Amber swallowed hard as she met my eyes.
“I’m sorry, it’s just that they told me so many times how important it was to keep everything quiet. Marica—that’s Ms. Lacusta—she said it was very dangerous to tell anyone what happened when we met.”
“Wait.” Marly held up one finger, her eyebrows pulled together over astounded eyes. “Ms. Lacusta—a teacher is involved in this?”
Amber’s eyes slid to me. “I thought you would know that.”
“I suspected. Nell seems to be a little, um, obsessed with our Chemistry teacher,” I explained to Luke and Marly.
“Okay. Hmm. Go on, Amber,” Marly nodded.
I could tell that it was extremely difficult for Amber to share all of this with us. The rule of secrecy must have been pounded into all of them, both by Nell and Ms. Lacusta. But Amber was beginning to trust us—that much I could feel—and trusting us made it all easier.
“It was right after school began. Maybe the second or third week—I don’t know. It was just the same for me—I hated school, I hated being there. And then one day I was at my locker, and Nell came over to talk with me. I was—shocked, and kind of suspicious. She’d been leaving me alone since we left junior high. I really just wanted to get through the rest of high school without more problems. You remember how it used to be.” Amber pointed at Michael.
He nodded at her. “I do. Nell made your life miserable.”
“Yeah. And so I didn’t really trust anything she said or did. Even though she was very nice to me that day at my locker—and she kept on being nice, I didn’t want anything to do with her. She invited me to eat with her friends at lunch, but I figured that was the trap—you know, I’d go there, and then they’d all pretend Nell hasn’t asked me and use it to make fun of me.
“So then one day, Nell showed up at my house after school. She was standing there on the porch, and when I answered the door, she said she needed to talk to me. I still didn’t trust her, especially because my mom wasn’t home, and I didn’t want her in the house with me alone. So I went out onto the porch and just stood there, and Nell—she apologized. For everything. She told me that when she was younger, she never knew how much her actions had hurt other people. And she said she wanted to be my friend.”
Amber paused, lost in thought. “I didn’t want to believe her. It was easier to go on hating her. But she said that she’d really changed, that she had—I remember clearly how she put it, she’d found a new way. And it required her to make amends where she had left hurt. I thought she meant she’d found religion, and when I asked her, she laughed. Not a mean laugh, like before, but real, genuine. She said, no, it wasn’t precisely religion. She’d tell me more about it later, but she wanted to make sure we could be friends.
“So that’s when I started hanging around with her at school, eating lunch with her friends—and we’d even do things after school. It was—” she drew in a deep breath, and even now, after all that had happened tonight, her eyes were bright, remembering, “—the best time. For the first time in so long, I had friends.”
She turned pleading eyes on me. “So you understand, Tasmyn, right? You know what it’s like to be lonely. We talked that day in English, and you said you knew what it was like. And then to suddenly have friends—the world opened up to me. I didn’t hate school anymore. I started to do better in my classes. It was what I dreamed high school could be.
“I knew that they were all involved in some kind of club. There were days when they met after school, and I knew there were things they weren’t telling me. But they weren’t mean about it.
“Then one day Nell asked me if I wanted to join their chemistry club. She said Ms. Lacusta had started it up last spring, when she first got here, and they were learning so much. I wasn’t much into Chemistry; I barely passed the class freshman year. But Nell said it wasn’t like that. She convinced me to try it, and she was right. It wasn’t like any class I’d ever taken.”
Amber stopped again. We were getting into the more intense part of her story, and I knew it would be difficult for her.
“Ms. Lacusta—she told us that Chemistry was so much more than just formulas and test tubes. She told us there was real power in it. I remember that. Real power. And the other girls, they were so enthusiastic about it all. It was easy to get caught up.
“Nell told me that they were meeting one night. She told me that Casey would pick me up, because she had to go early to talk with Marica—outside school, Ms. Lacusta wanted us to call her by her first name—and we were meeting in the woods. I was a little spooked, but more than that, I needed to keep these friends.
