There was a long pause. The avatar switched to a puzzled face. “Spell not found in database,” he said.
“I didn’t make it up!” I said. “I was trying something I found in one of Sarmine’s books. It used crushed watermelon seeds, saffron, and unicorn spritzer.”
Poppy held up a hand to forestall me. “Phone, tell me what ingredients were used in this spell.”
“I just told you—”
“Crushed watermelon seeds, saffron, unicorn spritzer—” said the avatar.
“See?”
“—and an inferior packet of Parmesan cheese.”
My eyes went wide. “The cheese. I got it all over my hands.… I mixed the ingredients in my hands.… Ohmigod.”
Poppy raised her eyebrows. She looked like she was barely holding in the words “Always mix on a clean surface” with a supreme effort.
“I know, I know,” I said.
“Can you ask that guy if he knows an antidote?” said Devon.
“I programmed him,” Poppy explained. “He only knows what I’ve put in the database.”
“Ah,” Devon said. “I thought maybe there was a help desk for witches.”
“I wish,” I said.
“Don’t give up yet,” said Poppy. “I have some generic antidotes stored in here. Let me try them.”
“Technology for the win?” I said.
“I hope so,” said Poppy.
* * *
I trudged outside to the car and tried to lose my worries in the work. The unicorn spritzer had removed all the dirt and some of the scratches, but it hadn’t removed the ice, glass, or nails. The ice was melting, and I worked faster on the seat areas, trying to get it out the door before it soaked Poppy’s seats. Occasionally I forgot to look with my witch eyes, cut myself on an invisible nail or bit of window glass, and swore.
I had finally swept the last bit of glass from the car and had started filling Devon’s trash can when Poppy came out. I straightened, the dustpan falling from my hands. “Did you…?”
But I could tell from her face that she hadn’t. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but that’s a powerful invisible spell you did,” Poppy said. “Invisible eels (A) stink and (B) wear off quickly. This is seriously stuck on him. If you can replicate what you did, you’ve got something that any witch would die for.”
“To be permanently invisible?” I said despairingly. “No one would actually want that.”
She looked at me like I was nuts. “It invisibled his clothes, too, remember? Think of it. Invisible cloaks that don’t smell like eels. I bet you anything this spell is your ticket into Larkspur.” She saw my expression and held up her hands. “Or your way to make a million bucks, if that’s what you’d rather.”
“I wouldn’t rather,” I said. “Not any of it.” What if I had invisibled Devon permanently? I could scarcely imagine it. Never going swimming with your friends again. Going through tubs of peachy-tan makeup. And just think of the first time he tried to visit the dentist with invisible teeth!
Poppy must have seen my face, because she said, more kindly, “Just because I can’t get it off doesn’t mean it’s not gettable. Hexes have never been a particular study of mine. Someone will know how to get this off. One of our mothers.”
“Which mother? The mother who vanished or the mother who disappeared?”
I expected Poppy to bite back at that, but she merely sighed and said, “Come on. I’ll help you scoop the glass into their trash can.”
* * *
Lily wasn’t home yet when we arrived. Poppy checked her phone—no texts or missed calls. That was good as far as fixing the car went, bad as far as having a parental figure around went. I wiped Wulfie’s paws and let him inside.
Poppy searched her app for the spell to take dings out of cars. “This is going to be tedious,” she said. “We have to cast it on every single dent.”
“Why can’t anything be simple?”
“Let’s stop calling on witches and maybe that will help,” said Poppy.
I nobly refrained from reminding her that it was her idea to see if Valda could tell us anything. Besides, she was only trying to help. “We’re no closer to solving anything,” I said. “And I still have to study American history for tomorrow’s quiz.”
Poppy perked up at that. “What are you up to?”
“Uh, things and causes leading into World War Two something something?” I said. “I’m so-o-o lost it’s not funny.” They had recently fired Mrs. Taylor, who let us sit around watching videos, and parceled her classes out among the other teachers. Saganey had taken over my class, and in addition to the fact that he had high standards for the subject, he also was cranky about losing his lunchtime planning period. It had been rough going for all of us.
