by Fiona Horne
I crawled on my hands and knees around his chair, sprinkling the salt. I was shaking so hard I thought the sound of my chattering teeth would wake him. But then it was done.
Now all I had to do was stand up, create a protective sphere of light around myself, focus my magic and state the incantation. He would wake up, find himself unable to move and then confess. Nothing to it.
I stood in front of him and raised my arms, tracing them in a big circle like a windmill as I saw blue light start to form around me in a bubble. I closed my eyes and focused on the light. I remained very still, sensing the light growing brighter around me.
Until I heard his voice.
‘You’ve forgotten something,’ he said.
My eyes flew open. The light I was seeing behind my closed lids was not my protective shield – it was a table lamp that he had switched on. This was definitely not part of the plan.
And he was holding a gun and pointing it straight at me.
I started to say the incantation as quickly as I could. ‘Thou art beholden to my will, and answerable to my decree . . .
’ ‘Be silent!’ he said, waving the gun at me.
I finished the incantation in my head, using every ounce of magical will I had. I stared at him defiantly, though my mouth had gone so dry I felt like I was choking.
‘Vania Thorn, how wonderful to see you here,’ he said. ‘Nice try with your clumsy spell-casting attempt, but you did forget something.’
What did he know about my spell-casting?
‘The bullet? Aren’t you meant to be holding that so that I am bound to your will?’ he said smugly.
Too late I remembered the lump of lead in my spell bag. I had forgotten it. But how did he know?
‘The hemlock, the salt . . . looks like you’re trying to cast a binding confession spell.’
He flicked the gun and I felt as if something else had control of my feet. I took two steps backwards. The back of my knees hit a chair and I fell into it.
‘I’ve been waiting fifteen years for this.’ He smiled menacingly.
I tried to speak, but it was as if my lips were sewn shut.
‘Now you know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a spell. Not much fun, is it?’ he said.
I couldn’t move. It felt like my whole body had been encased in cement and sunk into a deep lake.
Mr Barrow walked up to me and peered into my eyes.
‘Yes, you have your mother’s eyes,’ he said. ‘Do yours change colour like hers?’
What was he talking about? How did he know my mother? I’d never seen her eyes change colour!
Mr Barrow backed away to sit on a chair on the opposite side of the room. He rested the gun in his lap.
‘Well, here is your confession, Vania Thorn. I killed the woman of Queen’s Cross. She was a witch. A real witch, not like the people who pretend to be witches nowadays. I am a member of an ancient order of righteous crusaders, the Anti-Witches League.’
I couldn’t move my body, but the neurons in my brain were firing a million miles a minute trying to digest what he was saying.
‘I was born and bred to kill her,’ he continued. ‘She was the last pure-blood witch in the world. She carried the seed of magic from which future generations would be born, and my league could not allow this aberration to continue. It has been necessary over the centuries, however, for members of the league to ourselves learn something of magic to thwart our quarry, hence the rather effective binding spell I have cast on you just now.’
I tried to move again, but I still felt as if I were sunk in a pool of lead.
‘I watched her for many weeks, waiting for the right time,’ Mr Barrow continued. ‘True witches don’t die easily – they must be killed while they are committing an act of magic and on a full moon. My task was difficult.’
He put his hand to his forehead, sighing as if he felt sorry for himself. I wanted to kick him, and would have if I could have moved at all. His binding spell was working on me, but my incomplete binding confession spell was also clearly working on him as he continued to pour out information.
‘But I was patient, and I was finally able to drug her with a little untraceable chemical concoction I cooked up.’ He laughed as if he had just said the funniest thing in the world.
I stared at him, filled with horror, as he continued gloating.
‘It was easy to destroy the evidence of my presence. I started the fire, and I was standing on the street with the neighbours when the firemen showed up.’ He picked up the gun in his lap, stroking the barrel slowly.
‘I was enjoying the show until I saw them bring the baby out.’ He pointed the gun at me again.
‘Yes, there was a child. Her seed had spread. I don’t know how this had escaped me.’ His tone was becoming angrier, and the hand that wasn’t holding the gun started thumping repeatedly against his leg.
Growing panic rose inside me, and I could tell my fear was starting to shake the foundations of his binding spell. My right foot moved an inch across the floor.
‘Once the baby was taken away there was nothing I could do but wait until the witch-child turned sixteen and came into her full powers and then catch her in an act of magic. I was prepared to do this, of course, but then there was one very annoying hitch.’ His teeth bared in a grimace as he spat out the words. ‘She was moved!’
I shook my head a tiny bit as the binding spell slowly loosened further.
‘This was most annoying, as a witch can only be killed on the soil upon which she was born. And so I was forced to set into motion a rather clever plan, if I do say so myself.’
I wanted to throw up. Something about what he was saying was resonating inside me like a memory stirred up from long ago.
‘I got a job at the local high school, and then not long after that I killed the head of the Summerland Police Department. And home the witch-child came!’
He stood up and took a step forward, the gun now pointed directly at my chest. ‘I want to thank you for making this easy for me. I had to spy on your mother for months to catch her in an act of magic on a full moon. But tonight you have delivered yourself to me on a silver platter.’
