Covenkeepers

by Denise Gwen

  “Okay,” Victoria said. Still eating her cone, she headed off toward Riverside. “Call me, okay? I wrote my cell number on your notebook.”

  “Oh.” Maddie glanced at her notebook. Great. So Victoria put her cell phone number on her notebook. But without a cell phone to call from, how in the world would she reach her new friend?

  Still absorbed with these cares and concerns, Maddie paid no notice to Bettina as she bade Officer Colton goodbye. “See ya later, Rick.”

  “See ya, Bettina,” he said in a husky voice.

  Hmm.

  As the two sisters eased up Main Street, Maddie cast a quick glance behind her. Officer Colton continued to stand there, his hands slung on his hips, watching Bettina walk away.

  “What was that all about?” Maddie demanded once they were out of earshot.

  Bettina shrugged. “Oh, let up, will ya? I was just talking to the guy. There’s no need to make a witch hunt out of it, is there?”

  “No,” Maddie said sullenly, “but I thought you were supposed to be doing something about Ezek—”

  “I was just talking to the guy, Maddie,” Bettina repeated, clearly irritated. “That’s all.”

  Maddie sighed and licked her cone.

  Bettina’s effect on human men was simply legendary. By the time she’d turned fifteen—Maddie’s age in two years—she’d already received several proposals of marriage, not to mention the offer from a mogul to spend the summer with him on his yacht, touring the Mediterranean. At the time, Maddie wondered how Bettina would manage to maintain her pale ivory complexion on a yacht in the boiling sun, but Mama worried and fretted over the invitation for a whole host of other reasons that she chose not to share with Maddie.

  But Bettina turned him—and all the others—down. She seemed coolly imperious to the way in which she captured men’s hearts with the ease of a winged Cupid and his trusty bow.

  It’s not fair, it’s really not fair.

  Bettina was born a blonde, and, witch or no witch, there was something about a blonde that did strange things to men. None of the other witches in the family had ever seen anything like it.

  “I felt like getting a little fresh air, and so while I wandered around the village—it’s a lovely little town, by the way, I’m so glad Nana found it—this Officer Colton, he came up to me and offered to buy me a soda.”

  Maddie gazed in admiration at her older sister. Bettina made it look so easy. And she did it so artlessly, too, as if she didn’t possess the first clue as to her magical powers over men.

  “When I first saw you,” Maddie said slyly, licking off the last of her chocolate ice cream cone, “I thought there was . . . a problem.”

  Bettina’s features clouded over. “Well, actually, yes. You’re kind of right.”

  Maddie glanced half-fearfully at her. “What are you talking about?”

  They stopped at the traffic light at the corner of Main and Market. “Well,” Bettina said, “Rick—I mean, Officer Colton—told me an unexplained freak accident happened last night.” She gazed meaningfully at Maddie. “A body washed up on the banks of the Ohio River in New Richmond. It’s all very hush-hush. The Sheriff’s Office hasn’t even informed the press yet. They transported the body downtown for the autopsy this morning. The coroner won’t officially release his findings until tomorrow morning at a press conference.”

  Maddie shivered. “Okay, what does that mean? Isn’t New Richmond awfully far from here? I mean, it’s at least thirty miles away, right?”

  “As the crow flies,” Bettina agreed. “But there’s more.”

  They crossed the intersection, then eased down South Market. At the corner of Market and Spring Street, they turned left. No more passersby at this point, the sisters began to withdraw into themselves. The closer they drew near to the house, the more discretion they needed to exercise.

  In a hushed tone, Bettina said, “Officer Colton told me the coroner observed something strange when he examined the corpse.”

  A sudden sinking sensation filled Maddie’s heart. She knew exactly what Bettina was preparing to say. They walked silently up Spring Street, drawing to a stop at the corner of Spring and South Fourth; they’d nearly reached the gravel driveway to their house, less than a block away. The Batesville Nursing Home sign clattered forlornly in the suddenly chill wind. The long, unkempt grasses flowed in the cool wind.

  “There were bite marks on the corpse’s neck,” Bettina said in a hushed voice, “and the corpse was completely drained of blood.”

