“I can't believe we're finally here,” said Kate Morgan, looking around the room and smiling at the handsome guy seated across from her. Their table was in the corner, next to a window. Outside a fine, gray March mist floated across the pier on which the restaurant was built, but from time to time it parted and Kate could see the reflection of the moon on the ocean. The small candle on the table in front of her flickered cheerfully inside its glass holder and made her forget the chill that had wrapped around the town only a few days before the official start of spring.

“Hey, I told you--I always keep my promises,” Scott Coogan said, his lips parting in the carefree smile that was one of the things Kate found so appealing about her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend. The very words sent a tingle of excitement flowing through her skin like electricity. As she looked into Scott's blue eyes, Kate couldn't believe that only six weeks earlier she and Scott had never even spoken to one another. If it hadn't been for the spell I cast, she thought to herself.

The spell. Kate still felt terrible about the spell. When she had found the book of spells in among the other books she'd checked out of the library for her report on the witchcraft persecutions for history class, she'd thought it was all ridiculous. The rituals and chants were fun to read, but she didn't think they would really do anything.

Not until she tried one. The “Come to Me Love Spell” had seemed harmless when she'd read it in the book. It had even seemed harmless when she'd tried using it to get Scott to notice her. And when he had noticed her, she was as surprised as anyone else. Surprised and happy. At least until all the bad things started happening afterward.

But she didn't want to think about that anymore. It had been awful. If it hadn't been for Cooper and Annie, she didn't know where she'd be right now. Probably still trying to figure out how to reverse the spell that had gone so out of control. If she could have done it at all.

In the end she and her friends had stopped the spell. And best of all, Scott was still with her, even without the use of magic. Still, sometimes Kate found herself wondering if he really liked her or if he was still a little bit enchanted by the ritual she'd performed using a doll that resembled him. She still wasn't entirely sure what she thought about magic and witchcraft, even though she'd seen for herself what it could do.

“What are you thinking about?” Scott's voice jerked Kate out of her daydream.“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Just about how nice it is to be here with you.”

“I'm sorry it's taken so long,” Scott said, picking a roll from the basket in front of him and spreading butter on it. “What with school and work, and your basketball games and this whole scouting thing, I didn't think we'd ever be free on the same night.”

That was something else Kate didn't want to think about'the scouting thing. Scott, a senior, was the captain of the Beecher Falls High School football team. He was a great player, and several colleges had been interested in him because of his football skills. For the past month they'd been taking him on tours of various campuses and trying to get him to agree to come to their schools. At first it had been just one school, one not too far from Beecher Falls. But then three other schools had come calling--schools that were far away'and now Scott was trying to decide which one he wanted to go to.

Kate was trying to be supportive, but she was terrified that Scott was going to end up at a school somewhere across the country. She wished she were a senior too, instead of just a...