Spell Check (13 page)

“Why don’t you polish off the pizza so I won’t have to wrap it?”

“If you insist, Lois.” He reached for the slice. I didn’t know how he stayed in such great shape. Skateboarding and football must burn lots of calories.

“We’ll be right back.” Salem linked her arm through mine and dragged me from the kitchen. When we were halfway down the hall, she whispered in my ear. “Lois?”

“It’s a Superman joke.”

Salem’s brow furrowed. “Oh, I get it, Lois Lane and Clark Kent. Jordan Kent. He so digs you.”

A warm flush crept its way up my throat. “He does not.”

“Couldn’t you see he wants to take you to the dance?”

I could. One slight problem—my best friend so digs him.

We reached my room. Salem giggled. “Just think, Lois. Unlike Miss Ravenwood, you don’t need to perform a spell to get a date.”

“Don’t ever say that in front of Parvani.”

“Why?” Salem’s gaze swung to the pile of clothes concealing the spell book. “Don’t tell me. Parvani…”

I clasped her arm. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

“Of course I won’t. Parvani wasn’t planning on directing the spell at a particular person, was she?”

I bit my thumbnail. My eyes kind of rolled in their sockets toward the kitchen.

Salem gasped. “Jordan?”

I nodded.

“Holy Goddess. We have to stop her.”

Chapter Twenty

I knew Parvani. I couldn’t just tell her, “Don’t do the spell.” I’d have to provide evidence—preferably written, highlighted evidence. She already grasped the whole karma thing. I’d just have to prove it applied in this case. And if I failed, maybe the timing of the moon would be on my side. Otherwise, Parvani might think I’m jealous and want Jordan to myself. Which is true, but beside the point.

I decided to start with the phases of the moon aspect. After Mom and I dropped off Jordan and Salem, I snuck back to my room, grabbed the calendar off my desk, and pulled out Teen Wytche. It was past time for a spell check.

I reread the part about the new moon to the full moon phase being most optimal for casting a love spell. “The full moon is this Saturday,” I told Baby. “Parvani will never be ready by then.”

I searched the October calendar page for the dark circle representing the next new moon. October 25
^th
. The date seemed too close to Halloween if Parvani was hoping Jordan would ask her to the dance. Maybe I’d get lucky and she’d drop the whole thing.

Maybe Salem and I wouldn’t have to pull an intervention.

****

“Evie?”

I willed my face to levitate from my pillow. It wouldn’t.

“It’s after ten,” Mom said from the vicinity of the doorway. “Time to get up.”

I peeled one eye open. Light streamed through the white metal mini-blinds. She must mean ten in the morning. “Go away.”

“Five more minutes, Miss. Walk the dog after breakfast, then come up to my studio. We’re on deadline. Since you’re suspended, you can help stuff envelopes.”

I pictured the stiff plastic display envelopes Mom used to protect her hand-painted greeting cards. “There are child labor laws in this country,” I mumbled into the pillow.

“They don’t apply to family-run businesses,” Mom said in a trilling voice.

Uh oh. Deadline madness has set in.

She came back in five minutes, but it felt like five seconds. “Evie Elizabeth O’Reilly. Get a move on. We have a mortgage to pay.”

With a groan, I rolled out of bed and grabbed my sweats from a pile on the floor. Remind me to kill Evan. I’d much rather have faced school, Parvani, and the rumor mill than my parents’ studio. I’d avoided it since Dad’s death. As I climbed the wooden stairs, it felt like I had the Quarter Guardian stones strapped to my legs.

“There you are.” Mom swiveled her chair toward me when I opened the door. She’d tied back her auburn hair with a black scrunchie. Light sliced through the oversized windows, illuminating a sprinkling of gray strands that hadn’t been there before Dad died. “Ready to stuff envelopes?”

“Sure.” I took a seat beside her at the worktable. Dad’s desk, with its seventeen-inch monitor, and his darkroom with all its memories, were behind me. Even so, my heart clutched. I remembered the darkroom’s chemical smells, the tight space, all the hours Dad and I had spent there when I’d been little, before we’d gone digital.

“Want some music?” Mom asked.

“Sure.”

Mom punched the play button on the CD player Dad had given her five Christmases ago. After a second, a Beatles song came on. “Don’t forget these.” Mom handed me a pair of white cotton gloves, so I wouldn’t smudge the cards or leave fingerprints on the plastic envelopes.

