Witch Rising

by Paige McKenzie

  She reached up to touch her smiley-faced moonstone pendant, to settle her nerves, but it wasn’t there. Oh, right. Greta had instructed her and Ridley to stop wearing their magical talismans until further notice because of what had happened to that US history sub lady with her pentagram necklace.

  Turning the corner, Iris spotted Div and Binx in a secluded alcove, their heads bent close in conversation. She speed-walked over to them.

  “Youwouldn’tbelievewhatjusthappened!” she blurted out on a rush of breath.

  Div turned and regarded her coldly. For a moment, Iris wondered if her albino boa constrictor—Prada—was coiled around her shoulders, hidden from view by an advanced invisibility spell. Probably not, because of the “no magic in public” thing, but on the other hand, did Div follow her own rules, especially when it came to her familiar? Just to be safe—because who wanted to be bitten by an invisible boa constrictor?—Iris took a couple of steps back and prepared to cast repellere if necessary.

  “Hello, Iris,” Div said in her usual soft, silky voice, which belied how incredibly scary she could be.

  “Yeah. Hey.” Binx pulled her phone out of her pocket and began scrolling busily through it. Iris wondered if she was still feeling awkward about switching sides.

  “Is that a Klink?” Iris asked, pointing to Binx’s phone case. Binx’s phone cases always featured a Pokémon character.

  Binx’s face lit up. “Actually, it’s a Klang, which is the second evolution. Klinks have two interlocking gears with six teeth each, and Klangs have one six-tooth gear and one eight-tooth gear.”

  “Interesting!”

  “Yes. Fascinating. Iris, can we help you with something?” Div asked.

  Iris opened her mouth and then shut it again. Why, exactly, had she wanted to speak to Div and Binx about her upsetting Orion Kong encounter? They weren’t her friends—well, actually, Binx was, or at least she used to be before she’d joined Div’s coven. Of course, the two sides did talk to each other when it came to matters of mutual interest, like catching Penelope’s killer. But they didn’t have casual conversations about everyday stuff. Still, an Antima meeting at the community center wasn’t exactly “everyday stuff,” and in fact, it might be related to Penelope’s murder. Their current working theory was that Penelope had been killed by some angry, violent Antima member. Although… was there such a thing as a not-angry, not-violent Antima member?

  Iris peered around to make sure there were no eavesdroppers nearby. There weren’t.

  “Orion Kong just invited me to an Antima meeting tomorrow,” she whispered. She held up one of the flyers.

  Binx and Div studied the flyer.

  “Jerks,” Binx muttered.

  “Why would he think you’d be interested in attending?” Div asked Iris.

  “No idea. I think he’s just passing out flyers to everyone. See, I was rushing out of the bathroom”—the memory of that girl overhearing Iris’s Greta monologue made her blush again—“and, uh, he was right there in the hallway, and he was like, ‘Please come to our meeting!’ I couldn’t say no or flip him off or whatever, because then he might get suspicious, right? Like, he might think I was a w-w-wi”—she didn’t feel safe saying witch even in the secluded alcove—“wildebeest.”

  “Wildebeest, ha,” Binx repeated, cracking up.

  “May I keep this?” Div took one of the flyers. “I should send one or two of my girls to the meeting, for information-gathering purposes. Maybe you, Binx.”

  “Oh, please don’t,” Binx groaned.

  “You could go with Aysha.”

  “Please don’t.”

  Iris’s gaze bounced back and forth between Div and Binx. She was about to say something when her Spidey-sense told her to look to her right.

  Down the hallway on the other side, Greta was standing underneath a HOMECOMING 2017 CATCH THE SPIRIT! poster and watching Iris with a confused frown on her face. Next to her was a guy with curly dark blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses. With his salmon-colored khakis and sky-blue button-down shirt, he looked like a major prepster.

  Their arms were linked, and their shoulders were touching.

  Iris’s Greta-crush energy whooshed out of her. She didn’t know which was worse… Greta being upset with her, presumably for hanging with their rival coven, or Greta engaging in PDA with… who was he? A new boyfriend? Or maybe that was PPDA—platonic public display of affection.

  “Greta!” Iris called out, hating the anxious crack in her voice. “Hey! Hi!”

