Spellcaster. Cara Shultz Lynn

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СКАЧАТЬ across the street from school,” I said adamantly as we waited for the Park Avenue light to change. Never mind that there wasn’t much to tell from our four-and-a-half month relationship beyond kissing and some wandering hands. My virginity was still firmly intact. I mulled this over as Ashley pouted, and felt even guiltier not telling Brendan about the spell immediately. Brendan hadn’t once tried to pressure me into anything, respecting my boundaries whenever I put a halt on anything physical—and he had so many notches in his bedpost the damn bed was in danger of falling down.

       I sighed, looking up at the entrance to the school as we crossed the street—and spied something that effectively ended the conversation.

       “Oh, yeah, I’m definitely not talking about this now,” I said, catching sight of Brendan from the back. He was standing near the bus, wearing an army-green military-style jacket that I didn’t recognize. I was surprised he was waiting outside so late—Ashley and I were cutting it close. I had two morning classes before we were due to leave for the Cloisters.

       “Well, let me know if you guys decide to go to that Battle of the Bands thing,” Ashley said, calling out her goodbye as she raced into the ornate entrance of the school. The main building of Vincent Academy was an old mansion that had been converted into a school—and the marble entrance looked less like a high school, more like some posh old billionaire’s home.

       I approached Brendan from behind, appreciating the way his black pants hung on him. I pinched his butt before throwing my arms around his waist in a big hug.

       “Guess who?” I teased—but Brendan’s body just stiffened. He spun around with a confused expression on his face—which I then realized wasn’t Brendan’s face at all. It was Liam.

       “Oh! I’m so sorry! I, um, thought you were Brendan! I mean, obviously, I just… Oh, God. I pinched your butt,” I stammered, embarrassed, to the sophomore I had just accosted in the middle of Eighty-sixth Street. I hadn’t realized that he’d started styling his black hair to resemble Brendan’s messy, very unstyled hair. If I hadn’t been so embarrassed, I’d be collapsing at the adorableness: Brendan—aloof, hotheaded Brendan—had accidentally cultivated a little mini-me.

      “Oh, my God, you just startled me,” Liam gasped, his palms up.

       “You and Brendan look a lot alike from the back,” I explained, positive my cheeks were about to burst into flames.

       “So you were checking out my butt?” Liam said with a smirk and I smacked his arm.

       “Your hair, Liam,” I repeated dryly, and he let a nervous laugh escape.

       “Hey, at least I get to tell people I got to first base before lunch,” he teased before putting his hands up again in protest. “No, I won’t! I’m kidding. Oh, my God, Brendan would murder me.” His brown eyes widened in terror.

       “He probably would,” I agreed, stifling a snicker at Liam’s mini-freak-out—especially since Brendan would probably find the whole thing entertaining. Still, I couldn’t believe I’d pinched his butt. Why don’t you go feel up the black-haired barista at Starbucks next, genius?

       “Don’t you usually come with your cousin?” Liam asked, looking around the street.

       “She went in—we’re late,” I said, pointing to my wrist as if I had a watch on.

       “Oh. Yeah, I should probably get inside,” Liam said, falling into step alongside me as we entered the building. “I have to talk to Coach during my free period this afternoon.” He grimaced.

       “Brendan thinks you’ll be fine—and from what I could see, it was a big nothing,” I promised him, and Liam’s worried face relaxed a little. I had to race up the stairs to my history class, with barely enough time to pull my sweatshirt off and slide into my desk before the bell rang. It wasn’t part of the school uniform—and was a surefire ticket to detention. Although you might be safer sanding the pencil grooves in detention than strolling around Manhattan, doomsday girl.

      “Cutting it close, Connor,” my friend Jenn Hynes whispered, turning around in her desk in front of me to wink at me as Mrs. Urbealis walked into the room, calling the class to attention. This would be an easy class today—we were watching old news footage of U.S. protests of the Vietnam War. I tried to focus on the grainy black-and-white telecast—sticking to my earlier vow to just treat today like a normal day—but sitting there, with time to think, the spell I’d done with Angelique began rattling around in my head. Finally I resolved to tell Brendan on the bus ride to the Cloisters instead of waiting until school was over. He had a right to know.

       I had math immediately after history, so I stayed in my seat and chatted with Jenn as other students filed in. Jenn was a little bleary-eyed from staying out too late last night, and was filling me in on her weekend plans—she was going to crash with her sister at the NYU dorms. Suddenly she stopped talking and grabbed my forearm, twisting around even farther in her seat.

       “Call me crazy, but why does it feel like everyone’s whispering and looking at you?” she hissed, pulling her honey-brown hair in front of her face to hide what she was saying. She might as well have cupped her hands around her mouth—she was as obvious as if she’d been doing semaphore.

       “Because they usually are,” I replied, nonplussed. I didn’t even bother lowering my voice; it’s not like it was a secret.

       “No, I mean—” Jenn flipped her hair back, glanced around then pulled her curtain of hair back “—it’s different this time. It’s not the usual ‘Ooh, there goes Emma, I heard Anthony was in Monaco’ or some crap. They’re really staring and whispering.”

       The serious look on Jenn’s face made me pull my eyes from her (slightly bloodshot) ones. I pretended to scratch an itch on my chin, rubbing it on my shoulder as I stole a look around the classroom.

       Madison Wefald and Rebecca Curry were speaking in animated, hushed tones. Nicole McAllister leaned so far over in her desk to murmur in Paul Cuevas’s ear, she was practically lying on the top of the desk, her butt sticking in the air and giving Marcus Colby a first-class ticket to Hineytown. And they were all casting furtive glances my way.

       “What did you do now?” Jenn asked, her expertly made-up eyes wide. I shrugged, slinking a little lower into my desk self-consciously.

       Mr. Agneta, the math teacher, strode into the room and took one look at the chattering students. He grabbed the large wooden compass, which he used to draw arcs on the blackboard, and pressed the chalk end on the board, causing it to screech uncomfortably—and the low buzz of voices stopped. Nicole flopped in her seat, and Marcus visibly frowned at the end of his free show.

       “Yes, yes, so exciting. Well, math is exciting, too,” he said, and I knew I wasn’t imagining him shifting his eyes to glance my way. And I definitely didn’t imagine hearing Marcus Colby whisper, “Salinger, really?” to Nicole before bending over in his seat to check out her butt again.

       My hand twitched to pull out my cell phone and text Brendan. Immediately the spell Angelique and I did assaulted my mind. What if Brendan was the target, not me? Was he hurt? Sick?

       I thought about leaving the classroom to use the bathroom and text Brendan, but the expression on Mr. Agneta’s face every time he scanned the classroom and saw me craning my head to look out the door told me that wasn’t going to fly. I don’t know what I expected to see out there—it’s not like Brendan was going to be holding up a big neon sign in the hallway spelling out what happened. But it was clear that СКАЧАТЬ