Spellcaster

She smoothed the glittering pile across the black fabric. “Brendan is your soul mate. He’s head-over-heels in love with you.” Angelique’s voice became increasingly frantic as she continued talking, fanning the black crystals across the satin, where they blended in against the inky fabric.

“You know he’s not my favorite person in the world, and he annoys the hell out of me. But as much as I would love for us to be single together and you to postpone the whole soul mate thing until college, I have to admit, that guy would do anything for you,” she said bluntly, raising her eyes to meet mine. “He has done anything for you. More of his energy should have been reflected here. Especially since you were just with him. Hell, you’ve still got smudged lip crap on your chin from sucking face all afternoon! There should be more red crystals. There should be more of something. Anything!”

“What does it mean that there isn’t any?” I asked, my voice coming out very small.

“Whatever danger there is, it’s bigger than the two of you,” she said, looking at me with sad eyes. “It’s got more hate than you two have love.”

“Is there any chance we did the spell wrong?” I asked, grasping at straws as my voice shook. But Angelique just slowly shook her head, looking at me with mournful eyes.

“So what do I do now?” I felt the panic rising in my chest.

Angelique took a deep breath.

“I have absolutely no idea.”

Chapter 2

“Emma dear, is something wrong? You’re being awfully quiet tonight.”

I looked up from my barely eaten plate of take-out eggplant rollatini to see my aunt Christine frowning at me with a concerned look on her face.

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine,” I fibbed, shoveling a big bite of mozzarella and eggplant into my mouth so I wouldn’t have to talk. “I’m just tired.” Tired of feeling like I’ve got the Sword of Damocles dangling over my head.

I peered up cautiously. Given the turn my life had taken, I half expected to see the mythical sword hanging over my aunt’s kitchen table, right next to her Waterford chandelier.

“Is everything going well at school?” Aunt Christine asked, expertly twirling a forkful of spaghetti with garlic and oil.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. The teachers are just really slamming us with homework before spring break,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant as I reached for a piece of garlic bread. Maybe if I stuffed my face she’d buy it. I hated lying to Aunt Christine, but there was no way I could explain that I’d just performed a spell that said I was in terrible danger. Again. Aunt Christine didn’t know about the magical side of my life—she just thought Brendan and I were a little (okay, a lot) too serious for our age.

“Dear, if that part-time job at the library is too much to handle—”

“Oh, no, it’s nothing like that,” I interrupted, nearly spitting out garlicky bread crumbs. I wiped my mouth hurriedly and swallowed loudly. Jeez, Emma, eat like a grizzly bear much? I wiped my mouth a little more daintily and took a drink of water.

“Seriously, all I do is put away books, make sure the computers are turned off. Most of the time I’m just in there alone doing homework, listening to my iPod.”

I couldn’t give up that job. I’d lost my mom, lost my twin brother and was left with nothing but my boozed-up stepfather, until my godmother, Aunt Christine, had taken me in last summer after Henry nearly killed me with his DUI driving skills—the accident that left me with a pretty nasty scar on my arm. Christine paid for my tuition at the insanely expensive private school, offered—insisted, actually—to pay for college and didn’t ask for a thing in return. Aunt Christine had rescued me, and claimed my happiness was reward enough. I already felt guilty about how much she’d done for me, and I only felt worse when I sheepishly asked for spending money. The afterschool job at Vince A’s library was the one thing I got right—at least I didn’t need to pester Christine for spare change.

I dug back into my eggplant, winding a long string of mozzarella around Aunt Christine’s Christofle fork, hoping that was the end of the conversation.

It wasn’t.

“Emma, dear,” my aunt began, taking off her tortoiseshell-framed eyeglasses and setting them down on the pink-flowered tablecloth—a sure sign that she was about to get serious. “Are things going well with you and your beau? Or are your classmates giving you a hard time again?”

I squirmed underneath Aunt Christine’s intense gaze. Sometimes I think her background in New York theater is a ruse, and she really used to work for the CIA, interrogating prisoners. Her gentle cross-examinations are more effective than water-boarding.

“Yes, Brendan’s fine. Better than fine, actually,” I said honestly. Well, that was the truth. “He’s great. I’ve just got a lot of homework and projects and stuff. Otherwise, school is great.” That part was a big, fat lie. Vince A’s hallways were riddled with so many social land mines it was impossible to make it through the day without a few blowing up in your face.

