Chapter 6

                                    

                                          
Groaning, Alyssa trudged into the front office. Seriously, that no-sleep-crud was for the birds. She didn't see how anyone over the age of nineteen could do it! If she saw Mr. McConnell anywhere around her, and he also much as had a smirk on his face, she was going to sock him. She woke up in her bed this morning and felt like she hadn't even closed her eyes. She still wasn't completely sure it wasn't a dream. If he acted like nothing happened, then she would know for sure.   
                          
As she finished convincing herself that it was, in fact, a dream, Janice hung up the phone she had been speaking on and got a good look at her.  
                          
 "Oh, wow, Lys! You look like crap. What happened to you not wanting to be a zombie today?"  
                          
 "Shuddup. I didn't get much sleep last night." Alyssa mumbled while laying her head down on the counter in front of her friend's desk.  
                          
 "More dreams of Mr. Sexy-pants?" Janice smirked which earned her a glare from her best friend.   
                          
"Shuddup. Stupid jerk," Alyssa groaned still upset about him snapping at her. He probably didn't even have the same dream. She was delusional. That's it. There's no way either one of them had met in that field last night.  
                          
 Just then the office for opened up and Alyssa already knew who it was from his overpowering cologne.  
                          
 "Ms. Derickson, are you feeling well?" the pudgy, bald-headed man asked.  
                          
 Alyssa straightened up and look down at the man standing next to her. She wasn't all that tall at five-eight, but she towered over Mr. Hodgkin by a good three inches. Looking at the man who was in his mid-fifties, Alyssa plastered on a fake smile.   "I'm fine. I'm just a little tired today. I didn't sleep well last night."  
                          
 "Oh, you too, huh? Mr. McConnell mentioned he hadn't slept either. I hope you can rest some during your free period. I'd hate for you to actually get sick from sleep deprivation," he said before turning and heading into his office.   
                          
"Declan had trouble sleeping too, huh? Why didn't you tell me, you witch!" Janice cried indignantly.  
                          
 "You know that kinda loses its effectiveness as an insult since I came of the broom closet, right?" Alyssa giggled at her friend.  
                          
 "Huh? What are you talking 'bout?" Janice asked confused which only made Alyssa laugh harder.  
                          
 "Get it, broom closet? You called me a witch! Duh," Alyssa laughed, nearly on the brink of tears.  
                          
 "Oh! Yea, i guess it does, doesn't it," Janice laughed along side Alyssa. "I didn't even realize i said it. Speaking of 'witch'," she snickered, "how's your mom been taking it? She still all hellfire and brimstone?"   
                          
"Yea, she's decided I've been brainwashed, and doesn't even want me to come over if I'm wearing my pendant," Alyssa said as she played with her Pentagram pendant. Ever since finding her path, she had worn the silver, encircled star with five sapphires, one on each point. Her High Priestess had given it to Alyssa on the night she had dedicated herself to the Goddess and the Craft. She had also formally joined the Coven that night as well.   
                          
She had been raised Southern Baptist, but it never felt right to her. She never understood how someone could preach about the sins of others, yet then turn around and commit the same sins, or ones even worse. She also couldn't come to grips with a merciful, loving God who, it seemed to her, turned his back on his children. How could He allow the horrible things that happened? Rape? Children molested and murdered? The fact that so many couples tried for years and years to start a family only to find out they were barren, while the coke whore on the corner just threw her newborn infant into a dumpster because it slowed down business.