Jessica
Journal Entry from 2006
Always remember: what thou give to thy neighbor will be returned to thee threefold.
Goody Fletcher, Book of Useful Household Tips
“I know what you did,” Rosalie said.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I wasn’t lying, either. A lot had happened since that terrible day I’d found out Billy intended to give up his college scholarship to follow me to New York.
I’d headed straight home from school and consulted Goody Fletcher’s book on how to reverse a love spell.
I’d spent the next few weeks carrying the tip of a turnip root around in my bra. I’d cleaned my entire house from top to bottom (to the surprised delight of my parents) to encourage the “removal” of negative energy, as well as lit a candle and left it to burn overnight (in a plate where it was unlikely to catch any curtains on fire), wishing Billy’s ardor for me to melt away like the candle wax. I even wrote his name on a slip of paper and stuck it in the freezer (since we didn’t have an icehouse), all while patiently explaining to Billy over and over that, while I still wanted to be friends, I was no longer interested in a romantic relationship. He needed to go to Notre Dame in the fall like he’d planned, and live his best life.
None of it worked. Billy still stubbornly showed up almost every night to throw pebbles at my window and, when I pretended to be asleep, sobbed and called my name until I finally gave up and came downstairs to meet him. The last thing I needed was him waking up my parents, not to mention the neighbors.
I had dark circles and bags under my eyes from lack of sleep. My grades had taken a massive nosedive, and I’d put on a ton of extra weight from all the Snickers bars I was comfort eating.
My parents were planning a huge eighteenth birthday party for me at Mama Giovanni’s on Saturday night (not my actual birthday, which fell on Valentine’s Day, the following Tuesday), and I was afraid to invite anyone except my closest friends, since I knew if Billy found out about it he was going to show up and ruin it.
Obviously Rosalie had seen the existential angst on my face, sensed something was up, and followed me into the girls’ room to do battle.
“You know exactly what I mean.” She was so angry she’d forgotten to snap the gum she habitually chewed. “I know you used a love spell on Billy Walker, because there’s no way he, of all people, would ever fall for a hot mess like you.”
“First of all,” I said, snagging a paper towel to dry my hands from the dispenser. I hoped she couldn’t see that my fingers were shaking. “The name-calling is unnecessary. And second of all, this is Connecticut. Where would I even get a love spell?”
“Cut the bullshit, Jessica.” Rosalie’s lip gloss, like everything else about her, looked perfect. She was right: there was no way, except through the use of witchcraft, that a big slob like me should have gotten Billy Walker over her. It defied the natural order of things. “I know when someone is screwing around with magic. My eleventh great-grandmother was accused of witchcraft, right here in Connecticut. She would have been hanged for it, too, if she hadn’t been rich enough to bribe the judge to banish her instead.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Wow. So does that mean you’re a witch, too?”
“What do you think?” Rosalie sent me a withering look.
Okay. So Rosalie Hopkins—cheerleader, president of the senior class, and shoo-in for prom queen—was a witch.
But maybe . . . just maybe . . . this was the answer to my prayers.
“Okay, then, I’ll level with you.” I tossed my wadded-up paper towel into the trash can behind her. Unlike my mom, who ran an antiques store downtown, I threw away things I didn’t need as quickly as possible. “My mom bought this book at an estate sale. It was in amongst a bunch of other old books. It turned out to be a book of spells. There’s a love spell or two in it, and I did use one on Billy, but now—”
Rosalie’s mouth had dropped open, revealing her pink tongue and even pinker gum. “You have a grimoire?”
“I guess? I don’t know what that is.”
Rosalie looked toward the fluorescent lights overhead, seeming to fight for patience. “I can’t believe you of all people have a grimoire when you don’t even know what one is. You’d better give it to me.”
“What?” Rosalie had always been entitled and rude—she’d been at my sixth birthday party, too, along with Billy, and demanded that I give her my new Barbie Ballerina—but this seemed a little much, even for her. “No.”
“You’ve got to, Jess. For your own good. You clearly don’t know what you’re doing. You know Billy gave up his scholarship to Notre Dame, right?”
I nodded, swallowing painfully. “I don’t understand it. I’ve done every binding and banishing spell in the book. I don’t get why none of them are working.”
“There are binding spells in there? Look, you need to give me that book. Let me buy it off you. How much do you want for it?” She reached into her bulky, overloaded patent leather Marc Jacobs tote for her wallet. “I only have about two hundred on me, but I can go to the cash machine after school and get more.”
