Her monologue cut off as the back kitchen door slammed shut in front of her. Her eyes went huge, and she turned back to see me with my hand out, my face focused.
“Oh my gosh, do you, like, have the Force?” she said, making herself smile.
I arched one eyebrow, and then said a single word, with a voice as imperious as a goddess.
“Sit.”
She sat on the spot, right on the ground.
That wasn’t magic, just the force of suggestion. The doors were magic, but it wasn’t the Force. One thing I’d been learning, going over Grand-Mere’s spells, was that magic wasn’t all power and incantations. It was actually like stage magic — you did things that create the suggestion in people’s minds that you can do a lot more.
I could not move things with my mind. That would be a ton of work, if it was at all possible. I hadn’t found anything like that in Grand-Mere’s book. But I had, as a simple test, put a spell on the doors that I could activate any time I wanted, to open or close them with a gesture. Very handy if you’re an occasionally forgetful lady who didn’t always have her keys.
Or who needs to make a dramatic point to a flighty young person that you were very serious about her stopping and listening to you.
“Now, Lucy, we are going to talk and you are going to tell me everything.”
“Okay, look, Mimi, I mean… there’s… Is the cat going to stay?” she said. Kashmir had cleaned to his own apparent satisfaction, and now paced in the space between me and Lucy, pointedly not looking at her.
“Yes, and if you don’t wait for me to ask questions before you go blathering, Kashmir will have my permission to sharpen his claws on whatever he wants.”
Kashmir meowed lazily, and his silent padding suddenly became a click-clack, click-clack of claws on tiled floor.
Lucy swallowed.
“Why didn’t you go to school today?” I said, asking the simplest question.
“Oh, well, I did, but then I realized that you might need help at the shop. I think making kids go to school everyday robs them of experiences that…”
Kashmir was a good familiar. I didn’t even have to say anything, and he stopped his pacing, and with a pair of graceful leaps was on Lucy’s lap, staring right into her face. No growls, just a silent warning stare.
“So it had nothing to do with you hearing something? About your teacher?” I said.
“What teacher?” Lucy said, staring right into Kashmir’s golden eyes.
“Higginbottom.”
“Oh, her. I don’t think, I…”
Lucy’s full lips went into an impressive pout, then they started to quiver. She seemed to be melting before my eyes, as though all hope was gone.
Drawing in a sharp breath, she shrieked in a terrible wail that made even Kashmir jump back, and then she fell forward, hugging herself. Her whole body shook with her sobs. She said something, again and again, but with her tears and sob-distorted voice, I could only just make it out after a half-dozen repetitions.
“I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it!”
All of my sternness completely melted away. I went down on the ground with her and held her. It was a few minutes, I suppose, with her crying and me whispering that it would be okay and stroking her hair.
I was barely aware of Kashmir, who stood a little aloof, until his nose went into the air, like a string had been attached to it, and yanked up. He moved his head a little to either side, and moved forward on Lucy.
“Kash, no,” I whispered, giving him a quick glare.
He ignored me, and put his nose to Lucy’s hair, and sniffed. Cat’s don’t make any noise when they sniff like dogs, but Kashmir’s nose throbbed like it was trying to get off his face. Then with a thoughtful look he walked back a few feet, spun, and settled down on the floor.
“Okay, Lucy, you got to tell me. Everything, from the beginning.”
She sat up, her cheeks and eyes puffy, her voice a little scratchy from crying.
“Okay, you’re going to get mad. Really mad, and I don’t want—”
“Lucy, we have a problem which we need to solve. Get talking,” I said, putting a little steel in my voice. This was serious and she needed to know it.
“Okay. But you’re gonna get mad. I may have… kind of… cast a spell that killed Mrs. Higginbottom.”
I stared at her, without expression. The words, I knew what they meant, but I couldn’t quite understand them.
“You…”
“Well, not just me. I also may have sort of accidentally started a coven with a few kids in school.”
