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“You make it sound too easy.”

I looked at Jennifer.
 
“You’re right, but that’s essentially how it will go down.
 
And, no, it won’t be easy.
 
None of this will.
 
They’re powerful.”

She held out her hands.
 
“So, what happens if we’re in class and a witch comes for us then?
 
You’re just going to magically appear next to me with a gun and a machete?
 
That would freak out the school.”

“I have a way of making people forget certain things they’ve seen.”

“You can erase their memory?”

“I can leave out certain parts, yes.”

“All of this is starting to freak me out.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“What if we’re separated and a witch comes for each of us at the same time?” Alex asked.

“Then I teleport you both next to me.
 
I’ll give you your guns.
 
The witches likely will come.
 
When they do, shoot them in the head.
 
Then I’ll do my part.
 
Dead witches at our feet.”

I saw the worry on their faces.

“It’s the best I can do, guys.
 
And it might not even happen.
 
This is just a precaution.
 
We have to have a precaution.”

“Is this going to go on forever?
 
Will it stop?”

I told them about Anna and the man who was her master.
 
“It’ll probably end if I can somehow kill her.
 
At that point, he’ll lose a major force in his coven, somebody who can’t be replaced.
 
And his coven will weaken because of it.
 
If I kill her, he’ll also know I’m a force.
 
He’ll question whether I’m as powerful as he.”

“What if he still decides to come?”

“Jim and I don’t think he will.
 
We don’t think he’ll risk his life for the amulets.”

“But what if he does?”

“Then I guess I’m going to have to take him down, too.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

When they left, I fixed myself a quick dinner of chicken and roasted potatoes and sat down in the living room to eat while watching the news.
 
As expected, the top story was about the three young ladies who spontaneously combusted in Mrs. Pearson’s Latin class.
 

Naturally, I wanted to see how the media handled this baby, so I listened.

The three girls were triplets.
 
They were new to the school that day.
 
They were charming, beautiful, intelligent.
 
But for reasons no one can explain, they seemed to become electrocuted in their seats, they caught fire and then, after the fire was put out with an extinguisher, they burst into clouds of smoke, which caused many to choke and vomit at the sight.
 
All were so traumatized, they were sent home to be consoled by their parents.
 

What remains mysterious is that the triplets’ parents haven’t come forward.
 
Why?
 
Because apparently no parents exist.
 
The police can’t find anyone associated with the girls, the address school officials were given when they enrolled turned out to be bogus, so now the police are investigating whether the young women had extended families.
 

So far, no luck.
 

As I listened to Principal Roberts explain away yet another bizarre situation that had occurred at her school, my mind lingered on the reporter’s words—they turned to clouds of smoke.
 
That’s right
, I thought.
 
And when they did, that smoke became storm clouds as came after Jim and me.

I didn’t want to think about them anymore.
 
I was exhausted worrying about them and what they had in mind next.
 
I cleaned up the kitchen, went into my bedroom to change into shorts and a T-shirt, and when I did, I caught a glimpse of the photo of my parents on my bedside table.
 
Looking at them, it occurred to me that I had yet to deal with their deaths.
 
I’d been on autopilot since they were murdered.
 
I’d yet to truly feel their loss and grieve it.

I went over to the bed, sat down and picked up the frame.
 

Our relationship was never perfect, but it wasn’t always bad.
 
Sometimes, it actually came close to being normal, whatever normal was, especially when each had their jobs and money was less of an issue.
 

When they were working, the situation at home was okay.
 
There’d be the occasional joke at the dinner table.
 
The mood wasn’t tense.
 
For the most part, my father was civil to me.
 
But even so, I couldn’t recall a moment in my life when I didn’t feel as if I wasn’t a disappointment to them.
 

They knew about my reputation in school.
 
Unless they were blinded by their love for me, which they weren’t, they could see what I looked like.
 
They heard the jeers that were hurled at me while I waited for the school bus.
 
They knew I had no friends.
 
I was their child—a product of their genes—and there were times, especially when they lost their jobs and the drinking began in earnest, that I knew what they saw in me was their greatest failure.
 

Why couldn’t I cry for them?
 
I missed them and I loved them, but our relationship was so complicated and abusive toward the end, I felt as empty as I was angry that they’d been taken from me.
 
I’d finish off Hastings, Maxwell and Stewart, because at the very least, my parents deserved that from me.
 
But I wasn’t even close to facing what their deaths fully meant to me.
 
Much of it still seemed unreal.

Would we have had a better relationship as they years went on?
 
On our final night together, when Mom announced that she got her old job back, things seemed better.
 
But how long would that have lasted?
 
