Moonset (22 page)

I stayed on the couch, because half the time I could barely keep my eyes open and I didn’t think sleeping at the kitchen table would end well. Gravity was a bitch, and the floors were hardwood.

I finished the first paper about the Coven Wars by the skin of my teeth, but as soon as I emailed the document to him, he came downstairs with another stack of books and my next assignment. If possible, these books were even dustier than the first ones. “I want you to write a report on how a warlock is brought to trial. How is a charge of invoking the black arts proven? Talk about the trial, the investigations, and everything up until a guilty verdict. And then you can talk about how the process has changed in the last twenty years.”

I was waiting for a word count, but Quinn didn’t say anything further. “How long?” I’d max out on a thousand words before even covering half of what he was asking for.

“As long as it takes,” he said. “Be succinct. You should be able to wrap it up in … five or six thousand words.”

Quinn wanted the Never-ending Paper. Five thousand words was huge—that would take me at least a month! But I was too drained to argue. But surprisingly, the books he’d given me weren’t nearly as dry as the ones for the first assignment. Maybe the writing style was more modern, or maybe it was because the subject matter hit closer to home.

Coven trials were cruel, devastating processes that always ended badly. In comparison, the Salem witch trials and the witch hysteria that gripped the world were passive, calm affairs.

Now trials were public affairs, open to any witch who wished to attend. An emphasis was placed on “innocent until proven guilty” and other modern conceits—with one main exception. Moonset, the book explained, had been tried “in absentia” and thus their sentence had been carried out almost immediately upon capture.

It made sense, though. If there had been a trial, it would have been a circus. Sherrod Daggett was charismatic and enticing. Putting him on the stand would have only done harm by giving him yet another platform.

The last day of my suspension, I felt a little better. I only slept about half of the day, and while I was still tired, I wasn’t as bone-weary as I’d been the day before. I worked on the paper at the kitchen table, spreading the research out.

Tucked in the middle of Quinn’s stack of books, I found one book that wasn’t dusty and unused. It was a copy of
Moonset: A Dark Legacy
—the definitive encyclopedia of the lives of our parents, from beginning to execution. It was full of personal letters, interviews, and trial transcripts that covered every aspect of their lives.

All of us had read the book cover to cover. Well, all except Bailey, I think. Jenna, Mal, and I had read it when we were still in middle school, sneaking copies out of our guardians’ houses. We wanted to know more about who our parents had been. As soon as we were done, we all wished we’d never read it.

“How goes the slave labor?” Jenna asked as she came inside, dropping her school bag on the papers filled with notes I had spread all over the kitchen table.

“Not as bad as I thought.” I stretched, using the motion to shove her bag forward, away from my things. Yawning, I pulled the loose sheets back into a pile and stuck it next to the laptop I was working on. “How was school?”

“Monotonous. Until further notice—meaning until they hire a new sucker to take over the magic class—we’re all reading biographies of important historical witches. What’s the point of having magic if you can’t ever
use
it?”
Sherrod’s spellbook was still in the garage.
I couldn’t get it now, not with all the Witchers sniffing around the house. And I certainly couldn’t trust Jenna to take care of it. She’d take it for herself and abuse the hell out of everything she learned. I had to get rid of it somehow. The Maleficia attack hadn’t happened until I brought the book home. I needed to get rid of it.

But what if there’s something useful in there? What if you could use Sherrod’s magic for good? Wouldn’t it be worth it?

I shook my head, trying to shake the thoughts free. That was what had gotten me into this mess in the first place. Second guessing myself, and
wanting
to believe that there was something that our legacy could do to redeem itself.

“Justin? You okay?” Jenna had been more concerned lately, ever since the attack. Concern for others wasn’t a good look on her.

“I wish people would stop asking me that,” I said in annoyance. The sooner Jenna stopped acting like I was a fragile flower, the better. “Where are the others, anyway?”

“Mal went to the gym. Cole and Bailey are hanging out with the runt of the litter.”

“Who?”

She rolled her eyes and huffed. “Luca. You realize it loses the humor when I have to keep explaining things to you.”

“How was I supposed to know he’s the runt of the litter. That’s not even accurate. There’s no litter!”

“You must be feeling better. You’re back to being tedious.”

