Almost to Die For Read online

  What Bea suggested about my magic working on Thompson sprouted this crazy hope inside my heart.

  What if?

  What if turning sixteen had clicked that off-something of mine into an on-something?

  Part of me always wondered whether I’d missed some critical lesson that everyone else had gotten. Like, all I needed was some key to turn inside me, and then it would all make sense.

  What if it had happened and I could finally really do magic?

  I could hardly wait for the bell to ring so I could run home and try out a spell or two. I mean, I had been dreading this Initiation thing since I first realized the depth of my suckage in the witch department. Maybe . . . maybe tonight at the big ritual, things might not be as horrible as I’d always thought they would.

  “Ms. Parker? Are you with us?”

  I blinked. Mr. Martinez stood in front of my desk, frowning at me. He was a very trim guy, and he always looked sharp in a pressed white shirt and dark slacks and tie. But the sour expression on his face ruined the whole slick look, honestly.

  “Uh,” I said as I noticed everyone in class staring at me. It must be my turn to read. I looked down at the page, but I had no idea where we were in the play.

  “Uh, line?” It was what you said when you forgot what you were supposed to say during a stage rehearsal. As I hoped, I got a few laughs from the veteran actors in class. Mr. Martinez, however, wasn’t one of them. In fact, he looked at me like I’d deeply wounded him and that I’d blown my chances for a letter of introduction to Juilliard. Not that I knew what I wanted to do with my life or anything.

  “Ana, I expected better of you. Could someone please cue our daydreaming Ms. Parker?”

  Hands shot up around the room. Sucking up to Mr. Martinez was a tried-and-true path to audition callbacks. He called on Taylor. Taylor was my best nonwitch friend. She was a gamer, big into theater, and an all-around nerd. In short, my kind of people. Plus, she had the most amusing crush on Mr. Martinez, whom everyone else in the entire class figured to be quite fabulously gay.

  She was so getting the lead in the next production.

  I, meanwhile, felt more and more like an idiot as the seconds ticked as I scanned the page for the line. Finally I found it and read it with a deep blush spreading across my face. I determined to pay better attention for the rest of the class.

  AFTER, THE THREE OF US girlfriends gathered to debrief about the day. Taylor couldn’t meet us for lunch because she had it a different period. So, to catch up on everything, we had a tradition of walking one another to our lockers and sharing news, tidbits, and general gossip. Since Bea’s was the closest, we always met there.

  “Where was your head during class, Ana? Mr. Martinez was right. You’re usually an A student,” Taylor said.

  Taylor was a first-generation Somali and wore her head covered in a sparkly lamé wrap. Her real name was something much more ethnic, but she insisted that everyone call her Taylor. Even though she kept her head covered, she didn’t go for the whole longflowy-dress thing. Instead, she wore jeans, a long-sleeved knit sweater, and cowboy boots. If you couldn’t already tell, Taylor was another outsider like us. Even though there were a ton of other Somali girls at school, Taylor was far too strange for them, with her love of graphic novels, video games, and all things geeky.

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged.

  Bea, meanwhile, had no comment, as her head was deep in her locker while she rummaged through her things, gathering up what she needed to take home.

  “Seriously, you seemed lost in there. Is everything okay? ” Taylor asked again.

  “I’ve got a big night tonight,” I said. “It’s my birthday.”

  “Oh, are you having a party?” Taylor asked, her voice carrying that you-didn’t-invite-me edge.

  “A party? I wish,” I said. “I have to do a . . .” Hmm, what to say here? We weren’t supposed to talk about witchy stuff, but I didn’t want to totally evade the question. That was far more suspicious. “A test?”

  “You don’t sound very sure about it,” Taylor noted. She looked more hurt, like she figured I had to be lying about the party and her invitation to it.

  “That’s because it’s more like a graduation,” Bea said blithely. “Ana and I are doing a ritual tonight. It’s a kind of initiation ceremony. It’s all hush-hush, though. Big magic stuff.”

