She nods slowly, as if to say,“I am aware, yes.”
“What if we are actually capping its potential by only using it for benign shit, like little summoning spells and illusion spells and healing our zits? What if we could do more with it? Like, moregood.” I emphasize the last word to make my point.
She’s nodding quicker now, clearly thinking, and I’m starting to feel warm, loose. Possibility is taking root. If Joey understands, if she gets it, then my conflicting feelings might dissipate.
“But we can only do the spells that the trees write for us in the book,” she says, ever practical. “And there are only a few of those. That’s how it works.” She leans over to stretch the other leg.
“Okay, but hypothetically.” My hope is starting to ebb away.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I’ve just been thinking about it. Like, don’t you think we have a responsibility to do more? We have access tomagic, Joey.” I know I sound imploring now, maybe even desperate.
She looks like I just told her I wanted to take a trip to the moon. “I think we have a responsibility to follow the rules,” she says. “To keep the magic safe.”
We fall silent then, the rapids widening between us, almost uncrossable already.
A noise comes from the front of the house. Voices. They’re hushed. Distantly, the front door opens and closes. Joey and I hold each other in a suspended look.
And then, Elena and Sophie burst into the room. “Hey, hey,” says Elena. “I brought a movie and a bottle of Smirnoff.”
Joey and I break our eye contact, and the moment snaps.
“Shh,” I say as I hurry behind Elena to close the door. “My mom is home.”
“We know,” says Sophie, who holds out a plate of homemade whoopie pies. “She gave us these.”
Elena plops a DVD on the bed.Shutter Island. “Love me some Leo.”
“Isn’t that one supposed to be scary?” asks Sophie. She places the cookies in the middle of the bed.
“You’re a witch, Soph. And you’re afraid of a movie?” Elena takes a cookie and licks the marshmallow fluff from the center, then puts the cookie bits back on the plate. Her smile is devilish.
“The Witches of Whisper Ridge. I’d watch that,” says Joey, clearly unfazed by our earlier conversation. She pops an entire whoopie pie into her mouth.
“We could watchPlanet Earth?” I say.
I can see on Sophie’s face that she likes this suggestion.
“Boo,” says Elena.
“It’s fine,” concedes Sophie. “I’ll probably just fall asleep anyway.”
“I knew you’d come around,” Elena says. “You always do.”
Sophie gives her a look like “ha-ha,” but I’m not sure she finds the jab entirely funny.
Satisfied, Elena pulls out the vodka. The top is off in a second, and she takes a swig. She passes it to Joey, who sips once. Sophie pours too much into her mouth, which makes her cough and pull a face. I’m last. The smell reminds me of my dad. I put it to my lips and pretend to take a sip, just for appearances. I can tell Joey notices, but she doesn’t say anything. She just grabs the blue Gatorade from the side table and pours vodka into it, passing it around like we’ve done a hundred times before. When it gets to me, I skip that too.
***
Whenever we watch movies, Sophie is always the first one asleep. When I look up from my spot on the floor, she’s on her side, facing away from the TV, fully committed. Joey and Elena share a single pillow, their eyes closed too. I look past the credits flickering black and white on the screen, toward the open window. The clouds must have moved away from the moon because the trees beyond my yard look skeletal in the moonlight.
Silently, I pull on my socks and a sweatshirt. Then, I tiptoe to the nightstand. The cookie plate is speckled with black crumbs. The empty Gatorade bottle sits discarded on top of it. I close the cap to stifle the stench of alcohol. Then, I quietly tug at the drawer underneath. It slides out easily. Even with just the flickering TV light, I can see the rough edges of the book clearly. I take it in my hand. There’s something about the feel of it that’s different tonight. It’s warm to the touch. I know it’s just my imagination, though, because I want there to be some sign, some physical proof that what I am wondering about could exist.
On my bed, Joey, Elena, and Sophie are cuddled into each other like cats. I hesitate at the door.
But the pull is too strong, and within a minute I’m tugging on my hiking boots, shrugging on my coat, and slipping silently into the night.
