by Alex Flinn
The hallway is silent. The white floors, unoccupied by hundreds of feet, gleam like ice. I don’t want to touch the mirror. It might be poisoned or attack me. Violet’s things tend to do that.
Yet, something compels me to reach for the handle. I turn it over.
Second weird thing: It’s not broken, though I heard it shatter this morning.
I lift it and search for my face inside.
But my face isn’t there.
Kendra’s is.
“I need to speak with you,” she says.
The mirror slips from my hand, shattering against the terrazzo. I look around to see if anyone has noticed, if anyone heard.
No one there. I debate running, leaving the splintered glass there, hoping someone will clean it up before fifth period. I have to. I grab The Book Thief from my locker and slam the door. It bounces open, so I hold it closed. I start to replace the lock. My hands are trembling.
As I do, before my eyes, the pieces of the mirror rise from the floor, hundreds of slices of silver, shining in the fluorescent light.
They dance before my eyes, then form into an oval mirror, neatly replacing themselves in the frame.
It flies up into my hand.
“Careful this time.” Kendra’s voice is a whisper. “I need to speak with you after school. Can you come to my house?”
“What? How? How are you doing this?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” She smiles. “I’m a witch.”
“There’s no such thing as—”
“I know you believe in witches, Celine. You’ve been living with one for years.”
Validation. Someone confirming all my crazy suspicions. I wish I could tell Dad. Now, the victory seems hollow. A thousand times a day, I remember he’s gone, and it’s like he has died again.
I say, “You know . . . about Violet?”
“Of course. And I know you’re not safe with her. But you have to get back to class. Come to my house after school. It’s the big, gray one on the corner of Salem Court, the one that looks abandoned. Get your friend to drive you, the boy from Target.”
“Goose.”
“He’ll drive you.”
I know he would, if I asked. And I know the house. I didn’t know anyone lived there. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“You don’t. But you know you can’t trust Violet. Also, if I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead. I want to help you.”
“Violet hasn’t killed me . . . yet.” My hand is shaking, rattling the mirror back and forth.
“Yet. Because of your father. Now, your father is gone.”
“So you’re saying . . . ?” She’s saying Violet is going to kill me.
“My house. After school. With the boy.”
Her face disappears from the mirror.
And then, the mirror disappears from my hand.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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13
Two hours later, I’m in front of the abandoned house with Goose. I have no idea why, but Goose, at least, was excited about it. “Really?” he said. “Someone lives in that house? She invited you? Cool. We always thought it was haunted. On Halloween, we dared people to touch it.”
I nodded. “So did we. Laurel and I did it last year.” I’ve explained as little about this as possible. It seems better to just let it unfold.
“So I get to go inside. Cool.”
I laugh. “You said that.”
But when we get there, he seems less sure. The driveway is almost impassable, with weeds and branches scraping the sides of the car. At least two windows are broken, and the paint that used to be white is dirty gray, where there even is paint.
“You’re sure someone’s not playing a joke on you?” Goose says as he negotiates the driveway.
Considering she came to me inside a mirror, no.
“I don’t think so.” A flock of crows lands in the yard, settling on the bushes and in the trees. I wonder if they’re friends of Violet’s.
Goose puts the car in park. “You think those crows are going to shit on my car?” When I shrug, he says, “Maybe wait here while I look around, in case something’s weird?”
“That’s okay. I’m glad you’re here, though.” I open my door and step out. A branch scratches my arm. One crow caws. Then, they all begin to until the yard is filled with their cries.
Goose swears under his breath, but follows me to the doorstep. The house doesn’t look any less abandoned up close. Leaf-covered cobwebs drape the door, as if it hasn’t been opened in years. Grass and flotsam collect in the porch corners, and the doormat is almost entirely worn away. I knock. My hand chips away a layer of dust and dead bugs.
“Why?” Goose says.
“Why what?”
“Why are you glad I’m here? You won’t let me be the big hero and go in ahead of you while you wait at a safe distance. What if someone comes after you with a knife?” He tries to stand in front of me.
“No one’s going to come after me with a knife. And, if they did, I wouldn’t sit in the car while you bleed to death on the steps anyway.” It sounds funny, except when you think about it. “What I really need is someone to be here with me, experience it with me, so I’ll know I’m not crazy.”
At that, the door opens with a creak.
“Ah, I see you’re both here,” Kendra says.
She’s holding the mirror.
Kendra steps aside so we can enter. My foot goes from dusty slate steps to . . .
. . . shiny black-and-white-checked marble floor.
The inside of Kendra’s house is nothing like the outside. Everything inside is brand-new, and it’s all black, white, or hot pink. It looks like a set for the musical, Hairspray (which we’re supposed to be doing at school next year), with pink walls, pink jukebox, pink lava lamps, and a soda fountain with black tables and hot pink chairs. Kendra, wearing a fluffy, pink and black dress that could go to the prom, points to a spiral staircase that leads to a loft above the room.
“Follow me.”
We do. The staircase is narrow, and, through the steps, I can see the room swimming pinkly below. I notice Goose is looking up at the ceiling.
“Are you okay?” I ask him.
“I have a thing about heights.” He looks a little green, which clashes with the pink, and takes the last steps very deliberately. Soon, we’re at the top in another black and white tiled room with hot pink sofas. Kendra gestures that we should sit. I notice Goose takes the seat furthest from the stairs.
“Good to see you,” Kendra says. “I wish it could be under better circumstances.”
“You saw me this morning,” I remind her. “At my house.”
She nods. “Indeed, I did. But I will be seeing little of you from now on, I’m afraid.”
“What? Are you going someplace?” Weird though she is, I sort of like having Kendra around, as a buffer between Violet and me. I can’t imagine staying with Violet forever. Yet where else is there? Three of my grandparents are dead. My father’s father lives in a nursing home. He probably doesn’t even know Dad died.
