I buttonholed Devon and pulled him away from the minivan, out to the edge of the lot. “If you fall, you get back up and try again,” I said.
“What?”
“That is going to be number five on my Good Witch Ethics list,” I said, “and also, the only advice I have for you tonight.”
“No drink?”
I shook my head. “I can’t give you the charisma drink because it uses powdered pixie bone.” My voice rose in frustration. “I can’t find a substitution that won’t explode you, and I can’t”—I waved my list of paper in front of him—“go against my ethics, even though it would be super convenient and save the day for you. I can’t work this spell.”
Devon stared at me. “The first drink used what?”
I could see him remembering the demon making him kill a hundred pixies for one of the witch’s spells. “I didn’t know,” I said firmly. “I didn’t know when I gave it to you, and I’m sorry, and you know me, you know I wouldn’t have done that. I didn’t know!” I was practically shaking him, willing him to believe me. “So I can’t give you the drink, and you just have to go on, in front of…”
“Everybody.”
“Yes, everybody. I’ll keep looking for Malkin. I’ll try to stop her from destroying you again. But I don’t know if I can.”
Devon nodded. “I trust you to try.” He tried for a smile. “Hey, at least it’s not like she’s going to try to kill me in front of a thousand people, you know? Just humiliate me.”
“That’s it, though,” I said. “She is going after Leo. She is trying to catch him.”
“Leo? The Leo you—?”
“Yes, that Leo,” I said. “Who’ll be a rabbit. She’s trying to catch the rabbit so she can pull out its fangs and start the apocalypse—”
“Cam,” he said. “You’re raving.”
“Look,” I said. “I may not survive tonight.”
“It’s that serious?”
“I may get arrested for the murder of my mother. And if I do, if I don’t survive this, I just want to tell you one thing. One thing I’ve been trying to tell you all week.”
“What?”
“I like you, you idiot.”
I grabbed his collar and kissed him. Then I turned and ran.
I hurried down the hill to the stadium. The second quarter of the game was just starting, and I did the only thing I could do, which was keep my adrenaline-fueled self on the go, up and down the stadium, in and out, looking for witches. There was one point when I spotted Esmerelda’s pink suit on the bleachers opposite me, but by the time I got over there she was long gone. The musicians for the Battle of the Bands were slowly gathering on the sidelines, Devon among them. Leo was on the field, and Sparkle was watching him closer than any cheerleader had ever watched a football player. Which was pretty close.
We were only a few seconds from halftime when Malkin finally struck.
It began the same way her other attacks had. The flags whipped and snapped. The ends of scarves lifted, flapping. A paper plate flew out of a woman’s hands.
I whirled, looking around for Malkin. Leo was in the middle of the field, running with the ball, all eyes on him. Popcorn bags and napkins blew past the cheerleaders, and I saw Sparkle, lowering her pom-poms, her gaze sweeping the field for the threat.
Leo threw the ball, the buzzer for halftime sounded—and then, while all eyes were on the football’s spiraling arc—the lights in the stadium cut out. Everything was plunged into darkness as a hurricane wind swept through the stadium.
I cast my own Power spell, making just enough of a calm place for me to run down the stairs to the field. I reached it right as the lights came back on and the wind died to ordinary November-strength winds. There was still chaos everywhere, but I clearly saw Malkin cut across the field, chasing a bunny.
Sparkle saw it, too. She pulled out her wand. The bunny dodged, this way and that. I hurried down—maybe I could catch it …
And then there were bunnies everywhere.
Malkin turned, her face livid. Sparkle’s face was pure satisfaction.
Which one was Leo, though? Did he know where to go? I wasn’t sure how much he knew when he was in bunny form. Malkin headed toward the east end of the field, chasing what she thought was the right bunny.
So I was the only one to see Devon sidle onto the field and scoop up a little brown rabbit.
I ran to him. There were so many people and rabbits now that we might be able to sneak away.
The rabbit trembled against Devon’s chest, and he stroked its fur, soothing it. On the field, thirty other rabbits darted around the confused football players and cheerleaders, and Malkin plowed through them, searching for the right one.
