The Promise (Book 1, The Coven Series)

Chapter Fourteen

Saturday dawned bright and clear. And cold. The thermometer read twenty-two degrees outside. For it to be cold this early was highly unusual in North Carolina. It never dropped below fifty until the middle of November, but this year the cold seemed to be setting in sooner than expected. My teeth chattered as I hopped from foot to foot on the cold tile of the bathroom floor after I stepped out of the hot shower. Why hadn't Mom or Dad turned the heat on? I glanced at my watch on the sink. It was only a little after seven. They were probably still sound asleep. Mom wouldn't crack an eye before eight on the weekends.

I had a lot to do today and I was also pretty sure I was running out of time. Dad's crazy ramblings of "you're almost eighteen" kept popping into my head. Did all of this, maybe even the curse, have something to do with my eighteenth birthday? Without Emily's Book of Shadows, I had zero chance of figuring it out. Well, almost zero. After admitting there was nowhere left to look for her book, I only had one option left. The other book. The one heavily guarded by wards and I knew zilch about wards.

I needed help.

The question was who could I trust?

Kay? I'd known her since the first day of kindergarten when Jeff had stolen my toy. Kay had pushed him down and kicked him as hard as she could. We'd been best friends since. I loved her like a sister, but every time I thought about telling her my theories, my stomach went into overdrive, twisting and heaving painfully. A warning.

Telling Kay was not a good idea, but not because she'd try and hurt me. At least I didn't think so. Emily had been specific in her diary. She wanted to keep me and Kay safe, to get us both away from here. No, my instincts warned me against confiding in her not because she was dangerous, but because knowing might put her in danger. Or at least I hoped so.

Then again, I could be completely wrong and she knew all about the curse and whatever danger it posed. I hated not knowing what was going on and not being able to trust anyone. It majorly sucked.

Ethan? Absolutely not. I accepted that I loved him despite my better judgment, but I wasn't without some common sense. At least not yet. Emily's mystery boy could very well be Ethan. The rational part of me understood that. He'd shown up out of nowhere and when Mom had heard his name, she'd looked like a kid on Christmas morning. Then the town had then started trying to write a truth spell-a spell my sister had suggested to begin with. My truth spell could have confirmed it, I thought darkly. A ghost? No, even she hadn't believed that. But could that have been what I'd seen that day in the diner? A ghost? The boy from her diary?

Ethan could be that boy.

But I hoped and prayed to the Fates he wasn't that boy. Ghost or not, I blamed that boy for everything that had happened three years ago. He'd appeared, the town had gone a little crazy, and my sister had died. He was the catalyst for everything that had happened. Emily had discovered some kind of hidden truth and it ended up getting her killed. Everything was his fault.

It couldn't be Ethan. Please don't be Ethan, I begged silently as I blow dried my hair.

Mom and Dad were both out of the question-neither seemed willing to tell me anything.

That left me with Billy and Jeff. Definitely not Billy. He was Kay's boyfriend, but I'd seen the glint in his eyes when we were talking about the truth spell. He was a Coven boy, born and bred. I couldn't trust him. But I might be able to trust Jeff. He'd warned me at the initiation that I shouldn't have come. He definitely knew something and I'd seen the same fear in his eyes I'd seen in Dad's. My stomach stayed quiet as I thought about confiding in Jeff. Score one for the home team. My instincts trusted Neighbor Boy.