Ominous

  “But my cell phone didn’t ring,” Amberly said, glancing toward her foot where she’d laid her phone on the floor.

  “No. It wouldn’t. Because we used the candles this time,” I said, feeling impatient.

  “So why didn’t my candle light?” Amberly asked, her bottom lip puffed out petulantly.

  “I don’t know,” I replied.

  “And mine’s barely doing anything,” Portia said, waving it around like a Fourth of July sparkler. “WTF?”

  “I don’t know,” I said again.

  “So what does it mean?” Kiki asked, her gaze intense. “Are we witches or not?”

  “Maybe we’re witches and they’re not,” London said, waving a finger at Tiffany and Amberly. “Because, you know, our candles lit and theirs didn’t.”

  “Or maybe the factory that makes the quote magically relighting candles unquote made a couple of defectives,” Tiffany shot back.

  “Tiff, we got the candles at Pottery Barn,” Noelle said flatly. “As far as I know, they don’t do trick candles.”

  “So what does that make me?” Portia said. “Some kind of weak-ass witch because my candle barely lit?”

  “Maybe you guys just aren’t believers,” Kiki blurted out.

  “You’ve got that right,” Tiffany retorted.

  Suddenly everyone was talking at once, throwing out theories, debating the reality of what they’d seen. I closed my eyes, the voices colliding and roiling inside of me, stretching my nerves to their breaking point.

  And then, suddenly, a whistle split the air. I opened my eyes to find Noelle standing there with her thumb and index finger stuck inside her mouth.

  “Everyone shut up!” she shouted.

  They did, of course.

  “Reed,” she said, turning to me, holding her candle casually at her side. “This is your baby. What do you suggest we do now?”

  I breathed in, counted to ten, then swallowed back my confusion, my excitement, my annoyance, and my fear—which was a mighty large pill to swallow. Everyone looked at me, hanging on my next words. I recalled Eliza’s torn diary pages in my head and knew exactly what we should do.

  “I think we should try out some of the basic spells.”

  “This is one of the first spells Eliza and her friends tried,” I said as we all gathered around the small round dining table near the bay window in Noelle’s living room. It was a spot where she liked to eat croissants and sip black coffee while reading the Style section of the New York Times and looking out over the park, or nurse a hangover with the blinds drawn, depending on the day. Ivy, Kiki, Constance, London, and I leaned into the table, while the others crammed in behind us. Tiffany was over by the wall, scrolling through photos on her camera, the picture of indifference. I wondered if she was really uninterested, or if she was just posing as such. But if this spell worked, she would be convinced. All of them would.

  If it worked.

  “Well? What are you waiting for?” London demanded, pressing her hands onto the surface of the polished table.

  I looked down at the ornate silver spoon we’d laid in the center of an old-fashioned doily. Was I really going to try to make the thing float? Suddenly I felt conspicuously unworthy, like the first time I’d played Grand Theft Auto with my brother’s friends and kept driving my car into pylons while they cackled at me.

  “Maybe Ivy should try it,” I said, taking a step back. “We already know you can move things with your mind.”

  “Allegedly,” Noelle snorted, fiddling with her hair.

  “Fine. I’ll try it,” Ivy said curtly.

  She stood so close to the table the edge made a dent in her plaid gabardine skirt. Her dark eyes squinted down at the spoon. I pressed my lips together and crossed my fingers at my sides.

  “Levitas,” Ivy said.

  The spoon jerked. Amberly screeched and covered her eyes. Someone else gasped. Tiffany shoved herself away from the wall, angling her chin up as if to see over Vienna’s and Noelle’s shoulders.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “It moved,” Amberly whimpered through her fingers. “The spoon moved.”

  “I thought it was supposed to float,” Kiki said.

  We all looked at Ivy. The spoon lay still, flat at the center of the doily. Her cheeks turned pink and she looked at the spoon again.

  “Levitas,” she said, more firmly this time.

  Again, the spoon jerked. It was now at an angle and clearly off center. Tiffany strolled over and peered down at it.

