So Mote it Be (8 page)

“I studied so hard!” Tara wailed. “And I would have passed . . .”

“If it weren't for me,” Kate said, finishing her sentence.

Tara looked at her and didn't say anything.

“I'm really sorry,” Kate said. “I didn't mean to do it.”

“I even asked you to study with me,” Tara said quietly.

“I said I was sorry,” Kate tried again.

Tara didn't say anything, but Kate knew she had done something awful. For the rest of the class, she sat staring at her test paper. The spell she'd done had given her a good grade, all right, but she had made a lot of other people fail in the process. Was it worth it? If things were supposed to be working out the way she wanted, why did she feel so terrible?

After class Tara left without waiting for Kate. But several other people made sure they spoke to her, and what they had to say wasn't particularly nice.

“Thanks a lot,” Robert said as he passed her on the way out. “Next time you plan on ruining the curve, make sure you let us in on it.”

“Way to go,” said another girl, and Kate knew it wasn't a compliment.

“I got a failing grade thanks to you,” said Alan Folger. “But I'll forgive you if you go out with me this weekend.”

Kate ignored him and brushed past the other students waiting to insult her, and made her getaway. She was beginning to feel like there was no place in the school she could go where someone wasn't angry with her. Even the sight of Scott walking toward her didn't cheer her up.

“Hey,” he said. “What's wrong? You look upset.”

“I aced my chem test,” she said.

“And that's a problem?” Scott asked. “I've never dated anyone who was mad about being smart.”

Scott put his arm around her and steered her down the hall. Having him next to her, Kate felt a little better. She felt protected and safe. With Scott there, it didn't matter if people were angry at her. She
was
proud of having done well on the test. It wasn't her fault the other students hadn't done well. It wasn't her fault that she was able to make a spell work.

By the time she and Scott reached the end of the hall, she felt a lot better. When he said good-bye and went into his next class, she walked to her own class thinking that things would be okay after all. Her friends couldn't stay mad at her forever, and people would eventually forget about the test. She did feel bad that Tara would have to miss out on basketball for two weeks, but she would find some way to make it up to her. Maybe she could even do a spell to help out.

She was so busy thinking about all the things that were going on that she wasn't watching where she was going. When she bumped into someone and dropped her books, she barely noticed.

“I'm sorry,” she began, picking up her fallen books. “I wasn't looking and—”

“I bet you weren't,” a girl said. Kate looked up. Terri Fletcher was standing in front of her. A group of Terri's friends were with her, and they looked at Kate with undisguised hostility.

“You don't seem to care who you run into—or over—do you?” Terri said. “As long as you get what you want.”

“Look,” said Kate. “I'm sorry I ran into you, but it was an accident.”

“I suppose what happened with Scott was an accident, too,” Terri said.

Kate looked into Terri's angry face. The older girl was taller than she was, and Kate didn't want any kind of confrontation.

“I'm sorry Scott changed his m-mind about going to the d-dance with you,” Kate stammered. “But it's not my fault.”

“Oh, yeah?” said another girl, behind Terri. “And I suppose it isn't your fault that my boyfriend keeps asking me why I can't be more like you.”

“I don't even know who your boyfriend is,” Kate said.

The girl laughed. “Little Miss Innocent. Right. Look, I don't know what you think you're up to, but we've had just about enough of it.”

Kate looked around at the girls. They seemed to be circling her, and she felt trapped.
They're like the mobs that burned the witches
, Kate thought suddenly. They were angry, and she was the person they were angry at.

“But I didn't
do
anything!” Kate said. She knew she was going to cry if they kept it up, and she didn't want to do that.

“I saw you talking to my boyfriend,” another girl said. She stood in front of Kate, her eyes flashing. “It was obvious you were flirting with him.”

“He was talking to
me
,” Kate said helplessly. “I can't stop people from talking to me.”

The girl put her finger in front of Kate's face. “You just stay away from what doesn't belong to you, got it?”

Kate felt the circle of girls closing in on her. Her heart was racing, and her mouth was dry. She wanted to tell them she was innocent of all the things they were accusing her of, but she couldn't. She knew that no matter what she said, they wouldn't believe her.

“I don't know what you
did
to make Scott change his mind,” Terri said, emphasizing the word, “but don't think he's going to be with you for long. Once he sees what kind of girl you are, he'll drop you so fast you won't know what to do.”

Kate felt the first tears forming in her eyes, and she tried to hold them back. She'd never felt so awful in her life. All she wanted to do was run away and hide, to be somewhere where people weren't yelling at her.

“In the meantime, try to keep your hands off everyone else,” a girl said.

Kate couldn't take any more. Rushing forward, she pushed her way through the crowd of girls and ran down the stairs. She could hear them laughing at her as she stumbled and almost fell, her books scattering on the steps. She grabbed them and fled, just wanting to get away from the cruel voices.

The tears she'd been holding back came out now, flowing hot and wet down her cheeks as she started to sob. Everything was going wrong, and she didn't know how to stop it. She'd just wanted to be happy. Why was everything out of control?

She ran until she came to the library. Classes had started, and she had no intention of going into her math class looking the way she did. The library looked deserted, so she pushed open the doors and went inside. She walked to the end of the rows of books and turned into the aisle between two shelves. Slumping to the floor, she put her head in her hands and cried.

