The Coven Read Online Free PDF Page B

looking at him. “I just found out I was adopted. I’ve been sitting here realizing you’ve both been lying to me my whole life.” I shrugged. “Other than that, I’m fine.”
    Mary K. looked like she was about to burst into tears. In fact, she looked like she had been crying all morning.
    “Morgan,” said my mom. “Maybe we made the wrong decision in not telling you. But we had our reasons. We love you, and we’re still your parents.”
    I couldn’t stay cool any longer. “Your reasons?” I exclaimed. “You had good reasons for not telling me the most important fact of my life? There are no good reasons for that!”
    “Morgan, stop,” Mary K. said, her voice wobbling. “We’re a family. I just want you to be my sister.” She started crying, and I felt my own throat tighten.
    “I want you to be my sister, too,” I said, standing up. “But I don’t know what’s going on anymore—what’s real and what’s not.”
    Mary K. burst into real sobs and threw herself on Dad’s shoulder.
    Mom tried to come over to me, to take me in her arms, but I backed away. I couldn’t stand her touch right at that second. She looked stricken.
    “Look, let’s not say anything right now,” Dad said. “We need some time. We’ve all had a shock. Please, Morgan, just hear me on one thing: Your mother and I have two daughters whom we love more than anything in the world. Two daughters.”
    “Mary K. is your daughter,” I said, hating hearing my voice crack. “Biologically. But I’m nobody!”
    “Don’t say that!” Mom said, looking devastated.
    “You’re both our daughters,” said my dad. “And you always will be.”
    It was about the most comforting thing he could have said, and it made me burst into tears. I was so exhausted, physically and emotionally, that I stumbled upstairs to my room, lay on my bed, and began to drift toward sleep.
    While I was half dreaming, half awake, my mom came into my room and sat on the bed next to me. She stroked my hair, her fingers gently working through the tangles. It reminded me of my dream, my other mother. Maybe it wasn’t a dream, I thought. Maybe it was a memory.
    “Mom,” I said.
    “Shhh, sweetie, sleep,” she whispered. “I just wanted to say I love you, and I’m your mother, and you’ve been my daughter since the first second I laid eyes on you.”
    I shook my head, wanting to protest that it wasn’t true, but I was already too close to sleep. As I drifted off into a deep, blessed numbness I was aware of warm tears soaking my pillow. I don’t know if they were hers or mine.
     
    The next morning was bizarre in how ordinary it seemed. As usual, Mom and Dad got up and went to work early, before I was even awake. As usual, Mary K. yelled for me to hurry as I drifted through my shower, trying to brace myself for the day.
    Mary K. looked pale and pinch-faced and was unusually quiet as I gulped down a Diet Coke and threw books into my backpack.
    “I want you to stop what you’re doing,” she said so softly, I could barely hear her. “I want us to go back to being how we were.”
    I sighed. I had never felt jealous or competitive when it came to Mary K. I’d always wanted to take care of her. I wondered if it would be different now. I had no idea. But I knew that I still hated seeing her hurt.
    “It’s too late for that,” I said quietly. “And I need to know the truth.There have been too many secrets for too long.”
    Mary K. raised her hands, and they fluttered for a moment in midair as she tried to think of something to say. But there wasn’t anything to say, and in the end we just got our backpacks and headed outside to Das Boot.
    Cal was waiting for me at school. He walked over to my car as I parked and met me as I opened the door. Mary K. looked at him, as if to measure his involvement in all of this. He met her gaze calmly, sympathetically.
    “I’m Cal,” he said, holding out his hand. “Cal Blaire. I don’t think we’ve really met.”
    Mary