Silas shakes his head. “Zeke is far too powerful for me. With my pack, maybe. But on my own...” He shakes his head again.
We keep cleaning. For the next hour, we toss around ideas.
Marley suggests setting a trap for Zeke in the trees, but we quickly realize that we have no idea how to build such a trap. Annie wonders if we could lure him in with baked goods, but Silas promises that Zeke eats a strictly Paleo diet. What is it with these magical creatures and their healthy habits? They’re making us Earth Realm witches look bad. Except for Cora. Her diet is beyond reproach.
Cora is too busy flirting with Silas to make any helpful contributions to our strategy session, and I’m too frazzled by our disaster of a practice session.
I wanted to be able to use the Banishing Spell on Zeke, but now that I know how bad we are at it, I don’t think it would work.
Slowly, the kitchen begins to shape up. It’s far from sparkling clean, but it’s also no longer looking like a war zone.
“That’ll do for now,” Annie says, pushing a pile of flour over the edge of a countertop, into a waiting trash bin. “I’ll finish cleaning tomorrow. For now, we’d better get ready for this dance.”
“I need a shower,” I say.
Every time I blink, flour seems to fall into my eyes. If I’m going to be of any use tonight, I need to give myself a good scrubbing.
Everyone agrees, except for Silas, who didn’t get coated in flour in the first place. “I’d like to get the lay of the land around the hotel,” he says. “I want to know what kind of a space we’ll be working with, tonight.”
“Good idea,” I say. Then, I glance over at Cora. She’s still gazing at Silas with dreamy, love-struck eyes.
“Cora, why don’t you show Silas around the inn?” I say.
Cora smiles. “I have to go home and freshen up first,” she says. “But after that, I’d be happy to.”
“I don’t mind waiting,” Silas says.
“Well, that settles it!” I say quickly. “You two will do some reconnaissance around the inn. The rest of us will meet you there around—what...” I look over at Annie and Marley. “Six?” I say. “Seven?”
“Better say six,” Annie says. “We don’t want to miss anything.”
Right. We wouldn’t want to miss any murderous attacks. We want to be there when all the fun starts happening. “Six it is,” I say.
We give each other floury hugs before parting ways.
Marley decides to go to Annie’s house for a shower instead of coming home with me, since Annie’s place is closer to her van. That’s fine with me.
At least, it’s fine with me at first. I’m so caught up in the excitement of introducing Silas to Cora and practicing magic with my coven to feel lonely. But as some of the excitement wears off, my doubts and fears surface.
By the time I reach my apartment, I’m deep in a downward spiral. It’s the same spiral that I fell into when we were trying to cast the Banishing Spell. What makes me think I can do this? Who am I to believe I can be a witch? I’m nobody. I’m terrible at magic. I’m not going to be able to protect my town tonight, let alone the Earth Realm as a whole.
I must have been delusional to think that I could.
I climb the stairs to my apartment with heavy feet.
My eyes are still scratchy with flour, and the more I try to rub the flour out, the more irritated my eyes become. They’re so blurry, and my glasses are so smudged, that I can barely see the stairs.
I stumble along, and finally reach my door. Beyond it, I see the walkway that leads to Chris’s place.
A loneliness that I haven’t felt in years strikes me. It’s a deep ache that drills down to my core, and makes me feel hollow—like a part of me is missing. It makes me desperately want to feel whole. I want someone to hold me and tell me it’s okay.
This hollow, scared, lonely feeling is familiar. I remember the last time I had it.
It was when Chris dumped me the first time. Five years ago.
And before that?
It was when my mom died—when I was seventeen.
My blurry, irritated eyes are tearing up now. I’m not sure if it’s because of the flour imbedded in my eyelids, or if I’m crying.
Oh, man.
Yep.
Tears are now trickling down my cheeks.
I’m definitely crying, for the second time today.
I hate crying.
I hate feeling this lost—this weak and scared and needy.
But I feel it, nonetheless. I’d give anything to have Chris open up his door and run over to me right now. He’d ask me what was wrong as I collapsed into his arms. ‘I need you,’ I’d say, pressing a tearstained cheek against his solid chest.
He would hold me up, just like he always has before.
I look longingly down the walkway to Chris’s unit.
It remains empty.
I turn to my own door and push it open.
Turkey is inside, waiting for my arrival home. On seeing me, he starts swishing his tail side to side.
I raise the corners of my mouth and wipe a stray tear from my cheek. “At least I have you,” I say. “You and my coven.”
After giving Turkey a quick pat and several kisses, I make my way to the bathroom. When I strip off my clothes, a light cloud of flour rises up into the air. I guess I didn’t brush all of it off.
It takes a full half-hour to wash all of the pasty clumps of flour off of me. When at last I’m clean, I step out of the shower and wrap myself up in a towel.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of my reflection. I look scared.
I feel scared.
Scared about what the night might hold. Scared that I’m not a good enough private investigator, and that I’ve completely let this case get out of control. Scared that I’m not a good enough witch, and that I won’t be able to stop Zeke.
Scared.
A line from ASBW floats into my mind: ‘Thus, you may banish such intangible items as feelings, memories, or those things that are too large or disperse to be illuminated with light.’
