“No, she isn’t,” Mrs. Pruitt said sternly. She stood in the doorway of the deck, with all the mothers standing just behind her. Their faces were grave. “Kathleen, come talk with me.”
Kathleen’s face changed then, from its default setting (evil) to something Cecily had never seen before: real fear. Obviously the mothers had recognized the breaking of an enchantment; just as obviously they’d overheard enough to realize what Kathleen had done. Nobody was wielding any magic; they didn’t have to. The moms’ power eclipsed anything Cecily or Kathleen could do.
And at long last the evil reign of Kathleen Pruitt had come to a crashing end.
“What will happen to her?” Cecily asked later as she and her mother walked on the beach.
“Kathleen will never be allowed to practice magic again. She’ll never be given the right incantations to start a Book of Shadows, and her supplies and instruments will have to be destroyed. We can’t erase what she already knows, but from now on she’s cut out of this or any coven. It’s going to be hard on her mother, but rules are rules.” They went on silently for a few steps before Mom said, “I’m proud of you for not gloating.”
Cecily was pretty sure she’d get in some quality gloating later, but the shock of it all was too new for that. “All that smoke, the boom—Dad has to have seen it.”
“We told the guys the Jacuzzi shorted out. No more hot-tubbing on this trip, I’m afraid.”
It would be a long time before Cecily could look at a Jacuzzi the same way again, so no loss there. “And Scott?”
“Doesn’t know what hit him. Or care, I think.”
They looked together toward Ocean’s Heaven. Scott sat with Theo on the front steps that led to the sand. He chugged half a can of root beer then belched Theo’s name, which made Theo laugh and applaud. Cecily sighed.
Mom said, “You tried to warn me about Kathleen last night. I should have heard you out. In future I will.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Which means you will never again have any excuse for laying hands on my Book of Shadows without my permission.”
“Understood.”
Mom tugged fondly at the end of Cecily’s ponytail. “You took a big risk, you know—and not just attempting the spell on your own. If Scott were any more—let’s say inquisitive, he would have realized that he had been under an enchantment. He would have realized that magic is real. Covering our tracks at that point would’ve been hard work. That you couldn’t have done alone.”
“Why do we have to lie to them? Don’t you ever wish Dad knew the truth? Don’t you think he’d love you even more when he realized what an amazing witch you are?”
For a moment Mom was silent. The only sound was the roar of the ocean. At last she said, “Today of all days I’d think you would understand the importance of obeying the rules.”
That wasn’t an answer, but Cecily knew it was as close as she would get. She hugged Mom before jogging down to the shoreline. The waves were cold and foamy against her toes.
Someday, Cecily thought. Someday I’ll find a guy who can live with the truth. Just because that’s not Scott doesn’t mean a guy like that isn’t out there.
At least her summer vacation wasn’t entirely ruined. Cecily had a few days left to enjoy herself, which she felt she richly deserved.
SELF-IMPROVEMENT GOALS: REVISED
During my remaining vacation time I will:
resist gloating over Kathleen’s downfall, at least while there are witnesses around
swim for at least two hours a day
see if the moms now respect me enough to teach me some serious Craft mojo
beat Theo at foosball just once for the sake of my personal dignity
walk three miles on the beach each morning
see about tennis lessons
see about horseback riding lessons
basically, stay outdoors as much as humanly possible
Then thunder rolled in the distance, and raindrops began to spatter onto the sand.
Cecily groaned as she ran for shelter. Well, maybe next year.
The Law of Suspects
MAUREEN JOHNSON
“I hate vacation,” I said.
My sister, Marylou, was in the rocking chair by the window, twisting her short, rust-colored hair around her finger absently, her DSM-IV open in front of her. The DSM-IV, in case you’ve never heard of it, is The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders (Fourth Edition). Marylou had just finished her first year as a psychology major, which meant that her favorite time waster was diagnosing me with every ailment in the book—literally. So it was a mistake saying this kind of thing to her.
“Lack of interest in things normal people find enjoyable,” she said. “That’s depression, Charlie.”
“‘Normal people’?” I repeated.
“Well, that’s not the term we like to use, actually….” she said, even though she had just used it.
“Who is this we?”
“Mental health professionals.”
The last thing Marylou was was a mental health professional. She was a barista with two semesters of intro psych under her belt.
