Once it’s up, I’m happy to discover it’s easy to move the desk where I want it simply by willing it there with my eyes. It takes everything in me not to grin like an idiot as I float the desk over the wood floor, over the bearskin rug, and drop it inches from Bishop’s bare feet, so that he has to jump back lest his toes be squashed.
I did it. My heart swells up like I didn’t think was possible anymore. “Oh my God,” I say. “I’m a freaking witch.”
26
All I want is to get through one full day where absolutely nothing bad happens so that I can bask in the glow of my magic and try to forget about Mom’s death and the sorcerers trying to kill me. I don’t think it’s too much to ask, but no sooner does my butt hit the chair in homeroom the next morning, I get called to the school psychologist’s office, where I’m accosted with lame pamphlets for a crisis helpline and a journal that I’m to bring to my new weekly sessions. Great.
I mean, it’s nice that the school is concerned about me, but I’m getting pretty tired of the kid-glove treatment. It’s like they all think I’m going to commit suicide if they don’t ask me how I’m coping at least three hundred times a day.
I’m sitting in history when the overhead speaker beeps, alerting the classroom to yet another Mrs. Malone announcement.
“Ms. Indigo Blackwood, please report to Coach Jenkins in the gymnasium. Thank you.”
Seriously, universe?
I stuff my books into my bag and trudge down the hall to the gym. When I push open the double doors, I’m surprised to find a half-dozen massive floats in various stages of completion spread out across the shiny gym floor, twinkling under the harsh fluorescent lights.
I recognize the squad’s float instantly—an old-school gilded carriage with big wheels and a velvety roof, pulled by two white unicorns. The carriage was Bianca’s idea—to haul the homecoming-court nominees around at the parade—but I’d suggested the unicorns in place of horses, and the whole squad loved the idea. I know it’s ridiculous, all things considered, but I feel a pang in my gut that I missed out on its creation, on what could have been had life not completely changed for me. Maybe I do need a therapy session after all.
I swallow the lump growing in my throat. “Coach Jenkins?” I call.
“Over here,” Carmen answers. I follow her voice to the back of the gym and find her standing on the bed of a float, snipping at the blue and silver tissue paper of a giant football with a pair of craft scissors.
“Indigo, thank you for coming,” she says.
Like I had a choice.
“Please, have a seat.”
I sit down heavily on the bed of the float and pull my bag onto my lap. And the whole thing is so depressing—the stupid floats, the way Carmen won’t look at me, the corny speech I’m sure to endure. I just want to get this whole thing over with, no beating around the bush for half an hour. “So, my mom died,” I say.
Carmen snips away at the tissue paper without responding.
I sigh. “So, do you want me to tell you how I’m feeling or fill out a journal or something?”
She continues with her arts and crafts project as though she hasn’t heard me.
“Look, I know I missed a few practices, and I’m sorry I haven’t helped with the float, but I don’t plan on missing anything else, and I’m totally committed to the squad and … hello?” I lean across the trailer, trying to catch her eyes. “Coach Jenkins?”
She doesn’t answer.
I knock on the wood, but she doesn’t look up.
A sinking sensation washes over me. I cautiously look behind me, and am beyond relieved when no one’s there. But when I turn around again, the scarred man who held the knife to Mom’s throat—Leo—stands behind Coach Jenkins, a maniacal smirk on his face. My body shifts into panic mode, and I scrabble back.
Leo scratches his marred cheek, and Coach Jenkins scratches her own smooth one.
“Kind of fun,” he says.
“Kind of fun,” Carmen repeats.
I gasp.
Leo scratches both his armpits, ooh-ooh and aah-aahing in a lame monkey impersonation, and so does Coach Jenkins.
Leo holds up his fisted right hand, like a magician performing a trick, and then swiftly jams it into his neck, chortling all the while.
“No, Carmen, don’t!” I scramble to my feet, but it’s too late. Carmen jabs her right hand—the one holding the scissors—into her neck. Blood spurts out of her mouth as she cackles, falling to her knees.
Oh God …
I ease Carmen onto her back and frantically search for something to stanch the blood flow, but when Leo steps around her I have to give up any notions of dressing her wounds. Because if I don’t get the hell out of there—and fast—it won’t just be Carmen fighting for her life.
I leap off the trailer and dash across the gym, weaving between the floats so fast I nearly lose my footing. I’m almost to the double doors when I hear Leo’s voice.
“Not this again,” he says.
Palms out, I slam into the door. But instead of it flinging open, my body crashes against the metal so hard it makes my ears ring. Locked. Of course.