by Raven Snow
He came back with our punch, and I nodded to my cousin. “I haven’t even told him she’s off the suspect list, and he’s fraternizing.”
“Maybe he thinks it’s worth the risk.”
Vic rolled into the gym during the next moment, covered in so much black, I looked around for a coffin and a bunch of mourners. There was a smile on her face, though, so I figured nobody was dead. Yet.
“Black is the most flattering color,” she told me when I asked. “It’s almost like going on a diet.”
Jose noticed Wyatt from across the room and came over smiling. They launched into some kind of sport talk, and Vic and I moved away, hoping to talk about the case away from someone whose innocence hadn’t been proven.
“Come on,” I said, “we’re breaking back into the office.”
While everything was harder to do in heels, I was able to keep upright while we rummaged through the filing cabinet. It took some major grunt work, both of us sweating profusely, but we managed to find the original copy of the new locker combinations.
“It’s rainbow-colored,” Vic said in awe. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stains in my life.”
She was right. The piece of paper was absolutely covered with vaguely fruity-smelling sloshes of liquid. No smell of alcohol, though, so that ruled out Hannah. Who would be drinking this many different flavors of drink over the combinations?
I shoved the list in my purse, heading back to the gym before anyone realized we were missing. With so many civilians around, it wouldn’t do for the would-be killer to think we were onto him or her. They might have panicked and put everyone in danger. Plus, if I riled someone up enough to mess up Suzy’s decorations, I would probably have to leave town, never to return.
“Alright,” I said to Vic. “Maybe we’ve been thinking about this the wrong way.”
“Seems to me we’ve been thinking about this in every way but continue.”
“Someone has a motive, but at this point, we don’t know what it is. Coming at this from a different direction, where’s the main crime scene?”
“Here.” She made a strange sound at the back of her throat. “Except for the windows and doors incident at Connor’s.”
For the moment, I judged that as the outlier and put it from my mind. The first attack had been the ladder falling apart on top of Connor when he should have been on it. Next, a beer exploded in his hand while on break. Then, when the two of us were upstairs by the window and got blown out of it. Lastly, the punch had frozen in our throats while sitting around in the gym.
“Punch!” I said, pulling back out the locker combinations. I held up my glass, and the purple color perfectly matched one of the stains.
“Okay, so it all centers around the reunion,” Vic said. “But who does that leave if not Hannah or Connor? Jose? One of the less dedicated volunteers?” She gasped, her eyes bulging. “Me?”
“Are you confessing?”
She coughed, eyes returning to their normal dilation. “No, sorry. Got caught up in the moment.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Suzy said into a microphone, as she climbed up on stage. “Thank you for being here tonight.”
Her normally straight, blonde hair was a mess, and she was an interesting combination of pale and flushed. When she smiled, it was a bit loopier than I’d ever seen it.
Vic and I turned toward each other, saying “oh” in unison.
“The blonde hair on the ladder,” I said. “The punch.”
“She was there for almost every crime.”
“And she was pissed off at all of us for leaving the work to her.”
We went back to watching Suzy with wide eyes, not really sure how to precede now that the culprit was up on stage in front of hundreds. There wasn’t a way to get her quietly and safely away from all of this, so we were stuck.
But the night was about to go downhill.
“Yes, how nice that you all could make time in your busy schedules to come,” she said. “When not one of you helped out this entire week.”
I thought that was a little unfair. Certainly, she’d done most of the work, but I’d hung a banner, for Christ’s sake. That hadn’t been easy. Still, I wasn’t going to argue with the unhinged woman that could move heavy objects with her mind.
Suzy started shaking up on the stage like someone had set her to vibrate. All around the room, tables, chairs, and anything that wasn’t nailed down started shaking too. It made me a little dizzy, and I saw people swaying in the audience around me.
“This week, if anything, has reminded me why I hated you all in high school,” Suzy continued, looking like she was seizing up there.
