by Lori Woods
“Well, after that kiss, I might say your name in my sleep! I just hope I don’t say it three times,” I tell him with a smile as I climb onto Broom Hilda.
“Don’t worry, I can tell the difference,” Val calls out. He waves me off as Broom Hilda become airborne.
CHAPTER 12
I would have loved to stay longer in Nightshade to see everyone and spend more time with Val, I think as I fly out of Nightshade. But how can I? Not when there’s the problem with Alfie. If just one of them thought that the dwarf wasn’t Alfie, I would brush it off as nonsense, but with both Snowball and Malcolm claiming that the dwarf is impersonating Alfie, I have to take them seriously, no matter how impossible it seems.
When you crossed the cemetery, Suzy, you went down the rabbit hole to where anything is possible! And it’s true. I mean over here they have magic, witches, warlocks, vampires, werewolves, ghosts… and that’s just a few impossible things that I’ve encountered since coming over from the other side.
So why not someone impersonating Alfie?
If it’s true that the dwarf who looks and act like Alfie isn’t Alfie, then first I have to find out what happened to the real Alfie, and second, figure out why anyone would want to pose as him?
Is it tied in with the murder of Polly? As Broom Hilda zips over the trees on our way back to Hemlock, I start to dismiss the thought. Nothing is impossible! I remind myself. It seems as if everything keeps coming back to Polly. What was special about her? I form a picture of her in my mind. She was plain-looking, and with her thick glasses, she appeared studious. I shake my head, causing my hair to catch in the wind and blow up as Broom Hilda flies over Werewoods.
Her glasses!
That was the only thing different about her. She was the only student in the class who wore glasses. The thought pops into my head, The glasses are important! I start to dismiss it again, but then remember how the killer had ground his heel against the lenses. At the time, I had thought it was just out of rage. But what if it was to destroy them totally?
“What can be swept away can be un-swept,” I mumble, trying to remember the riddle that Aubrey the poet ghost had given me in the basement after I discovered Polly’s body. He wanted me to repair the glasses; that’s the reason. Why else save them!
Suddenly I feel that I am finally on the right track for the first time in solving Polly’s murder. I need to return to the basement and talk to Aubrey! I had planned on heading straight for the apartment to check on Alfie since it’s Saturday and school is out for the weekend, but instead I decide to go to the Academy to revisit the crime scene. I cross my fingers that Snowball and Malcolm are monitoring Alfie, or the dwarf impersonating him, until I can get there. Anyway, I plan on being in the basement just long enough to speak with Aubrey.
Students are coming and going from the Academy, even though it’s the weekend; probably using the library or working on an assignment, so the door won’t be locked. And it will be nice not to have to navigate around a horde of students changing classes. The lobby of the Academy is empty and so quiet that my shoes tapping against the tiles echo off the walls of the big room. I turn toward the janitor’s supply room and have only gone a little distance when I hear footsteps so powerful that they make the floor vibrate.
What now!
I find out what it is a moment later when a young troll turns the corner and I find myself face to face with him. I know there are trolls enrolled in the Academy, but I’d thought that they were in a separate section of the building and kept segregated from the rest of the student population.
“You smell like a dwarf! I can smell one of those horrible little creatures on you. I hate dwarfs, except for snacks. Ha! Don’t eat the dwarf! Don’t eat the witches! Don’t eat the warlocks! I’m tired of all these silly rules. I told my parents I didn’t want to learn magic if I had to stop eating dwarfs. But they wouldn’t listen to me!”
“Ah, yeah, they do have some pretty stupid rules, except the one about eating witches. And I think there is a special rule about not eating white witches,” I say, edging toward the door to the supply room. “It’s the weekend. Why don’t you go to Werewoods and visit your folks and snack on a few wood dwarfs?”
“I’m hungry now! I got to eat first!”
“Maybe the cafeteria is still open. You can get a snack there to tie you over until you get home,” I say, smiling as I back toward the door.
