White is for Magic (2 page)

"Give me the phone NOW!" I insist.

"Why are you being all wiggy? The boiler room is where everybody sneaks in--guys, guests after midnight, people carrying curious liquids," Amber smiles. "Why ruin everybody's fun by finking to the RD?"

"Maybe I just don't think people should be sneaking in," I say. "Or locking people down in a basement."

"Are you kidding?" Amber says. "One of the benefits of the senior houses is that people
can
sneak in. Plus, you were
penciled
in, not
locked
in. And it was purely an accident."

"He didn't try to attack you or anything, did he?" Drea interrupts. "Wait--what happened to your knee?"

I look down. My pajamas are ripped; there's a giant splinter sticking out through the belly of one of the gingerbread-cookie men patterned across the flannel fabric. But my fingers hurt just as much; there are bits of wax caked to the skin. I break one of the leaves off the aloe plant by the window. The clear, syrupy goo oozes from inside the thick, green plant flesh; I apply the goo to the hardened wax droplets to help soothe the burn.

"What the hell happened to you?" Drea moves toward the edge of the bed, her perfectly toned, tanning-bed legs sticking out from a school T-shirt, the giant Hillcrest letters stretched across her chest. She stares at my waxy fingers.

11

"Candle wax," I say. "My candle blew out when I started running."

"You know, Stacey," Amber begins, "your primitive living thing does have its charm, but modern electricity is way cooler."

Amber's sarcasm spares me the trouble of explaining my knee.

"Maybe we should call someone to look around a bit," Drea says. "Just to be sure."

Amber tosses me the phone. "Go ahead if you want, but it was probably just some prank. You know, some MichaelMeyers wannabe, inspired by tonight's horror movie marathon. I don't know what Student Activities was thinking, especially considering we're coming up on the one-year anniversary. Case in point." Amber pulls an envelope from the pocket of her pajamas. It has my name, Stacey Brown, written across the front.

"Not again." Drea rolls her eyes and sinks back in her bed.

"Someone slid it under our door tonight," Amber says, tearing at the seal. "One of the ghost groupies, no doubt." She unfolds the paper and reads the message aloud: "Five days till death."

"Great," I say.

"Oh, and someone's drawn a cute little knife here beside your name." Amber flashes me the ink sketch.

"How is a knife cute?" Drea asks.

"It has a curly handle." Amber points out the stylish detail. "See what I mean? This stupid school is full of immature urchins with nothing better to do."

12

It's true we've had our share of pranks this year--phone calls, "I'M WATCHING YOU!" notes stuffed in our mailboxes, the occasional hockey mask or pool of ketchup blood left outside our door or window. All because of last year.

Last year, I was having nightmares--nightmares that turned out to be premonitions, forewarning me that Drea was going to be killed. And then all this stuff started happening. Drea was getting these weird phone calls from some guy who wouldn't tell her his name. And then she started getting these notes and packages, telling her he was coming for her. In the end we were able to save Drea from Donovan, a guy she had known since the third grade, a guy we all knew as the one who would be crushing on her until the day he died. Of course, he wasn't the one who ended up dead.

That
was Veronica Leeman.

Despite Amber's efforts to convince me that the incident down in the boiler room was just another prank, I call Keegan anyway and tell her everything that happened, including the part about the window being open a crack but minus the part about the spell. She tells me that she'll check it out and get back to me. I know there's a chance that Amber might be right, but I honestly don't feel that she is. Why else would I be feeling this enormous sense of deja vu?

I rub the aloe gel into the burn and, with my other hand, assess the damage to my knee. It's not as bad as it

13

feels. I can see the splinter piece through the skin on my kneecap--a good sign. I grip the part sticking out and pull, watching the splinter move its way toward the puncture spot.

Amber grabs her wallet off the night table and hands it to me. "Here, gnaw down on Scooby That's what I do when I have to pluck my eyebrows." She feeds the wallet into my mouth before I can object.

"From what I can see," Drea runs a finger over one of Amber's eyebrows, "it looks like Scooby hasn't been nibbled in a while."

