The Witch Is Back (25 page)

I blinked. “Bizarro dreams,” I answered, watching the reaction on her face for any clues.

“More Bridget dreams?” Abby asked with interest, sitting down on her bed.

I was surprised to hear her bring up Bridget, but also knew that Asher had filled her in on all the dreams I'd had about my dead relatives in the past. I hadn't told
anyone
yet about the ones involving the other prisoners who had been jailed along with Bridget—the two Sarahs and Tituba. Mostly because I wasn't sure whether it was important. But also because the last time I'd had regular dreams concerning the witch trials, we'd been attacked by the Parrishables. Given people's reaction to our last Cleri midnight meet-up and the botched tracking spell, I thought it best to keep these things to myself until I was sure there was something to worry about.

“This dream was different,” I said, honestly. “You were in it.”

Abby looked genuinely surprised to hear this. “Me? What was I doing?”

How much should I tell her? I didn't want to divulge everything, just in case I was supposed to be taking some sort of meaning from it. After all, in the dream, Abby
had
been performing some kind of secret spell on me. Then again, I
did
want to see if anything I described would jog her memory. Maybe if she'd had the same dream, the two of us could piece together what was going on.

I decided to pull out some of the highlights instead.

“Well, you were outside. It was the middle of the night and you started to walk through the woods,” I said. I looked for any sign that she recognized what I was describing. Her face didn't change at all as she listened. I continued with the story. “So, you were walking through the woods and I was following you. You know, to see where you were going. And you were wearing this hooded cloak. Anyway, then you stopped and you were doing a spell.”

“What spell was I doing?” she asked when I paused.

“That's the thing . . . I didn't recognize it,” I said carefully.

“Do you remember the words? Maybe I can help figure them out,” Abby said.

Discubus susperion violane spurniface.

Abby's sudden interest in knowing the spell made me admittedly suspicious. But what I couldn't decide was whether she was curious because it was a dream about her or if it was because she had
other
motives? It was hard for me to say at this point.

Discubus susperion violane spurniface.

I placed my hand over my face and rubbed at it like I was frustrated, before reaching up to scratch my head. “I can't remember,” I lied, deciding to keep that little fact to myself. “What do you think it means?”

Abby looked at me blankly and waited a beat or two before she answered.

“No clue. I'm not really good at deciphering dreams,” she said, walking over to her bed and grabbing a book.

“Oh,” I answered, watching her head back toward our bedroom door. “Well, I guess I'll see you at breakfast then?”

“Yep. See you.”

I stood there in the darkness for a few minutes, running the conversation over and over again in my head. I wanted answers, but I didn't know whom I could trust. The Cleri were being weird about almost everything, and no way was I going to the counselors because, well, just because they were adults didn't mean they weren't capable of being evil. When I found no more answers than I'd had before, I quietly left our room and headed down the hallway to the girls' bathroom to get ready for the day.

But before I got there, someone stepped out of the stairway and nearly ran right into me.

“Asher!” I said, surprised to see him on our floor.

His reaction mirrored mine, but then it changed to a slick grin.

“Well, doesn't this bring back memories?” he said sexily, before leaning down and planting a kiss on my lips. I worried for about two seconds about whether I had killer morning breath, but then I let it go. Asher had kissed me in the morning before—plenty of times, actually—and besides, we'd been together now for over six months. An isolated case of bad breath wasn't going to be a deal breaker.

I smiled and then kissed him back, wrapping my arms around his waist. He was wearing a pair of gym shorts and a white tank top and his hair was mussed as usual. The air between us grew electric and I began to wish that we didn't have roommates. Forgetting for the moment that he'd recently pissed me off, I let myself fantasize about all the things I wanted to do to him and would let him to do me if we'd only been alone. Maybe there was an empty room, or closet, somewhere nearby that we could sneak off to.

“You
do
have the annoying habit of running into me at the worst times possible, Asher,” I said, trailing my finger down his chest slowly as I remembered the first time we'd “accidentally” run into each other. We'd been at the mall and Sascha, Jinx, Jasmine, and I had gone looking for Fallon who'd taken off after having a hissy fit. Asher had claimed the meeting had been an innocent coincidence, but later on, I'd found out that he'd planned the meeting. Still, it was the first time we'd really interacted and even with the horrible timing, I couldn't ignore the heat between us.

“Annoying?” he asked, kissing me again, this time slipping his tongue against mine. “And how could there be a better time than right now?”

“Is there someplace we could go to be alone?” I asked.

As if on cue, a door opened up just a few feet away, and Brooklyn and Eve stepped out, chatting much too animatedly for such an early time of the morning. When they saw us, they abruptly shut up and walked the rest of the way in silence. As they neared the bathroom, they both turned their attention to us.

“Hey, Asher,” Brooklyn said sweetly.

“Nice to see you again,” Eve said, looking him up and down.

Hello, obvious?

“I'm
right here
,” I said, annoyed that the dirty duo were once again getting in the way of Asher and my relationship.

Eve narrowed her eyes at me behind Asher's back. “Why, yes. I suppose you are. I barely recognized you . . . standing on your own two feet and all,” she said, as insincerely as possible.

“Speaking of, how's your neck doing?” Brooklyn asked, her voice sounding concerned, but her face completely blank.

“I'm alive,” I said between clenched teeth.

Asher looked at the other two girls before pulling me closer to him so our bodies were touching. “Did you two happen to see who did it?” he asked them suddenly.

Eve and Brooklyn looked at each other and then shrugged. “Nope. We were just glad we could be there to help,” Brooklyn said.

“Yeah. It's horrible to think of what might have happened if we hadn't come along,” Eve added.

Then the two disappeared into the bathroom, but not before Brooklyn glanced back at the door to her room and said, “It was nice seeing you, Asher.” I looked in the direction she'd been staring and then back at Asher who was still in his bed clothes and up at an unusually early hour for him.