This was an even stranger statement. I tried to make it make sense to me again, and again, and it did not work. My little sister was supposed to be as in the dark on this magic stuff as Sibyl’s kids were. She didn’t care about it, had never really asked about it. But now…
“Okay. Okay, wait. Okay,” I said, and stopped. I was beginning to babble, and that wasn’t going to do anybody any good. “From the beginning.”
It began the way a lot of stories about girls in trouble began.
“There’s this boy, Ethan. And Ethan and his friends, like, they were talking about being into witchcraft and stuff. Like, it was in detention that I heard them talking to each other. They said, like this town had a long history of witches, and they’d found this secret book that told them how to really do it.”
My heart nearly stopped, and Kashmir’s ear’s whipped up so quickly they made a sound.
“A book?” I said, almost squeaking.
Lucy rolled her eyes, though not at me. “Yeah, he brought it into school. It had some cheesy title like ‘Liber Mortis’ and it was… like, you know how magic books are supposed to look? Like big with old leather and pages made out of human skin and things like that?” she said.
“What?” I nearly shouted. “What kind of movies are you watching?”
“Anyway, this was, like, a printed book from a long time ago. The 90s, or something. A little paperback with pentagrams and stuff like that. It was dumb, but they were really into it and wanted to start casting spells. So I thought, you know… We’re a real magic family, right? So I’ve never done it, but I bet I could do something. Like… when they were trying to cast their spells, I’d make something real happen.”
I was aghast, and shocked on a several levels. First, I had no idea Lucy knew our history, let alone that she wanted anything to do with it. And had she performed magic? Like, behind my back? Then, why, if she knew how, would she not talk to me? For Pete’s sake, this stuff is dangerous.
I wanted to say all of that, but all I could manage was a strangled, “Why?”
“Well… I mean…” she twirled her long, curly hair in her hands. “Ethan’s really cute.”
I tapped my foot on the ground, trying to think of what to ask her next. There were too many questions, and I wanted the whole story… but we were under some time pressure here. A woman was dead. Someone like Lucy had been witnessed at the scene of the crime.
“Okay, let’s jump forward. Last night, was that where you were, with your… coven?” I said.
“We totally did study! Like, for 15 minutes. I know I wasn’t supposed to stay out like that, but I’m not a liar,” she said, looking into my face. “I’m not.”
“Just dumb,” I said.
“Yeah!” she said, weirdly brightening. “A little dumb. I don’t try to be, but… anyway, Mrs. Higginbottom had been a complete monster to everybody this week. My report was funny, and didn’t deserve to get you dragged in there. She gave Ethan an F because he’d read a book that wasn’t on her list. Emily and Rosemary, those are two other girls in the coven, they both got detention for like, almost nothing. So we decided to get a little revenge.”
I gasped, inadvertently. I guess I’d forgotten that Lucy had already told me that she’d killed Mrs. Higginbottom, or that she felt responsible, at least. And now I was going to have to hear why. I tried to think of some way to distract both of us, so she wouldn’t
have to say and I wouldn’t have to hear. But no dice.
“Okay,” I said. “What spell did you cast?”
“It wasn’t a real spell, you know? It was from their book, the ‘affliction of the ailment’ where you get like a little doll made up like the person, and then you bring something related to an illness, right?”
I shook my head. That didn’t sound like a real spell at all. A spell has three parts — the focus, the invocation, and change. Maybe a doll could be a focus, the object you use to keep your mind on where the magic would happen. But the invocation can’t be fake words in a book, they have to mean something. And the change…
“Tell me how you did the spell,” I said.
“Well, we got the doll, and while Rosemary and Emily said the words, Ethan poured a bunch of cough syrup on it.”
“Wait, what?” I said.
“We wanted her to have a cough. A bad one, so she couldn’t go in to school for a couple of days. So they did that. And I, while that was going on, just kind of put my mojo on the doll.”