Her whole body shook as all of the anxiety and unhappiness poured out of her. Her life was a mess, and she didn't know what she could do to fix it. She couldn't help it that all of the boys were paying attention to her. She couldn't help it if her good grade had ruined things for the rest of the class. She couldn't help it if Scott wanted to take her to the Valentine's Day dance. So why did she feel like she was being punished for doing something wrong?

She wiped her eyes and looked around. She noticed that she happened to be sitting in the row of books where she'd found the book of spells.

I wish I'd never seen that book
, she thought.
That's what caused all these problems in the first place.

She knew it was the spells she'd done that were making things go wrong. But she didn't know why they weren't working correctly. She'd done everything the way the book said to. Well, mostly the way the book said to. She had to admit that she'd improvised a little bit. Still, she didn't think she'd done anything to make things turn out as badly as they had.

She wished she knew someone else who knew something about magic. If only she had someone she could talk to about what was going on, things would be better. Her friends were definitely out. They probably weren't even speaking to her. She couldn't talk to her parents. They would think she was nuts. There was nobody.

Maybe there is,
she thought. After all, she had checked the book out. Maybe someone else had checked it out at some point, too. And maybe that person had done some of the spells. If she could find out who it was, she might be able to get some help figuring out where she'd gone wrong. But how could she find out who else had checked the book out?

She had an idea. Standing up, she straightened her clothes and fixed her hair. She hoped her crying hadn't made her look too awful. Her plan depended upon her looking totally normal. She took a few deep breaths, then walked up to the circulation desk and smiled at the librarian behind the counter. She was relieved it wasn't a student worker, who probably would have been someone who was mad at her for one reason or another.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked.

“I hope so,” Kate said. “I checked out a book last week for one of my classes, and I found a personal letter in it. But without a name,” she added quickly, trying not to think about how much sense she wasn't making. “I think whoever checked it out before I did must have left it in there as a bookmark or something, and I wanted to return it.”

“Well, that's very thoughtful of you,” the librarian said. “Most people probably wouldn't have bothered.”

“I know I wouldn't want to lose a piece of personal correspondence,” Kate said innocently. “Is there any way for you to tell me who signed the book out last?”

“What's the title of the book?” the woman asked.

Kate told her, trying not to sound self-conscious about having checked out a book of spells. But if the librarian thought it was strange, she didn't let on. She turned to the file of circulation cards and pulled open a drawer. Flipping through them, she paused and pulled one out. She turned back to Kate and held it out to her.

“There you go,” she said.

Kate took the card and looked at it. The most recent name on the card was her own. Above it there was another one. In fact, the same name was written on the seven lines above Kate's. The same person had checked the book out repeatedly.

And that person was Annie Crandall.

CHAPTER 6

Kate stared at the circulation card. Annie Crandall? She couldn't believe it. No-nonsense Annie, who lived for science, had repeatedly checked out a book about witchcraft. Why? Kate looked at the name again, wondering if perhaps she'd read it incorrectly. But there it was, written seven times in the librarian's precise handwriting. Annie Crandall had checked the book out for almost two months straight.

Kate realized that the librarian was staring at her. She handed the card back and smiled.

“Thanks a lot,” she said. “I'll make sure that girl gets her letter back.”

The librarian returned the card to the circulation file, and Kate walked away. She was still having a hard time accepting the fact that Annie had been reading the book. Annie seemed like such a logical type. Kate couldn't picture her lighting candles and saying spells. She was just too, well, normal for things like that.

I wonder if that's how she does so well in chemistry
, Kate thought as she left the library. It would certainly explain why Annie was always at the top of the class. Kate remembered the look Annie had given her when Miss Blackwood had announced her grade, and she wondered what Annie would say if she knew Kate was using magic, too.

Still, Kate didn't know how she was going to approach Annie for help. She'd never really even spoken to her. She didn't want to just walk up and say, “Hey, tried any spells lately?” If Annie had been reading the book for some other reason, she might think Kate was crazy. Everyone already apparently thought she was up to no good; she didn't need it getting out that she was playing around with witchcraft as well.

But she definitely needed to figure out what was going on, and Annie seemed to be the only person who might be able to help her. She checked her watch and saw that her next class would be starting in a few minutes.

Kate thought through the rest of her day. She had art and English next. Annie wasn't in either of those classes, so the earliest Kate might run into her would be at lunch. She tried to remember whether or not she and Annie had the same lunch period. She couldn't remember ever having seen her in the cafeteria. Then again, she thought, she'd never looked for her before.

She tried to keep a low profile for her next two classes. For one thing, she didn't want to run into Terri Fletcher or any of her friends. Besides, she could tell by the way that people shot glances at her in the halls that she was still public enemy number one among a good portion of the student body.

Worst of all, she had to avoid Scott. She knew things would get even worse if people saw them together, at least for the moment, so she tried to stay away from him. After art, when she saw him walking down the hall toward her, she ducked down the stairs before he could catch up. And she almost ran into him again outside her English class, where he'd gone to look for her, but she managed to hide in the girls' room until he had to leave for his own class. She knew he would be confused about her behavior, but she couldn't risk causing a scene. Not until she sorted out a few things.