Hexes and Ohs

by ReGina Welling

  “Holly, don’t let anyone else drink that water.” Ellie’s mind raced, trying to figure out how to fix the situation her daughter had caused. “I’ll figure out how to fix this and get back to you.”

  “But Mom, that’s not the worst of it,” Holly cried. “Trey doesn’t even like me now—he’s asked Amy Evans to the Valentine’s dance!” The teen’s voice dissolved into sobs. “Oh, Mom, I’ve screwed this up royally!”

  Ellie tried to calm her daughter, but she knew that only one thing would work. She had to find a way to reverse the spell in the love potion and get the school back to normal before the Council found out something was wrong. She hoped for Holly’s sake that the potion would wear of fast, but from the sounds of her daughter’s sobbing, it seemed as though the damage was already done.

  2

  “Put in a pinch of arrowroot to hide the taste of the wolfsbane,” Seneca instructed as Ellie stirred a foul-smelling pot of liquid. They were at Mischa’s because her kitchen had everything a witch could want in it and more. Mischa loved to bake and cook, but potions were something she’d never much messed with.

  “How do you know all this?” Ellie asked Seneca warily. “I mean, you’re not even using a recipe.”

  Seneca grinned. “I was top of my class in potions at the Academy,” she replied. “Didn’t you study potions in school?”

  Ellie and Mischa shook their heads. “I went to a regular human high school,” Mischa explained.

  “Yeah, I was homeschooled for a while, then went to a human school. My parents didn’t want me to go to the Academy. My dad hated the headmistress there.” Ellie shrugged. “Still, I can do magic as well as any witch, so I guess it’s okay.”

  Poe cleared her throat. “I went to Marsden’s. My parents said the fees were too high at the Academy. And I hated potions class. My teacher was such a mean old cow.”

  Seneca pursed her lips. “Hmm, did you have a sister a few years older than you?”

  Poe nodded. “Still do. She lives up north somewhere now. She moves around a lot. Why?”

  “No reason. I just remembered a girl who looked sort of like you at one of the inter-school magic competitions. She was good.”

  “No offense, but those kids are not going to eat this slop,” Ellie said, wrinkling her nose. “It still smells like feet.”

  Seneca closed her eyes and held her hands above the steaming, bubbling pot. She spoke several words in a language that sounded a little like Latin. “Listo, courso, atomasto.” Then she dipped a spoon in and tasted her handiwork. “Mmm, needs a little more salt, but it’s okay.”

  “What is it exactly?” Mischa asked. “I mean, I know you said that it’s like an antidote for the potion, but how did you know what to put in it if you didn’t have the original potion?”

  Seneca wiped her hands on a dishcloth. “It’s just a general reversal recipe. It should reverse any minor magic used in any potion. Of course, it’s also possible that whatever Holly used will have worn off by the time we get to the school. I mean, we don’t know how diluted the potion was or even how strong it was to start with. I’m sure it’s all going to be fine.”

  Ellie clapped one hand on Seneca’s shoulder, grinning. “You are a freaking lifesaver! And I’m going to kill my kid when I get to that school,” she added. “Thank god you didn’t have to be at work today. Now, I need to get over to the Eattaburger and put this on some fries. I’ll give those out at the school and everything can go back to, well, whatever it was before all this happened.”

  “Maybe we’d better go with you to help,” Mischa suggested. “We could help distribute the fries faster, maybe help keep the teachers from asking too many questions.”

  “That would be great,” Ellie said. “I don’t think the principal, Mr. Appleman, likes me too much. The more support, the merrier.”

  Poe’s eyes widened. “You don’t need me to help, do you? I hated school. And school hated me.”

  “We need all hands on deck, Poe,” Seneca replied. “Let me get my purse and we’ll go together. If we hurry, there’s almost no chance that the Council will ever even get wind of this little fiasco.”

  “And if they do somehow find out?” Ellie chewed her bottom lip. Seneca knew how the Council worked better than any witch she’d ever known. If there was likely to be trouble, Seneca was her best hope of keeping Holly out of it.

