"Yeah, no! He hasn't even brought up the fact that I'm a witch, so I'm not about to tell him I have a coven initiation ceremony to attend instead of going out to eat with him."

"You haven't talked about it all? The way Finn was going on, I figured it was all out in the open."

"Are you sure Finn said Evan knows?"

I nod. "Positive."

"Well, he hasn't mentioned it once, and I haven't found a good time to talk about it. He's kind of shy, so I don't think he's going to ask me about it any time soon, either. Finn, on the other hand, grills me every time we're alone."

"About being a witch?"

"That, and he's totally hung up about what would happen if he boiled a fairy! The guy is beyond weird-like he could even see a fairy, let alone catch one! I think the only reason he and Evan are friends is because they live across the street from each other."

I laugh, thinking back to the conversation I had with Finn. "So, what did you tell him about the fairies?"

"I said until he tells me how he knew we were witches, I'm not telling him anything, and especially not how fairies punish someone who boils one of their kind." Dani looks at me and her cheeks flush. "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

She takes a deep breath and now her whole face is red. "I know you and Connor didn't exactly take things slow, but did you have to, like-you know-get things moving as far as, you know-what comes after first base?"

I shake my head and feel my cheeks flush, too. "Uh, no. We didn't have any problem moving past first base."

Dani slumps in her chair. "It's probably because I'm fat- he doesn't want to touch me."

"You're not fat! And Evan is just one of those really shy guys. I told you what Finn said about him, he's probably scared to make the first move." I give her a sly look. "But that doesn't mean you can't."

"I couldn't!" Dani says, eyes wide. "Could I?" We both laugh and then Dani bites her lower lip. "Sometimes I wish he were more like Finn."

"What? Why?"

"I really like Evan, but when I'm alone with Finn I laugh a lot, and I can talk about being a witch."

"You shouldn't be telling him stuff! And when are you alone with Finn?"

Dani c.o.c.ks her head and raises one eyebrow. "Uh, that was you who told Finn stuff, not me! But when we're all hanging out at the library, Evan has to go blow his nose like every twenty minutes-it's kind of annoying, but since he's too embarra.s.sed to do it in front of us he's always heading to the bathroom.

"As soon as Evan's out of sight Finn starts in. 'Do you prefer eye of newt or dried bat wings on your toast? Who cast the spell that turned Margo into a b.i.t.c.h?' That kind of stuff."

I laugh. "He sure has Margo's number down!"

"Yeah." Dani smiles for a second and then purses her lips. "But when it's just Evan and me we mostly talk about school and his robotics club, which isn't nearly as interesting as he thinks it is."

I smile at her sympathetically.

"I just feel like I can't totally be myself with him."

"You know-maybe not talking about the witch stuff with Evan is the problem," I say. "He knows, so if you can just get it out in the open, then you can both relax and have a little fun." I raise my eyebrows up and down and toss a piece of popcorn in my mouth.

"Yeah, you're right, but I just wish he'd bring it up first. Maybe after we go out to lunch I'll sit him down and we can talk. I'll have to tell my mom I'm heading to the library again. I told her it's easier to study there and she bought it. But it's hard sneaking around, you know?"

"Tell me about it."

Dani sighs. "At least your boyfriend is in the coven." She leans in toward me and raises her eyebrows. "So, do you have any big plans for today? What time are you heading over to his-"

Mom walks in from outside, and Dani stops mid-sentence.

"Hi, girls," she says brightly.

I stop myself before I roll my eyes. It's getting harder and harder to tolerate her Pollyanna-sunshiny act when I know she'll be dumping some horrific secret on me in a few weeks.

But maybe having been through the same thing when she was my age, she figures if she got through it, so will I.

"Hi, Mrs. Harris," Dani says without her usual enthusiasm.

Mom puts a box on the table in front of us. "Want to see what I've been working on?" She takes out two gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s, and gives one to each of us. Immediately I see they're different from her normal witch b.a.l.l.s. Instead of several fine gla.s.s threads rising up from the bottom of the ball, there are only two in these, almost half an inch thick. The walls of the orbs are thicker, too-and she used a dull, brown gla.s.s, very different from the brightly colored b.a.l.l.s she usually makes.

