by Nic Saint
We got up and stared around, aghast, as the portrait of our parents crashed down.
“This is not a good sign, you guys,” I said.
“No shit!” Strel cried.
“It’s Gran,” said Stien. “She’s fading, and along with her the house is fading, too.”
We walked out of the parlor and into the hallway, and saw she was right. Everywhere we looked, paintings were dropping down from the walls, wallpaper peeled right off, and carpets became threadbare. It was as if the house was aging years in a matter of minutes.
“Protect the book. Protect the house. Watch our backs,” I repeated Gran’s words.
“The book!” Strel cried. “We have to protect the book!”
And as one woman, the three of us took to the stairs and raced up to the first floor. The Book of Spells, our heritage, was the first thing any witch worth her salt would try to get her hands on. We had to find out who this Lashanda was and we had to find out now.
Chapter 36
We practically stumbled into Gran’s room—which is located across the hall from ours but is just a touch larger and cozier than the messy messes we occupy. The first thing we saw was that even here the effects of the deterioration were clearly visible. Gran actually has two rooms at her disposal: a bedroom and a sitting room where she likes to do her reading and has installed a small TV set on which she likes to watch her favorite shows.
Yes, Gran might be the greatest witch we know, but she’s not immune to the charms of the Forresters, the Quartermaines or the Hortons. She likes to say that there are more charmed people on those shows than we can imagine. And who knows? Maybe she’s right.
But even here, picture frames had fallen to the floor, the wallpaper was peeling near the ceiling, and even the crown molding displayed signs of age and was cracking in places.
We made a beeline for the bookcase, where we hoped to find the Book of Spells, but as far as we could make out there was no sign that Fallon Safflower’s signature work—our family’s pride and joy and the source of great power—was still amongst Gran’s collection. All I could see were a large number of Harlequin romance novels, and a dozen big Noras.
“Where is she hiding it now?” asked Strel as she whirled around, searching around.
Ever since Gran took away our powers, she’d also hidden Fallon’s witchy artifacts from view, so we can’t find them. They used to be stored in the attic, but that was before Gran put them in her room and used a cloaking spell to make sure they are carefully hidden.
“I can’t believe Gran would keep the book from us at a time like this,” said Stien. She was on her knees, searching the TV cabinet, dumping TV Guides to the floor by the dozen.
And as my sisters tore the sitting room apart, I moved into Gran’s bedroom. The drapes were drawn, and the darkness was oppressive. I pulled them back to let some light in, and saw that the bed was actually sagging in the middle, as if about to collapse, and that even the floor showed signs of fatigue, the wood displaying lots of cracks and fissures.
So much for ‘I feel fine.’ Gran never liked to depend on her granddaughters, but this was getting ridiculous. It was obvious that she wasn’t fine at all. Nothing was fine.
I searched the nightstand, and saw that Gran kept a copy of the Bible in there, a small pile of cookbooks, and a few more Noras and a couple of Danielle Steels. I smiled. She certainly had an eclectic taste in bedside reading. With a groan of exasperation, I finally plunked down on Gran’s bed, and felt a hard bump under my butt. Springing up, I reached under the mattress, and to my surprise found the Book of Spells hidden underneath.
Not exactly in plain sight, but still not all that hard to find after all.
Gran’s cloaking powers were waning, along with the other powers she possessed.
“I found it!” I called out, and the others quickly joined me, looking relieved.
Like me, they probably thought the book had gone missing by now.
“Well? Open it!” Strel cried, never one to exercise either patience or restraint.
I carried the book into the sitting room and placed it on the desk near the window. Gran used it to write letters to her friends. There were little drawers where she kept paper and envelopes, an address book, and a collection of pens from around the world—sent to her by her correspondents.
Gran is the only person I know who still writes letters, which is actually pretty cool.
I opened the book and we stared down at it. The way this usually works is that the book shows us what we need to know in the moment, and I hoped it wouldn’t fail us now.