“Ooh!” said Poppy, with what I considered to be an inappropriate level of excitement. “I still have the app I made to quiz myself last year. I’ll quiz you while we un-ding the car.” She saw my face, and her enthusiasm dimmed as she realized that I was not excited by the idea of American history, or an app to quiz me on it.
“That sounds great. Really.” I tried to put some cheerfulness into it.
Poppy studied me. “You know what we need,” she said. “Reinforcements.”
She turned and headed off somewhere while I called after, “Sure you don’t have an app for that?”
“I can’t hear you,” she sang back cheerfully.
She returned a few minutes later with a frozen pepperoni pizza and a couple of frozen candy bars. “My dad hides this stuff from my mom in the deep freeze,” she said. “I’m sure she technically knows about it, but as long as he keeps the green beans pulled over it, she pretends she doesn’t.”
“My mood is improving already,” I said.
Poppy cooked our pizza and we ate it in the detached garage, by the light of the hanging lightbulb and the faint magical glow as we cast the un-dinging spell over and over. “The pervading idea in the thirties that Americans should concern themselves only with issues of domestic policy is generally referred to as…” said Poppy.
“Common sense?” I said.
“Isolationism,” Poppy said. “Do you really not like history and politics? It’s so fascinating to me.”
“You grew up with it,” I said. “Anyway, it’s not that I don’t like it; it’s just that it goes in one ear and out the other. It doesn’t stick.”
“You should come do Model UN with us,” said Poppy. “After you’ve argued about which policies are right or wrong a bunch, it starts to stick.”
“Ugh, how boring,” I said, before I thought, and then I saw her face fall. No, fall isn’t the right word. It just … closed off, as if she was sorry she had ever suggested inviting me into her world. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just—I’m more of a science person. I’m in AP biology. I’m not an idiot or anything. I mean, you probably wouldn’t want to go to the science fair.”
“I’ve done the science fair every year,” Poppy said coldly. “You have to be good at everything to be an all-rounder.”
“Right,” I said.
We worked in silence for a while after that. I wished Jenah was there; I wished she was the one who knew how to cast spells on dents. I could tell her everything that had happened, and then I would feel better. Plus, she always forgave me if I said something stupid, which I did a lot. Whereas I couldn’t seem to find the right footing with Poppy. No wonder, though. All her friends were those brilliant, clever juniors and seniors, busy kicking down brick walls and glass ceilings, on the path to success. I didn’t know what path I was on, but it sure didn’t feel like the success one.
Wulfie trotted up and ate our last piece of pizza. I hoped it wouldn’t disagree with him. I didn’t have the energy to pull it from his jaws. He minded Sarmine a lot better than me—everybody minded Sarmine. But Sarmine was gone. It might be me and Wulfie forever. The Tale of the Failed Witch Girl and the Tiny Werewolf. Yeah, that was a story I wasn’t interested in.
I finishe
d the last dent on my side and let my wand rest on the floor while Poppy finished the last couple on her side. My cheek pressed against the metal door.
Sarmine was gone, and we were no closer to finding her than we had been this morning.
Poppy rounded the car, wand in hand, and stared down at me.
“Feels like midnight,” I said finally.
“It’s eight,” she said, then added, “but we didn’t get a lot of sleep.”
More silence.
“Tomorrow’s a school day,” I said.
“Yes,” said Poppy.
We picked up, locked the garage, and headed back inside. “I’ll be up in a minute,” she said. I saw her take out her phone as Wulfie and I trudged upstairs. Where was Lily that she wasn’t calling Poppy to explain that she was running late? Off the grid? Out of the country?
Wearily, I changed out of my jeans and back into the gym shorts. Hung up the nice yellow jacket Poppy had let me wear. Thanks to the unicorn spritzer, the Newt Nibbles shirt still had some life in it.
