Witch Rising

by Paige McKenzie

  “That’s exactly how I always feel pretty much all the time!” Iris exclaimed. “Sorry, sorry. This is about you, not me.”

  “What’s the matter?” Greta asked Ridley.

  Ridley uncrossed and crossed her legs the other way. “Okay, so… my history class went on a field trip today. To the Kai Rain Forest. The sub, Mr. Terada… well, he was wearing the patch. The Antima patch.”

  “What?” Greta gasped.

  “No way!” Iris cried out at the same time.

  “Exactly! I think he’s the first adult at the high school who’s Antima—that we know of, anyway.”

  “FWIW… or is it FIWI?… fee-wee, that’s funny… or maybe it’s fye-wye?… so I’ve been wondering about the cafeteria lady because she’s really mean, although ‘mean’ isn’t the same thing as ‘Antima,’ obviously, so…” Iris’s chin dropped to her chest.

  “Second of all, I saw this house in the middle of the forest. A mansion,” Ridley went on. “Except, it wasn’t really there. Or it was there, and it seemed to be invisible to everyone but me.”

  Greta frowned. If there was a mansion in that spot, had some witch cast an invisibility spell on it? How, then, had Ridley managed to perceive it? “Can you describe it?” she asked Ridley.

  “It was big and old—Gothic-looking—with a pointy roof and big windows. The thing was, I could see inside. Not just through the windows, but through the walls, as though the walls had disappeared or become transparent or whatever. I saw a whole entire room, with a fireplace and an antique table.”

  “Wow! Do you have Superman X-ray-vision superpowers?” Iris exclaimed.

  “Not that I know of. Anyway—and guys, this gets even weirder—thirteen candles, like, suddenly appeared on the table. They were unlit at first, but then they just spontaneously lit up. There were gems and herbs on the table, too, in a circle around the candles. I recognized them.”

  Greta reached for her grimoire. “What were they?”

  “I’m pretty sure it was black onyx and bloodstone. Plus mugwort and wolfsbane.”

  “Oh!”

  Greta furrowed her brow and began flipping busily through the pages of her grimoire, which was full of her pencil drawings and handwritten spells and potion recipes. A dried lily of the valley sprig fell out, emitting a faint, sweet fragrance even after all these years; she carefully replaced it on the page with the happiness spell she and Div had created together when they were a coven of two.

  She already knew what Ridley’s gems and herbs represented, but she wanted to make absolutely sure. Black onyx, page 24. Bloodstone, page 25. Mugwort, page 51. Wolfsbane, page 119.

  Iris peered over Greta’s shoulder. “What does your super-smart grimoire say?”

  “Um… it says that these items, especially in combination, are commonly used in necromancy spells,” Greta said slowly.

  Iris’s eyes grew huge. “Necromancy? As in, bringing-dead-people-back-to-life magic?”

  “Yes, although necromancy is a little broader than that. Generally speaking, it’s about communicating with the dead. To get information from them, maybe see into the future,” Greta replied.

  “As in precognition,” Ridley added.

  “Exactly. An ability you seem to possess, Iris.”

  “Sort of. Kind of. I mean… sometimes my brain tells me that I’m going to have a mango Popsicle soon, but that’s just because I’m hungry for mango Popsicles. Other times, though… well… my dreams and my visions do feel real. And some of that stuff does actually come true.”

  “Did you see anyone in the mansion? Or sense anyone, even?” Greta asked Ridley.

  Ridley shook her head. “No and no. I asked Aysha to take photos of it with her phone. I wanted to find out if the mansion was visible to her without asking her directly, since there were tons of other people around. But I could tell from her reaction that it wasn’t visible to her, and I didn’t get a chance to talk to her about it after the field trip.”

  “Aysha was there?” Greta asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Anyone else from their coven?”

  “No.”

  “Did Aysha text you the photos she took?”

  “She did.” Ridley pulled her phone out of her pocket and began scrolling. She held up the screen for Greta and Iris. “These.”

  Greta studied the images. There were three in all, showing tall trees covered with bright green moss. She recognized the species: western hemlock, Tsuga heterophylla, and western red cedar, Thuja plicata. And in the far background, Sitka spruce, Picea sitchensis, and Douglas fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii.