Still, I smiled winningly, and it seemed to satisfy Christine.

“Well, dear, the weather should be getting nice soon, so you should be able to go jogging again. I know how much you like that. Maybe that will help with some of the stress.”

I nodded in agreement. Kickboxing was fun, but you were always surrounded by so many people. There was something about being alone, with your headphones, just working through your thoughts. And I hadn’t exactly been able to go running with ice on the ground. I’d seen some fanatics jogging through the streets in the snow, and had no idea how they managed to keep from slipping all over the place. But then a darker thought crept into my head—there was some kind of unseen danger lurking out there. Suddenly jogging alone in the park seemed like a very stupid thing for me to do. I kept my smile frozen on my face as my aunt continued talking.

“Don’t stay up too late studying,” she said, polishing off the rest of her spaghetti. “You’re going to be traipsing all over the Cloisters tomorrow, so you’ll want to be awake.”

I smiled and nodded, and went back to picking at my eggplant while Christine got up and walked over to the counter to make a martini—her nightly ritual in honor of her late husband, George. Flamboyant and more than a little dramatic, my theater veteran aunt and uncle used to toast each other every night. After his death, Christine continued that ritual, making two martinis and drinking just the one. (Except on Saturday, when she drank both.) I watched her make the martinis—a ritual I always used to think was sweet—and it now struck me as overbearingly sad. Aunt Christine had lost Uncle George. I had lost my mom and my twin brother within a year of each other. And who knew where the hell my father had gone after he abandoned us when Ethan and I were just kids. My family didn’t have an excellent track record of holding on to the ones we loved. Brendan and I may have broken the original curse, but that didn’t mean we still weren’t doomed. Christine had lost her soul mate, no curse required. What could this dark spell herald for us?

I felt a pang of guilt when I thought of Brendan—I’d texted him that I’d made it home, but used the old homework-and-dinner-with-my-aunt excuse to get out of a phone call. I knew if I called him, I’d tell him about the spell, and I’d end up freaking out…and he’d sneak out later to see me. Like that would go over well with Laura Salinger. Or my aunt, come to think of it.

After clearing the table, I joined Christine on her pink floral couch for the first twenty minutes of the news. But I couldn’t listen to reports on New York’s budget, or the best viewing spots for the upcoming lunar eclipse, or the lighter-side-of-the-news story on the city’s best food trucks. I could feel the stress of the day weighing on me; I excused myself with the same homework line I’d used earlier. I’d barely shut the door to my bedroom when I felt the tears start. I slammed my iPod into its little docking station, turning it on loudly to block out the sounds of my crying and threw myself on my bed, my sobs muffled by my thick purple comforter.

Normally I was the world champion of stuffing my feelings deep down—purely out of survival instinct. I probably would have just curled up into a ball and let the world wash over me if I didn’t find some way to cope—and coping, for me, was to just not think about it. I locked everything away and soldiered on, not letting any cracks show on the surface. But this night, I was too overwhelmed. The cracks showed—Grand Canyon–size cracks—as I let myself feel everything, let the wave of emotion knock me down until I felt like I was drowning. I dwelled on how much I missed my mom, missed Ethan. I wanted my mom to hug me and kiss me on the forehead, to tuck me in with my stuffed puppy doll and tell me everything was going to be okay. I wanted my brother to text me stupid jokes until I felt better. I wanted my family—my whole family. Except my father, he could go to hell for all I cared. But still, I felt the sting of that rejection, and cried again over how hard my mom worked to be both mom and dad to us.

I drowned in every pain, razor-sharp and dull ache, all at the same time, until my chest actually hurt from crying and I was sure my fingers were going to be pruney.

I’d gotten so used to being unhappy, to just functioning, to just getting by. I’d been numb, and been okay with it, until I moved here. And now I felt stupid and ridiculously naive for basking in the untroubled happiness of the past four months. My life wasn’t perfect, but I had friends. My family—what was left of it—loved me. And I was in love. So in love.

But I felt like I would never get the chance to enjoy it.

My phone vibrated on my nightstand, and I grabbed it, finding a text from Brendan. I rubbed my tear-bleary eyes to read it.

I know you’re studying. Just want to say I love you. And you look crazy hot in my sweatshirt. Keep it.

