Читать книгу Spellcaster - Cara Shultz Lynn - Страница 8

Chapter 2

“Emma dear, is something wrong? You’re being awfully quiet tonight.”

I looked up from my barely eaten plate of take-out eggplant rollatini to see my aunt Christine frowning at me with a concerned look on her face.

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine,” I fibbed, shoveling a big bite of mozzarella and eggplant into my mouth so I wouldn’t have to talk. “I’m just tired.” Tired of feeling like I’ve got the Sword of Damocles dangling over my head.

I peered up cautiously. Given the turn my life had taken, I half expected to see the mythical sword hanging over my aunt’s kitchen table, right next to her Waterford chandelier.

“Is everything going well at school?” Aunt Christine asked, expertly twirling a forkful of spaghetti with garlic and oil.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. The teachers are just really slamming us with homework before spring break,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant as I reached for a piece of garlic bread. Maybe if I stuffed my face she’d buy it. I hated lying to Aunt Christine, but there was no way I could explain that I’d just performed a spell that said I was in terrible danger. Again. Aunt Christine didn’t know about the magical side of my life—she just thought Brendan and I were a little (okay, a lot) too serious for our age.

“Dear, if that part-time job at the library is too much to handle—”

“Oh, no, it’s nothing like that,” I interrupted, nearly spitting out garlicky bread crumbs. I wiped my mouth hurriedly and swallowed loudly. Jeez, Emma, eat like a grizzly bear much? I wiped my mouth a little more daintily and took a drink of water.

“Seriously, all I do is put away books, make sure the computers are turned off. Most of the time I’m just in there alone doing homework, listening to my iPod.”

I couldn’t give up that job. I’d lost my mom, lost my twin brother and was left with nothing but my boozed-up stepfather, until my godmother, Aunt Christine, had taken me in last summer after Henry nearly killed me with his DUI driving skills—the accident that left me with a pretty nasty scar on my arm. Christine paid for my tuition at the insanely expensive private school, offered—insisted, actually—to pay for college and didn’t ask for a thing in return. Aunt Christine had rescued me, and claimed my happiness was reward enough. I already felt guilty about how much she’d done for me, and I only felt worse when I sheepishly asked for spending money. The afterschool job at Vince A’s library was the one thing I got right—at least I didn’t need to pester Christine for spare change.

I dug back into my eggplant, winding a long string of mozzarella around Aunt Christine’s Christofle fork, hoping that was the end of the conversation.

It wasn’t.

“Emma, dear,” my aunt began, taking off her tortoiseshell-framed eyeglasses and setting them down on the pink-flowered tablecloth—a sure sign that she was about to get serious. “Are things going well with you and your beau? Or are your classmates giving you a hard time again?”

I squirmed underneath Aunt Christine’s intense gaze. Sometimes I think her background in New York theater is a ruse, and she really used to work for the CIA, interrogating prisoners. Her gentle cross-examinations are more effective than water-boarding.

“Yes, Brendan’s fine. Better than fine, actually,” I said honestly. Well, that was the truth. “He’s great. I’ve just got a lot of homework and projects and stuff. Otherwise, school is great.” That part was a big, fat lie. Vince A’s hallways were riddled with so many social land mines it was impossible to make it through the day without a few blowing up in your face.

Still, I smiled winningly, and it seemed to satisfy Christine.

“Well, dear, the weather should be getting nice soon, so you should be able to go jogging again. I know how much you like that. Maybe that will help with some of the stress.”

I nodded in agreement. Kickboxing was fun, but you were always surrounded by so many people. There was something about being alone, with your headphones, just working through your thoughts. And I hadn’t exactly been able to go running with ice on the ground. I’d seen some fanatics jogging through the streets in the snow, and had no idea how they managed to keep from slipping all over the place. But then a darker thought crept into my head—there was some kind of unseen danger lurking out there. Suddenly jogging alone in the park seemed like a very stupid thing for me to do. I kept my smile frozen on my face as my aunt continued talking.

“Don’t stay up too late studying,” she said, polishing off the rest of her spaghetti. “You’re going to be traipsing all over the Cloisters tomorrow, so you’ll want to be awake.”

I smiled and nodded, and went back to picking at my eggplant while Christine got up and walked over to the counter to make a martini—her nightly ritual in honor of her late husband, George. Flamboyant and more than a little dramatic, my theater veteran aunt and uncle used to toast each other every night. After his death, Christine continued that ritual, making two martinis and drinking just the one. (Except on Saturday, when she drank both.) I watched her make the martinis—a ritual I always used to think was sweet—and it now struck me as overbearingly sad. Aunt Christine had lost Uncle George. I had lost my mom and my twin brother within a year of each other. And who knew where the hell my father had gone after he abandoned us when Ethan and I were just kids. My family didn’t have an excellent track record of holding on to the ones we loved. Brendan and I may have broken the original curse, but that didn’t mean we still weren’t doomed. Christine had lost her soul mate, no curse required. What could this dark spell herald for us?

I felt a pang of guilt when I thought of Brendan—I’d texted him that I’d made it home, but used the old homework-and-dinner-with-my-aunt excuse to get out of a phone call. I knew if I called him, I’d tell him about the spell, and I’d end up freaking out…and he’d sneak out later to see me. Like that would go over well with Laura Salinger. Or my aunt, come to think of it.

After clearing the table, I joined Christine on her pink floral couch for the first twenty minutes of the news. But I couldn’t listen to reports on New York’s budget, or the best viewing spots for the upcoming lunar eclipse, or the lighter-side-of-the-news story on the city’s best food trucks. I could feel the stress of the day weighing on me; I excused myself with the same homework line I’d used earlier. I’d barely shut the door to my bedroom when I felt the tears start. I slammed my iPod into its little docking station, turning it on loudly to block out the sounds of my crying and threw myself on my bed, my sobs muffled by my thick purple comforter.

