Eugenia’s lips twitched in amusement. Marguerite: so quick to anger, and yet so easily manipulated. Eugenia hadn’t even had to reach into Marguerite’s mind to make her behave. It had only taken words.
Too bad. She enjoyed practicing her gift for mind control and welcomed every chance to hone her skills. She couldn’t yet achieve total control over another person, unfortunately. But she
could
nudge, and implant an impulse. Coupling this with old-fashioned verbal persuasion and Eugenia’s extensive training in psychology, there were few who could resist bending to her will.
When Eugenia at last found the heart of Fortune’s wheel and the Sisterhood’s source of power was unbound, though, she was certain that her powers would be doubled. Trebled, even. With greater power, no one would even think to obstruct her, and she could begin in earnest her work to bring the Sisterhood to eminence. The Sisterhood would become a force to be reckoned with. There were no limits to what they might achieve, or to the influence they might wield. With Eugenia as its leader, the Sisterhood could alter the course of the world itself.
“No one matters,” Eugenia said again, her voice as cold as steel. “No one, except the Dark One.”
CHAPTER
One
OCTOBER 15, OREGON
Caitlyn’s pencil moved over the paper in harsh, rapid dashes. A picture began to emerge: flames, smoke. A face in agony. A stake of wood.
Caitlyn’s breath came in short gasps as her pencil brought the image from last night’s eerie dream to life. She felt the heat of the flames against her own skin, the smoke choking her, her lungs searing as she gasped in great gulps of burning air. Panic flooded her body as she fought against the ropes that bound her to the stake. She was desperate for escape, desperate for someone in the jeering crowd beyond the flames to scream out against the wrong that was being done to her.
“Hey,” a panting male voice said, the sound impinging on the edges of Caitlyn’s awareness. She ignored it and kept drawing.
Caitlyn could feel the thoughts of the woman being burned at the stake.
It was no use. She was not one of them. Always an outsider, she had suffered their fear and their hatred for her her whole life. And now they had finally found a way to be rid of her forever: Witch, they called her.
“Whatcha drawing?” the same male voice asked.
With that one word, they were free to destroy her. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live…
“Yo!” A large pale hand appeared between her face and her art journal, waving back and forth. “You in there?”
The crackling flames of the medieval pyre faded into the squeaking of tennis shoes on the gym floor. Annoyed, Caitlyn Monahan looked up from the journal in her lap, blinking herself back to present reality. Pete Fipps, strands of his dark hair plastered to his temples with sweat, was breathing at her. What did
he
want? Probably to make fun of her, as usual.
“You really like to draw, huh?”
“Yes.” Caitlyn slipped her bookmark—a tarot card of the Wheel of Fortune—into the journal, closed the cover, and pulled it up against her chest. Without her noticing, practice had started for the boys’ varsity basketball team. Caitlyn’s perch at the end of the fifth row of the bleachers was no longer a quiet, private place to wait for her friends Sarah and Jacqui.
“What were you drawing?”
She felt the intrusion of his gaze and was vaguely threatened by his looming closeness. She wished he’d go away. “Nothing.”
“Nothing, huh?”
Caitlyn remained silent, entranced by a big zit on the side of his neck, the red spot brilliant against his pale skin.
“You must have been drawing
something
.”
Caitlyn held the journal more tightly to her chest, her shoulders hunching. “Just… someone I saw in a dream last night.” What gave Pete the right to torment her? Since the start of school a month ago, he’d been sniggering with his friends whenever she walked by. She’d dealt with the jokes for years and didn’t understand why it was suddenly getting worse. Did entering tenth grade automatically up the jerk factor in people?
“Were you drawing a
guy
?” Pete asked, voice leering.
“No, not a guy!” she said, a little loudly. Why was he still talking to her? Some of his friends had stopped tossing balls around and were standing, watching them with grins on their faces, as if waiting for the payoff to a joke. “I was drawing a wise woman, if you have to know.”
“That like a wise guy?” Pete put on a bad New Jersey accent. “You lookin’ at me? You lookin’ at
me
?”
Caitlyn rolled her eyes. “A wise woman was a healer, or midwife. But some people thought they were witches.”
“They burn ’em?”
For a moment, Caitlyn felt herself thrown back into the dream.
Ignorance, all around her, destroying that which it could not understand.
She felt the searing smoke in her throat, squeezing off her air. “Yes,” she coughed.
He snorted. “Guess they should have rethought their choice of careers. Witches! You gotta know the fire’s coming for you, one way or another.”
Anger and loathing welled up inside her, hatred burning in her soul. It had been faces like Pete’s that had laughed from beyond the circle of flames; ignorant minds like his that had destroyed her.
Caitlyn blinked and shook off the thoughts. Where had
that
come from?
“Fipps!” Doug Hansen called from midcourt.
Pete turned just in time to catch a basketball thrown at his head.
“Leave Moan-n-Groan alone and get your butt back on the court!” Doug shouted, making his friends laugh.
Caitlyn winced at the nickname, a play on her last name, Monahan, the taunt a familiar stab to her heart. It’d begun in seventh grade, when she’d started wearing black goth-inspired clothes and had shown her misery on her face. She’d gotten better at hiding her feelings in the three years since then, and had moved on to more colorful vintage clothing from the thrift store, but the nickname had stuck. Only now, boys said it with a raunchy, knowing lilt to their voices.
She looked toward the girls’ locker room door, willing Sarah and Jacqui to appear and rescue her.
Pete gave his friend the finger.
Caitlyn slid the journal into her backpack and started to get up.
Pete grabbed her arm. “Wait!”
She jerked free. “Why?” she asked, cautious.
“I’m having a party tomorrow night; my parents are going out of town. My brother is getting a keg. Wanna come?”
