"Okay, I'll get going. Call me later if you want to talk."

He stood up. Then he very gently put his hands on my face, barely touching me with his fingertips. He closed his eyes and muttered words I didn't understand. Closing my eyes, I felt the heat from his fingers warm my face. As I breathed in, some of the pain dissipated.

It took less than a minute, then he opened his eyes and stepped back. I felt much better.

"Thanks," I said. "Thanks for coming."

"I'll talk to you later," he said. Then he turned and left my room.

As I sank back down in bed my face felt lighter, less swollen. My head hurt less. I opened the arnica and popped four of the tiny sugar pills under my tongue. Then I lay quietly, feeling the pain wash out of me.

That night before I went to sleep, both my black eyes were almost gone, the swelling had gone way down, and I felt like I could breathe through my nose.

I stayed home from school the next day, although I looked tons better, except for the ugly black stitch on my lip.

At two-thirty that afternoon I called Mom at work and told her I was going over to Tamara's house to pick up some homework assignments.

"Are you sure you feel up to it?" she asked.

"Yeah, I feel almost fine," I said. "I'll be back before dinner."

"Okay, then. Drive carefully."

"I will."

I hung up the phone, got my keys and my coat, put on my clogs, and set off toward school. It's pretty much impossible to hide a huge white whale like Das Boot, but I parked on a side street two blocks away, where I thought I could see Bree's car pass as she left school. I could have waited for her at home, but I wasn't sure she'd go straight there.

It wasn't like I had a totally fleshed out plan. Basically I was hoping to confront Bree, to hash everything out. In the best of all possible worlds, it would have a positive result. I felt like I had reached a breakthrough with my parents, and Mary K. and I had bonded again after the Bakker incident. Now I wanted to get things straight with Bree. The habits of a lifetime aren't easy to erase, and I still thought of her as my best friend. Hating her was too much to bear. The scene in gym showed how desperately we needed to work things out

But it wasn't only that I had other reasons for wanting to mend things between us, too. Magick was clarity. According to my books, to work the best magick was to see the most clearly. If I lived with an ongoing feud in my life, it could seriously hamper my ability to do magick.

I almost missed Bree's car as it passed the corner at the end of the block Quickly I started up mine and crept slowly behind her, as far back as I could.

Luckily Bree headed straight home. I knew the way well enough that I could hang back at a great distance, staying behind other cars. Once she had pulled into her driveway and parked, I pulled over myself at the very end of her block, behind a big maroon minivan, and shut off my engine.

Just as I was about to get out, though, Raven pulled up in her battered black Peugeot. Bree ran back out of her house.

I waited. The two girls talked for a while on the sidewalk, then headed to Raven's car and got in. Raven roared off, leaving a trail of foul exhaust behind her.

I was nonplussed. This hadn't been in my plan. Right now I was supposed to be talking to Bree, possibly arguing with her. Raven hadn't figured into it. Where were they going?

A sudden fierce curiosity took hold of me, and I started my car again. After four blocks I caught sight of them once more.

They headed north, out of town on Westwood. I followed, already suspecting where they were headed.

When they reached the cornfields at the north of town, where our coven had had its first meeting, Raven pulled off onto the road's shoulder and parked.

Slowing, I waited until they had disappeared into the recently stripped cornfield, then drove to the other side and hid Das Boot under the huge willow oak. Though the branches were almost bare, its trunk was thick and the ground dipped slightly so that no one casually glancing over would spot my car.

Then I hurried across the road and began to pick my way through the crumpled, messy remains of what had been a tall field of golden feed corn.

I couldn't see Raven and Bree ahead of me, but I knew where they were going: to the old Methodist cemetery where we had celebrated Samhain just ten days ago. Ten days ago, when Cal had kissed me in front of the coven and Bree and I had become true enemies. It felt like much longer ago than that I stepped across the trickling stream and headed uphill Into a stand of old hardwood trees. I went more slowly, casting my senses, listening for their voices. I didn't really know what I was doing and felt kind of like a stalker. But I had been wondering about their new coven. I couldn't resist finding out what they were up to.

When I reached the edge of the graveyard, I saw them ahead, standing by the stone sarcophagus that had served as our altar on Samhain. The two of them stood there, not talking, end it came to me: They were waiting for someone.

I sank down on the damp, cold earth beside an ancient tombstone. My race ached a little, and the stitch in my lip was itching. I wished I had remembered to take more arnica or Tylenol before I left the house.

Bree rubbed her hands up and down her arms. Raven kept pushing back her dyed black hair. They both looked nervous and excited.

Then Bree turned and peered into the shadows. Raven grew very still, and my heart beat loudly in the silence.

The person meeting them was a woman, or rather a girl, maybe a couple of years older than Raven. Maybe just a year. The more I looked at her, the younger she became.

She was beautiful in an unusual, otherworldly kind of way. Fine blond hair shone starkly against her black leather motorcycle jacket, and she had very short, almost white bangs. Her cheekbones were high and Nordic, her mouth full and too wide for her race. But it was her eyes that seemed so compelling, even from far away. They were large and deep set and so black that they looked like holes, drawing light in and not letting it out again.

She greeted Bree and Raven so quietly, I couldn't hear the murmur of her voice. She seemed to ask them a question, and her dark eyes darted here and there like negative spotlights raking the area.

"No, no one followed us," I heard Bree say.

"No way." Raven laughed. "No one comes out here."

Still the girl looked around, her eyes flicking again and again to the tombstone I hid behind. If she was a witch, she might pick up on my presence. Quickly I closed my eyes, trying to shut everything down, focusing on becoming invisible, on trying to wrinkle the fabric of reality as little as possible. I am not here, I sent out into the world. I am not here. There Is nothing here. You see nothing, you hear nothing, you feel nothing. I repeated this smoothly again and again, and finally the three girls started talking again.

Moving a centimeter at a time, I turned and faced them again.

"Revenge?" the girl said, her voice rich and musical.

"Yes," said Raven. "You see, there's…"

A breeze rustled the trees just then, and her words were lost. They were speaking so quietly that it was only by using my strongest concentration that I could hear them at all.

"Dark magic," Raven said, and Bree looked at her with troubled eyes.

"… to wither love," were the next words to float to me on the breeze. That was from the girl. I looked at her aura. Next to Bree's and Raven's darkness, she was made of pure light shining like a sword in the increasing shadows of the graveyard.

"Their circle… our new coven… a girl with power… Cal… Saturday nights, at different places…"

They talked on, and my frustration grew at not being able to hear more. The sun went down quickly, as if a lamp had been dimmed, and I started to feel seriously chilly.