The Coven

CHAPTER 17 The New Coven

April 14, 1983

My peas are coming up nicely—I thought I might have put them in too early. They're a symbol of my new life: I can't believe they're growing on their own so strongly, without magickal help. Sometimes the urge to get in tough with the Goddess is so strong, I ache with it—it's like a pain, something trying to get out. But that part of my life is over, and all I have from that time is my name. And Angus.

We have a new addition to our household: a gray-and-white kitten. I've named her Bridget. She's a funny little thing, with extra toes on each paw and the biggest purr you ever heard. I'm glad to have her.

— M.R.

That afternoon, as I lay in bed with an ice pack on my face, the doorbell rang. I immediately sensed that it was Cal. My heart thumped painfully. I listened as he spoke to my mom. I focused my attention, but I could still barely make out their words.

"Well, I don't know," I heard Mom say.

"For Pete's sake, Mom. I'll stay the whole time and chaperon them," said Mary K., much louder. She must have been standing right at the bottom of the steps. Then footsteps sounded on the stairs. I watched nervously as my door opened.

Mom came in first, presumably to make sure I was properly dressed and not, say, wearing a sexy, see-through negligee. In fact, I was wearing stretched-out gray sweatpants, an undershirt of my dad's, and a white sweatshirt.

Mom had helped me wash the blood out of my hair, but I hadn't dried it or anything like that. It hung loose in long damp ropes. Basically, I looked as awful as I had ever looked in my life.

Cal came into my room, and his presence made it seem small and young. Note to self: Redecorate.

He gave me a big smile and said," Darling!"

I couldn't help laughing, though it hurt and I put my hand to my face and said," Ungh—doan make me laugh."

As soon as Mom saw I was decent she left, even though she was obviously uncomfortable about my having a boy in my room.

"Doesn't she look great?" Mary K. said. "Too bad Halloween's over. I bet by Thursday everything will be yellow and green." I noticed she was holding a white teddy bear wearing a heart-shaped bib.

"For me?" I asked.

Mary K. shook her head, looking embarrassed. "It's from Bakker."

I nodded. Bakker had been sending flowers and leaving notes on our porch all day. He'd called several times, and when I had answered the phone, he had apologized to me. I knew Mary K. was weakening.

She perched in my desk chair, and I gave her a look. "Don't you have homework?"

"I promised to chaperon," she objected. Then, seeing my expression, she held up her hands. "Okay, okay, I'm going."

As the door closed behind her I looked at Cal. "I didn't want you to see me like this." Because of the swelling in my nose, my voice sounded clogged and distant.

His face grew solemn. "Tamara told me about what happened. Do you think she did it on purpose?"

I thought of Bree's face, of the fright in her eyes when she saw what she'd done to me.

"It was an accident," I said, and he nodded.

"I brought you some stuff." He held up a small bag.

"What?" I asked eagerly.

"This, for starters," Cal said, taking out a small potted plant. It was silverly gray, with cut, feathery leaves.

"Artemesia," I said, recognizing it from one of my herb books. "It's pretty."

Cal nodded. "Mugwort. A useful plant. Also this," He handed me a small vial.

I read the label. "Arnica montana."

"It's a homeopathic medicine," Cal explained. "I got it at the health-food store. It's for when you're had a traumatic injury. It's good for bruises, stuff like that." He leaned closer.

"I spelled it to help you heal faster," he whispered. "It's just what the doctor ordered."

I sank back gratefully on my pillows. "Cool."

"One more thing," Cal said, taking out a bottle of Yoo-Hoo. "I bet you can't eat much, but a Yoo-Hoo can be sucked down with a straw. And it's got all the major food groups-dairy, fat, chocolate. You could say it's the perfect food."

I laughed, trying not to move my face. "Thanks. You thought of everything."

Mom called upstairs: "Dinner will be ready in five minutes." I rolled my eyes, and Cal smiled. "I can take a hint," he said. He sat carefully on the edge of my bed and took my hand in both of his. I swallowed, feeling lost, wanting to hold him to me. Muirn beatha dan, I thought.

"Is there anything you want me to do for you?" he asked with quiet meaning. I knew he meant Do you want me to get back at Bree?