My body started to shake.
‘Vania Thorn, you are the daughter of the last witch, and tonight is your last full moon!’
A bolt of energy burst through me. I felt like I had been shot, but the gun hadn’t been fired – invisible rubber bands that had been tightly bound around me were snapping off and feeling flooded back into my body. His binding spell was failing.
I started to rise off the chair, but he put the barrel of the gun against my chest and pushed me back down.
My mind reeled. If I was the daughter of the woman of Queen’s Cross that meant my parents were not my parents. And it meant that I wasn’t just messing around with magic. I was a real witch.
A real witch with a loaded gun aimed point-blank at her heart.
Mr Barrow’s eyes narrowed until they were cold black beads. His finger squeezed the trigger.
I waited for the pain and wished more than anything that I had listened to Bryce and Brenda and not come here tonight.
But the pain didn’t come. Instead, Bryce, Dean and the twins burst into the room.
‘Vania, get up now!’ Dean yelled.
Mr Barrow looked furious, but the gun was by his side and he wasn’t moving.
‘The twins have taken care of him – move!’ Bryce said urgently.
I looked at the twins, who were standing in the doorway with their eyes closed and their hands outstretched towards Mr Barrow. I could see light like electricity shooting from their palms towards him.
I leapt out of the chair just as Alyssa screamed.
‘Vania, we can’t hold him much longer,’ Amelia said.
There was a huge blast and a blinding flash of light, followed by Bryce flying through the air in front of me. I looked down to see him lying on the ground at my feet, his shirt covered in blood. On the other side of the ro
om Dean was on top of Mr Barrow, straddling his chest and punching him in the face.
‘Bryce!’ I cried, dropping to my knees by his side.
‘It’s just my arm . . . Get Barrow,’ he said shakily.
The twins were beside me, pushing me out of the way. ‘Vania, move. Let us help him.’
I saw Mr Barrow throw a punch at Dean, knocking him off his chest. Dean grabbed after him, but Barrow managed to evade his reach and get up, racing for the door.
I hesitated, looking at Bryce, but the twins were already laying their hands on him, and by the way their hair was standing straight up on end I could tell they were using their psychokinetic skill to stop the bleeding – they were making the blood flow back into his veins, not out of them.
Dean was running out the door after Barrow. I followed close behind.
As I bolted out into the yard I heard a car engine roar to life.
Barrow was in his car and, with tyres squealing, was reversing backwards down the driveway with Dean running alongside, holding onto the side mirror.
‘Dean! Be careful!’ I screamed.
He let go rather than be crushed under the wheels as Barrow swung the car around into the street. I caught up to Dean and we both stood at the end of the driveway bathed in the headlights of Mr Barrow’s car. For a moment I wondered if he was going to charge forward and run us over, but then with a screech of rubber the car turned and roared away down the street.
The black snake churned inside me and a volcanic eruption of fury burst through me. I thrust my hands at the retreating car. ‘THOU ART BEHOLDEN TO ME!’ I screamed. And suddenly I was sitting in the passenger seat next to Mr Barrow. ‘You are not getting away with this,’ I growled.
He turned and looked at me in shock. ‘What the hell?!’
I opened my mouth and the snake came out of me like a torrent of black tar, wrapping itself around Mr Barrow in thick coils, pinning his arms to his sides.
The car started to careen wildly.
And then in the headlights I saw a tree falling across the road. I squeezed my eyes shut – now I was going to die for sure. But I suddenly found myself standing next to Dean as I heard an explosive bang. ‘Oh. My. Gosh,’ I gasped. ‘I was just in the car with Barrow.’
‘No you weren’t, you were standing right next to me waving your arms around!’
‘Dean, I was with him, in the car. I think it just hit a tree.’
It was then that I noticed Dean did not look good. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah. He busted my lip pretty bad, though.’ The full-moon light revealed the blood on his mouth and chin as a dark-purple stain.
Lights were coming on in the houses around us, and a man and a woman in dressing-gowns were walking towards us from across the street.
In the distance I heard the wail of police sirens.
Fifteen
Brenda came over carrying a tray of lemonade and cookies. It was good to be together again at the Purple Raven. Everything seemed to be back to normal. Well, except that Bryce’s arm was in a sling, and Mr Barrow was in jail.
‘Yeah, apparently when the police found him in the wreckage he immediately confessed to having killed the woman of Queen’s Cross and Captain Sharpe,’ Dean said.
‘I think Vania’s spell was still working on him,’ said Amelia, taking a sip of her lemonade before turning to me. ‘And you brought the tree down, too?’
I nodded and took a big bite out of my cookie – business as usual . . . I could make trees crash down and killers confess, and eat cookies without a care in the world.
As my coven chatted among themselves I thought about my decision not to tell anyone what Barrow had said about me being the child of the woman of Queen’s Cross and a real witch, or the existence of the Anti-Witches League. I was still coming to terms with how bizarre it all was, and I didn’t want to freak out my coven. I needed more time to process everything on my own before sharing it.