I yawned. The words on the computer screen were starting to blur. I was halfway through a section talking about how Covens were charged as a single entity. If one Coven member was believed to be a warlock, they were all guilty of his crimes.

Did that happen with Moonset? Were some of them just caught up in Sherrod’s crimes? The Moonset biography didn’t seem to think so. It made a point of singling out all six of the members and breaking down each of their crimes.

“Have fun with that,” Jenna announced. “It’s back to school for you tomorrow. Who wants to bet the science wing blows up before noon?”

Twenty-Three

“The tide turned when two of the remaining
‘Great Covens’ aligned and commandeered control of the resistance. Illana Bryer, a new grandmother, transformed into the most capable general any of the Covens had ever seen. Within a month, she’d beaten back Moonset on three separate fronts, and given the resistance the momentum it desperately needed.”

Moonset: A Dark Legacy

The science wing didn’t blow up. Neither did the main hallway, the gymnasium, or the auditorium. Everything was actually normal my first day back. The only change was that my last period was now a study hall spent in the library, since I couldn’t be trusted around the other witch kids. Quinn told me to keep working on his research paper, that for now it was the best use of my time.

I was so busy trying to catch up on what I’d missed and preparing for midterms that I barely got to talk to anyone all day. I only caught sight of Ash once in the halls, but the bell rang before I could track her down.

The weekend passed by so slowly I thought for a minute that time was going backwards. It wasn’t until Monday that our house had quieted down enough to sneak the spellbook out in the morning, tucking it into my book bag.

In lieu of any better ideas, I hid it in a locker at school. I asked for a hall pass to use the restroom, that way the halls would be mostly empty when I hid it. Only about seven hundred kids attended the high school, but there were enough lockers to support twice that. All the unused lockers had locks on them, but lucky for me that was one of the few spells I knew.

The unlocking spell only worked on certain locks—
specifically the kind that kept school lockers closed. Each of the lockers in the school was numbered. Locker 666 would have been too obvious—that would have been Jenna’s choice for sure. I chose 999 instead, hiding the book in the bottom corner of the locker, and replacing the lock when I was done. With the book hidden, I felt like I could breathe again.

On some level, I think all of us were waiting for the other shoe to drop—for the warlock to make his next move. Only he didn’t. For a week, Carrow Mill was completely normal.

“
You’ve been avoiding me,” Ash said, appearing at my locker before the first bell on Friday.

“Not avoiding. Drowning. Missing most of last week totally threw me off.” I closed my locker door, and by unspoken agreement we started walking towards the stairs.

“Well, that’s what happens when you get suspended,” she said lightly.

“Maybe I’m just a rebel.”

Ash laughed. “Mr. French Vanilla is suddenly feeling rebellious?”

“Hey, I ordered a turtle mocha all on my own.”

Her eyes widened, and she fanned herself. “Stop, please. We’re in public. You’ll embarrass me.”

A week’s worth of waiting on the warlock’s next move had me feeling stir-crazy and reckless all at once. “Do you like movies? Like, watching movies? Maybe, I mean, tonight? With me?”
Oh God, what is happening to me?
My mouth couldn’t trip over the words fast enough. I took a breath.
She’s smiling, that’s a good sign, right? Or maybe she’s going to laugh?
“I mean, would you want to go to the movies with me? Sometime?”

She was still smiling. “Like a date?” As if she were suddenly the coy ingénue. “Yeah, that would be okay. You could use a little spice in your life, doll face.”

“Doll face?” She shrugged in apology. “Does that mean I can call you a moll?”

Her eyebrows rose, and she half shrugged. “Hope you like scary movies,” she said with a wink. She turned back the way we’d come, and headed back down the hall. “They’re my favorite,” she called back.

I walked around in a stupor after that, unable to wipe the smile off my face.

“What’s with you?” Mal asked in Economics.

“I’ve got a date,” I said, unable to hide the smug tone in my voice.

“About time.”

I grabbed my Econ book out of my bag. I was actually caught up in this class, which was something of a relief. “With Ash,” I added, as if that needed clarification.

“I figured,” Mal said, his tone dry. “Where are you taking her? I assume she’s driving?”