  “Please. One of you is shaking the table,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “I didn’t,” I said, raising my hands. I was standing a clear six inches away.

  “Me neither,” Kiki said.

  Everyone turned to London, who was still grasping the tabletop. “What?”

  Then she looked down at her fingers, clucked her tongue, and backed away, stuffing her hands under her arms. “It wasn’t me, I swear.”

  “Try it again,” Noelle ordered. Her hands were frozen, her fingers tangled near the ends of her hair.

  Ivy sucked in an audible breath, clearly annoyed, and took a step back from the table. No one was touching it now. “Levitas.”

  Nothing happened. My heart sank so low I thought I might never be able to hoist it back up.

  Tiffany laughed. “See?”

  I realized for the first time that I had truly expected the spell to work, and my face stung as if I’d just come in from a jog in the summer sun.

  “Why isn’t it floating?” Ivy asked through her teeth.

  “I don’t know,” I replied, touching my fingertips to my locket.

  The group around the table started to break up and I could practically feel the skepticism radiating off of them. Not to mention their annoyance at me for wasting their time, and their irritation at themselves for having been sucked in. Honestly, I didn’t blame them. I felt the same way. Except my feelings were directed at Eliza Williams and Mrs. Lange.

  “Wait,” Kiki said, grabbing the book of spells off one of the chairs where we’d left it. “Come on, you guys. Let’s just try something else.”

  “I think we’re done here,” Portia said, lifting her black leather bag onto her shoulder.

  “Guys, please don’t go,” I said. “I know you’re upset, but let’s try it again. Maybe we did something wrong. Maybe someone else should try it. It could be fun.”

  Amberly, who had more color in her face now that the experiment had failed, flipped her blond hair over her shoulder and tilted her head. “Since when is watching a spoon not move considered fun?”

  A few of the girls laughed, hiding their smiles behind their hands. Suddenly everyone was walking toward the door. I could hardly believe they wanted to give up that quickly—but then I suddenly realized what it meant. It meant that they didn’t actually want to believe. Not like Ivy, Kiki, and I did.

  Maybe Kiki was right. Maybe that was why it wasn’t working. What if all eleven members of the coven had to believe? If I took that theory and combined it with London’s idea, it meant that Tiffany, Amberly, and Portia hadn’t even believed enough to become witches during the incantation. And if the three of them weren’t witches, that would weaken the coven, too.

  “What are you thinking?” Ivy asked quietly.

  I blinked, really listened to my thoughts for the first time, and felt ill. I was going off the deep end.

  “Guys, just wait,” I said loudly.

  Thankfully, they all stopped. I grabbed for my messenger bag and pulled out a folder I’d stashed there before they’d arrived. I felt tired all of a sudden—beaten down.

  “Just in case any of you is interested, I made copies of the basic spells page on Mr. Lange’s copier,” I said, handing them out. “Practice them at home. You never know….”

  Tiffany snatched the page from my hand, folded it, and stuffed it into the side pocket of her camera bag without glancing at it. She walked out without another word. London took one and looked it ove
r, her expression serious. The rest came to me in a begrudging line, each of them taking her paper and tucking it safely away. I had no idea whether any of them would actually pull those pages out again, but how could they not? How could my friends not find this whole thing as intriguing as I did?

  “Thanks, Reed,” Kiki said, placing the book down and taking her homework page, as it were.

  “Yeah, sorry it didn’t work out like you wanted,” Constance added, her paper fluttering slightly as she took it.

  I looked at them both—the two who knew they were potentially in more danger than the rest of us—and swallowed back a warning that would probably only make them feel worse.

  “Thanks for humoring me, you guys,” I said.

  They closed the doors behind them and about a minute later, I heard a loud group laugh as they waited for the elevator. Humiliation burned in my very bones. My friends were out there laughing at me.

  “I don’t get it,” I said, turning to Noelle and Ivy.

  “I know.” Ivy flopped into one of the dining chairs, which we’d pushed off to the side, and slumped so low her hair hung down the back almost to the seat. “I swear I felt different after the first time we said the incantation. And I know I made that painting fall and those doors slam.”

