by A. W. Jantha
“Win-Winnie,” Mary ventures. “The box—I believe it summons—”
“I will not trust that blasted chattering box again,” snaps Winifred. “Sarah, come. We’ll find the house of that traitorous bottom-dweller of a sister, and we’ll turn it inside out!”
“But Winnie,” Mary says, following her sisters to the shop door. “It’s been three hundred years. What if her house does not stand there any—”
Winifred whirls around and bears down upon her. “And three hundred years later, our own house stands the same, does it not, Mary?”
“Yes,” Mary yelps. “Well, except that everything is broken now, thanks to—”
“Enough,” Winifred says, sniffing with disgust. She turns on her heel and heads back to the front of the store.
“Enough! Enough! Enough!” chimes Sarah, stomping her boots and twirling her skirts.
“But what if Sarah could call the children through the box?” Mary blurts.
Winifred freezes, unused to being challenged by either of her sisters.
“Sarah can already call the children, you dalcop.”
“Yes, if they can hear her,” Mary says quickly, trying to fit all her words into one breath, “but what about the ones who are too far away to—”
In the background, an oblivious Sarah slips a ring onto her finger and holds it up to the window, examining the shine.
“Go on, Mary,” says Winifred with disdain, turning and stepping toward her brunet sister. “What if I am wrong and thou art not wrong? Is this thy meaning? Hmmm?”
“Yes, I mean, no, I mean, of course not,” Mary says, quailing under her sister’s stormy gaze.
Winifred leaves the shop, snatching at Sarah’s wrist as she passes her. “Our brooms! They’re gone!” Winifred calls out.
Sarah stumbles after her, throwing Mary an apologetic look. “We shall find more brooms!” Sarah replies cheerily.
Mary turns away with a sigh. She sees a piece of fool’s gold—pyrite, her mother called it—and runs one finger along its rough ribs. She still remembers the day she found a piece of this at the age of six and told Winnie she’d made them all rich. Winnie, with the superiority of several years and her own mistakes, replied that Mary was a stupid, gullible girl.
Mary picks up the worthless stone and examines it in the thin moonlight. “I’m always just the sister on the outside,” Mary sings softly. “I’m always just the sister without a ride.” She pauses to swallow a sob. She sucks her lips into her mouth, steadying herself, then opens her hand to see the stone again.
After a moment, she turns toward the open front door and continues to sing: “I can’t see past that look inside your eye.” Around her, gemstones float slowly into the air, catching the light of streetlamps filtering through the front windows. “I can’t tell what you’re scheming of tonight.” Her voice lifts higher, stronger: “I don’t know where I’ve done you wrong—but I’m not slow.” Mary strides toward the door with more determination. “Oh, this ain’t love—oh, Winnie, I know.”
Mary swings onto the street, but her sisters are nowhere in sight. A trail of gemstones follows her out, sparkling and crisscrossing as she twirls down the street by herself, her voice gaining confidence. “Ever since your first words and your first hex—long before your powers and your projects—you always thought you’re better than me. You’re top dog and I’m the flea.” She freezes in front of a secondhand store, checking her reflection in a standing mirror on display. “But that’s not true, the world’s not for you,” she insists, spinning away. “You’re not in charge—the world’s always been ours! I don’t know where I’ve done you wrong—but I’m not slow. Oh, this ain’t love—oh, Winnie, I know!”
As Mary passes Dot’s Music Store, a trumpet in the window floats up and plays a soulful riff, its sound muffled by the thick glass like a 1930s jazz intro. A narrow drum sidles up to it, sticks rapping in time with Mary’s sashaying footsteps. “Oh! Winnie, I know! Winnie, I know!” she belts out, arms spread wide to take up all the space she can. The musical instruments burst through the plate-glass store window and trail her down the walk. “Tonight, I’m doing everything! I’ll show you who I’m meant to be! Tonight, I’ll prove that I’m worth your time. I’m full of witchy energy. I don’t care what you’ve got planned, or if it’s grand! Oh, this ain’t love. Oh, I ain’t slow. Oh, Winnie, I know!”