  I stared at Bea. Well, okay, I guess that was one way to keep the secret. Telling the truth like it was no big deal. But she was playing pretty fast and loose with the rules.

  “Oh, it’s a religion thing,” Taylor said, sounding genuinely relieved. “But you’re going to have a party or something this weekend, though, right, Ana?”

  “For whom? The three of us?” I asked. I mean, how lame would that be?

  Bea shook her head, like I was a world-class fool. “You’re sad, you know that? We totally should throw you a birthday party on Saturday. Invite the whole school.”

  “That’d be epic!” Taylor agreed. “Maybe you could get a hot local band to do a house party. I hear Yvonne is having one. But you know who would be cool to book? That band Nikolai Kirov is in. What’s it called?”

  “Ingress,” Bea said without missing a beat.

  “Nikolai from . . .” I stopped myself before saying “coven,” but only just barely.

  “Yeah, that one,” Bea said.

  Wow. I had no idea Nikolai was in a band. He’d graduated from Stassen last year, but I mostly interacted with him in the coven. In fact, he was going to be part of the Initiation tonight.

  “He’s superhot,” Taylor said dreamily.

  “Yeah,” Bea agreed. She had a crush on him.

  He was pretty cute if you liked smoldering, exotic older guys. Which, okay, I did, but even if by some miracle he was interested in me, Bea had it bad for him.

  “Yeah, well, it’s all a pipe dream. I could never have any kind of party at my house.” My mom would never go for it. No one was allowed in the house who wasn’t in on the secret of the True Witches, which was almost no one—trust me. I could count on my fingers my friends who’d been invited over. One. Bea.

  A party at our house? No way. Mom would have a conniption fit.

  “No,” Bea said. “Mine. Leave it up to me. I’ll organize the whole thing.”

  Why did I not feel grateful? Instead a deep dread ran through my soul. Bea in charge of my birthday? It was going to turn into something all about her, and nothing like my quiet, sedate self could truly enjoy.

  “Uh . . .” I started to try to come up with a reason Bea should rein in her kindness, but then out of the corner of my eye I saw Thompson and his crew coming down the hallway. They looked pissed off and like they were on a mission. Maybe a little witch hunt? I poked Bea in the back. “We should hurry.”

  Bea looked in the direction I was staring. “Oh yes, I see.”

  “See what?” Taylor looked confused as she tried to track our gaze. Then she took a sharp breath. “Is Thompson coming over here? To . . . talk to us?”

  I pulled Bea by the hand to hurry her along, but it was too late. Thompson and his cronies had blocked our path. They looked big and menacing. They wore matching letter jackets, like some twisted version of gang colors. The grim looks on their faces made me swallow. Hard.

  Next to me, I could feel Bea revving up her magic. I tried to catch her eye to warn her off the idea, but her mouth had compressed into a thin determined line. She gripped my hand tightly and gave me a broad wink. “Zap ’em, sister,” she whispered.

  Three

  At Bea’s words, Thompson had the sense to take a step back.

  But an animalistic snarl covered his fear, and then he poked me hard in the shoulder. It hurt.

  “Don’t mess with me again, witch,” he said. His hands curled into fists. I held my breath. I thought he might actually hit me.

  Bea twitched her nose, Bewitched-style. I felt a strong zing in the air, like electricity.

  “Don’t do it,” I pleaded, despit
e my fear. If she put any kind of curse on him, it would only end in more reprisals. There were reasons there were rules against this sort of thing in our community.

  “Zap,” Bea said quietly, and poked Thompson in the shoulder, like he’d done to me, only much more gently.

  “What was that?” he demanded. He stared at the spot on his shoulder like he expected to break out in hives.

  “Dude,” said Thing One, his eyes wide and wildly looking between Bea and me. “You’re totally cursed. I’m out of here.”

  “Me too,” agreed Thing Two.

  And just like that, his friends melted into the crowded hallway. Poof! They were gone. Almost like magic.

  Well, okay, actually, exactly like magic. Bea’s spell had made Thompson instantly unpopular. It would wear off in a couple of days, and he might never even really know what happened and why no one would return his calls or texts or whatever.

