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Author's Note: I bet you thought I fell off one of those cliffs I'm famous for writing :) Sorry for the massive delay with this chapter, I had a lot of things going on in RL. Stupid things. I think this chapter suffered a bit from that, its not bad but it is a bit shorter than all the others. I hope that doesn't bother people too much. I did have something else planned for the end but I couldn't resist one those cliffs I like to put in there. I'd like to thank djkauf and Indy for the magical editing and everyone for enjoying this universe :)

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SIXTEEN:

“Kelly would you slow down a second” shouted the voice.

I wasn’t about to slow down though. I recognized the voice well enough and was deliberately trying to avoid it. Jack had been trying to get my attention since first period and I’d been ignoring him all day. I thought he got the hint in lunch when Maggie told him to sit somewhere else. Even Misty had joined us in our mutual hatred of him. She didn’t even know what was going on but it was cool that she was joining in. Jack ended up sitting with Bill Holden and his buddies but he kept looking our way the whole time. Now it was nearing the end of the day with only one period left to go. I’d been successful so far in avoiding him. But apparently, he was a lot more persistent than I thought.

I didn’t count on his speed either. He was fast, faster than me.

I tried to make it to my locker but he managed to get around me and cut me off. Trying to maneuver around him was proving futile, too. He was such a pain in the ass.

“I need to talk to you,” he said, huffing slightly.

I was glad to see that he was at least out of breath.

I groaned. “There’s nothing to talk about” I said annoyed. “Now move or you’re going to make me late for class.”

“No, not until you listen for a second.”

I sighed heavily. Well I couldn’t get around him so I guess I had no choice. “Fine.”

He smiled. “I’m sorry about Saturday; I’m not sure what happened. I thought we were having a good time and then something came over me. It was really strange but I felt like I had to kiss you.”

“It’s called hormones, jackass.”

I was still pretty damn bitter over the whole thing. As a guy, I never really thought about girls all that much. Sure, they were there but I had no inkling toward them. Some of them were pretty---like Sophie---but I never wanted to kiss any of them. I knew how guys thought though, especially ones like Jack. He made it no secret that he was attracted to me and I have to admit he wasn’t bad to look at. I just thought he was better than the rest. I’d been in a guy’s locker room, I knew what they talked about and for a moment, I was convinced Jack was different. At my party, he proved me wrong. He practically forced himself on me and I hated every minute of it.

“It was different than that” he said, “It was like I couldn’t control myself. I wanted to kiss you but I tried to stop myself. When I did do it I was just as surprised as you were.”

“Is that all?”

He shook his head. “I heard what happened,” he said, lowering his voice. “My sister said you were attacked. I was wondering…I mean….are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

He lowered his guard slightly and I was able to slip around him. I decided to forego my locker because I didn’t have time. I put on the speed, hoping he’d get the hint. He didn’t. He came running behind me but instead of blocking my way, he slipped up beside me.

“Boy, you don’t get the hint do you?”

“Let me make it up to you” he said, grabbing my hand.

I fluttered at the touch but quickly pulled the way. “Not interested.”

“Just one date” he said, pleading. “An apology for what I did. Let me show you that I’m not all bad.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea”

He started giving me this look. It was so hard to resist. I felt myself going all gooey. I’m not sure what it was about Jack Pratchett but I couldn’t help but go weak at the knees when he was around. It scared me a bit. I wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was just a guy not too long ago. A small part of me wanted to punch him the throat but a huge part of me wanted to be held in those arms again. That huge part was the scary one. I didn’t know what to make of it. As a guy, I never had these feelings for a girl but as a girl, I was like a hormone fountain. What the hell was wrong with me?

“One date” He said “Dinner and a movie?”

“I don’t know,” I said, my armor chipping away.

Damn him and those eyes.

“It won’t even be a date date. We can just go as two friends. I’ll pay for everything; I said I wanted to apologize after all.”

“If you pay doesn’t that make it a date?”

“Ok, you can pay for yourself.”

“When is this not a date going to happen?”

“How about Friday night?”

I shook my head. I’d just found out that, my evenings were going to be booked solid. Training to be a witch was very time consuming. My grandmother laid it all out for me this morning. Every day after school from three to nine I was going to be learning with my new teacher. She said it was a little much, but seeing as I was a new Novice, I needed a lot more work. I think that was her way of saying I was dangerous and needed more training than others.

“I have training every day after school, including Friday.”

He sighed. “How about Saturday night? They can’t possibly make you work on the weekend?”

My grandmother never did say anything about the weekend.

