Spellcaster. Cara Shultz Lynn

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      Chapter 2

      “Emma dear, is something wrong? You’re being awfully quiet tonight.”

       I looked up from my barely eaten plate of take-out eggplant rollatini to see my aunt Christine frowning at me with a concerned look on her face.

       “Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine,” I fibbed, shoveling a big bite of mozzarella and eggplant into my mouth so I wouldn’t have to talk. “I’m just tired.” Tired of feeling like I’ve got the Sword of Damocles dangling over my head.

       I peered up cautiously. Given the turn my life had taken, I half expected to see the mythical sword hanging over my aunt’s kitchen table, right next to her Waterford chandelier.

       “Is everything going well at school?” Aunt Christine asked, expertly twirling a forkful of spaghetti with garlic and oil.

       “Yeah, everything’s fine. The teachers are just really slamming us with homework before spring break,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant as I reached for a piece of garlic bread. Maybe if I stuffed my face she’d buy it. I hated lying to Aunt Christine, but there was no way I could explain that I’d just performed a spell that said I was in terrible danger. Again. Aunt Christine didn’t know about the magical side of my life—she just thought Brendan and I were a little (okay, a lot) too serious for our age.

       “Dear, if that part-time job at the library is too much to handle—”

       “Oh, no, it’s nothing like that,” I interrupted, nearly spitting out garlicky bread crumbs. I wiped my mouth hurriedly and swallowed loudly. Jeez, Emma, eat like a grizzly bear much? I wiped my mouth a little more daintily and took a drink of water.

       “Seriously, all I do is put away books, make sure the computers are turned off. Most of the time I’m just in there alone doing homework, listening to my iPod.”

       I couldn’t give up that job. I’d lost my mom, lost my twin brother and was left with nothing but my boozed-up stepfather, until my godmother, Aunt Christine, had taken me in last summer after Henry nearly killed me with his DUI driving skills—the accident that left me with a pretty nasty scar on my arm. Christine paid for my tuition at the insanely expensive private school, offered—insisted, actually—to pay for college and didn’t ask for a thing in return. Aunt Christine had rescued me, and claimed my happiness was reward enough. I already felt guilty about how much she’d done for me, and I only felt worse when I sheepishly asked for spending money. The afterschool job at Vince A’s library was the one thing I got right—at least I didn’t need to pester Christine for spare change.

       I dug back into my eggplant, winding a long string of mozzarella around Aunt Christine’s Christofle fork, hoping that was the end of the conversation.

       It wasn’t.

       “Emma, dear,” my aunt began, taking off her tortoiseshell-framed eyeglasses and setting them down on the pink-flowered tablecloth—a sure sign that she was about to get serious. “Are things going well with you and your beau? Or are your classmates giving you a hard time again?”

       I squirmed underneath Aunt Christine’s intense gaze. Sometimes I think her background in New York theater is a ruse, and she really used to work for the CIA, interrogating prisoners. Her gentle cross-examinations are more effective than water-boarding.

       “Yes, Brendan’s fine. Better than fine, actually,” I said honestly. Well, that was the truth. “He’s great. I’ve just got a lot of homework and projects and stuff. Otherwise, school is great.” That part was a big, fat lie. Vince A’s hallways were riddled with so many social land mines it was impossible to make it through the day without a few blowing up in your face.

       Still, I smiled winningly, and it seemed to satisfy Christine.

       “Well, dear, the weather should be getting nice soon, so you should be able to go jogging again. I know how much you like that. Maybe that will help with some of the stress.”

       I nodded in agreement. Kickboxing was fun, but you were always surrounded by so many people. There was something about being alone, with your headphones, just working through your thoughts. And I hadn’t exactly been able to go running with ice on the ground. I’d seen some fanatics jogging through the streets in the snow, and had no idea how they managed to keep from slipping all over the place. But then a darker thought crept into my head—there was some kind of unseen danger lurking out there. Suddenly jogging alone in the park seemed like a very stupid thing for me to do. I kept my smile frozen on my face as my aunt continued talking.

       “Don’t stay up too late studying,” she said, polishing off the rest of her spaghetti. “You’re going to be traipsing all over the Cloisters tomorrow, so you’ll want to be awake.”

       I smiled and nodded, and went back to picking at my eggplant while Christine got up and walked over to the counter to make a martini—her nightly ritual in honor of her late husband, George. Flamboyant and more than a little dramatic, my theater veteran aunt and uncle used to toast each other every night. After his death, Christine continued that ritual, making two martinis and drinking just the one. (Except on Saturday, when she drank both.) I watched her make the martinis—a ritual I always used to think was sweet—and it now struck me as overbearingly sad. Aunt Christine had lost Uncle George. I had lost my mom and my twin brother within a year of each other. And who knew where the hell my father had gone after he abandoned us when Ethan and I were just kids. My family didn’t have an excellent track record of holding on to the ones we loved. Brendan and I may have broken the original curse, but that didn’t mean we still weren’t doomed. Christine had lost her soul mate, no curse required. What could this dark spell herald for us?

       I felt a pang of guilt when I thought of Brendan—I’d texted him that I’d made it home, but used the old homework-and-dinner-with-my-aunt excuse to get out of a phone call. I knew if I called him, I’d tell him about the spell, and I’d end up freaking out…and he’d sneak out later to see me. Like that would go over well with Laura Salinger. Or my aunt, come to think of it.

       After clearing the table, I joined Christine on her pink floral couch for the first twenty minutes of the news. But I couldn’t listen to reports on New York’s budget, or the best viewing spots for the upcoming lunar eclipse, or the lighter-side-of-the-news story on the city’s best food trucks. I could feel the stress of the day weighing on me; I excused myself with the same homework line I’d used earlier. I’d barely shut the door to my bedroom when I felt the tears start. I slammed my iPod into its little docking station, turning it on loudly to block out the sounds of my crying and threw myself on my bed, my sobs muffled by my thick purple comforter.

       Normally I was the world champion of stuffing my feelings deep down—purely out of survival instinct. I probably would have just curled up into a ball and let СКАЧАТЬ