Eclipse

8. Alisa

“Alisa, are you okay?”

My head snapped up to see Mary K.’s big brown eyes gazing at me with concern. We were sprawled in Mary K.’s room after school on Monday, listening to music and sort of doing homework.

“I’m okay.” I shook my head. “It’s just, like, everything’s coming down on me at once. It’s giving me a headache.”

Mary K. nodded sympathetically. “Everyone has a headache lately. It must be the weather.” I was so glad that we were friends. My best friend had moved away at the end of last summer, and though I still missed her, being friends with Mary K. had helped a lot.

“Like the wedding and Ms. Herbert’s science fair project?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Oh, and the fact that I was half witch. That, too. I hadn’t told Mary K. about my realization—I knew that she still had a problem with Morgan’s involvement with Wicca, and I wasn’t ready to test her reaction.

“Any ideas for the science project?”

I thought. “Maybe a life-size modeling-clay version of a digestive system?”

Mary K. giggled. “Fun. I’m thinking about something with plants.”

“Can you be more specific?”

Her shiny russet hair bounced as she shook her head. “I haven’t worked out the details.”

We both laughed, and I pulled over the box of Girl Scout cookies and had another Thin Mint.

“Any wedding news?”

My eyes closed in painful memory. “Right now the flower-girl dress of choice is emerald green, which will basically make me look like I died of jaundice, and it has a big wide bow across the ass. Like, look at my humongous big butt, everyone! In case you missed it!”

“I still can’t get over the fact that you’re the flower girl,” Mary K. laughed, falling back on her bed, and it was hard for me to remain sour.

“My backup plan is to break my leg the morning of the ceremony,” I told her. “So I’ll be bringing you a baseball bat soon, just in case.”

I turned my attention back to my algebra problems. Art class I was good at. But all these little numbers jumping around the page just left me cold. “What did you get for the equation for number seven?” I asked, tapping my pencil against my teeth.

“A big blank. Maybe we should get Morgan.”

“I’ll get her,” I said casually, getting to my feet. There was the slightest surprise in Mary K.’s eyes that I would voluntarily talk to the witch queen.“Where is she?”

“In her room, I think.”

Mary K. and Morgan’s rooms were connected by the bathroom they shared.The door to Morgan’s room was ajar, and I tapped on it.

“Morgan?”

“Mpfh?” I heard in response, and I pushed open the door. Morgan was lying on her bed, a wet washcloth draped over her forehead. Her long hair spilled over the side of her bed. She looked awful.

As I approached the bed, she mumbled, “Alisa? What’s up?” She hadn’t opened her eyes, and I got a little nervous shiver from this evidence of her witch skills.

“How do you do that?” I asked quietly. “You can just feel someone’s vibes or something? Or like my aura?”

At this Morgan did open her eyes and bunched her pillow under her head so she could see me. “I gave you a ride after school, so I knew you were here. I heard someone open the door and walk into my room. I knew it wasn’t me. Mary K. sort of flounces through and makes more noise. That left you.”

“Oh,” I said, my cheeks flushing.

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” she said.

I had no idea what that meant. “Anyway, Mary K. and I are stuck on an algebra problem. Could you come help us? If you’re up to it, I mean.” She looked really sick. “Do you have the flu or something? Why were you in school?”

Morgan shook her head and sat up very slowly, like an old lady.“No. I’m okay.”

“Hunter’s sick, too.Why didn’t you just stay home?”

“I’m okay,” she said, obviously lying. “How do you feel?”

“Uh, I have a little headache. Mary K. thinks it’s the weather.”

Our eyes met just then, and I swear Morgan looked like she wanted to say something, was about to say something.

“What?” I asked.

Standing up, Morgan pulled down her sweatshirt and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Nothing,” she said, heading toward the door. “What’s this problem you need help with?”

There was more here than she was telling me. I knew it. Without thinking, I reached out to grab her sleeve, and at that exact instant there was a thud and a sound like glass hitting something. I looked around wildly, wondering what I had destroyed this time, feeling cursed.

“That was Dagda,” Morgan explained, a tinge of amusement in her voice.

Sure enough, I now saw her small gray cat getting to his feet on the floor by Morgan’s bed. He looked sleepy and irritated.

