Eye of the Coven Read Online Free PDF Page B

Kitten could let herself in and out. But the imperfection is what drew me. I needed something that wasn't pristine, that was more normal.
    I kept it all as quiet as possible. I didn’t want my coven to know. I kept on telling myself that they didn’t need to know my every move. I let them know I was still a part of the picture, and I made the effort not to be the very last at all the meetings. Sometimes I was even there before Nema, which was pushing it a little, I knew, but I couldn’t afford them finding out. They would view it as strange.
    I found a job as a saleswoman at a large ladies’ clothing shop. The manager, a large lady herself with bad skin and blond hair that she pulled tight against her head, didn’t think I was too intimidating, and the simplicity of the job attracted me. I had to do what she wouldn’t and it didn’t seem like much at all. I just had to talk to customers to help them find what they were looking for. That was it. There would be days the manager wouldn’t come in at all. It seemed perfect to me. I didn’t stand out, nothing did, not my house, or my job, or my car, which fitted in with this neighborhood more so than it did the other.
    I went to bed between boxes. It was the last night in my old pristine apartment, and I liked telling myself it was the last night in my perfect life. The next day the moving van would arrive and remove all my stuff, and I would get rid of half of it because I wouldn’t have space for it. I liked the idea of throwing half the stuff away. It felt almost like cutting ties, getting away from my life.
    I woke up to my phone ringing.
    “So, when were you going to tell me?”
    “Tell you what?” I was sleepy; morning wasn’t my best time and Marlena didn’t have to bombard me with questions first thing.
    “That you were moving.”
    “Oh, that.”
    “Did you think I was stupid? That one of us wouldn’t notice?”
    I could feel the familiar boiling of my blood start under my skin. She may have been older than me, but she had no right to talk to me as though I were a child.
    “Actually, I wasn’t planning on telling you any time soon. I don’t have to tell everyone every single thing that I’m doing.”
    “I’m your sister, Cherry.”
    “And I suppose you’re phoning because you care so much? Because you wanted to help me move?” I quipped sarcastically.
    “You know very well how these things work. Why do you think they took Mom out? What would she say?”
    I opened my mind. I didn’t like doing it, but I had to see what she was planning. She never used Mom on me unless she was going to be very nasty, and knowing Marlena, it wasn’t just being mean with words. Marlena was the type of person who pushed and pushed and followed through until she was satisfied. And that was hard for Marlena. She wasn’t easily satisfied.
    My feelers started feeling through the lines. It was harder through the phone, but I wasn’t the strongest witch for nothing. Slowly, I started getting pictures, images of what I knew she was thinking. There were thoughts about Nema, about what she would say about Marlena who couldn’t control her sister. Of course, Marlena would worry about what I would make her look like.
    There were also images of Dad and Mom, and that made me sad. Marlena had always felt more responsibility since Mom died than I ever would, and sometimes I wished it were the other way around so she could get a break. But the pictures changed and I went from sad right back to angry. She was imagining what our parents would think of us, how my father would love her and hate me for what was happening.
    “You know, Lena, it’s not fair of you to use Mom on me. How long ago did she die? 15 years? And that had nothing to do with me. It was because of her, and you can stop trying to blame me for that.”
    “I’m not trying to blame you for that. I just want you to know that she died because she didn’t follow the rules. Is that what you want?”
    “Sometimes