The Darkness Within (28 page)

“Where did you move it?” I asked.

“It fought me at first. That’s why you saw it, Sam. It fled from Ethan when it realized I wasn’t going to let up.”

“You’re saying it got away?”

“Does that mean I’m cured?” Ethan sounded like a hopeful kid on Christmas morning. It made my insides ache.

“Unfortunately, no. The spell was broken, and the dark magic returned to you. I’ll have to start all over and find out where it went.”

“But what if it’s already buried? You’d be finished, right?” A girl could hope.

“Believe me, the dark magic won’t bury itself. It wants to take over.”

Ethan put his hand up to stop her. “Wait. Back up a second. You said the spell was broken. How?”

Mirabella exhaled loudly. “Sam came into the room and apparently thought I was trying to harm you.”

Ethan turned to me. “You broke the spell?”

“I thought you were in trouble, Ethan. What choice did I have?”

He nodded. He would’ve done the same thing for me, but that didn’t stop him from being disappointed. In his mind, this all could’ve been over already. If I hadn’t tried to help. The thought made me nauseous.

“Mirabella, can I have a minute alone with Sam?” Ethan said, walking toward me.

“Absolutely. I’ll step outside.” She opened the sliding-glass door and walked out.

“Ethan, please don’t be mad. I know you think I ruined this for you, but I was scared. I saw that thing and all I could think about was stopping it from hurting us.” I was careful not to say “you.” Maybe if he thought I was scared for my own life too, he’d go easier on me.

“I get it. I know you didn’t mean to mess things up, but—”

“But what?” I narrowed my eyes and shook my head at him. “Don’t tell me you want me to leave you alone while Mirabella does this spell.”

“What if it happens this time too, and you freak out again?”

“I won’t. Now I know what the spell is supposed to do. I won’t do anything.” It pained me to promise that to Ethan. I knew I couldn’t keep the promise if something bad happened. And he knew it, too.

“Sam, please don’t make me say this.” He looked away, avoiding my eyes.

“Say what? That you don’t trust me? Is that it? You trust Mirabella—a woman you don’t even know—enough to put your life in her hands, but me—the girl you’ve known for years and are in love with—you won’t even let me be in the same room during the spell?”

“It’s not that simple and you know it.”

“No. What I know is you don’t want me here. After all we’ve been through, you’re telling me to walk away when I think you might be in danger. You’re asking the impossible of me.”

“Can you honestly say you won’t interfere if things get bad?” Of course now he chose to look me in the eyes.

I didn’t have an answer. Not one he’d accept, anyway.

“I’m asking you to trust me.”

“No. You’re asking me to trust
her
, and I can’t.”

“Then I need you to go.” There, he’d said it. I turned and walked away before the tears fell from my eyes.

29

I
WENT
upstairs to my room—no, not
my
room, the room Ethan and I had slept in last night. I sat on the bed and let myself fall backward. Tears streaked my face, falling into my ears, and that pissed me off more. When was the universe going to stop screwing me over? When was it going to realize I needed a break?

“Knock, knock,” Shannon called from the doorway. “Can I come in?”

“You’re talking to me?”

“I never stopped.” She sat on the bed next to me. “Look, I get that you and Ethan are like this ‘so completely in love, practically married’ couple, but I also think that’s what’s clouding your judgment on this one. You can’t see all the good things about Mirabella. You saw something bad in the basement, and your mind jumped to all sorts of crazy, mean things. I get it. Really, I do.”

I doubted that. I’d never seen Shannon date anyone for more than two weeks. She didn’t have deep feelings for anyone but herself. As much as I liked her, I knew that was true.

“Dylan and I think we know what’s going on here.”

“If this is another theory about my jealousy, you can stop right there.”

“No. It’s about Ms. Matthews.”

I sat up on my elbows to see her better. “What about her?”

“We think she and her coven are doing all these things. That they
want to turn you away from Mirabella because they don’t want Ethan to get help. Dylan’s heard of witches who feed on dark magic. Like Mirabella’s mom. We think Ms. Matthews is like that.”