“Sometimes he rolls off the bed when he’s asleep,” Morgan said.

Frustrated, I pulled back my hand and curled and uncurled my fingers. There was something happening here, something I didn’t know about. Something Morgan wasn’t telling me. I remembered the other day, when Morgan had run out of the kitchen to talk to Hunter, how upset she had seemed. But her face was now closed, like a shade being pulled down, and I knew she wouldn’t tell me. We went into Mary K.’s room, back to algebra and away from magick.

That night I was slumped on my bed, taking a magazine quiz to find out if I was a flirting master or a flirting disaster. By question five, things were looking bad for me. I tossed the magazine aside, my mind going back to Morgan. For some reason I had a terrible feeling—I couldn’t even describe it. But I was somehow convinced that something weird or bad was happening, and that Morgan and Hunter knew about it, and that they were keeping it to themselves.

But what could it be? They both looked physically ill. Morgan had seemed so close to saying something, something hard. And last week there had been a day when Hunter had sat outside school literally all day. I didn’t think it was just because he couldn’t stand to be away from her.

Sitting up, I decided to confront Morgan again. I would somehow make her tell me what was going on, what was wrong with her and Hunter. The flaws in this plan were immediately obvious: (1) I had already asked Morgan, and she’d made it clear that she wasn’t going to tell me. (2) Mary K. would wonder why I needed to talk to Morgan. And if it was some weird witch thing, I didn’t want to drag her into it.

So how could I find out?

Hunter.

No. I knew him, but we weren’t good friends. I was kind of impressed by and wary of him at the same time. What would he think if I asked him to tell me their secret? Would he get mad at me?

Hunter was out. But... there really wasn’t anyone else. I went through the members of Kithic in my mind. No one else had seemed nervous or ill. Just Morgan and Hunter. The blood witches. I shook my head. My brain kept coming back to this again and again, the way it had about my mother’s green book. This felt the same.

I had to talk to Hunter.

I didn’t have his phone number, but I knew where he lived. Now, did I have the nerve to ask him? I had no choice. I ran downstairs: Girl of Action. In the living room I encountered Hilary, watching a dvd of Sex and the City. Too late I remembered that Dad had gone to a union meeting at the post office, where he worked. Damn, damn, damn. I met Hilary’s inquiring look. I had to go ahead and ask her.

“Um, I forgot my algebra book at school,” I said, giving an Oscar-caliber performance. Not. “My friend has the same book and says I can borrow his. Do you think you could give me a ride to his house?”

Hilary actually looked touched to be asked, and I felt a little pang of guilt over the way I usually treated her. The fact that I would now owe her was not lost on me. Once again I wished the state of New York would lower the freaking driving age to, say, fifteen. Then I wouldn’t have to ask anyone for favors.

“Sure,” Hilary said easily. She clicked off the TV and stood up, stretching. She gave me a smile and almost looked pretty for a split second. “Let me go to the bathroom real quick. Since I’ve been pregnant, I have to pee every five minutes.”

She turned and left the room then, so she didn’t see the horrified expression on my face. Oh, gross! Why did I have to know that?

Not being a complete idiot, I held my tongue, and a few minutes later I was directing her to Hunter’s house. When Hilary parked behind Hunter’s car, I said, “I’m having trouble with this one section. Is it okay if I stay for a minute so he can explain it to me?”

“Take your time,” Hilary said. She clicked on the radio and closed her eyes, leaning back against the headrest.

“Thanks,” I said, and hopped out of the car. Up on the porch I rang the doorbell, and after a moment it was answered by an older man I didn’t know. Oh, this had to be Hunter’s dad—I’d heard he’d come back from Canada to live with him. He didn’t look much like Hunter—almost too old to be his real dad.

“You’re a witch,” he said after a moment, startling me.

“Uh—” I was caught off guard. No one had ever sensed this before. Including me.

“I get a strange reading off of you,” he said, squinting at me. He had a slightly different accent from Hunter, too.

“Da,” came Hunter’s voice, and then I saw him push in next to his father. “Oh, hullo, Alisa. Are you all right? Did you come here alone?” He looked out past me to the dark yard.

