Witch Ways (12 page)

“Nothing really. It was weird. It looked a lot like our basement—damp, smelly, and dark. She kept watching me with this weird look in her eye. I think I disappointed her.”

Bree flipped through the books Birdie had left me earlier. “I wonder if she expected to see your magical powers made manifest.”

“Magical powers made manifest?”

Lately, Bree had been reading a lot of books about fairies, wizards, and dragons, making her occasionally slip into high-fantasy lingo.

“You don’t know how lucky you are to have a witch for a grandmother. My Grandma Rose knits slippers for veterans, and my Grandma Patty conducts the church choir.”

I laughed. “They do other stuff, too.”

Bree stopped flipping pages, and she froze. “Oh,” she squealed. “Let’s make a love potion!”

I glanced at the book in her hand, shaking my head even before I read the directions. “That sounds dangerously close to a roofie. Besides, do you really want a guy to love you because of a drug? What happens when it wears off?”

“By then he’ll have fallen in love with me for real.”

“Do you think falling in love is overhyped?”

Bree stared at me with an open mouth. “Absolutely not! Do you?”

“I don’t know . . . I’m not sure.”

“You don’t think your parents fell in love?”

“Well, if they did, then they fell out of it pretty fast.” I climbed off my bed.

“Your dad fell in love with Maria.”

“Uncle Mitch says falling in love is a chemical process necessary to propagate the planet. He said it’s nature’s way of keeping the human species alive.”

Bree snorted. “Uncle Mitch! What does he know?”

“He’s a professor at Yale, and he’s won a buttload of grants and awards. Lots of people would say he knows a lot.”

“Textbook smart—but let’s face it. In the matters of the heart, he hasn’t been a winner.”

“He doesn’t want to be a winner. He doesn’t even want to play. According to him, love is really just lust driven by sex hormones.”

Bree sat up. “We should make a love potion and give it to him! If it works on him, it’ll work on anyone.”

I took the book from her and closed it. “This is, to use Uncle Mitch’s word, malarkey. My grandmother is very old, and, to borrow my dad’s word, a kook.”

Bree grabbed the book out of my hand. “Then what’s the harm? If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.” She flipped it back open to the love potion recipe. “None of this stuff will kill you.”

I looked over her shoulder at the spells in the book and giggled. “It would be—as Uncle Mitch would say—an interesting experiment.”

Bree elbowed me. “Yeah. He’d probably even approve of our studying the human . . . I don’t know, what would you call it?”

“The human condition?”

“Let’s not call it a love potion. Let’s call it Love’s Elixir.”

“Why is that better than a love potion?” I asked.

“Sounds less hokey.” She pointed at the page. “Where are we going to find this stuff?”

“What do we need?”

“Jasmine for a sweet aroma, rose for a hint of euphoria, vanilla because it’s soothing and subtly sensual, and cinnamon to ensure a burst of fiery passionate energy.” She paused, grinning. “I’m going to think of Cinnamon Toast Crunch in a whole new way.”

“We have all those things, except for the Cinnamon Toast Crunch, of course.” Uncle Mitch was a firm believer in his morning oatmeal.

“You do?”

“Sure. We have jasmine and roses growing in the yard, and vanilla and cinnamon in the kitchen cupboard.”

“How do you know what jasmine looks like?” Bree asked.

“Everyone knows what jasmine looks like.”

“No they don’t. I don’t. Aren’t you afraid of poisoning Uncle Mitch?”

“This was your idea!”

“Right . . . if you’re sure you know what jasmine is.”

“I definitely know what jasmine is. Why don’t you go to the kitchen and get out the vanilla and cinnamon, and I’ll go and get the rose petals and jasmine?”

Bree balanced on one foot while I handed her the crutches.

“You okay going down the stairs?”

“I got up here by myself.”

I grinned at her. “You’re my hero.”

“I know.” She returned my smile.

“Instead of giving the love elixir to Uncle Mitch, don’t you think we should try it on ourselves first?”

“No! According to this, you have to give it to someone. If I gave it to you, you’d fall in love with me, and how is that going to propagate the species?”

I laughed. “Good call!”

Bree stopped in the doorway. “But wait, we can’t have Uncle Mitch falling in love with one of us. I’m going to give it to Dylan! Who are you going to give yours to?” Bree asked as she clomped/jumped down the stairs on her good leg.

