Mom.
With the new job, Kia wasn't going to be able to go to the hospital after school anymore. She might even have weekend shifts. Maybe Carol was kind of right: it'd be tough to squeeze everything in. But Kia could find a way, she was sure. Staying busy wasn't a bad thing, anyway.
And if Carol was worried that being friends with Hecate and working with her at NightTimes was going to interfere with Kia's friendship with her and Aaron, Kia could work that out too. But if it was disapproval of the whole vampire thing... that was trickier. Because if Carol didn't approve of Hecate, she didn't approve of Kia either.
Kia decided to call Aaron to let him know she could come over. She set it up so that they'd meet after her dad came home, packed, and split for the shuttle plane.
“Hello, hello and help me,” Aaron greeted Kia at the front door. His baby sister clung to his calf. He lifted his foot; she giggled and rose a few inches from the floor but didn't release him. “I've grown an appendage.” He bent over, grabbed Miranda by the waist, and carried her over to the playpen. “My parents are out. Maybe we can use her in the ritual.”
“Ritual sacrifice?” Carol asked, coming out of Aaron's bedroom. “Or as a ritual snack?”
Kia snorted. “And you tell me the vampires are too hard-core?”
Carol raised an eyebrow. “Uh, Kia? I was joking?”
“I hear you were out with the undead again last night,” Aaron said, dropping some toys into Miranda's playpen.
So they'd been talking about her. “I felt undead this morning.”
“Hence the absence.”
Kia nodded. “I wasn't lying,” she said with a smile. “I felt terrible. I'm fine now, though. Did Carol tell you about my cool new job?” She grabbed a stuffed elephant and tossed it into the playpen.
“At a store, right?” Aaron sighed. “Retail therapy that pays you. Sounds good to me.”
“Carol doesn't agree with you,” Kia said, noting Carol's frown.
“I just think... whatever.”
Kia didn't push Carol to elaborate. Whatever she was going to say, Kia really didn't want to hear, anyway.
“What's the story with you and Virgil?” Carol asked instead. “He asked me today if you were all right.”
Kia frowned. Maybe he wasn't as mad as he had seemed in school yesterday. “He's got some weird idea that he's supposed to, I don't know,
help
me or something,” she said.
“I think he's into you,” Aaron told Kia. “I've always thought that. And then when he started giving you those CDs, I knew for sure.”
“Nah, it's not like that,” Kia insisted. “The one time I thought maybe we were kind of on a date, I was wrong. Way wrong.”
Carol put her hands on her hips and scanned the area. “Do we need all those candles and thingies again?”
“Definitely thingies,” Aaron said. He went around the room setting things up.
With Aaron leading the way, they went through the same words and actions as they had the last time. Once they were sitting in the circle, they looked at each other. Kia giggled. “Sorry,” she said. “I just don't know what we're supposed to do.”
“Well, I do,” Aaron announced. “I want to do a love spell. I am seriously crushed on that guy from the equinox ceremony.”
“Elf Boy,” Kia said.
Aaron cocked his head. “I think I'll call him by his real name. Otherwise I might wind up with little gnomes and brownies stalking me.”
Carol nodded. “From what I've read, you've got to be really specific for spells to work correctly.”
Aaron's eyes widened. “Okay, now I'm nervous. What if I mess up a spell and it has the opposite effect? Or it makes the wrong person fall for me? Or I fall for the wrong person?”
“That sounds like most romance,” Kia said. “All those Mr. Wrongs.”
“Let's just give it a try,” Carol said.
Kia watched curiously as Aaron got his materials togetherâa pink candle and an orange candle. A seashell, some lavender, and a rose.
“I call upon earth, air, fire, and water to draw to me the one I want,” Aaron declared. “I light a pink candle for romance and an orange candle for communication.” He lit the candles, then rubbed the lavender between his fingers, releasing a soft scent. He dropped it into the seashell, then plucked the petals from the rose and added them to the lavender. “I offer lavender and rose petals to the goddess Venus to help me to win Elf Boyâ”
Kia snorted.
