That entire week I ate my lunch in the library.
Every time someone came in, my heart skipped, and I waited to see a shadow fall over my desk. But the only other person who was there as much as me was Marcus. I wondered why he was in the library every lunchtime. I wondered most of all what that look between him and Fenrin had meant. There was history there, but the town's rumor mill on the Graces hadn't supplied that particular story, and I could hardly ask either of them myself. Not yet.
Fenrin never showed up, but Summer did.
The next Friday, the library's double doors swung violently open, slamming back against the walls. Marcus, sitting two desks away from me, jumped. Summer strode in, looking around with undisguised disgust. She paused just inside, as if striking a pose. If anyone else had done that, I'd have choked on my own disdain. But Summer looked like she would forever not give two shits what you thought because what you thought wasn't worth giving two shits over. And it just worked.
She slowly folded her arms over her chest, scanning the room. Her long black hair had been wound into a coil at the nape of her neck and her lace-up knee boots creaked very slightly in the silence as she shifted her weight. All this I saw in the instant before her eyes fell on me, and one brow rose.
She walked over to my desk.
"Hey, new girl."
"Hi," I said, startled.
"You've been here a couple of months, right?"
"Yeah."
"It's March. How come you transferred in the middle of the school year?"
The official reason was that we had to move because of my mother's new job.
The unofficial reason would die with me.
She rolled her eyes at my silence, put her back to me, and turned her head so it was silhouetted above her shoulder. I tried to commit the movement to memory.
"Are you coming?" she said.
"Where?"
"One-time-only invitation."
One time only.
This was it.
Don't screw it up, whispered the voice in my head.
I didn't intend to. I shoved my empty Tupperware box into my bag, the fork rattling around inside, as well as the dog-eared paperback I'd been reading. Summer had already moved to the doors, not even looking back to see if I was following. I had better keep up.
She strode through the corridors ahead. Most people were in the cafeteria, but the few milling about watched her surreptitiously as she passed them. I walked a couple of paces behind—not enough to crowd her, but enough to signal to others that I was allowed to be there.
We reached the locker corridor, and as we passed Jase Worthington, he said, "Stupid goth bitch."
Summer stopped.
His friend Tom, whom I had briefly fancied when I first got here, hissed, "Dude, don't."
They were both popular surfer types, Tom much shorter than the rest of them and constantly irritated by it. That meant they naturally fit in with Fenrin, who was in the same year as them, and I had thought they were all friends. A friend of Fenrin's would never dare to start on any of his family like that.
Especially not Summer.
"Oh, Jase-ington," she said, with a fluttery sigh in her voice. "I simply don't have time for you today."
I began breathing again. Summer started to walk off.
"Ooh, what are you going to do?" Jase jeered. "Put a spell on me?"
She threw him an impatient look over her shoulder. "Of course."
Silence.
It wasn't until we'd reached the double doors at the far end that Jase suddenly yelled, "I'm not afraid of you! You're just a faker! Your whole family is a bunch of stupid carny fakers!"
"What a superlative vocabulary," Summer muttered. "What an intellect. What a—" She stopped herself.
Someone else would try to comfort her or suck up. I said nothing.
We moved across the outdoor hard courts, where a couple of other boys from Fenrin's year were kicking a ball about. It was starting to drizzle, and their game looked dismal in the half-light.
"Hey, Summer," said one of them. She stuck her tongue out at him as she passed, but there was a little smile on her face.
I felt her gaze light on me.
"What?" she said, challenging me to comment.
I shrugged.
"Wow, you really are the silent type, aren't you? Cards close to your chest, right?"
Was that bad? Was I treading too carefully with her? I couldn't tell.
We were making for the thicket at the end of the field, where a huddle of trees and low bushes gave people some shielding from prying teacher eyes.
"I was kind of seeing him," Summer said, as if we had been talking about it already. "Jase. He may be hot, but my god he's dull. It's a 'smoke weed and surf a lot' kind of life. I mean, there is literally nothing else that interests him. Plus he's bad in bed. He's all loud groaning, like a crap zombie."
I disliked these kinds of conversations. There wasn't an obvious response. I didn't know him, so I couldn't exactly agree.
"Oh right," I tried.