My father wouldn’t have quit drinking just because my mother was working, though I felt my mother might have quit.
 
Sure, my Dad and I played a video game that night because a part of him was relieved that at least one of them was getting back on their feet.
 
But he was nothing if not complex.
 
If he hadn’t found work soon, he only would have become jealous of her.
 
And what then?

I looked at them standing together in our backyard, his arm around her waist, each smiling at the camera because that’s what you did when someone took your picture, and I knew that the rest of my life would be filled with an ongoing unknowing.
 
Their deaths hadn’t ended my conflicted feelings for them.
 
Instead, it had only heightened them because now I’d never know if one day we could have turned it around and made our lives work together.
 
It was as if I was in a kind of parental purgatory.

I put down the photograph and looked at my watch.
 
It was a little past six and soon the sun would set.
 
I thought of Hastings, Maxwell and Stewart.
 
Three people still walking free for what they’d done.

I tapped into the amulets and saw Hastings and Stewart playing catch in Broadway Park.
 
Even though Hastings still wore a cast from breaking his hand when he punched my pinky in the woods, he was such a gifted athlete, he still was able to make it all look effortless, regardless of the cast.
 
His skills were ridiculous.
 
I couldn’t even catch a ball let alone throw one.
 
Yet there he was, the glove on his healing hand, while he wound up the other and threw the ball to Stewart.

I searched for Maxwell and saw him in his bedroom at home.
 
He was at his desk, but he wasn’t studying.
 
Instead, he was on his computer watching Internet porn.
 
I took a closer look and saw that his shorts were around his ankles and that he was doing things that presumably could grow hair on your palms.
 
His face was all twisted and sweaty.
 
He looked angry and intense.

He had one of the new iMacs.
 
I looked up and saw the tiny camera encased at the very top of it.
 
I had an impulse to turn it on and capture everything for a Facebook video, but after what I’d done on YouTube with Ginny Gibson’s spanking video with her step-father, that felt like old hat.
 

Let her be the salacious video star.

What wasn’t old hat was the fact that I could have his parents walk in on him at the most embarrassing possible moment.

So that’s what I did, just for the hell of it.
 
I imagined them coming to Maxwell’s locked bedroom door, which now was curiously unlocked.
 
His father gave a quick knock before he and his wife walked inside.
 
And when they did, I saw the horrified looks on their faces.
 
Their son was leaning back in his chair and enthusiastically doing things that no parent ever wants to see their son do.
 

His mother caught her breath at the sight of it and looked away.
 
His father told him to pull up his shorts—now.
 
But even though he was startled and humiliated by their presence and what they were witnessing, Maxwell was at the point of no return.
 
He arched his head back, writhed in the chair and after a little yelp from the bottom of his gut, his body betrayed him in ways that he and his mortified parents never would forget.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Next day, when I drove into the school parking lot, I decided that the humiliation I put Maxwell through the night before with his parents and yesterday afternoon in gym class, when I beat his ass on the rope, the rings and the long jump, was about to end with a bang today.

After thinking about my parents last night, they were with me now more than ever.
 
I had to see all of this through for them.
 
He was going down.
 

I pulled into the parking lot and cut through the gossiping masses, which were talking about if anyone saw the three girls combust in Mrs. Pearson’s class and, if they did, what was it like?
 
I heard all sorts of descriptions, some of them accurate, others wildly inaccurate.
 
It was everything you’d expect.
 

I saw Jennifer ahead of me and jogged by her side.

“Bonjour,” I said.

“We’re not in Provence.”

“We could be.”

“With guns and witches?”

“That sounds like a rock band.”

She gave me a look that suggested she was having none of it.

“I’m sorry about this, Jennifer.”

“It’s not your fault.
 
We’re just going to have to deal with it.”
 
She nodded toward my throat.
 
“Are those things hot?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s a plus.”

We approached the school’s massive twin doors, which were open.
 
I let her pass and we started for our lockers.
 
“Can I ask you something?” I said.

She looked up at me.
 
“You know you can ask me anything.”

We’ll see.
 
“Would you like to see a movie with me sometime?”

That stopped her cold.
 
“A movie?”

“Maybe even have dinner?”

“Are you asking me out on a date?”

“We can call it whatever you like.”

“Dinner and a movie sounds like a date to me.”

“Okay, so it’s a date.”

She started walking again.
 
I joined her.
 
“What would Alex think?”

“Why does Alex matter?”

“Because it’s already like I’m one of the boys,” she said.
 

“You’re so not one of the boys.”

She smiled at that.
 
“I just don’t want to ruin what we three have.”

“I don’t see how us having dinner and seeing a movie could jeopardize that.
 
It’s just a date.”
 