She spins around, pirouetting in the warm light of the moon, and frolics down a row of huge houses, throwing her arms out as she dances, her toes barely touching the ground.
“You might not want it to be true, Winnie! But I’m more than what you see in me, Winnie!” The freedom is intoxicating, and the gemstones and musical instruments form her own glittering entourage. “Tonight, before sunrise—I’ll push back on your lies! And I’ll be more than a bore—oh, so much more than you thought I could be—Winnie! Oh, this ain’t love—oh, Winnie, I know. I’m taking a stand—tonight’s the Mary show!” She ends with a dramatic flourish, chest heaving.
Beside her, someone clears her throat impatiently. Mary pivots, stones and instruments crashing down on the pavement.
Winifred watches her with distaste, two red eyebrows arched almost as high as her hairline. “Art thou quite finished?”
Mary draws her limbs close to her body and smooths her skirts self-consciously. “Yes, Winnie, sorry, Winnie,” she says, watching her feet.
“Good,” says her sister crisply. “I have a plan.”
The three sisters hurry through the picket fence surrounding a beautiful white house—one of the few homes on the block whose lights are still on. Inside, a handful of teenagers in costumes dance to loud music. Another group is sprawled on a selection of chairs and couches.
There’s a cauldron on a table near the door, and Sarah hurries over to it, picking up one of the items inside, which is wrapped in a crinkling brightly colored paper. She peels open the wrapper and tastes the contents with the very tip of her tongue. “Chocolate!” she says, and then spits, throwing the thing down. She goes to grab an item with a different wrapper on a platter of frosted cookies, but as she’s bringing the salmon-colored thing to her mouth, Winifred elbows her in the stomach. Sarah gasps as she drops the candy and clutches her middle.
“Get to work,” says Winifred.
With a huff, Sarah pulls the talking box from the depths of her skirts and goes to the nearest young man, who is dressed in a black cape with blood spattered down his unbuttoned white shirt. “Well met, good sir,” she says, batting her eyelashes and giving him a warm smile.
“Uh—h-hi,” he says around pointed plastic teeth, trying very hard not to look at her low-cut bodice.
She shows him the box, which is balanced daintily on the tips of her fingers. “Wouldst thou explain to me how this contraption works?”
Behind her, Mary chews her lip nervously as Winifred grins.
“So, you’re saying we need a fragment of bone?” I ask Elizabeth.
My eyes flit behind her to Travis, who is talking in a low voice to Binx and Emily.
My phone buzzes to life with an incoming call, interrupting us.
I pull it out of my pocket and look at Isabella. “Uh, where’s your phone?”
Isabella blinks and tilts her head. “My phone got left behind in my peacoat when they turned me into this magnificent creature.”
“Well, you’re calling me.”
“What? I don’t even have opposable thumbs!” she retorts.
I turn my phone down to show her.
“Poppy, where’s that photo from?” she asks. “I like it. I didn’t know you took it.”
I turn my phone back to me and see the visual that pops up when she calls. It’s a shot of her in a woolly sweater at the beach, gazing out over Salem Harbor with this beautiful faraway look on her face. I took it shortly after the start of the school year.
“And I thought you didn’t like taking photos on phones,” says Isabella teasingly.
“It’s...convenient,” I say
, trying to shrug it off, but she can probably tell I’m embarrassed.
“It’s okay,” she says. “It’s a nice picture. I’m glad you took it.”
Blushing, I answer the call and press the phone against my ear, grateful to stop that conversation in its tracks. “Hello?” I ask.
“Poppy, that might not be—” Isabella’s voice fades out of my range of hearing, like a car radio spun down to low.
The world takes on a milky hue, as if the light reflecting off leaves and blades of grass has a blurry filter on it. The thoughts in my head slow and spiral, and all I can think about is the beauty of the song looping through my brain.
Come, little children....
I’ll take thee away....
I’ve never tasted words before, but these words taste like...buttercream frosting.
