Chapter Fourteen

Saturday dawned bright and clear. And cold. The thermometer read twenty-two degrees outside. For it to be cold this early was highly unusual in North Carolina. It never dropped below fifty until the middle of November, but this year the cold seemed to be setting in sooner than expected. My teeth chattered as I hopped from foot to foot on the cold tile of the bathroom floor after I stepped out of the hot shower. Why hadn't Mom or Dad turned the heat on? I glanced at my watch on the sink. It was only a little after seven. They were probably still sound asleep. Mom wouldn't crack an eye before eight on the weekends.

I had a lot to do today and I was also pretty sure I was running out of time. Dad's crazy ramblings of "you're almost eighteen" kept popping into my head. Did all of this, maybe even the curse, have something to do with my eighteenth birthday? Without Emily's Book of Shadows, I had zero chance of figuring it out. Well, almost zero. After admitting there was nowhere left to look for her book, I only had one option left. The other book. The one heavily guarded by wards and I knew zilch about wards.

I needed help.

The question was who could I trust?

Kay? I'd known her since the first day of kindergarten when Jeff had stolen my toy. Kay had pushed him down and kicked him as hard as she could. We'd been best friends since. I loved her like a sister, but every time I thought about telling her my theories, my stomach went into overdrive, twisting and heaving painfully. A warning.

Telling Kay was not a good idea, but not because she'd try and hurt me. At least I didn't think so. Emily had been specific in her diary. She wanted to keep me and Kay safe, to get us both away from here. No, my instincts warned me against confiding in her not because she was dangerous, but because knowing might put her in danger. Or at least I hoped so.

Then again, I could be completely wrong and she knew all about the curse and whatever danger it posed. I hated not knowing what was going on and not being able to trust anyone. It majorly sucked.

Ethan? Absolutely not. I accepted that I loved him despite my better judgment, but I wasn't without some common sense. At least not yet. Emily's mystery boy could very well be Ethan. The rational part of me understood that. He'd shown up out of nowhere and when Mom had heard his name, she'd looked like a kid on Christmas morning. Then the town had then started trying to write a truth spell-a spell my sister had suggested to begin with. My truth spell could have confirmed it, I thought darkly. A ghost? No, even she hadn't believed that. But could that have been what I'd seen that day in the diner? A ghost? The boy from her diary?

Ethan could be that boy.

But I hoped and prayed to the Fates he wasn't that boy. Ghost or not, I blamed that boy for everything that had happened three years ago. He'd appeared, the town had gone a little crazy, and my sister had died. He was the catalyst for everything that had happened. Emily had discovered some kind of hidden truth and it ended up getting her killed. Everything was his fault.

It couldn't be Ethan. Please don't be Ethan, I begged silently as I blow dried my hair.

Mom and Dad were both out of the question-neither seemed willing to tell me anything.

That left me with Billy and Jeff. Definitely not Billy. He was Kay's boyfriend, but I'd seen the glint in his eyes when we were talking about the truth spell. He was a Coven boy, born and bred. I couldn't trust him. But I might be able to trust Jeff. He'd warned me at the initiation that I shouldn't have come. He definitely knew something and I'd seen the same fear in his eyes I'd seen in Dad's. My stomach stayed quiet as I thought about confiding in Jeff. Score one for the home team. My instincts trusted Neighbor Boy.

I pulled on a UNC sweatshirt and pair of comfy jeans before heading next door. Megan answered the door still in her pajamas.

"CJ," she blinked. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see Jeff. Is he up yet?"

"Yeah, but he's still in the shower. Come on in." She moved back to let me in and I followed her into the kitchen. It smelled of eggs, bacon, homemade biscuits and grape jelly. Mmm. My stomach growled.

"Grab a plate, honey," Mrs. Parker laughed. "I can hear those hunger pains over here."

Megan looked a lot like her mother, I decided as I watched them. They both had flaxen colored hair and cornflower blue eyes. The eyes were the only thing Jeff inherited from his mother. He looked exactly like his father with curly brown hair and a face made for smiling.

"Thanks a bunch, Mrs. P. I haven't eaten yet." I grabbed a plate and piled it high with bacon and eggs. Megan threw me a couple biscuits and I was stuffing my face when Jeff finally came down.

"CJ?" He frowned and fixed himself a plate. "What are you doing here? I thought you weren't talking to me?"

"You so deserved that!" Megan glared at him. I winced. The entire town knew about our little falling out. Jeff and Billy suffered because Kay deemed they should. I totally agreed they should be on the outs, but they'd been punished long enough. I'd forgiven Ethan after all, and since I needed Jeff's help, I might as well extend the olive branch first.

"I decided to forgive you," I told him in between bites. "Besides, I can't let you fail Calculus, now can I?"

His eyes widened. Jeff knew something was up. He wasn't even close to failing Calc. The boy had the highest average in our class. He freakin killed the curve.