We reached the thicket. There was a lookout, this sullen girl called Macy who was good at making herself useful to popular people. She eyed me up and down.
"Is everyone there?" Summer asked.
"Everyone who was invited."
The last was directed at me, but Summer didn't even appear to notice.
"Come on," she said. My shoes slid over a squelching carpet of leaves as we walked farther in. It was pretty useful, this place. The clearing beyond was hidden from view by an array of tall bushes. No one could approach from any other way than the field, as the thicket backed onto a wall, marking the boundaries of school property. One lookout on watch and you could do what you liked here without being seen.
In the clearing, sitting in a ragged circle on their coats, were a few girls from our year. I knew two of them were particular friends of Summer's right now. They had at least ten piercings each and always wore band T-shirts with snakes or insects or rivers of blood splashed across them. The one with jagged, pillar-box red hair, Gemma, was the perky kind of girl who everyone liked. I'd never really hung out with her, but I'd been paired with her in math a couple of times—she was unfailingly nice. The other girl, Lou, had jet-black hair like Summer, two nose piercings that she had to take out before school every day, and a low, wicked laugh.
There were three others, and when I saw who one of them was my heart dropped.
It was Niral.
What was she doing here? She didn't hang out with Summer. Was she trying to get to Fenrin? Our last meeting came back to me in full Technicolor glory.
There's the thicket at the back of the field. Nice and secluded.
Summer sat in a gap in the circle, and Gemma obligingly wiggled sideways to make room for me. I watched Summer clap her hands together once, in a weirdly formal gesture. The others stopped talking and looked up at her expectantly. I could feel their eyes flickering over me. I knew what their eyes meant. I wasn't supposed to be here.
"Did you bring what I asked?" said Summer.
Each girl started rummaging in pockets or bags at their feet. Lou took out a black velvet cloth and spread it out on the ground, smoothing it down. Onto the cloth each girl placed an item. Red tea light candles. A deep, crimson-colored cooking pot. Little glass herb bottles from the supermarket. Scissors.
Niral burst out laughing, pointing at the cooking pot. "What is that?"
Another girl flushed. I always confused her with at least two other girls in our year because they had the exact same long blond hair and wore similar clothes. "She said bring a red container, so I did!"
"You make, like, stew in that, you dope."
"It's exactly what we need," Summer said, with an unusual calm to her voice. "Did you all bring an item?"
No one moved. I hadn't brought anything, but then I hadn't exactly had any notice.
"I take it that's a yes. Don't worry, we'll all have our eyes closed when you drop it in the pot. No one else will see it."
Summer took out a book of matches and lit each tea light, placing them into a rough circle around the red pot. She then took up a glass bottle—basil, I caught on the side of it—and sprinkled the contents around the pot, letting them flutter down onto the tea lights, which sputtered and burned the dried herbs, giving off a wispy smell.
I should have been happy. This was it—the confirmation I'd needed that the rumors about the Graces were true.
It was just that I'd thought this kind of thing was done with a bit more … style.
Supermarket herbs and red tea lights?
"Summer," I muttered. Everyone was watching her.
"Yes," she said, in the same calm voice. She was starting to unnerve me, and I wasn't the only one. The world had gone strangely quiet. There were only the sure movements of Summer and the coiled silence of the group.
"I don't have an item," I said.
She straightened, raising her voice for the rest of the circle.
"It doesn't matter. The item is significant to you, but it's just a channel." She shrugged. "If you're powerful enough, you don't need any kind of item at all. Or even any candles, or any of this. You do it by will alone. But I don't think we're quite there yet."
One or two of the girls snickered nervously.
"This is how it will go," said Summer, and no one doubted her one bit right then. "We will start the chant. The chant raises energy inside each of us. We'll do it with our eyes closed. We'll do it until enough energy has been raised. If it takes an hour, it takes an hour."
"But lunch is over in like twenty minutes," said someone.
"Why do you care? What's more important: this or some class? You guys asked me to do this. You badgered me for weeks. So now we get to it, you're all running scared?"
The circle was silent.
"This is only going to work if you put everything you have, everything you are, into it." Summer sat back on her haunches. "No holding back. No thinking about other things. This is magic, and it's hard. If you break concentration, you lose energy. Lose energy and the spell won't work. You've got to be here, with me, right now, for as long as I need you. As long as it takes. Are you in or are you out?"
