Date with Death

by Elizabeth Lenhard

  “It's a portal!” they squealed at the same time.

  Piper grabbed the bowl of herbs from Paige's trembling hands and ran over to the Book of Shadows. Paige dashed to a nearby table and searched wildly for some matches. Already the wind from the portal was beginning to howl around them, whipping their hair straight above their heads. Cole had stumbled backward and was staring at Stuart in bewilderment.

  “Quick,” Piper screamed, fighting to get to the Book of Shadows. “Before the portal closes! We have to do the spell!”

  Phoebe didn't think she could stand it anymore. As she and Josh continued to cower just inside the dungeon's entrance, the king had ordered his servants to give Catherine's bindings two more wrenching twists. She'd screamed in agony until her strength had absolutely given out. But when the king had demanded her hand in marriage one more time, she'd gritted her teeth and shook her head.

  “We have to do something!” Phoebe said, turning to Josh desperately. “We have to save her!”

  “How, Phoebe?” he asked, his own eyes filled with pain. “We don't exist here. What can we do?”

  “Oh, it's just like you to give up,” Phoebe scowled, hugging herself as she watched the servants finally untie Catherine and haul her off the spiked wheel. Her robe was splattered with blood by now and her face was ghostly pale.

  For a moment Phoebe thought she saw Catherine's eyes connect with her own.

  Had she seen her? Was she so close to death that she was seeing ghosts? Phoebe reached out toward the woman and gave her a quavering smile.

  But Catherine was looking right through her. Her eyes were glazed and her lips were moving, as if in prayer. The servants hauled her onto a stone platform and laid her there. Catherine continued to whisper to herself, pausing only once to glare defiantly at the man.

  He gave his servants one more brusque order. They nodded and bowed.

  “You must have been right,” Phoebe whispered. “He's some sort of king or emperor.”

  “What did you mean by that?” Josh said. He was ignoring Catherine and staring at Phoebe. “‘Just like me to give up.’”

  “Well, you gave up on us, didn't you?” Phoebe snapped.

  “Phoebe, I'm not the one who broke off our relationship,” Josh said.

  “Oh, yes, you were,” Phoebe said. “You shut me out. You stopped talking to me. You got all cold and weird and wouldn't explain why.”

  Josh started to retort, but then he got a faraway look in his eyes and closed his mouth. His shoulders sagged and he shook his head.

  “You're right,” he said.

  “I am?” Phoebe gasped. “I mean . . . of course, I am. But here's what I've always wondered, Josh. Why? We seemed like a good thing. I was falling for you in a big way. And then you changed.”

  “I know,” Josh said. “I was falling for you too. And that's when I started waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  “What do you mean?” Phoebe asked.

  “Come on, Phoebe,” he said. “Look at you. You're strong and sophisticated. You're this charisma queen.”

  “Thanks,” Phoebe said, feeling herself flush. “But . . . why was this a problem?”

  “You were bound to outgrow me,” Josh said. “I was intimidated, I guess. Now I realize I was an idiot.”

  Phoebe was stunned. Josh was telling her she'd been too good to be true. And because of that, he'd sabotaged their relationship. Shaking her head in disbelief, Phoebe felt a surge of relief. Well, at least she knew what Josh's damage had been.

  At the same time, her mind flashed on Cole. Cool, confident Cole, who never got weirded out, even when Phoebe levitated ten feet in the air and had psychic premonitions. Why hadn't she realized how lucky she was when she was back in San Francisco?

  She gazed at Josh and realized, I went after this guy. I plunged into this time portal to save him. Yeah, I was saving an innocent. But I was also haunted by an ex-boyfriend.

  And for that, I might have taken myself away from Cole forever.

  So who's the saboteur now? she thought, wiping a tear from her eye. Then she took a deep shuddery breath and threw back her shoulders.

  “No,” Phoebe muttered, “I can't let it end like this.”

  She turned to Josh and clutched his arm.

  “We have to figure out a way out of this,” she said. “I need to get back home!”

  But before Josh could react, Catherine's raspy voice filled the room. Phoebe turned to look at the tortured woman and gasped.

  The emperor was standing above her, an enormous, curved ax in his hands.

