The hallways of school always had this lingering smell of sweat and too much body spray. I never understood how anyone could pick out the slight smell of sage on my clothes and yet they always did.

"If you're going to smell like that old grandmother of yours why not just dress like her, too?" Melanie sneered, her friends giggling behind her like well-trained pets.

I so didn't have time for her. Rolling my eyes, I turned my back on them and focused on getting my locker opened. I heard one of her friends make some comment about needing to check her hair before class started, but I tuned them out quickly. There were so many more important things to worry about than what your hair looked like for English class.

Like opening your locker to actually get your textbooks out.

I groaned in frustration before kicking the old metal door with my boot. It clanked and then swung open like nothing. I was still busy filling my backpack with homework when Sage walked over.

"You missed it. Someone put blue dye in the girl's bathroom faucet. Melanie's hands are blue."

Chuckling, I switched out my last notebook and slammed my locker door shut. Hiking my backpack higher on my shoulder, I raised a brow at Sage. "Dye, huh?"

I don't think I'd ever seen a more smug look on my best friend's face. She shrugged one shoulder, winking at me before turning to head towards the science lab. "Well, at least that's what the janitor thinks it is."

"My best friend, the prankster. Who would've thought."

We were still laughing when we came to Mr. Brenner's door, but our joy was short lived. Because Mr. Brenner was getting his experiment ready on the table and it suspiciously looked like a heart.

We stood in the doorway with our eyes wide and I was contemplating how we could get out of this extracurricular science experiment when Mr. Brenner saw us. "Ah! Girls! Just in time! Come in, come in!"

Suddenly, being allowed to skip English class to help our science teacher didn't sound that great.

He ushered us through the door, letting it shut quietly behind us. Making a gesture for us to put our bags down, he left us and went back to the table.

Yup, that was definitely a heart.

Sage and I looked at each other and her eyes looked pleading. What did she expect me to do? I was good at making things explode, not disappear. I slowly walked over to the table, keeping Mr. Brenner and the heart in view. "Uh, Mr, Brenner? Why is there a heart on the table?"

Our teacher was busy untangling some wires at the other end of the table, his face pinched in concentration. After a moment, he looked up briefly. "What? Oh! That's what I'm working on for the university."

Sage looked at me before clearing her throat. "What is? Restarting a heart? But hospitals can already do that."

He seemed to give up on the wires and let them drop back to the tabletop. He pointed a finger at Sage, a smile on his face. "Right you are, Sage. But what we will do is look to see what liquids conduct electricity best to start a heart - with no outside source of power."

As he went back to getting things ready, pulling a few beakers of liquid off the shelves, Sage pulled on the sleeve of my sweater. "Willow...."

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what she expected me to say. Was it a little strange that our middle school science teacher was trying to come up with new ways to restart a heart? Sure. Was it weird he wanted some of his student to help him? Yeah. But we had already agreed to help, and I wasn't about to back out now. He seemed like a nice guy but I wasn't about to risk failing the eighth grade over it.

I glanced behind me and saw Mr. Brenner with his head inside a cabinet. His voice was muffled when he spoke, "Today, I just need you girls to write down all the substances we will try, as well as their wattages at the base level and amounts. Alright? We won't get the real experiments started just yet."

Looking back at the heart, I wasn't going to ask why it was sitting there and not in the fridge then. Instead, I grabbed a piece of paper out of my backpack and wrote the liquids down. Sage looked at me like I had lost my mind but I shrugged, getting to work. What other option did we have at the moment? I felt her staring at me for a second longer before she sighed, coming to lean on the desk beside me.

"That was the weirdest afternoon of my life." Sage punctuated every word with the smack of her shoes on the sidewalk.

I had to agree. We spent English class an extra hour after school in the science lab, writing down everything that Mr. Brenner wanted to use for his experiment. And the whole time the heart had laid out on the table. I wanted to ask why it wasn't rotting but couldn't bring myself to do it. I was sure I didn't want to know. Just like how neither Sage nor I had asked if the heart was human or animal. I shuddered at the thought.

"We could get our moms to sign off on something that says we don't have time for extra school work?"

Although I applauded her efforts, there was no way that would work. "Sage. Be serious here."

She tossed her hands into the air, knocking a falling leaf clear out of the sky. "I am being serious!"

That was the problem. I shook my head as we passed by the county library, and then the old courthouse a few paces away. After practically running from Mr. Brenner's room, we wandered down into old town Salem. There were tourists milling about, a ghost tour going on across the street. Although I was forbidden to ever do one of those silly tours, I couldn't help but wonder how many ghosts on the tour just happened to be witches, too.

"Oh, great."

I looked back in the direction we were walking, Sage's annoyed tone of voice snapping me out of my thoughts. Oh, great, was right, I thought. Coming down the sidewalk in front of us was Melanie and her friend Brianna. Seeing the two together made me remember a time when we were little kids, and Brianna had lived next door to where my family lived. We used to play together in the backyard. That is until Melanie's mom told Brianna's that my family was made of freaks (witches) and that she wouldn't let Melanie anywhere near me. Brianna had been a nice girl, before Melanie.

"Look who it is. Freak number one and freak number two."

I contemplated just walking onto the road and going around them, but I wasn't in the mood to get pushed around. Instead, I stopped walking and crossed my arms. "Ten years and you still can't come up with a better name to call us? I'd have thought your imagination would've grown at least a bit."

I felt Sage grab my sleeve but the look on Melanie's face was worth it. The way her blue stained hands clenched into fists helped too. My magic hummed under my skin, sensing my emotions. It would be far too easy to let out just a little. But I couldn't. What the heck was I thinking? This business with Hecate was making me make the wrong decisions. Instead of saying what I wanted to say, I sighed and dropped my arms. "You know, my mom would have something at the shop that will get that dye of your hands."

Her eyes glanced down at her clenched hands and then back at me, her brows pulling even tighter together. "Don't act like you care. And the last thing I need is your freak of a mother near me." She glared at me before grabbing Brianna's arm and pulling past us, knocking her shoulder into Sage's as she went.

Sage and I were quiet as we watched them walk down the sidewalk and turn a corner. With a sigh, I pulled my backpack strap tighter on my shoulder and kept walking. After a second I realized that Sage wasn't beside me. Turning, I found her standing where I had left her, her eyebrows raised high on her forehead.

I shrugged a shoulder. "What?"

She let out a harsh breath from her nose before shaking her head. Closing the distance between us, she linked her arm with mine and walked, pulling me with her. "You never cease to surprise me, Bradbury."