Witchy Wishes

by Nic Saint

  “More spells!” I cried. “Anything you can throw at her!”

  And as we held up our hands, an almost imperceptible shimmer of sparks emanated from our fingers, and we launched into three spells simultaneously.

  “Karismatractivus!” Stien yelled.

  “Revitaloh!” I screamed.

  “Tirlario!” Strel bellowed.

  Chapter 44

  I had no idea what our spells would accomplish, but of one thing I was certain: they would accomplish something. Stien’s spell was intended to make a person more attractive, mine to revive them in case they were knocked out, and Strel’s was an old spell to make her Barbies dance. It had always given us a lot of fun when we were little. Now? Her spell suddenly lifted Tabitha up into the air and had her twirling around like… a Barbie doll.

  My spell seemed to have backfired, for instead of turning our opponent manic, like I’d intended, it turned her blue in the face instead. Oops. And Stien’s spell also had the opposite effect, for instead of making Tabitha prettier, it forced her face into a spastic grin that screwed up her entire face and made her look like a murderous maniac, which she was.

  Tabitha, twirling in the air, her blue face spasming and twisting horribly, was not to be outdone by our feeble household spells, though, which she proved by attempting to strike us down with a few devastating fire bolts. The bolts took out my poor old boom box and shut up George Michael. Before she could hit us, though, we quickly ducked behind the couch.

  “We need more spells!” Strel gasped breathlessly.

  “I’m all out!” Stien indicated.

  “I think I have one more,” I said, digging deep for more practical spells I could throw at the woman. I quickly popped up from behind the couch, and shouted, “Soporificio!” It was a sleeping spell, and worked like a charm in cases of insomnia. I’d aimed it at Tabitha, hoping to knock her out, but instead of making her eyelids droop she grew rabbit ears. Oh, joy.

  I ducked back down behind the couch, Tabitha’s screams indicating she’d discovered this new and wondrous addition to her personal appearance and wasn’t too well pleased.

  “Now I’m also out,” I told my sisters.

  “I’ll just keep casting my spell,” said Strel. “As long as she keeps twirling around, she can’t harm us, right?” And she got up and hurled her Tirlario spell in Tabitha’s face again.

  Just then, there was a whooshing noise behind us, and suddenly I saw that a misty figure seemed to step right out of the large stained glass window, backlit by an ominous and fiery glow. It was almost as if Fallon Safflower herself, tired of nursing the child in the window, had decided to step out of the maternity scene and lend us a helping hand.

  She gave us a smile, and then stepped right through the couch and up to Tabitha, who was hurling not only spells in our direction but foul-mouthed abuse as well.

  She was definitely a woman who did not play fair—or who could take defeat with grace and dignity. And all this twirling around she was doing wasn’t improving her mood.

  The moment Fallon showed up and launched an attack on Tabitha, the woman was knocked back against the flatscreen, which exploded on impact, and for a moment I thought our ordeal was finally over. Unfortunately, Tabitha scrambled to her feet, and I saw that she was no longer alone either. A jowly woman with a funny-looking cap and a long, flowing black robe had entered the fray, and now engaged Fallon in a one-on-one fight that launched a real fireworks show right there in our living room, which was soon suffering the consequences in an explosion of wainscoting, lamps and Gran’s collection of jade buddhas.

  “Finally—the moment I’ve been waiting for all my life!” the jowly stern-faced woman screamed in between two bolts shooting from her fingers and barely missing Fallon.

  “You’re not going to destroy me or my descendants in our own home, Lashanda!” Fallon shouted, and launched a few particularly powerful salvos of her own.

  “Didn’t you hear the news? This is my home now. All mine!”

  “Over my dead body.”

  “That can be arranged.”

  “I want you out of our lives—and this time don’t come back.”

  “What do you know? That’s exactly what I want from you.”