  A frisson of fear rippled down Maddie’s spine. The sun set in the west, the air turned cold and crisp, as a sharp gale whipped through their thin garments.

  “There must be some other explanation,” Maddie whispered.

  “You know as well as I do, Maddie, what that means. Only a vampire could do such a thing to that poor man.”

  Maddie nodded. Yes, she knew it too.

  “They’re looking for us,” Bettina said. “It’s only a matter of time.”

  4

  As soon as they walked into the house, Bettina surged forward, her gaze focused on the dinner preparations. She bustled around in the snug kitchen—she’d made it cozy and inviting in just one day—pouring a bag of beans into one bowl and a creamy mixture of something else into another, then waved her wand over the concoctions. “Go find Mama,” she said over her shoulder. “Tell her I’ve got some news to share with her. She’ll want to use her crystal ball to find out what they did with that body.”

  “Okay.” Maddie stroked Roby’s head and the owl hooted appreciatively. “Now then, where’s Malamar?”

  Almost as if in answer, a distinct meow sounded from a room on the other side of the house. “Malamar?” Maddie dropped her school bags onto the kitchen table.

  “Don’t you dare do that,” Bettina chided her. “I’ll be setting the table in another few minutes.”

  “Sorry.” Maddie tersely waved her wand at the schoolbag. The bag lifted from the table and floated to a hook on the far wall. “Is that better?”

  “Yes, much better. Quit being so lazy.”

  “All right, all right,” Maddie muttered under her breath as she tucked her wand into her skirt pocket. “Malamar.”

  “Some people,” Bettina muttered into her cook pot of magical beans, “don’t know how easy they’ve got it. They don’t know how easy everything’s been for them since birth. Some people think they can just traipse all around the village, free as a bird, while other people are working hard to put dinner on the table and find out what’s going on in Salem. Some people—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Maddie groaned.

  Honestly, the way Bettina carries on sometimes, you’d think she was my mother. She sure acts like a mother.

  Maddie eased down the hallway in search of Malamar. As she passed by the entrance to the secret staircase—the staircase that nearly led to her doom just the night before—a shiver of coldness scolded through her. She shivered involuntarily and glanced at the wall space covering the staircase. Nana did a good job of sealing it up, but Maddie could still see the outline of the first step; the staircase fought against the sealing incantation, trying to find a way, any way, to break open again. It seemed as if the house had grudgingly allowed itself to be closed up, but didn’t feel quite ready to concede the point.

  Just then, the short hairs on the back of her neck prickled—a sure sign that someone, or something, watched her.

  “Danube?” Maddie called out. “Danube, are you here?” Usually, Nana’s cougar liked to tuck himself away in a quiet corner; since arriving at this haunted house, he’d taken to finding some unusual spots to hide in. But no answering purr came from the wildcat as Maddie edged down the length of the hallway.

  She reached the real staircase, tucked behind a pillar, the one leading to the bedrooms above her head, and walked past it. Just beyond the staircase, at the opposite end of the house, stood the great room with the bay window, overlooking the expansive grounds. She knew she’d fin
d her mother in the great room; at home in the castle, her mother favored a room very much like this one, a space to sit in and watch the lingering shadows of day falling to dusk.

  As Maddie passed the newel post, she shuddered to a stop, her head cocked to one side, listening.

  I heard something.

  On the other side of the wall, the wall leading down the hallway to the great room, she heard skitterings and chitterings of tiny teeth and claws came from behind the wall, behind the peeling wallpaper.

  She held her breath and remained still. Mice. Mice in the walls, and, judging from the scratching of all those tiny feet, a fair number of them. Yuck. Well, what else did she expect? The house had stood vacant for how many years, and despite the fact that Malamar looked exceedingly plump and well fed of late, there was a limit to the number of mice that even Malamar could torment and kill.

  There. The skittering stopped.

  She hesitated a moment, then stepped forward gingerly. The hallway fell silent, but she sensed the tiniest bit of disquietude as she resumed her careful walk down the length of the hallway. She looked uneasily from one side to the other, and as she listened, the noisy skitterings suddenly started up again on the other side of the wall.

