Book of Shadows by Cate Tiernan Read Free Book Online Page A

then hung up and came to sit back down. She looked at me.
    “It was Betty Fiorello,” she said. “Had she told you she was going to call?”
    I shook my head and applied myself to my tabouli.
    Bree and Mary K. started humming the theme from The X-Files .
    “She is psychic!” Aunt Eileen laughed. “Quick, who’s going to win the play-offs for the World Series?”
    I laughed self-consciously. “Sorry. Nothing’s coming to me.”
    Dinner went on, and Mary K. teased me about my supernatural brain powers. A couple of times I felt my mother’s eyes on me.
    Maybe since I had been in the circle, since I had banished limitations, something inside me was opening up. I didn’t know whether to feel glad or terrified. I wanted to talk to Bree about it, but she had to get home right after dinner.
    “Bye, Mr. and Mrs. Rowlands,” Bree said, putting on her jacket. “Thanks for dinner—it was great. Nice meeting you, Paula.”
    Later, after Aunt Eileen and Paula left, I went upstairs and did my calculus homework. I called Bree, but she was watching a football game with her dad and said she’d talk to me the next day.
    Around eleven I got a weird urge to call Cal and tell him what was going on with me. Luckily I realized how completely insane this was and let the urge pass. I fell asleep with my face against the pages of The Seven Great Clans .
     
    “Welcome to Rowlands Airlines,” I intoned on Monday morning as Mary K. slid into the car, trying to hold her cardboard tray level so the scrambled eggs didn’t slide into her lap. “Please fasten your seat belts and keep your seat in its upright and locked position.”
    Mary K. giggled and took a bite of her sausage patty. “Looks like rain,” she said, chewing.
    “I hope it does rain so Mr. Herndon won’t clean his stupid gutters,” I said, steering with my knees so I could open a soda.
    Mary K. paused, her eyes narrowed. “Um, okaaay,” she said in an exaggerated soothing tone. “I hope so, too .” She continued chewing, giving me a sidelong glance. “Are we back to The X-Files again?”
    I tried to laugh, but I was puzzled by my own words. The Herndons were an old couple who lived three houses down. I hardly ever thought about them.
    “Maybe you’re metamorphosing into a higher being,” my sister suggested, opening a small carton of orange juice. She took a deep swig, then wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. Her straight, shiny, russet-colored hair swung in a perfect bell to her shoulders, and she looked pretty and feminine, like my mom.
    “I’m already a superior being,” I reminded her.
    “I said higher, not superior,” Mary K. said.
    I took another drink and sighed, feeling my brain cells waking up. Another one of these and I would feel ready to face the day. Cal would be at school. Just the idea that I would see Cal soon, be able to talk to him, made me so pleasantly nervous that my hands tightened on the steering wheel.
    “Um, Morgan?” Mary K.’s voice was tentative.
    “Yeah?”
    “Call me old-fashioned, but it’s traditional to stop for red lights.”
    I snapped to attention, leaning forward, tensed to brake. Looking back quickly, I saw that I had just breezed through the intersection of St. Mary’s and Dimson, right through a red light.At this hour of the morning there was always traffic. It was amazing we hadn’t gotten into an accident—no one had even honked.
    “Jeez, Mare, I’m sorry,” I said, clutching the steering wheel. “I was daydreaming. Sorry. I’ll be more careful.”
    “That would be good,” she said calmly. She scooped up the last of her scrambled eggs and shoved the tray into my car’s trash bag.
    We managed to get to school without my killing us, and I found a great parking spot practically right outside the building. Mary K. was immediately surrounded by a gaggle of friends who ran over to greet her. Mary K. had arrived: The party could begin.
    I saw Bree and Robbie hanging out not by the stoners, not by the