Normally I was the world champion of stuffing my feelings deep down—purely out of survival instinct. I probably would have just curled up into a ball and let the world wash over me if I didn’t find some way to cope—and coping, for me, was to just not think about it. I locked everything away and soldiered on, not letting any cracks show on the surface. But this night, I was too overwhelmed. The cracks showed—Grand Canyon–size cracks—as I let myself feel everything, let the wave of emotion knock me down until I felt like I was drowning. I dwelled on how much I missed my mom, missed Ethan. I wanted my mom to hug me and kiss me on the forehead, to tuck me in with my stuffed puppy doll and tell me everything was going to be okay. I wanted my brother to text me stupid jokes until I felt better. I wanted my family—my whole family. Except my father, he could go to hell for all I cared. But still, I felt the sting of that rejection, and cried again over how hard my mom worked to be both mom and dad to us.

I drowned in every pain, razor-sharp and dull ache, all at the same time, until my chest actually hurt from crying and I was sure my fingers were going to be pruney.

I’d gotten so used to being unhappy, to just functioning, to just getting by. I’d been numb, and been okay with it, until I moved here. And now I felt stupid and ridiculously naive for basking in the untroubled happiness of the past four months. My life wasn’t perfect, but I had friends. My family—what was left of it—loved me. And I was in love. So in love.

But I felt like I would never get the chance to enjoy it.

My phone vibrated on my nightstand, and I grabbed it, finding a text from Brendan. I rubbed my tear-bleary eyes to read it.

I know you’re studying. Just want to say I love you. And you look crazy hot in my sweatshirt. Keep it.

I barked out a little half laugh, half sob at his sweetness, sniffling back my tears as I rolled onto my back. I stared up at the wall my bed was pushed against, my gaze falling on the pictures and mementos I’d taped up like a collage. A picture of my cousin Ashley and me, wearing reindeer antlers at Christmas dinner. A shot of me and Angelique, sitting on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, from my first month at Vince A. A pressed rose from the bouquet Brendan gave me for Valentine’s Day, taped next to a photo booth strip of pictures, mugging for the camera. In the last frame, he has his arms around me, kissing me on the cheek and I’ve got the biggest, most blissed-out grin ever.

I reread his text message, and then wiped my tears on my comforter before jumping off my bed to rifle through the box of limited witch paraphernalia I’d accumulated—some from Angelique, some printouts from research I’d done online. The rest of my homework would have to wait; I had other work to do tonight. Just want to say I love you. It bounced around in my head, reminding me that I deserved to be happy—we both did.

I grabbed one of the textbooks Angelique had given me, flopping onto my bed with it. If something dark and magical was coming after me, then I definitely needed to sharpen my own magical skills.

Crying time was over. Now it was time to prep for battle, because I was not going down without a fight.

I balled up my comforter and rested my head on it as I read the chapter on focusing your emotional energy. I could memorize spells until I knew them better than my own name, but it was no good if I couldn’t focus—and that very focus was the hurdle I couldn’t get over. It was like having a car without knowing how to drive. I reread the chapter a second time, practicing the breathing exercises, which were supposed to help, as almost musical raindrops tinkled against my window, heralding the booming storm that was just a few moments away. A few hours later, I looked at the clock. Thursday had turned to Friday, and I realized that just hours ago my biggest problem was a gaggle of gossipy girls at a bodega, giving me the inquisition because my head-turner of a boyfriend famously rescued me from a psychopathic classmate.

“And that was when things were simple,” I moaned, shutting my eyes and placing the book over my head. Maybe the knowledge will come in through osmosis.

Instead the total darkness and a familiar playlist of songs lulled me into a deep, dead sleep. When I woke up, my alarm had been blaring for a half hour. I’d slept through the night (with the book on my sweaty forehead like a dumbass) but I was entirely unrested. I was crushed—although I had to crack a wry smile over the fact that I was bummed out that a horrific, prophetic nightmare hadn’t forced me to wake up screaming, as it had when meeting Brendan kicked the curse into action. But I’d had no dreams. No signs. Nothing. Whatever this was, I was going to face it alone.

When I got to the bathroom, I stared at myself in shock, before I had to laugh—some of the book’s text had transferred onto my skin. Well, that’s one way to remember how to stay focused—tattoo the instructions on your forehead. I had barely finished scrubbing the last tenacious bits of text off in the shower when I heard my cousin Ashley’s chipper voice in the living room. Ashley was a freshman, and lived close enough to pick me up so we could walk to school together. When I started school in September, Ashley was a tiny little thing—barely over five feet tall—but over the winter she’d had a growth spurt. In a few places. Her uniform skirts were suddenly just a few inches too short—and the third button on her Oxford shirt was definitely holding on for dear life as she finally grew into the family, um, inheritances—but Ashley wasn’t complaining. She was, however, likely to throw her back out, the way she seemed to stand in a permanent state of inhalation to flaunt her new toys.

“Sorry I’m running late, Ash,” I called, pulling on Brendan’s sweatshirt over my white Oxford uniform shirt. If something’s coming for you, might as well look “crazy hot” while you fight it… I fluffed out the ends of my shower-dampened hair, resolving to just let today play out like a normal day—until Angelique and I could figure out what we were dealing with.

“We should take the subway instead of walking, then,” Ashley called back as I stuffed my feet into my Mary Janes and ran into the kitchen to grab a foil-wrapped Pop-Tart package off the counter. I kissed Aunt Christine on her cheek as she sat with her mug of steaming coffee on the floral couch and we headed out the door.

