So Mote it Be (10 page)

“My parents had a lot of books,” Annie said as Kate browsed.

“What do they do?” Kate asked.

“My father was an English professor,” Annie answered. “My mother was an artist. Those are her paintings.”

Kate looked where Annie was pointing and noticed several large canvases leaning against a wall.

“They're dead,” Annie said.

“What?” Kate asked, examining the paintings.

“My parents,” Annie said. “They're dead. Meg and I live here with my Aunt Sarah. My father's sister.”

“Oh,” Kate said. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to say next. Like almost everything she said, Annie mentioned her parents' deaths as if she was simply stating a fact.

Annie turned to one of the bookcases near her bed and picked out a book.

“I guess we should talk about this,” she said, tossing the book onto the bed.

Kate sat on the bed and picked up the book. It was a copy of
Spells and Charms for the Modern Witch
. Kate looked up at Annie, who dunked a cookie in her milk, took a bite, and swallowed.

“I got tired of checking it out,” she said. “So I bought my own copy. Where should we start?”

CHAPTER 7

Kate was so stunned that she didn't know where to begin.

“So you
did
try some of the spells,” she said accusingly.

Annie nodded. “A few,” she said. “But contrary to what you said in the cafeteria, I did
not
use magic to get good grades.”

“I'm sorry about that,” Kate said. “I just assumed you did because I did.”

“You did?” Annie said.

“Don't sound so surprised,” Kate said. “It wasn't that hard, really.”

“It's just that . . .” Annie began, but let her sentence trail off as she sat on the bed and picked at the patchwork quilt that covered it.

“What?” Kate asked.

Annie sighed. “Well,” she tried again. “I said that I
tried
some of the spells.”

“And?” Kate said.

“I didn't say they worked,” Annie finished, sounding embarrassed. “At least they didn't work quite the way I wanted them to.”

“That's exactly what happened to me!” Kate said. “What happened to yours?”

“You don't want to know.” Annie groaned.

“Yes, I do,” Kate said. “Now, come on—out with it. It can't be that bad.”

Annie made a face. “Oh, yes, it can,” she said. “Did you read the part about spells to make it rain?”

“I didn't get that far,” Kate admitted.

“I thought it would be a safe way to start,” Annie explained. “So I did one, thinking maybe it would snow or something. You know, something harmless.”

“And what happened?” Kate asked.

“The pipes in the basement burst,” Annie said.

Kate laughed so hard that she thought she might cry. When she was able to speak again, she put her hand on Annie's shoulder.

“If that's the worst thing that happened, then you have nothing to worry about,” she said.

“Actually, the mice were worse,” Annie said.

“The mice?” Kate asked, wiping her eyes.

“I tried one of the spells for summoning a familiar, too,” Annie explained.

“Familiar?” said Kate.

“You really didn't get very far, did you?” Annie said. “Familiars. You know, animals that help witches do their work. Supposedly you can do a spell to summon one. I thought it would be interesting to see what happened.”

“And you got mice?” asked Kate.

“Lots of mice,” Annie said. “They're still showing up in the kitchen, even though I did the spell two months ago. Now, tell me what you did.”

Kate explained about the spell for passing her chemistry midterm. “It worked,” she said, “but now everyone is mad at me. But that's not nearly as bad as the whole Scott thing.”

“The Scott thing?”

Kate sighed. Then she told Annie about making the doll and doing the love spell. “And now all the boys in school are pretty much in love with me,” she finished.

“And I thought mice were bad,” said Annie. “So, you got a good grade but everyone else failed because of it, and you got not just one boyfriend but fifty or sixty boyfriends. Nice job.”

“At least my pipes didn't burst,” Kate retorted. “How do we put everything back to normal?”

“You mean make you a marginal student with no love life?” Annie said. “I don't know.”

“What do you mean, you don't know!” exclaimed Kate. “You're the one who read the book a billion times.”

“And maybe if you'd read it all the way through even once you wouldn't have gone off making up your own spells,” Annie shot back.

The two of them glared at each other for a minute. Then Kate relented. “You're right,” she said. “I should have read the whole thing. But after I did the first spell and it seemed to work okay, I thought I could just do what I wanted.”

“I haven't learned all that much about witchcraft,” Annie said. “But what I have learned is that you have to be careful. This isn't something to just play with. All sorts of things could happen.”

“Like mice and ninety-sevens in chemistry,” said Kate.

“Exactly,” said Annie, picking up the book. “I haven't done any of the spells in here since mine backfired.”

“Well, I can't just wait for my problems to go away, or call a plumber or an exterminator to fix them,” Kate said. “I need to do something. There's got to be a spell in there that will fix all of this.”

Annie began flipping through the book. “I swore I wouldn't try any of this again,” she said. “But let's see what's in here.”

She flipped through the pages, looking at the spells and rejecting each one. Watching her, Kate got more and more anxious. Annie was her only hope, and if she couldn't find something that would help, Kate didn't know what she would do. But then Annie looked up at her.

“This might just do it,” she said.

“What is it?” asked Kate excitedly.

“Well, it's not exactly what you're looking for,” Annie said. “It's a ritual for reversing bad luck. But I think it can be reworked a little to fit the occasion.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Kate. “What do we need to do?”

“We?” said Annie. “What do you mean, we?”

“I thought you were going to help me,” Kate said.