“Get out of sight,” I said. “Quick.” I put a hand on Devon’s back and steered him to the exit, trying to get us away from the witch on the field.
“I take it this is someone you know,” he said, when we were outside of the stadium.
“Leo,” I said. “Yes. If we find some cardamom we can help him change back.”
“Or maybe we should get him out of here first,” said Devon. “Take him somewhere safe. I’ve got my cargo bike.” The little rabbit nestled in his arms.
“We can text Sparkle once we get to safety,” I said. We hurried up to the parking lot—and stopped. There was Esmerelda, coming around the school toward us, her pink suit clearly visible in the dim evening light.
“This way,” said Devon, and we turned—but there was Valda. She had her wand raised.
“Put the rabbit down,” said Valda.
“Back away from the bunny,” said Esmerelda.
The two of them glared at each other. “I’m bringing the shifter to Malkin,” said Valda.
“No, I am,” said Esmerelda.
“I knew you were a double-crossing—”
“Lying, cheating—”
“You can’t have him, either of you,” said Devon firmly. He held the shivering rabbit closer.
“You’ll change your mind when I turn you into a toad,” said Valda to Devon.
“No, a weasel,” said Esmerelda.
“Are you nuts?” said Valda. “Weasels bite.”
“Behind me, Devon,” I said. He obeyed. I could work the Power spell on the witches, if I could only get the ingredients out of my backpack. I wasn’t as strong as them, but maybe I could hold them off a little bit.
The witches straightened up, focusing on us again. It must be hard to keep your squabbles suppressed enough to get anything done. Valda reached for her fanny pack. Esmerelda stuck her hand into her green purse.
“They’re dangerous,” I said to the boy and bunny behind me. “I don’t want to see either of you get hurt. You’d better put the bunny down.”
“No,” said Devon.
And then I felt a wind snap toward us. Malkin was coming.
There wasn’t anything left to do. I had to call in the reinforcements.
I began to text Sarmine.
HELP
“Put down that phone,” said Valda, “or I’ll make you.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, but apparently I wasn’t moving fast enough for Valda. A small sandbag dropped out of nowhere, banging my arms and knocking the phone to the ground. “Ow!”
“And you,” said Esmerelda to Devon. “Put the bunny down or I’ll cast Going Up on you.”
“What, like floating?” I said.
“Makes you forget every one of your lyrics,” Esmerelda said. “Sounds perfect, doesn’t it?”
“Go for it,” said Devon. “I’m not giving you Leo.”
“Don’t!” I lunged for Esmerelda. Valda dropped another sandbag on me. I tumbled and rolled, narrowly avoiding a third sandbag to the head, when I sat up and saw Esmerelda flick her spell out at Devon and the bunny.
Devon coughed as the mixture hit his face, but he held on to Leo. “Are you trying to sneeze the lyrics out of me?” he said. “I’m not going to forget the songs that easily.”
Esmerelda smir
ked.
“She’s a cool stick of … Oh god,” said Devon.
“Devon, you wrote those songs,” I said. “They’re in there somewhere.”
“Cool stick of … cool stick of…” He looked sick. “I know a girl … They’re gone, Cam. Gone.”
Then Malkin was there, and I knew I couldn’t hold them off anymore. I moved to be with Devon and the bunny.
“I’ll take that,” said Malkin. She plucked the bunny from Devon’s hands. “Who’s got the ingredients for Moving Sidewalk?”
“I do,” said Valda. She mixed something in her hand and tossed it at Devon’s feet, chanting words.
He left. His feet took him and he headed away from us, back down the hill, back toward where he was supposed to play in the Battle of the Bands. “I’m sorry,” he shouted to me. And then, from farther away I could hear the words drifting back: “Cool stick of … cool stick of…”
“Excellent,” said Malkin. “Now to go somewhere where we can inscribe a pentagram for this shifter. Inside, please.” She glared at me. “March.”
I marched. We went in the side door, into a hallway. “I’ll need a marker,” said Malkin.