“So Casey and I got there—it was where we were tonight, the clearing near Lake Rosu. And I saw that the girls were different. Everyone was in a circle, and they were wearing dark robes. Nell gave me one, and I joined the circle. I was scared, sure, but I was also kind of excited.
“Nell drew the circle—that was the first time I saw her with the athame. And then they all started chanting—not in English, and I didn’t know what it was at first, but Nell told me later it was Romanian. She said it was something Marica had taught them. After the chant, in the middle of the circle, Nell started a fire. I don’t know how she did it—I didn’t see matches or anything—but suddenly there was a fire there. And Marica handed her a pot that she hung over the fire. They chanted some more, then Marica stood up. She told us that what was in the pot was what we’d been working on in Chem. club that week, and that it was a potion that would make us more powerful.
“She said something else in Romanian over the pot, and then she scooped some out. We all had to dip our fingers in it, then touch it to our lips. I was scared—I kept thinking that I had no idea what she was giving us. So I didn’t actually touch it. It was dark, and I figured no one was really going to notice.”
Amber took a long drink of her tea and closed her eyes over the mug. I could feel her exhaustion.
“Amber, was what they were doing—was it like a Wiccan ceremony?” Marly was doing an admirable job of keeping her voice steady.
Amber shook her head. “I don’t really know anything about that, but I asked Nell once if we were Wiccan, and she said no. What Marica taught us was ancient magics, from her homeland. Marica said that her family had been powerful for many generations, and they had passed on their secrets. We didn’t worship anything; there was no mention of demons or anything like that. And I know that wiccans usually worship the elements, right? We didn’t do that.”
“How often did you have these ceremonies in the woods?” Luke too was remaining calm.
“Every other week or so. Marica would tell us when we were meeting. Of course, the Chem. club was happening almost every day after school. My parents were starting to get worried, but then, on the other hand, for the first time I was happy and involved, so they didn’t tell me I couldn’t go.”
“What else happened at the meetings in the woods?” Michael asked.
Amber pursed her lips. “Well, they all pretty much started like that, then after we would chant over the potion, each girl would perform something—Marica called it proof of power. It could be something small, like creating fire, or bigger—levitating or whatever. And then after that we danced around the circle, and then we’d chant again, and sometimes Marica would talk, then we would leave.
“I mean, I know it sounds lame. But being part of it… and Marica telling us how our power was growing exponentially… and how we had to keep silent about it, because that was part of the power. She told us we could be unstoppable. She said that we were all her daughters, that she had foreseen that she would come to this place, which was a mystical spot, and that she would pass on her secrets to us.”
I caught Michael’s eye. “That would be exactly what Nell’s looking for—someone who calls her a daughter. I can see how Ms. Lacusta drew her in.”
“Yeah,” Amber agreed with me. “I could tell that Nell was really… almost possessive of Marica. From what I heard from the other gi
rls, Nell had started messing with witchcraft —they call it the power—about a year ago. I think in the beginning, in her mind it was a link to her mom. She had her mother’s books, and of course she probably knows people from her family who still practice it. But she didn’t get very far, and she wasn’t happy with the spells she’d found. Julie said they thought Nell was getting bored with that and was finally going to stop making them play along. She had started dating Kyle, and they were all relieved.
“But then Marica arrived. She sought Nell out, spent time with her, and convinced her to help start up the chemistry club. Nell was… I think it was Liza who said that Nell had been infatuated with Ms. Lacusta from the beginning. She was—and is—possessive of her, even among all of us. She hated her to give attention or time to anyone else.”
“That’s one of the reasons Nell hated me right away—Ms. Lacusta was nice to me that first day.”
“It was more than that,” Amber said slowly. “Marica talked about you that first day, too. She said there was power in you. She didn’t know what it was, but she was excited. She wanted Nell to be your friend, to get you to join us. And Nell—that was the first time I saw her freak out. She screamed at Marica, she said she hated you and there was no way you were joining us. Nell said that if Marica brought you in, all of the rest of us would leave.”
My heart accelerated. Ms. Lacusta sensed power in me? Was that just a coincidence, or did she really know something?
Michael frowned and tightened his grip on my hand. I could feel his protective nature leaping forward, and I heard him think darkly that Ms. Lacusta would never get near me again.