  But Thompson did notice the absence of his wingmen. He tried to look cool as he said, “Yeah, well, I mean it. Don’t screw with me again, freaks.” I thought he might back his words up with another physical threat—a shove or something—but instead, he looked at each of us in turn, very meaningfully. “Any of you.”

  We watched him leave. My nerves jangled with unspent adrenaline. Taylor swore under her breath—at least I thought so, because it wasn’t in English. She scanned our faces. “What was that all about?”

  “Thompson thinks I hexed him at lunch,” I said. Of course, now Bea had hexed him for real. Not that I could tell Taylor that.

  “Yeah, well, that scared the crap out of me,” she snipped before stomping off.

  “I’m sorry!” I shouted after her, but she just waved her hand like she didn’t want to have anything to do with me or Bea ever again. Not that I could blame her. We were freaks. And Thompson had seemed ready to pound us into pulp. I didn’t know if he’d actually have done something, but I’d never felt that close to getting hit before. My knees trembled.

  Bea just flipped her pigtails. I could tell, though, by the way she chewed the black lipstick off her lip, she was upset too. “If they’d actually . . . ,” she started, but stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to say what we were both thinking. We were used to taunts and teases, but this had seemed different. I could feel Bea’s energy humming again, ready to blow.

  “Power down,” I told her. “You’ve got no target right now.”

  Bea took a deep breath. I felt the phantom sensation of my ear popping, as Bea released her magic into the floor.

  “I’ll call Taylor later,” I said.

  “It’s not Taylor I’m worried about.”

  “Do you really think they’d have done something?”

  “People hate witches. They’re scared of us. They always have been. Two words, sister: Burning Times.”

  I was surprised to hear Bea use the term. It’d been totally co-opted by the Wiccan wannabes. But, granted, it was much more powerful an image than “the Inquisition,” which, thanks to Monty Python, had become the butt of a joke. The Inquisition, the Burning Times—whatever you chose to call it—was one big reason we weren’t supposed to do what Bea just did. No magic zapping on the regular folks. No talking about how it all really works. Secret keeping was the watchword of True Witches.

  Yet Bea just blew our cover in her attempt not to be “burned,” as it were. She was the one who’d used the real deal on Thompson. Now we were going to have to deal with the consequences of that.

  “I’m going to miss my bus,” I said.

  Look, didn’t I tell you I was shy? I know I should have called Bea on her hypocrisy, but, really, at the end of the day, it wasn’t going to matter which one of us used real magic and which one faked it. Thompson considered us the same. We were the spooky girls, the witches.

  “Come on,” Bea said with a weak smile. “I’ll give you a ride home. Besides, I’ve got a present for you in the car.”

  I KEPT GLANCING OVER MY shoulder, but I never caught sight of Thompson or any of his cronies. We made it to the school parking lot without further incident. Bea drove this rusty Buick that was as long as a bus and belched the foulest-smelling black smoke whenever she started it up.

  Still, she had a ride.

  I had neither a car nor a license. I’d gotten a learner’s permit last year, but my mom’s crazy work schedule made it impossible to get enough hours behind the wheel. The temporary license expired. In a snit, I hadn’t gotten a new one. What was the use anyway?

  I tossed my backpack into the backseat and buckled myself into the bench seat on the passenger side. The strap was huge and beige and made an ancient clicking sound as it locked in. I felt like I was getting a ride from my grandma in this boat. Bea’s car even smelled like an old-lady car. And somehow, despite how she kept her locker and her room, the floors were always clean and free of clutter.

  Bea was tiny, barely five feet, so the bench seat was pulled up as far as it could go. My knobby knees knocked against the dash.

  “Your present is in the glove compartment,” Bea said as she went through the motions of getting ready to drive: buckle, adjust rearview, check mirrors, etc. She was like a textbook in careful driving.

  I spread my legs awkwardly to open the latch. On top of a neat stack of maps was a slim, wrapped box. The paper was sparkly purple, and she’d wrapped it with a cloth bow of a soft lavender color. “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  Bea laughed at me. She turned the key, and the engine roared to life with a huge puff of black smog. “That’s just the box, silly.”