I look at Isabella, whose black-and-white face is pressed close to mine, and I realize I’ve collapsed onto my back in the grass, though I don’t remember when I did that. She looks concerned, and I hear a distant whimper that seems filtered through layers and layers of cotton balls.
Suddenly, the idea that Isabella could be trapped as a dog forever seems impossible. And my parents?
My parents will be fine. Maybe Hell’s even a welcome break for them. Nothing to do? No pressure? It sounds...nice. Besides, the witches just wanted some time to enjoy Halloween night—and don’t we all, really? Anyway, I have a blood moonstone to track down for Sarah. And where’s the spell book? We have it, don’t we? I look at my friends. No. My enemies?
Isabella whimpers again, and I want to share this song with her to help her understand the mission. I want to share this song with everyone. I could dive in and swim through its warm, slow waves of dark chocolate and cinnamon....I think I will....
The phone is ripped out of my hand and the voice disappears, leaving me with an aching sense of loss.
“Why did you do that?” I shout at Travis, who has ended the call and taken away all the comfort that came with it. “Give it back!”
He looks at me with wide eyes and shakes his head. “No phone for Poppy.”
Elizabeth crouches beside me, taking both of my hands in hers. “That was the voice of my sister Sarah,” she says. “I’d know it anywhere. But how did she speak to you through that thing?”
My thoughts are fuzzy and running slow, and I’m not sure how to answer.
Elizabeth seems to notice. She touches my cheek, and the chill of her fingers spills over my face and down my neck.
I shiver, and when I do, the last of the song’s effects seem to vanish.
“Sarah has a gift,” Elizabeth adds, “but all her life she’s used it selfishly.”
Travis’s phone rings then, and we both turn to look at him.
“Isabella,” he says, showing us the screen, where there’s another incoming call from...Isabella Richards.
“They took your phone and they’re working through your contacts,” I say to Isabella.
“My recent calls,” she agrees. “Oh, no. My mom. My dad.”
“I’m sure they’re okay,” I say, trying my best to sound reassuring.
Isabella nods. “Can’t think about that right now. How did they get it to work?”
“There’s a lesson about locked screens in here,” says Travis, rejecting the call with a quick swipe of his thumb.
The three ghosts are looking from each of us to the next, clearly puzzled.
“These phones allow you to talk to people far away,” explains Isabella. “You can even send written notes and photos.”
When Binx knits his brow, Isabella hesitates. “Photographs. Sorry. I forgot they weren’t around when you—” She breaks off. “Never mind. The point is, Sarah is calling people I know and trying to cast a spell on them, but I don’t understand why. Poppy, didn’t you say that last time they flew over Salem to cast a spell on everyone? Doing it one by one—isn’t that slower?”
“I don’t know. Hearing it made me want to sing it to all of you. Maybe it’s like some game of telephone, but with her spell,” I say, looking to Travis. “It’s a good thing you didn’t let her finish.” I shake my head.
“Perhaps,” says Elizabeth. “But if Winifred is involved, there is some other scheme in play. You must find that moonstone, Isabella, or my sisters surely will. Find it, and destroy it.”
Isabella nods. “Show us how to cast that spell you were telling us about earlier.”
“Well, as I was saying,” says Elizabeth, “we must first find a fragment of bone, along with the fruit of the earth, leaves deceased, and a bed of soil.” She studies Isabella for another long moment. “You’re going to make a great witch one day, you know. You’ve already got the cunning and bravery.” She smiles. “It’s a good thing, too. You’re going to need them both.”
Travis and I scour the dark woods for holly berries while Isabella scratches in a clearing that’s well away from any fresh graves. Emily and Binx help by picking through the freshly turned dirt, pulling out any leaves and bits of grass that might stifle the spell. Isabella reappears after a few minutes with a sharp splinter of bone in her mouth.
“Where did you find that?” asks Travis, eyeing it. “Actually, you know what? Forget I asked.”
I put the berries in a heap at the center of the dirt circle, and Elizabeth sets the bone down beside them. Travis takes a handful of dead leaves and twigs and adds them on the other side of the bone.