“Mojo? Lucy, what are you talking about?” I said, thoroughly confused.
“My mojo. You know, when you want a spell to work, you just scrunch up your face and say, ‘spell, work.’ Like trying to remember an answer for a test, or holding your breath. You just focus on it real hard.”
This wasn’t how magic worked, and I was about to go into a long and fascinating lecture about how she had everything wrong when something got in the way. A very specific something — a cat’s tail, whipping in my face and practically being shoved in my mouth.
Lucy flinched away as Kashmir placed himself between the two of us. Then he turned around and gave me a very stern, very meaningful look. I caught at least some of his meaning — this is serious. We need to talk.
“When I get her back to school,” I said.
“What?” Lucy said, alarmed.
“You’re going to school. You’re truant, and they can arrest you for that. We’re not going to make things worse—”
“Make things worse?” she practically shrieked. “I killed somebody! How can it get worse?”
“We don’t know that’s true,” I said, even while I thought of the description that old Sandinski woman gave of the girl near the van… “But we do know that you need to be in school, now. Nothing will happen to you there.”
Chapter 8
We were barely out of the car when a pair of men from the sheriff’s office came up to us.
“Nothing will happen to me?” Lucy said, in a high-pitched whisper, and she moved like she was going to take off running down the street.
“You again,” said Deputy Quincey the Mustache, who I’d nearly run down in the street earlier that day.
Luckily, he was paired with Sgt. Frisco, who had a very tired and worried expression on his face.
“Mimi, you’re just bringing Lucy into school now?” he said, making an obvious effort to keep any implication or accusation out of his tone.
“She’s late,” I said, and with my hand on her shoulder, directed her toward the school.
Deputy Quincey stood in my way, and held up a hand. He’d almost grabbed me when Sgt. Frisco put his own hand up.
“Now, hold on. We need to ask some questions about Lucy, Mimi,” Sgt. Frisco said.
“So ask, but don’t make her any later for class. I’m sure there’s some place inside the school will let us use, right?” I said, looking the sergeant right in the eyes.
“Naw, we’re taking the little girl in,” Deputy Quincey said, a cruel kind of gleam in his own eyes.
“Wait a minute,” I said.
“You can follow behind us,” Frisco said, and there was a real finality in his tone.
“Is she under arrest?” I said, chin stuck up in the air. “Because if she’s not, then there’s nothing you can do to detain her. And she’s a minor. In fact, until I talk to my lawyer, not another word.”
Now I’d have to get a lawyer. On TV, people always have a lawyer. I had to figure out how to have one, quickly.
“No, Mimi,” Lucy said, shrugging gently away from my hand. “I have to go with them. I’ve got to talk.”
“Lucy!” I said, practically shrieking.
“You heard the girl,” Quincey said, muscling between us. He hustled Lucy, who was being weirdly meek and quiet, into the back of the police car.
The second he did, a bell blared out from the school, and the whole building suddenly came alive, kids bursting out from doors, into the open halls, walking by the front. So half of the school suddenly appeared, and got to watch a cop put my little sister into the back of his car, like she was a criminal.
On the way to the station, I called Sybil and Max, and neither picked up. I had to become serious about this lawyer thing, and I needed someone else to know how serious this was… or better yet, someone who could assure me it wasn’t serious at all. Put my mind at rest.
Except, once I stepped into the sheriff’s office just a few paces behind the two cops and Lucy, I was painfully convinced this was a big, big deal. About the worst thing that could possibly happen, and there was Lucy, taking it all in stride. Maybe she was simply overwhelmed and had shut down inside. She moved without her normal bounce, without her buoyant smile. Even her hair seemed to have become flat with the depressing experience.
“Wait up,” I said warningly as I muscled my way past Quincey and reached Lucy, putting my hands on her shoulders. They were as tight as a rope pulled taut. She was under real strain. “Don’t think any of you are getting away from me.”