Even though she couldn’t see me, I shrugged, not wanting to admit I wanted someone to like me for me, and not because I’d drugged him with roses and cinnamon. “I guess I’ll just save mine until I find someone elixir worthy. I think I want to watch and see if yours works.”

I left Bree in the kitchen. Outside, the cool night air hit my skin. I shivered, wishing I had something more substantial than my sheep slippers on my feet. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark.

I found Josh in the shadows beneath the maple tree. He wore a faded pair of low-slung jeans and a T-shirt that clung to his muscled chest.

“Hey,” he said softly, looking over his shoulder to make sure we couldn’t be overheard. Bending his head toward me, he whispered, “Do you have my key?”

I had totally forgotten about the dirt bike’s key, but now that he mentioned it, I could mentally see it sitting on my desk beside a stack of books. “I’ll have to get it, but Bree’s in there.”

“I know. You want me to climb the tree?”

I imagined Josh in my room, and knowing he didn’t belong in there, I shook my head. “I’ll get it.” I glanced up at the tree before looking down at my sweatpants and slippers. I took hold of the lowest branch.

Josh put his hand on my arm and his warmth tingled through me. I turned to look at him, wondering if he felt the strange heat of our connection, too.

“Wait. What if you fall?”

“I won’t. I’ve been climbing this tree for years.”

“Yeah, but that’s true for Bree, too, and she fell.”

I shook his hand off my arm. “Do you want your key, or not?”

“Just go up the stairs like a normal person,” Josh said.

“Bree will ask me what I’m doing.”

He rolled his eyes. “Then let me get it.”

“No. I don’t want you in my room.” My thoughts went to the spell books on my bed. They were just some of the things I didn’t want Josh to see.

“I have sisters. I know the sort of stuff they have in their room.”

Heat crawled up my cheeks, and to keep him from seeing it, I lifted up into the tree.

“Evie!” Josh reached for my ankle, but I kicked at his hand.

“I’m not going to fall,” I said without looking down at him. A branch reached out and snagged my T-shirt. A waft of cold air blew across my bare belly. I let go of the tree to pull my shirt down.

Below me, I heard Josh inhale deeply.

“I’m okay,” I said, resuming my climb. I swung through the window, snagged the key off my desk, and wondered how to carry it down. Because I didn’t have any pockets, I put it in my bra before I went back out the window.

Josh stood below me in a puddle of light shining through the kitchen window. He had his arms folded across his chest, and a worried look on his face.

I inched out onto the thickest tree branch, and then shimmied down to land beside Josh. Hypersensitive to his following my movements, I reached into my bra and pulled out the key. It felt warm.

I placed it in Josh’s outstretched hand, and knew immediately from the way his eyes widened he felt the heat, too.

He curled his fingers around it. “Thanks,” he said before he turned to leave.

I watched him go before I went to the corner of the yard where the jasmine grew. Long ago, I had helped my Grandma Jean with the flower-beds. She had paid me for every weed I pulled. She told me only two types of jasmine could grow in frosty New England, and most jasmine love tropical warmth. This was shortly after my mom had left, and I had wondered if my mom had preferred the tropical warmth, too.

Not wanting to think about my mom, Grandma Jean, or Josh and his muscles while I concocted a love elixir, I grabbed a handful of jasmine, plucked a wilting flower off a rose bush with yellowing leaves, and headed back for the house.

Bree had a black pot and a large slotted spoon on the counter. “Was Josh in your yard?”

My thoughts scrambled.

Bree cocked her head. “There’s nothing going on between you guys, right? You would tell me, wouldn’t you?”

I thought up a lie. “He said you have to go home before nine.”

“Argh! I’m sixteen!”

“I’m pretty sure Josh doesn’t care. You should ask if you could stay the night.”

Bree sat down at the table and pulled out her phone.

While she called her mom, I carefully added the ingredients to the pot, keeping my face turned just in case she could read my not-so-brotherly thoughts about her brother.

Uncle Mitch, looking rumpled and preoccupied, shuffled into the room. “What are you making?” He lifted his nose in the air, sniffing.

“Tea,” I said. “Can Bree stay the night?”

Uncle Mitch nodded, came to the stove to inspect the love elixir, grabbed a soda from the fridge, and headed back to his science lab without another word.