Fear is intangible. Could I banish it?
I walk up to the sink and place my hands on it. I lean into the mirror and look at myself. My pupils are dark black holes. As I look into them, I think: There’s more. There’s more than fear in there.
My mind goes back to the loneliness that struck me so forcefully as I climbed the stairs to my apartment.
Chris, rejecting me.
Chris, stepping away from me.
How abandoned I felt the first time he dumped me, and then again, earlier today.
And before that—my mother.
My knees go all wobbly. I clutch the edge of the sink.
When she died, I felt angry at her. So angry at her—that she left me here. She left me behind and I was just a teenager. A girl of seventeen. My life was chaotic enough, and then she had to go and die.
I poured all of my attention into obsessing over Chris, didn’t I?
I grip the sink harder, leaning my weight against it.
If I didn’t have a mother to make me feel safe and loved, at least I could imagine that Chris could give me those things.
I took all of my need, and pivoted it squarely onto his shoulders.
It’s rested there since she passed away.
I wanted Chris to take care of me. I wanted Chris to protect me. I wanted Chris to love me.
I transferred it all onto him, instead of ever facing my loss head on.
It still lives inside of me: all of that pain; all of that need.
That’s what I need to banish. If I can banish it, the fear will go too.
There’s a little candle sitting on the edge of my sink. I grip the wick with my finger and thumb, and twist it in my hand until my fingers are black. Then I draw spirals on each of my palms. Next, I light the candle, and I turn off the bathroom light.
I take a deep breath, and open my medicine cabinet. I need something to draw with.
/> I spot an old tube of lipstick. I got it a while back, when I went through a short-lived phase of wearing red lipstick. I was twenty-one, okay? Everyone knows that twenty-one year olds are fashion challenged. I pull out the red lipstick, and then close the medicine cabinet.
Another deep breath.
I pull the top of the lipstick tube off, and then start to draw on my mirror.
I need a symbol that will represent the feeling I want to banish—this deep-seated feeling of abandonment and loss—this root of all my neediness and fear.
I draw a heart. Then I add a little frowny face inside of it.
I know, I know. It sounds so cheesy! But you know what? I know, right now in this moment, that the symbol I’ve drawn is perfect. Precise.
I step back, and look at the symbol. It’s illuminated in the flickering light.
Do I remember the words?
I have to think for a moment, but then they come to me. It feels so natural to gaze at the illuminated symbol and move my hands, slowly and rhythmically counterclockwise while I say the poem aloud. The verses roll off my tongue. My focus never wavers.
“Banish, banish, banish,
Thrice times I banish thee
Gone for good, forever,
All before me that I see.
“Banish, banish, banish,
With this witch hand, this heart, this mind
Gone for good, forever,
In your absence peace I find.
Banish, banish, banish
From without, within, below, above
Gone for good, forever,
Not in hatred but with love.”
As the last of the phrase leaves my lips, I close my eyes.
I have this whooshing feeling inside of me, like a door that’s been closed inside of me is opening up.
For an instant, it feels like the whole world disappears.
When I open my eyes, I feel different.
Now, if you’ve known me for a while, you know I’ve had this different feeling before.
I’ve felt changed so many times. It’s hard to imagine that before my witchy journey began, I always felt ‘the same’. It seems that now I go through major life-changing personality shifts every few months. Ah, well. It must be a part of the journey.
I lift my gaze and look into my eyes in the mirror again.
My pupils look different.
It takes me a moment to recognize what the difference is.
That blackness inside of them—before, it seemed to be a void. Now, it looks full. The black carries a wholeness that I’ve never recognized before.
Hunh.
Imagine that.
Well—maybe I’m a better witch than I thought.
I stare at myself for a moment, until my lips curve into a smile, almost involuntarily. As soon as I smile, the flickering candle goes out.
The room is dark.
My smile grows broader.
In the past, the candle going out has been a good sign. A sign of completion. A sign of work well done—a spell well cast.
I reach for the light switch, and flip it on. Bright light fills the room. I start to hum, happily. I did it! I completed the Banishing Spell!
Now that I know it’s possible, surely I’ll be able to do it again and banish Zeke from Hillcrest.
It’s not impossible. I can do this.
Right?
Chapter Fifteen
I’m rushing; pedaling as hard as I can. I’m wearing a black dress, black leggings, and my cowboy boots. The soles of my boots keep slipping off my bike pedals when I start going too fast. I’ve almost wiped out three times already, and I’m only halfway to the inn. Despite this challenge, I refuse to slow down.
It took me a little bit longer than I expected to leave my apartment and head to the dance. First, I forgot to pack something that we could use as charcoal for our spell. When I went back to pack up ashes into a little tin, Turkey started to worry. I spent a little while trying to convince him I had everything under control, but then I just gave up and asked if he wanted to come along.
He did.
Now, he’s in my messenger bag as I ride up to the inn. It’s about six-thirty by the time I prop my bike against the picket fence. The sun is sinking behind the mountains to the west of town, and the temperature has dropped. I’m glad I threw my hooded sweatshirt over my dress at the last minute. I zip it up as I walk through the front gate.