I barked out a little half laugh, half sob at his sweetness, sniffling back my tears as I rolled onto my back. I stared up at the wall my bed was pushed against, my gaze falling on the pictures and mementos I’d taped up like a collage. A picture of my cousin Ashley and me, wearing reindeer antlers at Christmas dinner. A shot of me and Angelique, sitting on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, from my first month at Vince A. A pressed rose from the bouquet Brendan gave me for Valentine’s Day, taped next to a photo booth strip of pictures, mugging for the camera. In the last frame, he has his arms around me, kissing me on the cheek and I’ve got the biggest, most blissed-out grin ever.

I reread his text message, and then wiped my tears on my comforter before jumping off my bed to rifle through the box of limited witch paraphernalia I’d accumulated—some from Angelique, some printouts from research I’d done online. The rest of my homework would have to wait; I had other work to do tonight. Just want to say I love you. It bounced around in my head, reminding me that I deserved to be happy—we both did.

I grabbed one of the textbooks Angelique had given me, flopping onto my bed with it. If something dark and magical was coming after me, then I definitely needed to sharpen my own magical skills.

Crying time was over. Now it was time to prep for battle, because I was not going down without a fight.

I balled up my comforter and rested my head on it as I read the chapter on focusing your emotional energy. I could memorize spells until I knew them better than my own name, but it was no good if I couldn’t focus—and that very focus was the hurdle I couldn’t get over. It was like having a car without knowing how to drive. I reread the chapter a second time, practicing the breathing exercises, which were supposed to help, as almost musical raindrops tinkled against my window, heralding the booming storm that was just a few moments away. A few hours later, I looked at the clock. Thursday had turned to Friday, and I realized that just hours ago my biggest problem was a gaggle of gossipy girls at a bodega, giving me the inquisition because my head-turner of a boyfriend famously rescued me from a psychopathic classmate.

“And that was when things were simple,” I moaned, shutting my eyes and placing the book over my head. Maybe the knowledge will come in through osmosis.

Instead the total darkness and a familiar playlist of songs lulled me into a deep, dead sleep. When I woke up, my alarm had been blaring for a half hour. I’d slept through the night (with the book on my sweaty forehead like a dumbass) but I was entirely unrested. I was crushed—although I had to crack a wry smile over the fact that I was bummed out that a horrific, prophetic nightmare hadn’t forced me to wake up screaming, as it had when meeting Brendan kicked the curse into action. But I’d had no dreams. No signs. Nothing. Whatever this was, I was going to face it alone.

When I got to the bathroom, I stared at myself in shock, before I had to laugh—some of the book’s text had transferred onto my skin. Well, that’s one way to remember how to stay focused—tattoo the instructions on your forehead. I had barely finished scrubbing the last tenacious bits of text off in the shower when I heard my cousin Ashley’s chipper voice in the living room. Ashley was a freshman, and lived close enough to pick me up so we could walk to school together. When I started school in September, Ashley was a tiny little thing—barely over five feet tall—but over the winter she’d had a growth spurt. In a few places. Her uniform skirts were suddenly just a few inches too short—and the third button on her Oxford shirt was definitely holding on for dear life as she finally grew into the family, um, inheritances—but Ashley wasn’t complaining. She was, however, likely to throw her back out, the way she seemed to stand in a permanent state of inhalation to flaunt her new toys.

“Sorry I’m running late, Ash,” I called, pulling on Brendan’s sweatshirt over my white Oxford uniform shirt. If something’s coming for you, might as well look “crazy hot” while you fight it… I fluffed out the ends of my shower-dampened hair, resolving to just let today play out like a normal day—until Angelique and I could figure out what we were dealing with.

“We should take the subway instead of walking, then,” Ashley called back as I stuffed my feet into my Mary Janes and ran into the kitchen to grab a foil-wrapped Pop-Tart package off the counter. I kissed Aunt Christine on her cheek as she sat with her mug of steaming coffee on the floral couch and we headed out the door.

I did my best to push my bleak thoughts out of my head, trying to match Ashley’s signature upbeat tone as we walked to the 6 train stop on Lexington, right outside of Hunter College. It was just a block and a half away from my aunt’s place on Sixty-eighth Street between Park and Madison. As I chewed my raw strawberry Pop-Tart, she chirped about a Battle of the Bands that was being put on by Magel High School, Vincent Academy’s “sister” school over on Sixth-fifth Street. All schools were invited—but neither Brendan nor I had been to any sort of school function since the ill-fated winter formal.

