Blue Moon (17 page)

Sasha looked thoughtful. “Hmm,” she said. “Sort of a reverse Cinderella’s fairy godmother sort of thing.

I like it.”

Annie looked at them, squinting her eyes. “Well, I don’t,” she said. “So forget it.”

Cooper ignored her, speaking to Sasha. “What if we forced her into some sweatpants?” she said.

“Ooh,” Sasha replied. “I like that. And you know what would look
really
good?”

Cooper raised one eyebrow questioningly.

“Pigtails,” Sasha said, looking meaningfully at Annie’s hair.

Annie looked up, the brush for the polish in her hand. “You wouldn’t,” she said.

“Oh, but we would,” replied Cooper. She stood up and advanced toward Annie. “The power of the

pigtails compels you!” she said, imitating one of the classic scenes from
The Exorcist
as Annie pushed

herself against the wall.

“Don’t touch my hair!” Annie wailed as her friends descended upon her.

CHAPTER 17

Rowan was laughing. “I’m sorry,” she said, covering her smile with her hand. “I’m not making fun of you

or anything.”

“Then, what’s so funny?” asked Annie.

They were sitting in the living room of the Decklins’ house. Rowan was seated in an armchair while

Annie, Kate, and Cooper sat on the couch. Tyler was out working with Thatcher, and Kate had asked

his mother to not mention anything to him about what they were doing. Sasha, after staying over at

Annie’s the night before, had gone home after promising to check in later.

Rowan composed herself and took a deep breath. “What you’ve done is called aspecting,” she said.

“You’ve just taken it a little farther than you probably should have.”

“Aspecting?” Kate asked.

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Rowan nodded. “Aspecting is when someone takes on the characteristics—or aspects—of a particular

deity she or he is working with. Usually, it’s only done during rituals where we want to honor a certain

god or goddess.”

“But I wasn’t doing that,” Annie protested. “I just wanted to work with Freya for a while.”

“I understand that,” Rowan said kindly. “You did this by accident. By invoking Freya, you

unintentionally brought a little part of her into yourself. The exercise you were trying to do is a great one.

You just didn’t know the potential pitfalls to watch out for. This was a simple accident, really. It’s like

using too much sugar when you bake, or working out too strenuously. You need to try things a couple of

times before you know exactly how far to go.”

“You always were an overachiever,” Cooper joked.

“Do you mean that Annie is possessed?” asked Kate. “You know, by Freya?”

Rowan chuckled. “No,” she said. “Aspecting isn’t possession. It’s more like you assume some of the

traits of the deity involved. In Annie’s case, she was working with a goddess known for her beauty,

charm, pride, and seductiveness, so those were the traits that manifested themselves most clearly.”

Annie turned red as the others looked at her. She was feeling like a gigantic fool. “So this really isn’t

me?” she asked sadly.

“Of course it’s you,” Rowan answered. “You’ve just been goddessed up a bit, so to speak. The parts of

your personality that Freya corresponds to have been sent into overdrive, for lack of a better

explanation.”

Annie was silent. She was thinking, and she didn’t like the thoughts that were going through her head. If

she was only acting the way she was because she was aspecting Freya, did that mean it was all fake? Did

that mean that none of the things she’d done recently counted? While there were a couple of things she’d

just as soon forget about, like ruining Cooper’s performance and spoiling the wedding, there were others

she was really happy about, namely Brian.

“What happens when I go back to normal?” she asked hesitantly.

“That depends,” said Rowan. “Some people who have experienced aspecting find that they retain

nothing of the deity’s personality. Others find that they’ve kept little bits and pieces of it, perhaps the

pieces they were looking for when they decided to undergo aspecting in the first place. I was laughing

earlier because I was thinking of a ritual our coven did once where one of the women decided to aspect

Isis. For weeks afterward she kept ordering people around as if she really were this great Egyptian

goddess. It was funny because normally she was very quiet and shy.”

“How did you make her stop?” asked Cooper.