  But Catherine showed no fear as she spat words at her torturer. She was clearly still defying the king—perhaps even goading him into swinging the blade onto her weary neck.

  “No!” Phoebe screamed. And she began to run toward the murderous king.

  Back in the attic, Paige was flipping frantically through the Book of Shadows. The howling tornado emanating from the portal's mouth had whipped the Book closed and she couldn't find the spell.

  Piper was hunched over the bowl of herbs, trying to prevent them from flying into the maelstrom.

  “Hurry, Paige!” she screamed. “This could be our only chance!”

  “I'm flipping, I'm flipping!” Paige cried, tearing at the Book in panic. “You just figure out how we're going to burn the herbs in this wind.”

  “Good point!” Piper screamed. Tears streamed across her cheeks. Then she had an idea.

  “Paige,” she cried, “grab the Book and orb us out of here!”

  “What?!” Paige yelled. “You know my orbing is totally raw. We could end up anywhere.”

  “Do it,” Piper ordered her. “Or Phoebe's going to stay wherever she's ended up . . . permanently!”

  Paige grabbed the Book and Piper grabbed Paige. Then Paige squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on the Manor's upstairs hallway. She just had to get them out of this room. Just a few feet. And everything would be fine.

  Focus, she told herself.

  “Project yourself,” she whispered.

  And then she felt the familiar airy sensation of her white lights, glimmering around her body like gossamer warmth.

  Finally the brilliant shimmers stopped and Paige opened her eyes.

  Uh-oh, she thought.

  She was outside. She was more than outside. She was perched very high up in the air, straddling a drainpipe and bracing her high-heeled shoes on the shingles of a roof. Way down below, she could see Piper's SUV parked on the curb. And in front of her, clutching the chimney, was Piper.

  “Paige,” Piper said through gritted teeth, “we're on our roof.”

  “Okay, so instead of going one flight down the stairs,” Paige said with a shrug, “I took us one flight up.”

  “Whatever,” Piper said. She propped the bowl of herbs on her hip and sat awkwardly on the drainpipe. Then she inched her way toward Paige. “At least we're in close proximity. Find that spell. And did you get the matches?”

  Paige yanked the matches out of the pocket of her trench coat, which she hadn't even had a chance to take off. Then she began whisking through the Book as if page-flipping was an Olympic event. In five seconds she'd found the spell.

  “Got it!” she yelled.

  “So do I!” Piper said, dropping a lit match into the bowl of herbs. Fragrant flames instantly filled the metal bowl. “Now I'll read the spell while you orb us in. And we'll just hope this procedure doesn't require the Power of Three!”

  “Way to not put the pressure on!” Paige cried. She grabbed the bowl of smoking herbs from Piper while Piper swept the Book of Shadows into her lap and began reading:

  Our sister lies

  In points unknown;

  Restore her to her loving home.

  Bring her back

  And please, intact,

  Put an end to her aimless roam.

  • • •

  As she said the last word, Piper and Paige had orbed into the attic.

  They gazed into the pulsating, pred
atory mouth of the tunnel that swirled in the center of the attic. It had grown so large now, Paige couldn't even see Cole and Stuart.

  Piper peered deep into the tunnel. There was no sign of Phoebe.

  “It's not working!” Paige screamed.

  “Let's read it again,” Piper yelled. “Say it with me. And Paige?”

  “Yeah?” Paige cried, locking eyes with her sister.

  “Make it count,” Piper said. “This could be our last chance.”

  Paige gulped and squinted at the Book of Shadows, clutched in Piper's hands. And then they began to read.

  Phoebe didn't stop to think.

  She barely stopped to breathe.

  And she certainly didn't remember that—in her ghostly state—she was as ineffectual as a poof of air.

  She sprinted toward the emperor with her arms outstretched.

  “Stay away from her!” she screamed as the man scowled at Catherine. He lifted his long-handled ax high over his head.

  “Phoebe, no!” Josh cried.

  Catherine murmured a last, angry oath, locking her feverish eyes with those of the evil king.

  And as Phoebe leapt through the air, lunging at the emperor, he slammed the ax through Catherine's neck with a whistling thwump.

