Rhymes With Witches Read Online Free Page A

anything else that wouldn’t be considered proper worshipping behavior. And you want to know why?”
    I checked Alicia’s reaction. Her legs were drawn to her chest, with her arms around her knees. Her black hair hung in bone-straight chunks. She jerked her chin, as if to say,
Ask, you fool. Aren’t you even paying attention?
    â€œWhy?” I said.
    Rae tapped her thigh with violent purple nails. “Haven’t you noticed that whenever they enter a room—your Bitches, my Bitches, whoever—everything stops and then starts up again, with them at the center of things?”
    â€œYeah,” I said, like
so
?
    â€œAnd haven’t you noticed that even if you want to, you can’t
not
like them?”
    â€œBecause no one would want to. Because they’re …” I struggled for the right word, but couldn’t find it. “Cool,” I finished lamely.
    â€œNo,” Rae said.
    â€œYes,” I said.
    â€œBut that’s not
why
you like them.”
    â€œYes it is.”
    â€œNo it’s not.”
    â€œYes it
is
.”
    â€œ
No
, it’s
not
.”
    I closed my eyes. Conversations with Rae were always like this. They went on and on and when they finally ended, the payoff was zilch.
Don’t jam your hands in your front pockets, or else.
    I opened my eyes. I raised my eyebrows at Alicia, who raised hers right back.
    â€œFine,” I said to Rae. “Then why
do
I like them, if it’s not because they’re cool?”
    â€œBecause you have to. Because they
make
you.”
    â€œAnd how do they do that?”
    â€œI don’t know. But they do.”
    â€œUh-huh. Mind control? Voodoo? Invisible puppet strings?”
    Rae regarded me with disdain. “Crack jokes if it makes you feel better. But the world is a hell of a lot bigger than you think. All sorts of things go on that you know nothing about.”
    Alicia scooted closer. “Finish telling her about Jennifer Mayfield.”
    â€œOh yeah,” I said. “Definitely.”
    â€œWell, like I said, Jennifer was tapped to be a Bitch,” Rae said. She got to her knees and stretched her body, reaching for the brush on Alicia’s dresser. She grasped it and sat back down. “But it fell apart.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, it fell apart?”
    Rae tugged at the tangles in her hair. “She pissed them off. Or else she just wasn’t good enough. She never figured it out.”
    â€œDid she care?”
    â€œDid she
care
? She
only
switched schools in the middle of fallsemester. She
only
ran away with her tail between her legs and never came back. Uh, yeah, I’d say she cared.”
    Okay, I could get that. I was starting to care, too. “So what does that have to do with Bitsy and Mary Bryan and Keisha?”
    â€œEverything,” Rae said. “Because Jennifer let things slip before she left. And the Bitches aren’t all they appear to be. That’s all I’m saying.”
    â€œBut Bitsy and Keisha and Mary Bryan weren’t around when you and Jennifer were in high school. They’d have been in, like, elementary school.”
    â€œHave you been listening to anything I’ve said? They’re all the same, year after year after year. They may not start out that way, but then they
do
something. Something big. And they
become
.”
    â€œBecome?” I repeated.
    â€œI don’t know how, no one does, but there’s more going on than everyone thinks.” Rae stopped brushing. She lowered her voice. “Something bad happened a long time ago. Really bad.”
    â€œAnd that would be?”
    She tilted her head. “Have you ever heard the saying, ‘She sold her soul to the devil’?”
    Oh good god.
“Rae,” I said, “I’m not a little kid straight out of the pumpkin patch. I stopped being scared of ghost stories years ago.”
    Rae’s expression didn’t change. Her face was long,