“I guess she could be. It makes sense. A lot of the bad things that have happened were after Ms. Matthews talked to me. She’s got to be mad about us running off. Still…something doesn’t seem right about it.”

“Believe me, I don’t want to think that sexy Mr. Ryan is evil. A bad boy, yes, but not evil.”

“Oh, Shannon, yuck!” I reached for a pillow and smacked her with it.

“Come on! He’s totally hot and you know it.”

“No, I know you’re sick.”

Shannon grabbed the other pillow and fought back.

“Nice!” Dylan said. “I didn’t think girls really did the whole pillow-fight thing. I always thought it was a made-up guy fantasy.”

Shannon and I exchanged a look and attacked Dylan, hitting him over and over with our pillows. He laughed right along with us, and before we knew it, we were on the ground in a heap, out of breath and happy.

“I needed that.”

“I think we all did,” Shannon said, resting her arm on my stomach. I was too tired to care.

“Exactly how did the pillow fight start?” Dylan asked.

“Why?” My breathing was still heavy.

“I want to know for future reference. It was quite amusing to watch.”

Shannon and I reached for the pillows and chucked them at Dylan’s head. We scrambled to our feet before he could retaliate.

“Okay, okay. You guys win.”

“You feeling a little better?” Shannon bumped my shoulder with hers.

“I guess. Ethan did seem better this morning, more in control. We had a really great night, too.”

“We don’t need details,” Dylan said.

“I didn’t mean it like that. We watched
Dark Shadows
and laughed until around five in the morning.”

“Sure you did.” Shannon wagged her eyebrows at me. If only she had a clue how deep my relationship with Ethan actually was.

“Anyway, Mirabella told me more about the spell and why the green snake was there. It makes sense. I still don’t like any of this, but maybe I was overreacting and being a tad overprotective of Ethan.”

“A tad?” Shannon laughed. “Whatever, I’m just glad you’re smiling again.”

“What do we do while Ethan is working with Mirabella?” Dylan asked.

“We could try some other spells together.” Shannon’s face lit up, and I knew exactly what spell she wanted to try.

“Why not?” I shrugged.

“Yes!”

“What?” Dylan asked.

Shannon and I each looped an arm through Dylan’s and led him downstairs. We walked out the front door and to the shed. Dylan squirmed until we let go. “Seriously, what are we going to do? We’ve already been in the shed. There’s nothing there but a dead animal and some rusty tools.”

“Right now that’s all there is.” Shannon smiled, but Dylan still didn’t get it.

“She wants to make it look beautiful like Mirabella did with the cottage.” Even after I spelled it out for him, Dylan still looked confused.

Shannon threw her arms out. “Do you need me to draw you a picture?”

“No, I just don’t get why you want to do this.”

“Why not? Pretty things are nice, and I’m bored.”

“Oh, well, if you’re bored.” Dylan rolled his eyes as if his sarcasm wasn’t enough to get his point across.

Shannon waved her hand. “Whatever, Mr. I-Think-I’m-Better-Than-Everyone-Else.”

“Okay, enough.” I didn’t need any more bickering. This was supposed to be fun. A way to pass the time and keep me from thinking about Ethan and what Mirabella might be doing to him. “Can we do this already?”

“Gladly.” Shannon walked over to the wall of gardening tools and
grabbed a rusty shovel. “Tea, anyone?” She waved her hand over the shovel and it turned into a golden teapot.

“Not bad.” I had to admit I was impressed. “Did Mirabella teach you how to do that?”

“Yeah, last night. So cool, right?”

Except for the Mirabella part. I knew I had to relax. This was all in my head. It had to be. I was the only one who suspected anything fishy here, and Ethan really thought she was helping him. Until I saw otherwise, I was going to have to swallow my pride and go along with this. “Let me try.” I needed something to distract me, keep my mind from racing. I picked up a rake. “What should I make?”

“How about a chair?” Shannon said. “We could use some seats.”

“Why not? Tell me what to do.”