“I think I have one in here,” I suggested, reaching into my backpack. If I could get my fanny pack …
“Drop it,” said Malkin. She turned the wand on me and I obeyed. “Kick it into the corner,” she said. I kicked, annoyed with myself. I should just have worn the stupid fanny pack. Ugh.
The backpack slid to the wall just as the side door opened and Sarmine strode in, carrying a large bubble-wrapped package.
“Sarmine,” said Malkin unenthusiastically. “So nice of you to join us.”
“So kind of you to invite me,” said Sarmine. “I was relaxing on my sofa, looking at the thermometers and counting down the minutes, when I realized no one had come to my house for the usual celebratory unveiling, discussion of techniques, and martinis.”
“I’ll take a martini,” said Valda. “Did you bring them?”
“And then I began to get worried,” said Sarmine in a not-at-all-worried tone of voice, “that one of my dear friends might be jumping the gun, so to speak, and declaring themselves the winner before the final minute. I would hate to see a witch-spit bond be broken in so cavalier a fashion. Why, think of the bad luck!”
“All right, you’ve made your little speech,” said Malkin. “You’re correct that I had presumed that I would win in, what—fifteen minutes from now? But of course I want to do this the right way.” She smiled nastily at me as she set her phone with a countdown timer in the middle of the floor. “It’s only fun if you do it the right way.”
“Exactly what I thought,” said Sarmine. She unwrapped the thermometers and set them on the hallway floor.
I went closer, looking at the bubbles floating in the thermometers. Two were still above the line, but the one I sought out first was Valda’s.
I had destroyed Jenah’s faith in me. Her bubble hung just below the line. I had failed.
Then I looked at Malkin’s bubble, the one that was Devon. His hung even lower than Jenah’s. Like rock bottom. So not only had I failed both of my friends, and failed to win the bet, Malkin was the winner. She didn’t have a shred of conscience in her entire body, and the other witches would help her tear out Leo’s teeth and pluck out his toenails and god knows what else.
I slumped down.
Malkin laughed at me. “Time for the unveiling of the cards,” she said. “We might as well do this up right. Happiest to unhappiest, kids, let’s go.”
That meant Sarmine was first. She, at least, had played me fair, and her bubble was well above the line. She pulled out the card from her fanny pack and tossed it on the floor. Caden. He and his family had raked in so much money from the families who’d been able to buy new cars that he was doing just fine. It made me feel a little better to know that Sarmine really was on my side, no matter how funny of a way she had of showing it.
Esmerelda was next. She pulled the card from her purse and tossed it to the floor. Then flipped it off. Henny. Esmerelda had done her worst, but Jenah and I had encouraged Henny to take control of her own life, and that had worked out. There was one thing I had done right.
Valda sighed. “This one is resilient,” she said. “No matter what I did she maintained a positive, can-do attitude. Wouldn’t have thought it from such a little punk.” She smirked at me as she tossed down the Jenah card. “But finally it occurred to me to enlist the help of someone who really knew her.”
“Go to hell,” I said.
Eleven minutes left. Malkin grinned at me as she held up the very last card, the Devon card, the card of the poor boy who must be bombing on stage right this second, mad at himself for not being able to rise above the spells the witches had worked on him. “Well, this might be interfering with the results a little,” Malkin said, “but I’m counting on your complete and utter despair at losing to see us through.” She tossed the card on the floor to reveal … me.
I looked at her, uncomprehending. “But you wrecked Devon’s life. I saw you. And the agreement was that you would only try to make your own student’s life miserable.”
“And it worked,” she said, leering at me.
“But then … But then it wasn’t Devon at all,” I said. “He’s safe.” The bubble bumped up, just a little, at the thought.
Malkin glared at the bubble.
“Wait wait wait. That means … that means I’m in charge of my own thermometer,” I said. “I control that bubble. What if I refuse to give up? What if I insist on being happy?” I stared at that bubble. If it really was me, then I could force it to rise. All I had to do was decide that Malkin wasn’t going to win after all. The bubble buoyed up a notch. I had control. I could do this. Another notch.
Malkin waved a dismissive hand. “Go for it,” she said. “But you still can’t get us all above the midline.” She nodded at Valda. “We have a deal, you see.”