Aaron glared at Kia. She covered her mouth.
“I mean
Michael Feinburg's
attention and affections. As I say it, so it is.”
He blew out the candles. Kia watched the trails of smoke rise into the air and vanish, supposedly the method of transport for Aaron's wish.
Aaron rocked back on his heels. “That felt good.” He turned to Carol. “Next?”
Carol lit the orange candle. “I call upon earth, air, fire, and water to open the lines of communication between my brother and my parents.”
Kia glanced at Carol. Her voice was shaky and her eyes were shiny.
“And if that's too much to ask ...” Carol took in a sharp breath. “Then please have Roger get in touch with me. I just want to ...” She paused a minute and swallowed. “I want to talk to him.” Her shoulders slumped.
Aaron reached out and took Carol's hand. She didn't look at him; she just stared at the orange candle. “As I will it, so it will be.” She blew out the candle.
They sat quietly for a moment. Kia sensed the sadness in Carol and wasn't sure what to do. Roger was either going to get in touch or he wasn't: he was either okay or wasn't. But at least from what they knew, he was doing fine. He just was doing it far away and on his own terms. Roger had made a choice. The great big world versus his continually pressuring family. Kia knew which she would choose.
Carol blinked a few times, then looked at Kia. “What do you want to do?”
Kia pursed her lips as she contemplated the candles. “Nothing.”
“You don't want to do a spell?” Aaron asked.
“I just ...” Kia shrugged. “I just don't feel it is all. Now that we're doing it, it seems... silly.”
Carol bristled. “Silly?”
“Nothing personal. I mean, it's cool with me if you guys are into this magic stuff.”
“It's not any sillier than people dressing up and pretending to be vampires,” Carol said.
“That's different,” Kia protested, not wanting to get into it.
“How?” Carol asked.
Kia ran her hands through her hair, tugging at a snarl. Why was Carol pushing this? “Because ... I don't ... Because it is.”
Carol rolled her eyes.
Miranda started to whine, and Aaron decided it was time to close the circle. The air seemed charged, and things felt prickly between her and Carol, so Kia figured the best thing to do was get out of there.
As she walked home, Kia couldn't get Carol's words out of her head. As much as she hated to admit it, Carol had a point. Why would someone dress up like an undead creatureâand not just for Halloween?
Vampires weren't real... were they?
She hopped on the crosstown bus and found a seat. Wouldn't it be cool if there really were such creatures, though? To be such a creature?
To fear nothing, to live forever, to not worry about mundane things like school, and grades, or even death. Just pleasure, and going after what you wanted no holds barred; just experiencing the blood in your veins and the blood of another.
Blood is life, so of course the undead crave it.
She glanced down at her arms, visualizing the fading tracks underneath her long sleeves, less than a week old. She shut her eyes and didn't open them again until she was facing out the window. The tip of the Metropolitan Museum of Art appeared through the trees as the bus emerged on the East Side.
In medieval times, maybe even later, people believed they could be cured by bloodletting. Was that what she was doing when she cut herself?
Vampires went after other people's blood; they didn't spill their own. Kia smirked. Maybe that's what she ought to be doingâinstead of releasing her own blood, her own essence and life energy, she should be drinking in the blood of others.
The thought traveled through Kia like a cold chill, snapping her out of her slouch.
Maybe a vampire wasn't some kind of supernatural creature but a human with the desire for blood. By the time she reached her stop, Kia wasn't sure if she was scared or exhilarated by the idea.
EIGHT
I
t worked!” Aaron grabbed Kia in a bear hug and squeezed. The difference in their heights meant that her nose was crushed into his skinny chest. She wriggled out of his grip and stumbled backward.
“What worked?” she asked. She gazed up into his beaming face. She couldn't remember seeing him smile so hugely since before the acne invasion last summer.
He beamed back at her. “The spell.”
Kia glanced around self-consciously, seeing if anyone had heard Aaron.
“What do you mean?” she whispered. They headed into school.
