Divine by Blood. P.C. Cast

to cook for yourselves. I mean, you’re eighteen and leaving for college in a few days. What are you going to eat?” Morrigan said.

      “Dorm food, of course,” Jaime said.

      “I’ll eat anything someone else cooks. Like Mrs. Taco Bell. I love her cooking,” Lori said.

      “Eat?” Gena tapped her chin with one perfectly manicured French-tipped nail and looked purposefully perplexed. “For the next four years I plan on eating beer and football players.”

      The three of them convulsed into giggles. Morrigan gave her friends a collective eye roll. Yes, she liked them. They’d been friends since middle school, but even when they were just kids she’d always thought of herself as older and more mature. That she felt (and acted) older used to seem kinda cute to her, and they definitely needed someone to look after them. More and more it just irritated her. Would they never grow up?

      “Okay, whatever. I still say I’m glad I don’t have to depend on Mrs. Taco Bell or Mrs. Pizza Hut to eat when I’m away from home.”

      Proving Morrigan’s point about immaturity, Gena stuck out her tongue at her. “Hey, someone remind me why we’re here instead of browsing through the end-of-season sale at Gap?” Gena said.

      “We’re here because Morgie likes to do weird stuff, and this is the last time we’re going to be together doing weird stuff with her probably till Christmas break,” Lori said.

      “I don’t think the stuff I like to do is weird.”

      “Exhibit A—you thought it would be fun to hike the six-mile forest trail by Keystone Dam.” Lori held up one finger like a baseball umpire. “If I recall correctly, which I’m sure I do, it was not fun. It was hot and sweaty and I found a tick crawling up my thigh trying to find its way to my vagina.”

      “Ticks do not go looking for your vagina,” Morrigan said, trying hard not to laugh.

      “No, don’t even try to change my mind about that. I saw the House episode. The tick was hiding in the girl’s vagina.” Lori shivered convulsively. “It was majorly disgusting.”

      “That really is gross,” Gena said.

      “And complete fiction.” Morrigan tried, unsuccessfully, to add some common sense to the conversation.

      “Exhibit B.” Up went Lori’s second finger. “Camping.”

      “Oh, come on! That was way back in ninth grade.”

      “Time has made it no less horrifying,” Lori said primly.

      “And it wasn’t that bad. I remember having a good time.”

      “Yeah, that’s because you like playing Boy Scout, and the great outdoors, and…and…you like nature.” Lori said the words as if they were the name of a deadly disease. “The rest of us will remember the mosquitoes.”

      “Size of hummingbirds,” Gena piped in.

      “And the chiggers,” Lori continued smoothly.

      “Don’t talk about it. You’ll make me start to itch,” Jaime said.

      “And the snakes,” Lori finished with a flourish.

      “There was only one snake,” Morrigan said.

      “As if that mattered,” Gena muttered.

      “It was really pretty, though,” Morrigan said. She’d never admit to them that she and G-pa had gone back to the Keystone campsite often after her one failed attempt to camp with her friends. She absolutely loved camping.

      “Pretty?” Lori was saying. “No. It was dirty and hot and buggy. The new Starbucks in BA is pretty. The bracelet Keith gave me is pretty.” She waved her wrist around so that the delicate gold links glittered. “My great Kenneth Cole wedges—the ones you wouldn’t let me wear today because we’re going to be schlepping through a nasty, dark, cold, batty cave—are pretty. Camping is not pretty. See the difference?”

      “Wait, there’re bats in the cave?” Gena sat up straight and quit playing with her hair. “No one told me about the bats.”

      “Hello! It’s a cave. Of course there’re bats,” Jaime said.

      Morrigan sighed. “It’s summer. You won’t see the bats. They’re hiding in the darker, cooler parts of the cave. And anyway, if you see one it won’t bother you.”

      “And finally, we come to exhibit C in proof-that-Morgie-likes-to-do-weird-stuff.” Lori paused dramatically with her three fingers up in the air. “Dancing outside naked at night.”

      Jaime groaned.

      “Do we have to talk about that?” Gena used her hand to fan herself as her face flushed hot with remembered embarrassment.

      “Admit it. That wouldn’t have been so bad if we had put on shoes and if disgusting Josh Riddle hadn’t been watching us,” Morrigan said.

      “I still have nightmares about that gross kid’s beady little eyes,” Gena said.

      “That’s not the ‘little’ part of his anatomy I still have nightmares about,” Lori said.

      Gena made gagging sounds.

      “Why were we out there again? I don’t remember,” Jaime said. “I think I’ve blocked it.”

      “We were celebrating the Esbat.” Blank looks met Morrigan’s matter-of-fact statement, so she added, “A celebration of the full moon. My grandma told me the story about how some pagans like to honor the full moon by dancing sky-clad, or naked, under it. We thought it sounded fun.”

      “No, you thought it sounded fun. We just went along with you,” Lori corrected her.

      “You know, it’s weird that Mama Parker knows so much about bizarre religions. I mean, she’s all sweet and grandmalike and looks totally normal. Then all of a sudden one night you’ll drive up the lane and see her outside pouring wine and honey around a fire she’s made in the middle of the patio and she’ll smile at you and say something like, ‘Just finishing up my offering to the Goddess at Imbolc, hon. Make yourself at home. There’re cookies in the kitchen,’” Gena said.

      “Doesn’t seem weird to me.” Morrigan’s eyes began to narrow.

      “Not that I don’t think Mama Parker’s great. She is,” Gena said quickly.

      “You have to admit that she’s not exactly the norm for Oklahoma,” Lori said.

      Morrigan shrugged. “I’ve never understood what’s so great about the norm.”

      “Morrigan has a point,” Jaime said. “I’ve been going to the super-boring First Methodist Church of Broken Arrow all my life and I’ve never had as much fun there as I did the time we did the Easter-wishes thing with the tree.”

      All of the girls smiled as they remembered. “It’s called an Eostre Wishes Tree,” Morrigan said.

      “Remember how Mama Parker planted all of those flowers around the tree?” Gena said.

      Morrigan nodded. “They were daffodils, crocuses and hyacinths. I helped her plant the bulbs the winter before.”

      “Then when they were blooming and beautiful Mama Parker gave us silk ribbons and crystals—”

      “And those cool little stars she made out of shiny foil,” Lori interrupted Gena. “Then she gave us blank wildflower note cards, biodegradable of course, and told us to write our wishes on them. When we were done we tied the cards and the decorations up in the branches of the tree.”

      “Yeah, and Mama Parker told us it was just another way for our prayers to be heard at Easter. Well, it was for sure way more fun than waking up too early and sitting on a hard pew through boring church,” Jaime said.

      “It