I shook my head, feeling my face ache. "I don't think so," I whispered. "Let it go."

He regarded me evenly. "I'll let it go so far and no farther," he warned. "This sucks."

I nodded, feeling very tired.

"Okay, I'll get going. Call me later if you want to talk."

He stood up. Then he very gently put his hands on my face, barely touching me with his fingertips. He closed his eyes and muttered words I didn't understand. Closing my eyes, I felt the heat from his fingers warm my face. As I breathed in, some of the pain dissipated.

It took less than a minute, then he opened his eyes and stepped back. I felt much better.

"Thanks," I said. "Thanks for coming."

"I'll talk to you later," he said. Then he turned and left my room.

As I sank back down in bed my face felt lighter, less swollen. My head hurt less. I opened the arnica and popped four of the tiny sugar pills under my tongue. Then I lay quietly, feeling the pain wash out of me.

That night before I went to sleep, both my black eyes were almost gone, the swelling had gone way down, and I felt like I could breathe through my nose.

I stayed home from school the next day, although I looked tons better, except for the ugly black stitch on my lip.

At two-thirty that afternoon I called Mom at work and told her I was going over to Tamara's house to pick up some homework assignments.

"Are you sure you feel up to it?" she asked.

"Yeah, I feel almost fine," I said. "I'll be back before dinner."

"Okay, then. Drive carefully."

"I will."

I hung up the phone, got my keys and my coat, put on my clogs, and set off toward school. It's pretty much impossible to hide a huge white whale like Das Boot, but I parked on a side street two blocks away, where I thought I could see Bree's car pass as she left school. I could have waited for her at home, but I wasn't sure she'd go straight there.

It wasn't like I had a totally fleshed out plan. Basically I was hoping to confront Bree, to hash everything out. In the best of all possible worlds, it would have a positive result. I felt like I had reached a breakthrough with my parents, and Mary K. and I had bonded again after the Bakker incident. Now I wanted to get things straight with Bree. The habits of a lifetime aren't easy to erase, and I still thought of her as my best friend. Hating her was too much to bear. The scene in gym showed how desperately we needed to work things out

But it wasn't only that I had other reasons for wanting to mend things between us, too. Magick was clarity. According to my books, to work the best magick was to see the most clearly. If I lived with an ongoing feud in my life, it could seriously hamper my ability to do magick.

I almost missed Bree's car as it passed the corner at the end of the block Quickly I started up mine and crept slowly behind her, as far back as I could.

Luckily Bree headed straight home. I knew the way well enough that I could hang back at a great distance, staying behind other cars. Once she had pulled into her driveway and parked, I pulled over myself at the very end of her block, behind a big maroon minivan, and shut off my engine.

Just as I was about to get out, though, Raven pulled up in her battered black Peugeot. Bree ran back out of her house.

I waited. The two girls talked for a while on the sidewalk, then headed to Raven's car and got in. Raven roared off, leaving a trail of foul exhaust behind her.

I was nonplussed. This hadn't been in my plan. Right now I was supposed to be talking to Bree, possibly arguing with her. Raven hadn't figured into it. Where were they going?

A sudden fierce curiosity took hold of me, and I started my car again. After four blocks I caught sight of them once more.

They headed north, out of town on Westwood. I followed, already suspecting where they were headed.

When they reached the cornfields at the north of town, where our coven had had its first meeting, Raven pulled off onto the road's shoulder and parked.

Slowing, I waited until they had disappeared into the recently stripped cornfield, then drove to the other side and hid Das Boot under the huge willow oak. Though the branches were almost bare, its trunk was thick and the ground dipped slightly so that no one casually glancing over would spot my car.

Then I hurried across the road and began to pick my way through the crumpled, messy remains of what had been a tall field of golden feed corn.

I couldn't see Raven and Bree ahead of me, but I knew where they were going: to the old Methodist cemetery where we had celebrated Samhain just ten days ago. Ten days ago, when Cal had kissed me in front of the coven and Bree and I had become true enemies. It felt like much longer ago than that I stepped across the trickling stream and headed uphill Into a stand of old hardwood trees. I went more slowly, casting my senses, listening for their voices. I didn't really know what I was doing and felt kind of like a stalker. But I had been wondering about their new coven. I couldn't resist finding out what they were up to.

