“Ms. Gold,” Derrick said, his eyebrows raised again. “I think you ought to sit down.”
“It’s Jessica. Or Jess. And no, I won’t sit down. Just because you uptight wand-clutchers can trace your magic lineage back to your ancestors on the Mayflower, you think you’re so superior to the rest of us. Well, let me tell you something that no one else has probably ever had the guts to: Hereditary witchcraft? That isn’t a thing. There’s no genetic marker for magic. Everyone has psychic ability. Some people are simply more in touch with it than others, and that’s because they’ve worked at it. They’ve honed and practiced their craft. That’s all there is to it. Having a relative who was hanged for witchcraft in the sixteen hundreds doesn’t make you any more of a—”
“Ms. Gold.” The leather of his motorcycle jacket creaking, Derrick reached across my desk and laid a hand upon my shoulder. “I said, sit down, please.”
Instantly, a fizzy sort of . . . lightness came over me. That’s the only way I could describe it. It started where his hand touched my shoulder, then traveled down my arm to the tips of my fingers until it enveloped my entire body, robbing me of the tiredness I’d felt all day. Not only my tiredness, but the soreness I’d been feeling in my knuckles from sewing half the night, and my feet from being on them all day, hand selling dresses for the ball.
Instead, a delicious warmth descended upon me, as if I’d been wrapped in a blanket made of the golden autumn sunlight outside. Even when he drew away his hand—which he did almost immediately—the light, warm feeling stayed with me, and the pain didn’t return. I felt . . . well, good.
“What,” I asked incredulously, sinking down into my chair, “was that?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” He was all business. “Ms. Gold—Jessica—I’m here to deliver a message to you, and it’s not about your illicit glamour-casting or whatever else you seem to think.”
“I said I—”
“Don’t cast glamours. I know. I heard you. Again, that’s not why I’m here.”
“Okay.” I felt an endorphin rush as strong as if I’d just eaten a bag of chocolate bars, only without the bloating and regret. “But seriously. You have to give me that spell.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What I do need is for you to listen to me. I’m here because you’ve been chosen.”
“Chosen?” I shook my head, still enjoying the effervescent fizz in my veins. “Chosen for what?”
“Not what,” he said. “Who. Jessica Gold, you’re the Chosen One.”
Jessica
Journal Entry from 2005
For lasting love, carve thine initials into an apple, then thy lover’s initials on the other side. Slice the apple in two. Feed thy lover the slice with thine initials, and thyself the other.
Goody Fletcher, Book of Useful Household Tips
The spell worked.
Last night I heard the strangest noise as I was lying in bed, wondering why Billy had shown no sign at all during Chem of having been affected by the sight of me eating pottage stew in front of him in the caf.
At first I couldn’t figure out what the noise was. It sounded kind of like when Dina and I go out cruising with Mark in his Mustang along the country roads outside of East Harbor, and gravel flies up and hits his fenders.
Only I was in my bedroom. On the second floor of my house.
Then I heard it again. And again.
I realized it was coming from my bedroom window, and it was gravel: someone was throwing bits of gravel at my window from the street.
Of course I figured it was Mark and Dina. It’s the kind of thing they would do, sneak out on a school night and throw rocks at my window to get me to come join them on another one of their lunatic adventures.
But when I went to my window to look down into the yard, it wasn’t Mark or Dina standing there in the light of the full moon.
It was Billy Walker.
I didn’t know what to do, especially when he saw me looking down at him and started waving his arms and whisper-yelling, “Jess! Jess, it’s me, Billy!” Loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear.
Naturally I had no choice but to open my window and whisper-yell back down to him, “Oh my God, Billy, would you please shut up? Do you want to wake up my parents?”
“Shit,” he said, ducking and looking around like my dad was going to come out of the house swinging an axe or something. “I’m sorry. I just—I really need to talk to you.”
Don’t get me wrong. I was delighted to see him. He looked so cute, standing down there in his red-and-gold letter jacket, with his dark hair all messed up like he’d just rolled out of bed or had been working out or something.
But I’d already wiped off all my makeup and washed my face and put on my goofiest flannel pajamas and done my wet hair up in braids so it would be nice and wavy in the morning instead of riotously curly. I didn’t exactly want to go bouncing down there and have a big heart-to-heart with the boy of my dreams in my current state of what the French call dishabille.
But it didn’t look as if I had much choice.
“Can it wait until morning?” I whispered down at him.
“No,” he said. “There’s something really important I need to ask you.”
Oh my God, I realized in that moment. The spell worked. He’s going to ask me to Homecoming. Me, and not Rosalie Hopkins.
Who cares if he sees me without makeup on and my hair done up in braids? That’s not going to change his mind. Not now.
Goody Fletcher’s spell had worked.
“I’ll be right down,” I said, and closed my window against the chilly night air, jammed my feet into a pair of UGGs, and flew silently past my parents’ and little brother’s bedrooms, down the stairs, into the kitchen, to the mudroom where I threw my winter coat on over my pajamas and, unlocking the back door, crept outside . . .
. . . directly into Billy Walker’s strong, warm embrace. Because he was standing right there, waiting for me.
“How did you know where I live?” I asked.
“I came here for your birthday party when we were six. You showed us all your room, don’t you remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, and I did dimly remember it, though it was hard to remember anything at that moment because suddenly Billy’s lips were on my cheeks, my hair, my lips, kissing me as if he could never kiss me enough, which was exactly what I’d always dreamed of, though I’d never dreamed of it happening here, in my backyard, in the middle of the night with me in my winter coat and pajamas and Billy’s skin feeling so hot against mine, like he was running some kind of fever. And that wasn’t all of his I felt against me, either.
“Are you”—I managed to gasp, coming up for air after a particularly intense kiss, with tongue—“all right, Billy?”
“Yeah,” he murmured, sliding his lips down my neck. His big football player fingers were fumbling at the buttons of my flannel pajama top. “Are you? Is this . . . is this all right?”
“Yes. More than all right. It’s just a bit . . . sudden.”