Spells

“I just want to talk, Mom. That’s all. And I know this isn’t the ideal place, but I can’t wait for ideal anymore. I’m tired of what’s been happening to us. We used to be friends. Now you never want to hear anything about my faerie life. You don’t even like to look at me anymore! Your eyes slide right by me. It’s been months, Mom.” Tears welled up in her throat. “When are you going to get used to me?”

“That’s ridiculous, Laurel,” her mom said, raising her eyes to meet Laurel’s as if to prove her wrong.

“Is it?”

Laurel’s mom held her gaze for a few seconds and Laurel saw something change in her eyes. For just a second, she thought her mom would give — would really talk to her. But then she blinked and cleared her throat and it was gone. Her mom looked down and began sifting through receipts on the counter. “I can put the rest of the homeopaths away later,” she said quietly. “You can go.”

Feeling as though she’d been slapped, Laurel stood still, dazed. Her mom had dismissed her. After taking a couple of quick breaths, Laurel spun on her heel and opened the door, the cheerful bell mocking her.

A strong gust of wind hit her in the face as the door closed, and Laurel realized she had no idea where to go. David was working; Chelsea was at cross-country practice. Her next instinct was to go talk to her dad, and she even got as far as putting her hand on the door handle before she stopped. It wasn’t fair to pit her parents against each other, to run to one when the other had hurt her feelings. She stood just out of sight, behind a big poster announcing the newest Nora Roberts novel, and watched her dad and Maddie help a customer with a big stack of books. The man said something Laurel couldn’t hear, and her dad threw back his head and laughed as he wrapped the books in tissue paper while Maddie looked on with a gentle smile.

After one last look at her dad, Laurel turned away and headed to her empty house.

TWELVE

LAUREL AND DAVID STOOD TOGETHER IN THEIR chemistry lab, watching their first graded experiment fail miserably. David was scouring their calculations, looking for a step they’d missed or math they’d done incorrectly. Laurel wrinkled her nose at the pungent mixture bubbling over their Bunsen burner.

“Did we put in the sulfuric acid?” David asked. “We did, didn’t we?”

“Yes,” Laurel said. “Fifty milliliters. We balanced the equation three times.”

“I don’t understand!” David vented under his breath. “It should have turned blue, like, two minutes ago!”

“Give it a few more minutes. Maybe it will.”

“No. It’s definitely too late. Look, it says right here, ‘The solution should turn blue within one minute after reaching boiling temperature.’ We totally screwed up. And she said this was just a simple lab.” He raked his hands through his hair. For some reason David had decided that four AP classes weren’t too much for one semester; Laurel wasn’t convinced. Just two short weeks into the school year and already he was more than a little high- strung.

“David, it’s okay,” she said.

“It is not okay,” he whispered. “If I don’t get an A in this class, Mr. Kling won’t let me into AP physics. I have to get into AP physics.”

“You’ll be fine,” Laurel said, a hand on his shoulder to soothe him. “I hardly think one funky experiment is going to keep you out of Mr. Kling’s class.”

David hesitated for a moment, then his eyes darted back to their shared paper. “I’m going to balance this one more time, see if I can find where we made our mistake.”

It was so unlike David to freak out over anything, but here he was on the verge of melting down. Laurel sighed. She took a deep breath and put her fingers over the steaming beaker, far enough away that it didn’t burn her fingertips. “It’s just supposed to turn blue?”

David looked up at her even tone. “Yeah, why?”

Laurel shushed him as she concentrated, wiggling her fingers in the steam for a few more seconds. After a quick glance at David, still bent over their calculations, Laurel closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, trying to clear her mind the way her instructors in Avalon had taught her. Her fingers tingled vaguely as she tried to sift through the elements of the solution, but there was no plant material to identify. This was going to be tricky.

“Laurel,” David whispered close to her ear, “what are you doing?”

“You’re distracting me,” Laurel said levelly, trying to maintain her tenuous hold on her concentration.

“Are you doing faerie stuff?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

David’s eyes darted around the room. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why, because I might ruin our perfect experiment?” she said sarcastically.

“I’m a little concerned you’re going to blow up the school,” he said, his voice still a low murmur.

She yanked her hand out of the steam. “I’m not going to blow up the school,” she said, just a little too loudly. The team at the table behind them looked up and exchanged amused glances.

“Come on,” David said, his hand on her arm. “Things haven’t exactly been going well in the potion-making department.”

He had a point. She didn’t feel like she’d made any progress since returning from Avalon, despite practicing for at least an hour every day. Jamison had told her to be vigilant, and she was doing the best she could. But it wasn’t working. Yet. “So I should just give up?”

“No, of course not. But should you really be experimenting here at school, and on a graded assignment?”

Laurel wasn’t listening. “Be my lookout, okay?”

“What?”

“Just tell me if Ms. Pehrson looks over.”

“What are you doing?” he asked, but his eyes stayed locked on their teacher.

Laurel reached into her backpack and unlatched the lid of her kit — a permanent fixture at the bottom of her bag. She sifted through its contents and unscrewed a small bottle of valerian oil and squeezed a drop onto her fingertip. She grabbed another bottle and shook a sprinkle of powdered cassia bark into her palm. After blowing on it, Laurel rubbed the oil onto the palm of her hand, mixing it with the gritty powder. “Give me our little spoon thingy,” she whispered to David.

“Laurel, you can’t do this.”

“I can! I really think I’ve got it this time.”

“That’s not what I meant. This is an assignment. We’re supposed to—”

Laurel cut him off by reaching across the table for the long-handled, stainless-steel spoon he’d refused to hand her. She scraped the mixture off her palm and, before David could stop her, popped it into the boiling mixture, stirring carefully in one direction and then the other.

“Laurel!”

“Shh,” Laurel ordered, concentrating on the mixture.

As she watched, the mixture slowly began to take on a bluish tinge. The longer she stirred, the bluer it became.

“Is that good?” Laurel asked.

David just stared.

Laurel glanced behind her where two other students had completed their project. The blues looked about the same. She went ahead and stopped stirring.

“See if you can get her to come to our table next,” Laurel said. “The mixture’s too hot for the color to hold very long.”

David stared at her with an expression Laurel couldn’t quite identify, but he didn’t seem pleased.

“Very good, David and Laurel,” Ms. Pehrson said, catching them both off guard as she walked up behind them. “And just in time. Bell’s about to ring.”

David looked up as Ms. Pehrson marked something down on her clipboard and turned away. “Wait, Ms. Pehrson!”

Ms. Pehrson turned, and Laurel shot David a warning look.

“Um…”