  At exactly the same moment, Phoebe sailed through the king's body as if he were no more than a hologram. Then she tumbled across the dungeon floor.

  “Nooooo!” she cried.

  “Phoebe,” Josh yelled, running over and scooping her up in his arms. He shot one terrified glance at Catherine's headless body, then whisked Phoebe out of the dungeon.

  “I didn't save her,” Phoebe said, incredulously, as Josh carried her through the hallway. “She was an innocent. And I didn't save her. She's . . . dead!”

  “There was nothing you could do,” Josh said, stopping to look down at Phoebe's weeping face. “You . . . wait a minute. Phoebe? Do you feel that?”

  Phoebe looked up and gasped. She swallowed her tears as she said, “How could I not? That's a very familiar tornadoey feeling.”

  “Oh, no, not again,” Josh cried as the ceiling began to open up. Sure enough, the great, silvery, mushy maw that had dumped them into ancient Egypt a few hours ago, had returned.

  “No, this is a good thing!” Phoebe said, clapping her hands together gleefully. “And I think I see my sisters' handwriting all over it.”

  “What are you talk—talk—AAHHHHH?” Josh cried, as the portal suddenly reached down and sucked him in with one giant, howling gulp.

  “Don't forget me!” Phoebe yelled, leaping into the air after Josh. She felt the familiar gooey suction of the portal draw her into its mouth and, with a grateful feeling, saw the sandstone floor of the Egyptian palace disappear.

  Then, of course, Phoebe and Josh commenced to screaming their way through the same roller-coaster ride they'd experienced the first time around, until . . .

  Whoomp.

  “Ow!” Phoebe squealed as she landed, nose-down on something hard and fuzzy. Sitting up painfully, Phoebe saw that she'd landed on an Oriental rug.

  Grams's Oriental rug.

  With a gasp Phoebe looked up and saw her sisters, breathing hard and gaping down at her sticky, silvery, gooey self with a combination of joy and horror.

  They pounced on her with huge whoops of joy before Cole moved in to sweep Phoebe into his arms.

  “I thought I'd lost you,” he whispered into her neck.

  “It worked!” Paige screamed.

  “We did it!” Piper cried.

  Phoebe gazed at her sisters over Cole's shoulder. Then she ran a hand over her goo-laden head and regarded Paige and Piper's tornado-tousled locks.

  “I think it's safe to say,” Phoebe said, “that I've never been happier for a bad hair day in my life.”

  chapter

  8

  “Um, what just happened?”

  Phoebe gave a start as she heard a strange voice break through her giddy family reunion. She disentangled herself from the arms of her fiancé and sisters and turned to see two very confused-looking guys staring at them. One was Josh, looking just as gooey and windswept as she was. The other, the one who'd spoken, was a stranger with a wash of mercurylike stuff on his face and neck.

  And he was tied to a chair with a coil of rusty metal.

  “Let me guess,” Phoebe said, pointing to the bleary-eyed young nerd, “Josh Junior?”

  “Yup, same deal,” Paige said. “This is Stuart. He's another Kiss.commer.”

  “Hi,” Stuart said. With his crooked glasses and nasal voice, he couldn't have seemed less demonlike if he tried.

  “Okay, looks like we had a couple of cut-and-dry possessions here,” Phoebe said. “I mean, as soon as that portal popped out of Josh's head, he was back to normal.”

  Then she flashed him a smile. “Maybe even better than normal,” she said with a wink.

  Stuart, however, was clearly weirded out.

  “Okay, I get it now,” he said nervously. “We went out for lunch, right, Paige? And then you must have slipped something into my orange juice to make me pass out. Now I'm being held hostage for some sort of demonic ritual. You're a pagan, right? Or Wiccan? Or a cult member? Please tell me you're not a Scientologist!”

  “Ugh,” Paige cried. “Not even. Listen, let's just get you untied and we'll explain everything, right, girls?”

  She turned and shot her sisters an exaggerated wink.

  “Memory spell?” Phoebe muttered to Piper.

  “They'll never knew what hit 'em,” Piper whispered back with a nod.

  Twenty minutes later, the witches had de-gooed Josh and Stuart and brought them downstairs.

