White is for Magic (8 page)

I stare up at a blank ceiling. "This is so completely frustrating."

"Maybe you need food," Amber says. "That usually helps
me
think." She grabs the box of Rice Krispies from her desk and holds it out to me as an edible Band-Aid.

"No thanks."

"We'll figure this out," she says, plopping down beside me and pouring a handful of Krispies into her palm.

"There's only one way." I sit back up.

"What are you talking about?" Drea nibbles at her acrylic fingernails.

"I have to go tonight."

"Where?" Drea asks.

"The Hangman," I say, feeling my chest tighten. "To meet whoever sent that e-mail. To see what he--or she--wants."

'Are you sure?" Amber asks.

I nod. "He obviously has something to tell me."

"Well, you're not going alone." Amber rests a hand on my shoulder.

"Thanks," I say, managing a smile.

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"You'll come too, right, Dray?" Amber asks.

But Drea is looking away. "I don't know if I can," she says, in a voice as tiny as the snap, crackle, and popping going on in Amber's mouth right now.

"No," I say, turning to Drea. "I don't expect you to go. As a matter of fact, I think it's best if you stay here. Just in case something happens . . . we know we can reach you."

'And you'll know where we've gone," Amber adds. "Just in case we don't come back."

"Stop it," I say. "We'll be fine."

'Are you sure?" Drea asks.

"Definitely."

Drea smiles and I smile back, like maybe the tension of the situation has helped alleviate some of the weird energy between us.

"What time did the e-mail say again?" Amber asks.

"Eleven-thirty."

"You still have a couple hours," Drea says.

"So what should we do?" Amber asks.

"Do you want to call Chad to go with you guys?" Drea asks. "Or maybe we should call campus police to give them the heads up."

"I think I just need some time to myself." The letter still in my hand, I grab an afghan from my bed and a handful of dried orange peels from the jar in my spell drawer. I make my way out to the sofa in the common room. I need complete silence to concentrate, to pour my energy into the letter and hope that it comes back to me per the law of three--Gram used to always remind me that whatever en

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ergy I cast out into the universe would come back at me three times.

I lay the letter open on the coffee table in front of me and drop the orange peels on it. I arrange the peels in the shape of the sun--one circular piece in the center with twisted, narrow spokes that radiate from it for rays. I concentrate on the idea of the sun, on the sun's energy and its ability to awaken the senses. My grandmother used to say that I would always do my best studying outside because the sun's energy would enliven me. And that, in times when the sun is down, I should bring it back up with something symbolic that reminds me of its power and energy.

I rub each individual peel between the tips of my fingers, thinking how the sun implanted its energy into the peel to bring about the orangey color, to give birth to the fruit inside. Then I close my eyes, collect the peels into my lap, and run my fingers over the letter, transferring the sun's energy from my skin to the grain of the paper. I feel the individual creases, the way the letter was folded up in three. For some reason it urges me to fold it up even more. I go with the feeling, folding the letter up into a palm-sized square, tucking and untucking flaps until I end up with that MASH game I used to play in grade school.

"Let me guess." A much-uninvited Trish Cabone comes and plops herself down on the sofa beside me. "Stacey Brown will marry Chad McCaffrey, they'll have three children, live in a mansion, and have chimpanzees for pets."

I feign a polite giggle. "You're obviously familiar with MASH."

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"Totally." She pulls at the clump of curlicues atop her head--tight black ringlets with just a hint of midnight blue--and props her elephant-slippered feet up on the table. "MASH fortunes were the most fun. Of course, that was when I was twelve."

"Right," I say, pocketing the letter and my orange peels. I have no idea what prompted me to fold the letter up that way. "I guess I was just seeing if I remembered how to play."

"You and Chad are pretty serious, aren't you? So maybe you guys will get married."

I shrug.

She yanks at the wad of watermelon-pink gum in her mouth and nods her head emphatically, like my silent shrugging is so profound.

"I better go study. History test tomorrow."