"You're having problems with math?" His father lowered the newspaper he'd been reading and stared at him in open disbelief. "Math is your best subject."

"Yeah, well, advanced Calculus is a bit harder than I thought it was going to be," he muttered and shoveled more eggs into his mouth.

"It's nice to be able to finally say I know something he doesn't when it comes to math," I smirked. Lying seemed to be getting easier and easier for me. Dang it.

"That's very nice of you, CJ, to try and help him," his mother told me.

"Hurry up," I told him and rinsed off my plate before setting it in the dishwasher. "I figured we'd go to the library. It's quiet there and no one will be up this early on a Saturday morning."

He nodded and put his own dishes away. I waited for him by the door while he grabbed his bookbag. His mom and I chatted about the Halloween competition. She was worried. Mom's scene of zombies attacking Santa Clause had her slightly alarmed. Mom, however, would be thrilled. I made a mental note to tell her when I got home.

"Come on, CJ." Jeff yanked on his coat and we left the house. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"To the tree house."

Dad had built the tree house for me and Emily when I was about six or seven. No one would overhear us there. It was a good ten minute walk from my house.

"What's up?" he asked once we were settled inside.

"I need answers and you're going to give them to me, Jeffrey Silas Parker." My voice came out harder than I intended, but I was still pretty pissed at him.

"Answers?"

"About what's going on with the Coven."

"CJ, you know I can't talk about the Coven. You're not a member."

"Don't give me that bullshit, Jeff. You owe me."

"I wasn't in on any of that," he snapped.

"No, but you made damned sure I found out about it in the worst possible way. Now what kind of friend does that make you?"

"A crappy one," he sighed. "I'm sorry, CJ. It was wrong, I know, but I just wanted you to see that Ethan's not the guy you think he is."

"Then who is he?" I demanded.

"What do you mean?"

I growled in frustration. "Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. Who is he?"

He looked out the window, refusing to answer.

"Dammit, Jeff..."

"Can't you just for once in your life trust me?"

Trust him? Everyone seemed to be telling me to trust them. Oddly, Jeff was the only one I did trust.

"I do, Jeff, that's why I'm here. No one else will tell me what's going on. I just want the truth. I thought you'd tell me that much."

"It's not that simple," he sighed. "There are things I can't say."

"Things about the curse?"

His head whipped around to face me and his eyes bulged with shocked surprise.

"They killed her, Jeff. The Coven killed Emily and it has something to do with that stupid curse. I need to find out why."

"No, CJ, you're wrong," he shook his head. "She was the Junior Coven leader. They wouldn't hurt her."

"They did. I found her diary. Her last entry said they were coming for her. She died that same night."

"But..."

"The night she died, she was so scared. I stayed with her while Mom and Dad talked to the doctors. I never told anyone, but she woke up for a few minutes. She said I was right, that it was a bunch of nonsense, but her eyes were full of fear. She made me promise not to go anywhere near the Coven."

"That's why you never came to any of the meetings?" he asked softly.

"I made a promise to her and now I have to break it. I have to find out why they killed her. It has to do with the curse and the boy she saw. Is that who Ethan is? The stranger that got the town all riled up before?"

"I wish I could tell you." He hung his head. "I can't."

"Yes, you can!" I shouted. "Please, I have to know why my sister died."

"The c-c-c..." His voice broke off and he made a horrible choking sound.

"Are you okay?" I asked, alarmed. He was starting to turn blue. It looked like something was choking the life out of him. I ran over to pound him on the back, but he waved me off. He stopped trying to talk and his face slowly turned back to its normal tan shade. Well, almost normal. He looked a little pasty.

"I can't!" he whispered hoarsely. "I want to tell you, but I can't! They made sure of it."

"Who? The Coven?"

He nodded.

Now how in the world...well crap. A binding spell.

"They bound your words?"

Again he could only nod.

I sat down, defeated, and lay back to stare up at the wood beams in the makeshift roof. I'd counted on Jeff being able to tell me the truth, but that idea had gone out the window faster than the handbags in a Vera Wang clearance sale. A binding spell literally wouldn't let him speak the words he'd been forbidden to voice. It'd kill him first. Emily had told me about those types of spells. She hated what they could do. He really couldn't tell me a damn thing.

Now what the hell was I supposed to do?

"I'm sorry, CJ," he said miserably. "If I could..."

"I know," I told him. And I knew he would tell me. He wanted to tell me about the curse, but he'd been forbidden. Wait, maybe... "Can you write it down on paper?"

"I don't know," he frowned and pulled out a notebook. He started to write. The paper flamed up in his hands and burned his fingers. "OUCH!"

"Okay, there goes plan B." The curse was off limits. No talking and no writing. Where did that leave me? The book. He might be able to say something about that if I didn't ask anything about the curse.

"Jeff, is there a book at the Hall protected by wards?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said and fell down beside me. "We're not supposed to go near it. Why?"

