“Inside, huh?” He leaned down and kissed her deeply.
“Yeah,” she said up against his mouth, tugging on his collar and undoing a button with something like expertise. “I can make you some…”—nothing came to mind—“water!”
Hunter’s hands circled her back, but instead of drawing her in, he took her gently by the shoulders and pulled away. “Actually, I don’t think I should.”
He was being polite. She loved that. “I do.” She kissed him again.
He let her for a moment then tugged back, holding her still. “I think that potion was a little too strong,” he said slowly, looking her up and down. “And it’s making you a little too…nice.”
“No such thing.”
“I disagree.” He slipped her hands off of his collar and held them together between the two. “Trust me, there’s nothing I’d like more than to, uh, find out if you really do snore.”
At that she giggled.
“But I think a side effect of the benivoletia might be that you can’t exactly say no. Which means we need to reformulate it, and unfortunately I should go home.”
Ivy whined a bit, then stopped herself. If that was what he wanted, then, of course, she was happy to wait. “Okay!” she said with a giddy grin. “But call me tomorrow?”
He nodded. “Definitely.”
“Okay, great! Goodnight!” Ivy pecked him on the cheek and slipped inside, leaving him on the porch.
She burst into the house and floated through to the kitchen with a skip in her step. The night had gone so well, everyone had been so nice, and not once did anyone make an attempt on her life. She kicked off her heels, happy those imaginary packages were still tucked safely in that imaginary closet. Christmas was still a far way off, and maybe she could even put it off til next year.
Ivy sauntered over to the kettle and picked it up. “Edna, I just had a great night!” Then she filled it with water and set it on a hot burner. “And now we’re going to make some great tea. Together.”
She brought down the herbal encyclopedia from her room and sat it on the counter, not feeling the least bit sleepy despite how late it was. It was a bit easier to ignore the papers tucked inside, and she just flipped through the pictures instead. When the kettle went off with a scream, she hurried over and began pouring herself a cup, but stopped abruptly when she heard a noise. Tapping, it had to have been, though it was gone now. Ivy went to the front door and peered out the window beside it, but the porch and drive were empty.
Back in the kitchen, she returned to her cup, but again there was the sound, louder now. She looked at the other mugs. “Edna, did you want a cup?” The noise continued, this time coming from the back of the house.
Ivy followed the sound, but it stopped as she reached for the knob to the back door. Her hand hovered there, then she pulled it back. Certainly, it was nothing—Oakley would call if he lost his key—and she returned to the kitchen.
When she heard the noise a third time, she perked up, took a last sip of her tea, and went straight out the back door. “Hello?”
The autumn air was even cooler now, and the yard was lit with moonlight. There was no one on the back porch, no night creature skittering away with a scrap of garbage, but when she looked off into the darkness of the yard, there was something shimmering, just catching the light.
Ivy took a few steps down off the porch into the grass, cold in the night air making her bare feet tingle. She gripped the strap of her bag and held her arms close to her body for warmth. The shimmer vaguely reminded her of the scales of the cockatrice. With another few steps, she went toward it in the dark.
Future Ivy would look back at this choice and deem it a very bad move, but present Ivy was riding the high of a night gone off without a hitch, the intoxication of an untested feel-good potion, and the slow-acting but powerful effects of a fragment of the netherlight. Everything was fine, including walking blind and barefoot out into an enchanted forest, she absolutely knew it to be true, and so she did.
Chapter 36
Ivy was lost almost immediately, but she wasn’t worried. The cockatrice had evaded her yet again, but she could find her way back if she just turned around and let the forest guide her. When she glanced over her shoulder, she thought she could see the porch light of 210 through the trees, but after a few steps the light revealed itself to just be the moon, rounder but not quite yet full. “Shoot,” she muttered to herself with a huff. “Well, I guess a little walk won’t hurt me.”
