I tiptoe my way over to him, cover his eyes with my hands, and whisper, "Boo!"
He turns around and laughs, reaching out for me, and I step to the side as his fingers graze my arm. He lunges in my direction and slaps his hand across my b.u.t.t.
"Hey, watch it!"
"If I can"t see you, it"s not my fault if I grab something I"m not supposed to!" He reaches out and swipes the air inches in front of me. "But there"s something cool about kissing an invisible girl!"
I step back and a stick snaps under my foot. Connor jumps forward and wraps his arms around my waist. He leans in and his lips brush against my cheek.
I reveal myself, and halfheartedly push him away. "Who said anything about kissing? And what are you doing here anyway?"
Connor lets me go and steps back. The cold air rushes between us, and I wish I were still in his arms. "My mom kicked Margo and Z out because it"s a school night-that and she"s researching some spell." He gives me a crooked smile and my legs feel wobbly. "As for the kissing part-you started it. I just came by to see if you wanted to continue."
This time I let him take me in his arms. I tilt my chin up and his cool lips press into mine.
How many times have I dreamed about this? How many times have I been told it could never happen?
"We shouldn"t be doing this," I whisper.
"That"s part of the fun."
"What if my mom catches us-or your mother finds out?"
He leans in and kisses me again, his mouth lingering on my lower lip. "Since when do you care about the rules?"
I pull away from him and take a step back. "Is that why you"re here? Because you think out of all of us, I"d be the one who wouldn"t care about breaking the rules?"
He reaches out and takes my hand. "Jules, you know it"s always been you I liked-and after that kiss tonight I was pretty sure we were on the same page."
I want to believe him; I want it to be true. "But your mom-"
"My mom needs a wake-up call-you and I know things can"t stay the same forever."
A strong gust blows past us. "Come on." I lead Connor to my mom"s studio in the backyard.
I reach up for the key resting on the sill and open the door. The air inside is cold and smells like stale smoke. I take him to the couch facing the window overlooking the pond. Dozens of gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s hanging from the curtain rod glitter in the moonlight, and I hold my hand up to one. "Light,"
I whisper. My spell catches in the gla.s.s threads inside the ball, bathing us in a soft blue glow.
"Are you sure about this?" I ask.
Connor reaches out, pulls me down, and takes me in his arms. "I"ll fight for you if I have to." He buries his face into my neck and I breathe in his sandalwood cologne. Our legs wrap around each others, and every inch of my skin feels alive for the first time. Why have we let them keep us apart?
He kisses my ear-his teeth lingering on my earlobe. I press my hips into his and think the coven is long overdue for a change.
3.
I"m walking past the peach-colored lockers with a s.h.i.t-eating grin on my face. I usually cast a cloaking spell to keep me out of focus in the halls, but today I want everyone to see me-to see I"m different. Kids who usually ignore me, even when I"m out in the open, are shooting looks my way. I stare them in the eye and suppress the urge to say I was with Connor Keyes last night! A shiver runs up my spine just thinking about it-about him-and what we did.
Part of me is a little worried about facing Margo and Zahara-like they might figure it out just by looking at me. When I push through the doors to the quad and see them at our table in the far corner, I make a mental note to forget the feel of Connor"s bare skin on mine-to play it cool.
Margo spots me and waves. "Jules! Where have you been? Cla.s.s is gonna start in fifteen minutes."
I sit across from her, and hand over my Beowulf questions. "I"m guessing you were looking for these?"
"Yeah!" Margo says, s.n.a.t.c.hing my homework. She stares into my face and smiles. "You look like c.r.a.p."
"I love how you b.u.t.ter me up when you need to copy my work. I didn"t get much sleep last night, okay?" Because I was up hooking up with Connor.
"Tell me about it," Zahara says. "I never sleep well after killing wolves-I just lie in bed and keep picturing their faces changing-ugh."
"So, did you guys have fun at Connor"s?" I ask, trying not to smirk.
Margo looks up from her paper. "Totally!"
Zahara rolls her eyes. "Mrs. Keyes kicked us out after five minutes. She"s working on some spell to use with your mom"s witch b.a.l.l.s."
"What I meant," Margo says, "is we had a blast before we went over to his house. Connor was packing up the van and was telling us about this witch who visited his mom because she was interested in joining the coven-you know-total Wiccan-love-spell-magik with a k loser.
Apparently she almost fainted when Mrs. Keyes told her what we do! And-if you can believe it, Michael wasn"t in total dork mode. He was actually kind of funny."
"She"s right," Z adds. "And I think someone gave Michael the heads-up about the body odor problem. I could stand next to him without having to breathe through my mouth."
I notice Margo staring at something behind me, and turn. Dani"s walking with Evan Klein. I look back at Margo, and watch her upper lip draw into a sneer.
"You need to talk to Dani," she says.
"She was probably studying for her chem test with him. Nothing to get all twisted about."
Zahara takes a quick peek. "No, she"s right. Dani"s been hanging with him a lot, and we all know she"s got zero willpower. She"s so needy and starved for affection-can you imagine her saying no if he asks her out?"
"The point could be made," I say, "that we"re all starved for attention."
Margo narrows her eyes. "But Dani"s weak." She points a finger at Evan and blows on it.
"Gee, I feel a chill in the air. I hope Evan doesn"t slip on a patch of ice."
Evan trips and goes sprawling to the ground. The quad fills with snickers as a flutter of papers rains down on him.
"Oops!" Margo says.
"Was that necessary?" I ask.