“That garbage. Vegetables! They expect us to eat vegetables!”
“Yeah, I guess you trolls aren’t vegans.”
“I love to eat dwarfs and you have the scent of one of them on you,” he says as he takes a step toward me.
A student approaches us from one of the halls to the right. She is so intent on the book she is reading that she doesn’t see the troll until she is almost upon him. She suddenly glances up and screams so loud that I fear for my eardrums. The troll reaches for her but she turns and flees back the way she came.
“I hate screaming little witches. They give me a headache!”
“I’ve heard that eating a white witch will give you heartburn!” I say as I continue to back slowly toward the janitor’s supply room.
“What’s a few belches? A good-tasting white witch is worth a few!”
“Oh look! There’s a dwarf behind you. Quick! Before he gets away!” I shout, pointing behind the troll.
As the huge troll turns to look behind him, I sprint for the supply room, praying as I run that the door isn’t locked. It isn’t and I’m inside. I slam it shut and lock it.
“You tricked me, you wicked old witch!” I hear the troll shouting as I turn and walk across the room to the door leading to the basement. Luckily, it too isn’t locked. “Aubrey,” I call out as I walk down the stairs. “I need to talk to you.”
The dead poet pops out of the far wall of the basement.
“You came to hear me read more of my poems to you?” he asks eagerly.
“No, no, I do like them, but they are too intense for the mood I’m in,” I say and smile at him. “Another time.”
“Time, time it moves without me, it will not offer me a ride, oh, I can never again be on time.” Aubrey says, clutching his book of poetry to his chest. “Did you like that one?”
“It . . . It was interesting!” I say, trying to find something nice to say. “Ah, but what I really came down to tell you is that I figured out one of your riddles. You want me to repair Polly’s glasses, right?
“If you could see what I see,” Aubrey says in a perfect imitation of Polly’s voice.
“Okay, but I can’t look through her glasses unless I repair them. How do I do that?”
“Books on destruction, books on construction, books on despair, books on repair,” Aubrey says.
Gee, must everything be a horrible poem to him?
“Every book knows its name, but every book is not the same,” Aubrey says as he stretches his hands as if he is performing in a live theatre.
“Ah . . . so there’s a book that will tell me how to repair the glasses. And if I call its name, it will come to me.”
Okay, let me give it a try.
“Book on Repairing Glasses!”
Nothing.
“Glass Repair for Dummies!”
Nothing.
I glance over to the corner where Broom Hilda had swept up the broken glasses and frame. Thankfully, it still remains untouched—or undiscovered—wrapped in newspaper as I’d left it. Either way, I’m glad it’s still there so I walk over, and once I carefully unfold the newspaper, I spread the bent frame and broken glass apart. I sigh as I look down at them. “It’s like putting Humpty-Dumpty back together!”
I hear a noise coming from the direction of the row of bookcases. As I am trying to find the source of the sound and hoping it isn’t one of those strange, pale, faceless creature getting ready to pounce on me, a book comes floating through the air. It pauses in midair in front of me. I glance at the title.
‘Putting Humpty-Dumpty Back Together!
’
I snatch the book out of the air and sit down beside the smashed glass as I began to leaf through the book. I am full of hope as I turn page after page with various spells for repairing anything from a cracked cauldron to a broken broomstick, but nowhere do I see a spell of repairing glasses. I do find one on repairing a broken drinking glass.
Maybe that one will work?
I draw the runes for the spell in the air and then say the words they represent out loud.
Poof!
A beer mug appears where the broken pair of glasses was a moment ago. Shaking my head, I say the spell backwards and the shattered glasses appear again.
“Rats! Nothing is easy!” I say, feeling discouraged.
Aubrey suddenly appears. “Things are best done your way, even to things swept away!”
“If I hear one more riddle from you, I’m going to . . .” I stop. Of course, silly goose! He’s right. Make your own spell! I should have known that a standard spell wouldn’t work. I am a Spell Master and I must create my own spell. I really need to get to grips with this!
