Quit Your Witchin' (Bless Your Witch Book 4)

by Amy Boyles

  Dewy raised her palms. “Readier than ready.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  Her eyes sparkled with delight. “To a little place you may or may not have heard of before.”

  “And where’s that?” I asked.

  She shivered with glee. “Fairyland.”

  Dewy clapped her hands, and we vanished.

  The burst of magic had blinded me. I blinked several times, waiting for my eyes to adjust.

  “Wow,” Reid whispered. “This is Fairyland? Why don’t we live here?”

  Lush green grass growing over rolling hills, babbling brooks and chirping birds all greeted us. The only thing missing from the place were lollipops sprouting on the trees.

  “It’s awesome, right?” I said.

  “Totes storybook.”

  “I know. Good thing you’re seeing it before you die,” I said.

  Reid cast me a dark look.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Trying to make light of the situation. Don’t worry, we won’t die,” I whispered.

  “We won’t?” she said.

  “Probably not,” I said. “I’m pretty sure some fairies will show up soon and help us.”

  “I thought fairies hated humans?” Reid said.

  “They do, but I’m hoping they hate magic stealers even more.”

  “Quiet, you two,” Rick said. They directed us into a forest. The sun slowly slipped beyond the hills in Fairyland, giving us more light than we’d had back in Silver Springs and even Castle Witch. Leaves layered the ground, crunching beneath our feet. I prayed the sound was enough that perhaps a unicorn would notice. Maybe even Titus himself would hear and come to our rescue.

  I could only hope.

  We stepped into a clearing and stopped. I looked around, waiting for someone to do something.

  “What are we waiting for? Your master to show up?” I half joked but prayed that it wasn’t true.

  “Shh,” Dewy said. “He’s coming.”

  My heart thundered against my ribs as I waited. Sure enough, I heard the crack of twigs and the crunch of branches as someone or something made its way to us. A hooded figure approached. I bit my lower lip. Reid did the same.

  “Uncle,” Dewy said.

  I quirked a brow. “Uncle?”

  “Blood is thicker than water, Dylan. My uncle helped clean up my reputation and get me hired as witch police.”

  The hooded figure lifted his cowl to reveal Smiley Martin. No big surprise there. So he was the other half of Dewy’s magical duo—the one who attacked us at our house and at Norwood’s. Not to mention, he was witch police gone bad.

  “Are you ready to take your true form, uncle?” Dewy asked.

  “I am,” he said.

  Dewy approached her uncle and kissed him smack on the lips.

  Yuck. Kissing your uncle.

  Smiley’s skin quivered and wavered as a loud hiss erupted from somewhere deep inside his body. He deflated like a balloon. As he shrank, his skin changed color from tan to gray and finally to green. When the transformation was finished, he stood about knee-high and had changed from a man into a—frog?

  He glared up at me with yellow eyes. “What are you staring at? Haven’t you ever heard of a frog prince?”

  “Pretty sure that goes in the opposite direction,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Reid said. “Like you’re supposed to turn from a frog into a prince, not the other way around.”

  He croaked. “Things are different in the witching world.”

  I glanced at Dewy. “Does that mean you’re part frog?”

  She scoffed. “He’s a mutation, Dylan. No one else in the family is like him.”

  “Whatever you say,” I mumbled.

  “I knew you’d come for me sooner or later,” Boo said, his voice filled with a resigned sadness. “I’m ready. Do with me what you will.”

  The frog smirked. “Come on, let’s get out of the open. I’ve got a place all ready for them.”

  Rick pushed us to follow the frog, which let me tell you was rather slow going. It was like following a distracted hobbit—slow and painful.

  I prayed the entire time that Roman would find us, but I didn’t see how. We’d left no trace for him to follow. No, the only way I was going to get out of this was by my own hand. Reid didn’t have magic, and neither did Boo. It was up to me and me alone to save us.

  I had to get out of these magical handcuffs somehow.

  “So I just want to know, you were the one who attacked us at Norwood’s, right?” I said.