“I did help you,” Annie said. “I found the spell. But don't expect me to do anything else.”

“Come on,” said Kate. “You've got to. I can do it myself, but if we both do it, it will be even better.”

“No,” said Annie, shaking her head emphatically. “Not after last time.”

“It might get rid of the last of the mice,” Kate said, trying to coax her into cooperating.

Annie groaned. “Fine,” she said. “I'll do the spell with you. But that's it.”

Kate clapped her hands together triumphantly. “Great. What do we need?”

Annie consulted the book. “The usual,” she said, sounding as if she'd done spells a thousand times. “I think I have most of the things we need up here.”

She went over to her dresser and pulled open a drawer. There was all kinds of stuff inside. Annie pulled out a box of candles, some matches, a glass jar, and what looked like a metal bowl. She put everything on the floor in the middle of the room.

“I need to get some things from the kitchen and check on Meg,” she said. “I'll be right back.”

While Annie was gone, Kate took the candles and arranged them in a circle, just as she'd done when performing her own spells. The metal bowl turned out to be a small cauldron with three legs. Kate put it in the center of the circle because that's where it seemed to belong. She put the glass jar next to it. It was filled with some kind of powder, but Kate didn't know what it was. When Annie came back a few minutes later, she looked at Kate's handiwork.

“Perfect,” she said. “Now, put this in the circle, too.” She handed Kate a box of salt, an empty bowl, and a kitchen knife.

Kate put the items next to the cauldron while Annie turned out the lights and closed the curtains. With the room almost completely dark, it was hard for Kate to see anything at all. But Annie seemed to know her way around, and a moment later she was standing in the circle of candles with Kate.

“Shall we cast the circle?” she said.

“Cast the circle?” Kate said. “You mean light the candles?”

“That's only part of it,” Annie said. “You really didn't read any of the book, did you?”

“Not the first half,” Kate said. “I kind of skipped right to the spell part.”

“That's half your problem right there,” Annie said. “Now, watch me.”

“Lead on, mouse queen,” Kate said.

Annie turned and faced the front of the house. Bending down, she lit one of the candles. Then she raised the knife, holding it with both hands and pointing it in front of her. “East,” she said, “creature of air. We ask that you come to our circle.”

“What are you doing?” whispered Kate as Annie paused.

“I'm calling the directions,” Annie said. “You invite them to the circle.”

“Are they here?” asked Kate. She had no idea what Annie was talking about. This was the first she'd ever heard about inviting anyone—or anything—into the circle.

“Just listen,” Annie said. “Try to envision the elements as I call them. It's supposed to help.”

Kate shut her eyes and thought about air. She imagined winds surrounding her. She pictured herself floating in the sky, held up by invisible hands. She felt the wind on her face and beneath her body. It wasn't nearly as hard as she imagined it would be, and she was almost disappointed when Annie turned to her right and lit another candle.

“South, creature of fire,” she said, holding out the knife as she had before. “We ask that you come to our circle.”

This time Kate pictured a crackling fire. She held out her hands to it and felt the warmth soaking into her skin. She imagined the shadows of the dancing flames, and she felt as if she was really dancing along with them.

Once more Annie turned and lit a candle. “West,” she said, “creature of water. We ask that you join us in our circle.”

Kate pictured herself diving into the bluest water she could imagine, and felt it surround her with its cool touch. She imagined a sea without an end to it, stretching all across the world. She visualized the beach that she sometimes rode her bike to, and the way the waves crashed on the sand and then pulled back again. She thought about how the sea was sometimes soothing and sometimes frightening, but always moving.

Annie turned one more time, lighting a fourth candle. “North, creature of the earth,” she said. “We ask that you join us in our circle.”

Kate shut her eyes and thought about the earth. She pictured mountains stretching up to the sky the way the mountains around Beecher Falls did. She envisioned vast deserts of shifting sands. She recalled the smell of digging in the garden in the summer. She imagined putting her hands into the earth and feeling it between her fingers. Suddenly she felt a sense of being rooted to the ground, as if she were standing in a forest surrounded by trees and growing things.

“Our circle is cast,” Annie said, breaking Kate's concentration.

Kate opened her eyes and looked around. Annie was lighting all of the candles that connected the four main ones, and now they were standing in a ring of light.

“That was really weird,” Kate said. “I could actually feel the earth, air, fire, and water as you talked about them.”

“That's the whole idea,” Annie said. “When you cast a circle, you're creating a sacred space for doing magic. You invite the directions, and the elements that represent them, to help you create that space.”

“How'd you learn all of this?” Kate asked.

“I told you, I read a lot,” Annie said. “It's all in the book. You know, in the part you were supposed to read before you started playing with spells.”

“And what's with the knife?” Kate said. “It seems kind of hostile to be pointing a knife at things you're supposed to be inviting to join us.”

“The knife is the traditional tool of witches,” Annie explained. “You use it to focus your energy. When I was casting the circle, I imagined white light coming from my body and flowing through the knife as I moved it around the circle to create a boundary. But it doesn't have to be a knife. I guess you can use branches or just your hands if you want to.”

Annie sat down on the floor, and Kate followed suit. Annie took the little cauldron and put something into it, which she then lit with a match.

“This is incense,” she said as she unscrewed the top on the glass jar and reached inside. She took some of the powder inside and sprinkled it into the cauldron. A thick cloud of smoke poured out and the room filled with a strong smell.