The yellow parchment displayed nothing at first, but then Fallon’s neat yet spidery handwriting began to materialize before our eyes, and we made excited noises. It worked!
Soon, the pages filled up with text and even nicely rendered drawings, and I sat down at the desk, my sisters breathing down my neck as we tried to decipher our ancestor’s scribblings. Fallon Safflower had lived almost two centuries ago, and it was sometimes hard to make out what she’d written. This time, however, the message was crystal clear.
When finally I’d read enough, I looked up. “Lashanda Kerrighen can’t be that old lady from Tisha’s shop,” I said. “She was one of Fallon’s contemporaries!”
“Maybe she’s very, very old?” Strel suggested. “Like, extremely old?”
“No witch can live that long,” said Stien. “Can they?”
We’d often speculated that Gran might be hundreds of years old, or maybe even thousands. Or that she was actually Fallon Safflower, and simply changed her name and appearance as she went from century to century, never dying and always staying young. Then again, we’d suggested as much to Gran once and she’d laughed us out of the room.
“According to this,” I said, tapping the book, “Lashanda was Fallon’s main nemesis, intent on destroying her even then. So whoever is sending those snakes into the house must be related to Lashanda. I mean, why else would Gran have given us her name?”
Lashanda and Fallon had once been close friends and confidantes, but that had all changed when they’d gone after the same man—Josiah Rovenheart. When Josiah had picked Fallon as his bride, and had started the dynasty that we still carried in our blood, Lashanda had started a bitter war of words that had torn the old friendship apart. She’d sworn that she would do everything in her power to destroy her former friend, and had extended her threat to Fallon’s family. Which meant that she might still be out there, intent on causing us harm.
I sat back. “At least now we know what’s going on—and who’s after us.”
“But why would Gran keep it a secret?” asked Strel, genuinely puzzled.
“You know Gran,” said Stien. “She always wants to protect us. Keep us safe.”
“By keeping us in the dark? How is that going to keep us safe?”
“She doesn’t want us to worry. And she’s probably afraid that if we are aware of the threat, we might do something rash.”
“She’s right. Gran doesn’t trust us any further than she can throw us,” I said. And our past behavior had probably given her cause. Gran likes to keep us as far away from witchcraft as she can—and this Lashanda business had witchcraft written all over it.
“Well, she’s going to have to trust us now, isn’t she?” said Strel, closing the Book of Secrets. “Or else this whole house is going to sink into the ground and take us along with it.”
Chapter 37
The three of us sat at Gran’s bedside, shocked at the change in appearance that had come over our beloved grandmother. No longer was her hair a luminous platinum. In just a few hours it had turned a brittle white. Even her eyebrows had faded, and her face, always wrinkle-free in spite of the fact she swore up and down she didn’t do anything special to keep it that way, was now sunken, lined and displaying an unhealthy tinge of sallow.
She looked on the verge of death, and seeing her like this sank my mood to the lowest depths. It also made me determined to eradicate this Lashanda
threat from our lives.
But how? We weren’t powerful witches like Gran. And it was obvious we weren’t going to be able to fight Lashanda by having a nice sit-down and a heart-to-heart talk.
The hospital where they’d taken Gran was the New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital on Park Slope. It was a modern affair with friendly staff, the corridors and rooms white and antiseptic. That pervasive hospital smell of disinfectant hung heavy in the air, and I watched as some clear liquid dripped into the IV tube and into Gran’s arm.
The doctor had already told us her condition was stable and she needed to rest, but when we asked what exactly was the matter with her, he’d been vague and evasive. Apparently she’d suffered from exhaustion, but what could explain this sudden and utter breakdown he could not explain. “Maybe she exerted herself?” he suggested.
When we told him that Gran had more energy than the three of us combined, he shrugged and told us that age was probably an important factor here. Yeah, right.
“Gran,” Stien said, gently touching our grandmother’s arm. “Can you hear me?”
Gran weakly opened her eyes, but clearly had trouble focusing.