  Smiley nodded. “That was me, all right. Heard it on that phone of your sister’s we bugged. Tracked you with a little magical GPS. I also helped Dewy attack your house, but you’re a strong bunch of witches. Hard to kill.”

  “Quiet,” Dewy said. “We don’t need any unicorns hearing us.”

  We reached a dimly lit cave. Torches hung from wall pegs, the light flickering in the damp, cold hole.

  After we entered, Smiley turned around in a slow, disjointed gate. There was a lot of ambling and waddling, which is to be expected from a reptile with haunches for back legs and wimpy little arms.

  “Now that we’re safely here,” he started, “I wanted to congratulate you, Dewy, on a job well done. There’s a promotion in this for you. You too, Rick, you’ve been most helpful. You will be rewarded greatly.”

  Rick fist pumped the air. “Sweet.”

  Smiley’s yellow eyes leveled on Boo. “Richard Bane, you were hard to find. So difficult. Edgar had done a good job erasing your memory.” He glanced at the ground. “Too bad Edgar had to turn on us at the end. It’s hard to have friends killed, but you know, you do what you have to. Gotta protect yourself. If he revealed everything, he would’ve brought us all down.”

  He puffed at an unlit cigar. “When you resurfaced, Richard, somehow Norwood knew. He must’ve put some sort of magical alarm on you. That’s what did it to him—made him decide to go all good again. He felt some sort of obligation to you. Well, I found out he was going to reveal everything and had him killed.”

  I frowned. “Why didn’t he reveal everything when he visited Boo at the cabin? Or even talk to Roman then?”

  Smiley shrugged. “He would have guessed we were tracking him, and not wanting us to find Richard, he wouldn’t have stayed long. Probably went looking for Roman after that.”

  “You know Boo doesn’t remember anything, right?” I said. “Not one thing. You don’t have to kill him. You don’t have to kill any of us. Just wipe our memories and we’ll be good to go.”

  Smiley cocked his head. “Good try, but that’s not how it works. Thank you for bringing us Bane. But now time’s up for all of you.”

  Dewy grinned. “Which will it be? Which one of you will die first? Let’s play a game and see.” She clapped her hands with glee. “Oh, Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack. All dressed in black, black, black.”

  As she spoke each word, she shifted her finger from me to Reid to Boo. As she neared the end of the rhyme, I prayed with all my heart that she wouldn’t land on Reid. Not her. Dear all that was good in the world, do not take my baby sister.

  “And didn’t come back, back, back, till the Fourth of July, ly, ly.” With the last ‘ly’, Dewy’s finger stopped on me. I cringed. At least it wasn’t Reid. I couldn’t stand to watch anything happen to my sister, especially since I couldn’t do a darn thing about it.

  Dewy smiled at me. “Looks like we’re starting with you.” She sighed. “Stealing magic is always such messy business.” She yanked a blade from her back pocket.

  I edged back until my spine hugged the curved wall. “Listen, Dewy, you can just kill me. Seriously. Just do it with magic. You don’t need my power.”

  Her eyes sparkled. “I think I do.” She licked her lips. “Your sister totally won’t mind watching me take your magic one strip of skin at a time.” Her gaze cut to Rick. “Hold her down.”

  Rick shoved Boo and Reid over toward the frog. Then he pinned my arms behind my back. I
watched with horror as Dewy closed in on us. She brought the blade to my throat.

  “Where oh where to totally start?”

  “Leave my sister alone,” Reid whimpered.

  “Hush now, little girl. Sit there and be good. This won’t take long.” Dewy slid the knife along the edge of my jaw. My heart raced and blood pounded my ears. “I like it when they’re a little scared. Makes this much more fun.”

  “I said, leave my sister alone,” Reid repeated.

  “And what are you going to do about it?” Dewy snapped. “You don’t have any magic, kid. Mmm hmm. What are you going to do? Cry?”

  “Leave her alone!”

  My gaze flickered to Reid. Rage contorted her face. She opened her mouth and let out a banshee-like scream. A gust of wind billowed up from behind her and slammed into Dewy, throwing her against the wall. Rick was lifted up as well. He rose about ten feet and fell to the earth like a sack of potatoes, knocking him out.