I did my best to push my bleak thoughts out of my head, trying to match Ashley’s signature upbeat tone as we walked to the 6 train stop on Lexington, right outside of Hunter College. It was just a block and a half away from my aunt’s place on Sixty-eighth Street between Park and Madison. As I chewed my raw strawberry Pop-Tart, she chirped about a Battle of the Bands that was being put on by Magel High School, Vincent Academy’s “sister” school over on Sixth-fifth Street. All schools were invited—but neither Brendan nor I had been to any sort of school function since the ill-fated winter formal.

I had just brushed the crumbs from my hands when we arrived at the stop and heard the uptown train coming. We ran to the turnstiles, swiping our MetroCards as quickly as possible before racing down the musty-smelling stairs onto the platform.

Ashley and I had barely squeezed onto the jam-packed train—earning a dirty look from a businessman she accidentally whacked with her overstuffed backpack—before the doors slammed an inch from my shoulder.

“So, anyway, Em. This Battle of the Bands thing. I guess you’re not going, huh?” Ashley sulked, sticking out her bottom lip as she stuffed her MetroCard into the front pocket of her denim jacket, stumbling a little as the train started. “Me, Catharine and Vanessa are all going. There’s going to be a lot of cute guys there. Guys from other schools.” You’d think that guys from other schools rode minotaurs around the city, the way Ashley regarded them. Although given the supernatural turn my life had taken, it was quite possible they did.

“I never get to escape from the Vince A biosphere and meet a guy who isn’t from that damn place.” Ashley stuck her glossy lower lip out in a pout.

“Ash, why are you forcing it?” I asked gently, bracing myself by steadying my palm against the subway doors. “Don’t be in such a rush to get a boyfriend.” My little cousin had a tendency to dive into everything headfirst. Last year, she’d had a crush on Anthony—until he showed his true nature, spreading rumors that they’d slept together. (Thankfully Brendan had jumped in to dispel that nasty lie.) Her experience with Anthony initially made Ashley a little more cautious around guys, but since her growth spurt, she’d bounced back—and up and down—relishing the male attention.

“You got a boyfriend right away,” she pointed out, scrunching up her face in mock annoyance. “You still have the same boyfriend.”

“You weren’t the only one shocked by that.” I mimicked her tone, stepping closer to her as the train stopped at Seventy-seventh Street to make way for people exiting the train. Ashley pressed closer to me, swinging around to face the doors and accidentally whacked the businessman with her bag again.

“Ash, take your bag off,” I whispered, stifling a giggle. “You’re taking out all the commuters.” She rolled her eyes and slid the bag down between her feet, holding the strap tightly.

“You know, Em, you had a boyfriend when you were a freshman at Keansburg High, too,” Ashley reminded me after the train doors slammed shut and the subway started barreling through the tunnel again. Crap. She had me there.

“Yeah but he wasn’t a boyfriend-boyfriend. Matt and I knew each other since we were kids,” I explained about my sweet, if dippy, freshman-year boyfriend. “That was less a real relationship and more friends that made out every now and then.”

“I wouldn’t mind that.” Ashley grinned, leaning against the subway doors with a dreamy look on her face. Uh-oh.

“Just don’t rush into anything, okay?”

“There’s nothing to rush into—not at Vince A, at least. Brendan’s the only good one. The guys at this school are so annoying,” she whined, coiling one of her red ringlets around her finger. “I mean, I guess there are a few cool ones, but it’s a lost cause. It’s embarrassing,” she added softly, “because they all know about the Anthony thing, and all those stupid rumors he spread about me. It would be nice to meet someone who hadn’t heard anything about me.”

I immediately felt guilty for dismissing my cousin’s interests outside Vince A as an overzealous case of the boy crazies. More than anyone, I understood what it was like to be talked about. “I completely understand,” I replied. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s fine, you’re probably right anyway.” She was quiet for a minute then gave me a sideways glance. “You know, you never told me what Brendan said when you asked if he had any hot cousins or friends for me.”

“It’s a dead end, Ash.” I chuckled as I remembered what he said. “I’m paraphrasing here, but the quote was something like, ‘All my friends are a bunch of pirates.’”

“Pirates?”

“Yeah. He said all his friends aren’t worth your time, they’re too shady.”

“Even the basketball team? And how would he know what’s worth my time?” she challenged, raising an eyebrow and adopting a haughty look. “I could be shady!”

Smiling at her indulgently, I shook my head. “Ashley, you’re perpetually sunny, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.” She folded her arms, pouting until the train came to a stop at Eighty-sixth Street. “Pirates. Why can’t you let me be the judge of that?”

I just raised an eyebrow at her—she’d refused to believe my insistence about Anthony’s true character at first—and Ashley relented.

“Fine.” She sulked, and was silent as we joined the crowd of people headed up the stairs to the sidewalk. After we arrived on the sidewalk—and made a quick stop in a deli so I could buy a sandwich to take on the class trip—Ashley turned to me with a glint in her eye.

“Since I clearly have no taste in guys, you two should come with us to the Battle of the Bands tomorrow night, and you can pick out a guy for me.” Ashley gave me a wide, toothy smile and nodded her head eagerly.

“Sorry, but it shouldn’t be a surprise to you that I’m going to be a no-show,” I said, and she frowned at me, fussing with the jeweled clip in her flame-colored curls.

“That’s a pretty clip,” I said, hoping to change the subject from my and Brendan’s avoidance of school functions. Ashley pulled it out of her tangle of curls and gently pushed it in my hands, nearly tripping over her own feet as she walked down the sidewalk.

“Here, you can wear it today,” she huffed as she pulled a black elastic off her wrist and pulled her hair into a messy bun. “My hair’s all frizzy and the clip won’t sit right.”

“Thanks!” I fastened it in the back of my head, putting my hair in a loose updo.