Shannon held my hand over the rake and moved it in a circular motion. “Now think about what you want the rake to become. You don’t have to say anything out loud. That’s the coolest part about the spell. It seems like it would require words, but it doesn’t. Just have a clear image of the chair and the spell will do the rest.”

I thought of the elaborate wing-backed chair my mom had in her study. I’d loved it from the first moment I saw it. But before my magic could work its—well, magic—I thought of Ethan’s ugly brown beanbag chair. The one we’d gotten from his cousin’s storage facility. I really hated the chair, but seeing Ethan lounging in it was the cutest thing. I’d even snuggled up in it with him on more than a few nights. My magic coursed through me, and the rake began to change. First it changed colors, going from blue to brown. Then it widened and the handle shrunk down into a blob. I smiled as the rake became an exact duplicate of Ethan’s beanbag chair.

“Um, ew.” Shannon wrinkled her nose. “Of all the things you could create, you chose that disgusting thing? You couldn’t have made it into a throne with velvet upholstery?”

“I like it.” And I realized that was true. As ugly as it was, it reminded me of Ethan. Ethan before all this dark magic had started. The way I wanted him to be again. Distraction wasn’t working. “I’m going back to the cottage. I can’t get Ethan off my mind.” I walked out of the shed, leaving Shannon to transform the beanbag chair into the throne she wanted.

Dylan followed me out. “That was Ethan’s chair, wasn’t it?”

Of course he knew that. He’d been inside my house numerous times. “He loves it.”

“He’s going to be okay, you know. I get that you don’t trust Mirabella, but I’m proof she knows what she’s doing.”

“I know. I’m trying to get there. Really, I am. But trusting a witch I don’t know isn’t easy for me. The first encounter I’d had with a witch was the spell Nora put on me.”

“And Mirabella hated Nora. That should tell you something.”

It did. “It’s just that after I found out about Ms. Matthews and Mr. Ryan… I can’t get over Mr. Ryan. He seemed so nice. I thought he liked me—as a student, not the way Shannon likes him.”

Dylan laughed. “She’s such a hopeless case.”

“Why do you two fight so much? Is it a schoolyard crush kind of thing? You pick on each other because you secretly like each other?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I’m not Shannon’s type at all, and she had a thing for Ben, so I’d never go there.” No, he wouldn’t after what had happened with Mindy.

“Okay, then what is it?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s that she was fine with following Ben when he was in charge. But after he…” He shook his head. “Well, I guess she wanted to take his place as leader. We’re both kind of alpha personalities, so we clash.”

“Oh, so it’s a ‘who has the bigger bite’ kind of thing.” That certainly did explain a number of their disagreements.

“Yeah. At least we both agree about Mirabella. It’s kind of a miracle.”

“You two will get past this, right? I mean, I’m still new to the coven, but I don’t want either of you to leave. I like you both.”

“I like you, too.” His cheeks reddened, and he looked away.
Oh no, not this again
.

We walked inside, and I headed for the basement, but Ethan was already on his way up. “Hey, I was coming to find you.”

“You’re done already? And you’re not tired?” He looked great. Refreshed, actually.

“Yup, all done, and I feel amazing. Seriously, it’s like I’m the old me again.”

I wrapped my arms around him. “Ethan, that’s great. You have no idea how happy that makes me.” As I squeezed him, Mirabella started up the stairs. She smiled at me. As much as I didn’t trust her, I couldn’t deny she was helping Ethan, and I had to make sure my feelings about her didn’t interfere with that. I let go of Ethan and took a deep breath. “Could I have a minute with Mirabella? I’ll meet you upstairs.”

“Sure, but I’m headed to the kitchen. That spell made me famished.”

I laughed. Yup, that was my Ethan. Always hungry. He kissed my cheek and walked away, leaving me on the top step with Mirabella two steps away. She stopped and faced me with her hands laced in front of her. I wondered where her spell book was. “Mirabella, I want to apologize. I jumped to conclusions about you. It wasn’t fair. You’re obviously helping Ethan, and I’m really grateful for that. So, I’m sorry, and thank you.”