Spellbound by Cate Tiernan Read Free Book Online Page B

budget.
    “Yes,” he said. “I’m quite sure.”
    “Thank you,” I said softly.
    He started the car’s engine, and we didn’t say anything until he dropped me at my house. I climbed out of the car, feeling uncertain all over again. He got out, too, and coming around to the sidewalk, he kissed me, a soft, quick meeting of the lips. Then he climbed back in Sky’s car and drove off before I could say good-bye.

5
    Flicker
    May 17, 1970
     
    Spring has finally sprung in Wales. Here in Albertswyth the hills are a new bright green. The women of the village are on their hands and knees, setting plants in their gardens. Clyda and I have been walking over the hills and among the rocks, and she’s been teaching me the local herb lore and the properties of the local stone, earth, water, and air. I’ve been here six months now, on one of life’s detours.
    Since I found out about Clyda Rockpel from one of Patrick’s spelled books, I was determined to find her, to learn from her. It took two weeks of camping on her doorstep, eating bread and cheese, sleeping with my coat pulled over my head before she would speak to me. Now I’m her student, taking knowledge from her like a sea sponge absorbs ocean water.
    She’s deep, dark, terrifying sometimes, yet the glimmers of her power, the breadth of her learning, her strength and guile in dealing with the dark forces fill me with a giddy exhilaration. I want to know what she knows, have the power to do what she does, have control over what she controls. I want to become her.
    —SB
     
    On Tuesday, Mary K. and I once again spent the morning working on my room, touching up messy spots on the walls and painting the woodwork. In the afternoon I persuaded my sister to come shopping with Bree and me. The lure of hanging out with us had outweighed her disapproval of our destination: Practical Magick, an occult store up in Red Kill, ten miles north.
    “The good thing about Christmas break,” Bree said as she drove through downtown Widow’s Vale, “is seeing all the poor saps who have to go to work.”
    “We’re going to be poor working saps one day,” I reminded her, watching people weaving in and out of the shops on Main Street. I picked at some speckles of paint on the back of my hand and adjusted the heater vent of Breezy, Bree’s BMW.
    “Not me,” Bree said cheerfully. “I’m going to marry rich and be a lady who lunches.”
    “Gross!” Mary K. protested from the backseat.
    Bree laughed. “Not PC enough for you?”
    “Don’t you want more than that?” Mary K. asked. “You could do anything you want.”
    “Well, I was kind of kidding,” said Bree, not taking offense. “I mean, I haven’t figured out what my life calling is yet. But it wouldn’t be the worst thing to be a housewife.”
    “Bree, please,” I said, feeling a shade of our old familiarity. “You would last about two weeks. Then you’d go crazy and become an ax murderer.”
    She laughed. “Maybe so. Neither of you wants to be a housewife? It’s a noble profession, you know.”
    I snorted. I had no concrete idea what to do with my life—I’d always thought vaguely about doing something with math or science—but I knew now without a doubt that the majority of my life would center on Wicca and my own studies in magick. Everything else was optional.
    “No,” said my sister. “I never want to get married.”
    Something in her tone made me crane around from the front seat to look at her. Her face looked drawn, almost haunted, in the gray winter light, and her eyes were sad. I glanced across at Bree and was touched by the instant understanding that passed between us.
    “I hear you dumped Bakker in a big way,” Bree said, looking at Mary K. in the rearview mirror. “Good for you. He’s an ass.”
    Mary K. didn’t say anything.
    “You know who’s cute in your class?” Bree went on. “That Hales kid. What’s his name? Randy?”
    “Just plain Rand,” said Mary K.
    “Yeah, him,” said Bree.