“You look good with your hair up. It’s kind of regal,” she observed, before her lips twisted in a smirk. “You can rip it down and wave your hair around in front of Brendan like a hot librarian or something.”

I rolled my eyes at her. “You watch too much porny late-night TV.”

Ashley ignored my dig. “So what are you guys going to do this weekend, then, since you two are, like, all overdramatic with the ‘Oh, no! No public appearances!’ thing.” Ashley turned her head away from me, throwing her hand across her face overdramatically.

It was my turn to ignore her dig. “No big plans, really. We’re just going to hang out. We’ve spent practically no time together lately. But Brendan’s mom left to meet his dad this morning and we have his house to ourselves.” Brendan had sworn he would cook for me; I had sworn to not snoop around for the cartons of takeout he probably planned on passing off as a home-cooked meal.

“His dad travels a lot, doesn’t he?” Ashley asked, stepping over a large puddle pooling by the crosswalk as we hurried against the light on Park Avenue, and got stuck waiting on the center island in the middle of the two-way road. I explained that Aaron Salinger was overseeing the opening of some resort in South America, and Ashley got a saucy look in her crystal-blue eyes.

“So, does Brendan get that big town house to himself a lot?”

“Well, if his mom’s not there, yes,” I said hesitantly, not quite sure what she was getting at. I hope she doesn’t want to throw a party. “But she’s always either traveling with Brendan’s dad or working on her charity stuff so it’s not like she’s there when Brendan gets home from school. He’s pretty self-sufficient—he’s going to be eighteen next month, remember?” Never mind that Laura Salinger was not the type of woman to have peanut butter crackers and apple juice waiting when her son got home from school anyway.

“So you guys get a lot of alone time, huh?” She wiggled her eyebrows up and down suggestively and I instantly got her hidden meaning.

“Looks like someone put on her pervy pants this morning,” I observed.

“Well, someone else put on her I-don’t-tell-my-cousin-juicy-details pants. And let me tell you, those pants are not a good look on you!”

She gave me a wide-eyed, so-there look, and I couldn’t help but laugh. “C’mon, I don’t have a boyfriend, so I have to live vicariously through you,” Ashley cajoled, tugging at my sweatshirt sleeve. “Give me some details! How did you get him out of this sweatshirt? What else have you gotten off him? I know you said you haven’t gone all the way yet but there’s a lot that happens in between kissing and doing it. Come onnnnnnnn!” She drew the last word out so long I thought she was going to pass out from lack of breath.

“Go watch Cinemax and stop harassing me for dirty details.”

“Come onnnnnnnn!” Ashley repeated as I smirked at her.

“I’m so not talking about this when we’re across the street from school,” I said adamantly as we waited for the Park Avenue light to change. Never mind that there wasn’t much to tell from our four-and-a-half month relationship beyond kissing and some wandering hands. My virginity was still firmly intact. I mulled this over as Ashley pouted, and felt even guiltier not telling Brendan about the spell immediately. Brendan hadn’t once tried to pressure me into anything, respecting my boundaries whenever I put a halt on anything physical—and he had so many notches in his bedpost the damn bed was in danger of falling down.

I sighed, looking up at the entrance to the school as we crossed the street—and spied something that effectively ended the conversation.

“Oh, yeah, I’m definitely not talking about this now,” I said, catching sight of Brendan from the back. He was standing near the bus, wearing an army-green military-style jacket that I didn’t recognize. I was surprised he was waiting outside so late—Ashley and I were cutting it close. I had two morning classes before we were due to leave for the Cloisters.

“Well, let me know if you guys decide to go to that Battle of the Bands thing,” Ashley said, calling out her goodbye as she raced into the ornate entrance of the school. The main building of Vincent Academy was an old mansion that had been converted into a school—and the marble entrance looked less like a high school, more like some posh old billionaire’s home.

I approached Brendan from behind, appreciating the way his black pants hung on him. I pinched his butt before throwing my arms around his waist in a big hug.

“Guess who?” I teased—but Brendan’s body just stiffened. He spun around with a confused expression on his face—which I then realized wasn’t Brendan’s face at all. It was Liam.

“Oh! I’m so sorry! I, um, thought you were Brendan! I mean, obviously, I just… Oh, God. I pinched your butt,” I stammered, embarrassed, to the sophomore I had just accosted in the middle of Eighty-sixth Street. I hadn’t realized that he’d started styling his black hair to resemble Brendan’s messy, very unstyled hair. If I hadn’t been so embarrassed, I’d be collapsing at the adorableness: Brendan—aloof, hotheaded Brendan—had accidentally cultivated a little mini-me.

“Oh, my God, you just startled me,” Liam gasped, his palms up.

“You and Brendan look a lot alike from the back,” I explained, positive my cheeks were about to burst into flames.

“So you were checking out my butt?” Liam said with a smirk and I smacked his arm.

“Your hair, Liam,” I repeated dryly, and he let a nervous laugh escape.

“Hey, at least I get to tell people I got to first base before lunch,” he teased before putting his hands up again in protest. “No, I won’t! I’m kidding. Oh, my God, Brendan would murder me.” His brown eyes widened in terror.

“He probably would,” I agreed, stifling a snicker at Liam’s mini-freak-out—especially since Brendan would probably find the whole thing entertaining. Still, I couldn’t believe I’d pinched his butt. Why don’t you go feel up the black-haired barista at Starbucks next, genius?

“Don’t you usually come with your cousin?” Liam asked, looking around the street.

“She went in—we’re late,” I said, pointing to my wrist as if I had a watch on.

“Oh. Yeah, I should probably get inside,” Liam said, falling into step alongside me as we entered the building. “I have to talk to Coach during my free period this afternoon.” He grimaced.

