spell,” she added wisely.

“A dozen emotions might be an
understatement,” I mumbled, my eyes still riveted on the book. “So what’s
this spell that’s so important that I had to have props?” I held up the
dress and shook it toward
Hadrian’s.

“I’ve been feeling…I don’t know
how to describe it. Almost like I’m on the verge of an anxiety attack at all
times,” she said, getting that faraway look she always got when she
explained what it’s like for her to read emotions and people. “You know when
you’re watching a horror movie, and you’re waiting for the killer to pop
out? And the music is building? Well, I feel like the music is building. And
it’s getting louder and louder, but the killer hasn’t popped out
yet.”

She rubbed her ear, as if she
were trying to shake the ominous sound out. “I just feel very
unsettled.
The last time
I was anxious like this…” she paused to look up at me, and when she
continued, her voice was very low “…it was right before the winter formal.
But I just thought I was feeling sick because of the flu—I’d never felt like
this before,” she explained quickly. “How was I supposed to know I was
sensing any kind of danger? I don’t know if this is an empath thing, or just
me being in tune with the universe, but I figured I’d better pay
attention.”

“You had the same feeling back
then?” I whispered, and Angelique nodded, curling a finger around a drying
lock of Tiffany-blue hair. “When I put two and two together—I had the same
creepy feeling back then. I’d hate to think I was ignoring some kind of
warning now, too.”

Angelique flopped on her bed,
next to
Hadrian’s Medieval Legends.

“There’s
a lot
in here,”
Angelique confessed, flipping through the pages absentmindedly. “I’m not
even halfway through it. The way it’s written isn’t consistent. Even the
setting of the stories change—one’s in the 1800s, another’s medieval. But
there are enough stories in here that make me feel like, well, my anxiety
has to do with you, obviously.” She dropped the pages and looked at me
seriously.

“Emma, someone with the amount
of mystical energy you have needs to be a little more careful. And I’m not
just talking about Anthony.”

Angelique was not one for any
kind of emotional displays—the last time she hugged someone it was probably
to give them the Heimlich maneuver—so what she said next floored
me.

“Besides, Em, you’re important
to me. You don’t know how nice it’s been to have someone I can talk to about
this stuff. I haven’t had a witch as a friend in a really long time. Not
since freshman year.” She twisted the piles of silver rings on her fingers
as she spoke.

“Aww, Angelique,” I murmured,
pausing my show of affection when she glared at me. I quickly changed the
subject. “What do you mean you don’t have anyone to talk to? What about your
mom and Miranda and the rest of your family?”

“My mom’s different—I mean,
she’s my
mom.
I can’t talk to her about any spell that she might
consider too dangerous, because then she goes all über-momwitch on me,”
Angelique complained, studying the hem of her shirt. “I can sometimes talk
to Miranda, but she likes to remind me all the time that she’s four years
older and
soo
much more experienced. It’s annoying. ‘I was doing
divination with stones while you were still playing with Barbies.’”
Angelique affected a high-pitched, nasal voice as she mimicked her cousin’s
conceited way of talking.

“
You
played with Barbies?” I asked,
awed. I’d have been less surprised if she told me she played with live
grenades. Angelique just gave me a withering look and I shut my
mouth.

“Anyway, I had one friend that I
could do spells with and talk to about the supernatural, and that didn’t end
so well.”

“What do you mean?”

Angelique fidgeted
uncomfortably. “She was always a little—how can I put this?—dark. But then,
some guy she liked totally used her. We got into a fight because I refused
to help her do a love spell on him. She ended up transferring out after
freshman year.” She paused, giving me a tight-lipped, grim smile. “It
really, really just sucked losing someone I could relate to—over some lame
guy, of all things.”

“Who’s the guy? From Vince A?”
Not that I was surprised. You’d think they put pheromones in the water
fountains, the hump-tastic way people carried on at that place.

“Not important. Besides, he’s
pretty much gone,” Angelique said dismissively. “Anyway, I
really
don’t want to
lose you, too—to something worse than some guy. And bonus points, you’re not
already a little unbalanced like she was. So let’s just make sure you’re
safe.”

“Aw, Angelique…” I began, but
she returned to her brisk, businesslike demeanor, grabbing the dress from me
and returning to her place on the floor.

“Do you care if I rip a piece
off the dress?” she asked. As I was about to give her permission—the thing
looked like it’d been through a blender, anyway—she ripped the satin liner
from underneath the dress, laying it on the already destroyed throw rug and
motioned for me to join her on the floor.

As I sat down, she busied
herself, pulling out some candles and a small, round marble canister from
her desk drawer.

“What we’re going to do is find
out if you’re in any kind of danger, or if there’s anything you need to be
watching out for. Some of the stories I’ve read in the book, well, let’s
just say that true love is something extremely powerful. Not just for you
and Brendan—”

“You don’t have to roll your
eyes every time you say his name,” I interrupted her. Angelique gave me a
crabby look.

“You and Brendan—” she opened
her blue-gray eyes really wide in exaggeration “—could be targets if someone
wanted to hurt you, or steal your mystical energy for personal gain. Maybe
that’s why I’m freaking. I just can’t help but think that this
doom-and-gloom feeling I’m having has to do with
you.
I mean, I meet
you,
I start becoming
empath-y emo girl. And you’re the only person I know who had a necklace that
marked you as someone’s doomed true love. I mean, there’s a lot of mystical
flotsam and jetsam around you.”