  “If they do, we’ll deal with it then,” Seneca said quietly. “Let’s just get this done and hope for the best.”

  Ellie was afraid to be hopeful. She’d never been in trouble with the Council, but she’d known other witches who had. She’d heard horror stories of witches being banned from practicing magic because they didn’t take the rules of magic seriously. What if the Council thought that about Holly? Would they bind her powers before she’d even learned how to use them?

  Mischa put an arm around Ellie’s shoulders. “Don’t worry. I’ve dealt with the Council before, remember? Their bark is worse than their bite, especially if we have Seneca on our side. Now, let’s go to the school and sort those crazy, hormonal teenagers out.”

  Ellie forced a smile. “Thanks, Mischa. You’re right—I know you are. But that’s not going to stop me from grounding Holly until she’s thirty,” she added before following her friends out the door.

  3

  “Well, isn’t this charming?” Seneca was the first of the coven to walk through the front doors of the high school. She gave a nod and a wink to the resource officer on duty. “Hello, Officer Chapman. How are things today?” Seneca’s job at the local bank meant she knew many people in town, and Officer Chapman was no exception.

  The short, stocky policeman looked completely flabbergasted. “Uh, good morning, Miss Wolfram. They’re all riled up around here today.” He ran a hand across his short-cropped hair and surveyed the four witches. “What can I help you ladies with today?”

  Ellie hoisted the box she carried. “We’ve brought a treat for the pep rally,” she said. “I’m the manager of the Eattaburger. I thought the kids might like some free fries to get them fired up for the pep rally,” she added, hoping she sounded convincing.

  Officer Chapman peeked inside the box. “Oh? I love Eattaburger.” He reached inside and pulled out a small handful of fries. “May I?’

  Ellie turned to Seneca, a look of panic in her eyes. Seneca simply nodded.

  “That’s fine,” Ellie replied. “Is it alright if we go ahead and set up in the gym?”

  Officer Chapman frowned. “You should probably check in with the front office first. You’ll need a visitor’s badge and they can help you set up a table for all this,” he added.

  “Thank you, Officer,” Seneca said, pulling Ellie away from her spot by the door. “We’ll go do that.”

  Ten minutes later, the four of them stood in one corner of the empty gym waiting for the janitor to erect a folding table.

  “It smells just like I remember it,” Mischa said, wrinkling her nose. “Not that I went to this exact school, but I imagine all high school gyms smell the same.”

  “It smells like armpits and desperation,” Poe lamented. “Ugh. We should have brought some sage. We could have smudged the angst right out of this place.”

  Ellie texted her daughter for the third time since they’d arrived. “She still hasn’t replied to my text,” she complained. “I have no idea what’s going on up there. I have no idea how many kids could have drank from that water cooler by now.”

  As if on cue, the doors on the opposite side of the gymnasium burst open, releasing a trickle of students. The janitor called out to the witches. “Here ya go. Now, if y’all ladies don’t mind, I’m gonna get out of here before they start their whooping and hollering.” He gave them all a curt nod and disappeared through another nearby door.

  “I wonder where all these doors go.” Mischa said. “I’m going to be so lost when Simon starts here in a few years.” A note of anxiety crept into her voice. “I don’t see Holly.”

  Ellie scanned th
e growing sea of faces flowing into the gym. These students seemed normal enough, but she wasn’t exactly sure what she should be looking for in order to identify someone who had consumed the love potion.

  “Excuse me,” Seneca called out to one of the students. “Do you know Holly Watkins?”

  A freckle-faced boy replied, “Who? Which homeroom is she in?”

  Ellie took a step forward. “She’s in Mr. March’s homeroom.”

  The boy scratched his nose. “That’s second floor. They’re not out yet. We’re first floor. They let us out by floors, hallway by hallway,” he explained. “Are those for us?” He pointed to the fries.

  “Yes,” Seneca replied before Ellie could open her mouth. “But we need to wait for everyone before we hand them out.”

  The boy nodded, then continued up into the bleachers to sit with his friends.