"Wait," she says, her eyes all big and round, thick black rings of liner outlining the lids. "I wanted to ask you, what was up with the other night? You know . . . when you started screaming out here?"

"Just a bad nightmare," I say, getting up.

"About last year?" She stands up as well. 'A lot of kids have been talking about it, you know?"

I nod.

"Was your nightmare like one of the ones you were having last year? About Drea?"

"No," I manage. "It was different than that."

"Different how?" She's pulling at her curls again. "Like, different because it^eit different? Or different because you

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weren't dreaning about Drea this time? Maybe you were dreaming about someone else?"

"I think I hive a headache." I turn on my heel, making an attempt to beeline it back to my room, but Trish's prying questions force me to stop.

"I heard about yoga class," she says. "Were you dreaming then? About someone jumping rope?

About somebody being trapped maybe? Didn't you scream those things out? Weren't you chanting some weird verse?" She starts humming the "Miss Mary Mack" tune.

I turn around to face her and she stops humming.

"They're dcing some special service in the chapel Thursday night, yot know?" she says. "Some people were wondering if you'ie gonna go. Are you?"

Why didn't I hear about any service? Have I been so out of it these past few days that I've failed to pay attention to what's going en outside my head?

"We could go together if you want," she continues. "I mean, I didn't know Veronica, being new here and all, but I just thought it would be the right thing to do. Is Drea going?"

Is she sericus? Does she really expect me to go with her--an obvious ghost groupie?

"I don't think that's a good idea," I say.

"Maybe not," she says. "Maybe your presence might upset some people, you know? It must be hard for you, showing your face around here after letting Veronica just die like that."

"I didn't
let ner
die."

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"You didn't try so hard to save her either." A direct hit. Before she can crawl any deeper under my skin, I turn around, walk into my room, and close the door.

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thirk-cn

Before we head over to the Hangman, I've asked Amber to help me remember the words to the

"Miss Mary Mack" song I was singing in yoga class. We're sitting on my bed with a notebook between us, a giant letter M written in red at the top of the page, and the words to the song in the middle.

Drea is doing her best to block us out. She's got her foot propped up on a pre-calc book while she reads
CosmoGirl,

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French-manicures her toenails, and hums along to the tunes pumping through her Discman.

"Totally creepy," Amber says, reading over the lines of the song. "I can just imagine what people are thinking."

"I already know what they're thinking," I say. "That I'm Linda Blair possessed by the devil."

"Linda Blair?"

"Yeah, you know,
The Exorcist. . .
the girl who pukes up green gunk and then her head spins around?"

"So right." Amber giggles. She grabs her square black glasses and sets the notebook down in her lap.
"Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack,"
she sings.
"All dressed in black, black, black. She has a
knife, knife, knife, stuck in her back, back, back. She cannot breathe, breathe, breathe. She
cannot cry, cry, cry. That's why she begs, begs, begs. She begs to die, die, die."

"I wonder what it means."

"A knife stuck in her back'?" Amber questions. "I wonder if it means betrayal of some sort, you know? Like, watch your back."

I shrug. "Why can't she breathe or cry?"

"Maybe she's being gagged or suffocated in some way."

'And that's why she begs to die." I swallow hard and focus down on the letter M, wondering if it does indeed stand for murder.

"I don't know," Amber says. "Maybe we're taking the song too literally, you know? Like, one time I had this dream that I was being chased by tiny baby corn."

'And?"

'And I obviously didn't think that that was going to happen. I mean, I don't even
like
baby corn."

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"Maybe that's why it was chasing you," I joke.

"Exactly," she says, lowering the glasses to the tip of her nose, staring at me over the frames. "I think it was my brain's way of saying I should try baby corn, you know? Be more adventurous with my veggie intake."

"Does this phallic little dream of yours have a point?"

"The point
is
that sometimes a baby corn is just a baby corn."

"Translation, please."