  Greta replied, but Iris couldn’t hear her because all of a sudden, shouts were breaking out from somewhere nearby. The commotion seemed to be coming from room 159. Iris, Binx, and Div—and Greta and the guy—all turned in that direction. More shouts, and then two Sorrow Point police officers bustled through the doorway, escorting someone between them. It was Mr. Dalrymple, the English teacher.

  He was in handcuffs.

  “I am not a witch!” he was protesting loudly. “This is a travesty of justice! I wish to speak to my solicitor immediately!”

  “Mr. D?” Binx gasped. She leaned over and whispered something in Div’s ear. In response, Div clenched her fists angrily and whispered something back.

  Iris opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her heart was hammering against her rib cage, her stomach hurt, and her skin prickled with cold sweat. She didn’t need the Internet to tell her that she was having a panic attack.

  There were police inside their school now? Arresting suspected witches? This had never happened before. Was this to be the new normal?

  The officers led Mr. Dalrymple past Greta and the guy. Greta stumbled a little as she backed up against the lockers and gazed helplessly at Mr. Dalrymple, and then at Iris. She looked terrified.

  It’s okay, Greta, Iris wanted to say. But it wasn’t okay. It was the polar opposite of okay.

  We are so doomed.

  3

  MOONLIGHT AND MAGIC

  Pretense can be achieved by magic or by malice—or both.

  (FROM THE GOOD BOOK OF MAGIC AND MENTALISM BY CALLIXTA CROWE)

  “All righty, people! Happy Friday! We’re going to get started with the Homecoming Committee meeting in just one minute,” Hannah Ballinger announced. “But first, we want to welcome our newest members, Mira Jahani and Beatrix Kato. Div and Aysha brought them on board, so thank you, Div and Aysha!”

  In the art room, two dozen heads swiveled toward Mira and Binx with a chorus of hellos and welcomes. Mira beamed and fluttered her fingers. Binx fake-smiled and stifled a swear.

  The swear was because of the way Hannah had introduced her. She’d pronounced Kato cat-toe instead of kah-toe, which was the proper Japanese pronunciation, or KAY-toe, first syllable stressed, which was the more common American mispronunciation and which Binx normally tolerated. What Binx couldn’t tolerate, however, was the “Beatrix.” No one was allowed to call her that awful, old-lady name, which she’d been cursed with thanks to her father’s childhood obsession with the Peter Rabbit books.

  To be honest, Binx’s uncooperative mood was also due to just being here at this soul-crushing assemblage. Binx didn’t do meetings. Okay, coven meetings, sure… but she definitely didn’t do committee meetings of any kind, especially those for school-spirit-related events like homecoming.

  And was Div seriously considering sending her to an Antima meeting?

  Get me the hex out of here, Binx thought irritably. If only she could do an aegresco spell to make herself sick so she’d have an excuse to leave… or better yet, make everyone else in the room sick so that the meeting would be canceled altogether.

  “A little enthusiasm, please,” Div hissed in her ear, as though reading her thoughts.

  “Fine,” Binx hissed back. She quirked her mouth in a way that she hoped would pass for a socially acceptable smile and queen-of-England-waved to the room.

  Hannah raised her perfectly groomed eyebrows at Binx. With her fussy pink dress and high-pitched voice, she resembled a teen versi
on of Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter series. Mean disguised as prim and proper.

  Hannah directed her attention back to the room. “All righty, then! I’ll turn this over to my committee cochair, Hannah W., to go over the countdown until November eleventh!”

  Hannah Wojcik, who was perched on the edge of the art teacher’s desk, jumped to her feet and consulted her clipboard. If Hannah B. was Dolores Umbridge, Hannah W. was Professor McGonagall, all efficient and orderly.

  Of course, neither Hannah practiced the craft like those Harry Potter characters. In fact, that was why Div had insisted their coven join this very annoying committee—so they could blend in with the basic humans of Sorrow Point High and make sure no one thought they were different, that they were witches.

  Granted, this might not be the worst idea, after what had gone down with Mr. D this afternoon. Binx wondered if he was okay. She had him for first-period English, and she hadn’t had a clue that he was a witch. That is, if he was a witch… it was entirely possible that the police had made a mistake. Or that the evil Orion Kong and/or some other evil Antima member had narced on Mr. D in error.

