White Witch Read Online Free PDF Page B

really.” I look up at Stacy and offer a false smile. “I’m just glad it wasn’t thrown by someone with any strength.”
    Snickers and a couple of slapping high fives ripple through the group. Stacy, on the other hand, looks like she might go into a fit.
    “You’re sure you’re okay?” Coach Billings says.
    “Really, I’m not hurt at all,” I say, using the tiniest fraction of my power to shift his thoughts so he doesn’t insist I see the school nurse. “I’d like to keep playing.”
    He still doesn’t look sure, but finally caves to my assurances that I’m not bleeding to death inside my skull. “Okay, back to your spots. And Stacy, be more careful.”
    As everyone jogs back to their positions, I catch Stacy’s eye and give my new nemesis my best “don’t mess with me” look. Stacy replies with a mutinous glare of her own, but she finally turns and stalks back to her spot on the field.
    We make it through an inning without incident, until my team’s loaded the bases and I’m due up to bat again. As Stacy-engineered luck would have it, she steps onto the pitcher’s mound. What looks like smug self-assurance tugs at her features. No doubt she’s going to try to bean me with the ball, not caring if she gets in trouble for it. While watching her get marched off to the principal’s office would be entertaining, I have something better in mind—if I can pull out a miracle and actually hit the ball a second time.
    Our eyes meet as I move up to the plate. You want war, you got war.
    As Stacy lets fly with a surprisingly powerful pitch, I make an adjustment in my stance. I watch the ball spin in the air as if it’s traveling in slow motion, think of it as geometry and physics, not sport. At precisely the right moment, I swing.
    The crack of the bat causes several of the people on the field to jump. They all look up as the ball sails above their heads, over the fence and into the woods. My teammates start jumping up and down, screaming as the three runners on base and then finally I come across home plate smiling. I didn’t even trip over myself this time. Yes! That felt good.
    Eric swings me around in a circle. “She’s pretty and can hit a home run. I think I’m in love.” He says it in such a teasing, fun-loving way that his words don’t bother me. In fact, his reaction, as well as those of my other teammates, does more to make me feel like a normal girl fitting in at a new, normal school than anything has all day.
    I look through the swarm of joyous teens to see Stacy staring hard at me, likely already concocting her next attack. Let it come. Compared to what I’ll face from my family if they ever find me, Stacy is the smallest of potatoes. She might try to rip apart my reputation, but my coven will literally rip me apart from the inside out.
    The joy filling me seeps away, and I notice Keller heading inside without a glance in my direction. Is he a sore loser? Or does his reaction have more to do with Eric and my response to him? Or maybe he was never interested to begin with. My stomach swirls as I watch his retreating shape and fight the urge to run after him.
    It’s better—no, safer—this way.
    Keller has already disappeared into the depths of the boys’ locker room when I enter the gym. With no other option, I head for the showers. Stacy and her entourage are waiting for me.
    “You think you’re going to be queen bee, don’t you?”
    She seriously just used the phrase queen bee ? I resist an eye roll.
    “I can honestly say I have no desire whatsoever to dethrone you.”
    “Oh, really? Then you didn’t just try to show me up?”
    “I hit a baseball. And it’s not like you didn’t start this little turf war.”
    “I know your type. You strut in, the hot new thing, knowing you’ll get whatever boy you crook your finger at.”
    “Know the signs from experience, do you?” I turn my back to Stacy and her clique and head for my locker. But Stacy isn’t so easily dismissed.
    “I