Free Love? Maybe. by Heather Hepler Page B

at me. “Harsh,” she says.
     
    I laugh and look into the bin. “These are pretty tame. You should have heard some of the ones—” I stop and look over at Claire. She gives me a small smile.
     
    “Stuart had some harsh ones,” she agrees. “ Take Off, U’R Lame, Seriously? .”
     
    “They’re cool, Piper,” Jillian says, but her voice sounds unsure.
     
    “What?” I ask.
     
    Jillian looks at me for a long moment then just shakes her head. “They’re cool. Just sort of—” She shakes her head again. “Nothing.” I start to tell her to just say it, but she’salready walking back toward where the mixture has apparently finished
harmonizing
.
     
    “I think we have to do chocolate,” she says, sniffing the mixture again. “Maybe it will hide some of the strong flavors.” Whatever Jillian was going to say is gone now. We scoop some of the chocolate base into a small bowl, sprinkle it with a few spoonfuls of the mixture and stir. We each dip our fingers in and taste it.
     
    “Not bad,” Claire says. The rain intensifies, becoming an insistent thrumming on the roof above us.
     
    “Okay,” Jillian says. “Now the second part of the spell. Repeat after me—”
     
    “Wait,” Claire says. “What if Jan wants to use this?” She looks from me to Jillian. “I mean, what if he does and it works?”
     
    I start to say something about the likelihood of the spell working being about the same as the likelihood of cupid flying out of my nose, but Jillian, sensing I’m about to say something sarcastic, elbows me.
     
    “More love to go around, I guess,” I say. Claire seems unconvinced. “What’s the worst that could happen?” I ask. I realize I sound like the heroine of nearly every monster movie ever made. Right before the tomatoes turn from harmless salad additions to giant mutant man-eaters. Right before they figure out the green slime is really alien snot that has mind-controlling capability. I shake the thoughts from my head. This is real life, not Hollywood. Jillian and Claire areboth staring at me. “It’ll be fine,” I say. Both of them seem way more caught up in this whole thing than I am. I think about Charlie calling me cynical.
     
    “Okay then,” Claire says. “What are we waiting for?” She reaches over and squeezes my hand.
     
    “Repeat after me,” Jillian says. I hope the fact that she’s getting seriously impatient doesn’t ruin the spell. I think about telling her that, but decide that impatient is better than ticked off, which is what she’ll be if I interrupt her again.
“Elduanai Islandera pulatera. Let my love come to me.”
Just as we finish, a huge crash sounds and all the lights in the kitchen blink out at once, pitching us into total darkness.
     
    Jillian screams. Claire, who is standing closest to me, clutches my arm. My heart is thudding hard in my chest, but I’m the first to start laughing. Claire joins me and soon all three of us are laughing. “Do you think it was magic?” Jillian asks in the darkness.
     
    “More like just a power outage,” I say. I walk carefully over to the desk, hitting my hip once on the edge of the counter. I retrieve the flashlight that Jan keeps in the top drawer. I snap it on and point it toward where Claire and Jillian are standing. They squint against the light. There is a scrabbling at the back door.
     
    “Don’t answer it,” Jillian says. I turn the beam of light on the door. There’s more noise, then knocking. Suddenly all of the monster movies I have ever seen converge and I envision a huge lizard/tomato/zombie creature on theother side of the door. I walk toward the door on rubbery legs. Just as I reach it, there is more knocking, and then I hear my name.
     
    “Don’t,” Claire says from behind me. I push the door open. The person standing there is just a shadow against the lights in the parking lot. Then the person speaks.
     
    “I told you not to open the door,” Jan says, walking in. He has his keys