I felt a knotted thrill blossom deep inside my guts. I was wrong. This was real. She was the real deal.
"Commit," Summer stated in a cold voice. "Each of you say, 'I'm in all the way. I'll give everything I have.' Say it now. Lou."
Lou replied without hesitation, her voice eager. I'd have felt embarrassed for her if I didn't also feel the way she sounded. "I'm in all the way. I'll give everything I have."
Summer made each of us say it. A couple stumbled, awkward. When it came to me, I wondered at how steady and clear my voice was. It's surprising what you can get yourself to do when you want something badly enough.
"The chant is this," she said. "Bring them to me. Make them see." She paused. "Substitute them with him. Or her." She flashed a wicked smile, the first I'd seen since we'd reached the thicket.
Niral snorted, nervous and irritable. "It's just a rhyme. How's that a spell?"
"Words have power. But the words are meaningless without your intent behind them, driving them. The rhyming is just to help even idiots remember what to say. Now shut up and join in, or leave. If you bring doubt, you wreck it for the rest of us."
A couple of the others threw Niral irritated looks. I dared to join in, and Niral saw it.
"I'm not bringing doubt," she said, narrowing her eyes at me. "I'm in."
"Then let's start. Close your eyes."
I watched them all do it. Then I closed mine.
Instantly, I felt vulnerable and embarrassed.
This was stupid. This was really stupid. What if a teacher came?
"Bring him to me. Make him see," said Summer, her voice soft. "Bring him to me. Make him see."
No one joined in at first. I felt like laughing. I swallowed it.
"Bring him to me. Make him see," I said, my voice mismatching hers. But I kept on until we were in time with each other. More voices joined in. Muttering, stumbling at first. But the more we said it, the less it made sense, and the more we fell into one another's sounds, like a flock of birds turning together.
I don't know how long we chanted. I don't honestly know. It could have been forever. I never lost it, like a dream where time has lost all meaning because you no longer feel it, and it just kept rippling out from us, bring him to me, make him see, and I started to drown in the rhythm because there was nothing else.
"Lou," Summer said. "Open your eyes, and put your object into the pot. The rest of you, don't you dare stop chanting."
It registered, barely. I heard a little clink. I couldn't have stopped chanting. My voice was being pulled out of me.
Summer said something in a low voice. Rustling.
I didn't stop. None of us stopped. Whispering sounds, rolling around me, again and again.
"Lou, close your eyes, keep chanting. Gemma, open your eyes, and put your object into the pot."
Summer went round the circle. It seemed to take years to get to me. I was the last.
"Open your eyes," she breathed into my ear.
I did, but it was hard, like they were stuck together with honey. I blinked and looked around. Somehow, I expected it to be dark.
"Cut a piece of your hair," Summer said, and offered me the scissors. She held something tightly in her other hand, and I couldn't see what it was. "Put the hair into the pot. As you do, visualize the one you want. Visualize them right in front of you, as if you could lean forward and kiss them. Don't let go of their face."
I took the scissors. My muscles were liquid. My head was buzzing with the noise of the chant. I cut a long strand and held it up between my fingers. I looked beyond it, and I saw his face. His antique gold hair flopping down, brushing his cheekbones. His grin. His eyes on mine.
I leaned forward and put my hair into the pot.
Fenrin, I thought, as my lips kept moving.
Rustling, the sound of footsteps.
And then a sharp, angry, "What the hell d'you think you're doing?"
Our chanting faltered, stumbled, and we fell over the broken words. The velvet cloth was embarrassing. The pot was ludicrous. Niral had been right—the herb bottles made it seem like we were making a stew. I looked up, cheeks blooming.
It was Thalia. Spring wet was still in the air; she was wearing brown leather boots and a long-sleeved beaded top that draped over her skin in all the right places. Her hair was knotted high on her head in a floppy bun, the ends trailing down her neck.
My relief that it wasn't a teacher was short lived, because Thalia looked furious.
"Well?" she demanded, scanning the group.
"I'd have thought that it's pretty obvious," Summer said coolly.
