Hannah was getting slightly flustered and consequently short in her replies. “Everyone was considered and I was chosen. The queen witch cannot be argued with.”
Kelly leaned over and whispered to me, “She did just admit that her mother chose her, right?”
I nodded. That was in fact exactly what had just happened.
“Now if we could move on to something productive?” Hannah asked.
“Sure. Let’s do something productive. I love productive,” said Jackie.
“Yes, let’s get on with it. Some of us have jobs,” said the black-haired woman.
“That’s Damien. She works at the bakery,” said Kelly.
“I would love to get on with it,” Hannah shot back. “So, as this is our first meeting, we are going to issue assignments. These are temporary assignments. Over time we will shift witches and tasks around Twinkleford, so that each witch is exposed to each borough. Well, maybe just for four of them. I don’t know that we will subject anyone who doesn’t already live in Misdirect to go there.”
At this, Kelly, Jackie, and I glanced at each other, but Hannah just kept going.
“I’ve gone around talking to shopkeepers and the like and they’re all very excited to meet us. I know some of you who graduated a few years ago have already made your mark in town, but this is an opportunity to form new alliances and relationships. We are going to be the best Young Witches club ever. I know it.”
She clutched her clipboard to her chest and looked around at all of us with delight. Even Kelly, who was the most subdued of us, was trying to hide a smirk.
“Let’s get on with it, then,” said Jackie.
Hannah glanced down at her clipboard and started calling names and issuing assignments. Some of them actually sounded quite interesting. There was a shoe store in town that apparently was going to reopen soon. There was also a cobbler; I found that information surprisingly intriguing. There was the woman who ran the farmers market. People didn’t just appear and buy things, it required coordination. Hannah and Taylor also had several dress designer shops on the list. Unsurprisingly, they had given themselves those assignments.
As we moved down the line I started to notice something. The best assignments went first. As there were fewer witches left, the good assignments disappeared. Now the tasks became things like feeding the stray birds, which of course was nowhere near as glamorous as dress design. Finally, only Jackie, Kelly, and I were left.
“Let me see, what did I give you three? Oh, yes, your assignment was in Misdirect. I knew you’d be fine with that since Jade already lives there and you two are friends with her. I’m sure you’re familiar with . . . the type of place that it is.”
I wondered for a brief moment if she was going to assign me to work with unicorns. That I actually wouldn’t have minded doing. The only problem was that there was no way my grandmother would have ever agreed to such a thing.
“What’s our assignment then?” I asked. Just get on with it, I wanted to add.
“The swamp beyond the trolley stop is rather filled with toxic waste. I thought it would be best if you could go out there and clean it up,” said Hannah.
“How are we supposed to do that?” I asked.
If Hannah had at any point climbed down from her very high horse throughout this meeting, she was now climbing back up, and I had the distinct impression that the horse was taller than ever.
“It’s not for me to tell you how to do your assignment,” she said, talking very slowly and enunciating each word.
Kelly, Jackie, and I exchanged looks.
I had been wrong. I could definitely dislike Hannah and Taylor even more than I had before.
It’s good to admit our faults. Someone should have told Hannah and Taylor that.
Chapter Twenty
We had agreed to meet Lowe for lunch after the meeting. By the time it was adjourned I was thinking about canceling, but I knew Lowe would never forgive me. The swamp would take up a lot of valuable time, but it was important that we keep snooping, too. An added bonus to the latter was that it would give us a chance to see Gill again and fill him in on the awesomeness that was Professor Burger’s lab.
For once Jackie agreed to come with us. “I told people at the office that Hannah was a terrible taskmaster, and I wasn’t sure when I’d be back. They were all sympathetic. The Carlisle family is famously terrifying even in the town office. And I need to eat something either way. Should we go look at the swamp after lunch?”
Kelly and I agreed that Jackie’s plan made a lot of sense, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do after the swamp excursion. I just wasn’t sure how to go about it.
After Michael’s feather had produced orange steam, I knew I needed to speak with him again about Kyle. The only trouble was, speaking with him meant going into the Bleak Area again, walking through the cemetery, and once again approaching the fortified house of a possible murderer.
Just your average day in the magical town of Twinkleford.
Robin’s restaurant was pretty busy when we arrived. The clatter of plates, the sound of laughter, and the smell of spaghetti meeting us when we walked in. Luckily, Lowe had already arrived and saved us a table, and when we walked in she was chatting happily with Gill. I could have told her that it looked as if she’d stuffed her face with a bunch of red flowers and come away with the color, but I didn’t want to embarrass her. Anyhow, it was nice to see her so excited.
Gill waved to us as we arrived. When we sat down at Lowe’s table he said, “There are already a couple of appetizer orders in with the cooks for you. I brought four waters. Anything else you need at the moment?”
When we told him there wasn’t anything else, he shuffled away with a wink. “He asked what happened with Professor Burger. I told him to let you get settled in first and then we’d tell him all the details. He’s going to come back in a couple minutes to hear them,” said Lowe. The color in her face was dissipating, but she was still bright red.
“What did happen?” Kelly asked.