"Maybe not," Amber says, feeling between her eyebrows for fuzz. "But at least
he
gets some tongue action."

"What's
that
supposed to mean?"

"If the nun habit fits . . ." Amber flops down atop my bed, knees bent, feet facing in toward one another, making the Porky Pigs of her slippers kiss.

I ignore them as best I can and resume my splinter plucking, trying to keep my hand steady so it comes out in one piece. Despite excess drool, the wallet actually helps, and, with only a few grunts, I'm able to pull the splinter out.

Except there's still some dirt left under my skin. I pull a fresh lemon from my spell drawer and cut it in half with a plastic knife. Like my grandmother, who basically taught me everything I know about the art of kitchen witchery, I always keep a healthy supply of spell items on hand.

You just never know when you'll need them. Like last week when Drea asked me to help her make a luck sachet for an English exam. Or the week before that when I whipped up a batch of moon soap for Amber's PMS.

14

My grandmother always used lemons for cuts. She would squeeze the fruit of its juice, allowing the juice to drain into a bowl, add a teaspoon of vanilla extract, mix it up, and then apply the mixture to the wound. I make an attempt to do the same, but it seems I've run out of vanilla.

Weird--I could have sworn I still had a full bottle. I dip a rag into the lemon juice anyway and apply it to the wound, hoping it will suffice.

The phone rings a few minutes later. It's Keegan. She tells me she checked out the boiler room and aside from the open window--which she has since closed and locked-- everything looks clear, except, she adds, for a broken pot of some sort and a weird candle left behind. I thank her and hang up, feeling somewhat relieved but still uneasy.

"Keegan said everything looks okay," I say.

"What were you even doing down there?" Drea asks.

But I don't feel like explaining my Maura spell. "I just thought I heard something."

I hate having to lie to them, especially after everything they've been through with me. But I just don't want to say anything yet. I have no idea why Maura is, once again, haunting my nightmares. I thought I had closed the book on that. I thought I forgave myself for everything that happened. But maybe I haven't. Maybe somewhere deep inside me there's this rotting place of guilt. Maybe that's why I've been throwing up.

15

Thre-e.

While Amber and Drea fall back asleep, I lie awake and stare up at the ceiling. There's really no point in sleeping since I didn't get to finish my spell. No point in having to wake up again to a mouth full of puke. Especially since I only have another few hours before I'd get up anyway.

Instead, I try my hardest to focus on Maura, the little girl I used to babysit. I try to figure out why I'm dreaming about her again, why my subconscious mind is stirring up old ghosts.

16

When I feel my mind begin to wander and my eyes start to get heavy, I turn to glance at the clock by my bed. It's almost six. I think about calling Chad, but I know he'd still be asleep. And I honestly don't know what I'd say to him, if I'd even tell him about tonight. I feel bad I didn't call him back last night, like I was supposed to. But lately I feel as though I've been pushing him away. I think it's because of Drea. I mean, I love Drea like a sister, and I'm so glad she decided to come back to Hillcrest for our senior year. But it's just so weird, me dating her ex-boyfriend and all.

When Chad and I first started going out, just after Donovan's murder trial ended and Donovan was sent away, it was easier. Drea wasn't around. She ended up going home for the remainder of our junior year to try to put the pieces of her life back together. And it's not as though I wish she'd stayed away. It was just easier before she came back. I mean, I know she gave us her blessing; I know she says it doesn't bother her, but I can't help feeling that she's still in love with him. And even if she isn't, I feel like I'm breaking some sort of unwritten rule about not dating your best friend's ex.

The cut on my knee is stinging. I wonder if it's because I didn't have that vanilla extract. I consider searching the common-room pantry; maybe there's a bottle stashed away in one of the cupboards. But then I remember my own stash--in the overnight bag my mother bought me four years ago, when I first got accepted to Hillcrest. I sometimes toss various spell supplies in there, usually stuff that doesn't get used that much-- random trinkets and ingredients I come across that I think I might use later, like that

17

container of onion powder I bought on sale or the leaf-shaped seashell I found on the beach one summer.