I reached for a stack of cards, expecting Mom’s usual, hand-painted dragonflies in rich emeralds and glittering teal damselflies. They worked amazingly well on everything from birthday cards to sympathy notes. I stared down at the card in my hand. “Mom?”

“I know. They’re not what you expected. Do you hate them?”

“No, of course not.” I studied the night scene. A pale-skinned woman, dressed in a long black dress, stood before a low-hanging full moon. “It’s beautiful. Somber, but beautiful.” I checked the back. “Is it mass produced?”

“Yes. From a painting I did—rather, three paintings. I’m trying something new. But don’t worry. I’ll include plenty of my standard dragonflies and damselflies with each shipment. I still do those by hand. These are my Maiden series.”

She set out two more cards. In one, a serious-faced woman held a dazzling yellow-and-orange sun in front of her chest. Her heart radiated light. In the other, a woman in a long, white tunic reclined on a boulder beside dark blue water. Behind her, emerald ferns and deep green trees gave the scene a fairy glen feel. A damselfly perched on the boulder beside the woman’s foot.

“They’re beautiful.”

Mom lowered her shoulders. “I’m so glad you like them.”

Half an hour must have passed before I got up the courage to ask, “How do you do it every day?”

“Do what?”

“Work up here, surrounded by all these memories.”

Tears crested her eyes. Mom brushed them away with the paint-stained sleeve of her sweatshirt. “I lit a tea candle every morning. I told myself I had to work and could not fall apart until the candle guttered.”

“Did it work?”

She shook her head. “Not at first. But I had to support us, so I kept trying. Finally, I made it.”

“Wow.”

“Working in the studio was easy compared to going into our bedroom every night.” Mom sighed. “I can’t believe it’s been almost two years.”

“Yeah. Halloween is so not my favorite holiday anymore.”

Mom arched her brows. “Mine either.”

I glanced at the three easels set up near the windows. “The collages look great.”

Mom’s expression brightened. “I have an appointment with a gallery next week.”

“Awesome!”

“I talked to your father while I was working on them.”

“Was he calling from a satellite phone in heaven?”

Mom bumped her shoulder against mine. “No, but he would if he could.”

“He’d be too busy doing a photo essay on Gandhi or something.”

“From war to peace. That would be a nice change.” Mom sighed. “Anyway, I tell him about you. How you dyed your hair, that you wear his cap. Those sorts of things.”

I swallowed the enormous lump lodged in my throat. “Sarah says the veil between worlds is thin this time of year.”

Mom twisted her emerald wedding ring. “I know. The house feels different, like there’s something going on we can’t quite see.”

I debated telling her about Teen Wytche.

“How is Parvani coming along with her witchcraft project?”

I blanked, but then remembered the little lie I had told her in the bookstore. “I don’t know.”

“Madrun Ravenwood has her eye on Parvani. Any idea why?”

I shrugged, which, technically, wasn’t lying. I slid another card into an envelope.

“Parvani doesn’t seem like the type to dabble in the Craft, unless she was desperate.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, say she decided to do a spell to help her maintain her A average.”

“She wouldn’t be harming anyone if she did,” I said, thinking of my spell for help in math and science.

“Maybe not, but what if she believed magick could help her dance again? She might hurt herself.”

Wait a minute. “Sounds like you know a lot about the Craft.”

“I studied it out of self-defense.”

“Why?”

“I went to school with Madrun Ravenwood, remember? And we both had a crush on your dad.”

My heart skipped several beats. “You didn’t do anything to bind Dad to you, did you?”

Mom remained silent. My pulse spiked. “I was tempted,” she said at last. “Especially since I thought Madrun was up to something. But now I’m so glad I didn’t.”

“Why?”

Mom’s eyes welled, making me sorry I had asked. “Because if I had, I would never have been sure he loved me. I’d always fear he had run off to dangerous countries to escape me.”

I clasped her arm. “That’s not why he did it.”

She patted my hand. “I know.” Her voice sounded choked. I knew, spell or no spell, Mom harbored the same fear I did—Dad hadn’t loved us enough to stay home.

“Your Nana dabbles in the Craft.” Mom sniffed. “She must not be any good.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because she promised to put a protection spell around Dash.”

“Are you serious?”

Mom’s lower lip quivered.

“You can’t blame Nana for Dad’s death.” It’s my fault, not hers. He gave me his lucky cap.