“We’ll talk to her alone,” Quincey said. I turned around and got right in his face.
“Oh, no you don’t! She’s a minor, and isn’t going to spend two seconds unaccompanied in this place. You try and keep me from her, I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” Quincey said, trying to look tough and ice cold.
“Hex you,” I said.
Snap.
The entire bustling sheriff’s station suddenly seemed to be put on pause at my words. The lady deputy at the desk, a couple of men sitting at tables, and even some of their apparent arrestees stared at me. That my family had a history of witchcraft was kind of an open secret. You could almost tell who had old Lafay roots and who didn’t by how much they understood that.
Quincey was from an old Lafay family, though not one with much reputation. And he’d clearly heard stories about my family, because he flinched. The ice cold tough guy seemed to melt a little.
“See? See?” he said, his eyes flaring with something like fear. “It’s all this creepy stuff, just like that kid told us about.”
“What kid?” I said, just as a conference room door opened, and a deputy led a teenage boy out of it.
“Ethan?” Lucy said, for an instant brightening. “Why are you here?”
The boy looked like he’d picked his style out of a big book of Standard High School Rebellions, subcategory: Goth. Dyed black hair, pale white make-up on his face, his clothes all various shades of black or faded black.
When he saw Lucy, he somehow went even paler, and whipped around, jerking away from the deputy who was escorting him.
“She’s here! She’s gonna get me! Help!”
The next scene was a bit of a fracas. The boy scrambled away, and Lucy followed him for a few steps as though she could somehow explain everything if he would only wait a minute. But he didn’t wait and Quincey jumped to block her, and Frisco interceded to keep his partner from putting his hands on a minor, so Ethan was making a mad dash for freedom all on his own.
Poor kid, it was a bad choice.
It ended with Ethan sprinting to the back of a room where an emergency exit with a metal push bar across it waited. He jumped into it with all of his speed and strength.
Unfortunately for him, it was locked, so he slammed full speed into the door, and collapsed on the floor like a rag doll.
And I couldn’t help it. I just burst out laughing, and kept laughing until we were all sitting
down at the table, two frazzled looking peace officers, a cackling witch… and little Lucy. My laughter completely died away when I saw the look on her face. She was stricken, completely.
Maybe she’d been more taken with this Ethan than I’d supposed. Maybe she was more worried about what was going to happen than she was letting on. Either way, she was pale now, and shaking. She didn’t make a single, solitary sound, but tears were streaming out of both eyes. My heart broke, looking at my little sister like that.
“All right,” Sgt. Frisco said, trying to sound rational and calm after the minor bedlam had taken place outside. “What’s a coven?”
“She doesn’t have to answer that,” I said immediately. “You haven’t even told us what we’re doing here. I think we’re going to leave. Come on, Lucy.”
I grabbed her hand, and she grabbed back, hard, squeezing my fingers.
“We know what they want. And I’ll tell them the truth,” she said, as earnest as a sad kitten.
“Lucy…”
“First,” Frisco said, looking all business, “Tell us what you were doing last night.”
“Okay,” Lucy said, and then she told her story, essentially telling them what she’d told me this morning.
At the end, Frisco and Quincey gave each other a significant look. Quincey’s mustache rippled, like it was doing the thinking for both of them.
“After that,” Frisco said, “Where did you go?”
“Home,” Lucy said. “Straight home.”
Quincey coughed, and shook his head. “No, before you went home, you went to Rochemon street, didn’t you?”
Lucy blinked, her eyes finally dry, and looked confused. “Where? I don’t know where that is.”
“You went to Mrs. Higginbottom’s house,” Frisco said, simply. “You were seen there.”
Lucy shook her head, looking bewildered. I think that was the moment when I made up my mind. I was pretty sure Lucy actually had nothing to do with what had happened to Mrs. Higginbottom. And that was pure relief.
Undercover Coven (Sister Witchcraft Book 3) Page 5