Amber rolls her eyes. "Why read so far into it? I mean, maybe this is just your brain's way of telling you that you're scared. Just about every scary movie has at least
someone
getting a knife shoved in their back--most often a clumsy bottle blond with lots of cleavage--but
still,
it's scary."

"I
do
know that I'm scared." I wipe the corner of my eye and look away.

"I know." She pulls a tissue from the front of her shirt and holds it out as an offering.

"No, thanks." I take a deep breath and rip the page out of the notebook. I fold it up into a tight little ball--as small as I can get it.

"What are you doing?" Amber asks.

"Making the fear more manageable." I grab a piece of cheesecloth, a bottle of dried thyme, and a stick of sandalwood incense from my spell drawer. I drop the paper ball into the center of the cloth and then sprinkle the thyme on it--until I feel my fear retreat, until I feel confident I can overpower it. The green and brown bits of thyme, like the tiniest dried-out twigs, form a heap over the paper ball. I wrap it all up in the cloth and secure it with a rubber band.

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"It's a courage sachet," I say, holding it up for Amber. "For tonight."

"Maybe pepper spray would work better," Amber says, stuffing the tissue back into her bra.

"Very funny." I light the incense and then charge the sachet by passing it three times through the smoke, the sweet woodsy smell helping to ease my nerves even more.

"Okay," I say, finally. "I'm ready."

Against Drea's better judgment, Amber and I make our way over to the Hangman by ourselves. It just seems easier this way, rather than getting other people involved. Plus, if whoever sent that email message sees me trudging over with an entourage in tow, campus police included, I can be fairly certain he'll make himself scarce. Who wouldn't?

And so, the courage sachet in hand, Amber and I schlep our way across campus, walking between buildings to avoid open areas, doing our best to avoid campus police cruisers navigating the area. We even end up taking a detour by the library, making it the longest route possible--

anything to avoid having to pass by the O'Brian building at night.

"I can't believe how cold it is tonight," Amber says, breaking the tension. She stuffs her hands into her pockets.

"We're almost there," I tell her.

The Onstage Cafe, better known amongst students as "the Hangman," is just ahead of us. A cream-colored houselike building with a pointed roof, it once served as the school theater. But after that girl hung herself, it's become

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the campus coffee shop
study lounge--sort of a bleak thought.<
p>

"Do you think they're still serving hot cocoa?" Amber asks.

"Not if they're closed," I say.

"Maybe whoever sent the e-mail works there and can get us in. Maybe he already has some cocoa made up for us."

I ignore Amber's wishful thinking and continue toward the main glass doors. I can see there are lights on in the back, by the cash register, but it's completely dark in the seating areas, both the elevated stage section and the lower audience part.

"Should we knock?" Amber whispers.

"He might not even be inside." I look over my shoulder toward the path where we walked.

"That would be, like, so completely cruel," Amber says. "Tempting us here with the thought of hot cocoa and biscotti, only to make us rot out in the cold."

"Are you for real?" I whisper back. "Did you forget why we're here?"

Amber rolls her eyes. "It's called trying to make the best of the situation." She moves closer to the door and knocks.

"No!" I mouth.

"Why? I don't have all night to wait for this dork." She continues to pound at the door, the faux-fur body of her leopard-print coat bundled tightly around her.

"No!" I repeat. "You'll draw attention to us."

"Look, Stacey," Amber presses the light of her ladybug watch to illuminate the time and holds it out for me to see.

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"It's
after
11:30. Either this geek comes out and gets serious, or I'm outta here. I think my tongue is icing over."

I'll have to admit, she's right about the weather. I think it's the coldest November we've ever had.

But that doesn't mean I'm willing to get caught out here after curfew.

"Okay," I say, squeezing my sachet of courage. "Let's make a deal. How about you stop knocking and wait here to see if anyone comes. I'll go check out the area around the building. If we don't see anything, we'll leave." I pull a
(
flashlight from my backpack.

"Fine," Amber agrees.

I move over to the side of the building and aim the flashlight over shrubbery, among trees scattered about the lawn, and toward the brick walkway that loops back to the main buildings.