We stopped at her locker and I mustered every bit of courage I had in me.
 
“You know I like you, Jennifer.”

“I know you do, Seth.”

“I think you feel the same way.”

She entered the combination and swung open the door.
 
She put in books and pulled out books.
 
She didn’t answer.

“Am I wrong?”

“No.”
 
She shut the door.
 
“But things already are complicated.
 
We need to be focused.
 
If I went out on a date with you and we had a good time, which I’m pretty sure we would, I’d be distracted.
 
I’d probably be doing one of those stupid girl things and start daydreaming about you.
 
Or, God forbid, writing your name in one of my notebooks.”

“Actually, I don’t see you doing the latter.”

“Actually, me neither.”

“But is the first thing so bad?”

She turned to look up at me.
 
I’d never gone this far with any girl and I could sense the whole situation collapsing in front of me.
 
I was still kind of shocked that I’d even asked her out on a date, which was done purely on impulse.
 
But if I ever was going to change my life, it was going to have to be me doing the changing, regardless of the outcome.

“I can’t go out on a date with you, Seth.
 
At least not yet.
 
Once everything is over, that’s different.
 
Then, I’d love to go out on a date with you.
 
I’d love to have the luxury to daydream about you.
 
But right now?
 
That can’t happen.
 
Right now, we need to watch our asses and get through this.”

“Just so I’m clear.
 
It’s the witches, not me.”

She laughed.
 
And then she did something unexpected.
 
She stood on her tip toes, grabbed one of my hands to steady herself and kissed me lightly on the lips.
 
I felt a rush race through my body.
 
I was eighteen years old and that was the first time I’d ever been kissed by a girl.
 
I just looked at her, stunned.

“Let’s get this Anna person,” she said.
 
“And whoever the hell else she brings with her.
 
Then let’s talk about that date.”
 
She squeezed my hand.
 
“And maybe even the ones that come after it.”

*
  
*
  
*

“You did what?”
 

It was Alex.
 
We were in homeroom.
 
I’d just broke the news to him.
 
He was sitting around in his seat and we were talking in a whisper.

“I asked Jennifer out on a date.”

“You’re kidding me.
 
What did she say?”

“Not until we deal with Anna and her posse.
 
Then, when we’re focused on nothing else but us, we can have a date.
 
Maybe another.”

“Holy shit.
 
I didn’t even know you were into her.”

“Are you angry?”

“About what?”

“I wasn’t sure if you were interested in her.”

He held up his hands.
 
“Look,” he said.
 
“I love Jennifer—but only like a sister.
 
Hands down, she’s also one of the hottest girls in this school.
 
She’s got it all.
 
But she’s my friend.”
 
He paused and appeared to make a decision.
 
“And there’s something else you need to know, but don’t freak out when I tell you.
 
Okay?”

“Okay.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“I’m gay.”

“You’re what?”

“Gay.
 
And please don’t tell me you have a problem with gay people, or I’ve totally misjudged you.”

“I don’t,” I said—and it was the truth.
 
I didn’t.
 
“But I had no idea.
 
I never would have guessed.”

“My private life is my private life.
 
You don’t hear people going around saying, ‘I’m straight.’
 
Why should I announce my sexuality to the world as if the world deserves to know?
 
I tell my closest friends because I want them to know all of me.
 
I want to be honest with them.
 
It’s time you know.
 
Same with Jennifer, who I’ll tell later.”
 
He paused and looked hard at me.
 
“So, you don’t care?”

“Why would I care?
 
Alex, you’re like a brother to me just like Jennifer is like a sister to you.
 
You’re my best friend.”
 
I looked at him.
 
“I can’t believe you’re gay.”

“Why?
 
Because I don’t
seem
gay?”

I hated to admit it, but he was right.
 
I nodded.

“Look,” he said.
 
“I know you’re from a small town.
 
I know you haven’t gotten out, seen the world, met different people.
 
I’ll forgive you for that.
 
But where I come from, sure, you’ve got your stereotypes and then you’ve got a lot more people like me.
 
Regular guys who just happen to like the same.
 
You should meet some of my New York friends.
 
You’d be surprised.”

“Have you ever been in a relationship?”

“No.
 
But I want to be in one.”

“So, we’re in the same boat.”

“Looks that way.”

A silence passed while we reflected on that.

“Thanks for telling me,” I said.

“Thanks for not freaking out.
 
What do you think Jennifer will say when I tell her?”

“Jennifer?
 
Please.
 
She’s an over-achiever.
 
You’ll have a boyfriend by the end of the month.”

He turned around and I sat there, trying to process the situation.
 
Turns out that moment was just the beginning of one of the wildest days of my life.