The Witch Is Back (6 page)

“Be there in a minute, Eve!” she yelled back, without letting her eyes drift from us. “Well, my friends are waiting for me. Let's catch up later?”

She was looking straight at Asher as she said this. Then she turned abruptly and strutted off, leaving everyone in the room staring after her as she went. Including myself.

“She's a cheery one, isn't she?” I said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. Then I turned back to Asher. “Old friends?”

True, I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it from him. Would he admit how he knew her? Try to downplay their involvement? Given his track record of lying to me in the past, I couldn't help but wonder how easy it would be for him to fall back into it. Guys held back on telling the truth all the time, mostly to avoid an uncomfortable conversation with the girls questioning them. Asher wasn't like other guys, but it was still possible this was just a part of his male DNA, and he wouldn't be able to help himself.

“We used to date,” Asher said simply.

I stared at him, unable to decide if I was happy that he'd told me the truth or upset that he didn't feel guiltier over having obviously just shared a moment with his ex. With me standing right there. So, I didn't say anything.

Abby looked from me to Asher and then back to me. “Well, that wasn't awkward at all,” she said, breaking up the moment. Bending down to retrieve her book, she began to back away slowly. “I'm just going to . . . go find our room.”

She'd only made it a few steps before I told her to wait up. Then I gave Asher the only smile I could muster before turning and walking away.

“Hello?” I called into the room with a big 3C on the door. It was the number we'd been assigned, but when we'd arrived in front of it, the door was cracked open about an inch and I could hear shuffling inside. And I didn't want to just barge in if our new roommate was changing or something so I made our presence known.

“It's open!” a voice called out from behind the door.

I looked at Abby, who simply shrugged before leading the way inside.

Nothing could've prepared me for what I saw on the other side of the door. As soon as my eyes settled on the scene in front of me, I gasped and dropped my iced coffee onto the ground, the liquid splashing all over my legs and shoes.

“I know, right?” a high-pitched girl's voice said.

It was like walking into another universe.

First off, the room itself had to have been at least four times the size of my bedroom, way bigger than what should've fit into the cabin I'd seen from the outside. Not that the cabin was small by any means—it was definitely resort-big—but there was no way that the room we were standing in could fit into
that
house. Especially not when you multiplied it by about twenty, which was the amount of rooms the place had in order to house everybody at camp.

No, the cabin had definitely been magically manipulated to appear smaller than it actually was. From the outside, at least. As I looked around, I remembered what Miss Peggy had said about Brighton being a total magic zone and realized it was true. A person's imagination can run wild when not constrained by human boundaries. Brighton reflected this for sure.

“This is all
ours
?” I asked, stepping over the mess I'd made on the floor and walking farther into the room.

“It certainly appears that way,” the girl said from across the room. Then she gestured to me. “My face looked like that when I first got here, too. The rooms change every year, so I was just as surprised as you were to see what we'd ended up with. Hi, I'm Colette.”

She skipped over to where Abby and I were now standing and held out her hand. I took it and returned her smile. Colette was really cute—in a geek chic sort of way. Her light brown hair was tied up in loose braids and her black-rimmed, angularly square glasses were a size too big for her face. But on her it wasn't too much. Her lips were the color of strawberries, which made the freckles that decorated her cheeks stand out even more.

Colette's outfit was just as quirky as she was. Her white shirt displayed a brightly drawn cat that was wearing a pink bow near its ear and glasses similar to Colette's own. The shirt read
LOVE MY STYLE
. She topped the look off with mid-thigh black shorts and a pair of pink and black Mary Janes.

She looked like a walking, talking anime character—and I had to admit, she was totally owning it. I respected a girl's right to choose her look as long as she wore it with pride and it was a true reflection of her. None of that, “I'm creating this freaky public persona, when in reality I have no idea who I am” BS. When a person was being one hundred percent authentic it oozed out of every pore. And from what I could tell, Colette was the real deal.

“I'm Hadley, and this is Abby,” I said in response. “And I guess we're your new roomies. Speaking of, can we get back to how
insane
this room is?”

I continued my own personal tour around our new digs and kept finding one incredible thing after another. The area was split into four main parts. Each of the three walls across from the front door held a sleeping area, complete with dressers and lamps and freestanding closets. All usual staples for a living space. But in the middle of the room, there was a grand circular couch that held no openings except for the hole in its center, which was almost completely filled with a round coffee table. The only way to the couch's seats was to go up and over the side.

I ran my hand over the surface of the couch and felt the softness of the velvet brush against my skin. It was delectable and totally unusual.

“Watch this,” Colette said and climbed over, landing awkwardly on the fluffy cushions. Leaning forward, she placed her hands on the top of the round, glass-covered table. “Show me Grumpy Cat,” she commanded the table.

We watched in awe as the previously clear surface grew murky and an image began to appear across the glass. Seconds later, we were all staring at a pop-up version of a mad-looking fluffy cat.

“What the heck?” Abby said, leaning over the back of the couch to get a closer look.

“What is it?” I asked, curiously.

“It's this cat that's always grumpy. He's a meme that's become like, one of the most famous cats on the Internet,” Colette said, grinning back at us.

“I meant the table,” I said, chuckling at her enthusiasm over a cat. “How does it work?”

“Oh, sure. Right,” she said, suddenly embarrassed. “Well, it acts sort of like a computer. Like if you want to find something—pictures, videos, sites, information on things—you can just ask for it and it appears. Only, in 3D and without glasses.”

