The Coven (14 page)

“We’re just talking,” said Bakker.

Mary K.’s hands pushed against his chest, and he resisted it. Fury roiled inside me, and I raised the bat.

Whap! I gave Bakker a smart rap on his shoulder to get his attention. I hadn’t been this furious since Bree and I’d had our last fight.

“Ow!” Bakker yelled. “What are you doing? Are you nuts?”

“Bakker, get off!” Mary K. said again, pushing at him.

I thrust my face close to Bakker’s, and with my teeth clenched, I spoke as menacingly as I could. “Get the hell off her!”

Bakker’s face went stiff, and he quickly moved away from the bed. He looked embarrassed and angry, his eyes dark. Then he snapped out his hand and knocked the bat out of my grip. My jaw dropped in surprise as the wood went flying across the room.

“Stay out of this, Morgan,” he said. “You don’t know what’s going on. Mary K. and I are just talking.”

“Ha!” said Mary K., jumping up from the bed and yanking down her shirt. “You’re being an ass! Now get out!”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on,” Bakker said. “You said come over!” He was almost yelling, his voice filling the room. “You said come up here! What was I supposed to think? We’ve been going out almost two months!”

Mary K. was crying now. “I didn’t mean that,” she said, holding her pillow to her stomach. “I just wanted to be alone with you.”

“What did you think being alone with me was all about?” he asked, his arms wide. He took a step closer to her.

“Watch it, Bakker,” I warned, but he ignored me.

“I didn’t mean that,” Mary K. repeated, crying.

“Jesus!” he said, leaning over her. My teeth clenched, and I started edging over toward the bat. “You don’t know what you want.”

“Shut up, Bakker,” I snapped. “For God’s sake, she’s fourteen.”

Mary K. cried into her pillow.

“She’s my girlfriend!” Bakker shouted. “I love her, and she loves me, so stay out of this! It’s none of your business!”

“None of my business?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “That’s my little sister you’re talking about!”

Without planning it, I snapped out my arm, finger pointed at Bakker. Before my eyes a small ball of spitting, crackly blue light shot out of my finger and streaked toward him, hitting him in the side. It was like the light I had given to Jenna last night, but different. Bakker yelped and stumbled, clutching his side and clawing at the bedspread. I stared at him, horrified, and he stared back at me as if I had suddenly sprouted wings and claws.

“What the hell—” he gasped, clasping his side. I was praying blood wouldn’t start running out through his fingers. When he took his hand away, there were no marks on his shirt, no blood. I breathed out in relief.

“I’m out of here,” he said in a strangled voice, lurching to his feet. He turned back to look at Mary K. one last time. She had her face buried in her pillow, and she didn’t look up. With a last glare at me Bakker stormed through the bedroom door and pounded down the steps. The front door slammed moments later, and I peeked out down the stair-well to make sure he was gone. Through the front door sidelight I saw him striding fast down the street, rubbing his side. His lips were moving as if he was swearing to himself.

Back in Mary K.’s room, she was holding a tissue to her eyes and sniffling.

“Jesus, Mary K.,” I said, sitting next to her on the bed. “What was that about? Why aren’t you at the diner?”

She started crying again and leaned forward into me. I put my arms around her and held her, so thankful she hadn’t been hurt, that I had come home when I had. For the first time in a week it felt like the two of us again, the way we used to be. Close. Comfortable. Trusting each other. I had missed that so much.

“Don’t tell Mom and Dad,” she said, tears wetting her cheeks. “I just wanted to see Bakker alone, so I told them I needed to study, and I had them drop me off here while they went to lunch. It’s just—we’re always with other people. I didn’t know he would think—”

“Oh, Mary K.,” I said, trying to soothe her. “It was a huge misunderstanding, but it wasn’t your fault. Just because you said you wanted to see him alone doesn’t mean that you’re obligated to go to bed with him.You meant one thing; he understood another.What’s awful is what an ass he was being. I should have called the cops.”

Mary K. sniffled and drew back. “I don’t really think he was going to . . . hurt me,” she said. “I think it kind of looked worse than it was.”

“I can’t believe you’re defending him!”