"Uh, hate to say it, but it's not your best work," I say. "They're kind of dreary."

Mom puts her hands on her hips. "They have to be made this way. It's a special configuration ..." She pauses and breaks out in a big smile. "To capture ghosts!"

Mom's looking at us with wide-eyed expectation, but Dani and I exchange puzzled looks.

"Why would you want to capture a ghost?" I ask.

"Yeah," Dani says. "I thought the whole point of going after ghosts was to help them move on or to exorcise them if they're nasty and need a little nudge in the right direction."

Mom sits down at the head of the table and holds her hand out to me. I give her the ball and she brings it up to the light. "You don't think it would be interesting to contain a ghost in one of these?"

"Uh, interesting how?"

"You could actually own a ghost!"

I look at Mom smiling, her eyes still wide and excited, and shake my head. "I guess I'm missing something, because I'm not finding anything appealing about trapping the spiritual ent.i.ty of a person in a ball. Besides, what would any of us do with a ghost? And what fun would it be for the ghost to just have a small ball to haunt?"

"Well, I don't know that a ghost has much fun haunting a house," Mom says. "They seem rather tortured about it. But perhaps it would be a relief for them to be removed from whatever was keeping them among the living."

"I think it'd be more tortured being cooped up in a tiny gla.s.s ball," I reply.

"Well, I can kind of see how it might be neat," Dani says. "Like if you had the ghost of someone famous you could show it off at parties."

"What?" I say.

Dani shrugs. "Well, like, it would be a conversation starter."

"Exactly!" Mom says. "You'd own a ghost-one of a kind. And there are plenty of people who'd love to add a ghost to their list of collectibles."

"Sure, a ghost ball would look great next to someone's shrunken head collection," I say.

Mom shakes her head and puts the ball back in the box. "I've been working on them for two days straight and thought you'd be a little more excited about this."

I take the other ball from Dani's hand and hold it up to the light like Mom did, hoping to find something alluring. I shake my head. "Do they have to be brown? I mean even if I did want a pet ghost, the color kind of sucks."

Dani kicks me under the table. "I think it's a cool idea."

"And what do you think of the brown color?" Mom asks her.

Dani tilts her head back and forth looking at the ball in my hand. "Uh, it's okay. I guess.

Does it have to be brown?"

"Actually," Mom says looking defeated, "they're supposed to be blue, but every time I combine the reveal spell with a retrieval spell, the gla.s.s goes mud-colored on me." She takes the ball from me and puts it in the box with the other. "Well, I guess it's back to the workshop to see if I can make some blue b.a.l.l.s."

This time I kick Dani, and we both look away, giggling.

"You know," Mom says, "before I make too many, it sure would be nice to see if the basic design works. Are you girls doing anything now?"

"Mom," I moan, thinking Connor is expecting me soon. The last thing I want to do is go ghost busting. "I have studying to do. We were going to the library because we can't concentrate here!"

"It won't take too long-just a quick trip to the Fayetteville border. There's the remains of an old brewery-"

"The High Tower Brewery?" Dani asks. "I heard some kids at school talking about it- people go and dare each other to enter the ruins at midnight. Rob Walsh said something tried to claw his eyes out when he went, but everyone thought he was bullsh-uh, I mean, making it up."

Mom smiles and nods. She can see Dani is interested, so she's probably thinking I'll go along with this, too.

"Well, the young man might not have been exaggerating," she says. "The brewery lost over twenty people in a fire set by a disgruntled employee. We have it on good authority that some victims lingering on the spot could be cla.s.sified as poltergeists. You girls can go and give the b.a.l.l.s their first test. If the new configuration of the threads and the enchantment we put on them works, you'll come home with two ghosts!"

"You mean two former employees who died a horrible death," I say, folding my arms across my chest, "who probably don't want to become someone's pet ghost."

"They're poltergeists-and angry ones at that. You'd be making the place safer."

"If it's so dangerous, why haven't we cleaned it up before?"

Mom gives me the exasperated sigh I'm hearing more and more lately. "It hasn't been a top priority because we prefer to use our resources on the creatures that kill."

"Yeah," Dani says, "if we're going to go hunting it's better to go after something that could perpetuate the cycle, and while a poltergeist could knock you around a bit it wouldn't . . ." She sees me giving her an utterly bored look and pauses. "Well, you know-kill you."