  As our foremother exchanged barbs and spells with her old nemesis, my sisters and I crawled from behind the couch and took a peek at Tabitha, hoping to catch her unaware and needle her with more of our particular brand of witchcraft. I stubbornly stuck to my sleeping spell, Strel favored her hair-straightening remedy, and Stien had found a new spell I’d totally forgotten about: Inbandtwain. She liked to use it to disentangle her earphone cords.

  The end result was that Tabitha grew a nose like a pig, the tail of an elephant, her face turned a sickly green, she was knocked about as if in a pinball machine, and her body corkscrewed right into a pretzel. And since we kept repeating our spells, she was being jerked around the room, changing form each time we launched one of our scathing attacks.

  It was not a pretty sight, and when she accidentally found herself in Fallon’s line of fire, the spell emanating from our foremother’s hands was so powerful that it finally made her shrivel up and be reduced to the size of a pea!

  We stared at the pea-sized Tabitha, almost like a smudge on the carpet. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen!” Strel shouted over the noise of the Fallon-Lashanda battle.

  “Serves her right,” said Stien. “At least now she can’t do anyone any harm.”

  “I think we should stomp on her,” I said. “Just to be on the safe side.”

  But then another one of Fallon’s spells hit Tabitha, and she was smushed.

  The three of us were silent for a spell, then Stien said, “And that takes care of that.”

  We raised our eyes to the two women still duking it out.

  “Maybe we should help her,” I said, indicating Fallon Safflower. She was a fine-boned woman, clad in a natty long-sleeved cotton dress with a layered skirt that fanned out like a flower. Her long raven hair was shiny and framed a lovely face with large almond eyes.

  “She’s so pretty,” said Strel, momentarily distracted as we took in our ancestor.

  “I’m going to help her,” said Stien, getting up.

  “So am I,” I announced, rising from my position next to the couch.

  And when Strel, too, decided to join the battle, the three of us stood shoulder to shoulder, and practiced our skills on Lashanda Kerrighen. We turned her green. We gave her elephant’s ears and tweaked her features. We twisted and twirled her this way and that and when we were through with her she looked more like a Picasso painting than a human being.

  She uttered a loud, frustrated scream, and then hit us with her most devastating spell yet. I could see it roll in like a tidal wave, and I was pretty sure that if it had hit us, it would have reduced us to ashes. But suddenly a wall erected right in front of us, sturdy and strong like the Hoover Dam, and the spell crashed into it, then backfired on its owner.

  There was a blinding light when the spell hit its unintended target, an ear-splitting boom like a fighter jet breaking the sound barrier, and we were all knocked back against the wall.

  When I opened my eyes to see if I was still amongst the living, I saw that a large smudge of black was all that was left of Lashanda. The woman had simply… imploded.

  And when I looked up, I found myself gazing into the smiling face of Fallon Safflower.

  Chapter 45

  She held out a hand, and I took it gratefully. She then extended the same courtesy to my sisters.

  “I’m so glad to finally meet you,” said Fallon.

  “Same here,” I said, for lack of a more eloquent response.

  “You saved us,” said Strel, eyes shiny and bright. Her tilt-tipped button of a nose was black with soot, and she had smudges all over her face, just like the rest of us, but she was alive, and so were we. Even the men on the couch were alive—which was a regular miracle.

  “You are so beautiful
,” said Stien, shaking her head.

  Fallon laughed. “Thanks. So are you, Stien. And you, Strel and Edie. I’ve been watching you from afar—following your adventures with great interest. It’s such a joy to see how well you’re doing. How you turned into three wonderful and highly capable witches.”

  “Wonderful and capable?” asked Strel. “We’re far from capable.”

  “Oh, you are more capable than you might think,” said Fallon.

  “But Gran always says—”

  “Your grandmother has a way of bringing out the best in people—and she’s been doing the same with you. You defeated Tabitha Templeman just now, and helped me defeat Lashanda Kerrighen, one of the great witches of my time.” She gestured at the six men, who were watching the scene in stunned silence. “And you saved these brave men over here.”

  “Well, if you put it that way,” I admitted.

  “But we couldn’t have done it without you,” said Stien.

