Ominous by Kate Brian Page B

life. She’d spent most of my childhood on her back in bed, hopped up on prescription drugs and blaming my entire family for her sucky situation. Since she’d gotten sober last year, the words had been uttered between us more frequently, but now I was finding them harder than ever to say. Now that I knew she’d been lying to me about who my father was my entire life.
    But then, I could be the next to go missing. If I didn’t say it now, when would I have the chance again?
    “Love you too, Mom. And Dad,” I added quickly, clutching the phone so tightly it almost slipped out of my grasp like a greased pig.
    “We’ll see you at the big party,” she said, trying to sound upbeat. “Be safe.”
    “I will.”
    I hung up the phone, shoved it in the back pocket of my jeans, and grabbed my pillow. Outside the open door of my room, girls rushed past with their backpacks and laundry bags, their teddy bears under their arms, their cell phones pinned to their ears. As I tossed my pillow toward my packed bag, I noticed the long, dingy laces of my favorite sneakers sticking out from under my bed and dropped to my knees to fish them out.
    I pulled out the first shoe but had to flatten myself on the floor to dig for the other. As I grabbed it, my fingers grazed the edges of some folded papers. Grasping them between my thumb and forefinger, I tugged them out. As soon as I saw what they were, I sat back hard on my butt. The pages were thick and yellowed, frayed along one edge as if they’d been torn from a book. I unfolded them in my lap, and one hand fluttered to my mouth.
    It was Eliza’s handwriting, though slightly more haphazard and seemingly rushed than usual. From the size and the texture, I could tell that these were the pages that were missing from the BLS book. Suddenly I recalled the fluttering noise of falling papers the other night, when I’d woken from one of my nightmares. These must have been tucked somewhere inside the book of spells and tumbled out that night.
    There was a commotion out in the hallway as someone dropped their suitcase and it burst open all over the floor. I got up shakily and closed the door, then sat down on my bed. Breathlessly, I began to read the pages.

    I gulped in a breath. Eliza’s terror poured off the pages. Pressing my lips together, I read on. Each line was like a fresh knife to my heart. Painstakingly, Eliza told the story of Caroline Westwick, a girl who had attended Billings a few years before Eliza had gone there, and about the coven Caroline’s sister Lucille had started. She told of how Lucille wouldn’t let Caroline in, and how Caroline had taken it personally, stolen the books, and cast spells on herself until she’d gone mad. She wrote that Caroline had committed suicide, throwing herself off the roof of the Easton chapel, and that her final words were “I don’t belong.”

    The next few paragraphs told of how Eliza, Theresa Billings, Catherine White, and Alice Ainsworth had formed a coven of elevengirls. Some of the girls were apparently reluctant but were convinced by Theresa’s cunning. She described the night they had read the incantation, and what had happened just after the words were spoken.

    My hand clutched my stomach. The light had gone out, and then their individual candles had flickered back to life. Just like that night in the chapel basement. Just like the night Ivy and I had said the incantation as well. My brain swam and I closed my eyes, holding back a wave of nausea. This couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be. Outside in the hallway a door slammed, and I opened my eyes, forcing myself to continue.
    There were stories of fun spells—a boy with boils on his hands, a headmistress with a wayward skirt. Stories of celebrations with the coven, retellings that sounded so much like the gatherings I’d had with my own friends it was almost eerie. And then, just as I was feeling comfortable again, another part stopped me cold.

    Eliza had dreamed that her