“Preach, girlfriend,” Vic said.
“Weren’t you the one that came up with the nickname ‘Suzy Q’?”
She had the good sense to look bashful. “Yeah. Skinny girls are mean, but I’m a changed woman now.”
Nodding up toward Suzy, I said, “Let’s hope she believes that.”
I made eye contact with Wyatt just before I climbed up on the stage. He shook his head, but I just shrugged. Whether or not he liked it, I had to go up there. This was kind of my job.
“Suzy,” I said, holding my hands up and approaching her slowly. “You need to calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down, Harper!”
Her voice was shrill, hurting my ears. She pointed at me, and a punch bowl flew at my head. I ducked just in time to avoid a direct hit to the noggin, but I was still drenched in the sticky, booze-heavy concoction. Looked like Hannah had gotten to that one.
Suzy’s eyes widened slightly, surprised. Almost crying at the expression, I kept myself neutral while relief coursed through me. If Suzy wasn’t in control, and I could talk her down, maybe the school would still be standing.
“Look around, Suzy,” I said softly. “You’re doing this.”
She took in the small objects, whizzing around with fear and awe. People were screaming and ducking, trying to get out of the gym, but the doors were being held shut. Tables skidded across the floor, running into anyone not quick enough to get away. I saw one barrel into a guy who’d been caught multiple times sneaking into the girls’ bathroom and smiled for a scant second.
“No,” she said, shaking her head and stumbling back. “I couldn’t do this.”
“You have powers,” I said. “Probably no one was ever around to teach you to control them, and now you can’t. I can help you.”
But I’d miscalculated. Her pupils contracted at the word power, and things started to fly around the room with increased speed and strength, the noise almost deafening at this point.
“Power.” She looked down at her hands, flexing them.
Before I could spout some crap about great power and great responsibility, a quick movement of Suzy’s hand sent me flying from the stage and into a table. I crashed to the ground with a groan, seeing two of everything and trying to breathe through the pain in my head.
“My name,” she said coolly, “is Susan. And you weren’t nice to me in high school, either.”
I rolled onto my side with a groan, holding the table down and using it as a shield as stuff started pelting me. The worst part was, she wasn’t wrong. Even though people had been horrible to me, I hadn’t reached out to one of the few souls in this hellhole that had it worse. I’d stuck with my little, exclusive unit, leaving Suzy on her own.
As bad as that was, I wasn’t sure I deserved to die for it. Inching along, still holding on to the table, I tried to move from the direct line of fire, not sure how well it would work. If she was specifically trying to throw things at me, it wouldn’t.
But the items kept bombarding the same area, and Suzy frowned, squirming and thrashing in an effort to get them to follow me. Eventually, she succeeded, but her brow was sweating and her skin was translucent. It took a lot out of her.
That was the first good news I’d heard all night.
“You will need magic to defeat her, Harper Beck.”
Shaki
ng my purse, I told the book to shut up. I didn’t need cryptic comments right now; I needed a plan. Somehow, I didn’t think the same book that refused to tell me Suzy was the culprit was going to tell me how to take her down. In that case, it was useless.
Wyatt snatched me up from under the table when I got close to him and retreated with me back to where he, Vic, Connor, and Hannah had been hiding: behind the bleachers. We all peered through the cracks as chairs zoomed around the room and punch drenched everything, making the whole place smell like the Lemonade factory just outside of Waresville. There was even the faint smell of weed back here to further the comparison.
Connor and Hannah were holding on to each other for dear life, snuggling like they might never snuggle again—which was possible, given the circumstances. Vic was watching them like someone who hadn’t eaten in days, and even I found myself wanting to shuffle a little closer to Wyatt.
“What’s the plan?” he whispered in my ear.
His eyes were hyper-alive, watching every minute movement happening in front of us. His breathing and heart rate were elevated, just like mine. In moments like these, it wasn’t hard to see why Wyatt and I were able to stay together despite our different personalities and pasts. We both came alive on a case.