Except it did sort of hurt to be walking barefoot on leaves and sticks. Everything had seemed a lot simpler from the porch: she’d saunter down to the trees, scoop up the cockatrice, offer him some tea, and they’d become best friends. Then she’d show Safiya that she’d caught the bird, and the witch would be so relieved that everything would be forgotten between the two. Now things were complicated: her feet were getting sore, her tea was getting cold, she had no peace offering, and there was a discomforting shuffle coming from behind her.
Ivy turned again but saw nothing. A squirrel, probably, and she continued on, shivering and rubbing her bare arms. Then she heard it to her left, much louder. This time she saw something, a large, round shadow in the darkness, but it could easily be a raccoon’s butt, and she giggled at the thought. Nope, nothing to worry about.
When she reached out to feel her way forward where the forest got a bit denser, Ivy touched something sticky. She couldn’t see much, even holding her hand close to her face, and there was no smell, but it felt like there were little fibers all over her palm. Tree sap, obviously, and she reached down to the ground to wipe it off, but only discovered more of the stuff.
If only she had a light—but she did! She unzipped her bag, and the orb glowed at her side. Angling it around, she revealed a white, stringy substance there in long, taut cords, thin enough to look like they could be broken, but when Ivy poked at them they had a wondrous elasticity and shimmered as if made of glass.
Ivy prodded at the threads for a few moments, unsure what they could possibly be, then she moved her bag to light up the entire area and saw the trees, the bushes, and even the ground was covered in the stuff. She had walked into a shimmering maze of sticky strings, and it was beautiful.
“Wow,” she said aloud to what she thought was no one. “So pretty.” This was what she’d seen from the porch, glittering and odd, and it didn’t occur to her until her light fell on something vastly different, black and furry, that it might not be a totally natural occurrence.
But the thing was gone before she could get a good look at it, skittering off beyond where her light reached. “Hello?” Ivy spoke into the darkness, feeling pretty good about the situation considering how horrified future Ivy would be.
When her light finally fell on it, it was pressed back into a corner, its bulbous middle surrounded by pointed edges, and her light reflecting back from many, many eyes that squinted under the gleam. “So sorry,” she said, dipping the light down. “Didn’t mean to blind you, I just—”
Then the thing stood, spreading its pointy bits out. It was big—very big. It unfolded itself, and then just kept going, towering over her on its spindles. The bristles covering its body even stood up, and its pincers—oh, did it ever have pincers—twitched.
Ivy’s instinct finally overrode the benivoletia, and she ran. But eight legs are much faster than two, and the giant spider was on her heels. She jumped between two trees, a gap she thought too small for the creature, but when she turned she watched in horror as it flattened itself and slipped through. On the other side, the spider raised up and gripped onto the branches above it, flipping upside down. Ivy bolted to the right, changing course suddenly, and heard a splat against the trees where she had just been.
She gained some distance, pumping her arms and legs hard with the glow bobbing at her side, but suddenly found herself surrounded by even thicker webbing. The trees were wrapped in white, glittering swaths, and her bare feet were catching with every step. Her momentum seemed to be all that kept her fr
om being stuck fully to the ground, and that would only last so long.
The sound of eight legs breaking through the trees was getting closer, and the forest wasn’t leading her out of it. If ever she could use a little magic—but didn’t she have so much more than a little?
Pulling the orb from her purse as she ran, she hugged it up against her body. Magic is all about intent, that’s what Safiya had said, and so she shouted at the ball: “I intend to live! Please, help me!”
Ivy’s feet no longer connected with the earth. She threw her hands out as she fell forward, the ground coming up at her fast, the orb gone. She turned away at the last moment, bracing for the impact, but it never came. Instead, she was splayed out on her stomach, but she didn’t feel the ground beneath her or twigs and leaves burying into her arms. She didn’t feel anything at all.
Ivy opened her eyes. The webs were all around, but they were now yellowed and foggy, like she were looking at them through a steamy shower door. She reached out to touch one but met resistance instead. Ivy pressed up from the weirdly smooth and bouncy ground though she could see the earth beneath. She wasn’t touching it, an invisible barrier there, and when she sat up she realized her body was hovering about an inch off the ground.