  She spidered her fingers across the screen to enhance the first photo, then the second, then the third. No mansion. No candles. Nothing out of place.

  Except…

  “What’s this?” Greta pointed to a pinprick of bluish light at the corner of the third photo.

  Ridley squinted at the screen. “Hmm. I’m not sure. It might just be a lighting glitch?”

  “Maybe we could send these pix to Binx and have her play around with them on her computer, and maybe cast some of her supercool cybermagic spells?” Iris suggested.

  Ridley turned to Greta. “What do you think? Can we ask Binx to help us with this stuff, now that she’s… um…”

  “Not in our coven?” Greta stirred uncomfortably. “I guess so? I mean, the two covens are working together on—” She stopped, not wanting to say Penelope’s name out loud; she and Ridley had been close, and even now, Greta could sense a deep, palpable wave of grief radiating from Ridley. “Anyway, these photos aren’t related to the case we’re trying to solve, but they’re still worth checking out,” she finished.

  A phone vibrated with an incoming text.

  “Not mine!” Iris said, raising her hand again.

  “Not mine, either,” Ridley added.

  “Must be mine, then.” Greta reached for her phone, which was lying on her bed next to Gofflesby. There was a message from an unfamiliar number:

  I’M HERE.

  “Oh!” Greta fired off a quick text with instructions. “Apertano,” she murmured under her breath, and once again pictured the lock unlocking.

  Iris pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Greta? Why are you opening things?”

  “Because our guest’s here.”

  “Guest? What do you mean, guest?” Ridley asked nervously.

  Greta hesitated. She probably should have discussed it with her witch sisters first. This was how she’d invited Iris to join her coven, too… on the spur of the moment, acting on pure instinct, without clearing it with Binx and Ridley. And they had been unhappy about it initially. Binx especially had been really unhappy about it.

  But that situation had turned out just fine. Iris had proved to be an incredible witch and a wonderful addition to the coven, not to mention a good friend. And Greta’s instincts told her that Torrence would prove to be the same.

  She heard his footsteps coming up the stairs, and then a quiet knock.

  “Apertano,” Greta repeated. The door clicked open, and Torrence walked in.

  Iris and Ridley stared at him with shocked expressions.

  “You!” Iris burst out.

  Torrence smiled. “Um… hi. You must be Iris. And you must be Ridley.”

  Ridley rainbow-waved but said nothing.

  “Ridley, Iris… this is Torrence. Torrence Innsworth,” Greta explained. “He just transferred here from Ojala. I met him last night in front of Mrs. Poe’s store. Starlie—”

  “Who’s Starlie?” Iris interrupted.

  “My new familiar,” Torrence replied.

  Greta turned to Iris. “Remember the little black kitty who hangs out in front of the store? Well, she turns out to be a stray. I was walking by last night, and I saw Torrence holding her and talking to her. She’d gotten a piece of broken glass stuck in her paw, and she was bleeding and in pain. Torrence got the glass out and healed the wound. Using a sana spell. He didn’t see me there at first, but when he did,
he panicked and started to cast a memory-erase spell on me. But I told him not to because it was okay, because I was a witch, too.”

  Ridley sat up, her eyes flashing with interest. “You can do sana? That’s really cool. I should learn it, too. Agent Smith—that’s my familiar, he’s a rabbit—gets these gum injuries sometimes because his teeth grow so fast and so sharp.”

  “I could teach you,” Torrence offered. “I changed up Callixta Crowe’s version of the spell, and now it’s way easier. Is Agent Smith named after the character in The Matrix?”

  Ridley grinned. “Absolutely!”

  Greta’s gaze bounced between Ridley and Torrence. She exhaled with relief. Ridley seemed to accept him.

  Her gaze moved to Iris. She, on the other hand, seemed upset. Really upset. Greta hadn’t expected that of Iris, who was usually so agreeable and go-with-the-flow.

  What was that about?

  5

  THE CLUB SCENE

  The truth has many layers, and some of them should be avoided.

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

  Div checked her pale pink lipstick in the mirror in the lobby of the Sorrow Point Country Club. Perfect. So was her long platinum hair that flowed like silk down her back. So was her winged eyeliner that made her green eyes look even more snakelike than usual—which was a plus, of course.