Why was he up so early? And on this floor, too.

“Now where were we?” Asher asked, leaning down for another kiss.

“What are you doing up so early?” I asked instead, pulling myself out of his embrace completely and taking a step back so I could search his face for clues.

Asher closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, he'd changed. The moment we'd been having before Brooklyn and Eve had shown up was over. And we were back to being on separate sides.

“I couldn't sleep,” he said, less than psyched at the temperature change between us.

“There seems to be a lot of that going around,” I muttered.

“What's that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“Just that everyone's acting totally weird right now,” I said.

“Well, sorry to disappoint you,” Asher said, crossing his arms angrily. “Again.”

Then, without saying good-bye, he turned and began to walk away from me.

“Why were you on our floor, Asher?” I asked.

I knew it was going too far and that I should've been trying to convince him to come back, talk this thing through instead. But I
had
to know the truth.

Finally, he spun around, his face twisted up in frustration. “You want to know why I was down here?” he asked me. “I was coming to see if you wanted to get breakfast. Maybe spend the morning together, just the two of us. You know, like you've been
asking
me to.”

I'd officially screwed up. Brooklyn and Eve had appeared, and once again I'd let them get to me. Now Asher was mad and I wasn't sure how to make things right. Or if he'd even let me try.

“Asher,” I started, but I didn't know how to finish the sentence, so I let it trail off.

“Don't worry about it,” he said, sounding tired now. “I have stuff to do, anyway. I'll just see you later, okay?”

But he didn't wait for a response before taking off down the hallway, and before I could call his name again, he'd slipped around the corner and out of sight.

It was raining. And for the first time since we'd arrived at camp, it didn't feel like a thousand degrees outside. I was so grateful I could've done flip-flops around the grounds. Only, there were puddles everywhere and I would've gotten all muddy doing it.

So instead, I showed my excitement by dressing for the occasion, summoning up a beautiful red-and-black-lined cape/poncho-style jacket. It was an amazing find straight from the runways of Milan. Large folds of fabric draped over my arms, and additional material wrapped its way around my neck, securing itself with snaps just above my breasts protectively. A belt cinched the coat at my waist, giving the garment the shape of a butterfly when I placed my hands on my hips.

Below that, I wore black stretchy pants decorated with a strip of black pleather darting straight down the sides of my legs. Nearly reaching my knees were my favorite pair of water-resistant cheetah-print boots, which zipped up the back. They'd keep my feet dry while making me look good on a rainy day.

I pulled the oversize hood up on my head before leaving the safety of the cabin and noted with glee that I looked like a couture Little Red Riding Hood. Considering everything that had been happening lately, I could use a little fashion pick-me-up right about now.

Just because my coven thought I was some crazy-jealous girlfriend monster, and Asher was barely talking to me, and it's entirely possible that someone wanted me dead, it didn't mean I had to dress that way. This was one of those “fake it 'til you make it” situations. One of the only times being fake was acceptable.

Making a mad dash for the amphitheater—which had seemed a lot closer until I was trying to avoid getting my hair wet—I listened for the silence that always came along with weather like this. It's as if the whole universe stopped whatever it was doing and took a moment to listen to the methodical plinking sounds of the rain falling to earth.

Rain equaled rebirth, renewal, and growth. In other words: despite the frizzy hair, it was a good omen. One that I was willing to take.

“Hey guys,” I said, slightly out of breath by the time I got over to where Jasmine, Abby, and Sascha were sitting. They'd all been slightly frosty to me since our last meeting, but I'd decided to bury the past and try to get things back to where they'd been before we'd come to camp. Meaning, less Extreme Hadley Who Thinks Everyone's Out to Get Her and more of Laid-Back Hadley Who Has a Passion for Fashion. At least when I was around them.

“Isn't it
amazing
out?” I asked them, gesturing to the air around us and twirling around happily.

“Are you kidding?” Sascha asked, sounding more like Jasmine than herself. She tried to flatten her hair, but it just bounced back. Humidity had found its first victim. “It's disgusting out.”

“Noooo, it's not,” I said, not allowing her comment to spoil my day. “This weather's
magical
! And I get to wear my new jacket. You like?” I posed to give them the full effect. “I can zap one for you too, Sascha, if you want.”

But Sascha seemed too annoyed to answer, so I looked over toward Jasmine and Abby to see if they knew what was wrong with our usually perky friend. There, I was met with more frowns and scowls.

“Do you think that anyone
actually
cares what you're wearing on a daily basis?” Jasmine asked, her attitude harsher than usual. “You act like you're some kind of celebrity and that cameras follow you around 24/7 or something. This isn't a fashion show, Hadley.”

Now I frowned.
Well, this isn't going the way I'd hoped
.

“I
know
it's not a fashion show, Jasmine,” I said. “But what can I say? Great clothes make me happy. I wake up every day and ask myself, ‘What should I wear on the runway of life?' And today I'm wearing power and fabulosity.”

“What you're wearing is ridiculous,” Jasmine said. Abby snorted beside her but kept her mouth zipped.

What crawled up her butt?

True, it wasn't unusual for Jasmine to be irritable. Hell, a guy had once asked her if she suffered from PMS year-round and she'd hit him. But this new attitude was something else entirely. Jasmine was being downright ornery, and it couldn't have just been because of what had happened the other day with Brooklyn.

“Whoa, harsh,” I said, staring at them. “What's up with you guys today?”

But before they could answer, a few loud claps rang out behind us, commanding our attention. Reluctantly, I turned to see the three counselors standing underneath the bright lights in the middle of the stage. They waited for us to quiet down, and when we finally did, Miss Peggy clapped again just in case we hadn't gotten her point the first few times.