“My stepmother-to-be drove me,” I said, feeling an attack of shyness and regret sweeping over me. “I really need to talk to you.”

“Sure. Come on in.” Hunter turned to his father. “Da, this is Alisa Soto. She’s a high school student, part of Kithic.”

I noticed that Hunter looked as bad as Morgan had this afternoon. It was as if all the witches I knew had, like, witch pneumonia or something.

Mr. Niall looked at Hunter. “What’s going on? Who is she? Why does she feel strange?”

“Calm down, Da,” Hunter said. “She might feel different to you because she’s only half witch.”

I felt like a microbe, the way his dad looked at me.

“But she has power—I can feel it. How is that possible?” he asked.

Hunter shrugged. “Here she stands. So what can I do for you, Alisa?”

Unfortunately, I hadn’t planned what to say. So what came out was, “Hunter, what’s going on? Why do you and Morgan look like death? Why won’t she tell me what’s happening?”

“I’m off,” Mr. Niall muttered abruptly, and left the room.

Strange dad behavior.

I turned back to Hunter, aware that Hilary was waiting outside. “Hunter, what’s the deal?” I asked again.

He looked uncomfortable, then ran one hand through his short blond hair, giving himself bed head. “How do you feel?” he asked.

I stared at him. Why did everyone keep asking me that? “I have a headache! What is going on?”

“Alisa, there’s a dark wave coming to Widow’s Vale,” he said gently. “Do you know what that is?”

A what? “No.”

“It’s—a wave, a force, of destruction,” Hunter said. “It’s dark magick, a spell that a witch or a group of witches casts. They aim it at a particular village or coven, and basically it wipes everything out.”

This was too much to take in. I wasn’t following. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s a bad spell,” Hunter said simply. “Very uncommon. In the Wiccan world it’s rare to come upon someone who practices dark magick. But dark witches can cast a spell when they want to kill other witches, destroy a whole coven, even level a whole village.”

I stared at him. “What... what...” What he was saying sounded like the plot of a Bruce Willis movie—not something that could happen in Widow’s Vale. But at the same time, I felt in my bones that he was telling the truth. I didn’t understand it, but I did suddenly believe that something bad was coming. Something very bad. “Is this why you and Morgan are sick?”

Hunter nodded. “I would guess your headache is caused by it, too, but since you’re half and half, it’s not wrecking you as much.” He went on to explain what he and Morgan had figured out and also what his father was trying to do, how he was trying to come up with a spell to disperse a dark wave. And he told me that the witch who cast this spell would probably die and that his father was going to be the one who cast it. I felt shocked. Hunter looked really grim, and I couldn’t imagine what he was feeling.

“I guess you guys are pretty sure about all this,” I said faintly.

He nodded. “It’s a situation that’s been developing for a while.”

“Are you sure your dad—”

“Yes. I’d like for someone else to do it, obviously. But any blood witch is likely to die, and he won’t let that happen to someone else.”

“And a nonwitch can’t cast it?”

“No. They have to be able to summon power. But if they’re strong enough to summon power, then they’re strong enough to be decimated by the dark wave.” He looked frustrated. I felt so sorry for him. If only there was some alternative—a way for a witch to cast the spell yet not be susceptible to the powers of the dark wave. Like if a person were...

I frowned as an awful, horrifying thought seeped into my brain. Immediately I shut it down.

“I have to go,” I said quickly. “My stepmonster-to-be is waiting for me.”

Hunter nodded and opened the door for me.

“The rest of Kithic doesn’t know about this,” he reminded me. “They wouldn’t be able to help, and there’s no use in terrifying them.”

“Okay.” I looked back at him, framed in his doorway. Then I turned and ran down the stairs, to where Hilary was waiting in the car. I was actually really happy to see her.

I had always thought people exaggerated when they talked about sleepless nights. But that night I had one. Every time I felt myself drifting off, I thought, Great, great, I’m going to sleep. And of course as soon as I thought that, I was wide awake again. I heard my dad come home after I had gone to bed. I heard Hilary ask him if he wanted something to eat. I remembered how, before Hilary came, I used to leave him something for his dinner when he had late meetings. For twelve years it had been me and him and a succession of housekeepers. By the time I was ten, I’d been able to make dinner by myself, do laundry, and plan a week’s worth of meals. I’d thought I was doing pretty damn well, but now I’d been replaced.