  “We all need a little help from time to time,” said Fallon. “And since you’re family, you’ll always receive my help if you need it.”

  “Why wasn’t our grandmother able to help us?” asked Strel. “She’s in a coma at the hospital right now—knocked out by Tabitha’s army of snakes.”

  Fallon smiled a radiant smile. Stien was right. She was so beautiful. It was almost as if she was backlit by an otherworldly and powerful source of light, her face displaying a luminous radiance. “Cassie is perfectly fine. I guess she figured it was time for you girls to finally embrace your heritage and take some responsibility for your lives.”

  “You mean she faked it?” I asked.

  “Your grandmother is a formidable woman—and a very powerful witch. Did you really think that a few snakes could destroy her? Or a newbie witch like Tabitha?”

  Her words had us gawping, our jaws dropping in a very unladylike display of astonishment. But before we could ask more, Fallon was already fading, waving goodbye.

  “Fallon?” asked Strel. “You’re not leaving us, are you?”

  Her voice sounding garbled, as if through water, when she said, “I’ll never leave you girls. I’ll always be there when you need me. Always.” And then she was gone.

  Fonzie, who’d managed to remove his gag, uttered a loud yell. “Only in America!”

  All I could think as we removed the gags from the men, and took care of their ropes, was that we had to find a way to wipe their minds. To make them forget what they just saw. No way were Fonzie, Jerome or Helmut going to be able to keep the stirring events of the evening a secret—or our witchy nature. And I wasn’t too sure about Flavio and Erick either.

  Skip was the only one who was familiar with the particulars of our family’s history, and even he was looking pretty shell-shocked when we untied him. It’s not every day you find yourself in the middle of an age-old witch war. I was still shaking, my legs wobbly and my knees uncertain whether to keep me upright or send me crashing to the floor.

  And just when I was trying to conjure up a spell to remove the men’s memories, none other than Gran walked in, looking as fit, healthy and energetic as ever.

  “Hello, girls,” she said, as if she’d just returned from a trip to the market. “Had a nice evening?”

  “Gran!” I cried. “You’re all right!”

  “Of course I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be? Now let me see…” She briefly surveyed the scene. “Oh, my. You have made a mess of this place, haven’t you?”

  “You should have seen what happened!” Helmut said.

  “There was a battle or something!” Jerome chimed in.

  “Some kind of freaky Harry Potter stuff!” Fonzie added.

  “I thought it was all very interesting,” Erick opined.

  “If I’d known my neighbors were witches, I’d have asked you for a love spell a long time ago,” said Flavio.

  “What do you need a love spell for?” asked Erick, stung to the quick.

  “I’ve always known,” said Skip proudly. “I used to work for them.”

  “Right,” said Gran, planting herself in front of the excitedly chattering men. She waved her hands just so, and sparks shot from her fingers, sweeping up to the ceiling, then swooping down onto the men, enveloping them and knocking them back against the couch, their bodies rigid, their expressions stiff and wide-eyed. They seemed to have touched a live wire, as they jerked this way and that, and then finally they collapsed, out for the count.

  Strel poked the one closest to her, which happened to be Fonzie. “Is he dead?”

  “Not dead,” said Gran. “They’ll wake up soon enough, and when they do they won’t remember a thing. Which is exactly what we want. Now… about Tabitha.”

  “She’s gone,” I said. “We turned her into a pea, and then Fallon… evaporated her.”

  “Evaporated her? That simply won’t do,” said Gran, thinking hard. Just then, there was a loud crashing sound at the door, and she looked up. “Yes. That’s what I was afraid of.” She shrugged. “Oh, well. We’ll just have to improvise, won’t we? It’s worked for us before.”

  A small battalion of cops burst into the room, and I recognized them as the same ones who’d arrested us only a few short hours before. This was getting ridiculous.

  Chapter 46

  “Flummox sisters!” bellowed the stocky cop in charge. “You’re under—”

  “Look!” one of the men shouted. We all looked where he was pointing.

