by Amy Boyles
But I supposed there was no choice. “Jamison—”
Mama cut me off. “Did you want to see Reese?”
Jamison scratched his head. “I thought you said something crazy like I needed to kiss her. Dudette, that would be totally weird as I don’t even know this woman.”
Mama pinned Jamison by the arms and steered him toward her potion room. “I’m afraid that was Charming’s idea of a joke, Jamison. Don’t mind her. Come. Let’s see Reese. That’s what you wanted to do, isn’t it?”
“I guess so.”
Rose and I followed them to the room. “There she is,” Mama said. “Don’t you want to meet her?”
She gently shoved Jamison forward. His knees locked as if he couldn’t walk any farther. The look of surprise on his face confused me.
I couldn’t tell if he was excited or terrified. He reached a trembling hand toward her and paused midair.
“She’s so different,” he whispered. “I thought that woman Corley was my soul mate, and Reese looks like an angel.”
Agony washed over his face. I wanted to rush over to Jamison and throw my arms around his shoulders, but one look from Mother said to leave him alone.
This was his moment.
He leaned forward, and my breath hinged. It seemed that Jamison would kiss Reese, that he would break the spell. But when he stumbled back, I knew that dream was no more than smoke.
“My mind is, like, blown,” Jamison said. Sorrow filled his eyes. “I’m sorry, dudette,” he said to me. “But I can’t do this right now.”
With that, Jamison stumbled from the house and sprinted out the door. The three of us made it to the hallway to see him running, arms flailing, down the street.
“Well, I suppose that was one way to get rid of him,” Rose said. “I guess we’ll be putting lipstick on Pig and seeing what she can do.”
I shook my head. “We most definitely won’t. We’ll just have to cure Reese the old-fashioned way.”
My mother folded her arms. “How’s that?”
“Rots Smythe is hiding something. He contradicted himself when I spoke to him about Corley. And then there was a crash in his house and my hair got all screwed up. What if the answers lie inside the place he’s staying?”
Mama tapped her lips as she considered it. “Seeing as we don’t have any other leads in how to help Reese, I say we go there.”
“Let me grab my bag,” Rose said.
I clutched her arm. “Rose. We’re not going during the day. We’ll go tonight. When it’s dark.”
Mama frowned. “There’s only one problem. How do we get him out?”
Rose glanced at Pig. “Leave that to me.”
I smiled. “Great. Then it’s a date.”
Chapter 11
“I don’t know if my hair will ever recover from this,” Mama said. “At first I thought it was the humidity, but now it’s taking everything I’ve got to keep it in place.”
Rose shook her head. “Look at me! I look like I shoved my finger in a light socket.”
I touched my own wiry tresses before parting the bushes the three of us were huddled behind. “If we can figure out what he’s doing in there and stop it, maybe our hair will go back to normal.”
“It had better,” Rose said. “I think it’s sucking out my brain.”
Mama shook her head. “It’s not sucking out your brain.” She glanced down at Pig, who was nibbling the hedge. “Are you ready, Rose?”
“Oh yes, I’m ready. Pig, are you?”
Pig snorted a yes.
“Come on.” Rose gently pulled the leash, and Pig followed her through the shrub to the front of the house. Rose shoved back her shoulders and strolled across the sidewalk as if it was an everyday occurrence to be walking a pig on a leash.
She rang the doorbell. A moment later Rots answered.
I exhaled a sigh of relief that he was home. For once, Rots wasn’t wearing his coat. Which was great for us.
Rose said something to him, and then Pig darted into the house, leash and all. Rots whirled around and disappeared back inside, yelling for Pig to leave.
Next thing I knew, Pig darted back out the front door, the fur coat in her mouth. The fur trailed down Pig’s back, away from her feet.
Thank goodness. I didn’t want the little piggy to trip.
Rots reappeared and chased Pig down the street. Rose motioned for us.
Mama and I fired out from the bush and headed toward her.