We relayed all the information we had as quickly as possible, because I was impatient to get to the part where she’d tell me what her older brother had said about Kyle. Since he worked in the sheriff’s department, if there was any new information he should have it.
As eager as I was to hear any news, I also didn’t want to be unfair to Kelly, so I made myself take my time describing Professor Burger’s lab and the advice she had given us. I also told her about the potions we had tried the night before and how promisingly Bethel’s had come out, especially with the orange smoke that had appeared in the cauldron. Turned out I was more excited about that news than my friends were. Like Bethel, they thought the orange smoke wasn’t necessarily all that important.
“Your grandmother is right. It’s the most common color. I’m not sure it means anything,” said Jackie.
“It’s all we have to go on at the moment,” I said.
“We have a lot to go on! We just don’t have a lot of time. Every minute Kyle is out there in the woods, he’s in more danger,” said Kelly.
Then she fell silent, realizing that what she’d said might not even necessarily be true. We didn’t know that Kyle was still in the woods. In fact, the most likely scenario was that he had been kidnapped and taken far away.
“What did your brother say?” I asked Kelly.
“James said there were no new leads on Kyle’s disappearance. The sheriffs have been canvassing the area where Kyle went missing, and the sheriff is treating the disappearance and the murder as connected. I guess Quinn did think that Henry wanted to tell him something, but he never got the chance. But James doesn’t think it had anything to do with Kyle’s whereabouts. We all agree that if Henry had known where Kyle was he would have said so right away. I guess the only thing James said that was interesting was that there was a strange residue on some of the trees around where Henry was found. Maybe it was from the orange steam, or maybe it was from something else. It’s going to the lab to b
e tested, but I’m not sure we’re going to hear the results any time soon,” said Kelly.
“The lab is usually pretty backed up, but maybe Quinn asked for a rush job on these tests,” said Jackie, tapping her finger to her lip.
Gill came back just then and said, “Now, tell me everything. I have a few minutes. All tables are satisfied. That means one of them will want something in about thirty seconds.”
He looked around among us eagerly.
I gave another quick recap of Professor Burger’s setup at the university and Gill marveled at the extent of the lab.
“I’ve heard her name whispered reverently on campus,” he said. “She’s apparently brilliant. I can’t believe she gave you packets to play with. Maybe it’s because of your grandmother, but it’s still very impressive. There’s no one better than Burger. I’m so glad I got to tag along on that adventure.”
“We are too,” I said.
“If you end up on campus again, let me know,” said Gill. “I’m there quite often and I could use a bit of excitement.”
“Oh, yeah. Have you said that before? I had no idea,” Lowe teased.
Gill gave her an awkward grin. Then another table really did want his attention, so he hurried away. We tried to continue our conversation about Henry and Kyle, but it became impossible. The restaurant had gotten very crowded and noisy, so we would have had to shout, but none of us wanted to be overheard.
Kelly was getting more frantic about her brother, I could see it in her eyes. On the one hand we were doing all the snooping we could, but on the other her brother was still missing. The toll it must be taking on her family was unthinkable.
Jackie didn’t have long to linger, and the noise defeated us. We finished eating quickly and headed out the door. It was time to go to the swamp.
“Do you think Hannah’s trying to foil your snooping?” Kelly asked.
The four of us were now walking toward the trolley, having decided that we might as well get this over with as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, none of us had any idea how to fix the swamp. For my part, I hadn’t paid any attention to it all summer. And anyhow, what did Hannah mean by saying it was toxic? It was difficult to tell.
For now we had agreed that we should go take a look. That meant the whole day would be wasted on Hannah’s assignment. How she came to be assigning me tasks I didn’t know, and I finally said so out loud.
“What are you talking about?” asked Kelly.
“I don’t know. It feels suspicious. Like she’s trying to keep us busy or something,” said Kelly.
“I would like to say that she isn’t that conniving or smart, but unfortunately I think she’s both,” said Jackie.
The trolley was almost empty at this time of day, and it didn’t take us long to reach Misdirect. We disembarked and made our way over to the swamp, Lowe included. She had decided to come with us even though she wasn’t part of the coven yet. “I’ve wanted to get a closer look at this one for a while,” she said. “I think there are some great bases for potions out there.”
“I’m so glad one of us is interested in that,” said Jackie dryly. Jackie of all of us did not like potions or mock potion experiments. Kelly viewed all of it is a philosophical exercise. I wasn’t sure what I viewed it as. I just knew I couldn’t stand Hannah Carlisle.
“How do we get over there?” I asked.
We were standing at the edge of the field beyond which was the famous toxic swamp, reportedly filled with all sorts of nastiness that Hannah wanted us to get up close and personal with. You could hear the buzzing and see the bright yellow bubbles and muck. It was, to say the least, an uninviting prospect. And now we had to figure out what to do about it.
Apparently.
Beyond the swamp was the forest. Between us and the swamp there was no path. If we just plunged along toward it, the high grass would probably scrape against our arms, and that would be the least unpleasant thing that might happen.
“I think I have a spellcasting for it. I’ll go first,” Kelly offered.