After they went to bed, the house was still but not quiet. I listened to the heat cycle on and off, the wind outside pressing against the windows, the creak of the wooden floorboards. Don’t think about it, I told myself. Don’t think about it. Just go to sleep. But again and again my mind teased the idea out of me: I was half witch. I might be able to call on the power, enough to cast the spell against the dark wave. And I was half not witch. So I might very well be able to survive the dark wave itself.

Don’t think about it. Just go to sleep.

I thought about Hunter’s weird dad, about his dying right in front of Hunter.

I thought about my mother, whose powers had scared her so much that she had stripped herself of them so that she couldn’t cast any kind of spell good or bad. Had that been the right thing to do? Would I want to do that?

I couldn’t control my powers. Sometimes I broke things and made freaky stuff happen. I’d only just found out about being half witch—I didn’t even know how I felt about it yet. It scared me; it pissed me off. Then I remembered some of the things I’d seen Morgan do. Now that I knew that I was the one who in fact had been causing the scary stuff to happen, I tried to separate out what had been Morgan. She had turned a ball of blue witch fire into flowers, real flowers, raining down on us. Mary K. thought she had saved their aunt’s girlfriend from dying after she’d fallen and hit her head. She had come to visit me in the hospital when I had been sick. And I’d gotten better, right away. Those were good things, right?

I hadn’t asked to be half witch. I didn’t want to be. But since I was, I needed to decide what to do with myself. Was I going to strip myself of my powers, like my mom, and just keep being a regular human, not tuned in to the magick that existed all around me? Or was I going to try to be a Morgan, learning all I could, deciding what to do with it, maybe deciding to be a healer? Or was I going to be a total weenie and pretend none of this was happening?

Hunter was about to lose his dad, to watch him die. He didn’t have the luxury of pretending none of this was happening.

My brain wound in circles all night, and when I realized that my room was growing lighter with the early dawn, I still didn’t have any answers.

“Alisa.” Hunter looked surprised to see me on his front porch, and frankly, I felt surprised to be there again. I’d taken a bus most of the way, then walked the rest, the cold wind whipping through my ski jacket. The school day had been endless, and after my sleepless night it had been especially painful to do laps around the gym.

“Come on in,” he said. “It’s nasty out there.”

Inside, my hands twisted together nervously. “I could do it,” I said fast, getting the words out before I lost my nerve.

Hunter looked at me blankly. “Do what?”

“I could cast the dark wave spell.” I licked my lips. “I’m half and half. Witch enough to cast the spell. Unwitch enough to survive it. I’m your best hope.”

I had never seen Hunter speechless—usually he seemed unflappable. Behind him, I saw Mr. Niall come out from the circle room. He saw Hunter and me standing there and came over. Hunter still hadn’t said anything. I repeated my offer, talking to Mr. Niall this time.

“You’ll die if you cast the dark wave spell. I probably won’t. I don’t know how strong I am, but I can shatter small appliances from twenty feet,” I said, trying for some lame humor. “All of you guys are sick—you look terrible and you can hardly move. All I have is a headache. You need me.”

“Nonsense,” said Mr. Niall gruffly. “It’s out of the question.”

“There’s no way, Alisa,” Hunter said finally. “You’re completely untrained, uninitiated. There’s no way of knowing if you could do it or not. There’s no way we could risk it.”

“You can’t risk not using me,” I said. “What if your dad is overcome by the dark wave before he finishes the spell? What happens then? Do you guys even have a backup plan?”

From the quick glances they exchanged, I figured they didn’t.

“But Alisa,” said Hunter, “you’ve never even cast a spell.

part in this, but it won’t hurt anything to have you know some of it. As you said, the fact that you’re only half witch works in your favor here.”

I nodded. Now that they had agreed, a whole new set of fears crossed my mind. But I wasn’t able to back out now. My mother had been afraid of her powers and in the end had destroyed them. I wasn’t there—not yet. I needed more information; I needed to explore their possibilities first. If I did have real powers and I could somehow learn to harness them, use them for good—well, that would be better than not having any powers at all.