All of a sudden I dropped the sponge I'd been holding and stood up straight. I frowned and glanced out the window. It was dark. I glanced around the room, feeling a strong sense of… I wasn't sure what. A storm coming? Some vague feeling of danger was stirring the air.

I'd just snapped the dishwasher door shut when the kitchen door swung open. My parents stood there, my dad looking rattled and my mom tight-lipped and upset.

"What's wrong?" I said, turning off the water, feeling my heart begin to thump.

My mom ran her hand through her straight russet hair, so like Mary K.'s. "Are these yours?" she asked. "These books about witches?" she held up the books I had bought at Practical Magick.

"Uh-huh," I said. "So what?"

"Why do you have them?" my mom asked. She hadn't changed out of her work clothes, and she looked rumpled and tired.

"It's interesting," I said, dumbfounded by her tone.

My parents looked at each other. The overhead light glinted off my dad's balding spot.

"Are kids at school into this, or is it just you?" my mom asked.

"Mary Grace," my dad said, but she ignored him.

I felt my brow furrow. "What do you mean? This isn't a big deal or anything, is it?" I shook my head. "It's just…interesting. I wanted to know more about it."

"Morgan," my mom began, and I couldn't believe how upset she looked. She almost always kept her cool with me and Mary K., no matter how crazed her life got.

"What your mother's trying to say," my dad offered, "is that these books about witchcraft are not the kind of thing we want you to be reading." He cleared his throat and tugged on the vee of his sweater vest, looking incredibly uncomfortable.

My mouth dropped open."How come?" I asked.

"How come!" my mom snapped, and I almost jumped at the tone in her voice. "Because it's witchcraft!"

I stared at her. "But it's not like… black magic or anything," I tried to explain. "I mean, there's really nothing harmful or scary in it. It's just people hanging out, getting in touch with nature. So what if they celebrate full moons?" I didn't mention penis candies, bolts of energy, or naked swimming.

"It's more than that," my mom insisted. Her brown eyes were wide, and she looked as taut as a piano wire. She turned to my dad. "Sean, help me here."

"Look, Morgan," my dad said, more calmly. "We're concerned about this. I think we're pretty open-minded, but we're Catholics. That's our religion. We are part of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church does not condone witchcraft or people who study witchcraft."

"I don't believe this," I said, starting to get impatient. "You're acting like this is a huge threat or something." Memories of how sick I had felt after the two circles flashed through my mind. "I mean, this is Wicca. It's like people deciding to protest animal testing or wanting to dance around a maypole." Some of the facts about Wicca that I had read in my book came back to me. "You know, the Catholic Church has adopted a bunch of traditions that began with Wicca. Like using mistletoe at Christmas and eggs at Easter. Those were both ancient symbols from a religion that began long before Christianity or Judaism."

My mom stared at me. "Look, miss," she said, and I knew she was really angry. "I'm telling you that we will not have witchcraft in this house. I'm telling you that the Catholic Church does not condone this. I'm telling you that we believe in one God. Now, I want these books out of this house!"

It was like my mom had been replaced by an alien duplicate. This sounded so unlike her that I just gaped. My dad stood next to her, his hand on her shoulder, obviously trying to get her to calm down, but she just glared at me, the lines around her mouth deep, her eyes angry and cold and…worried?

I didn't know what to say. My mom was usually incredibly reasonable.

"I thought we believed in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," I said. "That's three."

Mom looked almost apoplectic, the veins in her neck jumping out. I suddenly realized that I was taller than she was now. "Go to your room!" she shouted, and again I jumped. We're not a raised-voice kind of family.

"Mary Grace," my dad murmured.

"Go!" my mom yelled, throwing out her arm and pointing out the kitchen door. It almost looked like she wanted to hit me, and I was way shocked.

Dad reached out his hand and touched Mom's shoulder in a tentative, ineffectual gesture. His face looked drawn and his eyes concerned behind their wire-rim glasses.

"I'm going," I muttered, taking the long way around her. I stomped upstairs to my room and slammed the door. I even locked it, which I'm not supposed to do. I sat on my bed, spooked and trying not to cry.

Over and over, I had the same thought: What is Mom so scared of?

CHAPTER 14 Deeper

"So how come you're in the dollhouse?" Mary K. asked the next morning.

I backed Das Boot out of our driveway, two strawberry Pop-Tarts clenched between my teeth.

Once when Mary K. was little, she had done something bad, and my mom had sternly told her she was "in the doghouse." She had heard "dollhouse," and of course the whole thing made no sense to her. Now it's what we always say.

"I was reading some stuff they didn't want me to read," I muttered casually, trying not to spew crumbs all over my dashboard.

Mary K.'s eyes opened wide. "Like pornography?" she asked excitedly. "Where'd you get it?"

"It wasn't pornography," I told her in exasperation. "It was no big deal. I don't know why they're so upset."

"So what was it?" she persisted.

I rolled my eyes and shifted gears. "They were some books about Wicca," I said. "Which is an ancient, woman-based religion that predates Judaism and Christianity." I sounded like a textbook.

My sister thought about it for a few moments. "Well, that's boring," she said finally. "Why can't you read porn or something fun that I could borrow?" I laughed.

"Maybe later."

"You're kidding," Bree said, her eyes wide. "I don't believe it. That's awful."

"It's so stupid," I said. "They said they want the books out of the house." The bench where we sat outside school was chilly, and the October sunlight seemed to grow feebler by the day.

Robbie nodded sympathetically. His parents were much stricter Catholics than mine. I doubted he'd shared his interest in Wicca with them.

"You can keep them at my house," Bree said. "My dad could care less."

I zipped my parka up around my neck and burrowed into it. There were only a few minutes before class started, and our new, hybrid clique was gathered by the east door of school. I could see Tamara and Janice walking up to the building, their heads bent as they talked. I missed them. I hadn't seen them much lately.

Cal was perched on the bench across from ours, sitting next to Beth. He was wearing ancient cowboy boots, worn down at the heels. He was quiet, not looking at us, but I felt sure he was listening to every word of our conversation.

"Screw them," Raven said. "They can't tell you what to read. This isn't a police state."

Bree snorted. "Yeah. Let me be there when you tell Sean and Mary Grace to go screw themselves."

I couldn't help smiling.

"They're your parents," Cal said, suddenly breaking his silence. "Of course you love them and want to respect their feelings. If I were you, I'd feel miserable, too."

In that moment I fell deeper in love with Cal. On some level I guess I expected him to dismiss my parents as stupid and hysterical, the way everybody else had. Since he was the most ardent follower of Wicca, I expected my parents' reaction to annoy him the most.