  “Plus I didn’t start having the dreams until after I’d said it,” I added, leaning back against the table.

  “Do you think there’s something in what London said?” Ivy mused, folding her hands over her flat stomach. “Maybe it didn’t work on Tiff and Amberly because they didn’t believe in it, and maybe having two or three nonbelievers in the group weakened the incantation?”

  I stood up straight. “I was just thinking the same thing!”

  “You guys have completely gone off the reservation,” Noelle said.

  I flinched. I’d almost forgotten she was there.

  “I don’t believe any of this crap either, but my candle relit,” she said, gesturing toward the pile of singed-wicked candles on a side table. “This is all one big ridiculous joke.”

  Ivy and I looked at one another, stunned and annoyed.

  “But you said it yourself,” Ivy countered, sitting up straight. “We got those candles at Pottery Barn, so how do you explain the fact that, like, eight and a half of them blew out, then relit?”

  “I don’t know, Ivy,” Noelle said, throwing her hands up. “Maybe that gust of wind only squelched them for a second and then they came back. We’ve all seen that happen before. And maybe it hit Tiff’s, Amberly’s, and Portia’s more directly and that’s why theirs didn’t relight.”

  “So how do you explain the wind?” I asked.

  “This house is like a hundred years old,” Noelle said, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s always been drafty.”

  Ivy and I rolled our eyes in unison.

  “Whatever. I don’t care if you guys agree with me,” Noelle said. She grabbed the candles up in bunches and walked over to a thick metal garbage can near the door. “All I know is, your experiment didn’t work. And there are still a bunch of nutbars out there who believe in this curse thing.” She punctuated her points by throwing the candles into the can with a clang, one by one. “So if you don’t mind, I’d like to focus our time and energy on finding out who those people are, and stopping them.”

  She slapped her hands together.

  “Because when I find them,” she said, “I am going to take absolute pleasure in personally kicking every one of their crazy little asses.”

  Then she turned around and flounced over to her bathroom, slamming the door behind her. A moment later we heard the bath running and the stereo flick on.

  Ivy sighed and pushed herself up out of her chair. “Is it lame that I really thought it was going to work?” she asked.

  My eyes darted to the offending spoon. “No,” I said weakly, sadly. “I wanted it to work too.”

  “Happy birthday, dear Reed! Happy birthday to you!”

  I looked around the dining room at all my friends, my heart warm. I couldn’t believe they’d all come out to Croton just for me, but there they were, gathered in my family’s dining room, singing their hearts out with glee. My mother placed the birthday cake down in front of me, candles ablaze. I looked up at her before making my wish, knowing she’d be smiling back at me with pride. But then my heart stopped. It wasn’t my mother at all, but a black-robed figure, its face hidden by a huge black hood. I gasped and looked around.

  Noelle placed a paper noisemaker between her lips and blew. Sawyer Hathaway and Upton Giles exchanged party hats. Thomas Pearson laughed and slapped Dash McCafferty’s shoulder as he doubled over. Over in the corner, Astrid, Lorna, Kiki, and Constance danced while London and Vienna checked out my huge pile of gifts. None of them seemed to see the dozens of black-robed figures dotted among them, stiff as corpses in all the merriment and chaos.

  “Blow out your candles, Reed,” a gravelly voice said in my ear.

  I looked up at the creature who stood where my mother should have been. The heat from the candles blazed unbearably hot and my vision wavered. All the colors blurred around me. The balloons and streamers, the brightly hued dresses and crazily wrapped gifts—all of it faded together just as the voices and laughter swelled. This was too much. I was going to pass out.

  Take a breath, Reed. Focus. They’re here for a reason. They’re going to hurt someone else.

  I forced myself to stand and took a lurching step forward. Instantly I tripped over something solid and Thomas caught me by the arm.

  “Watch out, new girl,” he said, his blue eyes sparkling mischievously.

  “Have a nice trip?” Gage put in, earning a round of laughter.