“In her case, she gradually returned to her old self,” Rowan explained. “She did keep a tiny bit of that

Isis personality, but in a good way. She was more assertive and less hesitant to speak her mind.”

“What about Annie?” Kate said. “Is she going to return to normal?”

“And how soon?” asked Cooper as Annie glared at her.

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“What if I don’t
want
to go back to being the old me?” Annie said.

“That’s up to you,” Rowan said. “Like I said, most likely this is just a temporary thing that will wear off

eventually. But if you want my advice, I think you should do it the right way.”

“Which is?” asked Annie.

“Do another ritual,” explained Rowan. “Thank Freya for lending you her gifts. Tell her what you’ve

learned from the experience. Then ask her to be on her way.”

“What if she takes her gifts with her?” said Annie.

Rowan smiled. “I know how you feel,” she said. “Aspecting, even accidentally, can be extremely

exciting. You feel a little bit like you
are
that goddess. But think about everything you’ve learned so far in

your studies. Think about how magic works. Then decide what you should do.”

“You mean we’re not going to do it now?” Kate said.

“No,” said Rowan, shaking her head. “This is something Annie has to do on her own. She started it on

her own and she has to end it that way. This is her journey, and only she knows when she’s ready to

proceed.”

Cooper and Kate groaned. “You mean we’re stuck with the junior goddess for a while longer?” said

Cooper. “I don’t know if I can take another day of her.”

“Who knows?” Annie said smugly. “Maybe I’ll wait a week, or a month, or a year. Maybe I won’t do it

at all. After all, school starts in three weeks, and I’d
love
to greet Sherrie on the first day with a little dose

of goddess energy.”

“Help us all,” said Kate, slumping into the couch.

After leaving Rowan’s, Annie went to Shady Hills. As she rode the bus she thought about everything

Rowan had said. If it was true that she was aspecting Freya’s personality, what did that mean? Did it

mean that she would never have done the things she’d done in the past two weeks otherwise? Would she

never have stood up to Sherrie, dared to go onstage in front of a lot of people, or talk to a guy she didn’t

know? Had she really only done those things because some part of the goddess was working inside her?

She didn’t like thinking that that was true. She liked who she was now. She liked being strong and

confident. She even liked being a little bit wild. She had become the sort of person she’d always envied,

and she liked believing that that person had always been inside her, just waiting to come out. If she asked

Freya to stop doing whatever it was she was doing, would that person disappear again, maybe forever?

The bus stopped and she got off, walking up the path to the nursing home.
You don’t have to decide

right this minute,
she told herself as she went inside. It wouldn’t hurt to let Freya hang around for a

while longer.
Just don’t start any food fights,
she reminded herself.

After checking in at the nurses’ office, Annie began her rounds of the rooms, making the beds and seeing

if the residents needed anything. Although she normally enjoyed doing that, she didn’t feel particularly

cheerful as she took the sheets off the beds and put new ones on. She felt as if she were being forced to

make a decision that she didn’t want to make. She knew that Kate and Cooper wanted her to let go of

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Freya. But she really didn’t want to. For the first time in her life she felt truly alive. Going back to her old

self would feel like dying. There was no way they could understand that. All they saw was the problems

Annie had caused. They didn’t know how it felt to become the person she’d dreamed of being. They

didn’t know what it felt like to have that and then have people telling you that you had to give it back.

Rowan said it was my choice,
she kept telling herself.
I don’t have to do anything if I don’t want to.

They can’t make me.

She thought back to the night before, when Cooper and Sasha had jokingly held her down and

pretended to exorcise her. They had been laughing, but she hadn’t thought it was very funny. Part of her

had been afraid that the wonderful feeling
would
leave her and she’d be empty again. While she knew

that her friends were just teasing her, she’d lain awake most of the night thinking about how lost she

would feel without the confidence that Freya had given her.

