Most of Cody’s favorite hiding places are in my bedroom, so we walked back there. Frank searched the closets while I got down on the floor. Two almond-shaped eyes blinked back from the far corner under the bed. I started crying. “He’s under here, Frank,” I managed to say. Frank got down on the floor as well, and started to reach for Cody.

“Don’t – he’ll scratch the hell out of you. He’s scared.”

“I suppose I’ve got to get something from the refrigerator for him,” he said, standing up and absently reaching his hand to a place on his face where Cody had once clawed him.

He came back a few minutes later with a piece of steak. “Steak?” I said. “Isn’t there anything cheaper in there?”

Frank ignored me and got down on the floor again, and started coaxing Cody with the meat and cooing to him. For some reason, it amused me. Cody’s stomach will always conquer his fear, and he was out from under the bed after allowing himself the bare minimum amount of proper cat obstinacy.

I held him up to my face for a kiss, and realized he smelled like Sammy’s clothes. Frank was still on the floor, looking under my bed.

“Yes, those are dust bunnies,” I said. “And no, I don’t clean as thoroughly as you do.”

He was trying to reach something under the bed, and I groaned to think of what pair of underwear or old pantyhose I might have tossed there during a look-who-just-dropped-by-to-say-hello rush clean-up operation. He got up and crawled over the top of my mattress and reached down, grunting as he pulled his hand free from the tight space between the wall and the bed.

In that hand was Sammy’s journal.

“Hiding treasures, Cody?” Frank asked with a triumphant grin.

Cody continued his post-steak wash-up without so much as a pause to reply.

“I suppose we should call Carlson or Bredloe and tell them about this,” I said, plopping down next to Frank on the bed.

“Of course,” Frank said, opening it to the first page, and holding it so that I could read it with him.

WE LAY THERE reading Sammy’s cramped script, prying into thoughts too personal for a best friend’s ears. The first entry was made on February 14 – Valentine’s Day. That fact, taken with the opening sentences, made me acutely aware of how isolated Sammy was.

2/14

RM talked to me all day about how happy he is with JC. It’s killing me, of course. I’ve loved him so much for so long, but I don’t think I’ll ever be more than a “kid sister” to him. I guess I should be happy for him and not wait around for them to break up anymore. I didn’t like her at first, didn’t think it would last. But now I see I was wrong. I must have known this a long time ago to give them those nicknames.

I hate Valentine’s Day.

I can’t blame him for choosing her. She’s pretty and smart and popular. I’m ugly and skinny and I don’t know how to make friends. Besides, no one will want me now. No one good.

The Bastard wanted me tonight. I told him I was on my period. I want to die. It’s Valentine’s Day, he should be with the Bitch. I wonder if they do it anymore.

“Do you know who any of these people are? RM, JC, the Bastard?” Frank asked.

“RM and JC have got to be Jacob and Julie, but I don’t know how she came up with the initials – must be the initials for the nicknames. No clue as to the Bastard or Bitch.”

He looked as if he was going to suggest something, but changed his mind. We read on. Disturbingly, it became clear that the Bastard and the Bitch were her parents. It was obvious that she stayed away from home as often as she could. She wrote of nights hiding out on the streets. No wonder she had left home. Pages venting her anger, fear, and sense of betrayal passed before we reached any mention of the coven.

3/24

I met some kids at school today who seem really cool. After school, they invited me to go to the park with them. They were really nice. They’re into witchcraft. It’s pretty interesting. I think we get along because the other kids think they’re weird, too. I admire them for sticking to what they believe in. Not like my parents, who are the biggest hypocrites on earth.

We read of a gradual bond being forged between Sammy and her new friends. Against the previous passages of isolation, she now wrote of acceptance, the thrill of participating in something forbidden, the feelings of power that came with her act of rebellion. There was the sense of belonging and devotion to other group members that being in this secret society engendered. The allure of magical power was also drawing her closer to the coven. In more than one passage, she wrote of rituals and incantations.

4/15

Learned some really great spells and chants from some books I bought at Rhiannon today. I really like the air spells. You can raise the wind by whistling three times. There’s a spell to get rid of fear. You have to light a candle and let the flame take your fear away from you, then you take the candle outside and when the wind blows out the flame, the fear is gone. So you have to raise the wind before you start the part with the candle. I’m going to try this.

This one book tells about all kinds of things you can use – stones, water, knots, feathers, even mirrors. It’s all natural and from the earth. It doesn’t harm anyone. There is so much power in it, but it’s good power. Well, some people might try to do some black magic, but they’ll be sorry. If you misuse it, it will come back on you. That’s not what my coven is into. We practice an old religion – wicca. It makes me feel as if there is hope after all.

“Romeo and Juliet,” Frank said.

“What?”

“The initials for the nicknames stand for Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet.”

“Have you been thinking about that all of this time?”

“No, I’ve been reading. But I kept trying to figure it out while I waited for you to catch up with me at the end of the page.”

“I read fast,” I said.

He only shrugged and pretended to go back to the journal, but he had a smirk on his face.

“You are most clever, Mr. Speedreader. I don’t know if I would have figured that out.”

The smirk became a smile. “Yes, you would have.”

“Excuse me, I better read. Don’t want you to fall asleep between pages.”

Between tales of learning chants and working magic, the sections on the coven revealed that there were apparently a number of loosely connected groups in the area. The one she was in seemed to be based more on a “feminist spirituality” that had been revived in the 1970s than on anything even remotely satanic. It was nature worship, and if it was alien to my own traditions, it was nevertheless gentle and nonviolent.