I had just brushed the crumbs from my hands when we arrived at the stop and heard the uptown train coming. We ran to the turnstiles, swiping our MetroCards as quickly as possible before racing down the musty-smelling stairs onto the platform.

Ashley and I had barely squeezed onto the jam-packed train—earning a dirty look from a businessman she accidentally whacked with her overstuffed backpack—before the doors slammed an inch from my shoulder.

“So, anyway, Em. This Battle of the Bands thing. I guess you’re not going, huh?” Ashley sulked, sticking out her bottom lip as she stuffed her MetroCard into the front pocket of her denim jacket, stumbling a little as the train started. “Me, Catharine and Vanessa are all going. There’s going to be a lot of cute guys there. Guys from other schools.” You’d think that guys from other schools rode minotaurs around the city, the way Ashley regarded them. Although given the supernatural turn my life had taken, it was quite possible they did.

“I never get to escape from the Vince A biosphere and meet a guy who isn’t from that damn place.” Ashley stuck her glossy lower lip out in a pout.

“Ash, why are you forcing it?” I asked gently, bracing myself by steadying my palm against the subway doors. “Don’t be in such a rush to get a boyfriend.” My little cousin had a tendency to dive into everything headfirst. Last year, she’d had a crush on Anthony—until he showed his true nature, spreading rumors that they’d slept together. (Thankfully Brendan had jumped in to dispel that nasty lie.) Her experience with Anthony initially made Ashley a little more cautious around guys, but since her growth spurt, she’d bounced back—and up and down—relishing the male attention.

“You got a boyfriend right away,” she pointed out, scrunching up her face in mock annoyance. “You still have the same boyfriend.”

“You weren’t the only one shocked by that.” I mimicked her tone, stepping closer to her as the train stopped at Seventy-seventh Street to make way for people exiting the train. Ashley pressed closer to me, swinging around to face the doors and accidentally whacked the businessman with her bag again.

“Ash, take your bag off,” I whispered, stifling a giggle. “You’re taking out all the commuters.” She rolled her eyes and slid the bag down between her feet, holding the strap tightly.

“You know, Em, you had a boyfriend when you were a freshman at Keansburg High, too,” Ashley reminded me after the train doors slammed shut and the subway started barreling through the tunnel again. Crap. She had me there.

“Yeah but he wasn’t a boyfriend-boyfriend. Matt and I knew each other since we were kids,” I explained about my sweet, if dippy, freshman-year boyfriend. “That was less a real relationship and more friends that made out every now and then.”

“I wouldn’t mind that.” Ashley grinned, leaning against the subway doors with a dreamy look on her face. Uh-oh.

“Just don’t rush into anything, okay?”

“There’s nothing to rush into—not at Vince A, at least. Brendan’s the only good one. The guys at this school are so annoying,” she whined, coiling one of her red ringlets around her finger. “I mean, I guess there are a few cool ones, but it’s a lost cause. It’s embarrassing,” she added softly, “because they all know about the Anthony thing, and all those stupid rumors he spread about me. It would be nice to meet someone who hadn’t heard anything about me.”

I immediately felt guilty for dismissing my cousin’s interests outside Vince A as an overzealous case of the boy crazies. More than anyone, I understood what it was like to be talked about. “I completely understand,” I replied. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s fine, you’re probably right anyway.” She was quiet for a minute then gave me a sideways glance. “You know, you never told me what Brendan said when you asked if he had any hot cousins or friends for me.”

“It’s a dead end, Ash.” I chuckled as I remembered what he said. “I’m paraphrasing here, but the quote was something like, ‘All my friends are a bunch of pirates.’”

“Pirates?”

“Yeah. He said all his friends aren’t worth your time, they’re too shady.”

“Even the basketball team? And how would he know what’s worth my time?” she challenged, raising an eyebrow and adopting a haughty look. “I could be shady!”

Smiling at her indulgently, I shook my head. “Ashley, you’re perpetually sunny, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.” She folded her arms, pouting until the train came to a stop at Eighty-sixth Street. “Pirates. Why can’t you let me be the judge of that?”

