White is for Magic (7 page)

"What's up?" She deposits her backpack on the floor and sits down on the edge of her bed, facing us.

"Not much," I say.

"Really?" Drea purses her lips together. "Why don't I believe you?"

"I don't know." Amber pokes a feather behind her ear. "Maybe it's because you're paranoid."

"Maybe," Drea says. "Or maybe it's because Stacey upchucked in yoga class. You don't think people aren't talking about it?"

66

"Great." I flop back against my pillow, grab the thong-rag from under the covers, and lay it over my eyes in a futile attempt to block everything out.

While the two discuss the highlights of my vomit, I do my best to concentrate on why my nightmares are making me sick. And then it occurs to me. I didn't get sick when I dreamt about Veronica. So what makes that nightmare different? I try to think, but I just can't concentrate.

"Wait," Amber shouts. "Stacey, maybe you threw up because of morning sickness."

"Oh, please," I moan.

"What?" I can hear the smile in Amber's voice. "It makes total sense, doesn't it? And it's completely possible, isn't it?
Isn't it?"

"I don't feel like talking about this." I can just picture Drea's face in my mind--jaw locked, teeth clenched, eyes rolled up toward the ceiling.

"Come on," Amber pleads.

"Forget it," I say.

"Well, that answers my question," she sighs. "If you can't talk about it, obviously you haven't done it."

"Not that it's any of your business," I begin, "but me and Chad are perfectly happy with our PG-13 relationship."

"Tell
him
that," Amber says.

I remove the thong-rag from my eyes and scoot up in bed. Drea has already changed from her uniform into civilian clothes--a pair of low-rise jeans paired with the most basic of basic-blue turtleneck tops, her hair knotted up in one of those big plastic clips. So why does she look so damned perfect?

67

V

"Coming to dinner?" she asks, fishing her school ID from the side pocket of her backpack.

But since I definitely need some alone time, I tell them about my grandiose plans to make a microwave version of a grilled-cheese sandwich here--even though there's a giant part of me that doesn't want a dolled-up Drea to have such open access to my boyfriend.

After they leave, I roll over in bed and stare at the bright white candle on the night table, wondering if this might be an opportune time to light it--since I feel so alone, since I'd give almost anything to talk to my grandmother right now. But instead I grab the phone and dial my mother.

She answers. "Hello?"

"Hi, Mom." I tug the covers up over my cheek and do my best to hold back the tears I feel storming up inside me. We talk for several minutes about normal stuff--about school and my teachers, about the season premiere of
Gilmore Girls
and the new painting class she's taking. I almost want to tell her about my Maura nightmares. But I don't. Because I know she won't understand. Because we get along best when I don't talk about my visions--when I'm least like my grandmother, when I try my best to separate myself from witchdom.

After a good twenty-plus minutes of pauseless conversation, we end up saying our goodbyes and hanging up--she, completely pleased with our healthy relationship, and me, completely repressed by it.

68

^.£eve.n

In lieu of dinner, I've decided to brew up some prophecy tea. I pull the family scrapbook from the back of my closet in hopes of finding a good recipe. The book was given to me by my grandmother just two weeks before she passed away. It's crammed with all sorts of spells and home remedies, verses of favorite poetry, and secret recipes from those in my family before me.

69

I don't use the book very often, frankly, because I feel very strongly that spells come from within, that the most effective spells are those we create ourselves. But sometimes I do like to use it. I like the book's sense of connection. I like to run my fingers over the handwritten pages and dream about the people who wrote them--what their lives might have been like, what might have prompted them to write a given spell or scribble down a certain recipe in the first place.

I set the weighty book down on my bed and flip through its yellowing pages. On a half-burned piece of tracing paper, I find a recipe for prophecy tea written by greatgreat-aunt Delia.

I place a bowl of water atop the dresser and add the necessary ingredients: a pinch of cinnamon, two teaspoons of nutmeg for luck, three squeezes of a lime, and a few dried saffron petals.

