So Mote it Be (4 page)

She looked at the clock on her bedside table. Her parents would be home any minute. Standing up, she turned on the bedroom light. Then she blew out the candles. She couldn't put them back, because her mother would notice that they had been used and ask why. Instead, she put them into an empty shoe box. She wasn't sure what she should do with the doll, so she stuck it in the shoe box with the candles and put the box in the back of her closet. She would figure out what to do with everything later, but for the moment she didn't want anyone stumbling upon it accidentally. She had just closed the closet door when she heard the downstairs door open.

“Kate?” her father called. “Are you home, honey?”

Kate opened her bedroom door and went downstairs. Both her parents were there, taking off their coats.

“I stopped by the store after my party and forced your father to come home,” her mother said. “If I hadn't, I think he would have just set up camp in one of the display tents.”

“Hi, Daddy,” Kate said. “Was the store busy today?”

“Very,” he said. “We had a bunch of winter campers come in. They're all heading up to Olympia National Park for some snowshoeing this weekend and needed gear.”

“How was the party?” she asked her mother.

“The shrimp puffs were a little too toasty, but I don't think anyone noticed but me,” she answered. “And what did you do tonight?”

Kate wondered what they would say if she told them, “Oh, I tried out this witchcraft spell. No big deal.” Instead she said, “Just some school stuff.” Technically it was true, so she didn't feel bad about not being completely honest.

She stayed downstairs for a while and talked to her parents. Then it was time for bed. Back upstairs, Kate changed into the old T-shirt she liked to sleep in and got into bed. As she lay in the darkness with her quilt pulled up around her, she thought about the doll in her closet. Maybe she hadn't worked any magic. After all, she'd just lit some candles and said a simple rhyme. No one could call that playing with supernatural powers or anything. People lit candles all the time, even in church, and it had nothing to do with magic or spells.

Still, part of her hoped that maybe there was more to it than that. As she drifted off, she imagined herself sitting in a circle of lit candles, saying some words she couldn't quite make out. Then she saw a figure walking toward her. It looked like a guy. But before she could see his face, she was asleep.

CHAPTER 3

The next morning as she walked to school Kate tried to imagine what it would be like if Scott really
did
ask her to the dance. She tried out several different scenarios, but the one she liked best involved her standing by her locker, putting her books away, and Scott coming up and gently touching her shoulder. She saw herself turning around and looking into his blue eyes. She watched as he smiled, opened his mouth, and said, “Hey, Kate.”

That's not very romantic
, she thought. Then she realized that it wasn't just her imagination—someone really had spoken to her. She looked up and saw that Jeff Higdon was standing in front of her on the steps of the school.

“Um, hey, Jeff,” she said, her breath making little clouds in the morning air. Like Scott, Jeff was also on the football team. And like Scott, he had never spoken to Kate before. But now he was acting as if they talked to one another all the time.

“So, how are you today?” he asked, sounding nervous as he stood with his hands in his jeans pockets.

Kate looked around, wondering if maybe Jeff and some of his buddies were playing a joke on her. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except that Jeff was watching her expectantly, waiting for an answer.

“I'm fine,” she said, and there was a long pause.

“Um, did you want something?” she said finally.

Jeff shook his head. “No,” he said. “Nothing special. I just wanted to say hey and, you know, see how you are.”

“Well, thanks, I guess,” Kate said. “But I'm getting kind of cold. I guess I'll just go to my locker now. See you later.”

She walked past Jeff and into the building. As she went down the hall toward her locker, it seemed like several people's eyes were on her. She couldn't say exactly why, but she felt as if she was being watched. Only when she turned around to see who was looking at her, all she saw were guys walking quickly toward their classrooms.

As Kate took her books out of her locker, she heard someone come up behind her. She turned around hopefully, thinking that it might really be Scott. But it was only Sherrie, Jessica, and Tara.

“Thanks for all your help yesterday.”

“Hey, guys,” Kate said. “I'm sorry. I had so much homework to do that I just couldn't make it.” She felt guilty for not telling her friends what she'd really been doing, but she was starting to feel a little silly about the whole thing, and she knew she'd feel even dumber if she had to talk about it.

“It's a sad day when studying is more important than social commitments,” Sherrie said, only half joking. “But we'll forgive you.”

“This time,” added Tara.

“Besides,” said Jessica, “we came up with a totally brilliant idea.”

Kate shut her locker. “Oh, yeah?” she said, glad to have a change of subject. “What is it? No, let me guess—a masquerade ball?”

All three of them glared at her.

“How did you know?” demanded Sherrie.

“It took us three hours to come up with that,” said Tara.

Kate smiled. “Then I guess you didn't need me after all,” she said. “But it was just a lucky guess. Is that really what you decided to do?”

“Well, we
did
think it was original,” said Jessica. “But clearly if
you
came up with it in two seconds it isn't.”

“Maybe she just has highly developed psychic powers,” suggested Tara.

“Or maybe she's a witch,” said Sherrie.

“Why did you say that?” Kate snapped.

“Relax,” said Sherrie, taking Kate by the arm. “I'm just trying to explain your amazing powers of deduction. They have us mere mortals mystified.”

“Sorry,” Kate said. “I guess I just wish I'd been there with you guys instead of home with a bunch of books.”

“I keep telling you that too much reading is going to get you into trouble one of these days,” Sherrie said. “But on to better things.

“I'm thinking palace ballroom for the motif,” she said as they walked. “We'll turn the gym into Sleeping Beauty's castle. Not the thorn-covered, nasty one—the one they hold the celebration in after the prince wakes her up. Lots of pink and white, and the whole ceiling strung with white Christmas lights.”