I pulled Wulfie’s raggedy, dog-haired bed closer to my side of the bed. It looked woefully out of place in that neat, clean-lined room, with its white paint and blue curtains and walls of framed things. I looked closer at the frames. They turned out to be a selection of awards, report cards, and gifted evaluations. I stood there, listlessly reading something about Poppy’s “focus and determination,” feeling like a slug dropped in the middle of a Zen garden. This wasn’t me. This wasn’t where I belonged. Yet, without Sarmine, maybe there was nowhere for me.
A footstep behind me. I turned to see Poppy studying me studying her evaluations. “I like encouragement,” she said bluntly. “So sue me.” Not bragging, then, but self-motivation. I could understand that.
“Poppy, I…” I began. But I had no idea what to say. I’m sorry you’re worried about your mother, too? I’m sure they’ll both be fine and that money grows on trees and we’ll all get A-pluses this week on our American history quizzes? I closed my mouth on the lies.
When she saw I wasn’t going to say anything, she shrugged tightly, then turned away and started her nighttime routine. I patted the dog bed for Wulfie and he settled his body into it, but he also whined at me. I could feel the tension in his head and neck. Poor boy. He must be wondering why we weren’t going back home. It was tough to be in an unfamiliar place. I kept my hand on his head till we both drifted off to sleep.
* * *
I woke a couple hours later with the inexplicable feeling that Sarmine needed me. Poppy was sleeping soundly; I didn’t want to wake her. Wulfie lifted his head. I patted it and, luckily, he nestled back down and tucked his tail over his nose.
I grabbed the yellow jacket, my house key and shoes, and tiptoed down the old wooden stairs, hugging the railing to make the stairs creak less. The front door was old—it had an ancient door knocker and dead bolt but no modern doorknob with a lock in it. No way to lock it behind me without a key. Well, surely all those wards Poppy and I had done would count for something. Anyone who decided to enter a house with a witch in it would have a nasty surprise.
It was a long walk from the college neighborhood back to my house. An hour, I thought—I’d forgotten my phone. I had no idea what time it was. There were a few cars still on the streets. It couldn’t be that late—maybe only eleven. We had gone to bed early and I was thrown off.
The thought went through my mind many times while I walked: What was I doing? Getting out of bed on a school night on a hunch? On a dream? It was probably an aftereffect of all that frozen pizza. I should be asleep right now, getting well rested for that American history quiz tomorrow.
And yet, if Sarmine did need me, I couldn’t let her down.
I finally turned on our street. Devon’s house came first. I slowed, looking for light from his window. But I saw nothing, just dark, empty panes of glass.
Another block and I was home.
The house was as dark as Devon’s. It didn’t particularly look menacing or creepy. It was its plain old boring ugly split-level self.
And yet something had happened to Sarmine. And something could happen to me.
I took a breath and unlocked the door.
Nothing happened. No hexes suddenly firing. No evil witches lurking in my living room.
One foot inside, the other foot.
Nothing.
I flicked on the living room light.
Still nothing.
The house felt strangely foreign to me, late at night, with the lights on, with Sarmine gone. Like it wasn’t my house anymore. Like I was visiting from my future self, going back to look at my childhood. Now that I had thought that, my knees weakened and I sat down hard. I turned my hands over to look at them, to reassure myself that they were the same teenage hands they always were. Witches look the age they feel, a tiny voice said inside. You know how once upon a time a grown-up Sparkle put an amnesia spell on herself and went back to do childhood all over again. What if you are old?
I am not old, I told myself sternly. This house was getting to me.
I rose and marched firmly to the stairs.
I put my foot on the bottom step, and that’s when it hit. An enormous snake—no, not a snake; that thing had a beak and a red comb. It was a gigantic basilisk, twice as wide as the stairs and taller than the house.
I shrieked, my mind trying to make sense of the impossibility. Nothing that big could actually fit here. It had to be an illusion, a trick. Maybe Sarmine had warded the house after all—the upstairs, anyway. I frantically cast back to all those study sheets the witch had been making me do for years. Basilisk. An enormous snake with a rooster’s head and two stubby chicken feet. Gaze can stun you. Afraid of mutton and mirrors.