She stared at him, too stunned to think. He was inviting her to a party? That’s why he’d been talking to her?
Pete’s face colored under her surprised gaze, and his hands flew in wild gestures as if to avert a misunderstanding. “With Sarah and Jacqui, I mean! If you guys want to. I’m inviting half the school. I wasn’t inviting
you
in particular.”
The fragile butterfly of flattery that had begun to flutter in her chest was smashed beneath the rubber soles of his shoes. “Of course you didn’t mean me,” she said flatly, embarrassed to have misunderstood. She knew better than to let down her guard with guys like Pete; she
knew
better! All they ever wanted was to make fun of her. “Why would you invite Moan-n-Groan anywhere? You wouldn’t be caught dead with me.”
Pete’s pink cheeks turned scarlet, the red seeping up his forehead. “Caitlyn, I—”
“Gotta go,” Caitlyn said, grabbing her backpack and heading to the end of the bleacher row. “I wouldn’t want to hang around and let people get the wrong impression!” She jumped off the end of the bleachers just as Sarah and Jacqui came out of the locker room, and jogged over to meet them. Caitlyn looped her arm in Sarah’s and dragged her out of the gym, Jacqui trotting to keep up. Wolf whistles and laughter followed them.
“What was that all about?” Sarah asked as they came out into the autumn sunlight and the gym doors clunked shut behind them. Her brown hair fell in thick layers to her shoulders, as glossy and effortlessly stylish as if she’d just stepped out of a shampoo commercial. Her dark brown eyes were wide with questions.
Caitlyn rolled her own pale, sea-green eyes and told them what had happened.
When she finished, Jacqui grabbed her arm, squeezing a little too hard. Her round, freckled face was mottled with excitement. “Pete totally likes you!”
Embarrassed, Caitlyn shook her head. “He doesn’t. He made
that
clear.”
“Oh my gosh, of course he does!” Sarah said, and shook her head. “You are so dense.”
“Am I?” she asked uncertainly, getting her first inkling that she might have just made an ass of herself.
Sarah lightly slapped her on the side of the head. “He asked you to a party. How you managed to read an insult into that, I don’t know.”
“She’s too defensive,” Jacqui said.
Caitlyn’s shoulders sagged. She felt like a fool. Maybe Pete
had
been trying to be nice to her, and she’d gone all wacko on him. “Well, even if he does like me, so what?” she asked, seeking some small measure of dignity. “
I
don’t like
him
.”
“Pete’s a nice guy,” Jacqui said. “You should give him a chance.”
“I don’t have to like a guy just because he likes me,” Caitlyn said.
“But why don’t you like him?” Jacqui asked. “His family’s rich. They own a chain of furniture stores.”
Caitlyn turned a puzzled gaze on her friend. “Furniture is supposed to make me like him?”
“Hey, I’d be happy to marry a guy who owned a chain of furniture stores,” Jacqui said.
“We’re in tenth grade! Who’s thinking about marriage?” Caitlyn cried.
“No one with any brains,” Sarah said dryly. Sarah’s parents had separated early in the summer, sending shock waves through Sarah’s life.
Jacqui shrugged. “So forget marriage. But you want a boyfriend, don’t you, Caitlyn? Everyone
normal
does. Why not Pete?”
“He’s not my type.”
Jacqui laughed. “You don’t
have
a type. I can’t remember the last time you talked about someone you thought was cute. You don’t like
any
guys. You don’t think anyone’s good enough for you.”
“That’s not true,” Caitlyn said. “I just don’t like any of the guys
here
.”
Sarah blew out an exasperated breath. “They’re all the same, wherever you go. You’re an idiot if you think otherwise.”
They walked a bit in silence, and Caitlyn felt her own confusion about why Pete Fipps and guys like him were so lacking in her eyes. Why couldn’t she like him?
“It’s not that I think the guys in Spring Creek are
bad
,” Caitlyn mused aloud. “It’s just that I keep feeling that out there, somewhere, there’s someone better. Someone who will understand me. Someone who
gets
me.”
“You think you’re so special that no one here can understand you?” Jacqui asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Not special. ‘Freakish’ is more like it,” Caitlyn said glumly.
“You’re not a freak,” Sarah insisted, but her words carried no conviction.
“Yes, I am,” Caitlyn mumbled. “You two both know it.”
Jacqui grinned and held up her thumb and forefinger, pinching a half inch of space. “Well, maybe you’re a
leettle
freaky. But we put up with you anyway.”
“Great. Thanks.” Caitlyn subsided into silence. They weren’t going to understand.
She barely understood, herself. For as long as she could remember, she had felt certain that her future boyfriend was far from rural Oregon and her present life, thousands of miles away, living a life completely different from her humdrum one here. This unknown guy was her soul mate, and someday, when she least expected it, they’d find each other. It would be love at first sight, because they would have been seeking each other for all their lives.
Foolishly romantic, yeah, sure, maybe; but she’d rather have dreams of Prince Charming than the reality of Mr. Wrong.
The three of them walked home to their neighborhood, Caitlyn listening with half an ear as her two friends started gossiping about other members of the drill team. It was juicy stuff and should have been interesting: two members of the drill team had been caught smoking and were now in danger of being dropped from the team. Meetings were being held, the principal was involved, parents were in an uproar. Everyone was talking about it. Everyone cared.
Except Caitlyn. High school dating, drill team, school spirit—it all seemed silly to her. Why did it feel like high school was crushing her soul? She had nothing concrete she could point to. All she knew was that she didn’t belong here.
She preferred old, used clothes to new ones; her iPod was full of classical music; and photos of castles and reproductions of old European art covered her bedroom walls, including a Renaissance painting of a young girl in white, named Bia. It should have been pop singers on her wall, or movie stars.