With that thought in mind, I glance at the spell for repairing a broken glass. I study the runes until I know them. Then I grab my backpack and take Granny’s book on runes and find the right combination that means turning a drink glass into glasses.
Okay, let’s see if this will work!
I draw the runes of the spell I used before in the air exactly like I did the first time, but instead of the runes for a drinking glass, I insert the runes I have created for glasses. I say the spell slowly aloud to give it power. Then glance down at the shattered glasses.
“Yes! It worked!” I’m so happy to see a pair of thick-lensed glasses instead of the bent frame and shards of glass.
“White witch, black witch, it does matter which witch!” Aubrey says happily as he appears beside me.
“I’ve heard that same rhyme before and it wasn’t a nice experience!” I tell Aubrey as I reach down and pick up the glasses.
“Someone is stealing my poetry!” Aubrey shouts, glancing around. “Who was it? Who was it?” he asks.
“A berserker!” I say.
Poof! Aubrey vanishes.
“Afraid of berserkers are we?” I call after him and try not to laugh. How can a berserker hurt a ghost? They are dead already.
I don’t know what I expect when I put on Polly’s glasses, but it’s not twenty-twenty vision. What a waste of effort. It’s just plain glass. The glasses don’t have any effect on my vision. And I’m not seeing things hidden from others! Why was that silly girl wearing these ugly glasses? I think as I stuff them in my backpack.
“Okay, I have to get home to check on Alfie. And I bet I’ll find Snowball hiding under the bed, poor thing,” I mumble as I hurry up the steps of the basement. I pause to listen before I open the door to the supply room. But the hall beyond is silent.
Wonder what kind of snack the troll found to eat?
CHAPTER 13
T hinking I’ll give Polly’s glasses another try, I put them back on as I head for the entrance to the Academy. But everything looks the same with or without the glasses. I see other students, the ones who know me, gawk at me as they walk past. I see Ima Brewer hurrying across the lobby. She sees me and stops.
“You have bad eyesight? Is that the reason why you’ve been messing up in brewing spell class?”
I take the glasses off and shake my head. “No, just playing around with them to see if they make me look smarter,” I say.
Ima just arches her eyebrows and hurries past me.
“I didn’t know you wore glasses,” a voice calls out behind me. I turn and find the headmaster.
Wow, I don’t like him, but I have to admit he’s very easy on the eye. But then Val’s face flashes before me… and no one compares to him. I feel my face flush as an image of our last kiss enters my mind. I look away, fiddling with my backpack as I put the glasses away. “I don’t. I was just seeing how they look on me.”
“They will look horrible on your pretty face! Throw those ugly glasses in the first trash bin you come to,” he says, shaking his head as walks away.
Grumpy, grumpy, I think as I hurry out of the Academy. At least there was a compliment thrown in.
When I reach home, Mrs. Simpson looks out her door as I walk by her apartment. She gives me a disappointing look, as though she would rather I be somewhere else.
Rent hag!
I reach my apartment and open the door, but no one greets me. As I walk into the kitchen, I see Alfie sitting at the table with a duck berry pie in front of him.
“Where are Snowball and Malcolm?” I ask as I get myself a plate and fork. I’m suddenly hungry.
“The cat is in your bedroom, under that bed,” Alfie says. “I don’t know where that silly ghost is at the moment. He keeps popping in and out of the wall. Can’t you do something to get rid of him?”
“I thought he was your friend?” I say as I cut myself a slice of pie.
“Ha, I would never call a ghost my friend,” Alfie says so forcefully that I am taken aback.
This is not the Alfie I know and love! I think as I pick up my backpack, which I’d left hanging on the back of an adjacent chair.
“What have you got? A present for me?” Alfie asks.
I take the glasses out.
“Glasses! What are you doing with glasses?” he demands in a sudden angry tone. “Toss them into the garbage.”
Just to irritate him, I put them on…and scream! Sitting across the table from me is one of the pale, faceless creatures that attacked me in the tower of the library and Red Sumac in Bellow Moor.