  “Paige, this is the last time I'm going to ask you before I call a lawyer,” Stuart whined. “What happened here?”

  “Oh, Stu,” Paige said, batting her eyelashes. “No reason to resort to lawyers. We have one right here. Of course, he's a demon-lawyer!”

  “Aaaah! Aaaah! Aaaahhh!” Stuart shrieked.

  “Paige!” Piper said, glaring at her sister. “No fair toying with the innocents just because all memory of this will be obliterated in a few seconds.”

  “What? You're going to brainwash me?” Stuart squeaked. “Aaaah! Aaaaaah! Aaaah!”

  “Oh, puh-leeze,” Phoebe said, clamping her hands over her ears. “Can we just say the spell? I can't stand the screaming.”

  “All together now,” Piper said, holding a piece of paper up. Paige and Phoebe crowded next to her. En masse, they read:

  Let memories of these events

  Cease to even be past tense.

  Wipe the slate as clean as air

  Let no recollection haunt them, ne'er.

  A sweet-smelling breeze skimmed over Josh and Stuart. When these gentle spells took effect, Phoebe always imagined one of her Wiccan ancestors sweeping through the room, blowing a kiss. Peace immediately washed over Stuart and Josh's troubled faces. It made it all the more ironic that people like Stuart thought of Wicca as a dark art.

  “How did I get here?” Stuart said, grinning slyly at Paige as he pushed his dark-rimmed glasses farther up the bridge of his nose. “Paige, you little minx. Did you invite me in after our lunch date?”

  Phoebe slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from guffawing as Paige gave her a scathing glare. Then she hooked her arm through Stuart's and marched him to the front door. When she opened it, she saw that a cold February rain had begun to fall.

  “Stuart, I guess my announcement gave you a little shock,” Paige said, gazing down at her—surprisingly short—suitor.

  “Announcement?” he said.

  “Yes, you know that I'd love to go out with you again,” Paige said, “but unfortunately I've been called.”

  “Called?”

  “Oh, yes,” Paige said, clasping her hands and looking angelic. “I think missionary work will be so rewarding, don't you? I mean, even if Colombia is a little dangerous these days.”

  “Well . . . good luck with that!” Stuart st
uttered, groping for the doorknob. “Great lunch, Paige. Nice knowin' ya.”

  “Bye!” Phoebe called, wrinkling her nose at Stuart as he hightailed it out of there.

  “Phoebe!” Josh said. “It is you. What . . . are you and Paige related somehow?”

  “Here we go again,” Piper said, rolling her eyes.

  “Sisters,” Phoebe said to Josh as Paige and Piper melted out of the room. She couldn't help but grin at Josh's cute, confused face. “Long story.”

  “Ahem!”

  Phoebe started and spun around to see Cole on the bottom step of the stairwell. He was glaring at Josh with a venom Phoebe hadn't seen since his Belthazor days. Normally Phoebe had no patience for jealousy but, after all that had happened in Egypt with Josh, she felt nothing but grateful for her devoted sweetie. She ran to the stairs and wrapped her arms around Cole's waist. He glanced down at her in surprise.

  “And in addition to a new sister, I also have a new fiancé,” she announced. Taking Cole's hand, she led him across the foyer to Josh. “Josh, Cole. Cole, Josh. An old . . . friend.”

  “Yeah?” Cole and Josh said at the same time.

  “Yeah,” Phoebe said, smiling at Josh. “At least I think we're friends.”

  “Yeah,” Josh said, a grin slowly filling his face. “I'm not sure what's happened here, Phoebe, but knowing you, I think I'd best not ask.”

  Josh turned and extended his hand to a surprised Cole. “I will, however, congratulate you. You're a lucky man.”

  Then he headed to the front door and gave Phoebe a little wave.

  “Call me if you want to explain any of this,” he said to her. “Or just catch up. It's nice to see you again, Phoebe.”

  As he slipped out the door, Phoebe smiled to herself.

  “Okay, do I want to know what happened to you on the other side of this time portal?” Cole asked, his face clouding.

  “It's called closure, honey,” she said, giving him a kiss. “It's a good thing, I promise you.”

  “Well . . .” Cole grumbled.