"Fine!" I say, holding out my hand. Mom smiles and gives me the ball back. "If you want a ghost that badly I'll get you one. Consider it an early Christmas present."

"That's my girl. All you have to do is hold the ball in one hand and then when you use the reveal spell, instead of the ghost just appearing so you could exorcise it, it'll become trapped in the ball. Well, if it works."

"Whatever," I say. "I'll get some binders and whatnot just in case something else is hanging around, but then we're going to the library where we won't be interrupted!"

Mom tilts her head. "Funny how studious you're getting all of a sudden."

I've been waiting for her to say something like this, but I'm prepared. "Well, after you totally embarra.s.sed me in front of Mrs. Keyes, I thought I should try a little harder to get my grades up. Speaking of which, should we drop the ghost b.a.l.l.s at Mrs. Keyes's house?" I ask.

Dani smirks and I give her a sideways look to knock it off.

"No, bring them back here-Helena's out of town for a bit."

"Oh, I didn't know. We'll bring them back here then, before we go to the library."

I get up and put on my cape. I place the ball carefully in my pocket, and Dani and I grab our brooms.

"Ghost b.a.l.l.s," I mutter as we walk out into the crisp late afternoon sun. What a stupid idea!

We clear the house on our brooms, and Dani laughs out loud. "Oh, I didn't know!" she says, imitating me. "You're a pro at deception."

"Yeah, I thought that was a nice touch." I scan the ground. "Once we get to the river, how far is the brewery?"

"A couple of miles."

We fly in silence and I think about how weird it feels riding sticks in the daylight-even if I am cloaked. I close my eyes and feel the slight warmth from the late October sun on my face. I keep my broom steady and imagine the sun slanting through the window in Connor's room. I picture myself in his room-in his bed.

"Jules!" Dani yells.

My eyes snap open. "What?"

"We're almost there." She points down toward the sh.e.l.l of an old brick building with a tall, thin maple tree sporting bright red and orange leaves sprouting out through an opening in the roof.

I clutch my broom tightly, and we circle the building and land along the riverbank sending up a flurry of dead leaves. I look up at the old tower-the one thing that's still intact- and make out the High Tower Brewery letters barely visible after years of neglect.

We stand there listening and watching for any sign that some other creatures may have set up camp here. Some things like to hang in haunted places to avoid unwanted contact with humans, not counting the drunken teenagers that may crash their lairs now and again at night, but in the midday they'd probably be lying low.

I don't hear anything other than squirrels foraging in the trees that are growing right up to the sides of the building, but there's a definite electric feel to the air typical of the energy poltergeists let off.

"Creepy-crawly feeling alert," I say.

"Yeah," Dani agrees. "I don't think this will be like that last ghost we dealt with-the little girl-the one who was looking for her mother."

"Only the mother had been dead for like a hundred years! She wasn't so bad, except for the pinching part."

"And the hair pulling."

I laugh. "Hey, give ghost-girl props for kicking Margo in the a.s.s, that was too funny! But still, once we started with the exorcism she didn't put up too much of a fight." I cross my arms over my chest as the air temperature drops dramatically. "I have a feeling there's definitely more than one ghosty here, though." I take the ball out of my pocket. "Let's get this over with. I have to be at Connor's soon."

Dani nods and we carefully pick our way among the roots and empty beer and soda cans along the buildings edge until we find an open doorway. We walk through and I shudder as a crop of goose b.u.mps breaks out on my arms. There's plenty of sunlight pouring through the broken windows and holes in the walls and ceilings, but the temperature keeps dropping.

Suddenly a brick flies at our heads. Dani and I duck and it sails past us and crashes against the wall. Another brick slams into a window above us. We run farther into the room to avoid the gla.s.s raining down.

"I don't think the inhabitants are happy to see us," I say.

"I hope they're not face warpers," Dani says, wrapping her cape tighter. "I hate it when they get all freaking weird and give themselves long teeth and c.r.a.p like that; it gives me nightmares. I mean why do they have to do that anyway?"

I hold two fingers up like sharp fangs. "All the better to eat you with, my dear."

Dani punches me in the arm.