“Brendan thinks you’ll be fine—and from what I could see, it was a big nothing,” I promised him, and Liam’s worried face relaxed a little. I had to race up the stairs to my history class, with barely enough time to pull my sweatshirt off and slide into my desk before the bell rang. It wasn’t part of the school uniform—and was a surefire ticket to detention. Although you might be safer sanding the pencil grooves in detention than strolling around Manhattan, doomsday girl.

“Cutting it close, Connor,” my friend Jenn Hynes whispered, turning around in her desk in front of me to wink at me as Mrs. Urbealis walked into the room, calling the class to attention. This would be an easy class today—we were watching old news footage of U.S. protests of the Vietnam War. I tried to focus on the grainy black-and-white telecast—sticking to my earlier vow to just treat today like a normal day—but sitting there, with time to think, the spell I’d done with Angelique began rattling around in my head. Finally I resolved to tell Brendan on the bus ride to the Cloisters instead of waiting until school was over. He had a right to know.

I had math immediately after history, so I stayed in my seat and chatted with Jenn as other students filed in. Jenn was a little bleary-eyed from staying out too late last night, and was filling me in on her weekend plans—she was going to crash with her sister at the NYU dorms. Suddenly she stopped talking and grabbed my forearm, twisting around even farther in her seat.

“Call me crazy, but why does it feel like everyone’s whispering and looking at you?” she hissed, pulling her honey-brown hair in front of her face to hide what she was saying. She might as well have cupped her hands around her mouth—she was as obvious as if she’d been doing semaphore.

“Because they usually are,” I replied, nonplussed. I didn’t even bother lowering my voice; it’s not like it was a secret.

“No, I mean—” Jenn flipped her hair back, glanced around then pulled her curtain of hair back “—it’s different this time. It’s not the usual ‘Ooh, there goes Emma, I heard Anthony was in Monaco’ or some crap. They’re really staring and whispering.”

The serious look on Jenn’s face made me pull my eyes from her (slightly bloodshot) ones. I pretended to scratch an itch on my chin, rubbing it on my shoulder as I stole a look around the classroom.

Madison Wefald and Rebecca Curry were speaking in animated, hushed tones. Nicole McAllister leaned so far over in her desk to murmur in Paul Cuevas’s ear, she was practically lying on the top of the desk, her butt sticking in the air and giving Marcus Colby a first-class ticket to Hineytown. And they were all casting furtive glances my way.

“What did you do now?” Jenn asked, her expertly made-up eyes wide. I shrugged, slinking a little lower into my desk self-consciously.

Mr. Agneta, the math teacher, strode into the room and took one look at the chattering students. He grabbed the large wooden compass, which he used to draw arcs on the blackboard, and pressed the chalk end on the board, causing it to screech uncomfortably—and the low buzz of voices stopped. Nicole flopped in her seat, and Marcus visibly frowned at the end of his free show.

“Yes, yes, so exciting. Well, math is exciting, too,” he said, and I knew I wasn’t imagining him shifting his eyes to glance my way. And I definitely didn’t imagine hearing Marcus Colby whisper, “Salinger, really?” to Nicole before bending over in his seat to check out her butt again.

My hand twitched to pull out my cell phone and text Brendan. Immediately the spell Angelique and I did assaulted my mind. What if Brendan was the target, not me? Was he hurt? Sick?

I thought about leaving the classroom to use the bathroom and text Brendan, but the expression on Mr. Agneta’s face every time he scanned the classroom and saw me craning my head to look out the door told me that wasn’t going to fly. I don’t know what I expected to see out there—it’s not like Brendan was going to be holding up a big neon sign in the hallway spelling out what happened. But it was clear that something had happened—something big. I nervously spun the Claddagh ring Brendan had given me around my finger, my stomach twisting into knots like it was trying to win a Boy Scout badge.

At the end of the class, Mr. Agneta screeched the chalk end of the compass against the blackboard again—he just loved doing that—shouting, “Just a reminder, all art history students need to report downstairs for the trip to the Cloisters.”

And then, my fears were confirmed when he looked straight at me. “That means you, too, Miss Connor. The bus leaves in fifteen.”

I grabbed Jenn’s sleeve as I pulled my backpack on.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked her, worried.

“I’ll see what I can find out,” she promised. “Drop your books off and I’ll meet you at the bus.”

I scrambled down the stairs to my basement locker—a chill coming over me as it did every time I stepped into the room where Anthony first confronted me. As a latecomer to the school, my locker was in the highly undesirable, out-of-the-way basement. After last year’s winter formal, the school had tried to find me another locker, but considering the main building was actually an old mansion, it wasn’t exactly built with a locker room in mind. There just weren’t any free ones—even in the annex. And I was not about to take over Anthony’s now-vacant locker. I was way too much of a magical novice to tackle whatever exorcism that would entail. So Brendan let me leave whatever I wanted in his fourth-floor locker, which admittedly had become jam-packed with more and more of my stuff.

I threw my books in, grabbed a spare notebook and slung my bag on my shoulders as I raced back upstairs, finding Jenn talking to our friend Cisco Fernandez in front of the bus. And for once, Cisco wasn’t smiling. And Jenn’s eyes were open so wide I could practically see inside her skull.

“Okay, Em, what have you heard so far?” Cisco asked, his dark brows knotted in worry.

“Nothing, other than overhearing Brendan’s name. What’s going on? Is he okay?” I fretted. Cisco jerked his head toward the bus.

“Let’s get on and I’ll tell you all that I know,” he said, his voice low. I followed him onto the bus, guilt eating away my insides like I’d just drank battery acid. The spell foretold something about Brendan, not you. And you didn’t warn him. Your fault. After he begged you to always tell him if something concerns you. “Just please don’t worry so much that you don’t talk to me,” he’d said. And you didn’t talk to him. Your fault.