I grab a wooden spoon from my spell drawer, mix everything up, and then set the bowl in the microwave for a full five minutes. The water is steaming when I take it out. I sit back on my bed with the bowl positioned in my lap, and allow the curls of steam to lap over my face. The cinnamon scent, like sweet wood, washes over my senses and opens them up. I close my eyes and concentrate on the saffron petals blending with the lime. The juice from the lime will help cleanse away any negative energy that might be looming over me from last year, while the saffron will help increase my psychic awareness.

I open my eyes and mix everything up once more with the spoon, concentrating on the blending of ingredients

70

and what their unification means. I lift the bowl to my lips and take a sip. It tastes like holidays, like licking the batter bowl clean after my mother has made Gram's recipe for cinnamon twirl puffs. The whole process soothes me, grounds me, makes me feel empowered, like maybe I can do this again.

With just a few sips left, I hear the door squeak open. It's Drea.

"Hi," she says, not really looking at me.

"Hi." I feel my back straighten.

"I just came back for a book," she says. "I'm meeting a study group in the library."

"Can we talk?"

"I really don't have time. They're already waiting for me." She grabs a couple textbooks from her desk and stuffs them into her backpack, still avoiding eye contact.

"Please."

She pauses from packing and purses her lips, focusing on the area above my head. 'Amber told me about the puking, Stacey. How it happened
after
you fell asleep, and how you guys are convinced something else is gonna happen. I just can't handle it right now."

"I understand," I say, practically biting through my tongue. "But that's not what I wanted to talk about."

"Oh," she says. "Then what?"

I scoot toward the edge of my bed. "I just feel like there's been some weird energy between us lately."

"I'm not one of your failed spells, Stacey."

"I never said you were." I gulp down what's left of my tea. "It's just that today in the cafeteria when Chad came by,

71

even the other morning when he came to visit, I felt that you were sort of . . ."

"What?"

"I don't know. I guess sort of upset or something."

"I'm not jealous about Chad, if that's what you're thinking."

"Okay," I say. "I mean, I'm glad. Because I think if it were me, I might be jealous." I catch myself squeezing and resqueezing the lime wedges into my empty mug for no apparent reason.

"I was trying to imagine how it would be, you know, to have a best friend date your ex."

"It doesn't bother me," she says, twisting a strand of blond hair around her finger. "Me and Chad were over ages ago."

'Are you sure?"

Drea lowers her eyes to look at me finally, and, for just a second, I think she might cry, but instead she nods--a slight, less-than-believable up-and-down shake to the head. Our eyes stay locked on one another until we're interrupted by Amber.

She slams the door shut behind her. "You'll never believe what just happened to me." She's liplinered two pink ghosts to her cheeks with big Xs over them.

"What?" Drea lets out a relieved sigh, perhaps grateful for the interruption.

"Well," Amber begins, "I was on my way back from the mailboxes and this guy who I've never even seen before, probably some transfer dork--one of the ghost groupies-- crashes right into me, making me drop all my mail. So, then, as he's helping me pick it back up, he tells me to have a happy anniversary and asks me how I'll be celebrating."

72

I lock eyes with Drea, catching sight of her trembling lip. She bites it and looks away again.

"So, what did you say?" I ask.

"I asked him what he was talking about," Amber says. "I mean, I know it's the anniversary, I just wasn't thinking . . . and then he tells me that he and his friend are going to try and break into O'Brian and perform some seance or something."

O'Brian is the academic building where Veronica was killed. It happened in Madame Lenore's French room, on the first floor. The administration ended up boarding up the room and closing off that part of the building right after it happened. But kids, convinced the place was haunted, refused to take classes anywhere near the building. And so for a while it just sort of sat there, like a constant reminder of what happened. But now, with much monetary support from rich parents and other donors, it's being renovated--new paint, new floors, a new computer facility--like a million-dollar makeover will wipe away the horrific events of the past and make the parents happy.

"I hate this school," Drea says. "I should have transferred when I had the chance."