“I told Pig to keep the fur for ten minutes,” Rose said. “So that’s what you’ve got.”
I frowned. “What if Rots uses magic on her?”
Rose smiled mischievously. “I’ve got that covered. Any spell he casts on her will dissolve.” She pushed us toward the door. “Now go.”
We didn’t have long, and we had to be quick. I gritted my teeth, ignored how my stomach clenched in fear and went inside.
The first thing I noticed about the house was that it was perfectly normal. Perfectly.
Like, vanilla-colored walls, leather furniture and dark wooden tables and chairs.
“Who lives here?” I murmured.
This did not look like the type of place I expected Rots Smythe to inhabit. I was expecting to see more along the lines of black walls, maybe rats scurrying about and, oh, a skeleton. Like, just a skeleton hanging around.
You know, because he was a killer and liked dead bodies.
Okay, so my imagination was getting the best of me. It happened sometimes.
“To the back,” Mama said.
Her hair rose stiff and high. I grimaced. It was only going to get worse, I knew that.
We wove through the house until we found it—a room with a black door.
“Aha! I knew he had to have something black in here.”
My mother shot me a confused look.
I hiked my shoulders to my ears. “I mean, have you seen the man? He looks like he would paint himself all over in dark paint and run around the neighborhood naked.”
“You really need a love life,” my mother said.
I ignored her barb. “Can you get inside?”
She frowned. “Let me see.”
My mother pressed her hands against a magical force field in front of the door. She pushed against it. It was like watching her palm press a bubble. The magic moved but wouldn’t give.
“Strange,” she mused. “It’s not water magic.”
I mentally reached out to it, touching the barrier with my power. The bubble extended to the ground, and it was then I knew what sort of magic it was.
Fire magic.
Why would Rots Smythe live in Water Town but be using fire magic?
Oh, the mystery just got more and more complex.
“Let me see if I can counter it,” she said.
The opposite of fire magic was water, so nearly a quarter of Witch’s Forge could counter the spell. But I had a feeling Rots Smythe was smarter than that. He wouldn’t leave a lock on a door that any witch could simply dissolve.
This might be tricky.
My mother called her magic and punched a hole, literally, through the barrier.
“Oh, that did it,” she said.
I studied her but said nothing. Mama opened the door, and we both gasped.
In the center of a room painted black (yes, I was doubly right) sat a dark green crystal inside some sort of machine. Wires coiled from the structure, curling toward the sky like a series of antennas.
“What the heck is this?” I said.
Mama ran her fingers over the box. “It’s very powerful.” Then she pointed to my hair. “It’s what’s causing your hair to stand on end.”
“Mine?” I felt my hair, and it was true, my hair was standing like the Bride of Frankenstein’s.
Thank goodness Thorne couldn’t see me like this.
Wait. What?
Why would I even be thinking about Thorne?
Mama grabbed my hand. “Come on. We have to tell the police. There’s something wrong her
e. This crystal is doing something with our magic. Can’t you feel it?”
Mama was asking a woman who had gone from barely having any power to having more than I was used to dealing with. I felt my magic surge, but I wasn’t sure what it meant.
Mama tugged me toward the door. “Come, Charming.”
We raced through the house and reached the front door. Relief buoyed in my chest. We’d made it. We’d be able to escape without Rots seeing us. We’d find Thorne and say that we happened to run into a big machine that Rots has in his home.
I sprinted out the front door right as Rots appeared. I held back a scream and did the only thing I could—I threw out my hand.
A chicken flew out from me and batted Rots in the face. Like, where did the chicken come from?
I glanced down at my hands as Mama dragged me away. “Great cover, Charming.”
I looked over my shoulder to see the chicken flogging Rots. Rots tried to shove it out of his face, but the chicken just kept on kicking and flapping.
We dived into the bushes, and I prayed that Rots hadn’t seen us.
Even if he had, the chicken took all his focus.