  “So, we know that the second floor students haven’t come down yet. I wonder how long it will be before they get here?” Seneca checked her watch. “Maybe one of us should just go look for anything out of the ordinary. With any luck, the potion’s already worn off and we can just throw these fries to the frenzied masses and then get ourselves out of here.”

  Ellie relaxed just a little. Maybe Seneca was right—maybe the affected students were all feeling just fine now, possibly a little embarrassed by their proclamations of love and wishing they could just crawl into a hole and die, but none of that mattered. As long as the potion had run its course and no one was the wiser about Holly’s poor decision-making skills, Ellie would be thrilled.

  Or maybe that was too much to wish for.

  The door behind the witches blew open with a great force, and Kensleigh Landing East High’s kangaroo mascot, or a student dressed as one, pushed the high school’s quarterback—a large, muscular young man with dark hair and a dull expression—through.

  “She’s going to the dance with me, you dumb jock!” The kangaroo was throwing punches even though the arms of its mascot costume were a hair too short to actually do any damage. That didn’t stop whoever was inside the furry disguise from staking his claim and pushing the football player to the ground, though.

  “Ow, Charlie, that hurts! Get off me, dude!” The football player wasn’t fighting back for some reason.

  Mischa stepped forward and grabbed the kangaroo by the scruff of its neck. “Stop that! Where’s your teacher? Someone needs to call your mother!” She put herself between the two and held the kangaroo at arms’ length. “What’s this all about?”

  The football player scooted backwards and rose to his feet. He looked confused and a little hurt. “I don’t know. I was just talking to Amy Evans in the hallway and Charlie went ape on me. He started yelling about Amy being his girl and me trying to steal her away. I swear, I was just asking her about math homework!” He held up his hands defensively. “I thought we were best friends, Charlie. What the heck, bro?”

  Ellie’s eyes widened as she saw what the kangaroo had stashed in his pouch. A sports bottle, half-full of water, sloshed around as he moved. “Did you fill that upstairs by the boys’ bathroom?” She grabbed the bottle and shook it in front of his face.

  The kangaroo reached up and pulled the head of his mascot costume off. Ellie expected to find a burly athlete after the performance a few moments before, but what she saw almost made her laugh. Charlie was a scrawny, pimply, gangly kid who didn’t look like he could harm a fly.

  “What’s going on in here?” Officer Chapman was dragging another student into the gym, ignoring the teen’s pleas to let him go so he could tell the girl of his dreams he loved her. “Charlie? Tim? Y’all fighting, too? What the heck is wrong with these kids today? I swear, if I didn’t know better, I’d say somebody’d spiked the drinking water around here.” He shook his head and shoved his charge onto the bleachers. “Now, sit there and don’t you move. I’m going to have to call for backup.”

  Seneca and Ellie exchanged a worried look. “Go. Find that water cooler and put a little of this in,” Seneca instructed, passing a small vial of liquid to Ellie. “I kept some of the reversal potion aside in case we needed another way to dose the kids.” She looked around the gym, which was filling up with curious onlookers. In the bleachers, couples had started to pair off. Most were simply holding hands, but a few brazen couples had begun to make out.

  Ellie took the vial and hurried out the door that the fighting kangaroo and his football player friend had burst through. She saw the stairs leading to the upper floors to her left. She took them two at a time, avoiding students who were kissing passionately on the landing above her. As she passed, she removed a boy’s hand from the butt of the girl he was kissing. The teens hardly even noticed.

  “Holly!” Students filled the second-floor hall. Ellie’s heart pounded as she scanned the sea of bodies searching for her daughter, but she couldn’t see her. She realized with a sudden horror that there were teachers in the hallway, too. They didn’t seem the least bit concerned with all the teenage hormones flowing through the hallway, and Ellie realized the extent of the potion’s damage. Several teachers were sipping from half-empty water bottles.

  “You look lost—can I help?”

  Ellie spun to see who was talking to her. She prayed it wasn’t another lovesick high-school student, or worse, Mr. Appleman. She was relieved to find that it was neither of those.