I just raised an eyebrow at her—she’d refused to believe my insistence about Anthony’s true character at first—and Ashley relented.

“Fine.” She sulked, and was silent as we joined the crowd of people headed up the stairs to the sidewalk. After we arrived on the sidewalk—and made a quick stop in a deli so I could buy a sandwich to take on the class trip—Ashley turned to me with a glint in her eye.

“Since I clearly have no taste in guys, you two should come with us to the Battle of the Bands tomorrow night, and you can pick out a guy for me.” Ashley gave me a wide, toothy smile and nodded her head eagerly.

“Sorry, but it shouldn’t be a surprise to you that I’m going to be a no-show,” I said, and she frowned at me, fussing with the jeweled clip in her flame-colored curls.

“That’s a pretty clip,” I said, hoping to change the subject from my and Brendan’s avoidance of school functions. Ashley pulled it out of her tangle of curls and gently pushed it in my hands, nearly tripping over her own feet as she walked down the sidewalk.

“Here, you can wear it today,” she huffed as she pulled a black elastic off her wrist and pulled her hair into a messy bun. “My hair’s all frizzy and the clip won’t sit right.”

“Thanks!” I fastened it in the back of my head, putting my hair in a loose updo.

“You look good with your hair up. It’s kind of regal,” she observed, before her lips twisted in a smirk. “You can rip it down and wave your hair around in front of Brendan like a hot librarian or something.”

I rolled my eyes at her. “You watch too much porny late-night TV.”

Ashley ignored my dig. “So what are you guys going to do this weekend, then, since you two are, like, all overdramatic with the ‘Oh, no! No public appearances!’ thing.” Ashley turned her head away from me, throwing her hand across her face overdramatically.

It was my turn to ignore her dig. “No big plans, really. We’re just going to hang out. We’ve spent practically no time together lately. But Brendan’s mom left to meet his dad this morning and we have his house to ourselves.” Brendan had sworn he would cook for me; I had sworn to not snoop around for the cartons of takeout he probably planned on passing off as a home-cooked meal.

“His dad travels a lot, doesn’t he?” Ashley asked, stepping over a large puddle pooling by the crosswalk as we hurried against the light on Park Avenue, and got stuck waiting on the center island in the middle of the two-way road. I explained that Aaron Salinger was overseeing the opening of some resort in South America, and Ashley got a saucy look in her crystal-blue eyes.

“So, does Brendan get that big town house to himself a lot?”

“Well, if his mom’s not there, yes,” I said hesitantly, not quite sure what she was getting at. I hope she doesn’t want to throw a party. “But she’s always either traveling with Brendan’s dad or working on her charity stuff so it’s not like she’s there when Brendan gets home from school. He’s pretty self-sufficient—he’s going to be eighteen next month, remember?” Never mind that Laura Salinger was not the type of woman to have peanut butter crackers and apple juice waiting when her son got home from school anyway.

“So you guys get a lot of alone time, huh?” She wiggled her eyebrows up and down suggestively and I instantly got her hidden meaning.

“Looks like someone put on her pervy pants this morning,” I observed.

“Well, someone else put on her I-don’t-tell-my-cousin-juicy-details pants. And let me tell you, those pants are not a good look on you!”

She gave me a wide-eyed, so-there look, and I couldn’t help but laugh. “C’mon, I don’t have a boyfriend, so I have to live vicariously through you,” Ashley cajoled, tugging at my sweatshirt sleeve. “Give me some details! How did you get him out of this sweatshirt? What else have you gotten off him? I know you said you haven’t gone all the way yet but there’s a lot that happens in between kissing and doing it. Come onnnnnnnn!” She drew the last word out so long I thought she was going to pass out from lack of breath.

“Go watch Cinemax and stop harassing me for dirty details.”

“Come onnnnnnnn!” Ashley repeated as I smirked at her.

“I’m so not talking about this when we’re across the street from school,” I said adamantly as we waited for the Park Avenue light to change. Never mind that there wasn’t much to tell from our four-and-a-half month relationship beyond kissing and some wandering hands. My virginity was still firmly intact. I mulled this over as Ashley pouted, and felt even guiltier not telling Brendan about the spell immediately. Brendan hadn’t once tried to pressure me into anything, respecting my boundaries whenever I put a halt on anything physical—and he had so many notches in his bedpost the damn bed was in danger of falling down.