Then she saw the spider. It was contemplating her just as much as she was contemplating herself and the fact she’d somehow just appeared inside a giant, glowing bubble.
They stared at each other, neither sure what to do. The spider raised a giant, furry leg and brought it down on the bubble but met the same resistance Ivy had from the other side. Ivy waved at it then, and it lowered its gargantuan body flat against the ground, waiting. They could sit there all night, she supposed, but things wouldn’t change once the sun came up, so she pulled her phone out of her bag and dialed the first number that really felt right.
“Can you please come help me?” she said, happy her call had been picked up. “I’m somewhere in the forest, but you can’t miss me: I’m glowing.”
***
Safiya stood with flames in both her hands, waving them in front of her to keep the spider at bay, and it was working. “How?” was the only word she could manage, though it sounded a bit muffled from Ivy’s side of the bubble.
“So, I’m pretty sure this is the orb.” Ivy tried to knock on its wall, but her knuckles didn’t connect. “Pauline brought it over—oh, she’s the one who had it, apparently!”
“You mean Pauline—”
“No! Well, I don’t think so. Hey, now!” Ivy pointed out at the spider who had taken a step closer, and Safiya waved a fiery hand at it. “Pauline says Rufus gave her the orb to heal Penny’s face. How nice was that? And then Calla told Pauline she could give it to me which probably means Calla and Rufus were actually boinking since she knew what was going on, and that’s kind of sweet, you have to admit!”
“Calla?” Safiya threw up exasperated hands, and the spider cowered.
“It’s been a busy couple days. Which you would know if you were talking to me.” Ivy looked at her pointedly, then her heart jerked up into her throat. “Oh, my god, I’m so sorry!” She threw her hands over her mouth, tears brimming in her eyes. “That was so mean!”
Safiya squinted at her. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing?” Ivy glanced down at herself. “Well, I think my feet are bleeding a little, but otherwise I feel kind of great.” It was true, Ivy was weirdly calm even in the presence of a massive spider and a witch who, up until only a little while ago, she was considering to be another suspect. Hopefully her faith in Safiya was a side-effect of that inherent wisdom Hunter had mentioned the benivoletia having. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
Safiya eyed her, then shook her head. “We’ll figure it out after I take care of this spider.”
The flame in Safiya’s hands grew, illuminating the forest in an angry, orange light, and just as she drew her arms back, Ivy yelled, “Wait!”
Coming up short, Safiya nearly tripped. “What? Why?”
“It’s just—” Ivy tilted her head, looking over the arachnid. It was almost quivering in the wake of the flame, but it hadn’t scurried off. And it could have. In fact—she looked at Safiya, powerful and frightening in the darkness, holding real fire in her hands—it should have. “Doesn’t it…look a little familiar?”
“I don’t know how many giant tarantulas you’ve met before, but I don’t know any.”
Ivy’s eyes lit up. “Yes! It’s Marie!” Ivy pointed out the white tuft on her head.
“Marie?” Safiya looked over the creature, then back to Ivy. “You mean Calla’s Marie? I don’t think this thing would fit in a twenty gallon tank, Ivy.”
“No, it wouldn’t. But could someone have done this to her? She’s been missing. And, I mean, look at her. I don’t think she really wants to be here at all, but something is making her.”
Safiya relaxed her arms, if only slightly, the flames shrinking.
Ivy watched the spider rocking back and forth against the trees. “I think it was set on me, like the poison.”
“You think someone’s trying to kill you with it?” The spider elongated a leg toward them and Safiya was quick to warn it with another flame.
Ivy’s shoulders drooped, and she frowned. “Yeah. They have a good reason, I guess. Being accused of murder probably really hurts your feelings.”
Safiya looked at her sidelong. “You’re acting very strange.”
“I have an idea.” Ivy ignored her and tapped the inside of the sphere. “Excuse me, orb? I think you can let me out now.”
