“It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Kate told her therapist. “Her parents’ ghosts were just holding her. Then they disappeared and Cooper and I hugged her.”
She was starting to cry all over again as she remembered the strange events that had occurred on Samhain Eve a few weeks before. She, Cooper, and Annie had performed a ritual in which Annie had called to the spirits of her parents. To Kate’s surprise, Mr. and Mrs. Crandall had appeared. It had been an emotional moment, especially for Annie. But it had been very special for Kate, too. Watching Annie finally get to say good-bye to her mother and father, almost ten years after their deaths in a fire, Kate had been reminded of how important her own family was to her. They’d had some rough times over the past few months, and on occasion Kate had wished that she had a different family. But she loved them, even when they were impossible to deal with, and she knew that they loved her. They’d even let her go to the weekly Wicca study class again after meeting some of the instructors. She knew that was a big step for her conservative parents, and she appreciated it.
“Do you really believe that you saw ghosts that night?” Dr. Hagen asked Kate, holding her pencil to her lips as she waited for an answer.
“Sure,” Kate said. “We all saw them. We couldn’t all have been imagining it.”
“Had you and Cooper ever seen photographs of Annie’s parents?” asked the doctor.
Kate nodded. “A few,” she answered. “Why?”
Dr. Hagen shook her head. “I’m just wondering,” she said.
“You don’t believe me!” said Kate, surprised. It was the first time she’d ever felt that perhaps the therapist didn’t think she was telling the truth. “You think I imagined it all because I wanted it to be true.”
“I believe that you had an experience,” replied Dr. Hagen carefully. “I’m just not sure I agree completely with your explanation of it.”
Kate groaned. “And I thought you were on my side,” she said.
Dr. Hagen set her pad and pencil on the little table beside her chair. “I’ve told you before, I don’t take sides,” she said. “And I also don’t lie. I’m not going to tell you that I think you saw ghosts when I don’t.”
“Then what do you think I saw?” Kate asked her defensively.
“I don’t know,” admitted the doctor.
“You don’t believe in ghosts, though?” Kate prodded.
“I’ve never seen one,” Dr. Hagen told her, not really answering the question.
Kate snorted. “Well, I don’t think Annie, Cooper, and I all had the exact same hallucination or something. I saw those ghosts. Do you always have to see something before you believe in it?”
“Generally,” said the doctor. “Call me old-fashioned.”
“I’ll see what I can arrange, then,” Kate told her.
Dr. Hagen laughed. “Well, before you start sending the Ghost of Christmas Past to wake me up tonight, why don’t we talk about how things in the real world are going. How’s the situation with your parents?”
“Fine, I guess,” Kate said. “We’ve sort of adopted the don’t-ask/don’t-tell policy about the whole witchcraft thing. They pretend I’m not really going to Wicca class every Tuesday night and I don’t mention anything about it when I get home. It’s dysfunctional, but it works for us.”
“Hmm,” said the doctor vaguely as she picked up the pencil and wrote something on the pad. “And you’re okay with that arrangement?”
“As long as I get to go to class,” said Kate. She paused. “I guess I would like to be able to tell them some stuff,” she added. “But it’s okay for right now.”
“And what about Tyler?” asked Dr. Hagen.
“That’s a whole other story.” Kate sighed dramatically. “My parents still don’t want me to see him. I can’t argue with them about it because that would mean talking about the witch stuff some more. But I really want to see him. It’s been a long time.”
“Do you talk to him?” the doctor queried.
“Sometimes,” answered Kate. “He comes to class on Tuesdays when he can, and we talk then. But that’s not enough.”
“How does he feel about all of this?” the therapist said.
Kate sighed. “I think it bothers him as much as it bothers me,” she said. “I try not to talk about it too much because I don’t want what little time we do have together to be depressing.”
“But you don’t think he’s given up on the relationship?” Dr. Hagen asked. “He’s not dating anyone else or anything?”
“No!” Kate said, shocked that the doctor would even suggest something like that. “Tyler? No way. I mean, I know we haven’t been the tightest of couples lately, but I know he still loves me. He’ll wait until things work out.”
“And you love him?” said the therapist.
“Most definitely,” Kate replied firmly. “He’s everything I could possibly want in a guy.”
Dr. Hagen paused as she wrote something down. Kate waited for her to say something, but she seemed engrossed in whatever it was she was scribbling on the paper. Finally, Kate couldn’t stand waiting anymore. “So, how do I get them to let me see Tyler again?” she blurted out.
Dr. Hagen stopped writing. “How about asking them?” she suggested.
“They’ll just say no,” Kate said wearily. “I know they will.”
“That’s what you thought when I suggested inviting them to a ritual, too,” the therapist reminded her. “And you were wrong about that.”
