“So is everybody going to make it this Saturday?” Sharon asked. Kithic was holding its circle at her house.
“I can’t go,” I said, feeling even gloomier. “I’m grounded.”
“Grounded? What did you do?” Ethan asked, pushing curly hair out of his eyes. “Anything good?”
“Unfortunately not.”
“Morgan isn’t much good at being bad.” Bree gave Matt a flirtatious little smile. “Unlike some people.”
“Hmmm,” Raven said smoothly. “Tell us about that, Bree.”
Bree ignored her, still looking at Matt, who was grinning like an idiot. I narrowed my eyes at Bree. What did she think she was doing?
Robbie stood up. “I’ve gotta head to the library,” he said to nobody in particular. “See you guys later.” He grabbed his tray and walked off.
I caught Bree’s eye and frowned at her. She made a face at me. “I’ll be right back,” I said, pushing my chair away from the table.
Robbie was halfway down the hall by the time I caught up with him. “Robbie, wait,” I said, catching his arm. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” His eyes were filled with anger. “I guess I just didn’t feel like sitting around and watching Bree hit on someone else. Call me crazy.”
I folded my arms across my chest and cocked an eyebrow. “I thought you guys were broken up.”
Robbie looked shocked. I knew it, I thought.
“That’s what Bree told me, anyway,” I went on. “She said you dumped her.”
Robbie’s eyes were wide. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.
I shrugged. “Isn’t that what happened?”
“No,” he insisted. “No way!” He looked confused and worried. “I just told Bree that I thought we needed some space. We’ve been spending all our time together lately, and. . well. . I’ve gotten these weird vibes from Bree. Like she’s feeling kind of. .”
“Possessive?” I finished for him.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “So I tried to talk to her about it. I mean, look, personally I’d love to spend all my time with Bree. But it seemed sort of weird for her. Don’t forget that I’ve known Bree a long time.”
“As long as I have.”
“Exactly,” Robbie agreed. “And we both know she gets bored easily with guys, and then she moves on. Right?”
“Mmm.” Dead right.
“So I thought I’d be clever and suggest more space,” Robbie explained, “and she’s been avoiding me ever since. I thought she was just taking me up on my offer.” He bit his lip. “God, Morgan, have I totally screwed up?”
“I don’t think it’s your fault, but the situation is definitely screwed up,” I said. “You have to talk to her. Now.”
“What should I say?”
“Just tell her that this is all a big misunderstanding, which it is,” I said. “Look, Robbie, you and I both know that underneath it all, Bree is actually insecure in a weird way, right?”
“About some things,” he admitted.
“About this thing,” I said. “This has just gotten blown out of proportion because she actually cares about you. A lot. And she doesn’t know how to deal.”
Robbie looked dubious. “You think?”
“I know it,” I told him. I didn’t think it was betraying a confidence to say that much. “So you’ll talk to her?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. He started to turn back toward the lunch-room, but the bell rang. “Damn,” he said, checking his watch.
“Do it after school,” I said as people began trickling into the hall. “Don’t wait.”
“Thanks, Morgan.” Robbie reached out and drew me into a hug. I felt glad that I’d finally butted in. My head was still throbbing, but it was good to know that I’d done at least one thing right.
I was halfway through my first problem set when the doorbell rang. “Mary K., can you get that?” I shouted. My head was still splitting, even after I’d taken four Advil. Mary K. didn’t reply. Not surprising. She was playing the radio at top volume in her room. I had expected her to be at cheerleading practice, but it had been canceled at the last minute. Now she was upstairs “studying” with her new best friend, Alisa. They were in the same French class.
With a sigh, I hauled myself up from the dining room table and trudged to the door, figuring it was probably someone from Greenpeace or another member of the Mary K. fan club. The latter was more likely.
I looked through the peephole and sucked in my breath. Erin! I’d completely forgotten we were supposed to meet to go over what I’d read about witch history. Crap. And now I had to answer the door. She was a witch, after all—she knew I was here.
“Hello, Morgan,” she said. Her dark red hair was pulled into a braid, and she was carrying a backpack. In blue jeans and a peacoat, she looked more like a Vassar student than a forty-seven-year-old witch.
“Hi,” I said, looking nervously behind her. My mom and dad weren’t due home for a couple of hours, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I wasn’t supposed to have any visitors, and I knew that if they caught me with Erin, I was toast.
Erin cocked an eyebrow. “May I come in?” she asked.
“Actually. . ” I said, pulling the door closed behind me. “I’ve sort of been grounded. For coming home late. I’m not supposed to have any visitors. I’m just supposed to go to school and come home—no TV, no phone, nothing.”
“I see.” Erin’s face was a neutral blank. “And how long is this going to last?”
I grimaced. “Two weeks.”
“I see,” Erin said again. We stood there, staring at each other for a few moments. She made no move to leave.
I cleared my throat. “So you see, I’m not supposed to have any visitors,” I began again. “Um, my parents are actually thinking about sending me to a Catholic school. So I’m trying to pull my grades up. They might change their minds.”
“Yes, I can appreciate that,” Erin replied. “But the fact is, Morgan, that I’m only going to be here for a short time. Do you take my meaning?”
I wavered. Erin was right. I was having a rough time family-wise, but she’d come all the way from Scotland and so far hadn’t had much of a chance to teach me anything. Something always seemed to get in the way. If I didn’t let her in today, her entire trip would be pretty much of a wash.
“I brought you some more books,” Erin said, pulling off her backpack. “A few from my own collection on Irish witches in the medieval period.”
“Well,” I said slowly, “I am writing a paper on the persecution of witches.”
“Then it’s a school project, isn’t it?” Erin blinked at me innocently.
That did it. “Come in,” I said quickly, leading her into the front hall. “But my sister is home, so we’ll have to be careful.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me. I won’t make a peep,” Erin promised. Then she cast a quick see-me-not spell so that Mary K. wouldn’t see or hear her as she slipped up the stairs. Not that there was much danger of that, considering the volume of the music pulsing from Mary K.’s room.
“Sorry it’s such a mess,” I said as I brushed a pile of clothes from my bed to the floor. Dagda, my gray kitten, had been sleeping at the foot of the bed. He stretched and mewed a mild complaint. Erin walked over to him and scratched him under the chin.
“He’s a cute one,” she said as Dagda stretched his neck and purred contentedly.
I smiled. Dagda had grown quite a bit since I’d first gotten him. Now he was looking like a lanky teenager of a cat, with gangly legs and paws that seemed enormous in proportion to the rest of him. Lately he spent all of his time either sleeping or dashing around the house madly—usually in the middle of the night.