So maybe the binding spell was limited to the curse.

"Emily's diary said she'd found the answers in the book, but that it was heavily warded. I need to get my hands on it."

"Not gonna happen, CJ." He rolled over to face me. "No one can get near that thing, not even Kay."

"She's tried?" I asked, surprised.

"Of course she has," he snorted. "She almost set her hair on fire the last time she attempted to break the wards."

"Wards can do that?" I frowned. Not what I wanted to hear.

He sighed. "CJ, wards are dangerous. They can cause some really nasty stuff to happen."

It was my turn to sigh. I needed to play catch up fast. Where were the Cliff Notes version when you needed them? I propped myself up on one arm so I could look at him. "I have to get my hands on that book. Will you help me?"

He face blanched and stared at me in horror.

"Please, Jeff. I can't do it by myself and I don't trust anyone else to help me." It was wrong, I knew it was wrong, but I played on his feelings for me. Jeff liked me. A lot. It was so very wrong. "You're all I have. Please."

His face softened. "I can try."

"Thank you," I whispered. I was so going to hell for this.

He nodded and sat up, rubbing his hands together. "Damn, but it's cold."

"Yeah," I agreed. "I'm freezing. It's not like we can light a fire up here or something."

I felt a little shock of electricity filter through me and then the air warmed, bathing us both in its heat. I shot up into a sitting position. It wasn't just warm. I was warm. Toasty even.

"Damn," Jeff croaked.

My sentiments exactly.

"You haven't even gone through the Rite of Initiation to be tested by the Elements yet," Jeff shook his head, amazed. "They respond to you. They deemed you worthy without the test?"

I felt dizzy. I didn't want this. I wanted everything to go back to normal. But it wouldn't. I knew that deep down. I should have listened and ran from the initiation when my instincts told me to run. But I hadn't. Instead, I let the Elements in.

"I didn't do that!" I tried to deny the truth. "I didn't even call on an Element."

"You did, CJ. You said Fire. That's all it took."

Shit, shit, shit!

"CJ, how long has this been going on? Since the Elements greeted you at Meg's initiation?"

"A bit longer than that," I hedged.

"How long is a bit?"

"As long as I can remember," I told him sheepishly. I chanced a look at his face.

"Years?" he glared. "Years? Really?"

"I didn't know what it meant. I always explained it away. I never wanted any of this. I didn't believe in it."

"I know," he sighed. "You can't explain it away now, though, huh?"

"No."

"When was the first time you remembered something like this happening?" he asked curiously.

"Do you remember when we were six and we had that big black out?"

"Yeah," he grinned. "Billy was at my house. Screamed like a girl when the lights went out." He shot me a look. "No offense."

"Yeah, well I did scream like a girl," I laughed. "I was upstairs by myself. Dad yelled for me to stay where I was, he'd come get me. I remember stomping my foot and yelling that I wanted the lights to come back on right now and they...did."

"Oh, yeah, I remember that. Dad couldn't figure out how your house had lights when no one else's did. You guys didn't have a generator back then."

"Freaked Mom and Dad out to no end," I grinned. "Now I know why."

"Yeah, you're a freak of nature all right," he grinned.

"Hey!" I shoved him and laughed.

He smile faded. "You really like him don't you?"

"Yeah, I do," I admitted.

"Just be careful. Ethan is more than he seems. Don't trust him."

"I wish you could tell me why." I stood up and walked to the window. The woods spread out before me, their colors dimmed by the early morning fog. I didn't trust Ethan. I wanted to, so very much, but I didn't. I just wished I knew why.

"So do I, CJ, so do I," Jeff muttered behind me.

"Do you have anything I can read on beginning witchcraft?" I asked him at last. "I feel so behind. I need to know this stuff if I'm going to get through those wards."

"Yeah, you can borrow all my books. I'll even raid Mom and Dad's books, but I don't think you can get through them, CJ. I wish you wouldn't try. You could get yourself killed."

"I know," I told him. "So, can you take me to the Hall to get a look at this book?"

He looked violently alarmed.

"From a distance," I assured him. "I promise I won't try to get near it."

"That's...that's..."

"Are you going to tell me about the curse?"

"You know I can't," he growled.

"Then I need that book and it's going to require some recon work. Are you up for it, Double-O-Seven?"

"Don't you mean Neighbor Boy?" he quirked an eyebrow.

I looked at him nonplussed. Now how did he know about that?

"You think I don't know what you and Emily called me?" he laughed.

"But how?"

"You guys used to sit on your back porch and talk all the time. Your voices carried."

"You eavesdropped on us?" I screeched.

"Oh yeah," he nodded. "All the time."

"You...you...you..."

"Come on, let's get going," he laughed. "We should probably get to the Hall while it's still early. There won't be many people there and we stand a better chance of getting a look at the book. From a distance," he warned.

My lips pursed, but I followed him down the ladder. He was so going to pay for that.

But after I saw the book.