“She’s out of control,” I said. “Pissed. But I don’t think she actually wants to hurt anyone. Suzy’s just at the end of her rope.”
He nodded slowly. “If you can get her to calm down and see the consequences, that might work in your favor. Otherwise, we’ll have to take her down before she kills anyone.”
Wyatt didn’t move toward his gun, but the intent was clear in his eyes. His willingness to protect others at all costs was admirable. Still, I didn’t want him blowing Suzy away since I had a shot at helping her.
“Just give me a few minutes.”
I sat down on the ground and pulled the book out of my large bag. It had a couple of wrappers stuck to the pages, and there was a little bit of mystery goop on the cover. Hastily, I wiped the dirt away, preening the book and thinking wildly that Gran was going to kill me if I made it out of this alive.
“I don’t think now is the best time to up your IQ, Harper,” Vic said, sitting next to me and eyeing the book doubtfully.
“It’s a magical book,” I said by way of the simplest explanation.
Technically, I had no idea what the book was beyond its ability to talk, give information, and the fact that it acted as my grandmother’s familiar when most witches had cats. Like with Gran’s age, I was afraid to ask most of the questions that plagued my mind in the middle of the night. I wasn’t completely sure Gran or the book would answer me if I asked, anyway.
Vic leaned in closer, poking the spine with a curious finger. “Does it know how to get wine stains out of satin? Because that would be magical.”
Flipping it open, I said, “You can ask it later.”
A loud bang against the bleachers seemed to wake the text up. The pages came alive in my hands, not moving, but seeming to breathe. It responded to the vibes in the universe and put out its own.
The book made a humming noise. “You seem to have made a mess, Harper Beck.”
“Says the book who could have told me it was Suzy from the beginning and stopped all of this from happening.”
The crowd was giving up on the door and running to the opposite bleachers. Some made it unscathed, but others were locked down or against the wall, screaming and protecting their heads as best they could. At least Suzy wasn’t laughing maniacally. In fact, I couldn’t hear anything from her at all.
“You said you could help with taking her down. How?”
“With magic,” the book said cheerfully. “You are a witch, after all.”
I stewed on that for a moment, and then set the book down. Peeking my head out from behind the bleachers, I tried to locate Suzy through the blizzard of whole objects and broken pieces of things flying around through the air.
“Suzy!” I called. “This is your last chance to stop this.”
Miraculously, she seemed to hear me. “No one can stop this!”
She didn’t seem sorry about it, either, to my disappointment. Were we all still so hung up on what happened in high school that we couldn’t move on? Was I just like her, holding on to a past that had shaped me, but that was long over? I took a deep look at myself and wasn’t happy with what I saw.
“I can stop you,” I said with confidence. “I have powers too.”
The only response was a glass punch bowl whizzing toward my head. I dived behind the bleachers, plowing into Vic as the glass shattered just where I had been seconds before. I helped Vic to her feet and stared at her for a moment.
“I’m really sorry life hasn’t been going great for you, Victoria,” I said finally.
“I think I prefer Vic, actually.” Smiling shyly, she opened her arms.
I hugged her without hesitation, even though I wasn’t much of a hugger. “Me too.”
“And my life’s taken a definite turn for the better since you got here. I’m sorry I was such a horse’s rear end to you in high school.”
“I wasn’t much better.”
Someone cleared their throat, and we both turned to look at Connor. He’d unwrapped himself from Hannah long enough to condescend to us.
“I think we can agree we were all horrible children,” he said dryly. “But maybe you could take care of Suzy, so we could have a chance at being not-so-terrible adults?”
“I’m surprised you could free your mouth long enough to say that.”
Wyatt pressed a kiss to the back of my head, whispering, “I think it was sweet.”
“I’m very sweet,” I said, peering through the cracks to get another look at where Suzy was standing.
