I snort. She makes it sound so simple. The figuring out part alone would take me twenty years. “But you wanted to be an art major.”
She snaps her fingers for the candy bag. “I’m gettinga degree without going into debt and I’m taking a ton of art classes. I’m happy with that.”
So she’s taking the education her parents are willing to pay for and making it work for her. I should figure out how many credit hours I need to get that women’s studies minor. It’s a place to start.
Once the chocolate has rejuvenated us, I take Avery up on her offer to drive me home. “By the way,” she says as she pulls up close to Newberry’s entrance, “I want to apologize for misjudging you, you know, when we first met.”
“Oh, uh, that’s okay.” I don’t know what to say. “I mean, Iama sorority girl.” Or I will be.
“Maybe. But you’re a lot of other things, too.”
Feeling awkward, I change the subject. “So, the book you gave me—where’s a good place to start?” I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving break when I’ll have the time to really delve into it.
“Hmmm, shielding might work for you. But before you do that, read the first chapter and work a little more on the basics—the stuff we did today, like grounding. You can’t do any kind of magick without it.”
“The basics, then shielding,” I repeat with a nod. “Okay.”
“And do all the exercises. They might feel weird at first, but just keep practicing.”
Weird how? Because our charging ritual didn’t feel strange at all. I was too relaxed and caught up in the moment to feel self-conscious. In fact, I’m shocked by how natural and effortless it was.
“Text me if you need me,” Avery says. Then she smiles. “Or just, you know, text me.”
“I will.”
I get back to my room to find Liv and her laptop asleep on top of her covers. Gently, I nudge her and invite her to go to dinner. She never asks me where I’ve been and I don’t volunteer the information. It’s not that I’m being secretive, it’s that I don’t know how to explain to her any of the things going on inside me. After my failed attemptto tell Zander about my ability, I’m gun shy. Hardly anyone gets what it’s like to be sensitive, much less psychic. I simply have to accept that, even if it puts me in the uncomfortable position of straddling two different sets of friends.
No, two differentworlds.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
On the very firstday of Thanksgiving break, Aaron starts a group chat in Discord for Leo, me, Avery, and himself. Somehow we manage to keep up the four-way conversation through the whole short vacation. Each time I giggle at my phone, Mom smiles affectionately. She thinks I’m texting with Zander and my friends from O-Chi. Not that I haven’t been talking to them, too, but not as often and not with as much enjoyment. Mostly, I’ve gotten complaints from Zander and Liv. Zander’s brother’s new girlfriend is ‘basic’ and can’t cook for shit. Liv’s afraid Braden will forget about her. “Out of sight, out of mind,” she frets. I’m guessing that means he hasn’t texted her.
As I hoped, the break affords me plenty of time to dig into Avery’s book. Obediently, I start with the first chapter, and I’m glad I do, because there I learn about the most basic tool of witchcraft: energy. It’s everywhere—in everything and around everything—and it’s what a witch uses to do their will. Raise it, channel it, move it, send it out; energy is all a witch needs to do magick. To charge an amethyst, say, or heal a plant. And since it’s energy I’m detecting when I pick up emotions, then I must be able to control it. Somehow.
I work my way through the exercises at the end of the chapter.Grounding I did with Avery before our ritual, but I practice it again, this time with a better understanding of how and why I need to draw the earth’s energy up into myself. And when it’s tingling in my veins and skittering through my limbs, I try my hand at centering by pulling it all in until it’s pooling in a dark place under my sternum, ready to use for a spell or ritual. But since I have none to do, I ground again, sending the excess energy back into the earth beneath me.
Over and over I practice, anytime I can snag a half hour to myself. It’s a rush, all this playing with energy. Addictive. Well, maybe not addictive, but at least it’s more interesting than hanging out with my family. And by the end of the break, I can ground and center in a matter of minutes.
Unfortunately, because I did too much witchcraft and chatting, and not enough schoolwork, it’s chaos when I get back to Brownhill. Liv and I are scrambling to finish our sorority Rush applications by tomorrow night, and I have another sociology paper due on Friday morning.
As I attach my third and last photo to my application document, Liv lets out a pitiful moan. “God, all these suck. Why do they suck? I look so hideous.”
So far, she’s only chosen one picture of herself, but she’s been browsing her photo albums for nearly an hour. I wander over to her and peer at the screen. She’s beautiful in every single picture.
“That’s a good one.” I point to a photo of her hugging her German shepherd, Christoph.
“No way. They’ll wonder which one of us is the dog.”
Rush Week itself isn’t until the middle of January and Liv is already a nervous wreck. I wish she didn’t have all her self-worth in the sorority basket. There haven’t been any more Peyton incidents, which hopefully means the drama has blown over, but even if Liv joins KPT, it’s not like her life is going to suddenly be perfect.
At least all is well on the Braden front. He called her the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and they talked for over an hour. On Friday night, we’re double-dating in Asheville. Dinner and some clubbing. Isuspect the whole idea was Zander’s. He knows how anxious this Braden-Liv thing makes me. It’s sweet of him to want to help. I just hope Liv understands that this night out is a once-in-a-semester event. Next week we’ll be back at O-Chi, drinking Cole’s concoctions and watching the brothers play Call of Duty.
When my phone trills from my desk, I snatch it up. It’s a message from Leo.
Restraining the huge smile tugging up the corners of my mouth, I tell Liv, “Looks like you’re gonna get your wish. Leo wants to come by and borrow a book.” She said she wanted to meet him, now’s her chance.
“When?”