“He e-mailed me last night. After you left. After the spell. We're going to hang out this weekend!”
“That's great!” Kia said, stunned.
“It's proof that magic works,” Aaron said. “Since we both know it couldn't have been my good looks alone that grabbed him.”
Kia looked down at her shoes, embarrassed by how close to her own thoughts Aaron's self-deprecating comment was. Then she looked up and smiled. “Maybe so,” she said, “but it will be your charm that hooks him.”
Aaron laughed. “Later,” he said. “I'm going to float off to class now and fantasize till Saturday.”
“Have fun,” Kia said. She watched him lope through the hallway, dodging students.
Huh,
she thought.
Aaron dating. Weird.
She was genuinely happy for him, but Aaron had never dated anyone. He'd always been Kia and Carol's main companion. She wondered what it would be like if Aaron and Elf Boy got serious.
At lunch Kia moved her tray through the line and then found her friends at a table near the windows.
Carol glanced up and then looked back down at her smoothie. She seemed to be concentrating on stirring it very carefully with her straw. “So I guess Aaron told you about his weekend plans?”
Kia slid into the chair opposite Aaron. “He sure did.”
Carol looked up at her, her blue eyes challenging. “So now do you believe that magic is possible?”
“Do you?” Kia hadn't realized that Carol was taking this all so seriously.
“I do,” Aaron said, with a firm nod. “Why else would he e-mail me?”
“Maybe he likes you all on his own,” Kia suggested.
“I'm keeping an open mind,” Carol declared. “Maybe it's for real, maybe it isn't. We have to keep working at it. We start with the hypothesis and then test it. Verify it through repeated experiments.”
Kia unwrapped a granola bar. “I didn't think your mind was so open at the vampire club.”
“That's not the same thing.”
“Yeah? Why not?”
“Those are freaks dressing up and working out some deep dark secret inner weirdness.”
Kia's jaw hardened. “So I guess I've got some deep dark inner weirdness going on. That's why I like the clothes Hecate picked out for me. Why I like the dancing. And the guys I met there.”
“That's not what I'm saying,” Carol protested.
“Hey, all of our weirdness is right on the surface,” Aaron jumped in. “Nothing inner. Nothing deep and dark. Just right out front wacko.”
Kia's eyes involuntarily flicked to her long sleeves.
“And hold on, you met guys there?” Aaron asked. “With fangs?”
“Some.” Kia didn't want to get into it. Not when Carol had made her disapproval so clear.
“So when does your job start?” Aaron asked.
“Today,” Kia replied. “So if you need any warlock drag, I bet I can find you something there.”
“She's working from four to ten during the week,” Carol said, tapping the end of her straw. “Will you be working weekends too?”
Kia felt as if she were being interrogated for a crime. “I don't know yet. The schedule is going to get worked out today. But yeah, probably.” She crunched her granola bar. The dry crumbs made her cough and she quickly opened her bottled water and took a swig.
“She hasn't asked her dad,” Carol added.
“Do you think he'll be pissed?” Aaron asked.
Kia wiped her mouth with her napkin. “Why would he be?” she snapped. “Carol's the only one who seems to have a problem with it. Most parents
want
their kids to get jobs.”
“Maybe...” Carol mumbled.
Kia stared at her, then down at the lipstick-smeared napkin. She smoothed it with her fingers, trying to restore its original perfectly square shape.
“How about your mom?” Aaron asked. “What does she think?”
Now Kia felt a pang. This job
was
going to interfere with visitsâthat part was true and the only part that made Carol's objections have any sting.
“I haven't told her yet. I want to see if I last the first shift,” Kia said, folding the napkin in half.
“You'll be great,” Aaron assured her.
“Yeah?” Kia smirked at him. “Seeing as I've had no job experience, what would make you think that?”
“Because when you do something, you do it full-on,” Aaron said. “You've always been that way. Once you're in, you're in all the way.” He shrugged. “If you like this job, you'll be taking over the store in no time!”