“Can you see people around the world?” Abby asked, as if she were reading my mind. The tool could come in handy if I wanted to check up on the Parrishables.

Or on Asher.

Not like I was planning on eavesdropping or anything . . . well, okay, who am I kidding? I wanted to eavesdrop. And apparently Abby had the same idea. Only, I wondered who it was she planned to spy on.

“Already tried it,” Colette said, adjusting her glasses smartly. “And no. There's no live feed. At least as far as I can tell.”

“Oh,” Abby said, and grew quiet again.

“I hope you guys don't mind, but I took the bed on the right, because, well—I have to wake up on the right side of the bed,” Colette said as if this was a logical explanation.

“Fine with me,” I said. Tilting my head toward the area that our new roommate had claimed, I checked out what she'd done with the place.

As much as I liked the girl, it was like a rainbow had thrown up on her side. The wall was covered with dozens of bright-yellow and lime-green circles in all different sizes. Her bedspread was hot pink, with a sort of glittery topcoat that glistened as you moved around the room. The pillows were a vibrant blue. Her dressers were deep purple and trimmed with gold. Oversize framed pictures of bright flowers decorated the wall and seemed to disappear behind her bed.

The two areas for Abby and me were completely white.

White walls, white sheets and comforter, white dresser and closet. It almost looked sterile with the total lack of color. Definitely not my idea of an inviting place to stay day in and day out.

“I didn't realize we were supposed to bring our own stuff to decorate,” I said, pulling my bags over to the bed that was opposite the front door. It held a big rectangular window and looked like it had the best natural light.

Good lighting, after all, was a girl's best friend.

“Oh, you weren't,” Colette said. “That's the other cool part.”

Colette pranced over to my bed and waved her hand over the top of it while closing her eyes lightly. As her hand moved over the comforter, the bed cover began to change colors, shifting until it showed four Andy Warhol–looking photos of Marilyn Monroe.

Opening her eyes again, Colette clapped her hands together excitedly. “See? You just think about what design you want and it appears. The whole room's enchanted so we can personalize our living space. You can change your walls”—she walked over to the space behind my bed and it became textured and orange—“and the pictures”—a touch of one of the frames and the picture inside changed to abstract art—“and even the furniture.”

“That's sick!” I said stepping forward and surveying my now-colorful area. “Although this isn't exactly my style. No offense.”

“None taken,” Colette answered.

I waved my hand over the different parts of my room and within seconds, the bed had turned candy-apple red, the walls changed to black and white stripes, and my furniture turned black with feathers and crystals as accents.

“Wicked,” Colette said, nodding her head in approval.

I turned around to see Abby pimping out her side too, having chosen an interesting jungle-theme for her wallpaper and a baby-blue bedspread. Not at all what I'd have expected from her, though it pretty much proved how desperately we needed to spend more time together. Clearly I still didn't know Asher's little sister at all.

“There's more. Sit down on your beds,” Colette commanded, sitting down on hers and motioning for us to do the same. With a glance at Abby, who was following along without argument, we both lowered ourselves onto the squishy mattresses. As I pulled my legs up from the floor to sit cross-legged, I began to feel something weird.

It was like the bed was vibrating.

No, not vibrating.
Moving
.

Then, as I watched, all three of our beds began to rise off the floor. They continued to float into the air until we were just a foot away from hitting our heads on the ceiling.

“Whoa,” I said, already wondering how we were going to get down.

“It's like a magic carpet ride,” Abby said, leaning forward and clinging to the blankets tightly.

“Yeah, pretty sweet, huh?” Colette said. “I could just hang out up here all day, passing the time away.”

The three of us lay back on our respective beds and took everything in. I placed my arms behind my head and stared at the ceiling in silence for a few moments.

“I can't believe this is our room,” I said quietly, feeling truly content for the first time since we'd arrived. But then my mind drifted back to Asher and what I'd witnessed between him and
Brooklyn
in the lobby earlier and felt myself getting worked up again.

I had to try to get more information on her. It seemed like Asher had been genuinely surprised to see her, which meant that they obviously hadn't kept in touch. This was a plus at least, but there was still that hug between them. It was oddly intimate and I wondered if it would've gone on longer had dozens of people not been around to witness it.

I admit, it was slightly irrational to be upset with either of them for just saying hello. Neither of them was crossing any lines, after all. But I also felt strangely justified in my anger and frustration.

What had happened between them?

I wanted to grill Abby about it, but didn't feel comfortable doing it in front of Colette. And if I was being honest, I was hesitant to bring the topic up to Asher's sister at all. The last thing I wanted her to think was that I was actually jealous of some Barbie-looking girl and was capable of snooping for information on her brother.

Even if it was true. About the snooping, I mean. Not the jealousy. Because Hadley Bishop did not do jealous.

At least I didn't
think
I did. Was that what this was? Jealousy? I wouldn't have known from experience, because this situation with Asher was a first for me.

See, there'd only ever really been one other guy that I'd cared about—and in the end, ours was less of a relationship and more of a mistake. One that I'd learned from at the expense of my heart.

Before Asher, there was Kent.

I met Kent my freshman year and fell for him right away. Hard. He was this upperclassman, soccer stud, and the biggest draw of all: he was human. So when he noticed me cheering on the sidelines at one of his games, I just about died from excitement. It didn't take long for him to ask me out, and we spent several weeks going to movies, hanging out in coffee shops, and walking around town.