“After that, things got worse. Nell wasn’t the same nice person she had been. Well, to be honest, she had been getting kind of snappy even before you got here. I think Marica might have been—I don’t know, almost getting bored with Nell? Nell followed her around like a puppy sometimes, and although Marica probably liked that at first, Nell was maybe getting too demanding. It might have been that you were just a convenient excuse for her to start to make a change.”
“Amber, about two weeks ago you came into English all upset. I could hear you—your thoughts were so panicked you were practically yelling. That was when I started worrying about what Nell was up to with you. What happened that day?”
Amber knit her brows. “So much happened so fast there… two weeks ago. Well, things started getting scarier to me about a month ago. Nell started talking about what could be done to… threaten you. To keep you away from Ms. Lacusta and the chemistry club. And she wasn’t just talking about being mean to you—she kept saying she had the power to make it happen.
“That was enough to make me second-guess everything that had happened in the past two months. Then Casey said something to Nell, totally off-topic, about Marica. Nothing important, just like Marica had told her something. And Nell freaked out on her. She wanted Casey to just stay away from Marica, and Casey—she’s braver than the others, braver than me, definitely. She told Nell to shut up. I saw the look Nell gave Casey after she turned around, and it was just awful. It scared me to death.
“And I guess it probably was the day you’re talking about when Nell grabbed me outside of class. She told me she had plans, and I was part of them. She said we were going to do something, just the two of us, that the others couldn’t know about. She told me, ‘Just be ready,’ and then she smiled—but it was the worst thing I’d ever seen. And I was really frightened.”
“That makes sense,” I mused. “And it was about then that Nell was thinking about… hurting you, Amber. I saw her thinking about the knife that afternoon.”
Amber shuddered, and Marly moved to put her arms around her. “Poor thing,” she murmured. “You’ve been through so much. Let me warm up your tea.”
We were all quiet until Marly returned and perched on the arm of my chair. She put her arm around my shoulder and drew me to her, kissing the top of my head. “It must have been so frightening for you, seeing and hearing what you were, and not knowing what to do.” She leveled a gaze at Michael. “You know you could have come to us.”
It was Michael’s turn to look uncomfortable. “I know. But it would have meant telling you how we knew what we did, and that would have meant betraying Tasmyn’s confidence. I couldn’t do that.”
I turned to look up at Marly. “It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you,” I explained. “But I’ve never told anyone on purpose. Michael guessed. My parents don’t know that he knows—it would really upset them. They’ve been protecting my secret all my life.”
Marly smiled at me. “I’m not upset at you,” she assured me. “And I’m not mad at Michael either. I can see why you thought you had to do this, but the mom in me is not happy that I couldn’t protect either of you.”
“Speaking of moms and so on, it’s getting pretty late. We should probably take Amber home—and Tasmyn, too.”
I turned to Amber. “If you want, you can stay with me tonight, and I’ll take you home in the morning.”
Amber hesitated, and then shook her head. “I appreciate it, more than I can tell you. But—I kind of want to see my parents. I’ve been less than honest with them in the past few months. I want to be truthful now.”
“What will you tell them?” Michael asked.
“As much of the truth as I can. I’ll tell them that Nell really wasn’t my friend. I’ll tell them that she hurt me—emotionally. And I’ll tell them that they were right all along about her.”
I touched Amber’s shoulder. “I hope you can tell them that you made some new friends tonight. You don’t have to go back to being lonely, Amber, just because of what’s happened with Nell.”
She wasn’t sure, I could tell. And who could blame her: between what had happened to her when she did trust someone and now what she had learned about me tonight, she had to be completely freaked out. Which reminded me… I opened my mouth, but Michael beat me to it.
“I agree with Tasmyn, Amber. I hope we’ll see you at our lunch table on Monday. But there’s one thing. Please remember no one can know about Tasmyn’s gift. This is really important. Especially not Nell or any of her group, or Ms. Lacusta.”
Amber’s eyes were wide. “Don’t worry. I won’t say a word. I’m not planning to talk to any of them ever again if I can help it. I just want to go back to being normal.