Shit.

“How about you call me on Friday after nine and we’ll see what happens?”

“Yes” he said, fist pumping the air.

“That’s not a yes, it’s a will see.”

He nodded. “Ok, I’ll talk to you later then.”

Jack turned and ran down the hall, probably toward his class. I’m sure he wasn’t going to make it. The bell rang a second later. I cursed and ran toward my room, slipping inside just as the teacher was about to shut the door. She gave me a cold look but I ignored it as I found my seat. When I sat down, I couldn’t help but feel the flutter in my chest.

Jack had actually asked me out---even if it wasn’t official.

What the heck just happened?

I stood in front of the gate at Crowley Manor, staring up at the large estate behind it. I looked at the slip of paper in my hand a second time just to make sure. I was a bit surprised to say the least. When my grandmother gave me the note this morning, with the address, I never realized it was going to be here. The note just said that my magic teacher would meet me at this address and that was it. I guess it made sense. What better place to learn magic then here. I couldn’t help but feel a little betrayed too, though. My grandmother refused to tell me who my new teacher was, only that she would be waiting for me after school. If I was meeting her here, it was clearly one of the Coven members. The implication of that wasn’t lost on me.

They didn’t trust me.

I knew that already though. Hell, two of them tried to Bind me. I knew four them at least thought me worthy of being trained but that didn’t really tell me much. It just scared me a bit to think that one of them might actually end up teaching me. I had six possible choices.

My grandmother was the only one I knew wouldn’t have that job.

There were rules and guidelines for Witches. According to those rules, a mother always teaches her daughter witchcraft. If she has two daughters, then another female family member is substituted. There were exceptions of course. If the daughters were far enough apart in age for instance then the mother was able to teach her second daughter as well. I had a bit of a conundrum. My mother was in Africa at the moment so she was out of the question. She would be out of the question if she was here too, because she was Jess’s teacher. My grandmother couldn’t do it either because she was teaching Mary. The only other family member in town was my Aunt Grace but she was teaching my cousin Carrie. So I was officially a Student without a Master.

Well, a blood related one anyway.

When that happened, the teacher was usually appointed by the Coven. That’s the bit that really scared me. I guess I would be happy if it were Cassie but I knew she had a daughter of her own to teach. Mrs. Donovan was really nice; I suppose I could deal with her. The one I couldn’t deal with was Mrs. DeWitt. Her daughter was the Inquisitor and I was pretty certain she was the one who called the Binding on me yesterday. I couldn’t prove it, of course, but she had been a bit of a bitch with me during that tea party meeting a week ago.

Thinking about who might be my teacher was only succeeding in scaring the hell out of me.

I took a deep breath and pushed my bike toward the gate. As soon as I did, the gate opened. I jumped slightly, not expecting that. As it was opening, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was some kind of spell on it. I looked all around, trying to see if I could see some kind of camera too. It was possible someone was watching me from a little security room inside the house and just opening the gate, as I got close. I couldn’t see any camera though so the idea of it being spelled was a very big possibility. I pushed on through, trying hard not to think about it. The last two times I’d been here were by car so anything was possible.

On the other side of the gate, I began to follow the road toward the house.

I rode slowly, using my feet on the ground to propel me forward. I was about halfway down the drive, just approaching the first set of flower arrangements when a cat ran out in front of me. It was a good thing I wasn’t going fast or else I might have crashed right over it. I cursed. That’s why I hated cats so much; they had no respect for people. This particular one stopped right in the middle of the road and stared at me. It was a Siamese, with piercing blue eyes. Around its neck was a red collar, a bronze tag hanging from it. Diamond wore a bronze tag too but his was really strange. It had this funky symbol on it, one I had to actually look up on the Internet: the Eye of Bast. When I asked my mother about it, she told me who Bast was and how she thought it was fitting.

“Hey stupid” I said, annoyed. “Move or I’ll run you over.”

The cat continued to sit there. It also continued to stare at me with those eyes. For a split second, I thought about running it over like I threatened. In the end, I pushed my bike around it. As I started to pedal down the path, I couldn’t help but turn to see if the stupid thing was still there but it was gone. I could never see the large fascination people had with cats. I thought they were the most annoying things in the world. As a witch now I knew that was a bit of a conundrum, I just hoped that they didn’t expect me to have one of those. I wonder if I could be like Harry Potter and get an owl instead.

I pedaled down the rest of the drive trying not to think about it. When I got to the house, I left my bike in front of the steps. I wasn’t sure where else to leave it. I took a cautious step forward and rang the bell. I’m not sure how long I waited but when the door was finally opened, a bright and smiling Joanna was there to greet me.