“It smells like heaven,” Bree said.

I looked down the hall, making sure Uncle Mitch had closed his lab door. “Do you think sex feels as good as this smells?” I asked.

“Better.” Bree lifted the spoon and held it to her nose, inhaling deeply. “I want to taste it.”

“You can’t!” I grabbed the spoon out of her hand and put it back in the pot. “Promise me you won’t.”

She laughed, but didn’t reach for the spoon. “I thought you said this is malarkey?”

I stood in front of the elixir, protecting it. “It is, but still . . . we need to honor the malarkey.”

Bree flipped through the book, paused, and read. “You know it says here that white witches have a moral code.”

“Witches have a moral code—who knew?”

Bree nodded. Looking serious she read from the book. “White witchcraft is strictly benevolent. Many neo-pagan witches profess ethical codes that prevent them from performing magic on a person without their request.” She looked up at me. “Do you think I should ask Dylan before I give him the love elixir?”

“What do you think?”

“I think no.”

“I agree with you.”

“Does that make us black witches?”

“No. That makes us smart . . . or at least less dumb.”

After the elixir had steeped for several minutes, I slipped on a pair of oven mitts and carried the pot outside. With the book of spells tucked under her arm, Bree followed me on her crutches. She looked up at the stars. “Do you think the moon is high enough?”

“I don’t know. It’s also supposed to be waxing, and I don’t even know what that means.”

“It kind of sounds like a candle,” Bree said, hobbling after me.

Hoping Josh had long since disappeared, I stopped in the middle of the lawn and put the pot down at my feet. “Do you want to do it?”

She nodded. “You’re the witch.”

“No, I’m not!”

“Well, you’re the one with witch genes.”

“But you’re the one who wants Dylan to fall in love with you.”

Bree sighed. “But all I’ve got in my gene pool are knitters and choir directors. It’s not going to work for me.”

“You don’t know. For all you know, you’ve got a bunch of gypsies, or shamans—”

“Whoever heard of a redheaded gypsy or shaman?”

I grabbed the book from her hand and opened it to the love potion. Steam curled from the pot at my feet.

Clearing my throat, I began.

Goddess of love, blessed divine

Send me my love in perfect rhyme

Each to heart, and heart to heart

Together forever, never to part.

Open his eyes that he may see,

I am his and he is mine,

We belong until the end of time.

Quiet filled the night. The bugs stopped chirping, the owl fell silent, and the wind gently tossed leaves on the trees.

“What are you doing?” a voice in the dark asked.

I jumped and Bree screamed as Lincoln stepped out of the shadows.

“What are you doing here?” Bree demanded.

“Looking for night crawlers,” Lincoln said.

“Night crawlers?” I asked.

“Why?” Bree wanted to know.

Lincoln held up a tin can. “Josh promised me that if I could fill this up with night crawlers he would take me and Zack fishing tomorrow.”

“Is Dylan going with you?” Bree asked.

Lincoln narrowed his eyes at her. “You can’t come. We’re taking dirt bikes to Polly’s Pond.”

“I don’t want to go with you!”

“Good!” Lincoln said. “‘Cause then I’d have to catch even more night crawlers, and they’re hard.”

“Here,” I said, walking over to the garden bed and squatting so I could turn over a few rocks. The worms wiggled in the moonlight. “See, night crawlers.”

“Thanks!” Lincoln said, using his tin can as a scoop.

I wondered if Josh would thank me. After all, I was pretty sure that telling Lincoln to find night crawlers was a con to get him out of the house, and that the fishing trip was just as fictional as witches, love potions and elixirs.

“You better go home before Mom or Dad catches you out after dark,” Bree said after Lincoln had a can full of night crawlers.

After he was out of earshot, I confided in Bree. A little. I didn’t tell her about my fingertips sparking, because I couldn’t. I could never admit to anyone, even myself that I might have really had something to do with the science room burning down. And I absolutely couldn’t tell her about getting lost, meeting Lauren Silver, and the whole shoe thing.

“Remember how you fell out the window after I said you should?” I began.

Bree nodded.

“And then something else weird happened. When I was at school . . . this is going to sound so out there.” I bent over to pick up the pot. It had probably had enough steeping beneath the waxing moon. “Never mind. Just forget it.” I started for the kitchen with the pot in my hands.