Goddess Boot Camp

I shrug. It’s not like I actually did something to succeed. “No big.”

“It is a big,” she insists. “Most neos are lucky to find one. They almost never identify enemy flags. You’ve earned your second merit badge. ”

She hands me another round patch. This one has a red outer ring, a black background, and the center picture looks like a magician’s wand with little sparks coming out the end. I guess it has something to do with masking appearances or making something invisible. Making the colored flags look white.

Big whoop.

I glance around to make sure everyone else is gone. I don’t want to get caught confessing to the evil stepsister.

“But what good does it do me?” I ask when I’m sure we’re alone. “If I try to use my powers, they go wacky. It’s only when I’m not thinking about it that they come out right.”

“Hmm.” Stella taps a French-manicured finger on her lips. “There has to be a way to reverse that. Or at least harness it.”

I can see the gears turning, her mind working to figure out the solution.

“Maybe you’re overthinking, overanalyzing,” she suggests. “There’s an exercise designed to—”

“Forget it,” I say, walking away. I’m so not up for Stella’s full attention right now. After six hours of indirect powers usage in the company of ten-year-olds—except, as I found out, Tansy . . . she’s twelve—my mind is fried. “I can’t think about this anymore right now.”

“We can try that exercise tonight,” she calls out.

Following the path around the quad, I pass the girls’ dorm. I’m thankful I don’t have to live there. Sharing my bathroom with Stella is bad enough. I can’t imagine sharing with an entire floor full of girls. Like Adara. I feel sorry for Nicole—she is so not the slumber-party type, but she’s on the same floor as the cheer queen and three of her cheer minions.

As Nicole puts it, she’s trapped in cheerland. This is her fourth summer in the dorms. Maybe she’s built up a defense against Aphrodite’s descendants.

Or, knowing Nicole, maybe she’s placed some kind of curse on her door so they can’t get into her room.

I’ll have to ask her.

Detouring from the path, I decide to see if she’s home. Maybe she can shed some light on the anonymous e-mail.

Her room is at the end of the first floor, with a great view out over the quad. Even if I didn’t know which one was hers, I’d be able to guess—it’s the only one with a sign that says KNOCK AT YOUR OWN PERIL just below a skull and crossbones. Braving the warning—but making sure to knock on the door itself, and not the sign—I rap my knuckles on the smooth wood surface.

No response. If she were here, I’d at least get a threatening “Who is it?”

I’m not ready to go home and I don’t want to be alone. Classes should be out for the day. Maybe Troy is in his room.

I head back out and toward the boys’ dorm and climb the front steps and the two flights of stairs to his third-floor room. My quads cry out a little at the climb, reminding me that recovery time is a good thing. When I reach the room with a giant foam guitar on the door, I knock. Three seconds later, Troy pulls it open.

“Phoebe,” he says with huge smile. “What are you doing here?”

“Camp just ended,” I say. “I was heading home and thought I’d stop by.”

“Get your butt in here, Castro,” Nicole barks.

Troy swings the door wide so I can see Nic lounging on the bean-bag in the corner. She’s just sliding a big leather book into her messenger bag.

She waves me in. “We’ve been waiting for you to show up.”

“What’s up?” I ask.

“I don’t know what Nic’s doing here,” he teases. When she casts a scowl his way, he grabs the guitar off his bed and sets in on the stand next to his desk. “I was just about to play for some stress relief. My brain was not made for organic chemistry.”

“I don’t want to interrupt.” I do, actually, but it seems way rude to say that. Even if I’m desperate for some reprieve from my own troubles.

“No worries.” He drops into his dorm-issue desk chair and motions me to the bed. “You’re stress relief, too.”

“Thanks,” I say, sinking onto his black-and-white-checkered comforter. “I don’t feel much like stress relief today.”

“Hard day at camp?” Nicole asks, pulling a bag of butterscotch candies out of her bag. She thrusts the bag in my direction.

Troy growls a little and frowns at the candy.

I lean over and take one. “Yes. No. I don’t know.” I twist open the cellophane wrapper. “It’s more than camp, I guess.”

Popping the butterscotch between my lips, I let the smoothly sweet taste melt over my tongue.

“Like what?” Nic asks.

Oh, everything. It’s that I can only control my powers when I’m not trying to. It’s that I’m afraid my boyfriend is getting back with his ex—or that I’m having an overreaction of jealousy. It’s that I’m stuck at home with Stella, with her taking me on as her pet project. It’s that I’m suddenly doubting what I learned about my dad’s death, my boyfriend’s loyalty, and my own sanity. It’s a million things and nothing.

Not that I say any of that. Don’t need to expose my friends to the insane ramblings of my brain. They might never recover.