The Book of Spells (Private 0.50)

“I am,” Eliza said. “The spell will be stronger if we’re connected to her.”

“Why? How do you know?” Theresa asked her.

“I just feel it. We must be connected to her when we say it,” Eliza replied. She walked over and knelt next to Catherine, trying not to look at her face. “What are you so skittish about, Theresa Billings? You carried her all the way back here.”

“All right, all right.” Theresa knelt next to the body as well and took Catherine’s left hand in hers. Eliza held Catherine’s right hand, which was now as cold as ice, then reached across her torso for Theresa’s hand. They looked into each other’s eyes and nodded.

“Wherever we go, wherever we breathe, let others see Catherine where she might usually be.”

The dizziness wasn’t as nauseating this time, but Eliza wasn’t sure what that meant. Was she getting stronger—more resilient? Or was the spell not strong enough? She opened her eyes, and a pathetic flutter of wind tossed the pages of the book, lifting Eliza’s hair briefly from her shoulders.

“Do you think it worked?” Eliza asked, still holding hands.

Theresa gazed down at Catherine’s serene face. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Theresa,” Eliza said tentatively, feeling a flutter of nervousness in her stomach. “I think I . . . the other night I . . . I dreamt about this.”

Theresa’s face snapped up. “Dreamt about what?”

“About Catherine dying. The dream, it was . . . it wasn’t exactly as it happened tonight, but she died the same way. In the woods, falling into a deep hole.” Eliza saw no reason to tell the other girl that in her dream, Theresa and Helen had pushed Catherine to her death. She knew it would only anger and upset her.

“Are you saying that you saw the future?” Theresa asked. “I don’t know.

I didn’t think so at the time, of course, but now . . .” Theresa sighed and looked down at Catherine’s body. “A month ago, I never would have thought something like that was possible, but I’d believe it now.”

“But that means . . . that means I could have stopped this,” Eliza said, her eyes filling with tears. “If only I’d told her about the dream, she

might have thought twice about following you into the woods. She might have been more careful.”

“There’s no way you could have realized, Eliza,” Theresa said with surprising force. “Besides, she would have followed me anyway. That’s Catherine. Always trying to protect everyone.”

“But I—”

“Eliza,” Theresa cut her off, squeezing her hand. “What’s done is done. And by tomorrow, it won’t matter any longer,” she assured Eliza, looking her firmly in the eye. “Tomorrow night, we’ll bring Catherine back.”

Agreed

“What are we doing here? Why are you two acting so mysterious?” Clarissa asked, sitting on Theresa’s brocade settee in her single room.

The chamber was larger than any of the rooms the other girls shared—large enough for the entire coven to gather comfortably— with two huge windows that looked out across the darkened campus. Lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating the underbelly of the gray clouds and casting odd shadows over the trees and buildings. Theresa closed the door quietly and stood next to Eliza. The two girls had washed and changed their clothes, then gone from room to room, waking the others and telling them to come up to Theresa’s. But Eliza could still feel the rain on her skin, the grime under her fingernails, the weight of Catherine’s body straining her arms. The seven girls gazed back at them, each clad in nightclothes. Only Alice was not among them. She had refused to come.

“And where are Catherine and Alice?” Clarissa added.

“Girls, we’ve brought you here to tell you some disturbing news,” Eliza began. Her heart felt as if it was made of pins and needles, jabbing outward at her chest with each breath.

“What is it?” Bia asked from the edge of Theresa’s bed, the color draining from her face. She reached for Viola’s hand and drew it into her lap.

Eliza looked at Theresa for help—something she had never thought she would do. Theresa cleared her throat and rested her hand on the back of her desk chair.

“After she walked Eliza home earlier tonight, Catherine took a path through the woods on her way back to the chapel,” Theresa began, as thunder clapped outside the window. “She got lost and she . . . she fell.”

Viola gasped, covering her mouth with her free hand.

Lavender pushed herself away from the closet door. “Is she all right?”

“No,” Theresa said, tears suddenly filling her eyes. “Catherine is dead.”

Bia stifled a scream and hid her face against Viola’s shoulder. The other girls gasped and covered their mouths, looking around as if someone else might explain this away. Marilyn gripped Genevieve’s hand and stepped forward.