Sitting up, I decided to confront Morgan again. I would somehow make her tell me what was going on, what was wrong with her and Hunter. The flaws in this plan were immediately obvious: (1) I had already asked Morgan, and she’d made it clear that she wasn’t going to tell me. (2) Mary K. would wonder why I needed to talk to Morgan. And if it was some weird witch thing, I didn’t want to drag her into it.
So how could I find out?
Hunter.
No. I knew him, but we weren’t good friends. I was kind of impressed by and wary of him at the same time. What would he think if I asked him to tell me their secret? Would he get mad at me?
Hunter was out. But... there really wasn’t anyone else. I went through the members of Kithic in my mind. No one else had seemed nervous or ill. Just Morgan and Hunter. The blood witches. I shook my head. My brain kept coming back to this again and again, the way it had about my mother’s green book. This felt the same.
I had to talk to Hunter.
I didn’t have his phone number, but I knew where he lived. Now, did I have the nerve to ask him? I had no choice. I ran downstairs: Girl of Action. In the living room I encountered Hilary, watching a dvd of Sex and the City. Too late I remembered that Dad had gone to a union meeting at the post office, where he worked. Damn, damn, damn. I met Hilary’s inquiring look. I had to go ahead and ask her.
“Um, I forgot my algebra book at school,” I said, giving an Oscar-caliber performance. Not. “My friend has the same book and says I can borrow his. Do you think you could give me a ride to his house?”
Hilary actually looked touched to be asked, and I felt a little pang of guilt over the way I usually treated her. The fact that I would now owe her was not lost on me. Once again I wished the state of New York would lower the freaking driving age to, say, fifteen. Then I wouldn’t have to ask anyone for favors.
“Sure,” Hilary said easily. She clicked off the TV and stood up, stretching. She gave me a smile and almost looked pretty for a split second. “Let me go to the bathroom real quick. Since I’ve been pregnant, I have to pee every five minutes.”
She turned and left the room then, so she didn’t see the horrified expression on my face. Oh, gross! Why did I have to know that?
Not being a complete idiot, I held my tongue, and a few minutes later I was directing her to Hunter’s house. When Hilary parked behind Hunter’s car, I said, “I’m having trouble with this one section. Is it okay if I stay for a minute so he can explain it to me?”
“Take your time,” Hilary said. She clicked on the radio and closed her eyes, leaning back against the headrest.
“Thanks,” I said, and hopped out of the car. Up on the porch I rang the doorbell, and after a moment it was answered by an older man I didn’t know. Oh, this had to be Hunter’s dad—I’d heard he’d come back from Canada to live with him. He didn’t look much like Hunter—almost too old to be his real dad.
“You’re a witch,” he said after a moment, startling me.
“Uh—” I was caught off guard. No one had ever sensed this before. Including me.
“I get a strange reading off of you,” he said, squinting at me. He had a slightly different accent from Hunter, too.
“Da,” came Hunter’s voice, and then I saw him push in next to his father. “Oh, hullo, Alisa. Are you all right? Did you come here alone?” He looked out past me to the dark yard.
“My stepmother-to-be drove me,” I said, feeling an attack of shyness and regret sweeping over me. “I really need to talk to you.”
“Sure. Come on in.” Hunter turned to his father. “Da, this is Alisa Soto. She’s a high school student, part of Kithic.”
I noticed that Hunter looked as bad as Morgan had this afternoon. It was as if all the witches I knew had, like, witch pneumonia or something.
Mr. Niall looked at Hunter. “What’s going on? Who is she? Why does she feel strange?”
“Calm down, Da,” Hunter said. “She might feel different to you because she’s only half witch.”
I felt like a microbe, the way his dad looked at me.
“But she has power—I can feel it. How is that possible?” he asked.
Hunter shrugged. “Here she stands. So what can I do for you, Alisa?”
Unfortunately, I hadn’t planned what to say. So what came out was, “Hunter, what’s going on? Why do you and Morgan look like death? Why won’t she tell me what’s happening?”
“I’m off,” Mr. Niall muttered abruptly, and left the room.
Strange dad behavior.
I turned back to Hunter, aware that Hilary was waiting outside. “Hunter, what’s the deal?” I asked again.
He looked uncomfortable, then ran one hand through his short blond hair, giving himself bed head. “How do you feel?” he asked.
I stared at him. Why did everyone keep asking me that? “I have a headache! What is going on?”
“Alisa, there’s a dark wave coming to Widow’s Vale,” he said gently. “Do you know what that is?”
A what? “No.”
“It’s—a wave, a force, of destruction,” Hunter said. “It’s dark magick, a spell that a witch or a group of witches casts. They aim it at a particular village or coven, and basically it wipes everything out.”
This was too much to take in. I wasn’t following. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a bad spell,” Hunter said simply. “Very uncommon. In the Wiccan world it’s rare to come upon someone who practices dark magick. But dark witches can cast a spell when they want to kill other witches, destroy a whole coven, even level a whole village.”
I stared at him. “What... what...” What he was saying sounded like the plot of a Bruce Willis movie—not something that could happen in Widow’s Vale. But at the same time, I felt in my bones that he was telling the truth. I didn’t understand it, but I did suddenly believe that something bad was coming. Something very bad. “Is this why you and Morgan are sick?”
Hunter nodded. “I would guess your headache is caused by it, too, but since you’re half and half, it’s not wrecking you as much.” He went on to explain what he and Morgan had figured out and also what his father was trying to do, how he was trying to come up with a spell to disperse a dark wave. And he told me that the witch who cast this spell would probably die and that his father was going to be the one who cast it. I felt shocked. Hunter looked really grim, and I couldn’t imagine what he was feeling.
“I guess you guys are pretty sure about all this,” I said faintly.
He nodded. “It’s a situation that’s been developing for a while.”
“Are you sure your dad—”
“Yes. I’d like for someone else to do it, obviously. But any blood witch is likely to die, and he won’t let that happen to someone else.”
“And a nonwitch can’t cast it?”
“No. They have to be able to summon power. But if they’re strong enough to summon power, then they’re strong enough to be decimated by the dark wave.” He looked frustrated. I felt so sorry for him. If only there was some alternative—a way for a witch to cast the spell yet not be susceptible to the powers of the dark wave. Like if a person were...
I frowned as an awful, horrifying thought seeped into my brain. Immediately I shut it down.
“I have to go,” I said quickly. “My stepmonster-to-be is waiting for me.”
Hunter nodded and opened the door for me.
“The rest of Kithic doesn’t know about this,” he reminded me. “They wouldn’t be able to help, and there’s no use in terrifying them.”
“Okay.” I looked back at him, framed in his doorway. Then I turned and ran down the stairs, to where Hilary was waiting in the car. I was actually really happy to see her.