"Good luck," I said. He walked off, and I dumped my backpack in Das Boot and headed back to the pay phone in the school lunchroom.
Cal answered after four rings. His voice sounded better than it had the night before.
"Hi," I said, comforted just to talk to him.
"I knew it was you," he said, sounding glad.
"Of course you did," I said. "You're a witch."
"Where are you?"
"School. Can I come see you? I just really need to talk to you."
Groaning, he said, "I would love that. But some people just came in from Europe, and I've got to meet with them."
"Selene's been having people over a lot lately, it seems."
Cal paused, and when he spoke, his voice had a slightly different tone to it. "Yeah, she has. She's kind of been working on a big project, and it's starting to come together. I'll tell you about it later."
"Okay. How are your wrists?"
"They look pretty bad. But they'll be okay. I really wish I could see you," Cal said.
"Me too." I lowered my voice. "I really need to talk to you. About what happened."
"I know," he said quietly. "I know, Morgan."
In the background on Cal's end I heard voices, and Cal covered his mouthpiece and responded to them. When he came back on, I said, "I won't keep you. Call me later if you can, okay?"
"I will," he said. Then he hung up. I hung up, too, feeling sad and lonely without him.
I walked through the hall and out the door, got in Das Boot, and drove to Red Kill, to Practical Magick.
The brass bells over the door jingled as I pushed my way in. Practical Magick was a store that sold Wiccan books and supplies. Although I hadn't realized it until now, it was also becoming the place I went to when I didn't want to go anywhere else. I loved being there, and I always felt better when; I left. It was like a Wiccan neighborhood bar.
At the end of the room the checkout desk was empty, and I figured Alyce and David must be busy restocking.
I began reading book titles, dreaming of the day I would have enough money to buy whatever books and supplies I wanted. I would buy this whole store out, I decided. That would be so much more fun than being a relatively poor high school junior who was about to wipe out her whole savings to pay for a crumpled headlight. "Hi, there," came a soft voice, and I looked up to see the round, motherly figure of Alyce, my favorite clerk. As my I met hers, stood still. Her brows drew together in a concerned look. "What's the matter?"
My heart thudded against my ribs. Does she know? I wondered frantically. Can she tell just by looking at me?
"What do you mean?" I asked. "I'm fine. Just a little stressed. You know, school, family stuff." I shut my mouth abruptly, feeling like I was babbling.
Alyce held my gaze for a moment, her eyes probing mine. "All right. If you want to talk about it, I'm here," she said at last.
She bustled over to the checkout counter and began to stack some papers. Her gray hair was piled untidily on top of her head, and she wore her usual loose, flowing clothes. She moved with precision and confidence: a woman at ease with herself, her witchhood, her power. I admired her, and it broke my heart to think how horrified she would be if she knew what I had done. How had this happened? How had this become my life?
I can't lose this, I thought. Practical Magick was my haven. I couldn't let the poison of Hunter's horrible death seep out and taint my relationships with this place, with Alyce. I couldn't bear it.
"I can't wait for spring," I said, trying to get my mind back on track. It wasn't even Thanksgiving yet. "I want to get started on my garden." I walked up the book aisle to the back of the store and leaned against a stool by the counter.
"So do I," Alyce agreed. "I'm already dying to be outside, digging in the dirt again. It's always a struggle for me to remember the positive aspects of winter."
I looked around at the other people in the store. A young man with multiple earrings in his left ear came up and bought incense and white candles. I tentatively sent out my senses to see if I could tell if he was a witch or not, but I couldn't pick up on anything unusual.
"Morgan, good to see you again."
I turned to see David stepping though the faded orange curtain that separated the small back room from the rest of the store. A faint scent of incense wafted in with him. Like Alyce, David was also a blood witch. Recently he'd told me that he was from the Burnhide clan. I felt honored to have gained his confidence—and terrified of losing it again if he ever found out what I'd done, that I'd killed someone.
"Hi," I said. "How are you?"
"I'm all right." He held a sheaf of invoices in him hand and looked distracted. "Alyce, did the latest batch of essential oils come? The bill is here."
She shook her head. "I have a feeling the shipment is lost somewhere," she said as another person checked out. This woman was buying a Wiccan periodical called Crafting Our Lives. I picked up on faint magickal vibrations as she passed me and was once again naively amazed that real witches existed.
I wandered around the store, fascinated as always by the candles, incense, small mirrors the shop contained. Slowly the place emptied, then new people came in. It was a busy afternoon.
Gradually the sunlight faded from the high windows, and I began to think about heading home. Alyce came up as I was running my fingers around the rim of a carved marble bowl. The stone was cool and smooth, like river stones. The stones Hunter had probably hit when he fell hadn't been smooth. They had been jagged, deadly.
"Marble is always thirteen degrees cooler than the air around it," Alyce said at my side, making me jump.
"Really? Why?"
"It's the property of the stone," she said, straightening some scarves that customers had rumpled. "Everything has its own properties."
I thought about the chunks of crystal and other stones I had found in the box containing my mother's tools. It seemed like ages ago—but it had actually been less than a week.
"I found Maeve's tools," I said, surprising myself. I hadn't planned to mention it. But I felt the need to confide something in Alyce, to make her feel I wasn't shutting her out.
Alyce's blue eyes widened, and she stopped what she was doing to look at me. She knew Maeve's story; it had been she who'd told me of my birth mother's awful death here in America.
"Belwicket's tools?" she asked unbelievingly. Belwicket had been the name of Maeve's coven in Ireland.
When it was destroyed by a mysterious, dark force, Maeve and her lover, Angus, had fled to America. Where I'd been born—and they had died.
"I scryed," I told Alyce. "In fire. I had a vision that told me the tools were in Meshomah Falls."
"Where Maeve died," Alyce remembered.
"Yes."
"How wonderful for you," Alyce said. "Everyone thought those tools were lost forever. I'm sure Maeve would have been so happy for her daughter to have them."
I nodded. "I'm really glad about it. They're a link to her, to her clan, her family."
"Have you used them yet?" she asked.
"Um—I tried the athame," I admitted. Technically, since I was uninitiated, I wasn't supposed to do unsupervised magick or use magickal tools or even write in Cirrus's Book of Shadows. I waited for Alyce to chide me.
But she didn't. Instead she said briskly, "I think you should bind the tools to you."
I blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Wait a minute."Alyce hurried off and soon came back with a think, ancient-looking book. It's cover was dark green and tattered, with stains mottling its fabric. She leaned the I book on a shelf and flipped through pages soft and crumbling I with age.