  Reid turned toward Smiley the frog, whose yellow eyes widened in fear. He retreated back into the cave.

  “I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t going to do anything to you,” he whimpered as she stalked toward him.

  “You were going to kill us,” Reid said.

  “No no no. Not me,” he said.

  Wind whipped Reid’s hair into a cloud of curls. A gale ripped past her and picked up Smiley, tossing him out of the cave.

  That left just me, Boo and Reid. My mouth had fallen open in shock, but I recovered as quickly as I could.

  “Oh my God! You got your powers,” I screeched.

  Reid panted. She pushed a curl from her eyes and said, “I guess so.”

  I let the shock of that filter into my body. As much as I wanted to celebrate it, we needed to get out of here before we became frog bait.

  “Reid, my hands. Can you undo this?”

  She blinked and then turned her gaze to me. “I don’t know.”

  “Try,” I said. “Imagine them gone.”

  She hovered a hand over my wrists. Nothing happened. “I’m trying, but it’s not working.”

  “That’s okay. Let’s get out of here before they regroup. Boo, are you okay?”

  “About as okay as I’m gonna be,” he mused.

  I nodded. “Let’s go.”

  We raced from the cave, Boo leading the way. We got about three feet out when my head rammed into what felt like a wall.

  I rubbed what was surely going to be an egg-sized knot.

  “Totally thought you were going somewhere, did you?” Dewy said.

  I glanced up. She stood about twenty feet away, her hands raised, a wall of magic separating us.

  “That was real smart acting like your youngest sister never had any power. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on somebody else.”

  My brain twitched. It seriously bothered me when folks got quotes wrong. “It’s fool me twice, shame on me,” I corrected.

  “Who are you? The phrase police?”

  “No, I just wanted to make sure you knew the right words. You’ll have a lot of time to think about them in jail,” I said.

  Dewy cackled. “Sorry, but I’m like totally sure that things aren’t going to play out like that. I mean, you’re doing some wishful thinking and all, which I totally agree with, but I’m not going to jail. You’re still going to die.”

  She raised her arms. Black swirls of magic covered her hands. We raced left but were still cut off by the black wall. The thing blocked us from running for our lives.

  I glanced at Reid. Tears pricked my eyes. “I love you.”

  She gulped. “I love you, too. I’m sorry I don’t know how to control this magic.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Dewy snarled. “Die,” she yelled.

  Magic blasted from her hands.

  From out of nowhere, a stream of power shredded Dewy’s magic, stopping it cold. Dewy’s face twisted into a scowl.

  “If anyone’s going to be doing some dying, it’s going to be you, toots.”

  Milly stood just inside the tree line, hands on hips, lips curved into their perpetual frown. From behind her, a mass of unicorn heads rose up from the hill. Titus, King of the Unicorns, shook out his mane. “The baby stealer has returned.”

  Dewy stumbled back. “No, no. I paid for my crime!”

  Milly sent a blast of power at Dewy. Dewy jumped as magic erupted into the ground. She recovered quickly, raising her hands.

  Milly’s voiced boomed in the forest. “I suggest you go easy and quick, girlie. Don’t make this any harder on yourself than it needs to be.”

  Dewy snarled. “Never!” She flexed her hands. A bubble of dark magic appeared. Dewy sent it straight for Milly.

  With one hand Milly used her magic to push the ball back on Dewy. With the other she shot a line straight through the ball and into Dewy’s chest. The moment the magic touched Dewy, a white light exploded.

  I shielded my eyes, blinded.

  Dead silence followed. A couple of seconds later I opened my eyes and looked around. Where Dewy had been standing was a black smudge.

  Milly brought her trigger finger to her mouth and blew it off like smoke from a gun. “That takes care of that.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Roman appeared behind Milly and apprehended Rick, but not before Rick swallowed some kind of capsule that scrambled his brain and turned him pretty much into a walking, talking zombie.

  Drool dripped down one side of his mouth. “Macaroni and cheese. Cheese and macaroni.”

  Yep, that was the extent of all sophisticated conversation that was going to come out of Rick. Would it last forever? I didn’t know.

