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out.
    “Look, I’m not on drugs, all right? If you’re the sober companion or whatever, you’re at the wrong table.”
    Relief crashed over me. “Sober companion? Me? No. No, I really am a—a teacher. Substitute. Totally. Here to teach. Things.”
    The girl blinked at me, her dark eyes sizing me up, taking me in, and finally spitting me out. “Miranda.”
    I blinked back. “Miranda?”
    “I’m Miranda. Why are you sitting here?”
    “Oh, well, I—” I picked at a dried lump of something with my thumbnail. “I just saw you sitting here and—”
    “No,” Miranda groaned. “Why are you here in the cafeteria? Most teachers don’t interact with us unless it’s on the lesson plan.”
    “Oh.” I straightened. “I guess I don’t really have anything in common with most of the other teachers.”
    Miranda looked at me and nodded, her expression blank. She went back to her book.
    “So, other than reading, what else is there to do around here?”
    She lowered her book a few inches and cocked a brow, not quite understanding. “The usual, I guess. Basketball, soccer, clubs.”
    I pounced. “Clubs! What about the clubs?”
    Miranda slid a bookmark into her book and eyed me. “Regular clubs. French club, Spanish club.”
    “Oh,” I said, nodding. Miranda rattled off a few more of the basics—astronomy club, a branch of Amnesty International, Lock and Key Club.
    “Are there any others?” I asked. “Like, maybe not sanctioned by the school?”
    “I don’t know what you mean.”
    I thought fast. “When I was in school, there were all the regular ones, too, but then sometimes some girls would start their own clubs—like stoners or—” I licked my lips, pausing. “Band.”
    Miranda sat back, a reproachful look on her face. “You read the paper, huh? You want to know if there’s a coven here—if we’re all a bunch of crazy-assed teenage witches, killing the prom queen.”
    I was taken aback by the cutting judgment in Miranda’s reply, but did my best to chuckle it off nonchalantly. “Well, no. I wouldn’t think that you’d kill—I mean, no, but yeah, of course I read the paper. But the coven? I don’t believe that. Not for a second. There were always girls in my grade who wore torn black fishnets and Doc Martens with their uniforms. A little black eyeliner and everyone thought they were witches.”
    Miranda didn’t say anything and I felt pinned under her gaze. Finally, I relented and dropped my voice. “Do you know anything about any covens on campus?”
    “No. I’m pretty sure you’re safe—no one’s going to turn you into a goat.” She stacked her books and slid a hand under them, then stood up. “I’ve got to get to class.”
    Miranda left me sitting alone at the lunch table, feeling just as stupid as ever.
    “Well, love, ready for this?” Will sunk into Miranda’s abandoned seat.
    “Ready for what? We’ve checked out half the school and asked around and”—I made an O with my fingers and eyed Will through it—“zero.”
    “Speak for yourself.”
    “You found something?”
    Will laced his fingers behind his head. “The geezer in the office agreed to lend me some yearbooks. I thought I would do a little research, see what I could scratch up.”
    “The geezer?”
    “The old bird.”
    I frowned. “Heddy’s not a geezer. She’s . . . seasoned.”
    Will shrugged and produced a bag of Skittles, picking out the orange ones.
    I leaned forward. “So, did you find anything?”
    I prayed Will would whip out last year’s yearbook, open to the photograph of last year’s coven, complete with names and addresses, so I could skirt Mercy High and leave these hallowed halls back in my nightmares where they belonged.
    “Not yet. She’s getting them together for me.” Will cocked his head and the bell rang. He grinned and downed his whole bag of Skittles while my stomach dropped into my groin and threatened to expel everything I’d eaten in the last twenty years.
    “Looks like we