“What do you do for fun?” Sandy asked.
I remembered someone I had seen at one of those swimming rescue demos years ago. Sandy wasn’t quite the same as the girl I remembered, but she made me think the same thing — a Wood Sprite. It kind of surprised me, because I hadn’t done much of anything for the Grove in a long time. I wanted to. I really wanted to.
“Magic,” I said. I hadn’t said anything about the Grove.
“My mom speaks in tongues and stuff,” she said, brushing her long blond hair. “I’d like to do something like that, but not the same thing. Could I learn magic?”
“Maybe. Can you meet me at the park Saturday?”
Sandy wasn’t in the dummy classes with me. We had met at lunch, and just seemed to get along right away. It made me feel good to have a normal friend. Well, she was kind of strange, and mostly a loner. But I liked her.
“Sure. See you tomorrow, Ariel.”
I told the others, and we all met on Saturday. I was amazed how much Dulcy was able to climb trees and stuff. Nothing like Penny yet, of course, but not bad.
After Sandy got there, we all sat around and everyone asked her questions.
I could tell Penny liked her, and I think the others did too. We did some swinging in a maple, and Dulcy tried to make a fire.
“Now don’t get excited, anybody. I’m new at this. They don’t teach this in Girl Scouts, and besides, I was never a Girl Scout.” She kept trying. We all watched, almost holding our breaths. Finally she got a spark to catch, and nursed it into a tiny flame, but a breeze came up and put it out.
“Want to try again?” Penny asked.
“N0. I came close. I’ll watch you guys some more.”
Penny soon had a fire going, and Michael brought out a bag of marshmallows.
“Tell me about your magic,” Sandy said.
Everyone looked at me. I wanted to crawl in a hole.
“Oh, well,” Penny said. “Ariel has always chosen good people before. We do white magic . . .”
I could tell Penny was mad at me. While she was explaining the magic the Grove did, I went to the drinking fountain and took one of my favorite pills.
When I got back, they were all talking and laughing together, asking and answering questions. I just sat and listened.
At Candlemas, we all talked about Sandy. It was a cold evening, so Michael and Issa built a big fire and we spent most of the time around it. I couldn’t say much, other than I liked her and knew she would make a good Sprite. Dulcy taught us a circle folk dance, and Michael played while the rest of us danced around the outside of the Magic Circle, always going to the right as Dulcy taught us. We blessed a whole bunch of new candles. Penny, Michael, and Issa had made most of them at Michael’s house. The wine tasted good, but there was never enough to make me feel good anymore.
My bank account was down to $376. That made me a little sad, but I didn’t really care, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I just kept floating along, trying to feel good, and life seemed to be going by faster and faster. I knew my mom and dad were getting mail from the school. I knew my teachers were talking about me. Once I had to talk to another counselor or psychologist or something. But it all seemed to be rushing past me, faster and faster. Only . . . I didn’t have any idea where I was going.
March went by and someone told me it was springtime. Some lady started
following me around school, but she never talked to me. I started to get sick just before Easter — colds and diarrhea and stuff. Tara was gone. Staring at the empty corral one day, I realized how bad I felt, and I started screaming and crying and it was a long time before my mom could get me to settle down and go to bed.
I was pretty sure I was dying.