With a flash, the netherlight zapped away from around her and reappeared in front of her face in a small sphere, hovering there a moment and then dropping into her outstretched hands.
“Thank you.” She gave the space above it a little pat before sticking it back in her bag then turned her face up to the titan spider. “Now, Marie, I think we can come to some kind of understanding.”
As Ivy took a step forward, Safiya hesitated, holding her flames aloft. “What are you doing?”
“It’s fine.” She waved the witch away and took another step toward the spider. “Someone asked you to hurt me, didn’t they?”
The spider also carefully moved toward Ivy, its legs gently stepping on the leaves so as to disturb them as little as possible.
“But you don’t have to do that. In fact, we can be friends!” Ivy squinted out at the spider as her eyes adjusted to the lack of light. It was creeping ever closer to her. “Just like that.” She reached out with a smile.
“Ivy,” Safiya’s voice hissed from behind her. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of this situation. You can’t just reason with a giant spider, pet or not. They have instincts.”
“Nonsense.” Ivy was grinning at the thing. “Someone else did, so why can’t I?”
As she reached out for the spider, it came within touching distance of her.
“Because.” Safiya groaned. “It’s probably been enchanted. Let me at least try and remove that.”
Ivy remained with her hand out, but she knelt on the ground. “Oh, great idea! Can you make her little again?”
With a few words, Safiya flashed a hand across the air, maintaining the fire in the other. The spider wobbled, then levitated, one arm pulling into its body, then another, and then the rest, and with a pop the gargantuan tarantula was suddenly much smaller, dropping from the air onto the forest floor.
“Whoa!” Ivy looked up at Safiya. “That was fast.”
Safiya’s eyes were wide with shock. “Uh, I did not expect that. I just tried to counter any existing illusions.”
“Illusions?” Ivy glanced around, the webbing that had been all over now gone, only a few, thin strands remaining. She tilted her head down to the much smaller Marie and went toward her to scoop her up. “So she was never really big?”
“Ivy, I wouldn’t do that.”
“Eh.” Ivy shrugged, sliding a hand under her, the benivoletia just on the cusp of wearing off
. “I think it’s going to be just fi—”
The poke into Ivy’s hand was so fast she barely felt it. In fact, she thought it was a gesture of friendship, but she was quick to realize just as the potion ran its course in her system that spider fangs aren’t how they shake hello.
Chapter 37
For the second time since she’d moved into Avalon Estates, Ivy woke in her bed disoriented and in pain. She was exhausted the moment she tried sitting up, groaning as she fell back down.
“Ivy?”
“Saf?” She could barely choke out the name, her mouth feeling like it was full of cotton.
The witch leaned over the bed and pulled up one of her eyelids, looking deep into her pupil. “What’s your name? What’s my name? What’s two to the tenth power?”
She cleared her throat, pressing her head back into the pillow. “Uh, we just said them, and I don’t think I’ve ever known that last one. What’s going on?”
She released her lid. “Well, you were poisoned.”
“Not again,” she mumbled, dragging a hand up to rub her face.
“Yeah, again. And this time I’m surprised it didn’t kill you.”
Ivy blinked up at the ceiling. The warnings were over, apparently. “But it didn’t. Thanks to you.”
“Thanks to Hunter.” The witch sighed. “I got you back home and called him. The Proctors have something for just about everything, including an anti-venom for exactly Marie’s breed.”
“Hunter’s here?” Ivy tried to sit up. She’d just seen him, but with her head clearer now that the benivoletia had worn off, she wanted to talk. Suddenly, she felt like she needed to tell him the truth and tell him now.
“For a couple days he was.” Safiya rubbed her eyes and started tapping away on her phone. “But I sent him home when it looked like you were out of the worst of it. It took a lot of convincing.” She narrowed her eyes and whispered, “And now I think he’s off the list for sure.”
Ivy managed to get up onto her elbow. “A couple days? Did I miss the election?”
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