  “Yes! Hello! So it’s four weeks until the big day, and we still have many to-do list items to tackle. First, let’s get a status report from all the subcommittee chairs, and we can go from there….” Hannah W. began.

  Binx sat on a high stool between Div and Aysha and tried to resist the urge to pull out her phone and play a quick round of the new Witchworld video game, pocket edition. Or reorganize her grimoire; she’d recently developed a spell that disguised it as a cooking app. But… nah, those were probably bad ideas for many reasons, including unleashing Div’s wrath.

  Instead, Binx made herself seem super-interested as the subcommittee chairs gave their status reports. DJs, blah, blah, blah. Fundraising, blah, blah, blah. Concessions, blah, blah, blah. Decorations, blah, blah, blah.

  “… and since our theme will be ‘Moonlight and Magic,’ we’re thinking about putting moon-shaped glitter and little fairy wands on every table,” the decorations subcommittee person—Agnes?—was saying. “Depending on our budget, we can buy the wands or make them ourselves. I found some adorable DIY stuff on Pinterest!”

  Some guy raised his hand.

  “Um, excuse me? I wasn’t here when the committee voted on the theme, but… do we think that’s wise? ‘Moonlight and Magic’? Won’t we get into trouble because of… you know… I mean, it’s illegal. We might as well call it ‘Moonlight and Armed Robbery,’ or ‘Moonlight and Murder,’ or…”

  Binx inhaled sharply. Okay, that dude really deserves an aegresco spell. The advanced version, with pus-filled boils and diarrhea.

  “I think everyone understands we’re talking about made-up magic, like in ‘Cinderella’ or ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ Not the real kind,” Hannah W. explained.

  The guy shrugged. An uncomfortable silence settled over the room.

  Mira raised her hand. “I’m really good with crafts. I could help with the wands!” she said cheerfully.

  “Great! Thank you, Mira!” Hannah W. scribbled on her clipboard.

  Div nodded approvingly at Mira, then turned to Binx. “You should volunteer for a subcommittee as well,” she whispered.

  “Why?” Binx whispered back.

  Div narrowed her eyes. Binx sighed and raised her hand, too. “I can do wands, too,” she told Hannah W.

  “Wonderful! Thank you, Beatrix!”

  That’s it, girl, you’re getting aegresco’d, too. With extra boils.

  At four o’clock, when the meeting was finally over, Binx headed out to the parking lot with Div, Mira, and Aysha. It had rained earlier, so the asphalt was pocked with puddles. The sky was just beginning to break with faint pre-twilight streaks of lavender and gold.

  Div did a 360-sweep of the half-empty parking lot. “We seem to be alone. So… that guy who made the comment about magic being illegal. Does anyone know if he’s Antima?”

  “I didn’t see a patch,” Mira replied.

  “Well, if he is Antima, I think we fooled him into thinking we’re ‘normal,’” Binx said with air quotes. “But maybe we could do more to enhance our regular-people rep? I know! How about inviting the Hannahs for a spa day? We could all get mani-pedis!” she joked.

  Mira held out her hands palms down, displaying ten purple ombré nails. “What do you have against mani-pedis?” she asked in a hurt voice.

  Binx held out her hands, too, displaying bright yellow nails with Pikachus on them. “Nothing. Not a thing. But I do object to the Hannahs. And homecoming.”

  “Can we please focus?” Div said impatiently. “What happened today with Mr. Dalrymple? Not good. Police at our school… we have to do something about this.”

  “Can we just cast a big muto spell and morph all the police officers into cute little pets?” Mira said with a grin. “JK! Or maybe not.”

  “Yeah, that won’t call attention to our witch identities at all,” Aysha remarked. “Listen, guys. I have something to report.”

  Div turned to Aysha. “Yes?”

  “There was a history field trip today, to a Civil War site in the Kai Rain Forest. On the trip, we noticed maybe three new Antima members. Valerie Yeargan, Francisco—I don’t know his last name—and Siobhan—I don’t know her last name, either. Plus, Mr. Terada; he was wearing an Antima patch on his jacket.” Aysha added, “He’s our sub for the next few months until Ms. Hua comes back from maternity leave. Unless he disappears, too, and we get another new sub.”