I can hear music playing behind the Inn, where the bonfire must be set up. The hum of voices drifts out along with a guitar riff. There must be quite a crowd back there already.
A small group of townspeople is gathered on the sidewalk out front, too. Dawn and Neville have strung up little lights all along the front porch railings, and there are even little torches lining the walkway up to the front of the inn.
The inn’s front door is open, and the lobby within is lit up. I can see people mingling about inside. There's also a lit-up path that leads around the side of the building.
I step onto the path that leads around the side of the house. “Ready?” I say to Turkey, who has poked his head up so that he can take in his surroundings.
“It’s noisier than I thought it would be,” Turkey says.
“The whole town is here,” I say. “And it’s a dance. The Hillcrest Funk Collective is playing.”
“Do they have to play so loudly?” Turkey says.
“We’ll find you a spot away from the bandstand,” I say. “Remember—you’re keeping your eye out for a white wolf. Send me a telepathic message if you spot him.”
“How could I forget?” Turkey says. “Penelope, my concern is that you won’t be listening. I know how it is when you’re distracted. You can’t hear me as well.”
“I won’t get distracted,” I say.
“You won’t?” Turkey’s tone is skeptical. “I know how you are, when you’re mooning over men.”
“Not tonight,” I promise my cat. “I think I’ve really processed my feelings for Chris, once and for all. I’m a changed woman, Turkey.”
Turkey is quiet. I can’t tell if it’s because my answer has satisfied him, or because he doesn't believe me.
The band grows louder.
I round the corner of the inn. The scene before me is truly festive. How could Rebecca ever consider a different venue for this celebration? Dawn and Neville do such a wonderful job of transforming the inn’s back yard into a dance venue.
A huge white tent is stationed in the middle of the manicured lawn. Little white lights are strung up around the edges of the tent.
On one side of the tent, a bandstand is set up. On the other, I see a folding table has been turned into a bar. It’s draped in a white tablecloth and edged in little white lights. There are bowls of punch and rows of wine bottles along the top. Around the bottom of the table are tin buckets overflowing with ice and cans of beer.
People are mingling around the bar area, and Rebecca stands behind the table, uncorking a bottle of wine. A few people are positioned in front of the band stand, dancing already. I see Annie and Marley, dancing to the Grateful Dead cover that the Funk Collective is playing.
The inn’s back yard is expansive, and in addition to the tent there’s a huge roaring bonfire, ringed with wooden benches. This is where most of the action is. The benches are already lined with people. I spot Mayor Haywater, illuminated by the flickering fire, sipping beer as he talks to a gaggle of other men.
I also spot Cora and Silas, sitting on a bench looking quite cuddly. Well, that was fast! I grin. My eyes continue to rove over the crowd.
There’s Sarah Pelletier, lingering near a group of women who are talking. She looks like she wants to be a part of the conversation, but she doesn’t quite know how to jump in. I feel sort of bad for her as I watch, but then I remember that she most likely bought up land in Hillcrest just so that she could sell it for a profit to Powder Paradise.
I’ve been so caught up in our werewolf crisis that I’ve barely given thought to her s
cheme. Should I warn others in the town about the fact that Sarah’s sold land to the evil resort company in the past?
Yes, I probably should. Once Zeke is taken care of, that’s going to be the top of my to-do list.
Thinking of Zeke, my eyes rove to the dark edges of the inn’s lawn. The inn’s back yard is bordered by forest. The wood beyond the yard looks dark black, even though the sky is still purple and navy blue.
Is Zeke prowling through those woods, right at this very moment?
I should gather up my coven, so that we can begin keeping watch. But first, I need to find a safe, quiet spot for Turkey. I walk away from the bandstand, towards a far corner of the tent. There’s a little pile of purses, backpacks, and some abandoned coats there, and it looks exactly like the piles of laundry in my apartment that Turkey sometimes likes to snuggle up in.
“How about this?” I ask, setting my bag down next to the others.
Turkey stays nestled inside. We both look around.
“Good view of the woods,” Turkey says with a tone of approval. “And the bonfire, and the stage. I think it will work. But Penelope, don’t you want me with you? Maybe I could help...”
“I know you could help, Turkey, but it’s more important to me that you’re safe. I would never forgive myself if you became a wolf snack because of me.” I squat down so that I’m next to him as I talk.
At the mention of ‘wolf snack’ Turkey disappears into my bag. I can just barely see the tips of his little black ears, and the very tippity top of his tan-and-white head. “Very well,” he sends me, “You know I’d prefer to be with you, but if you insist...”
“I insist,” I say, sticking my hand into my bag and stroking his head. “You’ll be safe here. Just reach out to me telepathically if you need me, okay? And I’ll listen in in case you spot Zeke first.” While my hand is in my bag, I grab my handcuffs. I tuck them into my sweatshirt pocket. Who knows? They might come in handy tonight. Once they’re securely tucked in my pocket, I lean in and give the top of Turkey’s head a kiss. Then I stand up. “Now, I really need to go round up the coven.”
Turkey pokes his head up. “Be careful, Penelope,” he says, as I walk away.
The Case of the Banishing Spell Page 16