Picking up the ancient text, I said, “Okay, ugly. What do I do?”
“I cannot tell you what to do, Harper Beck. That would interfere with free choice.”
Everyone looked alarmed, probably thinking we were doomed, but I had an idea. It was something I’d been bouncing around in my head about the strange book and the things it sometimes said.
“But you can tell me what you would do and let me decide for myself, right?”
“Yes,” the book said happily, like we were on a stroll through the park. “I can do that. Your best course of action would be to get close to the witch and incapacitate her.”
“Get close to her?” I squeaked. “What else you got?”
But the book was silent, waiting for my decision.
I turned to the group, shrugging and asking for their opinions. Wyatt was already shaking his head, his expressions set in stone. Vic looked a little frightened that the book could talk, and Connor and Hannah were making out again, whispering declarations of their love that weren’t as quiet as they thought.
“You’ll be crushed before you even get close,” Wyatt said. “Do your hocus pocus from here.”
It always surprised me when Wyatt let his distaste for magic show. He didn’t do it often, probably for my sake. He wanted me to accept my full self, even if he had reservations about that part of me.
“I can’t,” I said. “Magic is half contact. At the very least, I need to see her.” I smiled bitterly. “Gran or Oliver could probably do it from here.”
“But they wouldn’t look half as good doing it,” Vic said helpfully.
It did help a little.
I looked down at the book. “What are my options?”
It started flipping through the pages so fast, my vision blurred trying to keep up. It’d pause on a single spell for half a second and then move on, showing me hundreds of ways to take Suzy down. But there was only one that jumped out at me—the one that seemed the least dark, the least violent. Surely, even I couldn’t lose control on that spell.
I kissed Wyatt on the cheek, and then ran out into the storm before I could change my mind. Tiny, sharp pieces of glass and plastic scored my skin, making me wince. I immediately shut my eyes against the bombarding, not want
ing to go home blind on top of everything else.
Something hard rammed into my shoulder, and I went down, grasping it as pain shot through my body. After a moment, I stumbled back up, grim with the realization that I’d dislocated my shoulder.
With a cold panic, I realized I’d also dropped the book. With only one arm to search, I wasn’t having any luck, and objects kept ramming into me on all sides.
Then, Vic and Wyatt were right there, helping block the flying shards and handing me the book. Behind closed lids, my eyes watered, and not from the pain. Vic was trembling with excitement and fear. Wyatt was just plain apprehensive about being so close to magic, yet they’d both risked their necks to stand with me.
Wyatt was so getting laid tonight. And I was buying Vic a feast at that Chinese place.
We breached the eye of the storm, the stage where Suzy was standing. From there, it looked like a tornado was in the gym, only instead of air currents, there were punch bowls and women’s heels flying around. I saw a really cute pair zoom inches away from our heads, and Vic tried to grab them, salivating slightly.
“You!” Suzy screeched, pointing at Vic. “You have a lot of nerve.”
“That’s me,” Vic said weakly, hiding behind me without much success. “90% nerve and 10% egg roll.”
Slowly, Vic’s feet started to separate from the ground. I tried to grab her arm, but she went even higher, floating feet above our heads. She was flipping and rolling, and before long, she was looking a little green around the gills.
“Vic, if you barf on us—”
“Oh, don’t worry about me. Can you see my underwear from there?”
“The pink lace is a good color on you. That little shop on 6th?”
“No, they moved a few blocks over, but it’s the same owner.”
Suzy screeched at us, and I had to dive out of the way as she threw a levitating Vic at me. Squealing, Vic tried to keep her skirt down with very little success.
Reading from the book in Wyatt’s hand, I started the incantation. The words felt heavy and awkward on my tongue. I waited for the power to surge, to try to break free from my control, but an interesting thing happened. When the power surged after the second verse, I felt it, but it was like I was seeing it happen to another person. I felt no pull to give in, to let it wash me away, and I controlled it with minimum effort.