“We hadn’t talked about that,” I said. I didn’t have my license, so that meant I’d have to ask for a ride. I turned around and faced Mal, giving him my best look of desperation. “We’re going to the movies tonight. Something scary, she said.”

Mal threw back his head and laughed. “That’s perfect.”

Uh oh. “Why is that perfect?”

He shook his head, and before I could press him further, class started. I spent the entire class trying to figure out what he meant by “that’s perfect.” What did he know that I didn’t? But no matter how many times I tried to turn and catch his eye or how many times I wrote on the back of my notebook, he ignored me.

Forty minutes later, when class was finally over, I turned around to finish interrogating Malcolm, only to find his seat empty and Mal halfway to the door. I struggled to shove everything back into my bag and chased after him.

Malcolm and Jenna were congregated around her locker, speaking in low tones.
Since when do they get along?
Somehow, I was getting screwed over. I just didn’t know how yet. What did Mal have in store? And why was he punishing me? What did I ever do to him?

Bailey came running up at the same time that I app-roached them. “Are you serious?”

“Someone needs to tell me what’s going on,” I said. “This is getting annoying. How does me taking Ash to a movie have anything to do with the rest of you? No offense or anything.”

Jenna and Mal shared a look, and I wanted to smack the both of them.
Stop collaborating. That is not how this is supposed to work. You’re supposed to be at each other’s throats!
Jenna gestured for Mal to explain, which he did.

“Bailey has this group date thing she wants to go on. The adults said it was fine as long as one of us goes along to keep an eye on her. They don’t want any of us out alone, but things have been quiet so they’re willing to allow us a little freedom. Since you’re going to the movies, too … ” Mal trailed off.

“Wait, that means I can go?” Bailey squealed, then jumped up and down and grabbed Mal around the waist, squeezing him.

“I didn’t agree—” Before I could finish, Bailey released Malcolm and then grabbed me, too, hugging the daylights out of me.

“Oof! We don’t even know that we’re seeing the same movie,” I sighed, already accepting defeat. Too much information was being processed at once. “And wait, group date?”

“It’s not a date,” Bailey said quickly. “It’s just a bunch of the girls on the freshman cheer squad. Mal keeps calling it a date because there’s going to be a few boys there.”

I crossed my arms. “How
many
boys?”

Jenna slid her arm around Bailey’s shoulder. “Just a couple of guys. It’s nothing to freak out about.”

“Normally, I’d say Bailey’s too young to date,” Mal said with a grin, “but I’m not the chaperone. So I’ll leave it all up to Justin.”

“Please, Justin?” Bailey grabbed at my sleeve. She did puppy dog eyes and everything. “I promise, it’s just a movie. You don’t want people to think I’m a freak because I’m never allowed to hang out with them, do you?”

“You can still go out on your date,” Jenna added in a sweet tone. “I’m sure Ash won’t mind.”

The three of them had teamed up against me. How was this even fair?
“What were you planning to see?”

Bailey’s smile could have powered all of Carrow Mill. “
Santa Claws 2—Bloody Christmas
. It’s a sequel to
Santa Claws
—you know, the one where Santa gets possessed by the demons … ”

“Yeah,” I said, holding up my hand in the hopes of stopping her. “I remember. You really want to go see that? Wouldn’t you rather go see something … I dunno, a little more appropriate?”

Bailey went from excited to frosty in an instant. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked. “You think I should go watch some stupid kiddie movie? I’m fifteen, Justin. God!”

She stormed off, and Mal and Jenna both looked at me with something like glee. “You really stepped in it that time,” Mal offered.

“Shut up,” I glowered, walking away from the pair of them. Date-ruiners. That’s what they were. Awful, selfish, date-ruiners.

When I went over to Malcolm’s house later that evening, Cole was perched on the front steps. His hair was down in his eyes, and he looked like he’d worked himself up to an intense brood.
This could last for hours.
Cole didn’t get into bad moods often, but when he did, it was always a struggle for the rest of us.

“Hey buddy, how’s it going?” I sat down next to him.

Cole snorted, looking at me from underneath his fringe. “Like you care. All you care about is Ash now.”

Okay, wow. “That’s not true. C’mon, you know me better than that.”

“I thought I did,” he muttered. “All you care about is going out with her tonight.”

