So as not to send the message to my enemies that I was back home and open for an attack, I drove right past my house and parked a few streets away. After exiting the car, I rushed through yards, hoping that I could make it to the house undetected. The sooner I got inside, the better I’d feel. I let myself in the front door, locking it behind me, and then stood there listening for any noises that might mean I wasn’t alone in the house. When my paranoia was met with silence, I relaxed and found my way through the darkness to the stairs, knowing exactly where to step after years of sneaking up and down for midnight snacks.
Once I’d reached my bedroom, I went inside and closed the door behind me. I performed a spell that I’d nicknamed “What happens in this room, stays in this room” because it allowed me to move around unseen and unheard. After I was done casting this spell, I would be able to do anything I wanted, and to anyone outside, the room would appear empty and dark.
Only when I was finished casting did I turn on the light. I took a deep breath and ran over to my bed, throwing myself onto the mattress and taking in my familiar bedroom smell. Flipping over onto my back, I looked around the room, analyzing everything.
It was exactly the same, so either no one had bothered to break in after I’d left or they’d been so good at snooping that they’d managed to make it look like they were never here. The thought of someone else being in our house while I was gone filled me with anxiety. As I felt it creeping up my chest, I forced myself to get up and focus on something else before the unease took over my brain.
Heading back downstairs, I began to cast the same spell as the one I’d performed on my room in each of the other rooms of the house, so that no matter what I did inside, people outside would still assume nobody was home. And because it took more than one person to cast a protection spell around a whole house, I settled for setting noisy alarms instead. That way if someone did break in, at least I’d know about it and have a chance to get away. But before I booby-trapped the back door, I walked outside to check on the note I’d left my dad. If he’d gotten my message, he would’ve written back. He still hadn’t called me, which made me think they’d found him, just like they’d found Mom and the others. But if by some miracle he had managed to get away, I liked to think he’d try to get to me somehow.
I retrieved the magic rock and looked inside, seeing with dismay that my original note was still there and appeared untouched. The air I’d been holding in escaped my lips and, sadly, I replaced the rock before going back inside and setting the final alarm.
Climbing the stairs seemed nearly impossible, but I forced my legs to move and finally made it back up to my room. I sealed the door behind me and climbed into bed. I didn’t even have a chance to give any thought to what I was going to do next before my body gave in to sleep.
Chapter Seventeen
When I woke up the next morning and reached over to my cell phone to see what time it was, I nearly fell out of bed in shock. I’d slept for about fifteen hours but hadn’t dreamed, and I didn’t remember falling asleep. My initial plans to begin training today appeared to be out of the question now that the day was practically over.
I got up and stretched, feeling every single muscle as it screamed in pain. As athletic as I was, cheerleading had in no way prepared me for the damage of magical warfare. My tailbone throbbed with every step. I went over to the mirror that was hanging on the back of my door and surveyed the damage. I might as well have been rolling around in the dirt, because that’s how torn up I looked.
Somebody was badly in need of a shower.
Making it my first order of business, I headed over to my closet and swung the doors open to survey my choices.
Hello, clothes! Oh, how I’ve missed you!
I ran my hand across the rainbow of materials, feeling the familiar twinge I got over fabulous fashion. Given all that had happened in the last week, this particular passion had taken a major backseat to everything else. But it wasn’t until I stood there in front of designs by Carolina Herrera and Vivienne Westwood (both fellow witches, I might add) that I realized just how much I’d been ignoring that part of me.
That wasn’t the only thing I’d suppressed, though. As I touched the stretchy polyester fabric of my cheerleading uniform, I felt the pang of sadness grow even heavier. And then my heart sank into my stomach as I had a horrific thought.
If the Parrishables were going after everyone I was close to, then could that include my best friends? Sofia, Trish, and Bethany weren’t witches, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were free from danger. In fact, it was possible that if the Parrishables couldn’t get at me while I was with the rest of the Cleri, they might go after my friends to lure me out. I’d learned from the mall incident that they weren’t worried about the nonmagical world knowing they existed. The Parrishables could attack at any time, knowing that I would come running to save my friends. And I would, because although they were able to flip their way across a field, my cheer-mates didn’t stand a chance against the Parrishables.
I had to make sure they were okay.
Looking back at my uniform, I realized that my teammates would be lining up to cheer on our football team in less than half an hour. If I rushed to get ready, I could probably make it to the game before halftime.
Ahhh, halftime.
If I was being honest with myself, checking on the others wasn’t the only reason I wanted to go to the game. The truth was, I missed cheer, desperately. It had been the biggest part of my life for such a long time that not having it now felt like going through another loss. It was the one thing that always made me feel like myself again.
And if there was a possibility that I wasn’t going to win this fight with the Parrishables, then this would be my last chance to be a regular sixteen-year-old doing what she loved. Even if I wouldn’t be able to cheer along with the squad, I’d still be able to cheer them on, to feel the excitement of the crowd and dance to the music. I’d have to stay out of sight, but it would be like my final performance before retiring my pom-pons.
I hadn’t realized I’d needed this, but I did. And I deserved it.
As soon as I’d made the decision to go, I got moving. I looked at myself in the mirror again and made a face at what I saw. It was not pretty. Even though I had no intention of being seen, I couldn’t take the risk of going out looking the way I did. Just like celebrities when they go out of their house without makeup on and then are bombarded by the paparazzi, you never know when you might need to impress.
The problem was that I didn’t have enough time to take a shower or primp. But I did have time for a spell.
“Renewbus freshimo perfecto,” I said, waving my hand in front of my face. The dirt began to fall off me like my skin was repellent. I gave my body a little shake to get rid of the last remnants of my awful day. Next, color began to appear on my face like it was being applied by an invisible makeup artist. A subtle green shade swept across my eyelids followed by a thick black liner around the rims. My eyelashes thickened and grew darker, curling up slightly at the ends. I began to flush pink and my lips grew glossy, the light in my room catching their perfectly reflective surface.
My hair went from messy to loose curls within minutes, and once the ends had stopped winding this way and that, I gathered the shiny locks up into a high ponytail and secured them with a rubber band. Then I put on a pair of jeans and a black hoodie, so I wouldn’t draw any attention to myself while at the game. Satisfied with my overall look, I snuck out the back door and across two blocks to where I’d parked my car the night before. Getting inside, I took a second to look up and down the block in case anyone had followed me. When it appeared I was in the clear, I turned on the engine and began to drive.