Margo sighs. "Maybe not, but it was fun and it got her attention."
Dani"s staring at us as she helps Evan up. I brace myself in case she decides to throw a spell back our way, but she just scowls and starts picking up papers.
"What got whose attention?" Sascha asks, placing a tray on the table next to Margo. She flips her hair back and hands out coffees. I hold the cup in both hands to warm my fingers.
"Dani"s," Margo says. "She"s been spending a lot time with that dorky Evan, and I kind of tripped him up."
Sascha shakes her head, fanning her hair around her shoulders. "Save the spells for obnoxious cheerleaders. Dani knows guys are off-limits, and seeing as Mrs. Keyes scares the s.h.i.t out of her, I don"t think she"s going to do anything that would get her sent in for a talk."
"Unlike some people." Zahara turns to me.
"What?" I will my cheeks not to turn red, and meet Z"s dark brown eyes with what I hope is a combined look of innocence and ignorance.
"You and Connor were a little friendly last night."
"Did I miss something good?" Sascha asks, leaning in.
My cheeks flush, and I study the top of my coffee cup-if they only knew the half of it.
"No."
Zahara throws her head back and laughs. "Yes! Jules gave Connor one freaking monster of a good-night kiss-she practically stuck her tongue down his throat."
"I did not stick my tongue down his throat!" That you know about.
"I, for one, was embarra.s.sed for you," Margo says. "Unless you want the guys in the coven thinking you"re a tease?"
"All two of them?" Sascha asks.
"Margo, honey, you"re just mad you didn"t try it first," Zahara says.
Margo"s eyes go wide and I"m tempted to high-five Zahara. I hate to admit it, but part of me totally gets off when those two go at it-especially if it takes the attention off me.
"Unlike some people," Margo says, "I don"t have any desire to break the rules."
"You mean the rules designed to suck the fun out of our lives?" Sascha asks. She sits up straight and narrows her eyes. "A good hunter keeps her distance from non-coven people," she says with a touch of ice in her voice-doing a dead-on imitation of Mrs. Keyes.
"A good hunter keeps herself chaste," Z adds.
"A good hunter will explode from lack of contact with the opposite s.e.x," Sascha deadpans.
Margo shakes her head in disgust. "A good hunter will cut the c.r.a.p and do what she"s supposed to do."
"G.o.d, Margo," Zahara says. "Lighten up."
"You should talk!" she says. "The way you were grilling that wolf last night was a little much."
"Keep it down," Sascha says. "Besides, there are ways to get around the rules."
"Like what?" I ask, hoping whatever she says can help Connor and me.
"Well, we"re not supposed to mess around with coven guys, right? You know, until it"s time for the unnatural group birthing the coven has planned-but they never said we couldn"t fool around with guys from other covens. Remember the solstice gathering last June?"
Zahara smiles knowingly.
Margo looks back and forth between them. "Oh, my G.o.d! Did you two hook up?"
Sascha"s lips curl up ever so slightly. "Let"s just say that hotty from the Ma.s.sachusetts coven-Kyle, the one in the Hawaiian shirt-knows his way around in the dark."
"Guy with the black dreads," Zahara says. "Smokin" kisser, but I"ll be d.a.m.ned if I can remember his name."
They turn to me and I shrug. "Uh, I hung out with Dani and Michael that night-and seeing as it was, like, eighty degrees out, Michael"s stench kept most everyone away."
"OK, which one of you tripped Evan?"
Dani"s standing at the end of the table-she asked all of us the question, but her eyes are locked on Margo"s.
"It was just a joke," Margo says.
I move over so Dani can sit down. Sascha hands her a coffee.
"Well, it wasn"t funny. I have to pa.s.s this test and he was helping me until he fell. He had to go to the nurse for a bandage and an ice pack."
"Baby," Margo whispers.
"He ripped a hole in his pants and got blood all over the place!"
Margo shakes her head. "Sorry, I didn"t know you two were that close."
"We"re not! It was-uh, just for the test, you know?" Dani sputters. "And-and did you ever think we call more attention to ourselves by keeping to ourselves, instead of actually, like, talking to other people?"
Zahara opens her mouth to speak, but Sascha taps a finger to her lip-her signal that she thinks she has something important to say. "You know," she says, moving her finger to point at the rest of the quad, "Dani isn"t totally off base with this one."
Dani sits up straight, giving Margo an I-told-you-so smile.
"If you think about it," she continues, "the more we stay apart, the more we might elicit curiosity among some of our more inquisitive cla.s.smates."
"Like Evan"s friend, Finn," Zahara says. "He"s always checking us out. I keep wondering if he somehow knows what we are."
I nod, thinking about all the times I"ve cloaked myself in the halls-usually everyone flows around me-like they"re aware of something moving in the halls, but they don"t really see it. But a couple of times Finn has walked right up to me, and I had to swerve at the last second to avoid a collision. And I"ve caught him staring at Sascha before. She"s beautiful, so normally that wouldn"t be so strange, except most of the kids here do ignore us.
"And then on the opposite side of the spectrum," Sascha says, "we"ve got Brooke Brennan, who wouldn"t notice us if we flew into homeroom on our brooms." She takes a sip of coffee and then gives Margo a knowing look. "Let"s get back to boys! Margo, can you really tell us you"ve never let a guy cop a feel?"
Margo"s mouth drops open for a second, then she wrinkles her pointy nose. "No!"
Dani turns to me-eyebrows raised. "We"ve been discussing the no boys rule," I say, "and how you can get around it."
Dani blushes. "Uh."