Witch Hollow and the Wrong Spell (Book 1)

by I.D. Blind

14. The Wrong Spell

  The girls heard about the incident on Halloween night from Jack. He told them about the gallows and the hanged man, when his cousins had just woken up. When Jack left their bedroom, Electra got out of bed and rushed downstairs.

  “El! Where are you going?” Cassandra and Medea darted after her.

  Electra ran into the library. She clutched a bronze clock from the table and hurried to the closet with the manuscripts in the glass frames. Taking the manuscript out of the closet, she put it on the floor and squeezed the clock tighter.

  “Electra, no!” Medea cried. “We shall dig up the grave.”

  The clock fell down, and the glass cracked. Electra hit it a few more times, breaking the frame. She removed the broken pieces and took the manuscript out.

  “Wrong spells,” she read the first page.

  The manuscript was old, completely hand-written with small, illegible writing. Electra thumbed through the yellow pages. She asked for a magnifying glass and read aloud the distinguishable lines:

  “Spells can go wrong if the spell is incorrectly pronounced, wrong ingredients or wrong portions are used... I can’t make out here... the result may be affected by the one who casts the spell, the purpose, the means… again not legible... the time, bad weather... I can’t discern the rest.”

  “Give it to me,” Medea said. “You’re not reading what we need. We already knew there was a mistake; we need to understand the consequences and how to deal with them.”

  She thumbed through the manuscript. Indistinct images of the sun, plants, and measuring cups appeared on the following pages, with descriptions of calculations and lunar days.

  “Here, I found it! Listen. The consequences. Wrong spells can cause bad weather, poor harvests, locusts, poisonous snakes, diseases, Ghosts, Reapers, and Demons.”

  The girls looked up at each other and again back at the manuscript.

  “I hope that’s all!” Cassandra said.

  “It’s bad,” said Electra. “Worse than I was hoping.”

  “It’s not so bad.”

  “Not so bad? Medea, read it again, then once again, and convince me that it’s not so bad. We should’ve read this before casting a spell.”

  “Aunt always said we should never enter the pantry; there was a reason for the ban. Who would have thought that one potion could cause such troubles?” Cassandra said.

  “Let’s immediately cross out the first four. Nothing of that kind is happening in Hollow now,” Medea said. “Disease? Who is sick?”

  “Mr. Acks was sick.”

  “Mr. Acks was not sick; he had been scared.”

  “How do you know? You’re not a doctor.”

  “I’m telling you, he wasn’t sick. Uncle Colin said he gave him sedatives, and the woodcutter felt better. Ghosts, Reapers, and Demons. We all know what the Reaper does. But everyone is alive. Therefore, it’s not the Reaper. It must be a Ghost or a Demon.”

  “Pray that it’s not a Demon,” Electra said. “Medea, look for G, Cass, for D.”

  While her sisters were looking for the books, Electra put the manuscript with the broken frame back into the closet. She knew that sooner or later the elders would stumble upon the broken glass, and could only hope that it wouldn’t happen too soon, not until she had decided what to tell them.

  Standing on the ladder, Medea pulled a thick book in a green cover and opened it.

  “Ghost! I’m reading. A dark creature. Does not have his own appearance; his looks are a combination of human thoughts or fears. Ghosts are evoked by a sacrifice. Not dangerous to life, but can cause fear or dread to a person or an animal.”

  “Cassie, have you found anything?”

  “Yes, I have. The Demon is a creature born in the depths of fire. Has the ability to disguise himself. If evoked by a sacrifice, the Demon can be banished on the night of the new moon, after it is caught in a fire circle.”

  All became silent.

  “Demon kills people,” Electra said after a long pause.

  “Even a fool sees that we’re dealing with a Ghost,” Medea said. “I shall find the Book of Spells.”

  “But something doesn’t make sense. Where is the sacrifice?”

  “Cass is right, we didn’t sacrifice anyone or anything...”

  “Umm.” Medea opened her mouth, then bit her lips.

  “What else?” Electra asked. “Is there anything that we don’t know?”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose, but I noticed that the thorns had scratched my fingers.”

  Electra covered her face with her palm.

  “Just a drop, one small drop, and I didn’t even think it would change anything.”

  “Blood sacrifice, bad weather, seems that we did everything to call the dark forces,” Cassandra said. “I understand now why I saw the witch. You were right, the Ghost, it reads our minds, right? It clings to an idea in our heads, any idea, and takes that shape.”

  “Yes,” Electra said. “I know now what I saw.” She ran to the table, opened the closet, and pulled out a book. “The Great Plague of London. Once I was going to read it but instead just flipped through the first pages. I know now whom I saw. It was the Plague Doctor.” She showed them a page with the images of the plague doctor, wearing a black robe and a mask with a beak.

  “How ghastly. Medea, and what did you see?” Cassandra asked.

  Medea looked down as if pondering something. “Light. Silver light. Beautiful. Bright,” she said, pausing after each word. “It filled the room, then slipped out of the door.” She returned to the shelves and began to search for the Book of Spells. After she found the book, she opened the page titled Dark Creatures, and read it aloud. “The title: How to banish an evoked Ghost. Blah, blah, blah... catch the Ghost, draw a pentagram on neomenia, and pronounce the spell against the dark forces. Here is the spell: Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

  Electra and Cassandra looked at her in bewilderment. “Is that a joke?”

  Medea chuckled. “Of course it is. You’re so stressed; I thought to amuse you a bit.”

  Electra gave Medea a sober and tired look, which made her stop fooling and read the spell.

  “Tenebris potestates pertinent ad tenebris. Dark forces belong to the darkness. Logical,” she said with a grin.

  “Neomenia,” Electra muttered. “Till we wait for the new moon, someone might get hurt again. Medea, come down and take that book with you. We should read it completely.”