“True,” Kate admitted. “But I’m not sure they’re willing to give in twice in one century. I have to think about it. Thanksgiving is coming up, and my brother will be home from college. That will put them in a good mood. Maybe I’ll do it then.”
“Holidays aren’t always the best occasions for bringing up potentially stressful issues,” Dr. Hagen pointed out.
“I know,” Kate said. “But I need to tell Kyle about the whole Wicca thing anyway. We haven’t talked about it yet, and I feel weird not having him know. I might as well get it all out of the way at once. Besides, once Kyle knows about the class he can help me gang up on Mom and Dad. That’s how we’ve always worked together.”
“It would be good to have an ally in the house,” agreed the doctor. “Are you fairly certain that Kyle will support you?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Kate. “Besides, if he doesn’t I’ll threaten to tell Mom about the tattoo he got. They don’t know about that yet.”
Dr. Hagen sighed. “Well, I can’t officially endorse blackmail as a means to an end, so I’ll leave it up to you to work out the ethics of that approach.”
“Not that I’m not enjoying talking to you or anything,” Kate said, “but how much longer do we have to continue our sessions? My parents brought me here because of the whole Wicca thing. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, is there really any reason to keep spending my Saturday mornings here?”
Dr. Hagen shrugged. “That’s up to you, I think,” she said. “Do you feel that we’ve talked about everything you want to talk about?”
Kate was about to say yes, she did think they’d talked about everything. But then she hesitated. While part of her wanted the doctor to tell her parents that everything was fine and that there was no reason for her to keep coming back, another part of her liked talking to Dr. Hagen. She liked being able to say whatever she was thinking, and she liked that the therapist treated her like someone who could make her own decisions. Was she ready to give that up? To her surprise, she found that she wasn’t sure she was.
“I’ll get back to you on that,” she said.
Dr. Hagen looked at her watch. “Perfect timing,” she said. “We’re done for today.”
They stood up, and the doctor walked Kate to the door. “Say hello to your parents for me,” she said as Kate left. “I’ll see you next week.”
Kate left the office and walked to the waiting room, where her mother was thumbing through a magazine and looking bored. “Okay,” Kate said. “I know how gripping those articles on bike trips the whole family can enjoy must be, but it’s time to get out of here.”
Mrs. Morgan put down the magazine and stood up. “For your information, I was reading about the drama on the set of the new Russell Crowe movie,” she said as she pulled on her jacket.
“I see,” Kate said. “Let me guess—he was moody and didn’t like the food?”
“Basically,” her mother answered. “But who cares? He’s a hottie.”
“Mom!” Kate said.
“Please,” said Mrs. Morgan as they left the office and walked to the car. “Just because you’re married doesn’t mean you go blind.”
“It’s not that,” Kate said. “I just thought you’d be more of a Tom Hanks kind of woman.”
Her mother laughed. “He’s too goofy,” she said.
Kate rolled her eyes. She liked joking around with her mother like this. It made her feel more comfortable, the way she had before all of the issues around her involvement in Wicca had put a strain on their relationship. Her mother had always been like a best friend, but that had changed when Mrs. Morgan had found out about her daughter’s interest in witchcraft. Since then Kate had missed the way they’d been before.
Now, though, it seemed that maybe things were getting back to normal. Kate attributed this partly to the fact that her aunt Netty, her mother’s sister, was doing really well in her battle against cancer, a battle she felt she was winning partly because of the effects of a healing ritual she had done with some of Kate’s witch friends. Seeing Netty get better had changed the way Mrs. Morgan looked at witchcraft, and while Kate wished that her aunt never had to fight cancer in the first place, she was happy that some good had come out of it.
Thinking about that reminded Kate that Aunt Netty would be there for Thanksgiving, which was a little more than a week away. Kate hadn’t seen her aunt in a while, and she was looking forward to it. She was also looking forward to seeing her older brother, Kyle. It would be great to have the family together for a few days. Now, if she could only find a way to solve her Tyler problem, everything would be perfect.
“What are your plans for tonight?” her mother asked as they drove home.
“Just hanging out with the girls,” Kate replied evasively. She knew her mother was still a little unsure of her friendship with Annie and Cooper, so she tried to bring them up as little as possible. If she didn’t say which girls she was hanging out with, her mother could assume whatever she wanted to. Not that there were a lot of other options when it came to who she might be spending time with. These days, Cooper and Annie were pretty much it for Kate as far as really close friends went.
Mrs. Morgan nodded but didn’t say anything. Kate quickly started talking about something else, and for the rest of the ride home they stuck with subjects that didn’t have the potential for turning into arguments. Kate had gained some ground over the past few weeks, and she didn’t want to lose it by pushing too hard.