I pull the bag from the back of my closet, unzip it, and stare down at the contents. Lying practically on top is the full bottle of vanilla extract I knew I had. The onion powder and seashell are still in there as well. And so is the thick white candle my grandmother gave me on my twelfth birthday, just a couple months before she passed away. I had completely forgotten about it.

It's one of the hand-poured kinds, about ten inches tall and as thick as my fist. I still remember my grandmother giving it to me. It was nighttime, after my friends had left, after all the other birthday presents had been put away. Gram and I sat on her back porch under the blanket of the dark sky, just the swollen moon above us. She set the shimmery silver package on my lap. "Open it with care," she said.

I remember unwinding the crinkly paper and marveling at the brightness of the candle wax against my skin. A virgin candle, never used, with a clean, white wick.

"A white one?" I smiled.

"White is for magic," she explained. "You should only use white candles for the most magical of occasions and you should only light this one when you feel the time is right."

"When will that be?" I asked, sniffing at the wax, hoping for the scent of coconut or vanilla bean.

"When you feel in your heart the truest, most meaningful aspect of magic."

18

"What t5 the truest, most meaningful aspect of magic?" I asked, disappointed in the candle's lack of scent.

She smiled, her cheeks pinkening over. "It isn't my place to tell you. One day you'll know. You'll feel it."

"Can't you just tell me, Gram?" I moaned.

She shook her head. "If I told you, you'd only know it in your mind, not in your heart. There's a big difference."

Of course, at twelve years old, I had absolutely no idea what she meant. I
still
don't. But, even though I obviously never did light this white candle, I
have
used white candles before--whenever I've wanted to cause magical things to happen, whenever I felt a spell or remedy needed that extra magical touch.

The problem is I know such occasions are not what she was referring to. I grip the candle in my palm and hold it up to my cheek, remembering my grandmother's soft, smooth skin, the way her voice got all whispery when she told me all this.

Instead of returning the candle to the bag, I decide to keep it out. I set it atop my night table, concoct a fresh batch of the lemon-vanilla-extract mixture, and apply the ointment to my wound.

Already it feels better.

Now what?

Since I don't have one of those book-light things, I grab the phone and my English reader and make my way out to the common room, where I know I won't wake anyone up. Maybe I'll wait until seven and then give Chad a call. I plunk myself down in the lime-green easy chair in the corner, in lieu of one of the straight-back, studious ones--a 19

major mistake since I'm itching for sleep. The soft, velvety corduroy cushions cuddle me up like a favorite sweater. I click the lamp on and flip open to the Raymond Carver story I'm supposed to have read by B-block today.

I'm just about to start skimming over the post-reading section when I hear a clomping sound, like footsteps, coming from out in the lobby. I get up from the chair and walk slowly toward the sound. It's coming from behind the boiler room door, like someone's coming up the stairs. I take a deep breath and silently count to ten, telling myself that it's probably some girl who forgot her key. But then I hear voices--male voices--whispering, talking back and forth.

I grab an umbrella from the collection by the entrance and position myself next to the boiler room door. I know I'm acting like some paranoid freak, that it's probably just like Amber said--

probably some girl's boyfriend trying to sneak in after curfew. It's just that the idea of someone breaking in, of sneaking around at this hour, time-travels me right back to the past. When I had legitimate reasons to be a paranoid freak.

I raise the umbrella high above my head and watch as the knob turns and the door edges open.

It's Chad.

"What are you doing?" I drop the umbrella and smack my hand over my heart. "How did you get in here?"

The door swings open completely. PJ's there, too. He's holding a twisted-up bobby pin between two fingers.

"I knew
he'd
be able to get us in," Chad says.

20

"Hey Love Dove." PJ air-kisses me on both cheeks. "Getting into the basement was a piece of cake, but the main door? Forget about it."

"So how
did
you get in? The window downstairs?" I thought Keegan said she locked it.

"Can't let the ol' kitty cat out of the Sak's bag completely," PJ says. "These lips are sealed." He twists his lips locked.