“You picked a friend you knew was mean. You helped with the curse. That can’t be undone. But you could expose what’s going on with Carm and Jessa. Think about it.”
Angie wished Mud would hurry up with the Internet search and her sister’s deep dive. Her own cell phone time started just after Mud’s, which didn’t give them long to fix things before Blythe was picked up by her mother.
They had to act fast, and if she used magic, it had to be sneaky magic. But she didn’t trust Blythe at all. Worse, Dr. Jenkins might be trying to get her to show her magic, too. Angie heaved a perfectly believable sigh, held up a strand of her puke green hair, and said, “I think we’re doomed.”
Blythe shot her a disbelieving look and again burst into tears.
???
“So, to sum it up,” Mud said, “Nell and your uncle think three of the camp’s board of directors,” she took a breath and read from a scrap of paper, “Meagan Cassowary, Rachel Ravencroft, and Ermaline Cornwall are looking for strong witches to use for some working they’re doing the maths for. Somebody strong but easily controllable. Like you.”
Angie wasn’t easily controllable. They’d have to drug her or hurt her really bad to make her turn over her magic to a circle or coven not her own.
Mud was still talking and Angie pulled her attention back before she missed anything important.
“The board members are now ‘subjects of interest’ to PsyLED and they pulled in the head guy who does security for the queen. He has dossiers on all of them, and he sent them to PsyLED.”
By the time Mud was finished with her two-sentence summation, Angie’s head was hanging. She took a breath that quivered on tears and asked, “The guy who does security for the Dark Queen. Was his name Alex?”
“Yeah. Why? Ah, dagnabbit. Why are you’un upset? What did I do?”
One of the queen’s guards once told Angie, “Pull up your big girl panties and do what has to be done.” She shoved back her puke green hair and said, “Nothing you could have avoided. It isn’t anyone’s fault. It’s just that Mama and Daddy now know about our . . . predicament. And my cell phone time, which starts right now, is gonna suck.”
And it did.
???
Angie’s shadow was an oval around her feet, and there was no doubt that her intent to do harm had taken root. She stood in the afternoon sun, watching the small, yellowish, featherlike filament of anger and vengeance as it danced around her, calling for attention.
The day they turned her hair puke green, Mud had asked if she wanted to kill the girls who did it, and Angie hadn’t said no. Instead, she had made a joke.
It was easy to hate. It was easy to want to get back at people for being mean and petty. But one of the family secrets was the death magic that her mother controlled, by force of will and determination—barring a few instances when Mama killed plants. Whole hillsides of plants.
Angie now understood how hard it must be to not use power that was so freely available. She had to get rid of the intent, the desire to get back at people. Like, now.
Angie had convinced her parents during cell phone hour that she needed to handle the problem, that no good person could simply walk away and pretend that nothing bad was going on at the camp. She claimed that she knew, with her precog, that if they simply pulled her out of the school, other young witches would get hurt. It was only a little lie. Mama and Daddy weren’t happy but they had helped her create a plan. But before she could implement it, Angie had to kill the intent and separate it from the normal shadow pooling around her.
Careful to make sure that no one was watching her, Angie took the path toward the greenhouse and, the moment she could, initiated anobfuscationworking. She slipped inside the plastic-walled building and pulled a rickety chair into the center aisle, near the black marble sculpture of the bunny, that had Carm’s and Jessa’s magic all over it. Its ears were much longer than the first time she saw it. The earth magic girls hadbeen practicing successfully with stone magic. That was bad, but probably good to know.
Amidst the greenery, Angie sat on the chair, which wobbled on one short leg. Her position was difficult to see, but not impossible. It was too warm, the large fan in the back not keeping up with the midafternoon sun, and she was sweating, her clothes damp. She could have activated the greenhouse’scoolingworking, but that would be too obvious that someone was hiding out. Angie closed her eyes and concentrated on her intent to do harm, remembering Blythe’s anguish and her shame at getting caught.
Her magic rose up inside her, a prism of colors she could see with her mind, brighter motes of light dancing in the energy like holiday sparklers. The filament of intent writhed at the bottom, a darker thread, and if the color yellow could have a shadow, it would look like this, a venomous snake. Angie breathed out. In. With her mind, she took a grip on the energy and blew on it, willing it to soften, to dissolve from dark magic into something else. Something lighter. Slowly, too slowly, it transformed, relaxed, and a pale light filtered up, bleeding into the rainbow of her regular magic. The yellowed shadow of darkness vanished.
Angie prepared to turn her puke green hair back into her strawberry blonde curls, twisting the transformed curse into her own, now serene, magic. She reached with her mind for the puke-green-hair curse.
“Well, well, well. That was a pretty bit of magic.”
Angie didn’t flinch. Didn’t stop breathing. Eyes still closed, she said, “Good afternoon, Dr. Jenkins,” and dropped the working that been intended to help her hide.
The woman was standing directly in front of her. Angie stared at Dr. Jenkins’ feet, long, narrow, and buckled into shoes her mom called Mary Jane’s. Uncomfortable-looking,shiny patent leather. “What was that working?” Dr. Jenkins demanded.
Her eyes still on the administrator’s feet, Angie said, “Anobfuscationworking.”
“Don’t mock me, you little twit. The other thing you were doing.”
“It’s called meditation. I’m told it helps quiet the mind—”
The slap slammed her back against the chair. It rocked and creaked and tilted to the side. Tears filling her eyes, her cheek stinging, Angie righted herself against the greenhouse table, steadying the rock bunny with both hands as she found her feet. Her magic looped around the bunny’s ears. She blinked hard and two tears fell as she tried to focus on the administrator. Her cheek was on fire and she touched it to make sure she hadn’t been burned. “Why did you slap me?”