“Oh, and when couples enter we'll announce their names, just like at a fancy dress ball,” said Tara excitedly.

“Like you've been to so many that you would know about that,” sniped Sherrie.

“You're not the only one who saw
Shakespeare in Love
,” Tara replied. “Just imagine everyone lined up, and then the announcer says, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Tara Redding and Al Dillinger.'”

“Al Dillinger?” Kate, Sherrie, and Jessica said in one voice, stopping in the middle of the hall and looking at their friend.

“He asked me this morning,” Tara said, her freckles turning pink under her friends' scrutiny. “And I said yes.”

Al Dillinger was a quiet guy who spent most of his time in the art room, painting or working on some kind of sculpture that never seemed to get finished. None of them had ever heard him say more than a few words to anyone, especially not to any of them.

“It's those quiet ones you have to look out for,” said Sherrie knowingly.

“I was surprised, too,” said Tara. “It took him forever to get the question out.”

“Well, that's one down,” said Kate.

“Two,” said Sherrie. “I didn't want to say anything, because none of you had dates yet, but Sean asked me if I would go with him.”

Unlike Tara's announcement, Sherrie's was no big shock. Sean McNeeley and Sherrie had gone out a couple of times, and it was no secret that they liked each other. Sherrie just wasn't ready to instate him as her boyfriend because, as she'd said, she owed it to the male student population not to get tied down so early in her high school career.

“I guess that just leaves you and me, Jess,” Kate said, putting her arm around her friend. “So what do you say we just go together and cause a scandal? We could go as Catwoman and Batgirl.”

“Sorry,” said Jessica. “Much as I'd love to don a slinky latex number, I already told Blair I'd go with him.”

“Blair?” said Sherrie incredulously. “That's like going with your brother.”

Blair Peterson had been Jessica's neighbor since they were both six years old. They'd been best friends until the onset of adolescence made them both a little embarrassed about it, but they still hung out a lot, and most people just assumed they were an item. No matter how many times Jessica explained that she hung out with Blair because they both played cello in the school orchestra, no one believed her.

“Since there was asking involved, can we safely say that this time you're on an official date?” said Tara, bringing up an old group joke. Neither Jessica nor Blair had ever gone out with anyone else, and both routinely turned down offers from other people, but they refused to call what they did together dating. Jessica, as usual, ignored the question, tucking her hair behind her ears deliberately and pretending to examine the floor's industrial linoleum.

“That just leaves you, Kate,” she said, trying to deflect the conversation away from the topic of her and Blair.

“And no, you can't go alone,” Sherrie said before Kate could say anything. “You're going with a boy, and that's that. We can't have a member of the planning committee going solo.”

Kate sighed. Talking about dates only reminded her of Scott and the dates they were
not
having, and that was something she most definitely did not want to think about.

“I'll work on it,” she said feebly.

“Al's friend Dan needs a date,” suggested Tara. “I could ask him if he wants to go with you.”

“Not Dan who runs the projectors for the AV department?” said Sherrie dismissively. “Please, Tar, Kate hasn't yet sunk to the level of mercy dating.”

“He's a nice guy,” Tara said defensively. “I think he'd clean up just fine.”

“Can we not talk about this anymore?” Kate said. “I said I'd handle the date situation.”

“Just don't wait too long,” said Sherrie. “The more days go by, the closer you are to AV guy.”

Any further discussion was cut short by the ringing of the bell. But Sherrie had to get in one final dig. “And don't even think about holding out for Scott,” she said as she and Jessica headed off, leaving Kate and Tara to their chemistry class. “You'd need Sleeping Beauty's fairy godmothers and their magic wands to make that happen.”

Kate didn't have much time to think about the dance during chemistry. In preparation for their midterm the next day, Miss Blackwood was having them do a practice experiment. Kate followed Tara to their usual lab station, but she noticed that wherever she went the boys in the class were watching her, some openly and some only when they thought she wasn't looking.

“Maybe I put too much into it,” she said, suddenly thinking about last night's spell, not realizing that she was talking out loud.

“Too much what?” asked Tara, shaking a spoonful of greenish powder from the bottle in her hand into a measuring spoon.

“Oh, nothing,” said Kate. “How much water do we need to add to that?”

Kate went to the sink to fill a beaker with water. She couldn't help but notice that all the boys watched her as she passed by. One, distracted from his experiment, added the water to the wrong flask and started choking as the reaction produced a thick cloud of smoke.

“Watch it, Tony,” said his partner, grabbing the smoking container and dumping it into a nearby sink.

“Sorry, Annie,” Tony said sheepishly, not taking his eyes off Kate. “I got distracted.”

Annie Crandall followed Tony's gaze, and when she saw Kate she frowned. “Save that kind of chemistry for after class,” she said, giving Kate a hard look. “I don't want to blow this practical tomorrow.”

“What are you worried about?” Tony said, watching Kate as she walked back to her table. “You always ace this stuff.”

Tony's right,
Kate thought as she read over the instructions for the experiment.
Annie does always get A's in chemistry.
In fact, Kate wished that she could do half as well as Annie Crandall did.

Kate and Tara did their best to make their experiment work out, but something seemed to be not quite right about it. The liquid in their test tube turned bright purple instead of green, and it gave off an awful smell. Oddly, other groups seemed to be getting similar results—especially groups with at least one male partner. They all seemed to be distracted by something, and more and more that something appeared to be Kate.