Cisco led me and Jenn to the highly undesirable three-seater in the back of the bus, right on top of the engine. They sat on either side of me on top of the very loud, rumbling engine that would mask what we were about to talk about.

“Cisco, what is going on? Please tell me,” I implored, grabbing his hand.

“Okay, so I was in chem this morning, and I got there early because it was Brendan’s turn to do the lab report and I needed to copy it.” Cisco and Brendan were lab partners and had worked out a little schedule where they alternated doing homework. It was brilliantly sneaky and meant they each did half the work. “He gets there early, he’s his usual self—I mean, he’s fine, Emma. He’s not acting sneaky or weird about anything.”

“Sneaky? Why would he act sneaky?” I asked, confused.

“Let me finish. Mr. D walks in, class begins, the usual.” And then Cisco frowned.

“And then what?”

“About twenty minutes into class, Principal Casey comes storming in, interrupting Mr. D’s lecture, and says, ‘Brendan Salinger, come with me immediately.’” I groaned internally as Cisco mimicked our principal’s aggressive swagger. Casey, with her orange lipstick and “power suits” was about as cuddly as a rusty chainsaw.

“What did he do this time?” I asked, my thoughts running to a basketball team prank on a rival school to a saucy remark in class to countless uniform violations. All had landed Brendan in Casey’s crosshairs before.

“I don’t know. I didn’t think anything. He looked surprised, to be honest. He even pointed at himself and went, ‘Me? You sure?’ And here’s where it gets weird,” Cisco added, leaning forward, his fingers nervously curling around the base of his black tie.

“Brendan stands up to get his bag, and Casey tells him to leave it. Brendan says, ‘All my stuff is in there.’ And she sends a cop in to take his bag and they escort him out.”

I gasped, almost choking on my own breath.

“A cop? What the… Why would they even… I don’t even…” I stammered, not sure what to say.

Jenn popped her head up, checking out the students who were sitting around us. I didn’t have to look to know they were all probably gawking at us as if we were giant talking chickens. I was suddenly glad for the loud engine, even if it did reek of diesel fuel. “They would only have cops there if they thought Brendan did something illegal.” She paused. “Did he?”

“Like what?” I asked. Apart from some minor trespassing and graffiti offenses, and a few fistfights, Brendan wasn’t really bad. Okay, maybe he is a little bad.

“Let me finish,” Cisco continued, running his hands through his dark brown hair. “Brendan just looks at me and shrugs in this, ‘Well, this should be interesting’ kind of way. I mean, he didn’t look nervous or worried or anything, Emma. He didn’t do anything, that I’m sure of,” he added reassuringly.

“I know he didn’t,” I said loyally. However, you didn’t do anything to protect him. You should have told him…should have said something…’cause he’s so clearly being set up by someone.

“Anyway, I go to my next class, and it’s Latin, which I have with Frank, who had a free period that morning.” Cisco stopped, his head snapping up as Dr. McNelly came around to take attendance.

“Everyone’s accounted for,” she announced. Everyone except Brendan. And it’s your fault.

The bus kicked into gear as McNelly began her lecture on what we were going to see at the museum.

“So anyway,” Cisco continued, “Frank says—”

“Everyone needs to listen,” Dr. McNelly announced loudly, steadying herself by holding on to the backs of the red pleather seats as she walked closer to the rear. “And that includes the back of the bus.”

I fidgeted as we sat there with our mouths shut, my stomach twisting and turning like double Dutch jump rope as she droned on and on about the key pieces we would see, including the famed Unicorn Tapestries. Originally I had been excited to see them: maybe it was because a unicorn had been the centerpiece of the silver medallion I used to wear. Or maybe it was because, hey, I’m a girl. I’m genetically hardwired to like unicorns and kittens and hearts and all that crap. But right now, all I could think about was that Brendan was in trouble and getting farther and farther away from me with each spin of the bus’s wheels.

Finally, after what seemed like a millennium, McNelly’s lecture ended, and Cisco jumped right back into the story.

“So Frank had a free first period, and he asks me what happened in chem that morning. I tell him, and he tells me he got to school late, and when he went to his locker, there were two cops standing with Brendan by his locker, going through it with rubber gloves and everything.”

“What the hell did they think he had in there, some kind of super-flu?” I asked, and then it dawned on me. They thought he had drugs in his locker. And the school had a zero-tolerance policy.

“Emma, does he…?” Jenn asked, trailing off.

“Hell, no!” I practically cried, and a few people turned their heads. I didn’t care if they heard me.

“Brendan’s not like that,” I stated emphatically. A few of the other students at Vince A, well that was another story. Some of my classmates had blown through more powder than the Olympic skiing team, but Brendan was clean.

“Sorry,” Jenn said guiltily. “I mean, he’s a DJ, he hangs in clubs…how would I know?”

“Anyway,” Cisco interrupted, getting back to the story, “Frank couldn’t see what was going on, just that when they were leaving, Casey was hauling Brendan out of the hallway by the back of his collar and down the stairs. I guess to Casey’s office.”

“Then what?” I asked.

“Then Frank had to go to class,” Cisco said. “I just don’t get it—why they would think Brendan, of all people, was on drugs? I mean, the guy looks as healthy as they come.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Jenn murmured, more to herself than me. Incredulous, I elbowed her, and Jenn blushed. “Yeah, sorry. I mean, he doesn’t look cracked out or anything.”

“That’s because he’s not,” I insisted. I pulled my phone out of my backpack to text Brendan. If he even has his phone with him. I didn’t know what else to do. I felt powerless.

“This really sucks,” I moaned, dropping against the uncomfortable, upright back of the seat. I kept the phone in my hand, ready to open it as soon as it vibrated.