“I see,” I said. “A mental health professional. You also serve lattes. So are you also the president of Starbucks? Is that what that means?”
“Shut up, Charlie.”
Page flip, page flip, page flip.
“And why are you so busy trying to diagnose me?” I asked, swatting away a fly that kept trying to land on my nose. “You were reading that on the plane when that guy next to me tried to stab me with his fork. You didn’t give him a label.”
“That’s because he didn’t try to stab you,” she said placidly. “You were lying.”
See, this is something that haunts me. I used to lie a lot. Or, I exaggerated a lot. I guess I was bored, and my little embellishments made the world so much more interesting. I have to say, I was really good at it. I could fool anyone. They were harmless lies too. I didn’t hurt anyone with them. The little dog that chased me down the street could be bigger, perhaps rabid. I didn’t just drop my ice cream while it was windy—I was hit by a freak tornado.
But lying is bad. I know this. And even though my lies weren’t evil, they still caused all kinds of problems and made some people not trust me, so I gave it up, cold turkey, at the start of freshman year. I’ve been on the wagon for about three years now.
But do I get any credit for this? No. I guess it’s like having a criminal past: no one ever really trusts you again. Like, if you were a robber, and you stopped robbing and totally re-created yourself and everyone knew it…still, no one will let you carry the big cash deposit to the bank.
And the guy in seat 56E really did try to stab me with his fork. I think this was because he thought I stole his Air France headphones while he was napping, which I didn’t. The stewardess didn’t give him any because he was sleeping. Marylou and I just used our own headphones on the flight, and she ended up sticking her Air France pair in my seatback pocket when she got up to go to the bathroom, so when Mr. 56E snorted himself awake halfway over the Atlantic, he stared at the two pairs of headphones I had in front of me. His mouth said nothing, but his eyes said, “Thief.” When his tray came, he got out his fork with a lot more force than necessary and narrowly missed my arm. He was weird the entire flight. He got up about a dozen times to do yoga in the back of the plane by the exit door. And he was reading a book on yogurt making for most of the time.
But did Marylou spend any time on this paragon of sanity?
No.
Just me.
To be fair, we had nothing else to do at this particular moment when we had cycled through the disorders and gotten around to depression. Maybe I was depressed. I had every reason to be.
Marylou and I had been in France for three days, and it really wasn’t going according to plan. Our mother is technically French, but her parents moved to America when she was only four. As a result, we had lots of French relatives who had been badgering my mom for years and years to send little Marie-Louise and Charlotte to see the land of their ancestors. Our cousin Claude, in particular, wanted us to come. Claude was some kind of big man in advertising in Paris and had done this ad that had babies in little suits of armor that apparently everyone loved. He had an apartment in the middle of town, and he wanted nothing more than to show his young cousins around.
Marylou and I were all in favor of the idea, because who doesn’t want to go and stay in Paris for four weeks? That was the plan: the entire month of August. Marylou had just finished her first year of college, and I was about to be a senior in high school, so it seemed like we were old enough and young enough, and the Time Was Right, and there was a special on Air France tickets.
So finally we were sent, and we landed in Paris, and there was Claude, who was about six foot eleven and blond and friendly. We spent one night in his apartment in Paris, sleeping off our jet lag in the guest room. We woke up expecting to take on the city and see the Eiffel Tower and ride down the street on scooters eating cheese. We wanted to embrace the life our fabulous French cousin wanted so much to show us.
Except that Claude said non non non, no one in Paris stays there over August. It was too hot and horrible and didn’t we want to go to the country? We didn’t, but we said we did to be polite. It really didn’t matter what we answered, because Claude had already rented a house in Provence to show us real French life. We were leaving that afternoon. And then Claude got a call. Something had gone wrong with the babies in the little suits of armor, and he would have to fix something, and we could just go, and he would catch a later train as soon as he could, and the landlord would be there to meet us and hooray for France!
So, less than twenty-four hours after our arrival, Marylou and I were put on a train to the French countryside, with no Claude. It was a nice enough ride, which we spent staring out the window and ordering small glasses of wine for seven Euros each because we were allowed to, and we still had jet lag, and we almost missed our stop. We were that confused and dopey. But Marylou, being Marylou, made a heroic leap for our bags, and we actually made it off the train instead of riding on until we hit Italy or the ocean or the end of the world.