“Kelly dear” she said, ushering me inside. “You look lovely this morning.”

“Thanks Mrs. Wilkes” I said, feeling uncomfortable.

I’m not sure how she thought jeans and a t-shirt made me look lovely but I’m sure she was just being polite.

“Now, I told you to call me Joanna,” she said as the two of us walked through the living room.

The room was vacant this time, no little boys staring at fish.

I followed Joanna through the house. When we got to the kitchen, I found Maggie with her brother Timmy sitting at the table. Both of them turned to me, little Timmy jumped from his chair and ran to hide behind his sister.

Maggie laughed. “Sorry Kel, strangers bother him.”

I gave Timmy the best smile I could muster. He peeked around his sister for a second before quickly hiding behind her again.

“Timothy sweetie” said Joanna with that smile of hers. “How would you like to help me in the garden?”

The little boy poked his head out from behind his sister and nodded. Joanna held out her hand and Timmy rushed over to her, clinging tightly to her thigh. I couldn’t help but smile and wonder. I was about to voice my question to Joanna but she was already taking Timmy out of the room. The little boy clung to her the whole time.

I turned to Maggie. “He saw me before and he was fine.”

She shrugged. “He’s six.”

Once again, Maggie the Wise Sage.

Maggie continued. “C’mon, I’m supposed to bring you to the library.”

I nodded and the two of us left the kitchen.

We started going down the same hall I went down before, the one leading to the sunroom. Right before getting there, though, we turned down a side hall. Maggie seemed to be lost in thought about something so I took the time to look at the various portraits lining the walls. All them looked very old and the men in them very astute. I read off some names but they meant nothing to me. Before getting to the double doors at the end of the hall, Maggie stopped and turned toward me.

“You think going out with Jack is a good idea?”

She knew about that already. How am I not surprised.

“Do you know everything?”

She smiled. “Jack happily told Charlie who called me.”

I laughed. “Talk about a network.”

Maggie was grimacing. “Are you sure that going out with him is good for you, though? I mean, he caused you to spaz out when you kissed. What happens if he tries it again?”

I hadn’t really given it much thought because it wasn’t really a date.
“It’s not a date.”

She laughed. “Yeah, and my middle name isn’t Gertrude.”

“Your middle name is Gertrude?”

She flushed red. “That’s not the point. I just don’t want you to get more hurt is all.”

I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed her and pulled her into a hug. I found myself wanting to hug people more and more now. I guess it was a girl thing. Not that it was a bad girl thing but guys didn’t generally hug one another all the time. It felt kind of good. This was one of the reasons I was loving being a girl so much. Girls were always criticized for being too emotional but guys are always way too repressed. If we---I mean them---expressed themselves more they might find more fun out of life.

“You’re a good friend,” I said as we pulled away “I promise I’ll be careful.”

“Ok, so when Jack pisses you off again, are we shunning him or are we going to pretend like it didn’t happen?”

I gave her a little shove and we both laughed.

After our tiny laughing fit, Maggie turned back to the double doors. I did as well. Looking at them reminded me the real reason why I was here. I’d almost forgotten for a sec. One of these days, I needed to visit Maggie just to visit.

“Let’s go, your teacher is waiting.”

She took a step forward and slowly opened the doors.

The first thing I noticed about the library was how big it was. I was expecting a small room with walls lined with books. There were a lot of books, loads on the walls and lots more stacked in corners. But the room looked a lot like one of the side rooms in the public library. Save for the large windows along the one wall. The waning light of day was shining through them. I hardly paid any attention to that though, all my attention went to the small sitting area. There was a real large comfortable looking Victorian style sofa and two chairs. In one of the chairs sat a very familiar woman holding an even familiar looking Siamese.

“Melissa?” I gasped out of shock and utter surprise.

She smiled. “Hi Kel.”

I found myself letting out the biggest sigh of relief ever. It wasn’t one of the old crones from the Coven after all. I wanted to squeal in delight and jump into her arms. Instead, I followed Maggie further into the room. She led me over to a little table. There were four chairs around it but Maggie didn’t sit. I stood as well, staring at the school nurse.

Staring at my new teacher.

“I bet you were expecting one of the Coven members?” I numbly nodded my head, she smiled. “There was some talk about it actually but your grandmother felt that someone closer to your age was a little more appropriate. They thought about asking my sister Darcy but she’s a bit busy with a raccoon or something.”

Thank you, Grandma.