“What took you so long?” Rose said. “I thought y’all had been sucked into an interdimensional vortex.”
I cocked a brow. “Right. Because interdimensional vortexes are automatically what happens when someone takes too long to appear somewhere.”
Rose hugged Pig to her. “It’s what I think.”
“Let’s get out of here.” Mama pressed her hands together to use her magic, but nothing happened.
“Let’s get out of here,” she repeated. Mama brought her palms together with a grit and determination I’d never seen before.
But we didn’t move.
Her brow creased into deep lines. “What’s wrong?”
A light blinked on in my head. I grabbed her arm. “It’s your power. You touched the machine. It did something.”
“Oh, good grief,” she griped. “Rose, will you do the honors?”
“I would love to.”
A moment later we were back inside the courthouse. The three of us looked at one another.
“I’ll make sweet tea,” Rose said.
Mama stared at the walls blankly. I thought her brain might’ve broken. I squeezed her shoulders. “It’s okay. Really, Mama. It’s okay. It can’t be permanent.”
“What he’s doing—it’s horrible.”
I guided her to a chair, and she dropped in. “Maybe the prophecy wasn’t about you at all. Maybe it was about that man. You just happen to be here, in Witch’s Forge at the same time that all magic is sucked from the world.”
“We don’t know that he’s sucking magic from the world.”
Mama fired a look at me that said, are you crazy? “Of course that’s what he’s doing,” she said snidely. “Why else would my magic be gone right now?”
I shrugged. “Maybe it was feedback or something and your power will return soon.”
Rose entered with three tall glasses of sweet tea on a silver tray. She settled the tray on the table and sat. “Well, we have to tell that handsome vampire what we found.”
“How are we going to do that?” I said. “It’s not as if we can run into his office and announce that we broke into Rots Smythe’s house, found a machine locked behind a door, forced our way in and then discovered this magic-sucking device.”
The three of us stared at each other. I spoke first. “I mean, we can’t. Right?”
“We definitely can’t,” Mama said. “As soon as Thorne hears that we know something about what Rots is doing, he’ll be suspicious.”
“Why don’t we write him a note?” Rose suggested. “Slip it under his door and say it’s from an anonymous friend?”
I shot Mama a hopeful look. “That seems reasonable. I mean, he might go for that. It’s not a definite, but it’s possible.”
Mama considered it. “It’s the best idea I’ve heard so far. Okay. Charming, you leave the note.”
I shook my head with gusto. “No way. I can’t. He knows my scent.”
My mother’s eyebrow coiled to high heaven. “And he doesn’t have the hots for you.”
My face burned. “He’s a vampire. He smells people. Wait. That came out wrong. He has an amazing sense of smell.”
“Okay, then Rose will do it.” Mama smiled at her. “If you don’t mind.”
“Oh, I don’t mind. Not at all. I’ll leave the note tonight.”
“Good,” Mama said. “Now. We still have Reese’s curse to break and my power to fix. Charming, you’ll have to help with Reese.”
“Me? My job is to match people. Not break spells.”
“Well welcome to the club. You’ll be initiated by fire,” Mama said curtly. “You’ll have to help figure out a different way to crack the curse since Jamison is a no-go.”
Rose downed the rest of her tea and smacked her lips. “Well, I’m off to plant the note.”
“Let me pen it.” Mama found a sheet of paper and quickly scribbled a note to Thorne. “Leave it under his front door and don’t let anyone see you.”
Rose plucked a jar of shoe paint from the air. She opened it and smeared the inky polish under each eye. “Glinda, you’re acting as if I’ve never done this sort of thing before. I might remind you that I’m the one who taught you how to do reconnaissance.”
I quirked a brow. “Is that true?”
“Never you mind, Charming,” Mama said. “Leave it alone.”
As if I was going to do that. But I would for the moment. No sense in upsetting my mother more than she already was.
After Rose finished putting on her camouflage, she took the note and stuffed it in her shirt. “I’ll be back. Come, Pig.”