I hadn’t said anything to my parents, either. When I’d been brought home by the police that night, my father had grounded me for the rest of my life. But when the officer had told him that Barrow had confessed to being the killer, my father actually said he was sorry he had doubted me.
He had put his arms around me and said, ‘That’s my girl.’
I had wanted to say, ‘But I’m not your girl, am I? Not really,’ but I kept my mouth closed. My mother had just stood there with a stricken look on her face.
Brenda’s voice drew me back from my thoughts.
‘Congratulations,’ she said. ‘Not a bad night’s work – sending a murderer to prison and no doubt getting an A+ for doing it!’ She raised her glass and we all chinked our drinks together. Our group would definitely ace the elective course; in fact, the principal had already honoured us at a special assembly, calling us up onto the podium while the entire school applauded us. We were officially cool for all the right reasons now.
‘Here’s to solving mysteries!’ Dean said.
‘I could get used to doing this,’ I said. ‘It would be good to keep using our magic to help people and bring justice to bad dudes!’
‘As long as I don’t get shot again – not fun,’ Bryce said wryly.
‘Thank you for taking a bullet for me, Bryce,’ I said. He probably had saved my life when he’d leapt in front of me as Mr Barrow fired the gun.
‘No sweat, you’re worth it.’ He grinned at me.
Brenda got up and started to clear the table.
‘Let me help you,’ I said. I collected some empty glasses and followed her out to the kitchen. Do you think the amulet is the reason Bryce was only shot in the arm? Did it protect him?’
‘I’d say so,’ she said. She took the glasses from my hands and stacked them in the dishwasher.
‘Do I leave it there or try to get it back?’
She pushed the dishwasher drawer closed. ‘If you can retrieve it I can place it back in the box to recharge it in case we need it again.’
I nodded and, picking up a serving tray, I returned to the dining area.
‘By the way, does this belong to anybody?’ Bryce was saying, holding up the amulet.
I gulped – what were the odds?
‘There’d been a weird smell in my room all week. I finally tracked it down to this thing under my mattress,’ he said.
‘Actually, Bryce, I put it there,’ I confessed. ‘Brenda had a vision and said that you needed protection. She told me to place it near where you sleep, but I couldn’t tell you or the magic wouldn’t work.’
‘Well, as much as it stinks, I’m glad you left it in my room. Who knows where that bullet would have gone if you hadn’t?’
I shuddered at the thought and took the amulet from him. ‘I’ll give it back to Brenda.’
With his good arm he pulled me to him and gave me a hug.
‘Thank you, Vania.’
My heart was pounding.
I stepped back and, clutching the amulet to my chest, I retreated to the kitchen.
I enjoyed the feeling of warm dirt crumbling between my fingers. Dean had given me some seeds to start a herb garden. I was planting lavender, mugwort, sage and yarrow in a corner of our backyard that got lots of sun. I also had a bag of clear quartz crystal pieces, which Dean had instructed me to stud around the perimeter of my garden. This would protect my magical herbs and increase their power when it came time to harvest them for my spell-casting.
I was methodically pressing tiny lemon-coloured nuggets of potential life into the earth when I heard footsteps approaching.
‘Vania, we need to talk.’
It was my mother.
‘Okay, about what?’ I said, trying to act casual even though the air between us rippled with tension.
‘The woman of Queen’s Cross,’ she said.
I looked at her and the setting sun made her skin glow like she was cut out of a different dimension – one that I was not a part of. I went back to methodically pressing the seeds into the rich, dark earth.
>
‘I was so shocked when you told us you were researching the death of that woman,’ my mother pressed on. ‘I wanted to tell you something right then, but your father said it would only open Pandora’s box. So I didn’t say anything.’
I continued to focus my attention on the seeds. My mother was about to confess that I was not really hers. In fact, I was not really anyone’s. My real mother was dead, murdered and burned in a fire. And I carried within me the magic that had led to her death.
And I had to pretend that I didn’t know.
‘Vania, when I was twenty-five years old I was very sick and the doctor told me I could never have children of my own.’ My mother paused, searching my face for a response. I made my eyes open wide like I was surprised to be hearing this. ‘My darling, you are adopted. Your father found you in the house that night of the fire. I begged him to adopt you.’
She took a step towards me, but I drew away.
‘Even though you were not born of my body, you are born of my heart. I have never wanted anything in my life more than I wanted you,’ she said.
I turned my back to this stranger-woman and ran more dirt through my fingers. I wished I could dig a hole to bury myself in and make all this go away.
But as many answers as I had now, I still had one more question.
‘Why did we move back here?’ I asked.
‘When your father’s friend died and they offered him the job back here, I encouraged him to take it. I thought it would be better for you to live in America, your birthplace. I thought enough time had passed. Never in a million years did I think that you would end up looking into the death of the woman . . . of your mother.’
‘The laws of quantum physics say that everything is interconnected, so I would say it was unavoidable,’ I said.
‘You are so smart, my darling. It’s good you aren’t my biological child. God forbid if you had my intellect. I’m such a simple woman.’
As much as I was feeling distanced from this woman, who had been my mother up until a few days ago, I couldn’t bear to hear her talking like this.