Mom shrugged and arched her eyebrows, like she didn’t believe me. Then she cleared her throat, a sure sign she intended to change the subject. “It’s nice to see you and Jordan getting along again.”

“Yeah.” I reached for a second batch of cards and glanced at the clock. Eleven-fifteen. In an hour, I could try to call Parvani. With any luck she’d be in Mr. Ross’s room, or the library, and miss the gossip hotline.

Mom slid one of the water maidens into an envelope. “Isn’t it weird? You and Jordan have hardly spoken to each other in years, and now you’re buddies again.”

I did not want to discuss Jordan with Mom, so I reached for another card.

“Your dad always hoped you and Jordan would become friends again. Maybe he’s helping you along.”

“Sure, Mom. Dad’s playing cupid from the great beyond.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

I thought of Teen Wytche transforming into an honest-to-Goddess grimoire. What if Dad had guided me to the spell book?

Chapter Twenty-One

Mom didn’t break for lunch until one, so I missed my chance to call Parvani. Then, before I knew it, three forty-five had arrived. I paced my room, picking my way around the piles of clothes that had mushroomed again. Twice I reached for the phone, then talked myself out of it.

By four o’clock I started to wonder—did Parvani have piano today? Math club? Community service? Why hadn’t she called? Was she still speaking to me? Had Salem warned her not to do the spell?

I reached for the phone. It rang as I touched it, nearly giving me a heart attack. “Hello?”

“Zhù is missing again.” Parvani sounded breathless.

“What?”

“I happened to be passing by Room 222 when sixth period got out. No Zhù. Then after school, I ran into someone who has seventh period Spanish. She said Zhù didn’t make it to Spanish either.”

“Maybe he’s out sick.”

I heard the rustle of satin and figured Parvani had just sat down on her canopy bed. The pink duvet matched Parvani’s old toe shoes. She’d gone through tons of pairs before she’d had to give up ballet. They were tacked up on her walls, creating a three-dimensional border along the top. The effect was way cool, though kind of sad, given how much Parvani missed performing.

“He was in HG before lunch,” Parvani reported.

“Have you tried texting him?”

“Yeah. No response. I wish you had a cell phone so you could try. Maybe it’s just my number he’s blocking.”

“Zhù wouldn’t. He’s crazy about you.”

“Get serious.” Parvani’s voice softened like she wanted to believe me.

“I am serious. You’re the only one who can’t see it.”

“We’re just friends.”

Yeah, like Jordan and me. I heard more satin rustling.

“Evie, you still there?”

“I’m here. Listen. Don’t worry. I bet you’ll hear from Zhù by tea time.”

Parvani sighed. I could just imagine her adjusting her glasses. “All right. But let me give you his number. Maybe you could try calling him.”

“And say what?”

“Make up something about Yearbook. I don’t know.” She proceeded to give me Zhù’s cell phone number. I wrote it down in pencil on the back of an old movie ticket stub. “How was your first day of suspension?”

“Okay. Mom’s on deadline, so she made me stuff envelopes all day.”

“Oh, fun. Well, I better do my homework before the Terrors get back from karate.”

“Okay. About the spell…”

The line went dead.

Parvani hadn’t mentioned Jordan. Not once. Which made me wonder—what if I could get Zhù to ask Parvani to the Halloween dance? Thinking of our tutoring date on Saturday, I decided to go online and check my homework assignments on the school’s website. I didn’t want him to cancel on me because I had missed class, too.

The homework for Spanish involved reviewing what we had studied earlier in the week, so my two-day suspension shouldn’t disqualify me as a tutor. Operation Get-Zhù-To-Sweep-Parvani-Off-Her-Feet could commence.

I waited until I had finished the homework and eaten dinner before I called Zhù. After the fifth ring, I heard, “Hey. You’ve reached the Zhù-man’s voicemail. You know what to do.”

Zhù-man? I tried not to laugh. “Hola Zhù-man. It’s Evie. Just confirming I’m still on top of Spanish, despite my two-day house arrest. So see you Saturday at four. Adiós.” At least now, if Parvani asks, I can say I called Zhù. I just can’t tell her why.

Zhù didn’t call back in the evening, or the next day. By Saturday, I started to worry. Maybe he did have a dread disease. Or maybe his parents had taken away his phone. Then again, it was hard to imagine Zhù going over his allotted minutes.