Rose and Pig disappeared. Mama sank back into her chair. Her finger brushed over the sweat sliding down her glass. “That only leaves one other thing for us to do.”
“What’s that?”
Her eyes narrowed. “With Rots here screwing with magic, you and I need to know more about the prophecy.”
“How do we do that?”
Mama rubbed her fingers together. “Well, the first thing we could do is simply not do anything, but I believe we need to return to the source.”
I gasped. “The swamp witch?”
My mother nodded. “We need her here.” She snapped her fingers. “I’ll make the call.”
Chapter 12
Hildegarde was the strangest creature I had ever met. Truly. Long, stringy gray hair flowed from her crown. Her black clothes were tattered just about everywhere, and she smelled like the swamp.
That might’ve been the worst thing about her—the smell.
As soon as my mother called Hildegarde, she arrived. Broom was very interested in her, as water also pooled at the swamp witch’s feet.
At first I thought the water was dripping from her clothes, but then I realized she dripped. I don’t know how she did it, but the woman actually dripped, as if the water were coming from her pores.
Broom followed her about the room, sweeping in an attempt to clean up the puddles that splotched the floor.
Hildegarde glanced around the house starry-eyed. “So it’s magical,” she said for the fourth time. “I might trade my entire swamp for a place like this.”
“Well, it’s on loan so you can’t have it,” my mother said stiffly. “Hildie, I hate to invite you here and then move the conversation along, but I’m afraid I don’t have much choice.”
Hildegarde finally sat, yet she still eyed the house like an enchanted creature, all doe-eyed with amazement. But when my mother pulled her back into reality, the swamp witch blinked and straightened.
“Of course. Do you need my services?” Hildegarde rummaged about her torn pockets. “I don’t seem to have any boiled peanuts on me to make a prophecy.”
Mama flicked her wrist. “No, no. I called you here to tell us about an old prophecy, one that you gave me years ago.”
The witch grimaced. “I’ve given
so many. I can’t promise to remember one.”
“You’ll remember it. What you said was unique. You told me that my daughter would end all magic and that she would end it in Witch’s Forge.”
Hildegarde blinked in surprise. “Oh, I do remember that one. You know”—she leaned forward, dripping water on the rug—“it is so rare that I remember something I told someone. I’ve given thousands of prophecies over the years, and that’s one of the few I recall.”
She sat back and folded her hands in contentment. “Tell me. How’s that prophecy going? Is all magic gone yet?”
She said it with a lilt in her voice as if it would’ve pleased Hildegarde if all magic disappeared. Let me say this—it wouldn’t have pleased my mother, that was for sure.
“No, of course magic isn’t gone,” Mama snapped. “You arrived by magic.”
The swamp witch considered this. “Oh, that’s right. So I suppose we still have it. Okay. So the prophecy is either wrong or it hasn’t come true. Since my prophecies are never wrong, I suppose it’s simply a matter of time before it takes place.”
“That’s what I’ve called you here for,” Mama explained. “I want to revisit the prophecy. You told me that Charming would be the linchpin in the destruction of magic. I’m wondering if that’s correct.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because we have knowledge now that she may have nothing to do with it.”
Hildegarde cocked her head to one side. She studied me before extending her hand toward me. “May I?”
I suppose I had no choice but to allow her to touch me. I wondered if her skin felt as slimy as it looked.
It probably was. I inwardly cringed as Hildegarde slid a cold hand that reminded me of fish flesh over mine. She jolted as if electricity had snaked right into her. Her mouth opened.
Her voice came out deep, as if a spirit had invaded her body. “The girl will travel to Witch’s Forge. She will be the death of all magic.”
The swamp witch released me, and I retreated. She brushed her hands and smiled widely at Mama. “Well? Does that answer your question? Prophecy is still on.” Hildegarde giggled. “Oh, I do love my talent. It’s wonderful to be able to predict the future.”