"No, I mean the new stuff. She's got complications, apparently."
Gillian stopped applying lipstick. "What kind of complications?"
"I don't know. Fever, I think. And her whole arm's turning purple."
(Angel? Purple?)
(Well, I'd say more mauve myself. Relax, kid. Fever's a natural side effect of a bad rash. Just like poison ivy.)
(But-)
(Look at Amanda. She's not too upset.)
(No, 'cause she probably knows Tanya was messing with her boyfriend. Or she has some other reason not to like her. But, I mean, I don't want Tanya really hurt.)
(Don't you? Be honest.)
(Well, I mean, not really, really hurt, you know? Medium hurt. That's all.)
(I don't think she's going to drop dead this minute.) Angel said it patiently.
(Okay. Good.) Gillian felt a little embarrassed for making a big deal-and at the same time she had a fleeting impulse to go check on Tanya herself. But the impulse was easily quashed. Tanya was getting what she deserved. It was only a rash. How bad could that be?
Besides, Angel was looking after things. And she trusted Angel.
She added the last dab of lipstick and smiled at herself in the mirror. Definitely she was one hot witch.
In sixth period, messengers brought candy canes that people had ordered last week from the Vocal Jazz
Club. You could send the candy canes, which came with a ribbon and a note, to anyone you wanted.
Gillian got a pile so large that everyone laughed, and Seth Pyles ran over and snapped a picture of it for the yearbook. After school David came and rummaged through the pile, looking at the messages and shaking his fist, pretending to be jealous.
It was a very good day.
"Happy?" Angel asked that afternoon. David's mother had recruited him for heavy-duty Christmas housecleaning, so Gillian was alone in her bedroom-which meant it was just her and Angel. She was folding socks and humming her favorite carol, "O Come All Ye Faithful." "Can't you tell?"
"Not with all that noise you're making. Are you really happy?"
She looked up. "Of course I am. I mean, except for the stuff with my parents, I'm totally happy."
"And being popular is all you expected it to be."
"Well..." Gillian paused in bewilderment.
"It's-it's a little different from what I expected. It's not the be-all and the end-all I'd have thought.
But then I'm different from what I thought."
"You're a witch. And you want more than just candy canes and parties."
She looked at him curiously. "What are you trying to say? That I should do some more spells?" "I'm
saying that there's more to being a witch than doing spells. I can show you, if you trust me."
Chapter 12
Yes," Gillian said simply. Her heart rate had picked up a little, but with anticipation rather than fear.
Angel was looking very mysterious.
He struck a looking-into-the-distance pose, then said, "Have you ever had the feeling that you don't really know reality?"
"Frequently," Gillian said dryly. "Ever since I met you."
He grinned. "I mean even before that. Someone wrote about the 'inconsolable secret' that's in each of us.
The desire for our own far-off country, for something we've never actually experienced. About how we all long 'to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality ... to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off...' "
Gillian sat bolt upright. "Yes. I never heard anybody say it that well before. About the chasm- you
always feel that there's something else, somewhere, and that you're being left out. I thought it was something the popular people would be in on-but it hasn't got anything to do with them at all."
"As if the world has some secret, if you could only get on the inside."
"Yes. Yes." She looked at him in fascination. "This is about being a witch, isn't it? You're saying that I've always felt that way because it's true. Because for me there is a different reality..."
"Nah." Angel grimaced. "Actually everybody feels exactly the same. Doesn't mean a thing."
Gillian collapsed. "What?"
"For them. For them, there is no secret place. As for you... well, it's not what you're thinking; it's not some higher reality of astral planes or anything. It's as real as those socks. As real as that girl, Melusine, in the store in Woodbridge. And it's where you were meant to be. A place where you'll be welcomed into the heart of things."
Gillian's heart was racing wildly. "Where is it?"
"It's called the Night World."
Gray-blue shadows were gliding up the hills. Gillian drove in the twilight, heading toward the darkness in the east.
"Explain again," she said, and she said it out loud, even though she couldn't see Angel. There was a slight disturbance of air above the seat to her right, a hint of mist, but that was all. "You're saying it's not just witches."
"Not by a long shot. Witches are just one race; there are all sorts of other creatures of the night. All the sorts that you've been taught to think are legends."
"And they're real. And they're just living alongside normal humans. And they always have been."
"Yes. But it's easy, you see. They look like humans, at least at first glance. As much as you look like a human."
"But I am a human. I mean, mostly, right? My great-grandma was a witch, but she married a human and so did my grandma and my mom. So I'm all ... diluted."
"It doesn't matter to them. You can claim witch blood. And your powers are beyond dispute. Trust me, they'll welcome you."