serving. “All right,” she said. “But if you change your mind—”
“Go find Aunt Joni,” Angel told her. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
Fifteen minutes later, Seth led Angel out of the ladies’ room, back through the clubhouse, and out onto the terrace. The black cape was gone — rolled up and stuffed into the black shoulder bag she’d brought to hold the makeup. Most of the white was gone from her face, and the vampire fangs had joined the cape in the shoulder bag. They’d used the makeup kit to put shadow on her lids, and Seth had carefully applied mascara to her eyelashes, which now looked twice as long and full as before. He’d plaited her hair into a single long braid that hung down her back, and the black clothes now made her look thinner. With her hair pulled back from her face and her features accentuated with the makeup Seth had applied, she barely looked like herself anymore.
And nobody laughed.
Nobody except Heather Dunne.
“Well,” Heather said as she and Seth passed. “I guess we know which it is — she’s obviously not a vampire, but she sure looks like a witch!”
Though Angel tried to keep moving, Seth stopped her and turned to face Heather. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe she is a witch. But if she is, I’d think you’d want to be a little more careful what you say.” Leaving Heather glaring furiously at him, he turned around and walked away, with Angel hurrying after him.
“Are you crazy?” Angel said when she was sure Heather couldn’t hear her. “What did you want to say that for?”
Seth shrugged. “Maybe I’m just sick of putting up with them all the time,” he replied. “Besides,” he added, dropping his voice, “maybe you really are a witch. I mean, how else did Houdini come back to life?”
Angel gasped. “What are you talking about? I didn’t—”
“But you did,” Seth said. “And we both know how you did it.”
For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, Angel thought about what Seth had said, and it almost blotted out the whispers passing through the rest of the crowd.
Almost blotted them out, but not quite…
It was as if an inaudible signal went off at precisely ten o’clock. Even though no one actually heard it, the members of the Roundtree Country Club reacted exactly as factory workers half a century earlier had reacted to the whistle signaling the end of the workday. Abandoning the remains of the barbecue around the pool and the dance in the “ballroom”—the main dining room with its tables moved to the walls, and a makeshift dance floor installed over the carpet — the members began their exodus, herding their younger children ahead of them and reminding the older ones that they should be home by midnight.
By ten-fifteen the club was all but abandoned to the staff, and Joni Fletcher found herself waiting with only Jane and Seth Baker on the front porch, facing a parking lot that was empty except for the Fletchers’ Mercedes- Benz, the Bakers’ Lexus, and a collection of battered and rusting old cars that belonged to the staff. “I don’t believe they’re still at it,” Joni said, glancing impatiently at her watch. “If I’d known those two were still going to be playing this late, I’d have caught a ride with Myra.”
“Go get them, will you, Seth?” Jane Baker asked.
The knot of anxiety that had only just begun to release him from its grip tightened again, and for an instant Seth wondered what would happen if he tried to beg off. But what would be the use? His father was already mad at him, and what would happen when they got home wouldn’t get any worse just because he’d brought a message from his mother. Turning away from the porch, he went back into the clubhouse and down the stairs to the pool room in the basement.
Though the club had banished smoking a year ago, the low-ceilinged, walnut-paneled room that housed the club’s single billiard table still reeked of the thousands of cigars that had smoldered in the room over the decades, and Seth almost gagged when he stepped through the door to see his father lining up a bank shot. Knowing better than to utter even a single word before his father completed the shot, Seth waited until the cue had clicked, the ball his father had been aiming at had failed to drop into the far corner pocket, and the cue ball had come to rest in an almost unplayable position against the rail, next to the nearest corner pocket. “Mom says she’s ready,” he said when Blake finally glanced over at him.
“Nice timing,” Blake Baker said, his eyes fixed balefully on his son. “In case you’re interested, what I’m trying to do here is win back the money you managed to lose for me this afternoon.”
“Come on, Blake,” Ed Fletcher said. “It wasn’t Seth’s fault — all he did was make a couple of good shots. Seems to me it was you and Zack who lost the money.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Seth saw Zack Fletcher’s jaw clench and his fingers tighten on the pool cue he was holding. “But Mom said—” he began.
His father didn’t let him finish. “Tell your mother that if she’s in such a hurry, she can catch a ride with Joni. I’ll drop Zack and Ed off after we’re done here.”
“And at the rate it’s going, that might take all night,” Ed Fletcher said. Leaning over his cue, he lined up his shot carefully, then sent the cue ball the length of the table, banking it off the far end so it came back, glanced the six ball into the side pocket, then sent the four ball into the corner pocket that lay only a couple of inches from where the shot had begun. Seth backed out the door, then turned and started back up the stairs. He’d just gotten to the landing when he heard Zack’s voice.
“I want to talk to you, Beth.”
Seth froze. Part of him wanted to run, to dash through the lobby and out the front door before Zack could get to the top of the stairs. But then he realized even Zack wouldn’t dare start something right in front of his mother. And by tomorrow Zack would have told everybody he knew that he had run away.
Run away and hid behind his mother’s skirts.
He thought of Angel Sullivan, staying through the party and facing Heather Dunne, Sarah Harmon, Chad Jackson, Jared Woods, and all the other kids who hadn’t spoken to her but kept talking about her just loud enough to make sure she heard every word they said.
If she could face them, he could face Zack Fletcher.
So instead of running, he waited at the top of the stairs until Zack caught up with him.
And suddenly, having made the decision not to run away, he was no longer afraid. “So what do you want to talk about, Zack?”
Zack hesitated — he’d been sure that Seth would run away from him. And tomorrow he would have had one more story to tell everyone about what a chicken “Beth” Baker was. But he hadn’t run. Instead, Seth was just standing there, looking at him as if he wasn’t scared at all.
“What did you do?” Zack finally asked.
Seth stared at him as if he didn’t understand the question. Indeed, he didn’t.
“This afternoon,” Zack said, his voice rising. “How’d you make all those shots?”
Seth’s mind raced as he tried to think of something — anything — that Zack might accept. But recalling the black cat that had stayed with him all the way through the back nine, watching every shot so closely, as if it was controlling them, he realized what to say.
The truth.
The simple truth.
“It was easy,” he said softly. “I did it the same way I messed up your last putt. I used witchcraft on you!”
Zack gaped at him, then pulled back his fist and smashed it into Seth’s face. Seth jerked aside at the last second, just enough to avoid the full force of the blow, but Zack’s fist still caught him on the jaw and sent him sprawling to the floor. Instead of bursting into tears, however, or trying to scuttle away, Seth only looked up at Zack.
“I don’t think you should have done that,” he said, his voice cold. He picked himself up, and his eyes locked on Zack’s. “And my name isn’t ‘Beth,’ ” he added. “It’s ‘Seth.’ ”
Then he turned around and walked away.