  “Are you looking for Holly Watkins?” a man with a boyishly handsome face, stunning blue eyes, and broad, muscular shoulders asked. “I heard you calling for a Holly, so I just assumed—”

  “Yes,” Ellie replied quickly, tearing her eyes away from him. “I’m her mom. Have you seen her?”

  Mr. Dreamy smiled. “She’s in my classroom. She’s the only one,” he admitted. “She was a little upset so I told her she could skip the pep rally and hang out in my classroom while I grade papers.” He flashed a perfect smile. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you do not look old enough to have a teenage daughter.”

  Ellie’s stomach did a funny little flop inside her. “Thanks. I was a young mom.” She could feel her cheeks glowing from embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I missed your name.”

  Dimples popped at either side of his mouth. “My name’s Theo Greene. It is a pleasure to meet you…” he held out his hand and peered at the smudged name tag from the front office.

  “Ellie,” she replied, shaking his hand awkwardly. He held her grasp for just a second longer than she anticipated. It sent a tingle down her spine. “I really need to speak with my daughter,” she reminded him.

  Now Theo’s cheeks flushed red. “Sorry. I got distracted—there seems to be a lot of that going on around here today,” he added, glancing down the hall. “Break it up over there. No PDAs in the hallway,” he reminded an amorous pair of teens. “You all had better get to the pep rally. Officer Chapman says there’s free food.” The teens didn’t stop holding hands, but they did pick up their pace, disappearing through the doors that led downstairs to the gym.

  “My classroom is right over here,” Theo said, pointing to a door just a few feet away.

  Ellie let out a small sigh of relief. She would just go in and grab Holly, then dose the water dispenser and take her daughter home for the biggest lecture the teen had ever received in her life. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered if Theo was single. Despite the stress of the day, he was giving her the kind of goosebumps she hadn’t felt in years. Ellie let the idea of asking him out play on the edges of her mind.

  4

  Ellie could see Holly’s strawberry-blonde hair, but her daughter’s face was buried in the sleeves of her crossed arms.

  “She’s been pretty upset. I think it might be about a boy,” Theo whispered. “You might want to take her home, let her cry it out.”

  Ellie was touched that the teacher would be so concerned. “I think I’ll do that,” she replied. Holly heard her mother’s voice and raised her head. “Hey, kiddo.”

  Holly’s eyes were rimmed red and wet with
tears. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Ms. Watkins, did Holly tell you how well she did on the math exam last week?” Theo had moved to his desk and was running his finger along a row of names in an open ledger on the desktop. “She got 100 percent. And it was a tough test, too.” He smiled at Holly. “I’m really proud of how you’ve brought your grade up in here, Holly. I just thought your mom should know how well you’re doing.”

  Holly blushed and wiped at her eyes. “Uh, thanks.”

  Ellie raised one eyebrow. “Math? That is a surprise,” she muttered.

  “It’s pretty impressive, actually. I mean, at the beginning of this quarter, Holly was barely scraping by with a D, but now her grade’s a solid B-plus. If she keeps this up, she’ll have an A in no time.” Theo flashed another godlike smile. “It makes my job feel worth it when I see students like Holly make such drastic improvements.”

  Holly’s cheeks were flaming red now. “Yes, it is pretty drastic, isn’t it?” Ellie narrowed her eyes at her daughter and wondered if the love potion was the only thing Holly had bought from the online potion shop. Ellie thought she could recall the place selling something called Instant Recall, a potion to help you remember absolutely anything for a brief period of time.

  Ellie turned her attention back to Theo. “If I could just speak with Holly alone for a minute, Mr. Greene?”

  “Of course. I’ll go make sure everyone has gone to the pep rally. Take as long as you need, Ms. Watkins.”

  “You can call me Ellie,” she replied, smiling. “Just Ellie’s fine.”

  His smile beamed even brighter. “Okay, Ellie.”

  She checked him out as he walked out the door and closed it behind him. Not bad.

  “Eww, Mom, please don’t tell me you were looking at his butt!” Holly wiped her nose with the cuff of her sleeve. “That’s gross.”