Ominous (Private 13)

Slowly I flipped back to the front of the book of spells. The first page was a careful, intricate drawing of intersecting circles. I ran my fingertips over the design, thinking of Eliza and wondering what she’d felt the first time she’d seen this book. Touching my fingertips to the locket—which, as always, felt warm against my skin—I turned to the next page: The Initiation Rite. I felt a flutter inside my chest, recalling what had happened when I’d read the rite on Friday. I looked up at Ivy tentatively. She was staring right at me.

“What’s up?” she asked.

I licked my lips. “What if we recited this incantation?”

She looked at me, her face a blank slate. “Why, exactly, would we do that?”

“I don’t know.” I lifted a shoulder. “For fun.”

She gave a thoughtful frown, then shrugged. “Okay.”

She closed the BLS book and set it aside, angling for a better look at the book in my lap. One thing I loved about Ivy Slade: She was always up for anything.

I laughed. “That’s it? Just ‘okay’?”

She looked at me with a wry smile. “Why not? Nothing’s going to happen.”

I tilted my head, hoping she was right. She had to be right. Because even if I believed that Eliza Williams had actually visited me in a dream, and even if I thought it was weird that the gold locket always felt warm, and even if my candle had gone out then relit itself, it wasn’t possible that magic actually existed. It just wasn’t possible.

“We need candles,” I said.

“Why? You need to make this charade official?” Ivy joked. But there was something serious behind her eyes. Maybe she was more freaked by my finding the locket in the woods, and by the fact that Eliza really had been in my dream, than she’d let on.

“Okay. Forget it,” I said, disappointed.

Ivy scooted over next to me and crossed her legs so that our knees were touching. I moved the book so that it laid across both our laps, half on my thigh, half on hers. “Okay. Ready?” I said. She nodded and we began to read.

“We come together to form this blessed circle….”

Both of us paused, looking at each other. We weren’t exactly a circle.

“Let’s hold hands,” Ivy suggested. She pulled her hands out from under the book and we clasped our fingers together over the pages. “Okay. Start again.”

“We come together to form this blessed circle, pure of heart, free of mind. From this night on we are bonded, we are sisters.” I looked at Ivy here and we both smiled goofily. “We swear to honor this bond above all else. Blood to blood, ashes to ashes, sister to sister, we make this sacred vow.”

That was when the lights went out.

“Holy shit,” Ivy said under her breath.

I sucked in some air, still clinging to Ivy’s hands. It was just like the other night when my candle had died. Then both our cell phones rang at the exact same time, their tiny screens lighting up to cast square beams from the floor to the ceiling. I let out a noise that was half gasp, half squeak.

“Okay. Okay. Calm down,” Ivy said, gripping my fingers so hard they hurt.

She released one of my hands and grappled for her phone. “It says ‘unknown caller,’” she said, staring down at the screen, which cast a glow over only half her face.

I swallowed hard and grabbed my iPhone. My throat went dry. “Mine too.”

Then both screens went dead in our hands. “Ivy. There’s something I have to tell you,” I said in the darkness, my breath shallow and quick. My whole body prickled with sweat. “The other night, I said the incantation by myself in the basement at the chapel. And when I did, there was this sudden wind, and my candle went out, and two seconds later, it relit.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me this before we said the stupid thing together?” she hissed.

The door to my room opened suddenly, and Ivy and I both screamed. Noelle took one look at us and leaned into the side of the doorway. She was backlit by the hall light, which meant that only the electricity in my room had died. She held a tri-folded letter.

“What the hell is this?” she asked.

Then her eyes flicked to the book of spells, which had fallen off Ivy’s lap, but still laid halfway on mine. Yeah. I was never going to live this one down.

“Are you kidding me?” she said, standing up straight. “You guys! We are not witches!” she hissed, glancing over her shoulder into the hall.