Ominous (Private 13)

Noelle knocked me with her elbow.

“I’m here,” I croaked.

“Good. Noelle is a bit … out of sorts this morning,” Mrs. Lange said, sounding displeased. “Perhaps you can help me calm her down.”

“Calm me down?” Noelle blurted. “Like that’s gonna happen. You sent us out into the snow in the middle of the night to find the quote-unquote key to our future and what do we find? A book about witchcraft.” She went over to her bed and yanked the thick tome out from under a tangle of bedsheets and silk pajamas, holding it up as if her grandmother could see it. “Is that what you’re trying to tell us, Gram? Really? That you think we’re witches? I’m sorry, but you’re either senile or really, really bored.”

I took the book from Noelle with two hands, tired of watching her fling it around like an old paperback novel. This book had once belonged to Elizabeth Williams and was therefore a precious relic to me—whether or not the content was ridiculous.

“Seriously, Grandmother, have you ever thought about taking up mah-jongg?” Noelle continued without pause. “I hear it really helps keep your faculties in order.”

“Noelle,” I scolded under my breath.

She widened her eyes at me. “What?”

Through the speaker, I heard Mrs. Lange take a deep, patient breath. “Girls today are so skeptical and jaded. But you two—you have no idea the power you could wield.”

Noelle rolled her eyes.

“So …?” I said slowly, hugging the book to my chest. “Are you saying that you’ve actually done witchcraft?”

“No,” she admitted. Noelle threw up her hands and turned away. She’d been back at school for almost two weeks and her Louis Vuitton rolling case was still open on the floor. She picked it up and turned it over, dumping its entire contents out on her gold and burgundy throw rug. “No one at Billings has practiced in a long time,” Mrs. Lange continued. “But the two of you … Girls, you have no idea how powerful you could be, now that you’re together.”

I felt an odd chill go through me, and I looked over at Noelle. She was sorting through a pile of balled-up sweaters, crumpled socks, and tangled necklaces, her fingers shaking slightly.

“You have a unique opportunity here,” Mrs. Lange continued, oblivious to Noelle’s silent tantrum. “You might be able to fix certain things, set right the unpleasant … situation that has arisen at Easton.”

Noelle stood up straight, her arms falling down at her sides, one hand clutching an Hermès scarf, the other the gold chain strap on a Gucci purse. We looked at one another, and I knew we were thinking the same thing: The woman was senile. But then I saw a flash of movement behind Noelle, a blur of color against the stark white snow outside. Stepping over the pile of clothes at my feet, I carefully walked to the frost-laced window and peered out. There, across the quad at the decimated site of the former Billings House—our former home—was a group of people in long wool coats. I recognized the perfect posture of Headmaster Hathaway and the jet-black curls of Demetria Rosewell, one of the more powerful Billings alums. They walked carefully around the jagged stone outline that was the footprint of the demolished building, along with a pair of men who pointed and jotted notes on clipboards and bent their heads together in the bright sunshine.

I felt a familiar hollowing-out sensation in my gut. “What’s that about?” I whispered to Noelle.

“I don’t know,” Noelle replied, coming up behind me.

Chilling words, coming from her, since normally she knew everything. Although lately, my know-it-all friend had dropped the ball more than once. The idea of her not always being in charge was going to take some getting used to. I turned and looked at the phone.

“Mrs. Lange?”

“Yes, Reed.”

“Do you mean …” I kept one eye on the group out the window, their feet sinking into the snow. “Do you mean that we might be able to bring Billings back?”

For the first time that morning, Noelle looked intrigued.

“Now you’re thinking, Reed.”

There was a glimmer of pride in her voice, and I felt it in my chest. I’d made my grandmother proud. Weird. Noelle and I looked at each other, then out the window. Mrs. Rosewell was shaking hands with Mr. Hathaway, nodding in a satisfied way. The sunlight glinted off Mr. Hathaway’s wide smile. There was something foreboding about it. Like someone was making a deal with the devil, but I wasn’t sure which side was good and which was evil. All I knew was that I didn’t like it.

Noelle and I exchanged a glance. What if we could bring Billings back? Wouldn’t it be worth it to hear our grandmother out?

“No. No way.” Noelle shook her head and stepped away from the window, as if she was shaking herself out of a daydream. She tossed her things onto her bed. “We are not witches, Grandmother. This is not some CW summer series.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Mrs. Lange said.

“It means this conversation is over,” Noelle replied. She plucked the phone off the dresser and held it in front of her mouth. “I’ll call you later, Grandmother. We’re late for breakfast.” Then she ended the call before Mrs. Lange could protest.

“Well,” I said. “That was rude.”

“She’ll get over it,” Noelle replied, shoving the phone into the rust-colored Birkin bag she was currently using for her schoolwork. She turned and sat down on the mound of her comforter with a sigh. Her shoulders slumped slightly. “I’m sorry, Reed.” She looked up at me tentatively. “For everything. The whole faked-kidnapping thing was her idea. She kept talking about birthright and us being sisters and how you needed to go through this test to prove that I mattered more to you than anything…. She said if you passed, then we’d have our reward. I thought it was just another one of her eccentric projects to pass the time and figured she was going to … I don’t know … give us the keys to some villa in Spain I’d never heard about so we could bond this summer.” She sighed again and her eyes fell on the book, which I still held clutched to my chest. “I never would have said yes to any of it if I knew she was batshit crazy.”