“Who—What are you?” I shout, snatching Broom Hilda from where she is leaning against the table.
“I’m Alfie!”
I lift the glasses, and sure enough, it’s Alfie again.
“No, you are something else! Where is Alfie? You better not have hurt him?” I shout.
Suddenly, Malcolm pops out of the wall. “Finally, Suzy! Finally! You see he isn’t Alfie!” he says, smiling.
The strange being starts to advance menacingly toward me. That’s all the excuse I need to swing Broom Hilda with both hands. The creature screams in pain as the blow sends him flying through the apartment to collide with the front door.
As I approach the creature, I take off the glasses and look at him with my naked eye. It’s no longer Alfie! The illusion is gone!
The front door of the apartment swings open.
“What’s going on in here?” Mrs. Simpson shouts. She looks down at the pale creature that had been impersonating Alfie.
“It’s the glasses. She can see through our illusions with the glasses,” he shouts.
“Malcolm! You were right all the time! That’s not your wife!” I say as I advance on the creature impersonating Malcolm’s wife with Broom Hilda raised to strike. But I don’t have to land another blow as both creatures race from the apartment.
“What were they?” Snowball asks, sticking her head out from the bedroom “And where is Alfie?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know what kind of creatures they are or where they’ve taken Alfie.” I pause. “The librarian said they were ghouls when I told her about the attack, but after seeing how they impersonated Alfie and Malcolm’s wife, I don’t know what in blazes they are.” I nod toward Malcolm. “Do you know what they were?”
“No, I can’t tell you what they are. Maybe they are ghouls. I don’t know since I’ve never seen one.”
“Hmm, you’ve kind of led a sheltered life for a ghost,” Snowball says as she walks into the room.
“I don’t make it a habit of hanging out in cemeteries! So how would I know what a ghoul looks like?” Malcolm answers. We head back to the kitchen and I take a seat at the table.
“I know. I’ll look up ghouls in the book of magical beasts that Granny gave me,” I say as I reach for my backpack and pull the book. I put it on the table and Snowball hops up to look as I turn the pages. I leaf through and
stop when I come to a page showing a ghoul, glancing at it with confusion. “Wait a minute. If this is what a ghoul’s supposed to look like, then that’s not what attacked me in the tower of the library, or what is impersonating Alfie.”
Snowball leans over the book. “Eeeeuuuu! It looks like a zombie from The Walking Dead!” she exclaims.
“What’s a zombie?” Malcolm asks.
“It’s a dead person that eats people!” Snowball exclaims before I can stop her.
“That’s horrible. Just horrible!” Malcolm says as he starts to pace back and forth in front of the table.
“Malcolm! It’s not real. It’s not a real being!” I say quickly as I give Snowball a disappointed look. “On the other side, we put makeup on people to make them look like ghouls and have them chase people around in the woods,” I tell him
“That sounds stupid!” Malcolm says as he stops pacing. “The people on the other side must be really bored to pretend they are ghouls.”
Snowball starts to speak.
“Moving on,” I say, turning the page. “Ah, here. What about shapeshifters?” I see a picture of a lion and read that shapeshifters always assume the appearance of animals, never human beings. So that’s out. Hmm. I keep leafing through the book. It’s interesting, and I could definitely curl up with this book on any evening, but so far there’s nothing even close to the faceless creatures who make themselves appear like people.
I keep leafing through, hoping for something. “Ah, another possibility,” I say. “Windigos. They look like human beings.” I quickly scan what the book says about them. “Nah! They’re evil spirits who possess human beings and make them into cannibals.” By now, I’m nearly at the end. And there’s nothing that helps. The last entry I see is ‘wraith’ and I know it’s not one of those. I’m discouraged as I lay the book back down on the kitchen table. “Well, that’s that,” I tell Snowball. “Nada! Nothing.”
Snowball stops licking her favorite paw. “What about the bound part?”