Later that evening Kate walked over to Annie’s house and knocked on the door. It was opened by Annie’s little sister, Meg. When she saw Kate she frowned. “You’re late,” she said seriously. “Everyone else is already here.”
“I’m sorry,” said Kate, trying not to laugh as she looked at the younger girl’s solemn expression. Although Meg was only ten, she sometimes acted like someone ten times her age.
“It’s okay,” Meg said as Kate came inside. “We haven’t started yet.”
Kate walked into the kitchen, where she found Annie, Cooper, and Sasha seated around the table drinking hot chocolate and eating cookies.
“There you are,” Annie said. “We thought you weren’t going to make it.”
“Now I see where you get it from,” Kate said to Meg, who had followed her into the kitchen and was helping herself to a cookie. “I’m only ten minutes late,” she added to the others.
“Well, now that you’re here we can start cooking,” Annie said, standing up. “Who wants to do what? We need someone to cook the pasta, someone to chop stuff for the sauce, someone to make a salad, and someone to make the cheesecake.”
“I’ll do pasta,” Cooper said instantly. “I can’t possibly get that wrong.”
“I’ll chop,” said Sasha.
“I’ll take salad duty,” Annie said. “That leaves Kate and Meg on the cheesecake. Can you guys handle that?”
Kate looked at Meg. “What do you think?” she asked. “I’ve never made one.”
“No problem,” replied Meg. “Just follow me.”
Kate laughed as everyone got busy. She watched as Meg got out a mixing bowl and started assembling ingredients from the refrigerator.
“Wow,” Kate said as she watched Meg at work. “You really do know what you’re doing.”
“Annie and I make cheesecake all the time,” said Meg. “Just get me the sugar. It’s in that cupboard up there and I can’t reach it.”
“So, what has everyone been up to?” Sasha asked as she diced some chili peppers. “Any news about your parents, Coop?”
“No,” Cooper answered. “They’re still separated and no one is really saying anything. But we all went out for dinner the other night and there was no fighting, so I think that’s a good sign. And last night Jane and I won that battle of the bands thing we entered.”
“Congrats,” Kate said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t go.”
“Me, too,” chimed in Annie. “I had to stay home with you-know-who.”
“Hey!” Meg protested. “I’m right here.”
“Is your aunt having a good time in San Francisco?” Kate asked Annie.
“I haven’t heard anything yet,” answered Annie. “But my guess is that she’s having a great time. She and Grayson have been talking up a storm. She tried to convince me she was only going down there for business, but I know better. I think she’s really falling for him.”
Grayson Dunning was a writer Annie and her aunt had met while they were in San Francisco the month before. He and his daughter, Becka, lived in the house where Annie, Meg, and her parents had lived before her parents’ deaths. He and Aunt Sarah had clicked—really clicked—and the two of them had been talking a lot since then.
“You should hear her on the phone with him,” said Meg, sounding as if the thought of it revolted her. “She sounds like Annie did when that boy used to call her.”
Nobody said anything for a moment. The boy Meg was referring to was Brian, whom Annie had dated over the summer and into the beginning of the school year. He’d been her first real boyfriend, and she’d really liked him. But he’d dumped her after she wrote an editorial for the school paper about being involved in Wicca. Her friends knew it was still a sore subject with her, and usually they didn’t bring it up.
“Speaking of boys,” Cooper said, quickly changing the subject. “Someone tried to steal mine from me last night.”
“T.J.?” Sasha said. “Who put her hands on your man?”
“Just this girl at the club,” Cooper replied. “She was one of the singers. Afterward she was all over T.J. I think she was just mad that we beat her.”
“What was she like?” Annie inquired.
Cooper shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “Pretty. Great voice.”
“Sounds like you’d better be careful,” commented Sasha.
Cooper laughed. “Can you imagine T.J. cheating on me?” she said. “That would be like Tyler cheating. Neither of them would do that. They just don’t have it in them.”
“Ow!” said Annie.
The others turned to look at her. She was at the sink, holding her finger under the running water.
“What happened?” Kate asked her.
“Oh, I just cut myself a little,” Annie said. “I was slicing tomatoes and the knife slipped.”
Kate wondered what had distracted Annie, ordinarily so adept in the kitchen. What had they been talking about? T.J. and Tyler. She must have been thinking about Brian, Kate told herself. She looked at Annie, who was drying her hand and looking at the cut. Kate felt sorry for her. She’d make such a great girlfriend, she thought. Brian had really lost out. It was too bad he had freaked out over the witch issue. But there was someone out there for Annie. Kate was sure of that. After all, Kate had found Tyler, and she’d never thought she could find a guy who was almost perfect.
She smiled happily to herself as she helped Meg pour the cheesecake batter into a pan. That’s what Annie needs, she thought. She needs someone like Tyler.