Leo: By the way, your boyfriend didn’t scare me off. But for your sake, I’ll go away if you need me to.
My heart does a funny little flip.
Me: No. It’s okay.
Leo: So we can still be friends?
Me: Yes, please.
Leo: Good. Would you like to go on a hike with me this weekend?
Me: Sure.
I love hiking. It’s one of the benefits of going to college in the mountains, and yet I can never find anyone to go with me. My friends are always too hungover or lazy to spend a Saturday walking in the fresh air. The mere suggestion makes them groan.
I agree to meet Leo outside Newberry on Saturday morning. We’ll be out together in public, which is both good and bad. Anyone can see us, for sure, but it’ll also be obvious we have nothing to hide. I fidget and chew my lip, guilty, nervous, and excited all at once. And it’s only Wednesday.
My phone jiggles again.
Leo: Did Avery ever find you?
Me: We’re meeting up tomorrow.
Leo: Okay, good. See you Saturday.
Instead of getting back to my book, I obsess over Leo’s messages. Why does he have to be so mysterious all the time? Whenever I talk to him, it’s like he’s carefully feeding me only the smallest pieces of information. Avery isn’t much better. I’m startingto think there’s something larger going on with Leo, Avery, and Aaron.
Something I haven’t been let in on.
The next afternoon I meet Avery at the Bobcat where she buys me a latte and gives me a small box of crystals. I pop off the lid and stir the stones around with my finger, enchanted by the array of shapes and colors. I’m a little less impressed with the small ziplock bags full of herbs she tosses at me. According to the masking tape labels, the contents are harmless—just mugwort, sage, yarrow, and rosemary—but because some of them could be mistaken for marijuana, I tuck the bags deep in my backpack. The tied bundle of dried lavender, however, I keep by my elbow so I can breathe in its gentle scent.
“This’ll tell you what all this stuff does.” Avery slaps a paperback on the wobbly table. “There’s a correspondence chart in the back.”
I read the book’s title,Protection Magick: Shielding, Warding, and Banishing for the Beginner Witch.“Um,” I say. “Can I do this stuff if I’m not, you know, a witch?”
“Sure. And who knows, maybe youarea witch.”
Me? Aren’t I too…fragile?
I ask her, “Areyou?”
She shrugs and smiles, her teeth bright and straight between her red-painted lips. “I practice witchcraft.”
“So doesn’t that make you a witch?”
“You know, for years I didn’t want to call myself a witch because I didn’t think I’d learned enough to be considered one.” She tilts her head thoughtfully. “But now I know you could live three lifetimes and never learn all there is to know about the craft. So yeah, I guess you could say I’m a witch.”
I knew a few girls in high school who’d seenThe Craftand decided they were witches, but no one took them seriously. Nor was anyone successfully hexed for ridiculing them. But Avery is different.She has an aura of power and confidence. If there is such a thing as a real witch, then Avery would be one.
On impulse, my hand goes to my amethyst. “Can you help me charge this?”
“You haven’t yet?”
“No.” Actually, yes. The other day I made an attempt, but I was so caught up in trying to remember Leo’s directions, there was no way it could’ve worked. “Leo told me how to do it, but nothing he said made any sense.” Thanks to Cole’s cocktail.
“Lemme see it again.”
I lean in so Avery can lift the pendant off my chest. “Did you pick it out?” I ask, because I’ve been wondering for over a week if it was actually she who gifted it to me, and Leo was merely the delivery guy.