  But I could hope.

  Milly whipped the magical cuffs off me. I bent my wrists, working the kinks out.

  Milly checked me over with a glance that looked more evil eye than sympathetic, and then she glanced at Reid.

  A smile curled on her lips. “Well, well, well. It looks like someone’s gotten their magic.”

  Reid toed the ground, all embarrassed. “What makes you say that?”

  Milly clapped her shoulder. “’Cause you’ve got the glow. The glow of magic.”

  Reid frowned. “Is that a thing?”

  Milly nodded. “It is with you. Magic’s seeping out of your pores, girl. Let’s get you home.”

  I thought about something for a minute. “Milly, Dewy bugged Reid’s phone to listen in to what we were doing, and her phone kept catching fire. Do you think it was Reid’s own magic interfering with Dewy’s?”

  Milly tweaked what looked like a hair on her chin. “Could’ve been. Yep. Probably so. Reid, your magic was trying to protect you somehow.”

  Reid tugged on her hair. “Well, it protected me all right. Saved our rear ends.”

  Milly wrapped an arm over my baby sister’s shoulders. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

  My gaze washed over the scene. Titus stood to one side with a few of his kind. I crossed to him.

  “Was justice served?” I asked.

  His stared at me patiently. “Dewy was evil through and through, and we don’t have to worry about her anymore.”

  He rested his muzzle in my hair and nickered softly. Titus lifted his head. “Why, Dylan Apel, your heart has changed.”

  I cocked back. “It has?”

  The unicorn nodded. “I couldn’t tell you what it looked like before, because it was for you to learn about and heal, but I can tell you now.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Nothing guards it anymore, and the key is ready to be used.”

  I frowned. “What key?”

  “The one to Roman’s heart.”

  Titus and the other unicorns turned and walked away silently, back to their part of Fairyland.

  Roman came up and wrapped an arm around my waist. I snuggled into his side. “How’d you find us?”

  “Apparently when Milly put the marble in her mouth, it showed her what Rick and Dewy were going to do.”

  I gl
anced at my paternal grandmother. “Seriously? If that was the case, why didn’t you tell us what was going to happen before we left?”

  Milly shrugged. “It was all kind of hazy.”

  I smirked. “Hazy, huh?”

  “Yeah, more like foggy gray than crystal clear. Trust me, toots, as soon as I knew what was going to happen, we headed here.”

  “So what is the marble?” I said.

  “A stone that lets you see a few shades into the future.”

  “Cool,” Reid said. “Can I use it?”

  Milly shook her head. “It’s gone. Destroyed after I put it in my mouth and harnessed its power.”

  “Bummer,” she said.

  “If it let you see into the future, it still didn’t help Norwood,” I said.

  Milly thumbed her nose. “That’s because it isn’t knowing our future that helps us to see. It’s knowing the past.”

  I couldn’t agree with her more.

  ***

  The next morning my family sat in the living room discussing things.

  “So do we think they’re going to keep coming after Richard, or is he safe?” I asked.

  Milly snorted. “After they realize all that’s left of Dewy is a smudge on some leaves, I think they’ll back off. At least for a while.”

  I inhaled deeply. That was some sort of relief, at least. “Great, so we can breathe.”

  Milly nodded. “We can all breathe. Roman said he was trying to track down Smiley.”

  Darn Frog Prince, or whatever, had escaped during the commotion.

  “Good,” I said. “Maybe we can find him and I can have frog’s legs for dinner this week.”

  They all stared at me in horror. “What? Is that cannibalism or something? He tried to get us all killed. I mean, Dewy and Rick were in on this whole thing together. They killed Norwood, and then they set out to kill Richard.”

  No one said anything. I sipped from the sugary glass of sweet tea in front of me. “So. Do we think Richard’s really safe for a while?”

  An uncomfortable silence coated the room.

  “Or, do we think this is only a short break and we need to be on our guard?”

  Grandma pulled a tiara from the drawer of a side buffet. She wiggled it on top of her head. To be honest, the thing looked like a television antenna. I guess it was fitting. Perhaps it helped her to think.