“You’ll need to add a piece of yourself to it,” Elizabeth says. “Winnie would recommend blood, but I think that’s a bit too morbid, don’t you?”
“I’ve been shedding,” says Isabella, shaking her whole body like a dog trying to air-dry. “Will that work?”
“We shall see,” says Elizabeth.
I stoop and pick up a short stray hair of hers from the ground, then add it to the pile of items.
“My mother taught me a spell after she gave me the moonstone, so that I might always be able to find it should I ever lose it. But she made me swear never to tell Winifred or the others. It’s not in the book,” says Elizabeth. She then leans down and whispers directions to Isabella, who repeats the spell in a strong, clear voice: “‘Blood of family, blood of stone. Over, under, backward roam. On mountain high, in graveyard deep, show me where the moonstone sleeps.’”
The leaves and twigs rearrange, sketching a map that turns piled foliage into hills and valleys and drawing lines that might be borders or roads. The berries roll, too, clustering along one winding line of bare, wet earth.
“Those are buildings,” Elizabeth says, leaning down and pointing at each berry. “The chapel. The milliner’s house. Mine.” A lone berry tumbles far away from the others and nestles into a soft bit of earth. “That’s my childhood home. And this one was the Binxes’ house.” She looks up at Emily. “Do you remember, poppet?”
The girl nods solemnly, then a sad smile breaks over her face.
The bone is beginning to tumble now, too, end over end, until it reaches an outcropping of leaf-land bordered on three sides by damp soil. It digs itself into the lower right side, like a particularly ghastly pushpin.
“That is where the blood moonstone is,” says Elizabeth, pointing.
I squat down to get a better look at the makeshift map. “Where is that?” I try to imagine modern-day Salem overlaid on the berries and wet dirt. “Winter Island?” I look from Travis to Isabella, and then to Elizabeth.
“Yes,” she says thoughtfully. “Winter Island. There was a fort for defense of the town, but it was also a place for selling and drying fish. Dozens of ships passed through there every day.”
“It’s a park now,” I say. “People go there to camp and vacation.”
“A park with a lighthouse,” Isabella says, looking thoughtful. She gazes up to meet my eyes. “If anyone knows anything about the lighthouse’s history, it’s Principal Taylor. We need to talk to him right away. He might know if anything was dug up when they built the lighthouse, or when they tore down the old port.�
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“Okay,” I say slowly, trying not to commit, “but what are the chances? He’s not exactly our biggest fan.”
“Poppy,” says Travis. He uses the tone he adopts whenever he wants to snap sense into me. “Principal Taylor may have been a bully in high school, but he’s not a monster.”
I sigh. “I hope not.”
“You know I’m right,” says Travis. “As always. And you’re going to be the one to ask him, since you can remind him what a jerk face he was to your dad.”
I smile faintly, recognizing the insult he’s picked up from Aunt Dani. “You know, maybe we should go check out the Taylors’ place. Besides, I saw Principal Taylor leave our party. I bet he’s home with the lights off keeping trick-or-treaters away, if he’s not already asleep.”
“I know a shortcut,” says Isabella.
We all look at her.
“Katie and I...used to be friends,” she says.
Confirmed. Travis and I exchange glances, then give her a look, inviting more explanation.
“What? It was a long time ago,” she says. “Like, when we were little kids.”
I can tell she doesn’t want to talk about it, which just makes me more curious. “All right, we’ll revisit that bombshell after November first,” I say.
“Katie Taylor? Really?” Travis cuts in. “Not that we’re judging you,” he adds quickly.
I shoot him a look, then turn to Isabella. “Ride or die, right?” Realizing what I said, I spin to face the ghosts. “No offense.” But I don’t see them, and I’m filled with a sudden sense of loss. They were my only line of communication to my family. I look around frantically. “Elizabeth? Binx? Emily?” I call out to the chilly night air. I spin back to my friends. “Where did they go?”
“I don’t know, Pops,” says Travis. “Looks like we’ve been ghosted.”
Twenty minutes later, Travis, Isabella, and I sneak past the houses near the Common.