When I reached the edge of the graveyard, I saw them ahead, standing by the stone sarcophagus that had served as our altar on Samhain. The two of them stood there, not talking, end it came to me: They were waiting for someone.

I sank down on the damp, cold earth beside an ancient tombstone. My race ached a little, and the stitch in my lip was itching. I wished I had remembered to take more arnica or Tylenol before I left the house.

Bree rubbed her hands up and down her arms. Raven kept pushing back her dyed black hair. They both looked nervous and excited.

Then Bree turned and peered into the shadows. Raven grew very still, and my heart beat loudly in the silence.

The person meeting them was a woman, or rather a girl, maybe a couple of years older than Raven. Maybe just a year. The more I looked at her, the younger she became.

She was beautiful in an unusual, otherworldly kind of way. Fine blond hair shone starkly against her black leather motorcycle jacket, and she had very short, almost white bangs. Her cheekbones were high and Nordic, her mouth full and too wide for her race. But it was her eyes that seemed so compelling, even from far away. They were large and deep set and so black that they looked like holes, drawing light in and not letting it out again.

She greeted Bree and Raven so quietly, I couldn't hear the murmur of her voice. She seemed to ask them a question, and her dark eyes darted here and there like negative spotlights raking the area.

"No, no one followed us," I heard Bree say.

"No way." Raven laughed. "No one comes out here."

Still the girl looked around, her eyes flicking again and again to the tombstone I hid behind. If she was a witch, she might pick up on my presence. Quickly I closed my eyes, trying to shut everything down, focusing on becoming invisible, on trying to wrinkle the fabric of reality as little as possible. I am not here, I sent out into the world. I am not here. There Is nothing here. You see nothing, you hear nothing, you feel nothing. I repeated this smoothly again and again, and finally the three girls started talking again.

Moving a centimeter at a time, I turned and faced them again.

"Revenge?" the girl said, her voice rich and musical.

"Yes," said Raven. "You see, there's…"

A breeze rustled the trees just then, and her words were lost. They were speaking so quietly that it was only by using my strongest concentration that I could hear them at all.

"Dark magic," Raven said, and Bree looked at her with troubled eyes.

"… to wither love," were the next words to float to me on the breeze. That was from the girl. I looked at her aura. Next to Bree's and Raven's darkness, she was made of pure light shining like a sword in the increasing shadows of the graveyard.

"Their circle… our new coven… a girl with power… Cal… Saturday nights, at different places…"

They talked on, and my frustration grew at not being able to hear more. The sun went down quickly, as if a lamp had been dimmed, and I started to feel seriously chilly.

I leaned against the tombstone. What did this mean? They had mentioned Cal's name. I figured the "girl with power" was me. What were they planning? I had to tell Cal.

But there was no way to leave without their seeing me, so I was stuck on that damp ground, feeling my butt and legs go to sleep while my bruised face ached more and more.

At last, after about forty endless minutes, the girl left silently the way she had come, with only her light hair visible when she stepped into the darkness beneath the trees. Bree and Raven walked back through the graveyard, passing within ten feet of me, and headed back out through the cornfield. A minute later I heard Raven's car belch and peel off, and two minutes after that its exhaust drifted to me on the evening breeze.

I got up and brushed myself off, anxious to get home to take a hot, hot shower. The cornfields were now totally dark, and I felt weirded out by the creepy scene I had just witnessed. At one point I was sure I felt someone's concentrated stare on the back of my head, but when I whirled, nothing was there. Running back to my car, I jumped in, slamming and locking my door after me.

My hands were so cold and stiff, it took me a second to get the key in the ignition, and then I popped on my headlights and did a fast U-turn on Westwood. I was scared and irritated, and my earlier thoughts of clearing things up with Bree now seemed naive, laughable.

What were they planning? Were they really so angry with Cal and me that they would turn to dark magick? They were putting themselves in danger, making choices that were stupid and shortsighted.

I swung into my own driveway, shaken and chilled to the bone. Inside, I hurried up the stairs and stripped off my wet clothes. As the hot water dissolved my chills I thought and thought

After dinner I called Cal and asked him to meet me by the willow oak the next day after school.