“Rosalie.” I couldn’t believe this was happening. It was only third period. I wasn’t even fully awake yet. Maybe I was still dreaming. “The book’s not for sale.”
“Don’t be dumb, Jess. I know your parents don’t have the kind of money mine do. Let me take Billy off your hands by doing the love spell myself, so he’ll fall for me and leave you alone. This is a win-win situation for both of us.”
I stared at her. She sounded exactly like her dad—Ken Hopkins of Hopkins Luxury Motors—on the commercials that played endlessly between segments on the local news. I was operating on zero sleep, but suddenly, I did almost feel as if I’d found the solution to my problems.
Or had I?
“I don’t know if that’s the best idea, Rosalie,” I said. “Look how that spell turned out.” I gestured to my reflection. I hadn’t even bothered unbraiding my hair that morning, let alone putting on makeup. I looked like a human-sized Raggedy Ann doll. “I’m not happy. Billy’s not happy—”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Of course the spell didn’t work right for you,” Rosalie sneered. “You’re not descended from an actual witch. I am. Magic is in my blood.”
I was confused. “So?”
“So,” she said, with exaggerated patience. “Haven’t you heard of the nine rules?” When I stared blankly, she went on, “Of the World Council of Witches? Established in 1983? Okay, well, let me enlighten you, then: rule number one is that only someone descended from a witch can perform actual magic that works.”
Suddenly all of my tiredness faded. I not only no longer felt tempted to take Rosalie up on her offer, I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise. I’d never heard of the World Council of Witches or the nine rules up until that very moment. Was I surprised to learn that there was some secret witch society that Rosalie Hopkins belonged to but I’d never known existed? No.
Was I pissed about it? Yes.
“That is the stupidest thing I ever heard,” I said. “And it isn’t true. Who made up that dumb rule?”
Rosalie, looking bored, tossed her smooth, shining hair. “I don’t know, Jessica. I don’t make the rules. But I do know that amateurs shouldn’t be going around playing with forces they don’t understand. Look what happened when you did. So hand over the book to someone who knows what she’s doing, and isn’t some cottage witch.”
I blinked at her. “What’s a cottage witch?”
“You. Someone who just messes around with herbs and things in her house and ruins lives.”
She said it like she didn’t know that women around the world had been using herbs and other plants to heal and nourish themselves and others for thousands of years.
It was weird she didn’t know that. Hadn’t she researched the history of witchcraft?
Then it hit me: of course she hadn’t. She was descended from witches. When the first rule is that the only True Witch is one who is descended from a witch, why bother learning anything else?
That wasn’t the only problem with Rosalie’s rules. The other problem (at least for her)?
They didn’t apply to me.
“Magic is for everyone,” I said stubbornly. “Even so-called cottage witches.”
“Oh, yeah? Then why did your little spell go so disastrously wrong?”
“I don’t know.” I began moving toward the exit. “But I don’t think giving the book to you is such a good idea. I think I should probably hang on to it, and keep it safe. I mean, if a simple cottage witch like me could cast a spell from it as powerful as the one that made Billy fall in love with me, maybe it should just be destroyed.”
Rosalie’s face fell. “Wait. No, don’t do that. That’s not—”
I had no intention of destroying Goody Fletcher’s book. But Rosalie didn’t need to know that.
“And I think we should leave Billy alone, too.”
Rosalie, her expression stunned, stepped in front of me, blocking my path. “What do you mean, leave Billy alone?”
“I mean neither of us should do any more spells on him. Maybe he’ll work things out for himself if we’d just let him be.”
“Work things out for himself?” Rosalie looked shocked. She’d stopped chewing her gum again. “Why would I want him to work things out for himself? Billy and I were meant to be together. Do you know who his father is?”
Billy’s father was Will Walker of Walker Hardware. There were seven locations in the tristate area. Everyone I knew owned a snow shovel they’d bought at Walker’s.
A Walker and Hopkins union would form one of the wealthiest family dynasties in West Harbor history—possibly all of Connecticut.
“Billy and I would be together by now if you hadn’t come along with your stupid cottage magic and ruined things,” Rosalie went on. “But fortunately, I know how to fix it. Just give me the book, I’ll do the spell and take him off your hands, and in a week, it will be like none of this ever happened, and everything will go back to normal.”
I thought about it. I had to admit, the idea was tempting. To be able to sleep through the night again? To have good grades again? To see Billy laughing and being the sweet guy he’d been before any of this had happened?
Yeah, I thought about it. But only for a second.
“No,” I said, and shook my head.
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean no. What about Billy?”
“What about him?”
