So Mote it Be (23 page)

Kate hugged the bag to her chest and didn't say anything. Although she was excited about what she was about to do, she was also really nervous. But she was determined to go through with it. When they arrived at school she excused herself and went to the girl's bathroom. Annie and Cooper were already there.

“You guys look great!” Kate said, making them turn around to show her their costumes.

“I can't believe you're making us do this,” Cooper said. “I feel like an idiot.”

“You look fabulous,” Kate said. “Now, wait for me while I get changed.”

When Kate was ready the three girls walked to the gym entrance, where couples were lined up to go inside. A boy at the door was taking names, and when the couples walked in the names of their characters were announced. Kate hung back so her other friends wouldn't see her standing there with Annie and Cooper. Luckily, they were too busy talking and worrying about their own costumes to notice anything else.

“Miss Scarlett O'Hara and Mr. Rhett Butler,” the boy said, and Sherrie and Sean walked into the dance to the sound of applause.

One by one the couples entered. As it came time for Kate, Annie, and Cooper to enter, the boy with the list approached them. “And you are?” he asked.

Kate told him and he wrote down their names. Then it was their turn to go in. “Ready?” Kate asked Cooper and Annie.

“As I'll ever be,” Cooper said as they all took deep breaths.

“Presenting the good fairies Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather,” the announcer said, and the girls walked into the dance.

As they entered, people turned to look. Then they began to clap.

“Great costumes!” someone yelled.

Kate looked at Annie and Cooper. They were dressed as Sleeping Beauty's three fairy godmothers. Kate wore a blue dress, Annie's was green, and Cooper's was bright pink. They also wore tall, pointed hats and carried magic wands that Kate had made that morning.

“I feel like a birthday cake,” Cooper said as the girls moved into the room to make way for the next group of people. “Which one am I supposed to be again?”

“Flora,” Kate said. “Annie is Fauna. And I'm Merryweather.”

Kate scanned the room for Sherrie, Jessica, and Tara. She knew she couldn't hide from them forever. Eventually they would see her, and unless they were totally blind they would probably notice that she, Annie, and Cooper were wearing similar costumes. She hadn't decided yet what she would do if they asked her why they were dressed similarly. She knew that her two groups of friends would probably never mix, and she knew that she was going to have a difficult time explaining to Sherrie, Jessica, and Tara why she wanted to spend time with Cooper and Annie. But that could wait. She was going to enjoy herself for as long as she could.

She looked around. With the white lights twinkling, the tables set with flowers, and the band playing, it really did feel like they were in an enchanted ballroom. All around them were couples dressed in different outfits, as though they had been transformed right along with the gym into something magical, at least for one night.

“I'm sorry Scott couldn't come with you,” Annie said as they went to the refreshments table and got something to drink.

“Not half as sorry as I am,” said Cooper. “If any of my other friends see me in this getup my reputation will be shot.”

“Get over it,” said Kate. “If anyone gives you any trouble, just smack them with your wand.”

She took a bite of a cookie and chewed on it. “I'm glad Scott couldn't come,” she said. “I can see him any time. But how often do I get to go out dancing with my fairy godsisters?”

As they were standing around talking a trumpet sounded, startling them. On the stage stood a boy dressed as a royal page. When he had everyone's attention he held up an envelope.

“As you all know,” he said. “We've been taking votes for Valentine's Day queen this week. We had a record turnout this year, and the race was close. But we have a winner, and it's time to announce her name.”

“I forgot all about the queen thing,” Kate said, starting to feel slightly sick. “I wonder if we turned the spell back in time to stop something awful from happening.”

The boy opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of paper. The crowd was silent as they waited for him to read the name of the winner.

“This year's Valentine's Day queen is,” he began. Kate held her breath. It seemed to take forever for the boy to finish his announcement. “Terri Fletcher,” he said.

A spotlight searched the crowd, landing on the table where Terri sat with her friends. Her hand was over her mouth, and her friends were hugging her. Finally she stood and limped to the stage.

“I don't know what to say,” she said as someone handed her a microphone.

“Who's your king?” someone called out.

Kate held her breath, wondering what Terri would say. After all, if it hadn't been for her, Terri would be at the dance with Scott. Did Terri still hold a grudge about how things had turned out, or had the magic taken care of that, too?

But Terri just laughed. “I guess I don't have one,” she said. “Are there any volunteers?”

Several guys rushed forward toward the stage, with Jeff Higdon reaching it first. Taking Terri's hand, he led her down the steps and onto the dance floor.

The band started to play, and as Terri and Jeff danced together a group of guys from the football team, all dressed as cupids, ran out and showered them with little red paper hearts.

“I think I'm going to be sick,” Cooper said.

“I think it's sweet,” said Annie, and Kate and Cooper looked at her in surprise.

“Well, that's the last of the magic,” Kate said. “Everything is wrapped up and out of the way. Now it's on to bigger and better things.”

She held up her glass. “I'd like to make a toast,” she said. “To magic.”

Annie lifted her glass beside Kate's. “To magic,” she said.

Cooper added her cup to the other two. “To magic,” she said.

They stood there for a moment under the twinkling lights, the sound of the band and the noise of the crowd surrounding them. Kate looked up at their three hands holding the cups and thought once more of the final card in her Tarot reading. Archer had said that the Three of Cups represented the perfection of friendship and the beginning of something special. She knew that Annie and Cooper had come into her life for an important reason, and in a short time they had become good friends she felt she could trust. She had thought of their ritual as being the end of something, but maybe she'd been wrong.

“Well, it's not Princess Aurora or Maleficent,” a strident voice broke in. “But it's the next best thing.”

Kate looked over and saw Sherrie staring at her. Sherrie took in the three of them holding up their cups, and a cold smile spread across her face.

“My, my, my,” she said as she picked up the edge of her skirt and turned to go. “Just wait until the girls hear about this.”

Isobel Bird, who are you?

I am thirty-two years old, and I live in New England. I like it here because I love experiencing the changing of the seasons. For almost ten years I have been involved in studying Wicca in its many forms. Apart from writing I enjoy dancing, cooking, singing, gardening, walking in the woods, and painting. I also like to travel, because it gives me the opportunity to meet many wonderful people and find out what life is like in places other than where I live.

What originally gave you the idea for this series?

I have been part of the pagan and Wiccan community for a number of years, and during that time many people within the community commented that it would be great to have books that featured people practicing real Wicca, not the made-up kind featured in so many books and TV shows. There are a lot of young people interested in studying the Craft now, and I wanted to write something for them that was both fun to read and that would also give them a glimpse into the world of Wicca so that they could see what it was all about. So I came up with the idea of three girls studying the Craft for the traditional length of a year and a day. The girls experience many of the things that people who are really studying the Craft experience, so reading the books is like taking a guided tour of life in Wicca.

What do you hope readers will get out of it?

I hope that readers will discover the magic inside themselves. Each of us has the potential to become whatever we want to become. That's one of the biggest lessons of Wicca. The girls in the series come to discover that they have many strengths, both individually and as a group, and I hope that my readers will discover what their strengths are as well. Of course I also want them to have a fun read while they're at it.

Part Two of “An Interview with Isobel Bird” is available in the HarperCollins e-book edition of
Circle of Three, Book 2: Merry Meet

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with Book 2: Merry Meet

“You're fifteen minutes late, young lady,” added Cooper, her arms across her chest in mock annoyance.

“Sorry, moms,” Kate said, pushing past her two friends and walking straight into the kitchen, where she knew there would be some hot chocolate waiting for her. Annie's rambling old house had become her second home, and Kate even had her own mug that she used whenever she came over.

“I can't believe you're not giving us the deets,” Annie said plaintively, coming in right behind her.

“Deets?” said Kate, putting her backpack down and taking off her coat.

“You know, details,” Annie explained.

“Since when did you get all streetwise?” Kate asked, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the kitchen table.

“First things first,” said Cooper. “We have something to show you.”

Kate looked from Cooper to Annie. Sometimes she couldn't believe that the three of them were really friends. Kate was as outgoing as Annie was shy. And Cooper, with her ever-changing hair color (it had recently gone from bright pink to bright blue) and loner attitude, was the last person Kate would have ever thought she'd be spending a Friday night with. But that, too, was before the whole spell thing. Now here she was, waiting for Cooper and Annie to spill the beans.

“While you were out with lover boy, Annie and I made a trip down to Crones' Circle,” Cooper said, referring to the funky bookstore where the three of them had been spending a lot of time since their experience with the spell book the month before. The store specialized in books about Wicca and other esoteric topics, and they had learned a lot since first walking through the door in search of some much-needed help.

“And?” Kate said with exaggerated effect.

“And we found this,” Cooper said, handing Kate a flyer printed on grass-green paper.

Kate took the flyer and looked at it, reading it out loud as she munched on a cookie. “‘The Coven of the Green Wood invites you to a celebration of the Spring Equinox. Saturday, March 19. Ritual begins at five, with potluck after. Bring food to share.'”

“Doesn't it sound great?” Annie asked excitedly. “It's an open ritual. Anyone can go.”

“Sophia said it would be okay if we came,” Cooper added. Sophia was one of the women who owned Crones' Circle, and she had answered many of their questions about Wicca.

“I don't know,” said Kate, staring at the flyer.

“What do you mean you don't know?” Cooper said irritably. “It's our first ritual.”

“First one with real witches,” Annie corrected.

Kate looked from one to the other. They both seemed so excited. She wished she was as sure as they seemed to be. Getting together with real witches made everything feel a lot more serious, at least to Kate, who still wasn't entirely sure what she thought about the whole subject of Wicca. She didn't know if she was ready for it.

“I'll think about it,” she said, and her friends groaned. They knew that whenever Kate said she'd think about something it really meant she didn't want to do it but was afraid to hurt their feelings.

“Think fast,” Cooper said. “It's tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow is tomorrow,” Kate said, thinking about what Scott had said earlier in the evening. “We have lots of time. Now, don't you want to hear about this ring?”