  She’d also chosen her outfit well, a little black dress with a modest sweetheart neckline and black heels. These were not things she would normally wear—her preferred fashion palette was all white, and her overall style was far edgier and more interesting than an LBD and peep-toe pumps—but they were just right for dinner at the country club with the wealthy, conservative family of her Antima boyfriend.

  Correction: her probably Antima fake boyfriend.

  Next to her, Mira smoothed bright coral gloss onto her lips and air-kissed the mirror. “Mwa! Gorgeous! Now let’s go find our men.”

  “Our men?”

  Mira’s cheeks flushed. “You know what I mean.”

  “Do I?”

  Sometimes, Div worried that Mira was taking their ruse a little too seriously. They were pretending to date the Jessup brothers, Hunter and Colter, to find out if someone in their family was the leader of a powerful new Antima faction in town, called the New Order. And if one of them may have been responsible for Penelope’s death, or at least knew something about it.

  Penelope herself had been dating Colter right up to the time of her murder. In fact, Greta’s coven had discovered an Antima patch in Penelope’s backpack a few days after her death, which had raised the question: Did Penelope find the patch on Colter’s person or among his possessions and confront him about it, leading to an angry—maybe deadly—argument? Was that when he learned about her witch identity, which she’d kept a secret from him throughout their relationship?

  Was Mira able to be objective? She used to date Colter for real a couple of years ago, so they had a history. He was popular, rich, charming, and extremely hot. He might be Antima, Div had to warn Mira from time to time. He might be a murderer. Mira claimed she was well aware, but sometimes, she seemed so… smitten. In denial. Naively clinging to the idea that Colter could simply be a lost soul in need of saving.

  Div’s own fake boyfriend, Colter’s older brother, Hunter, was likewise popular, rich, charming, and extremely hot. And super-smart—he was only seventeen, but he’d grade-skipped a year and was now a freshman at the university, pre-med. If anything, he seemed even more anti-witch than Colter, at least in the things he said. Although so far, there was no proof that he was definitely Antima, and ditto Colter.

  O’Shea, the history-sub-slash-witch, had told Greta’s coven about the New Order. O’Shea’s own coven, based somewhere in the mountains north of Sorrow Point, had subsequently identified the possible connection between the New Order and the Jessup family. But O’Shea had vanished into thin air, which meant that now, it was up to Div and Greta and their respective covens to figure it out. Ergo the pretend dating.

  “Div!”

  Hunter was striding across the lobby toward her. He wore a navy suit, a crisp white shirt, and a beautiful silk tie that was somewhere between blue and black—Div couldn’t tell. The elegant attire made him look even more handsome than usual.

  Fortunately, Div was immune.

  “Hi, there!” She smiled and walked over to meet him.

  “Hey.” Hunter wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tightly. He was wearing a new aftershave—what was that fragrance? It was warm and almondy and reminded Div of the scent of meadowsweet. It couldn’t be, though. Meadowsweet was an herb that witches liked to use for love potions. She made a mental note to google commercial aftershaves that might have meadowsweet as an ingredient. There was no way her probably Antima boyfriend was indulging in magical concoctions.

  Her probably Antima fake boyfriend, that was.

  Hunter leaned back and scanned her from head to toe. “Wow, you look… amazing. Let me take you to our table; my family’s all here. Hey, Mira, you look really nice, too.”

  “Thanks. Is Colter here?”

  “Yeah, he’s helping Caitlin with her tablet. Some sort of software glitch. Follow me, ladies.”

  Hunter took Div’s hand, and Mira followed close behind. Div’s heels sank into the thick beige carpet with each step, making her wobble a little and cling more tightly to Hunter. Annoying, although she guessed he probably liked it. In the short time she’d known him, she’d gleaned that he liked to be chivalrous, to be the strong, capable guy who helped helpless women.

  Div was anything but helpless, but she knew how to act the part.

  “Are you sure it’s okay for Mira and me to be here?” she asked Hunter. “This is a big birthday for your mom. Don’t you guys want it to be family only?”

  “Dad insisted that we invite the two of you,” Hunter replied.

  “Oh. That’s sweet.”