  “It’s the Slasher!” hollered one of his colleagues.

  There, standing over the six men on the couch, stood a masked figure, holding two knives, ready to start slicing and dicing them. To my surprise, the six men were once again bound and gagged, and twisting frantically as they found themselves faced with the Slasher.

  And to my even greater surprise, I was bound and gagged, too, and so were my two sisters and our grandmother! We were on the floor in front of the television set, and as I glanced around, I saw that the room looked exactly like it had before, with none of the damage it had sustained during the great Fallon-Lashanda battle.

  “DROP YOUR WEAPONS NOW!” screamed the leader of the assault team.

  The Slasher dropped the knives, and when three of the members of the attack squad accosted the killer and ripped off the mask, I saw that it was Tabitha Templeman, and she was looking more than a little dazed and confused. Getting reduced to the size of a pea, then smushed and consequently being brought back to life will do that to a person, I guess.

  “I-I’m the Slasher,” she now said. “I killed my father, Rudy Hosband, Michael Cane, Gus Brown and Carl Rove. And I was going to kill these men and frame the Flummoxes and their grandmother for my heinous crime. Please arrest me and lock me up before I commit more gruesome murders. I’m a genuine menace to society and I need to be punished. Oh, and I’m also a sneak thief, as I stole this nice book from these nice people.” And to my surprise she produced the bulky ancient tome I knew as the Book of Secrets and placed it on the coffee table, then bowed her head in shame, the picture of the repentant criminal.

  The cops seemed as shocked as Tabitha herself was at this spontaneous confession, but they did as she suggested and took her into custody, escorting her from the room.

  When finally our gags had been removed, Gran gave the lead cop a grateful look. “Thank God you showed up when you did, officer. I thought for sure I was going to die.”

  “You’re very welcome, Mrs. Beadsmore,” said the man Sam had referred to as Terry Hodge. I remembered him now. We’d had dealings with him before. He was the arresting officer when we’d messed with Falcone Tower. I also seemed to remember I turned him into a toad that time. Gran had wiped his mind, though, so he wouldn’t remember. He still seemed to harbor a certain resentment towards me, though, for he gave me a cold look.

  I gave him my best smile in return. “I’m so glad that justice has finally prevailed, officer. That woman was going to cut up my friends, and then leave us to take the fall.”

  “Yes�
�that’s what it looks like,” he said, only a hint of suspicion in his voice.

  Gran took his hand and he helped her to her feet. She was playing the feeble old lady to great effect, and now I could see what an amazing actress she really was.

  “I’m going to commend you to your superiors, officer,” she was saying, leaning heavily on the man’s arm. “You’re a true hero—a credit to the NYPD and to our community.”

  His chest swelled. “Just doing my duty, ma’am.”

  “Cassie. My friends all call me Cassie.”

  “Thanks, Cassie. Please call me Terry.”

  I exchanged a grin with my sisters. “Looks like our ordeal is over,” I said.

  “Looks like,” Stien agreed with a sigh of relief.

  Strel was frowning. “So… Gran was never sick?”

  “No, she wasn’t,” I said.

  “But then… why?”

  “All part of our witchy education,” I said, darting an admiring look at our indomitable grandmother. She was chatting happily with Terry, her arm entwined with his, and the tough cop was actually grinning from ear to ear—an impressive feat on her account. “Gran wants us to learn to fend for ourselves. To handle the many dangers that are out there. And to connect with our witchy past in the form of Fallon Safflower.”

  “That was pretty cool, huh? Meeting Fallon?” asked Stien.

  “Yeah, that was pretty cool,” I agreed.

  Strel was still struggling to come to grips with the events of the evening, her frown attesting to her confusion. “But… what about the snakes? And what about Tisha?”

  “What about them?”

  “They attacked Gran—and every time she battled them she grew weaker.”

  “Tabitha recruited Tisha to do her dirty work. She taught her how to infest Safflower House with snakes, hoping that battling them would destroy Gran and leave us exposed.”