“I’m sure it’s fine, and it’s just Casey taking full advantage of the whole zero-tolerance policy. Besides, I bet she’d love for you or Brendan to look a little at fault after the whole Anthony thing gave the school’s image such a black eye,” Cisco mused, and Jenn nodded in agreement.

“Look, there’s nothing you can do now,” Cisco advised me. “Just put it out of your mind until you talk to him, and maybe you guys can laugh about this later when you’re at his house, counting his mother’s diamonds or, I don’t know, planning a trip to Bulgaria or whatever it is that you do when you’re at his megapalace downtown,” he teased.

“I don’t think they do much talking,” Jenn said, combing her fingers through her hair as her eyes drifted off to the ceiling of the bus. “I wouldn’t.”

I smiled—even in light of Jenn’s blatant fantasies about my boyfriend—and threw my arms around both of them.

“Thanks, guys,” I whispered. They continued to reassure me that this was just a prank—or revenge. Jenn even theorized that it was an attempt from a rival school to take the star basketball player out of commission, but my thoughts kept going back to the spell with Angelique.

It’s got more hate than you two have love.

This seemed pretty hateful to me.

We arrived at the Cloisters, and I kept surreptitiously checking my phone, waiting for Brendan to text me…once they gave him back his bag and cell phone, that is. If they gave it back to him. All I could think about was that he was going to get kicked out…suspended…arrested. The words kept ringing in my ears, louder than anything McNelly said: It’s got more hate than you two have love.

And that hate was directed at Brendan, not me.

As we walked through the halls, I ran my fingers along the stone architecture, a brief thought flitting through my mind that I might have walked through these very halls in a past life. The Cloisters were the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s medieval branch, with parts of the structure actually dating as far back as the twelfth century. I scribbled meticulous notes, trying to keep track of what she was saying to share with Brendan later, for the inevitable test that he might fail since he missed the trip. That is, if he’s still a student at Vince A.

I was surprised that my number-one nemesis at school, Kristin Thorn, and her little horde of hangers-on stayed as far away from me as possible—I had imagined myself being tripped down one of the several uneven, stone staircases in the Cloisters. Then I noticed that Kristin had her phone’s browser open to the Cloisters webpage, and periodically brought up points as if they were her own. No wonder she’s avoiding you—she doesn’t want you to witness her shameless kiss-assery.

I should have known she wouldn’t keep her distance for long—Brendan’s little scandal provided her with the fodder she needed to jab at me. Just as we were breaking for lunch, I fell behind Cisco and Jenn, kneeling down to fix the twisted strap on my Mary Janes when Kristin sidled up to me. She stomped her red-soled Christian Louboutin heel an inch from my right pinky.

“Watch it!” I gave her a dirty look, snapping my hand back and briefly wondering if she’d missed her intended target. I bet she had planned to impale my finger with her heel like a shish kebab. I wouldn’t put it past her.

“Where’s your boyfriend, Emma? Did he have a bad day? I mean, a worse day than usual. Since he’s wasting his time with you, I figure his days usually suck,” she cooed in a baby voice that dropped with false concern. Her fake tan had persisted through the winter—the girl looked like a grilled cheese sandwich in a push-up bra.

I usually try my best to ignore Kristin—going back at her only made things worse. The school’s resident rich bitch had had it in for me since the second I started school. She’d had a thing for Anthony, and it had been Kristin who had facilitated Anthony’s attack on me last December. Her little role in the ordeal had earned her a week’s suspension. I had thought (hoped?) that Anthony’s brutal treatment of her would soften her cruel streak—and it did, for a little while. But recently, she’d started up with me again. I guess somehow, in her overprivileged, spoiled little brain, she had managed to twist things around to the point of where it was my fault that she had gotten in trouble. That I was the reason Anthony was a psycho. In the past few weeks, her cutthroat behavior was worse than ever—and, of course, her sycophants followed suit. Her much unrequited crush on Brendan just fueled her attacks, even though he’d done everything short of doing an interview in the Vincent Academy Observer proclaiming how uninterested in her he was. I used to wonder why she hadn’t gotten expelled, but realized all too soon that her lax punishment coincided with the purchase of twenty new laptops for the library. Whatever daddy’s little girl wanted, she got—except for Brendan.

I continued ignoring Kristin as I followed Jenn and Cisco out of the museum—we’d decided to eat lunch in Fort Tryon Park since it was nice out—but she wouldn’t let up.

“So, the cops came, right? I guess hanging out with your low-class ass is finally rubbing off on him,” she snapped, her overly made-up-for-school-are-you-kidding-me-with-those-false-eyelashes eyes narrowing as she looked me up and down. And then we walked right past Kendall, one of Brendan’s discouragingly pretty, strawberry-blonde ex-flings. Oh, joy.

“So what’s the story with Brendan, Emma?” Kendall asked, lounging against the banister and crossing her legs—legs so long only the ground stopped them from going on forever. I ignored her and quickened my walk.

“I know how to make him feel better—better than you could, at least,” Kendall purred as I hurried past. “He had a lot of fun last time,” she called after me, Kristin joining in on her cackling as I tried to push the mental picture of Brendan kissing Kendall, holding her close as those mile-long legs wrapped around him—No!—out of my mind, but it was like an alien invaded my head and was forcing me to think of different scenarios with them. Unrealistic scenarios, too. No one is that bendy.

I kept my pace level and my head high, not wanting the Bitch Twins to see that they’d gotten to me. After what felt like an eternity, I finally met up with Jenn and Cisco where they had set up camp on a low stone wall that had dried enough from the previous night’s storm.

“You look pissed,” Cisco observed, unwrapping a massive pastrami sandwich.