Of course. Sarmine wouldn’t have a watchdog she couldn’t easily subdue. I just needed to do it fast. It had started as an illusion, but it was getting solider by the minute. And once those eyes solidified!… Probably would knock me out until Sarmine showed up to unstun me, and who knew when that would be. I ducked as a knobbly chicken foot went past me and took a scrape out of the wall.
A mirror had always hung at the bottom of the stairs. Apparently this was why. I wrenched it from its hook and showed it to the monster. “Go back where you came from!” I shouted. Instantly, the rooster-snake began to vaporize again, shrinking into a wisp of smoke. It went into a picture frame on the landing. Heart beating fast, I studied the picture closer. It was a framed postcard labeled “Visit Beautiful Basel, Switzerland!” I had never paid it much attention. Who knew that it was a house-guarding spell in disguise?
Next to the framed postcard was an ancient wedding photo of Sarmine and Dad, both of them long-haired, Sarmine garlanded in daisies. “How many more surprises do you have for me?” I muttered at it. It didn’t answer, of course. Pictures only answer you in books.
I continued up the stairs to the rest of the house, turning on lights as I went. Nothing in the upstairs hall, nothing in my bedroom, nothing in Sarmine’s room. I marched all the way through to Sarmine’s study, a small room off of her bedroom.
Nothing there, either.
I sat down on the floor, feeling sharply alone. Sarmine was always here—always. That house-warding spell must have been set up to trigger on her absence. That would explain why I’d never encountered it. So the house knew she was gone, even if I didn’t want to accept it.
Her study was as it always was, a small room filled with bookcases. There was a desk at one end with a bunch of tiny drawers that housed her expensive ingredients she didn’t want to store in the basement or garage. One of the bookcases had glass doors, and it, too, held some of her more valuable items.
What was I looking for?
A trace of Sarmine. Some indication as to what had happened to her—if she’d planned her disappearance or if it had been done to her. There were so many questions and, without Sarmine, I was lost.
Break it down, she would say calmly, just like Poppy would say. Use your brain. Perhaps she would ar
ch her brow and say, in that superior Sarmine way, What would I do?
“Send a basilisk to eat me,” I muttered bitterly. I lay back on the rug. I was exhausted. An hour walk, plus fighting a basilisk, plus worry about Sarmine had driven away my strange wakefulness. I could fall asleep instantly. Except then Poppy and Wulfie would wake in the morning to find no Cam. At least one of them would worry about me, I thought.
That’s when the front door creaked open.
I sat straight up. My heart was pounding so hard I could barely hear the word called up the stairs.
“Cam?”
It was Poppy. Oh, thank goodness.
Oh, wait. Oh, wait!
I hurried to the hallway. “Don’t come up the stairs!”
I was too late; she had already put one foot on the step.
“What the—” was all I heard, as the basilisk rushed toward her.
I hurried, groping for the mirror. No. I had left it on the landing. “Grab the mirror!” I shouted. The basilisk grew bigger, faster this time. Solidifying. “Don’t look at it!”
I squeezed past the snake body, tumbling down the stairs before it trapped me in the stairwell. It had caught the strap of Poppy’s plaid messenger bag by one hooked chicken claw. She was hollering and trying to pull ingredients out of the bag. She pulled her fist out just as the chicken foot ripped the messenger bag free and sent it sailing through the air. I caught the strap of the bag just before it hit the ground. Now for the mirror. I grabbed Sarmine’s—Poppy held aloft her phone—
And then the basilisk exploded into a million tiny basilisk pieces and lay in ruins all around Poppy. She fell to the landing with a hard thump. Slowly she sat up, her eyes round behind her glasses. “What. Was that.”
“My mom’s watchdog,” I said. “What was that?”
“Mirror app,” said Poppy. She looked sideways at me. “Technology for the win?”
“For the win,” I agreed.
Then her eyes widened. “My bag!”
“I caught it.”
The relief on her face was tremendous. She might have saved my life, but I had saved her bag. She rifled through her messenger bag, checking glass vials and delicate objects. “It’s all fine,” she said. “Thank you.”
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