Melissa scooted the large Siamese off her lap. The cat dropped to the floor, walking a bit before stopping a foot or so in front of me. It stared at me with those blue eyes again.

Melissa laughed. “She’s new at this, Phoenix. She wouldn’t have known you were connected to me.” The cat meowed, Melissa sighed. “Kelly this is my Familiar, Phoenix. He’s a bit pushy so he wants me to tell you that he’s pleased to meet you but you failed his test.”

Familiar? I looked down at the cat, feeling like a dork.

I should have put two and two together as soon as I saw the stupid thing. Of course, he had to be someone’s Familiar, especially now that I got a closer look at his collar. The Eye of Bast was on it. I groaned. I never really put it together before but I think Nicodemus has one on his collar as well. Three cats, all with the same symbol. How could I have been stupid enough not to notice?

It took me a split second to realize that Melissa had just had a conversation with her cat.

“You can talk to him?”

Melissa laughed. “All witches can communicate with their Familiars. You didn’t know that?”

Oh, crap. It all made sense now. Every time I got in trouble and my mother wasn’t around, somehow she always knew about it. Stupid Diamond was ratting me out, the little bastard. I was so going to get payback.

“I’m not going to get one too, am I?”

“Eventually” she said, “it depends on the Witch. Most witches get their Familiars during their Novice stage of training. Some witches get them earlier than others.”

I guess that made sense. Jess didn’t have her Familiar, for instance. I guess she wasn’t that good of a Witch. I couldn’t help but smile at that.
Melissa stood up and walked over to me. She gave me a quick once over with her eyes before turning to Maggie. She was frowning when she did so. “I’m sorry Mags; this is the part where I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Maggie nodded. “Comes with the territory. I’ll talk to you later, Kel.”

She gave me a hug and left the room.

As Maggie was leaving, the door lingered open for a second. In that moment, a woman appeared. She looked to be in her thirties maybe and very beautiful. She was very familiar looking too. I couldn’t help myself staring at her then quickly at Melissa, almost like the two of them could be sisters. Was this Darcy? I could swear Melissa said her sister was younger. Maybe she had an older one too.

“Hi Mom” said Melissa smiling brightly at the woman.

Mom? There was no way this woman could be Melissa’s mother. She was way too young for that.

The woman turned to me with a slight smile. “You must be Kelly. I’m Donna Williams; your grandmother told me you were quite the looker.”

My grandmother, surely she was mistaken.

Mrs. Williams---Donna---laughed. “You’d be surprised.”

I blinked. Could she read my mind?

She winked. “Thank you, by the way. It’s nice when someone thinks I’m younger than I look.”

I was really confused now. Melissa and her mother laughed. While she was laughing, Donna ran her hair through her hair. I caught sight of a gold ring with an amethyst in the center. It was eye-catching because the jewel was really big. There were very few people who would wear something so big in public.

“So inquisitive” said Donna. “You’re just like your mother. She was a very wonderful human being.”

“Still is,” I said with a smile.

Donna paused for a moment. “Of course she is.”

“Mom” said Melissa quickly. “I’m not sure she wants to hear about all that.”

“Of course” Donna flicked her wrist, flashing that big ring of hers.

She wasted no time doing whatever it is she came to do. I watched as she walked over to the far wall. I took a few steps to follow, curious about what might happen. The wall looked normal enough. She stood in front of a small space between two book shelves. I looked at the shelves, the books were old and leather bound. The titles on the spines didn’t really interest me in the least. What did interest me was the little indent on the wall. If I hadn’t been pointed to it by her, I would have never noticed. The indent was small and slightly familiar. It took me a second to realize that it was the same shape as her ring. My suspicion was confirmed a second later when Donna made a fist and lined the ring up with the hole.

She placed her fist gently against it and a moment later, it was as if the wall didn’t exist. It vanished in a shimmer of purple light. Behind it was an opening. I blinked a few times, getting a peek of a set of stone stairs.

Donna turned to her daughter. “You know what to do when you’re done?”

Melissa nodded. “Yes mother.”

Her Mom gave her a hug. “I expect to see you at dinner this weekend. Your sister’s got some crazy scheme of hers going. The daft girl wants to adopt a raccoon or something.”

Melissa scoffed. “I’ll see you then.”

Donna stopped at me before she left. “Don’t let my daughter work you too hard.”

She gently stroked my cheek then left the room, leaving Melissa and me alone.

I gulped.

Melissa laughed. “She’s trying to scare you. Everything is going to be fine.”

I looked wearily at the dark staircase.

Sure, whatever you say.

Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF