Page 52 of Big Little Spells
“Okay, so we make a fake Ellowyn and Jacob and then send them on their way,” Georgie says, frowning like she’s wracking her brain for the right spell, which tells me all I already know about the differences in our high school experiences.
But something is poking at me. Like I haven’t gotten it quite right. For some reason, I look at Zander again. Really look at him, and let myself see. The visions are fractured, as ever, but there’s a kind of thread there. I follow it for a moment.
“You should go too,” I tell him.
Zander glances over at Ellowyn and tries very hard to keep the emotions off his face. But he doesn’t succeed until he looks back at Georgie and me. “It probably shouldn’t be me.”
I reach out and wrap my hand around my cousin’s. The static is a little painful, but I get the answer I’m looking for. Immediately. “I think maybe it should be.”
He pulls his hand away. He looks uncertain and reluctant, but he holds my gaze as if he’s looking for permission. Like I’d know if it’s really okay. When all I know is that it feels right.
“Georgie, Emerson, and I can handle things here. You go tell them the plan.”
He gives me a curt nod and heads back toward them. Georgie and I stay where we are. The music changes, and I raise my brows at her. I’ll admit I’m a little surprised when the Historian of the group looks back at me like she spends her time dancing on bars, with an expression that clearly says bring it.
So we do. We pretend to laugh as we fling ourselves into dancing to hometown favorite Nelly, which, even though we’re putting on an act, is still more fun than any embarrassing dancing that may or may not have occurred right here in this gym way back when. Everything’s better when you’re not a teenager.
Meanwhile, in her head, Georgie is contacting Ellowyn’s mom, off at the fires with her partner, Mina. And in my head I’m creating a block so the Joywood don’t sense what we’re doing. I’m good at blocks. It’s how I kept myself off any kind of witch radar while out there in exile.
Georgie takes my hand and we pretend to joyfully yell with the crowd of children, “‘I am getting so hot—’”
Emerson charges over and joins us on the dance floor. We create a circle, pretending to smile and dance and enjoy the song. Our ancestresses did the same around fires on this night, stretching back to antiquity, so we do what we can with “Hot in Herre.” Because what we’re really doing as Jacob and Zander take hold of Ellowyn and prepare to fly her out of here is creating little fake images of the three of them. So it looks like they’re huddled in the corner. So it feels like they’re here.
So the Joywood—who aren’t holding a perimeter around the gym the way they have been all night for the express purpose of keeping all the teenagers and us where they want us, thanks to their little meeting—think we’re being obedient and good.
And no one will know the difference except us. It takes a lot of work—energy and magic, but something about these teenage voices and emotions seems to amp up our power. Our abilities.
You should save your energy for Frost, Emerson says in my head. Georgie and I can handle this.
It feels a bit like being excluded. Like they’ve got this—without me—because they’ve had everything without me for the past ten years, my best friend included.
I am responsible for my feelings and no one else can make me feel anything I don’t want to, I remind myself, though it doesn’t really take.
And anyway, they aren’t wrong. Whatever I do or don’t do with Nicholas tonight will require an energy I probably can’t even fathom. Still, I’m not ready to think about what’s coming for me later. I pull some of my power back. The rest of it I leave in the block I’ve made so the Joywood don’t sense anything is amiss.
I glance over to make sure, but they’re still in a huddle of dramatic cloaks, Carol’s frizzy hair looking even more ugly than usual in the flashing lights. Speaking of Carol... “What exactly did happen to Skip Simon?”
“Oh. Well...” Georgie trails off and looks at Emerson. “I actually almost forgot about him.”
“I tried.” Emerson wrinkles her nose. “It’s a long story, but he tried to attack us and we sort of turned him into a weasel.”
“No,” Georgie says gently, even as our magic weaves together to project fake Ellowyn, Zander, and Jacob into that alcove. “And yes. My theory is that we reduced him to his true form.”
“That’s...”
I should be surprised, or have more questions, but at the end of the day it simply makes sense. Skip Simon, Carol’s son, was a weasel.
It explains a lot, actually.
“That should hold,” Emerson says after a while. She squeezes my hand, and the three of us walk off the dance floor. I risk another look over at the Joywood, but they’ve scattered again. Standing at the exits so they can hold their circle and keep us all inside it like the creeps they are. I think about how we fed off the teenage energy and assume they do too.
Year after year after year.
“We can go with you, Rebekah,” Georgie says as I hand them each a cup of awful punch from a different table. This punch is a bright yellow color, and tastes like sadness, regret, and the faintest hint of plastic. “When you face Frost tonight.”
“Yes.” Emerson is already nodding. “Jacob and Zander are on Ellowyn duty. We’ll be on Rebekah duty.”
Like I’m also sick. Or a child in need of being chaperoned. I try to smile. “Don’t you think I can handle him on my own? I’m sure you’ve done it before.”