The other three of us formed a line behind her as she put her five fingers together, twisted, and flipped. When she opened her fingers the field parted for her and a path snaked away from us, only once deviating from the straight line to go around a boulder. The sun was now high overhead and I was getting hot. With the tall grass all around us, though, I was very glad I had worn jeans. Kelly was much better at crackle than I was.
Even in the field and on a cleared path there were plenty of bugs; I didn’t want to think what it would be like in the swamp itself. I also heard the crushing of dried grass as we walked along. Mice were scattering ahead of us, and I kept checking my feet to make sure nothing was scurrying across my boots.
I tried to ignore it, but I felt increasingly squeamish. I was not the sort of girl who liked to go traipsing through muck. Luckily, Kelly’s spell worked very well, and our path was entirely clear.
After we had walked for a few minutes, Kelly came to a stop and said, “It looks like the swamp starts gradually. Here, come take a look.”
I would have thought we were still twenty feet away from the swamp proper, but Kelly was right. The ground in front of her was wet and mucky and almost black.
“Is that a frog?” Jackie demanded, pointing to a sort of lump on the ground. All I could see were two large eyes and a strange shape in the mud.
“I don’t want to know what that is,” said Lowe.
As we looked around, we saw more and more little creatures. There were insects everywhere, including very large flies with purple wings. As we moved in toward the true swamp, I saw varieties of sludge the color of neon. Hannah hadn’t been wrong, about this at least. There were definitely very strong potions here. The combination of sounds from bugs, frogs, and little animals moving around on the ground made a loud backdrop to our conversation.
“We should turn back right now. This is gross,” said Jackie. “I can’t believe Hannah assigned us to clean this up. What was she thinking?”
“Maybe she thought there was some potion that would work. I’m sure she didn’t mean for us to actually go into the swamp,” said Lowe.
“You haven’t spent as much time with her as we have,” I said. “I’m sure she meant nothing more surely than that she wanted us to go into the swamp.” I was staring into the murky depths, where the very ground had started to bubble. The thick soup belched into the air, along with all manner of smoke and steam bubbling up from under the surface.
This was in fact a toxic waste dump.
“We can’t go on without real boots,” said Kelly. “Past this point the ground isn’t steady.”
We all looked at our feet. “Do you have a spell for that?” I asked Kelly.
Making boots appear was more like small magic. Kelly quickly did the wrist motion and muttered something about waterproof. The next instant my shoes were gone, replaced by knee-high black rain boots. I wiggled my toes inside them and grinned at Kelly. “Nicely done. Thanks.”
She nodded and smiled at me in return. “Let’s go. Everybody be careful. Don’t get stuck in the stuff. It looks like it would suck us up if we let it.”
Slowly Kelly started forward, each step she took accompanied by a loud squelching noise. First her foot would sink into the muck, then she work at pulling it out. The trouble was, the muck did not want to let us go. Our progress slowed drastically.
My legs started to shake as we kept moving. I felt the thrill of the chase, but also the sweat trickling beneath my armpits. Flies were starting to buzz annoyingly around my head. I swatted at them, to no avail.
Swamps sucked.
“What next?” Jackie asked, sounding almost desperate. She was not an outdoors kind of girl. “We don’t have all day!”
Just then something shifted underneath my feet. There was already glop and muck everywhere, but this was different. At first I thought it was nothing more than more mud or sludge sliding around, but an instant later there was a much bigger shift of the gro
und beneath me, and I realized we were in serious trouble.
A huge sea creature, or I should say swamp creature, blasted out of the green and black muck. Swinging in the air in front of us, it looked like a giant slug. The four of us went staggering backwards, slopping the disgusting stuff all over ourselves as we fled.
And screamed.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Run!” I yelled.
The base of the slug was still invisible under the ground, so there was no way to tell exactly how large it was. The part that was visible stretched about ten feet into the air. The thing took my breath away. It had a mouth but no eyes, and the mouth was open and screaming. More mud and brown water were spewing everywhere, disgustingly, and I even felt some land on my face.
“We can’t run! You don’t run in a swamp!” Jackie yelled. “Besides, that thing is in charge of this swamp! We’ll never get away in time!”
“Doesn’t he want us to leave?” Lowe was desperately cowering next to my shoulder, trying to hide her face. Suddenly the day was ten degrees hotter.
“He probably wants us to pay him his due! We should have brought him insects to eat as a way to buy safe passage,” said Kelly.
“Now she tells us,” said Jackie.
The swamp creature swung low as if taking a swipe at us. We fell to our knees to avoid being slugged—pun intended—in the head.
The next instant the creature was upright again, having grown at least two feet in height in the meantime.
“We have to do something!” I cried.
“He’s big! You can perform a spellcasting!” Kelly cried. She was right. This was no small magic.
“What if I anger him?” I yelled back.
Another strange scream split the air.
“Been there, done that,” Lowe cried. “Just do something!”
I might have thought I’d fail at the proper hand motion of spellcasting under such desperate conditions. To the contrary, I did it perfectly. My fingers came together and my wrist twisted in a beautiful motion. The next instant I opened my hand and locked my eyes on the mouth of the creature. A beautiful crackle blast split from my hand. As if the air had been let out of a balloon, it shot forward and knocked the creature backwards.
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