When she saw us, she smiled. “Oh, girls. I’m so happy you’re here.”
“What’s going on?” asked Strel. “You have to tell us, Gran. We need to know.”
She stared at Strel for a moment, then said in a soft voice, “I didn’t want to involve you. You’ve got enough on your plate as it is.” A tear stole down her cheek. “I thought I could handle things—that I could protect you. Turns out I was wrong.” She grimaced, as though in pain.
“What’s with the snakes?” I asked. “And what about Lashanda Kerrighen? Is she behind all this? Is she the one who keeps sending those snakes?”
Gran shook her head, and closed her eyes, seemingly drifting off again.
“The house is falling apart, Gran,” said Stien urgently. “Whatever’s going on, it’s destroying Safflower House—and you. Please tell us what we have to do to stop this thing!”
Suddenly, I became aware of a soft hissing sound, and when I looked down, I saw to my horror that the room was filled with snakes! Everywhere I looked, the foul creatures were covering the shiny linoleum floor. Immediately, I jumped up on my chair, and so did my sisters. A nurse, walking into the room, uttered a startled cry at the sight of the mass of serpents, and turned tail, flapping her arms and screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Do something!” Strel yelled at me. “I hate snakes!”
“What am I supposed to do?!” I yelled back.
“Think of a spell—any spell!”
“I don’t know any snake-repelling spells!”
Strel clamped her teeth together with a click, then snapped, “Uncrullio!”
It was one of the minor spells—the one she used to straighten her hair. Strel had naturally curly hair, which she hated, and it was one of the spells Gran had returned to us, figuring they could do no harm. I also had one, to retrieve stuff I lost—which I often did—but that wasn’t going to do a lot of good. And Stien’s spell to find her glasses was useless as well.
The effect of Strel’s attempt was that the snakes jumped up and straightened out! Now we were surrounded by straight snakes. Nice!
“Not helping, Strel!” Stien cried.
“Well—you try something, then.”
“Sortordria!” Stien yelled. It was the spell she used to categorize her books, which she liked to keep in a certain order, standing neatly at attention like a regiment of soldiers.
The snakes responded well to the spell, by aligning themselves in neat rows, and moving closer to the bed, crawling up in Gran’s direction like a well-trained battalion!
“You’re just making things worse!” Strel cried.
Stien uttered a frustrated sound, and turned to me. “Edie! Your turn!”
I was even worse at witchcraft than they were, but I thought hard, reaching into the deepest recesses of my mind, trying to conjure up a spell of some kind that would be useful in these circumstances. And finally I got it. “Disapparato!” I said, waving the fingers of my right hand and hoping that whatever magic I had left in me would suddenly reassert itself.
To my dim recollection, the spell was supposed to make things disappear, which was exactly what we needed right now. Instead, though, it merely caused the snakes to multiply! Suddenly they were heaped up a foot thick instead of merely a single layer on the floor.
We all yelped, and Strel cried, “What did you have to go and do that for?!”
“You told me to cast a spell! So I cast a spell!”
“Now I remember why Gran took away your witchy powers! You suck!”
“You suck!”
“No, we all suck,” Stien corrected us. “And now we’re going to die!”
There was a soft moan, and when we looked down, we saw that Gran was awake. “What’s with all the yelling and screaming?” she demanded. “I’m trying to get some rest.”
“Snakes, Gran,” said Strel. “What else could it be? Always those horrible snakes!”
“I wish Samuel L. Jackson were here,” said Stien “He would know what to do.”
“Yeah,” said Strel. “He has a way with snakes.”
Obviously Gran, too, had a way with snakes, for she sat up a little straighter, threw off the sheet, revealing a very unappealing hospital gown I wouldn’t want to be seen dead in, and assumed a cold stare. “I’ve just about had it with these snakes,” she grunted.