"Clean this stuff up and get back into school."
Summer didn't move. The rest of us were caught, squirming.
"You're such a drama queen, Thalia," said Summer finally. "It's just a bit of fun."
"That's not what you said earlier," Niral interjected, her voice hot with embarrassment. "You said we had to put everything we had into it!"
I raised my eyes heavenward at the mistake. God, don't do that. Don't try and make Summer look stupid in front of her sister. Thalia won't like you for it, and then you'll lose Summer, too.
Thalia's toffee-colored eyes narrowed at Niral. "Get back into school," she repeated. "I'm sure you're missing a class. Go now or I'll report you. Go on, all of you."
Summer still hadn't moved. Unsure, cheeks burning, the other girls started to get up, dust their coats off, and leave the thicket. No one dared take the pot or anything else.
I stayed where I was. If this was a test, I would pass with flying colors. The answer was too easy: loyalty. They had all failed it, but I would not.
Thalia was peering into the pot and wrinkling her nose. "Did you know you could hear it all the way back to the hard courts? You're lucky it was me who caught you. Fen would have popped a vein."
At the mention of his name, my heart sped up.
Summer scoffed. "He doesn't care what I get up to."
"Please. He hates this stuff, you know that," Thalia snapped.
"That's his problem. Not ours."
Thalia sighed, hackles lowering. "Look, I know. But still." She shifted her gaze away from the pot. "And it's not just Fen who'd lose his rag, is it? If Esther ever finds out, she'll go completely insane."
It took a second to work out who she meant by Esther, but then I remembered that it was their mother. Did they always call her by her first name? That was strange.
"So don't tell her," Summer said.
"So don't do it."
"This whole town knows about us, Thalia."
Thalia half turned, looking distracted. "I'm not having this conversation yet again. Take this crap with you when you leave. Teachers will ask questions, and then we'll all be in a world of pain."
She whirled off.
When she had disappeared from sight, Summer let out a breath. She seemed a little twitchy. I hadn't noticed it when Thalia was there; she was good at hiding it.
"Are you okay?" I said carefully, expecting her to snap at me.
"Yeah."
"Will Thalia tell on you?"
"No."
"How do you know? She didn't say she wouldn't."
"If I'd asked her not to, she'd have done it out of spite. This way she thinks I don't care about it, so she won't bother."
Summer's other hand uncurled as she talked, and I risked a quick look at the object she'd been clutching this whole time. It was a figurine, made of polished stone, streaked with swirling orange-brown colors and shaped like a bird. The light caught on the deeply carved ridges of its wings. I stared at it surreptitiously, wondering what it meant.
"So the rumors are true." I tried a teasing tone. "You really are witches."
"Is that why you came along today?"
I tried to think of the right thing to say. "I guess I was curious. How come you asked me along?"
"Same reason." She gave me a playful smile and then looked off into the trees. I felt safe enough to push just a little more.
"Why doesn't your family like people to know?"
"Well, let's just say they really enjoy having their little secrets. I'm the only one who's up front about it. Why hide? Esther makes her living from it, after all."
Their mother, Esther Grace, ran a health and beauty shop in town, all-natural and organic products. Tinctures for headaches, salves made of plants I'd never heard of, face masks that smelled like earth and rainwater. Some of her creations got sold at the higher-end pharmacies and department stores in the city.
"You're telling me her face cream is magical?" I said dubiously.
Summer laughed. "The price tag might make you think so." She got up from the ground, brushing off her slim flanks. "Come on. I'd better give Emily her pot back."
I didn't move. "We haven't finished the spell. I mean, it doesn't look like we have."
Summer regarded me. I tried not to squirm. I had no idea what she was thinking.
"Nope," she said, after a moment. "Want to?"
I said nothing. She dropped back to her knees and picked up the matchbook, striking one.
"Don't we need the chanting?"
"A lot of energy still here," said Summer. "Especially with Thalia's little outburst. Might still work."
She dropped the lit match into the pot. I didn't look. Only she knew the objects they had all thrown in. The smell of burning hair crept past us. I stared hard at the ground, pouring myself into the moment, conjuring his face as it all went up in flames.
I didn't care if it was wrong. I couldn't afford to, if I wanted to make him mine.