“I’m not,” said my sister. “I’m not defending him, and I’m definitely breaking up with him.”

“Good,” I said strongly.

“But I have to say, it really wasn’t like him,” Mary K. went on. “He’s never pushed me too far, always listened when I said no. I’m sure he’ll be really sorry tomorrow.”

My eyes narrowed as I looked at her. “Mary Kathleen Rowlands, that’s not good enough. Don’t you dare make excuses for him. When I walked in here, he was pinning you down!”

Her brows creased. “Yeah,” she said.

“And he knocked the bat out of my hands,” I said. “And he was yelling at us.”

“I know,” said Mary K., looking angry. “I can’t believe him.”

“That’s more like it,” I said, standing up. “Tell me you’re breaking up with him.”

“I’m breaking up with him,” my sister repeated.

“Okay. Now I’m going to go change. You better wash your face and straighten your room before Mom and Dad come home.”

“Okay,” said Mary K., standing up. She gave me a watery smile.“Thanks for rescuing me.” She reached out to hug me.

“You’re welcome,” I said, and turned to go.

“How did you stop him, anyway? He said, ‘Ow!’ and then fell against the bed.What did you do?”

I thought fast. “I kicked his knee and made it buckle,” I said. “Made him lose his balance.”

Mary K. laughed. “I bet he was surprised.”

“I think we both were,” I said honestly. Then, feeling a little shaky, I went downstairs. I had shot a bolt of light at someone. Surely that was strange, even for a witch.

September 1, 1982

Today we’re moving out of this hellhole, to a town about three hours north of here. It’s called Meshomah Falls. I think Meshomah is an Indian word. They have Indian words all over the place around here. The town is small and very pretty, kind of like home.

We already have jobs—I’m going to waitress at the little café in town, and Angus will be helping a local carpenter. We saw people dressed in queer old-fashioned clothes there last week. I asked a local man about them, and he said they were Amish.

Last week Angus got back from Ireland. I didn’t want him to go, and I couldn’t write about it until now. He went to Ireland, and he went to Ballynigel. Not much of the town is left. Every house where a witch lived was burned to the ground and now has been razed flat for rebuilding. He said none of our kind are left there, none he could find. Over in Much Bencham he got a story that people have been telling about a huge dark wave that wiped out the town, a wave without water. I don’t know what could cause or create something so big, so powerful. Maybe many covens working together.

I was terrified for him to go, thought I’d never see him again. He wanted to get married before he left, and I said no. I can’t marry anyone. Nothing is permanent, and I don’t want to fool myself. Anyway, he took the money, went home, and found a bunch of charred, empty fields.

Now he’s here, and we’re moving, and in this new town, I’m hoping a new life can begin. -M. R.

 

Late that afternoon I decided to hunt down my Wicca books. I lay on my bed and cast out my senses, sort of feeling my way through the whole house. For a long time I got nothing, and I started to think I was wasting my time. But then, after about forty-five minutes, I realized I felt the books in my mom’s closet, inside a suitcase at the very back. I looked, and sure enough, there they were. I took them back to my room and put them on my desk. If Mom or Dad wanted to make something of it, let them. I was through with silence.

 

On Sunday night I was sitting at my desk, working my way through math homework, when my parents knocked on my door.

“Come in,” I said.

The door opened, and I heard Mary K.’s music playing louder from inside her room. I winced. Our musical tastes are completely different.

I saw my parents standing in the doorway. “Yes?” I said coolly.

“May we come in?” Mom asked.

I shrugged.

Mom and Dad came in and sat down on my bed. I tried not to glance at the Wicca books on my desk.

Dad cleared his throat, and Mom took his hand.

“This past week has been very . . . difficult for all of us,” Mom said, looking reluctant and uncomfortable. “You’ve had questions, and we weren’t ready to answer them.”

I waited.

She sighed. “If you hadn’t found out on your own, I probably never would have wanted to tell you about the adoption,” she said, her voice ending on a whisper. “I know that’s not what people recommend. They say everyone should be open, honest.” She shook her head. “But telling you didn’t seem like a good idea.” She raised her eyes to my dad’s, and he nodded at her.