  I tore into the package. The box said it came from Bibelot, a high-end shop known for its exquisite jewelry. “Is this really . . . ?”

  “Open it!”

  I did as I was told. The necklace inside was gorgeous. I pulled it out to get a better look at it. It was shaped almost like a Christian rosary, but where the crucifix would normally hang was a Nile goddess pendant—a slim abstract shape of a woman with large hips, a long, slender, almost snakelike head, and her arms raised into a loop over her head. In place of prayer beads were mother-of-pearl beads interspersed with black onyx, twenty-eight exactly—the cycle of the moon.

  Bea hadn’t bought this. It was too personal. Besides, I could feel her energy in every bead and dancing along each wire. “You made this, didn’t you?”

  Even though her eyes stayed focused on successfully navigating the crowded parking lot, they sparkled with pride. “Do you like it?”

  “Are you kidding? This is awesome!” I would have hugged her, but I knew how nervous she got when she drove.

  “It took me several months. I had a heck of a time learning to twist the silver wire.”

  Sometimes when I held handcrafted items, I got the impression of the sweat of hard work or frustration with materials or the artisan’s sense of his or her own skill level. Not here. This piece sang to me of joy and love. I let the light play on it in my hands. “No, it’s beautiful. I can’t believe you made it for me.”

  “Best friends?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said with a smile. Even though I didn’t always like Bea, at heart we were sisters. “Forever.”

  ONCE OUT OF THE PARKING lot, we headed down Lexington Avenue. It was one of St. Paul’s busier thoroughfares, but the road was divided by planted islands. September was almost over, and the grass had begun to brown and die off. The trees hinted at the color to come with patches of orange and yellow still mostly hidden among dark green leaves.

  “It’s going to be beautiful up at the covenstead,” Bea remarked.

  The coven communally owned property about an hour and a half north of the Cities. Several generations ago, they’d pooled their money and bought a hundred and fifty acres of undeveloped land. All twelve families used it as their “cabin up north.” There was a small, marshy lake we’d all learned to swim in, and deep woods for mushroom hunting and wild-blueberry picking.

  As long as I could remember, I’d spent summer up there. It was like my second home. My heart
ticked nervously in my ear. “Bea, if I don’t pass . . .” I couldn’t finish the thought out loud. I loved that place. To be banished was heartbreaking.

  She spared a glance at me. “You’re so negative, you know that? Remember Thompson? You’re going to kick ass.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I said, wishing I felt more buoyed by her confidence. When I shifted, my hand brushed Bea’s gift. The magic of the necklace electrified the tips of my fingers. Did the things I created hold that kind of power?

  I shook my head.

  Bea happened to look over at that moment and misinterpreted. “Of course I’m right,” Bea said, patting my knee.

  I felt sort of patronized, so I said, “Your mom didn’t pass.”

  The moment I spoke, I knew it had been a mistake. Bea’s lip twitched into an angry sneer before she could conceal her expression. I’d crossed a line. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I was supposed to even know. She never talked about her mom’s status in the coven. Most of the time we pretended she’d married into the coven, and that Bea’s dad was the only witch of the family.

  Bea sniffed. “My mom’s a special case. She was cursed.”

  That was the myth, anyway. But no one ever explained by whom or . . . to what end. It was clear you weren’t supposed to ask too many questions either. The one time I did, all I got were vague hints of some outside enemy, which were then quickly followed by how we don’t talk about that, lest we call the evil present. It always seemed like a handy excuse to me.

  That wasn’t an opinion I discussed with Bea, though. Best friends or not, family secrets were off-limits. I respected that.

  After all, I had my share.

  My lineage was “broken.” Even with the family curse, Bea, at least, had two parents who came from witch families. At her birth, her name had been written in flourishing script in the big Book of Shadows, wherein all the Names were recorded. She could look at the branching tree and see how her blood connected and interwove all the way back to the First Witch.