Sandy Morrison and the Pack of Pussies

Chapter 5

Sandy paced the length of her room from the closet to the window next to the headboard of her bed. Only ten minutes had passed since Kyle’s red truck turned the corner up the street and sped out of sight, but she was already praying for its early return.

A naïve inner voice insisted that she was overreacting, but nothing about Maggie’s behavior was reassuring. Kyle had told Maggie about Sandy’s spell, and now they were in trouble.

She stopped at the window, looking toward the corner of the block one way, and then the other, even though it was unlikely that Maggie would take a different course in returning.

She thought, Why are they acting this way? It doesn’t make sense unless...

Turning away from the window, she looked at Kyle, who sat at the foot of her bed with his head bowed and his cell phone clasped tight between his hands. He was clearly waiting for a sign.

Sandy asked, “Are you witch hunters? Is that what I’ve done wrong?”

“It’s more complicated than that. Your people hunt our clans, and we retaliate by hunting you. Don’t ask me who started it. Both sides claim it was the other side to make the first attack.”

“What are you?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because...because you’re the enemy.”

The answer struck her with all the force of sucker punch to the gut, and she had to sit on the windowsill as the strength left her legs. “You aren’t here to watch over me. I’m your prisoner.”

Kyle raised his head, his bright eyes full of conflicting emotions. “I’m sorry. I wish it didn’t have to be like this.”

Sandy’s mouth felt dry. “My mother left to beg for our lives.”

“Yes.”

Sandy doubled over, sliding off the windowsill and curling over on the floor. None of this could be real. It had to be a nightmare, and she just had to find the right moment to wake up.

It made sense why Maggie was upset. She would kill Velma, and then she would call Kyle and give him the order to kill Sandy, maybe her father too.

Maggie loves me, Sandy thought, desperate to deny the truth even if she believed it. How could she not believe, when she’d prevented her own death by casting a spell?

She needed to cast another to save her life, but since she had no idea what she’d done the first time, repeating it now seemed impossible.

Kyle spoke in a low, despondent tone of voice. “When I was nine, a coven of witches attacked my uncle’s house. They killed everyone except another cousin of mine, and she survived because she was at school. She came home to a house full of charred and broken bodies.”

Sandy looked up and found his expression was just as emotionless as his voice. He went on, maintaining eye contact as he said, “That was my first lesson in violence, but only last year, I’ve had to attend more funerals. Sometimes the witches hit other clans for a few years, but they always come back to us at some point.”

“I wouldn’t...” Sandy swallowed, feeling sick to her stomach.

“Maybe you might say we aren’t enemies, but the covens haven’t had time to teach you hate yet. They’ll take you in and teach you how to control your powers, and you’ll be so grateful that your loyalty to them will be unflinching. When they tell you to cast a spell, you will. And if they asked you to kill Maggie—”