  “Sorry, I—” I looked down and screamed. At my feet was a dead body. A girl, her face hidden beneath the bright paper tablecloth.

  I turned around to run and tripped again. Another body. Another hidden face.

  “No!” I screamed, clutching the first arm I could grab onto. “No!”

  “What’s your problem, Glass-Licker?” Ariana sneered down at me.

  My heart clenched. I backed away from her and this time tripped backward, falling down hard. My hand came down on someone’s torso. When I lifted it again, my fingers were coated in blood.

  “No!” I screamed. “No! Someone help me!”

  I reached up to my friends, but they didn’t hear. Portia and Rose walked by me, stepping over dead limbs like they weren’t there. Tiffany shouted something unintelligible and everyone laughed. My heart pounded frantically in my ears. Why couldn’t anyone hear me? Why couldn’t they see? The floor was covered with dead girls and all they could do was stand there and laugh?

  “Help me! Somebody! Please, please, help me!”

  Suddenly someone grabbed me by the shoulders and whirled me around. The person opened desiccated lips and screeched, “You don’t belong!”

  I sat up in bed, screaming loudly enough to wake the dead. Noelle grabbed my hand just as Ginny, Goran, and Sam banged into the room, guns drawn. I cowered back toward the headboard and curled into a ball, attempting to catch my breath.

  “What is it? What happened?” Ginny asked, holstering her weapon as she crossed to the bed. All I could do in response was whimper as the other two guards took off in opposite directions to check the other rooms.

  “It was just a dream,” Noelle answered for me. She ran a hand over my sweaty hair. “Reed? What happened? What did you dream about?”

  I shook my head, squeezing my eyes closed in an attempt to blot out the images. But closing my eyes only made the memories more vivid.

  “Was it Kiki? Constance?” Noelle pressed.

  “No,” I blurted, opening my eyes again. “It was … I don’t know what happened. All I know was it was my birthday … and there were dead bodies everywhere.”

  Noelle’s mouth set in a tight line. She looked at Ginny as she continued to stroke my hair.

  “It’s gonna be all right,” Ginny said reassuringly. “We’ve got t
he party covered. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  I nodded and let Noelle wrap her arms around me. Unfortunately, after everything that had happened, Ginny’s words meant nothing to me. It had been a vivid, powerful nightmare. And lately, all my nightmares had been coming true.

  Since first arriving at Easton last year, I had attended some elaborate parties. Birthday celebrations on yachts, fund-raising parties at swank New York City locales, clambakes in Nantucket where the most basic thing on the menu was barbecued lobster meat in sweet-cream butter sauce. Not to mention the Legacy soirees—huge events with elaborate settings, attended by the most overly indulged, ridiculously privileged, stunningly beautiful kids on the Eastern Seaboard. But my seventeenth birthday party blew them all out of the water.

  If I hadn’t been so distracted trying to keep an eye on all my friends, I would’ve been having the time of my life.

  The Lange mansion had three huge party-appropriate rooms on its ground level. First there was the grand foyer, with its marble floor, winding staircase, and two-story ceiling. Then there was the ballroom, which had literally hosted balls at some point in its history, and could therefore adequately hold upward of two hundred guests. Finally, there was the dining room, which boasted fireplaces at both ends and normally held a gleaming oak table long enough to seat forty people comfortably.

  Tonight that table had been removed and replaced by several cozy seating sections for people to lounge on while they noshed on seafood skewers and swigged five-hundred-dollar champagne. Colorful bubbles floated across the ceiling, and the sound of waves was being piped at a subtle level through dozens of hidden speakers. On the low tables at the center of each seating section were the aquarium centerpieces Noelle had promised, and along the walls stood elaborate arrangements of coral and sea anemones, which had somehow been animated to sway lazily, as if they were actually growing from the bottom of the ocean. The ballroom was set up for dancing, with colorful mesh eels dangling from the ceiling, undulating eerily and flashing different hues to the beat of the music the DJ was spinning from his booth. The walls had been papered with light blue and aqua green swaths of fabric, which heaved like waves, and actual sand dunes lined the walls.