“Kristin.” I just had to growl the one word, and both Jenn and Cisco wore identical expressions of sympathy as I pulled my sandwich out of my bag.

“If you make it through this year without punching that girl in the face, you owe me five bucks—or maybe even a pony,” Cisco said as I squirted a packet of mayo onto my turkey-and-cheese hero. I bit into the sandwich angrily, even though guilt, worry and plain old annoyance had vanquished my appetite.

“It will never stop amazing me how Kristin was in a few commercials as a kid, so now she thinks she’s better than everyone.” Jenn frowned, glancing over to where Kristin was lounging on a bench with Kendall, who effortlessly looked glamorous. Hell, even Kristin managed to look effortlessly chic.

“So, any word from Brendan?” Cisco asked, and I pulled my phone out of my sweatshirt pocket to check it for the billionth time that afternoon.

“Nothing.” I shook my head bitterly as a fresh new wave of guilt slammed into me. “So, Jenn, what’s up with Austin? You guys haven’t seemed…friendly…lately,” I said, changing the subject without any tact or grace. But Jenn’s on-and-off romance with the very enthusiastic junior Student Council rep had always been a source of amusement for Cisco and me.

“He kept trying to force me to try out for the spring choral performance,” she snorted, picking apart her BLT and flinging an anemic-looking T into a garbage can.

“Do you even sing?” I asked, and she emphatically shook her head. Austin took his role in student government way too seriously. The guy lived and breathed for Vince A. He probably wept every time there was a snow day, drying his tears with the school handbook.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Austin was going to get a tramp stamp of the school insignia,” Cisco cracked, and I nearly choked on my sandwich, laughing.

“Oh, he’s talked about getting a tattoo of the school insignia. Over his heart. You guys don’t even know. Anyway, enough about Austin.” Jenn waved her hands impatiently. “There are plenty of cute guys at my sister’s dorm. You know, if you two weren’t so settled in relationships, you could come and wing me. Or you could come and pretend to be single and wing me. The dorm parties are awesome. Em, you could bring Ashley. And Cisco, I bet Gabe won’t mind.” She smiled, hoping to entice him with the offer, but Cisco shook his head.

“I’m quite happy with Gabe, thank you very much.” Cisco smiled. He was out everywhere except Vince A, where people wore judgey pants as if they were part of the school uniform.

“But speaking of Gabe—” Cisco paused, taking out his cell phone and showing me a bright orange flyer “—I’m sending you this even though I know you’re probably a lost cause. Gabe’s new band is playing the Battle of the Bands tomorrow night at Magel. They’re awesome. They used to be called Duck Duck Goose, but some band at Collegiate had that name. So now they’re Freeze Tag. Anyway, Em, it would be nice if you saw him actually sound good. They do punk covers of pop songs, it’s hysterical.”

“His old band wasn’t that terrible,” I lied, and Cisco just raised his eyebrow at me. It was true—Cisco’s boyfriend, Gabe, played drums in one of the worst bands in history (with one of the worst names).

“So, Broken Echo is no more…no more…no more… .” I called, letting my voice fade out like an echo as I pretended to wipe a tear from my eye.

“Kenny decided he wanted to go solo as a rapper. You should hear him try to rap about life on the street. Like life on Central Park West is really hard. ‘Soy milk in my latte, who’s ready to par-tay.’” Cisco’s brown eyes twinkled devilishly as he mocked the band’s grandstanding guitarist.

We busied ourselves coming up with some non-PG raps for Kenny as we finished our lunch. As we were trying to find something that rhymed with “foie gras,” Jenn jumped up, wiping the last of the bacon from her mouth. She hopped off the stone wall and skidded on the wet grass a little, grabbing the wall to steady herself.

“I’m still hungry,” she announced. “Wanna come with me to the café, buy some overpriced cookies or something for the ride home?”

The ride home…when I’d find out what happened to Brendan. And suddenly I felt horribly, terribly, soul-crushingly guilty for the levity I’d enjoyed for the past ten minutes.

“I’ll come,” Cisco said, standing up more carefully than Jenn had, crumpling the remains of his sandwich into a ball. “Emma, are you coming?”

“No, I think I want to walk around, take some pics,” I said, finally finding my new camera—a Christmas present from Aunt Christine—in my backpack. Brendan had told me how much he liked Fort Tryon Park, but he hadn’t been there since he was a little kid. I wanted to take a few pictures of the grounds for him. But the truth was I really just wanted to be alone in case I started crying. Between my little breakdown last night—and the crushing flood of guilt I was drowning in—my emotions were bubbling right under the surface. Angelique would be proud of how in-touch with my inner emogirl I was. Meet the worst superhero ever! Emogirl, whose superpower is crying on command.

They headed toward the café as I took a deep breath and tried to calm my stripped nerves. I started walking along a path on the grounds, taking pictures of the impressive Cloisters. It was pretty here. Quiet—much more relaxing than Central Park. The birds were louder than the minimal traffic noises from the nearby parking lot.

I wanted to get a full shot of the museum, so I walked several yards away, farther into the park as I toyed with the panoramic setting on my camera.

I turned to my left, taking a shot of the trees, bright green with new leaves.

I turned west, snapping a pic of the beige stone structure. It looked like a knight should come barreling through those doors instead the group of tourists who emerged, cameras in hand as they piled into their tour bus.

I continued walking, into an area more densely packed with trees, trying to play with the nature settings on my camera. There were too many shadows.

“Like I know what white balance even is,” I muttered aloud, playing with the buttons. I looked at the digital screen again—there was a bigger shadow.

I put the camera down and squinted my eyes in the distance.

There’s no way I was mistaken. A person—at least, I think it was a person—in all black with a black hood covering the face—was standing amidst the trees, the figure obscured by the shade.

And then the figure started running toward me.