  “An Antima teacher?” Div shook her head. “He’s the first one, that we know of. This is very bad.”

  “What do you mean, ‘unless he disappears, too’? And who’s ‘we’?” Binx asked Aysha.

  “I just meant, he’s the fourth sub we’ve had since the beginning of the year. Although, Ms. O’Shea did kind of disappear, right? As in, none of us knows where she went or how to contact her, and is that ‘family emergency’ story for real? And by ‘we,’ I meant me and your bud Ridley. She was on the field trip, too.”

  “Oh.”

  Binx reached down and plucked at the rainbow-colored macramé bracelet that Ridley had made for her last Christmas. Guilt tugged at her brain. She’d been too busy to hang with her best friend lately, ever since leaving Greta’s coven and joining Div’s.

  Binx was making a cool Christmas present for Ridley this year—hand-knit fingerless gloves, dove gray and decorated with silver musical-note charms because Ridley played the violin. Binx had also started to knit gloves for Greta and Iris, back when they were coven-mates, although she wasn’t sure she wanted to finish Greta’s. Not after she’d been so… well, Greta-ish about the whole ShadowKnight/Libertas matter. Stubborn, shortsighted, my-way-or-the-highway.

  At least Div, who wasn’t exactly easygoing and flexible, either, had supported Binx’s view that the Antima were a major, major threat to the freedom, to the very existence, of witches. And that witches everywhere needed to take the threat seriously and figure out a solution, fast.

  Still, Binx had noticed the horrified expression on Greta’s face when the police dragged Mr. D away in handcuffs. Maybe she’s finally getting it. Maybe she’s realizing just how dire and dangerous the situation’s become.

  As for Ridley, Binx made a mental note to call her BFF ASAP. They could have a nice, long chat and catch up about everything, even make a date to go to Starbucks or the mall.

  “—and Francisco and Siobhan are in my chem class,” Mira was saying to the others. “Francisco’s kind of hot, and Siobhan has really cute taste in clothes.”

  “Really, Mira? They’re Antima,” Div pointed out.

  Mira flushed. “I know, I know. But Antima people can be hot and stylish, too. They’re only evil on the inside.”

  “Says the girl who’s dating a certain hot, stylish Antima member named Colter Jessup,” Aysha teased her.

  “I am not dating him, Aysh. Not for real! And we don’t know for a hundred percent sure that he’s Antima,” Mira
protested.

  Aysha cocked her head. “Yeah, uh-huh. He and his brother and their dad just say horrible things about witches because hashtag-stopwitchcraft and hashtag-antimaforever are trending and they don’t want to feel left out. Not to mention—”

  “Enough,” Div cut in irritably. “Speaking of the Jessups—Mira, you and I need to go home and get ready for Dr. Jessup’s birthday dinner tonight. Six o’clock at the country club. Aysha and Binx, I want you to go to that Antima meeting at the community center tomorrow.”

  Binx groaned.

  “Seriously?” Aysha complained.

  “Yes. Keep a low profile and report back. Mira, perhaps you should go with them, too.”

  “Of course.”

  Div’s gaze scanned all three witches. “Okay, so, no coven meeting tonight, but we’ll have one tomorrow night at my house. Bring your grimoires; we have a lot of work to do.” She turned to Binx and added, “I’ll also want an update on Libertas.”

  Binx nodded. She wanted an update on Libertas, too. It had been a few days since ShadowKnight had been in touch. Pulling out her phone, she went to her DMagic app, disguised to look like a gaming icon, and sent another encrypted and coded message to him via their secret server: CAN WE PLZ TALK ABOUT THE UPCOMING POKÉBATTLE?

  Half an hour later, when Binx got home, the small dirt-colored puppy raced up to her the second she walked through the front door. His little legs splayed this way and that as he skated and skidded across the gleaming wood floor, yipping with joy.

  “Hey, guy!” Binx squatted down to greet him. He propelled himself onto her lap and licked her face.

  “Ew. Okay, thanks for the free facial. Who needs a spa day with you around? It’s nice to see you, too.”