Page 11 of Haunting the Deep

I don’t move.

“We’re not going outside,” Susannah says. “Honest.”

I push back my chair, and we make our way out of the lunchroom in a mass of black. There isn’t a pair of eyes that doesn’t watch us go.

Alice winds us through the halls and stops in front of a nondescript door.

“Got it,” Mary says, and it swings open.Did she pick the lock?

Susannah looks both ways down the hall. “Go.” And we do. We file into the dusty room and close the door behind us.

Alice flips on the light. It’s a storage room full of file cabinets. Mary pulls out her black wool blanket and spreads it on the floor. Does she carry that thing everywhere, just waiting for something witchy to pop up?

“How do you guys know about this place?”

Alice shrugs and sits down on the blanket. We all follow.

“How’d you know how to get in?”

Mary opens her mouth. Alice puts a hand on her arm and she shuts it again.

“Why should we tell you anything if you don’t want to join our circle?” Alice asks.

“Why should I join your circle if you don’t want to tell me anything?”

Alice and I stare at each other.

“You’ve barely talked to us these past six months,” Alice says with a frown.

I hesitate. Did she want me to talk to her? I didn’t figure I mattered to her. “I know. I just…I needed a little quiet.”

Everyone is silent for a beat.

I adjust my position on the blanket. “So can you guys help me make this weird stuff stop happening? Make everything go back to normal?”

“You’re a descendant of Cotton Mather living in Salem who can do magic. There’s nothing normal about your situation,” Mary says.

“Touché,” I say.

“Why do you think we always keep to ourselves?” Alice asks.

“You? To look cool,” Mary says.

Alice actually smiles. “No, our cool points come from me being so personable.”

Mary rolls her eyes.

Susannah’s expression is calm and quiet. “When you first moved here, people told you that we cursed you, didn’t they?”

I think back to the fall and all the rumors that started then. “Something like that, yeah.”

“We don’t evenknowhow to curse people,” Mary says. “And if we did know, we wouldn’t.”

“We’re here to find out what Sam knows, not to tell her our life stories,” Alice says.

“Because withholding information worked out so well last time?” I say.

“Samantha’s right,” Susannah says. “She might not have been talkative these past few months, but we set that precedent. Plus, she’s seeing drenched dead people at our school. Do you really think we can wait?”