“Shouldn’t he have a say in this? If this whole thing has taught me anything, it’s that human beings have the right to their own autonomy, and should be free to love who they want without the interference of magic.”
Rosalie snorted. She actually snorted. “Oh, please. Boys like Billy need witches like me to tell them what to do, so they don’t make dumb decisions that will screw up the rest of their lives like he’s doing right now. So just hand over the book, and I’ll clean up the massive mess you made, and everything will be all right.”
But still I hesitated. Alarms were sounding in my head—and in my gut. Something was telling me that giving the book to Rosalie Hopkins would be a massive mistake.
“I can’t, Rosalie,” I said. “I’m sorry. The book says that what you give your neighbor comes back to you, times three. If you do a spell and your intentions aren’t—”
“Oh, no.” Rosalie’s pretty face twisted into a mask of rage. “Don’t you dare give me that Rule of Three crap. You know as well as I do that rules like that don’t apply to witches like me!”
I knew no such thing. All I knew was that the bell had long since rung. At the sound of it, a first year I hadn’t even realized was in the restroom with us had burst from one of the stalls and, after giving Rosalie and me a wild-eyed glance, flew out the door, not even pausing to wash her hands. That’s how much she didn’t want to engender Rosalie’s wrath.
I should have followed her, because now all of that wrath was focused on me.
“You want to worry about my intentions?” Rosalie was breathing hard as she stared at me. “Then worry about what I intend to do to you if you don’t give me that book today.”
I don’t know what I expected her to do to me. Hex me, maybe? Put a curse on me? But certainly not what she did, which was glance toward the restroom’s ceiling tiles and, a second later, raise her arm and cause them to unleash a torrent of rain down on me.
Of course it wasn’t really raining indoors. What Rosalie had done was set off the fire sprinklers.
But as far as I could tell, she hadn’t done it by lighting anything on fire. She’d done it with her mind, and by muttering a short incantation, none of the words of which I managed to catch. I was too busy ducking to avoid the deluge of water, and reevaluating my position on giving her Goody Fletcher’s book.
“Rosalie,” I cried from beneath the bank of sinks, where I’d gone to crouch to avoid getting soaked (it wasn’t helping). “We’re both witches. We should be working together, not against one another.”
Rosalie, who was standing in the alcove by the doorway where the sprinklers didn’t reach, and so hadn’t gotten a drop of water on her, looked down at me pitilessly. “Nice try. But only one of us is a real witch. And even worse for you? I’m a storm witch. And I’m going to keep making it storm until you give me the book.”
“All right.” I couldn’t believe the words were coming out of my mouth. But I was freezing cold, soaking wet, and scrunched beneath a bank of bathroom sinks. What else was I going to say? “You can have the book. Just make the water stop!”
As suddenly as the cascade of water had started, it stopped, and Rosalie was all sweetness and light again. “There,” she said, smiling. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
I rose cautiously from beneath the sinks. The floor and stalls were soaked. So was I. “Where did you learn to do that?” I asked in wonder.
“From my grandmother,” Rosalie said, patting her perfectly straight hair. “Now, when can you drop off the book? I need it soon. I want Billy to take me out for Valentine’s Day.”
Of course she did.
“About that . . . I can’t give you the whole book—but I can give you the spell I used on Billy,” I added quickly, when I saw the rage rush back into her pretty face.
“What?”
“You don’t have to pay me for it. You can have it for free. And then you can use it on Billy, and he’ll be yours.” It went against everything I thought was right, but it was the only way I could think of to get Rosalie—and Billy—out of my life, and also not get drowned in my own school. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
But before Rosalie could reply, the door to the girls’ room opened and Dr. Fields, our guidance counselor, poked her head in, looking around in surprise. “What on earth is all the commotion going on in here? Why is it so . . . wet?”
“I don’t know, Dr. Fields.” Rosalie’s cold blue eyes were like twin icicles. “I just walked in. I thought I smelled smoke, though.”
Dr. Fields frowned. “Jessica Gold, were you smoking in the girls’ room?”
“What? No!”
“Well, that’s the only reason the sprinklers would have gone off. Come with me to my office, please.”
“Your office?” I couldn’t believe this was happening. Up until a few months ago, I’d been a good girl. I’d never done anything wrong in my life. And now look what was happening to me. “Yes, Dr. Fields.”
I could feel Rosalie’s icicle-blue gaze stabbing holes in my back as I left.
But I didn’t care anymore what happened between her and Billy. I’d keep my word and get her that spell. What she did with it was her problem.