“That’s not
all
I care about.” How was I supposed to fix this before Cole went haywire and started goth-ing it up again? “Why don’t you come with us tonight? Bailey’s going with a group of friends. We could make a thing of it.”

Another snort. “Don’t worry, I’ve made actual friends here. You don’t have to pity me.”

“I don’t pity you,” I said slowly. “Where is all this coming from? This isn’t you, Cole.”

“How would you know?”

“Okay,” I said, trying another tactic. “Things have been weird since we got here. I get it. It hasn’t been like any of the other times. But that doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere.” I nudged his side. “You’re kind of stuck with us. We’re a package deal, remember.”

He leapt to his feet and stomped away without another word.

“Look at my babies, all grown up,” Mal said with a mock sniffle as we pulled up in front of the theater. It was at the same outdoor mall we’d gone to our first week in town, in the next city over from Carrow Mill. I let Bailey take the front seat, allowing me to lounge in the back and worry.
What if I keep talking stupid? What if she thinks I’m boring and that’s why I wanted to go to a movie. What if she decides I’m lame?

I’d been fine up until this point with Ash. She was strange and bizarre and utterly fascinating, but I’d always thought I liked that. But now, ever since I’d used the D-word, it was like all I could do was panic. I second-guessed every conversation we’d ever had, overanalyzed every laugh and smile. She was friends with Maddy, and Maddy disliked me for obvious reasons. What if that rubbed off on her?

I wiped my palms on my jeans for about the thousandth time, and swallowed my gum.
What if my breath is awful?
I pulled the pack of gum out of my pocket and slid another stick in my mouth.

“Is Cole going to be all right?” Bailey asked from the front.

“He’s going to be fine,” Mal assured her. “You know how he gets.”

“He hasn’t had much luck making friends,” she said, looking down at her hands. “I mean, Luca’s been cool, but I don’t think people here get Cole’s sense of humor.”

“He just takes a little bit to warm up to,” I said.

“Maybe,” she said. “But everyone’s been so busy, so he probably feels like you guys are all moving on, too.”

“No one’s going anywhere,” Mal insisted. “We’ve just been busy. And things have been a little crazy. They’ll settle down soon.”

“I hope so.” Bailey glanced back at me. “You can’t walk in with me.”

Mal reached back and grabbed my hand up in his. “But we want to introduce ourselves to your young gentleman.”

I snatched my hand back, laughing. “Speak for yourself. Go be someone else’s gay parent.”

“Just be careful, okay? Weird stuff’s been going on and all,” Mal said. We still hadn’t talked to Cole or Bailey about what was going on. They only knew what we’d told them on the first week.

“We’ll be fine.” Part of the agreement with Quinn had been about an escort. Not just me being there to escort Bailey, but a Witcher escort. There were supposed to be two of them somewhere in the theater, just in case something happened.

We got out of the car and climbed up onto the sidewalk. It was only six, but the sun had already set. Luckily, the theater believed in a hefty light bill, because there were streetlights and blazing spotlights everywhere.

The window rolled down. “You have protection, just in case?” Mal called out, peeking his head out the window.

Bailey looked no more mortified than I did. But only barely.

She saw her friends and ran off, and I hovered near the doors for a few minutes, wishing I’d been smart enough to pick a better spot to wait at. But I didn’t have to wait long.

“Hey there, hot stuff. Don’t you look nice?” Ash appeared at my side, wrapped up in a black coat. Her hair was crimped and curled tonight, and the lights brought out all its different shades of red.

“Oh,” I said, looking down at myself. “Thanks. I mean, it was nothing.” Nothing for me at least. I’d made Mal pick me out something to wear, which he insisted was offensive and playing into stereotypes. But he did it, criticizing my taste as he went along.

“You had Malcolm dress you, didn’t you?”

I laughed. “That obvious?”

She shrugged. “It’s a gift. I admit I have a keen awareness when a boy suddenly develops a radical shift in style.” She linked her arm with mine and started pulling me towards the theater doors. “Plus, I might have texted him while you were, and this is a direct quote, ‘throwing the biggest fit he’s ever seen,’ about ironing your shirt.”

I … he … oh. Malcolm was so dead! “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to delete his number,” I managed. “Especially since I’m going to break his thumbs to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”