If she’d been Samuel L. Jackson, she would have thrown in a few F-bombs, but that wasn’t her style. Instead, she lifted her hands, icy blue sparks shooting from them in the direction of the floor. They were like laser beams, and soon caused havoc and mayhem amongst the multitude of snakes. Burning them up and sending them back to their maker.
Gran’s death ray quickly expanded to encompass the entire space, and before we knew it, the snake issue had been resolved to the satisfaction of everyone involved.
But then a loud beeping noise had us all look up. Or at least, had my sisters and I look up. The beeping sound came from some complicated machinery next to Gran, and as we watched, puzzled, doctors came rushing into the room and started barking orders.
Only now did I see that Gran had collapsed to the bed, and was unresponsive!
Nurses hustled us out while the crash team feverishly worked on Gran, trying desperately to bring her back to life. Out in the corridor, we heard the nervous chatter and frenzied activity inside the room, and we hugged each other. This latest snake episode had clearly taken Gran’s final remaining powers, and she was now on the verge of death.
The whole thing only lasted minutes, but it seemed more like hours. When we were finally admitted to the room again, Gran had her eyes closed, and a nurse urged us not to disturb her. She gave us five minutes and then we had to leave. Gran had to rest and recover.
We stood around our grandmother’s bed, and even Strel was speechless for perhaps the first time in her life. Gran looked so small and pale—it was as if she’d died already.
But then her eyes snapped open and she said, in an urgent whisper, “Protect the house! Protect Fallon’s stuff. She-she’s going after it! Go now!”
And before we could ask more, she heaved a rattling sigh and sank into the pillow.
Chapter 38
We hurried home from the hospital in a cab, Gran’s urgent message ringing in our ears.
“Real witches would have taken their broom,” Strel said as she nervously fidgeted.
“Real witches would have defeated this Lashanda person already,” said Stien, wringing her hands.
“Real witches wouldn’t have allowed their grandmother to fend for them,” I said, chewing my nails like there was no tomorrow. As far as I was concerned, maybe there wasn’t. With Gran in the hospital, and our house under attack from some ancient witch, things were not exactly looking very promising right now.
“Well, if Gran hadn’t taken our witchy powers, we
wouldn’t be in this mess,” Strel countered. “I mean, a real witch would have let us keep our powers and taught us how to use them, right?”
“You’re going to blame this on Gran now? Really?” I asked, shaking my head.
“I’m not blaming this on Gran.” She frowned and paused. “Or maybe I am.”
“I guess she never expected an enemy as formidable as Lashanda to show up,” said Stien. “She probably thought she was doing us a favor by taking our witchy powers. I mean, it’s not as if we need them to make it in life.”
She was right. To Gran’s mind, witchcraft had only brought us a lot of misfortune and misery. A warlock had killed our parents, and had caused us to create so much trouble that it had almost destroyed our lives, too. Fallon’s heritage thus far hadn’t exactly been a boon.
The taxi dropped us off in front of the house and we hurried inside.
“Good thing our guests are out,” said Stien.
“Yeah, where are they, exactly?” asked Strel.
“They are finally taking that tour of Brooklyn,” I knew. “Fonzie convinced Helmut and Jerome to show him the sights—seeing how they bonded so wonderfully at the Poisoned Oyster. I think those three are going to be friends for life after this.”
“Let’s hope they leave a nice review on Airbnb,” said Stien.
We stared at her. This wasn’t exactly the time to worry about review averages.
We were standing in the hallway, dragging our feet. If Lashanda was in the house, how were we going to stand up to her? She was a witch of Fallon’s caliber, and we… weren’t.
And then we heard it. Someone was rummaging around upstairs. We shared a look, and I saw the resolution steal over my sisters’ faces. Time to stop whining and do something.
So I took a deep breath, placed my foot on the first step, and started up the stairs.
When we arrived on the landing, we paused. The sound was coming from Gran’s room! And as we pushed open the door to peer inside, we saw that the little old lady we’d seen exiting Tisha’s shop that morning was ferreting around, free of care or worry!