She pushed the laundry cart through the halls, her mind filled with all kinds of thoughts and feelings. She

just didn’t know what to do. She was going to have to see Kate, Cooper, and the others at class the next

night. Even worse, she was supposed to prepare some kind of presentation about her experiences

studying Wicca. She had forgotten all about that in the excitement of the past two weeks. She hadn’t

given any thought to what she would do.

She rolled the cart to the next room and looked inside. She was surprised to see Eulalie Parsons sitting

on the bed of the room’s occupant, Mrs. Bellingham. Mrs. Bellingham herself was also seated on the

bed, and the two women were looking down at some small things that were scattered across the

bedspread. When they heard Annie come in they looked up.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” said Annie.

Miss Parsons shook her head. “We’re just talking,” she said, scooping up whatever was on the bed and

putting them into a little cloth bag. She then tucked the bag into the pocket of her dress and turned to

Mrs. Bellingham. “You just do what I told you and it will all be fine,” she said. “I’ll see you later. Right

now I need to have a talk with this child.”

“Thank you, Eulalie,” the other woman said.

“Don’t you mention it,” Eulalie replied as she stood up.

“Let’s you and I take a little stroll,” she said to Annie.

“But I need to make the bed,” she protested.

“The bed can wait,” said the old woman. “It ain’t going nowhere in the next couple of minutes.”

Annie allowed herself to be led out of Mrs. Bellingham’s room and into the hallway.

“What were you doing in there?” she asked.

“That?” Miss Parsons said as if she had already forgotten about it. “Just rolling the bones. Answering

some questions for Gloria.”

“What kind of questions?” said Annie.

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“The kind that ain’t about you,” Eulalie answered. “Now, let me ask you one—what was you doing

outside my door the other afternoon?”

“You knew I was there?” Annie said.

Miss Parsons shook her head. “No, I didn’t. But someone else did, and he told me about it.”

“You mean Ben,” Annie replied quietly.

“That’s right,” the old woman said. “Your friend Ben. My friend, too, now that we’ve become

acquainted.”

“You talk to him?” Annie asked.

“From time to time,” answered Eulalie. “I thought, living in his room and all, it would be the right thing to

introduce myself and thank him for the accommodations.”

“How is he?” said Annie, feeling odd asking such a question.

“He’s doing fine,” Miss Parsons told her. “Says to tell you he misses you, but I expect you know that.”

“I miss him, too,” Annie told her. “Not that I’m not glad you’re here or anything.”

“That’s all right, girl,” said Eulalie reassuringly. “No harm in missing the dead just because the living are

still kicking around. But that’s not what I want to talk to you about.”

“What is it, then?” Annie asked, almost afraid of hearing the answer.

“You’re looking a little cloudy this morning,” Miss Eulalie said. “Walking around with a big old storm of

unhappiness over your head. What’s this all about?”

“Is it that obvious?” Annie asked.

“Saw it the minute you walked in the room,” the old woman replied. “That pretty pink and gold color

you’ve been carrying around is all smudged with it.”

Annie sighed. “I did something dumb,” she said. “I didn’t mean to, but I did it. Now the only way to fix it

is something I’m afraid will make me really unhappy.”

“Let me ask you something,” said Eulalie. “Are you happy now? I mean
really
happy?”

“Yes!” Annie said. “I am.”

Miss Parsons looked at her, her big dark eyes searching Annie’s as she peered through her glasses.

“You sure?” she asked again.

“Yes,” Annie said, less forcefully. She wanted to believe what she was saying, but suddenly she knew

that she wasn’t being entirely truthful, with Eulalie or with herself. Yes, she was happy that she looked

great and had a great boyfriend. But she wasn’t happy that these things had come to her not because of

who she was but because of who she was when Freya was helping her out. She wanted to earn them on

her own.

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Rowan had told her to think about what she’d learned so far in her magical studies. One of the biggest

lessons was that nothing was worth having if it caused other people to be harmed. Wasn’t that the

Wiccan Rede that they repeated so often: An it harm none, do as you will? While it was true that she

hadn’t deliberately harmed anyone through her ritual, she
had
done some things that had caused harm to