  Div peered over her shoulder at Mira and arched an eyebrow. Mira shrugged. Was Mr. Jessup keeping tabs on them? He didn’t suspect they were witches… did he? She was very glad she’d imposed the no-magic-in-public rule on her girls. Still, she and Mira had to be extra careful tonight. They couldn’t raise even the slightest red flag.

  “This way.”

  Hunter pushed open a set of double doors; on the other side was a large, circular dining room. Classical music played over invisible speakers. Some servers in black hurried about with trays of cocktails, while others presided over silver chafing dishes at a long buffet station. A massive picture window overlooked a lush, rolling golf course that seemed too brightly green to be real.

  This was her first time at the country club. She knew Mira’s family had recently joined, even though they weren’t particularly rich. Mr. Jahani, a councilman, apparently needed to mingle with the Sorrow Point elite since he was running for mayor, and he still had a lot of fundraising to do before the election next month.

  The Jessup family was sitting by the window: Mr. Jessup, Dr. Jessup, Colter, and the tween identical twins, Cassie and Caitlin. Eight place settings rimmed the elegant white-cloth-covered table. Each of the white china plates bore the initials SPCC, in gold.

  “Yay, you’re here!” Cassie jumped to her feet and waved madly at Div and Mira.

  Colter handed Caitlin her iPad, stood up, and gestured to the empty chair on the other side of him. “Mira, I saved you a seat.”

  Greetings were exchanged. Mr. Jessup kissed both girls on the cheek, like he always did. Dr. Jessup offered a polite smile and handshakes.

  The twins flung their arms around Div and Mira.

  “We got a cool new game! It’s called Witchworld! Have you heard of it?” Caitlin asked them excitedly.

  “I’ve never played. Do you want to teach me?” Mira replied.

  “Yes! Sit next to me!” Caitlin exclaimed.

  “No, sit next to me! I’m already on Level Three!” Cassie said, pointing to her own tablet.

  “Wit
ch world? As in, W-I-T-C-H world?” Mr. Jessup picked up his martini glass and took a long sip. “I don’t believe I approved this purchase, Janie,” he said to his wife.

  “It’s the funnest game, Daddy! It’s about a fantasy realm where there’s good witches and evil witches and lots of other good and evil characters, too—” Cassie began.

  “—and battles and treasures and scrolls written in ancient languages—” Caitlin continued.

  “—and lots of supercool side quests—”

  “—and even extra-dimensional portals, can you believe it?”

  “It’s just a silly fantasy game, Jared,” Dr. Jessup said, touching her husband’s arm. “It’s not like some of those other games out there. Like the one with the drug smugglers that’s so popular. Or the one about desert combat. Games like that are so inappropriate for young, developing brains. This one, this Witchworld game, seems harmless enough.”

  Dr. Jessup was a pediatrician, and during the half-dozen occasions Div had spent time with the family, she often brought up kid- and teen-related issues like screen time and sugary sodas and such. The twins usually made unhappy faces whenever their mother gave one of her advice-filled speeches.

  “Mom, we’re totally old enough for any video game,” Caitlin complained.

  “Yeah, we’re not babies,” Cassie added in a surly voice.

  “Guys? Let’s change the subject, okay? We’re here to celebrate Mom’s big day,” Hunter said, raising his drink.

  “Yeah. Happy birthday, Mom!” Colter joined in.

  Everyone clinked glasses.

  After several toasts, they all got up from their seats to head over to the buffet table. Div fell into step beside Cassie.

  “Soooo. The last time I saw you, you were studying for a math test. How did you do?” Div asked her.

  “Oh, that. I got an eighty-nine,” Cassie replied.

  “Eighty-nine is good!”

  “I guess? Why do we even have to take math, though, when everyone has calculators?”

  “Excellent point!”

  Div was sympathetic on this issue, more than Cassie knew. She and Mira and Aysha used to employ magic to alter their grades from B’s and C’s to A’s, and to complete their homework, not just in math but in all their subjects. Nowadays they couldn’t take the risk, which meant they’d been forced to pay attention in class and do their homework on their own. All of this was beyond tedious, especially when they had other, more important matters to tend to. Like bringing down the Antima and the New Order. Like catching Penelope Hart’s killer. Like protecting themselves.