I stand up and go to drape my arm around Drea's shoulder, but she tugs away slightly.

"Here's your mail." Amber extracts a thick wad from her stack and hands it to me.

"Why do you have
my
mail?"

"Why?"
Amber snaps her blueberry gum. "Because I picked it up. Why else?"

73

Even though I trust Amber, I hate the idea of anyone going through my stuff. I snatch the stack from her clutches, purposely neglecting to thank her for the gesture.

"You're welcome," she says anyway, as though reading my mind.

I thumb through the individual pieces--a telephone bill, a spell-supply catalog, this month's issue of
Teen People,
and a letter. The letter is in a business-sized envelope, with no return address. It just has my name and the school address typed in the middle.

My fingers tremble. I turn the letter over and press along the creases of the glued flap. The negative vibrations move down my palms and ice over my skin, like static of some sort. I try to swallow, but my mouth feels like it's full of paste, like I can't breathe, like I'm going to be sick.

The letter drops from my fingertips.

"Stacey--" Amber reaches out to me. "What is it?"

I shake my head.

Amber motions to pick the letter up.

"No!" I shout.

"Why?" she asks. "What is it?"

But I can't say it, don't want to admit it, what I'm sensing.

I grab the bowl of dried lavender from beside my bed and press my fingertips against the pellets.

I breathe the soothing scent in, doing my best to remind myself of inner strength.

Amber comes and sits beside me on the bed, which prompts Drea to join me as well.

"It's gonna be okay," Drea says, pushing the hair back from my face.

74

But I'm not so sure.

Still, with the lavender and their friendship combined, I'm able to take a deep breath, to swallow normally, and pick the letter up. I hold it in both hands, focusing down on my name, so black against the paper's creamy whiteness.

I slip my finger under the corner flap and tear across the top.

"Are you sure?" Amber asks.

I nod, carefully dipping my fingers into the envelope to pull the letter out. Drea grips around my shoulders extra tight as I unfold it.

WILL YOU KEEP YOUR PROMISE?

Amber reads the typed words aloud. "What does it mean? What promise?"

I shake my head because I don't know either. Because the same words were spoken aloud in my nightmare. And I have no idea what to do about it.

75

tw-eive.

I sit on the edge of the bed shaking, like a cold chill has come and blanketed itself over my neck and back. Amber nestles the comforter over my shoulders, and Drea sets a second mug of water into the microwave for some tea. I just want to put this all away--to go to sleep and have blank, unimpressionable dreams. But I know that just won't happen.

76

I clutch the letter in my hands and stare down at the words, typed in caps, dead center of the page. I can almost hear the voice in my nightmare saying these words to me.

"The letter was postmarked here." Amber holds the envelope out for me to see, the red postmark ink with the town's name, Hanover, pressed over the stamp.

"Maybe it's just somebody from school," Drea says. "You know, another prank."

"Pranks don't give off vibes like that," I say.

Drea hands me the mug of tea and I sip it down in even gulps, savoring the sweet, orangey flavor.

"So you have no idea what the letter's referring to?" Amber asks. "What the promise is?"

"No," I say. "But the same question was in my nightmare."

"What do you mean?" Drea asks.

"I mean, in my nightmare, I heard someone's voice; it asked me if I'd keep my promise. It also said 'in less than one week/"

"In less than what week,
what?"
Drea asks.

"I don't know."

"What did the voice sound like?" Amber asks. "Did you recognize it?"

"It was a male voice, I think. But I don't remember anything distinct about it. It could have been anyone."

"So we obviously need to figure out what this promise is," Amber says.

"I know."

"Do you have any idea at all?"

77

I lean back against the headboard to think. I wonder if it's something I promised to Maura, to her family, that I'm not remembering. Why else would I be dreaming about her? Or maybe it's something more recent. Did I promise something last year, after Veronica's death, that I just let fade from my mind?

"I just don't know," I sigh.

"Maybe you promised someone you'd help them," Drea says.