Ominous (Private 13)

Iv

y and I looked at each other, my right hand still clinging to her left. Noelle hadn’t seen what we’d just seen. And even though her sudden, larger-than-life presence had brought me somewhat back to reality, the niggling belief I’d started to have when Josh showed me Eliza’s picture the night before was starting to grow.

Maybe … Was it possible? Could we be witches?

The moment the thought occurred to me, I laughed out loud. Because how ridiculous was that?

“We were just messing around,” Ivy said, dropping my hand and standing up. She wiped her palms on the back of her jeans and rolled her head around, cracking her neck. Her dark ponytail swung down her back and I took a deep breath at the sudden normalcy. Even my skin was starting to cool down.

“Good.” Noelle hit my light switch and the overhead lights popped on. I looked up at them, startled. “Because I have something to show you guys,” Noelle said, taking a couple of steps into the room. She turned the page around, holding it in both hands to show us. “I just got into Yale!”

“Are you serious?” I blurted out, jumping up. I grabbed the letter from her fingers and read the first couple of lines. “Noelle! Congratulations!”

Throwing my arms around her, I hugged her hard. Tears sprang to my eyes as it hit me full force that she would be gone next year, for real this time, but I told myself this wasn’t about me. Yale was what Noelle had always wanted. She’d be at school with her boyfriend, Dash McCafferty, and the two of them would surely be the power couple on campus. Plus, New Haven wasn’t that far from Easton. As Ivy League schools went, it was the best possible outcome for me.

“That’s great, Noelle. Congratulations,” Ivy said as I released Noelle. She even managed to sound sincere. “Did you call Dash?”

“Of course. I expect a huge box of Yale crap in the morning,” Noelle said with a giddy laugh. “But right now, we party.”

“What?” I asked, glancing at the clock. It was already past ten.

“You heard me. We’re going to the chapel. Get your crap together, bitches,” Noelle said. “It’s time to celebrate.”

Kiki cranked up the sound on her new iDock as the rest of us danced in a circle with Noelle at the center. She threw her arms up over her head and swung her heavy hair around, dancing for all the world as if there was no one around but her. It wasn’t like Noelle to let loose to quite this degree, but then, she’d finally secured her future and she deserved this celebration.

Plus, she’d already downed an entire bottle of Taittinger on her own. So I’d also never seen her quite so drunk.

“Go, Noelle! Go, Yale! Go, Noelle! Go, Yale!” Amberly chanted along with Lorna and Rose, their fists pumping in the air. Vienna swigged from a champagne bottle with one hand, recording the party on her Flip with the other. She was swaying a bit in her high-heeled Ferragamo boots, and I could only imagine the tape was going to be nauseating to watch. All I could do was hope the whole thing wouldn’t end up on Facebook later that night.

Noelle bent at the waist, then flipped back up again, trying to execute some kind of sexy move, but she fell backward instead. She tripped into my and Ivy’s arms but quickly righted herself and cleared her throat.

“Tiffany’s turn!” she shouted, tossing her hands up, then grabbing Tiffany and dragging her into the center of the circle.

Tiffany blushed but obliged, doing a few hip-swinging moves in the middle before whipping out her camera and clicking off some random shots of the rest of us. That afternoon, she’d also gotten her acceptance letter to the school of her choice, the Rhode Island School of Design, abbreviated as RISD, which everyone pronounced “Rizdee.” She’d gotten into their prestigious photography program, even though she’d neglected to inform them of her famous father’s identity. I bet money they were going to be psyched when they eventually did find out, though. Tiffany’s dad, Tassos, was one of the most sought-after fashion photographers in the world.

“Go, Tiff! Go, RISD! Go, Tiff! Go, RISD!”

“Portia’s turn!” Tiffany called out, twirling Portia into the center of the circle.

“Go, Portia! Go, Sorbonne! Go, Portia! Go, Sorbonne!”

Portia went right into a series of moves that looked like something out of a stripper-pole exercise video. Everyone whooped and laughed, and I found I couldn’t stop smiling. As much as I was going to miss my friends next year, their excitement and happiness were infectious now. Finally, all three of them got together to bump and grind in the middle of the circle, and Vienna climbed up on the first pew for a bird’s-eye view of the action. While everyone else started hamming it up for the camera, Ivy grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the makeshift snack area—one of the choir pews where we’d set up a few bottles and a bunch of boxes of chocolates Vienna had stashed away for this exact purpose.

“What’s up?” I asked Ivy, even as my stomach clenched. I knew exactly what was up.

“Okay, I know I said not to freak, but we have to talk about what happened back in your room,” she said, pressing her fingers together to form a sort of steeple in front of her chest. “What the hell was that?”

“Technology glitch?” I surmised, laughing nervously.

“Right,” she said with a dubious expression. “The lights in just your room go out, then both our cell phones ring at the same time with no one at the other end. How do you explain that?”

“Uh …” I racked my brain, trying to think of something that would sound reasonable. “Solar flare?”

She rolled her eyes. Behind us, Vienna and Lorna attempted to hoist Portia up on their shoulders.

“Reed, come on—”

“No, Ivy, you come on,” I replied. For some reason I was finding it far easier to doubt the whole thing once someone else started to believe in it. “What are you trying to say, really? You don’t really think something happened when we said the incantation. I mean, do you really think we’re—”