  I’m afraid to admit it, but it sounds as if the mice are listening to me walking down this hallway. What’s up with that?

  She glanced behind her and inhaled in shock. In just the few moments she’d spent in the hallway, it’d transformed into a cavernous expanse, stretching out behind her for miles. Worse, she didn’t see Bettina anymore, puttering in the kitchen. From what felt like a vantage point of several hundred miles away, she could barely discern the kitchen table, set for dinner, but she didn’t see Bettina.

  Where did Bettina go?

  Maddie licked her lips. Her mouth tasted dry. Her heart thudded dully. As the skittering increased, a thin edge of terror crept into her belly, and tightened into a knot. It sounded as if hundreds of mice were scrabbling up and down the inner walls. She looked with apprehension at the wall, imagining the footprints of the mice, leaving their tiny little indents in the worn wallpaper, and then glanced back toward the kitchen.

  What happened to the kitchen?!

  The opening to the kitchen had closed up and sealed shut.

  Who closed it up?

  The prickling sensation at the back of her neck intensified.

  “B-B-Bettina?” she called out in a quavering voice. “Bettina?”

  The skittering and chittering behind the walls swelled to a crescendo.

  It creeped Maddie out. For one thing, she really didn’t care for mice. For another thing, it sounded as if they were ready to break through the paper-thin walls and start attacking her. She took one step forward; her foot caught on something sharp; she stumbled and shrieked. She thrust out her hand to catch her balance, and her hand landed on the wall. She instantly regretted doing this, for in the moment that the palm of her hand made contact with the wallpaper, the paper-thin wall roiled against the weight of the mice as they skittered up and down the inside wall. Their tiny, skittering feet tickled the palm of her hand.

  Oh, that is so gross!

  It was as bad as touching a mouse.

  “Bettina! Nana! Mama!”

  She righted herself and stood stock-still in the hallway, trying to regain her bearings. At that moment, as she gazed around her, she realized something awful—the hallway had disappeared.

  The hallway is gone!

  She looked around her in dumbfounded wonder and despair at her new surroundings. The hallway had constricted, contracted in around her, boxing her into a narrow, confining room. She’d be crushed to death if she didn’t act fast. But what to do? A wail of despair rose in her lungs until her gaze locked on something that gave her a measure of hope. At the far end of the room, she recognized something she remembered from all the Nancy Drew mysteries she’d loved reading as a little girl—a dumbwaiter.

  A dumbwaiter! How awesome, how awesome does it get?!

  For some curious reason, dumbwaiters didn’t really reckon much in a witch’s world, but in Nancy Drew’s world, they rocked. Anytime Nancy needed to find her way out of a pickle or a fix, she ran to the nearest dumbwaiter, an old-fashioned feature found in old houses, from back in the day, when a veritable army of servants ran a household. A tiny elevator on a pulley, it was built for the sole purpose of transporting plates of food up and downstairs from the kitchen to the grand master suites, where his highness waited for his breakfast bowl of porridge and a spot of tea.

  Of course, Maddie should have known; it’d be only natural for this old house to boast a dumbwaiter; it probably came in handy lots of times when a cook wanted to send a hot plate of food upstairs to one of the residents. She’d never seen this particular dumbwaiter before—a niggling thought at the back of her mind—but it didn’t give her too much cause for concern. Perhaps it’d been there all along, and she just never noticed it. Surely, she’d simply walked past it dozens of times.

  She hurried to it as the skittering in her ears grew louder and more intense. She yanked open the tiny cupboard door, even as a small voice in her head told her not to do it.

  This is wrong. Maddie, you’ve got sharp eyes. If this dumbwaiter were in the house, you would’ve noticed it the first night you arrived. What’s it doing here in the middle of the hallway? It’s mighty convenient, isn’t it? Don’t you suspect something’s amiss?

  She heard the voice but she paid it no heed. All she could focus on at the moment was the horrible, wet, squelching sound of all those sharp little teeth eating through the wallpaper, coming to get her.