“Fifty-fifty investment in the shifter,” said Valda.
“Eighty-twenty,” said Malkin. “The brains of the operation gets more.”
“Now wait,” said Esmerelda. “I helped distract Camellia, too. I should at least get ten percent.”
Malkin considered this while I despaired. Ten minutes left. Even if I could change my own thermometer, I could not change Jenah’s. I could not win.
Knowing that I could not win sent my bubble plummeting back to the bottom.
I looked at the three bickering witches, each loudly announcing how they would divvy up Leo, and I thought hard. No matter which of them won, I was screwed. Leo was screwed. That meant …
Slowly I looked from Sarmine’s quite happy thermometer up to Sarmine. She wore the self-satisfied expression of the patient teacher who has just watched his dullest student arrive at the correct answer.
“If I help you destroy all the cars in the world,” I said slowly, “I can make you win. And you’re the only one of them who won’t destroy Leo.”
“I’ll go one better,” she said. “You make me win and I’ll hide your shifter for you forever.”
I shook my head. “But you could have won at any time,” I said. “You have the spell all ready to go. If you destroy the cars Caden’s family owns, then you destroy them. Just find his family in the stadium and, I don’t know, explain to them in graphic detail how their lives will be destroyed. You could still win.”
“It would not be any fun for me to win all by myself,” said Sarmine. “I want your help.” She pulled a folded piece of paper from her skirt pocket and held it out to me.
Malkin was getting redder and redder in the face. “Now wait a minute,” she said. “You’re not supposed to be working together.”
“Really?” I said, eying Valda.
“That was different,” protested Valda. “That was cheating. Cheating is practically fair play.”
“This isn’t cheating if you’re doing it out in the open,” explained Esmerelda.
“Consider it backsta
bbing,” I said. “Except from the front.”
My fingers were shaking with the adrenaline. I held out my hand for the paper, and Sarmine put the completed, worked-out spell in my hand.
In Sarmine’s familiar spiky handwriting, it read:
Malkin’s Sympathetic Resonance Spell—Updated
2 tablespoons monkey brains
8 squished pixies
15 butterfly wings
2 lizard tails
1 pinch powdered eye of newt
1 cauldron of 10 bananas + 3 gal milk, steeped for 5 days
Sympathetic resonance catalyst, which Malkin will give us once we win, 2 CENTS SAYS IT’S A LINDWORM SCALE.
I closed my eyes. Backstabbing, all right. Sarmine’s plan was clear. I could save Leo forever. But what did I weigh it against? One monkey, eight pixies, eight butterflies, two lizards, and one newt. How did you measure lives against each other? How could you?
And not only that, of course. Sarmine’s plan to destroy every car in the world would certainly achieve her goal of burning less fossil fuels, and making people remember how to bike and walk and everything else.
But it would destroy so many lives in the process. That wasn’t any kind of slow change. That would wipe out families with jobs in auto factories and car dealerships and everything else. It would wipe out taxi drivers. It would destroy everyone who couldn’t afford to live near their job, or their school.
And it wasn’t right to be blackmailed into it, even to save Leo.
I closed my eyes tightly. Sarmine so wanted to toughen me up she was willing to sacrifice her own plans to do it. When would she get a lindworm scale again? Never, unless she won it now.
I shook my head. Maybe it would be different if my back weren’t against the wall. But I wasn’t going to give in to bullies.
“I can’t help you, Sarmine,” I said. “I can’t.”
Sarmine’s face set into angry lines. Malkin high-fived Valda.
The clock ticked closer.
“And you.” I rounded on Malkin. “You can’t win Leo, anyway. He wasn’t yours to offer up as a prize and he’s not yours to win now. He’s a person, not a thing.”
“He may not be mine to win,” said Malkin. “But he’s mine to take.”
The clock began to strike and she plopped the bunny into Esmerelda’s purse, then held out her left hand to Valda and Esmerelda. They both seized it, and with her right, she cast a powder up in the air and slashed her wand through it. She chanted, “Aljeni, Aljeni, Aljeni…”
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