“Now you know about it,” Mom said. “Part of it, anyway. Maybe it’s best for you to know as much as we know. I’m not sure. I’m not sure what the best thing is anymore. But we don’t seem to have a choice.”

“I have a right to know,” I said. “It’s my life. It’s all I can think about. It’s there, every day.”

Mom nodded. “Yes, I see that. So.” She drew in a long breath and looked down at her lap for a moment. “You know Daddy and I got married when I was twenty-two and he was twenty-four.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We wanted to start a family right away,” said my mom. “We tried for eight years, with no luck. The doctors found one thing wrong with me after another. Hormonal imbalances, endometriosis . . . it got to where every month I would get my period and cry for three days because I wasn’t pregnant.”

My dad kept his gaze on her. He freed his hand from hers and wrapped his arm around her shoulders instead.

“I was praying to God to send me a baby,” said Mom. “I lit candles, said novenas. Finally we applied at an adoption agency, and they told us it might be three or four years. But we applied anyway.Then ...”

“Then an acquaintance of ours, a lawyer, called us one night,” said my dad.

“It was raining,” my mom put in as I thought about their friends, trying to remember a lawyer.

“He said he had a baby,” my dad said. He shifted and tucked his hands under his knees. “A baby girl who needed adopting, a private adoption.”

“We didn’t even think about it,” Mom said. “We just said yes! And he came over that night with a baby and handed her to me. And I took one look and knew this was
my
baby, the one I’d prayed for for so long.” Mom’s voice broke, and she rubbed her eyes.

“That was you,” Dad said unnecessarily. He smiled at the memory. “You were seven months old and just so—”

“So perfect,” Mom interrupted, her face lighting up. “You were plump and healthy, with curly hair and big eyes, and you looked up at me . . . and I knew you were the one. In that moment you became my child, and I would have killed anyone who tried to take you away from me.The lawyer said that your birth parents were too young to raise a baby and had asked him to find you a good home.” She shook her head, remembering. “We didn’t even think about it, didn’t ask for more information. All I knew was, I had my baby, and frankly, I didn’t care where you had come from or why.”

I clenched my jaw, feeling my throat start aching. Had my birth parents given me to someone to keep me safe, knowing they were in danger somehow? Had the lawyer been telling the truth? Or had I just been found somewhere, after they were dead?

“You were everything we wanted,” said Dad. “That night you slept between us in our bed, and the next day we went out and bought every kind of baby thing we’d ever heard of. It was like a thousand Christmases, all of our dreams coming true, in you.”

“A week later,” Mom said, sniffling, “we read about a fire in Meshomah Falls. How two bodies had been found in a barn that had burned to the ground. When the bodies were identified, they matched the names on your birth certificate.”

“We wanted to know more, but we also didn’t want to do anything to hurt the adoption,” said my dad. He shook his head. “I’m ashamed to say, we just wanted to keep you, no matter what.”

“But months later, after the adoption was final—it went through really fast, and finally it was all legal and no one could take you away—then we tried to find out more,” Mom continued.

“How?” I asked.

“We tried calling the lawyer, but he had taken a job in another state. We left messages, but he never returned any of our calls. It was kind of odd,” Dad added. “It almost seemed like he was avoiding us. Finally we gave up on him.

“I went through the newspapers,” Dad went on. “I talked to the reporter who had covered the fire story, and he put me in touch with the Meshomah police. And after that I did research in Ireland, when I was there on a business trip. That was when you were about two years old and your mom was expecting Mary K.”

“What did you find out?” I asked in a small voice.

“Are you sure you want to know?”

I nodded, gripping my desk chair. “I do want to know,” I said, my voice stronger. I knew what Alyce had told me and what I had found out at the library. I needed to know more. I needed to know it all.

“Maeve Riordan and Angus Bramson died in that barn fire,” my dad said, looking down as if he were reading the words off his shoes. “It was arson—murder,” he clarified.

“The barn doors had been locked from the outside, and gasoline had been poured around the building.”

I trembled, my eyes huge and fastened on my dad. I hadn’t read anywhere that it had definitely been murder.