  “Enough!” she cried out. The cupboard door flew open and, sure enough, she saw a metal platform attached to a rustic cable system. She tested the strength of the platform; it felt strong enough to support her weight. The skittering noise grew louder, then a ripping sound pierced her eardrums as the mice broke through the tissue-thin wallpaper. The mice ripped and tore at the paper as they clawed through and scuttled down the wall, their razor-sharp feet striking the wood flooring as they tumbled and fell down upon one another, chasing her. Like a swarm of bees returning to the hive, they flew straight for the dumbwaiter.

  “I hate you, you little buggers!” She jumped up onto the platform and slammed the door shut behind her. The mice struck the door and fell back to the floor, chittering with indignation. They’d scrambled up the wall to get her.

  “Go away! I hate you all!”

  The confined space of the dumbwaiter closed in around her. She pushed against the door, but to no avail; it’d been sealed shut. A cackling sound reverberated from deep inside her head, a sound she recognized but could not put a name to; a male voice, cackling with a malignant glee.

  I recognize that voice. I’ve made a terrible mistake. I’ve just fallen into his trap!

  “Oh no,” she whispered. The platform dropped down with a sickening lurch. She pushed against the wooden door, trying to force her way out of the dumbwaiter, but the door had sealed her shut inside as if in a tomb. The dumbwaiter lurched one more time, she screamed, and it plummeted to the depths of the cellar below.

  * * *

  “Mama!” Maddie cried out. “Nana! Bettina!”

  Of all the luck. Trapped in the dumbwaiter. Her nostrils flared at the all too familiar musty, dank smell, telling her she’d plummeted to the cellar; it filled her with dark foreboding as she breathed in the odor of decay, dust, mold, and the cool, wet feeling of a moist, dark place that had not seen the light of the sun in years, if not centuries.

  The dumbwaiter platform shuddered to a stop, and then all grew still. She pressed gingerly against the door, but it did not budge. A prisoner.

  Come on, Maddie. You can’t always depend on Mama or Nana to get you out of a fix.

  She closed her eyes, straining to remember the exact wording of the door-opening incantation. She patted her pockets and a wave of relief washed over her as her fingers curled around her wand. She fished it out of
her pocket and held it at the ready.

  “All right,” she said, pointing her wand at the sealed door. “Ouverarteum!”

  It worked. With a surge of relief, she watched as the hinges clicked and the wood strained, and then, magically, the door to the dumbwaiter swung open.

  She gazed, aghast, at the view before her. She’d landed in the cellar, all right. And it looked as dark and dank and musty as it smelled. She looked around her cautiously, then clambered out and stepped onto a hard-packed earthen floor.

  As she stepped away from the dumbwaiter, the door slammed shut behind her. She jumped, startled. The gears creaked and grinded, floating the platform back up to the main floor. Who—or what—controlled the dumbwaiter?

  With her wand at the ready, she made a cautious turn around the perimeter of the cellar. There, in a dusky corner, covered over with spiderwebs, stood a desiccated row of shelves holding hundreds of bottles of wine. She stepped forward to examine the bottles. Whoever stored these bottles knew something about wine—they’d placed the bottles on their side so as to facilitate the cork absorbing the wine flavor. Nana would approve, but who in the world left behind such a glorious wine collection?

  She peered at the dusky labels but could not read them—the gauzy spider webs covered everything. She used her wand to pull the drifts of web aside, and gazed with disgust at her wand, which was now covered with sticky, gooey spider web.

  Whatever spider made this web is a spider I so don’t want to meet.

  But now she could read the labels. These wines were certainly distinctive; 1845 Chateaubriand, 1870 Merlot, 1774 Sauvignon Blanc, 1924 Pinot Grigio. Wow, these were vintage wines. She made a mental note to mention this to Nana. Nana would simply love these wines.

  And then a flash of consternation flared through her.

  The next time I see Nana, that is. If I see her.

  With her thoughts on Nana, Maddie brought herself back to the present. She’d found herself, yet again, in a place where she didn’t belong. She scanned the cellar, looking for the staircase.