“No. You are.”
“What?” The pink fluorescent lights are disorienting. I look down, but the checkerboard floor seems to be moving. “What do you mean?”
“You’re in danger. You’re in danger, and you must leave that house.”
Goose says, “What kind of danger?”
I look at my hand. It glows in the flashing pink jukebox lights. My head is light, spinning. I wonder if this is how it feels to be on drugs.
I say, “My stepmother is a witch.”
Goose laughs, but an uncomfortable laugh. “Yeah, my mom can be a witch sometimes too.”
“You are
using the term witch in a derogatory way?” Kendra straightens her shoulders.
“Is there another way?” Goose looks confused.
“A literal way,” Kendra says. “For someone who has magic powers and can use them for either good or evil.”
“Oh. Right.” He laughs again, unbelieving.
I’m saying nothing because my head is hot. I put my hand to my forehead.
“Besides, your mother isn’t a witch in either sense. She has no powers, and she is a kind woman who takes in foster children.”
“How did you know that?” Goose asks.
“I know everything.”
“I guess Celine told you.” He looks to me for confirmation.
Kendra shakes her head. “Celine told me nothing.” She looks at me. “Are you all right?”
“I . . . the lights . . . all the pink. It’s very pretty, but I think it’s giving me a headache.”
“I think life is giving you a headache. Understandable. How’s this?”
She waves her hand, and in a second, the room changes to a French provincial décor, yellow flowered sofas and dark wood. Much calmer.
“Better. Thanks.”
Huh. She just waved her hand and changed everything. This does not surprise me as much as it should.
Goose is looking at his hands like he expects them to melt. “Whoa. What the—”
“There are witches.” I look around, trying to figure out a way of explaining what I don’t completely understand myself. Even after the mirror, I can’t quite believe this. “There are witches, and my stepmother is one of them. She used to be an ugly girl, and then, she made herself beautiful.”
“She can do that?” Goose asks.
“Yes. And I’m afraid Violet is a bad witch.” Kendra sighs. “She wasn’t always so. When I met her, she was a little younger than you, a sweet girl, a victim. But, perhaps that’s what made her what she is. She always wanted revenge on her enemies, and she got it.”
Goose is up. He starts to pace, then sees the stairs and sits back down. I say, “Got it how?” Though I think I know.
“When she killed your mother.”
Even though I thought I knew this, it still shocks me. Confirmation of my worst suspicions.
“You . . . you knew she did that? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Who would have believed me?” Kendra asks. “A woman is attacked by a monkey. Should I tell the police that Violet manipulated it? Do you think they’d believe someone can communicate with animals? Your father didn’t, and he saw her do it twice.”
The dog.
“And I couldn’t risk being detected. Witches belong to no age, no time. I have no driver’s license, no birth certificate but a family Bible dated 1652, no passport. Even my fingerprints have worn away. That happens in three hundred years.”
“You’ve been alive three hundred years?” Goose says.
I say, “But you should have told before she hurt someone.”
“That’s what I’m doing. I’m telling you before she hurts you.”
“Hurts me? You mean kills me?”
“Yes.”
The air leaves the room. Silence. Goose has stopped, staring around the room like he can’t believe it. Why would he? I barely believe it, and I’ve been living with a witch for years. I now realize there were so many signs I should have seen, little things like Violet’s ability to whip up a recipe with dozens of ingredients in the half hour after she got home from work, like the fact that she still looked twenty-five years old, more than twenty years after she graduated high school. I was stupid. Dad was stupid. Still, I would love to go back to a time when I could not believe it.
And she wants me dead. Dead.
Goose looks at Kendra. “So you’re saying her stepmother is an actual witch, she killed her mother, and now she’s trying to kill Celine?”
“Yes,” Kendra says. She says it like it’s obvious.
“Did she kill Celine’s father?”
“No. She loved my father.” I look at Kendra. She nods that it’s true.
“That she did. She loved him too much. It made her crazy. And now that he’s gone, she has nothing and is even more insane. She’s consumed by loneliness and her jealousy of you.”
“Why is she so jealous of me? I know she is, but I’ve never understood it. I don’t have anything she would want.”
She wants me dead. I still can’t believe it.
Goose laughs. “Even I know you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. Who wouldn’t be jealous of that?”
I stare at him, stunned. He knows how much I hate to talk about my looks. At least, I thought he knew.
“I’m sorry, Celine, but it’s the truth. You’re beautiful, so beautiful it’s almost unreal. And people hate you for it, even beautiful people. You can’t ignore that anymore.”
I wonder if he resents me. I hate this. My beauty has never done me a bit of good. It makes people hate me, makes idiots want to be my friend. I wish I could just be average. But I say, “Fine. But Violet is beautiful too. Obviously, she made herself as beautiful as she could with her magic.”
“Yes,” Kendra says. “As beautiful as she could. But there are limits to magic. Your innocence, your goodness, are part of what make you beautiful, a part Violet does not have. She lost it when she began to play with the darkness, and now there is nothing she can do to be as beautiful as you. As long as you live, she will always be second, just as she was second to your mother.”
“Second? What about Keira Knightley? Amanda Seyfried? Tyra Banks?” I name the most beautiful women I can think of. “Should they be watching their backs too?”
Kendra grimaces. “Perhaps. But they don’t live in her backyard, so perhaps she’ll forget them. We’ll keep her away from movie theaters, just in case,” she joked.
“We’ll have to keep her away from Celine, you mean,” Goose says. He’s standing again, and he comes to stand in front of me, all protective. “If Violet can’t make herself more beautiful, why can’t she just make Celine ugly, give her zits or something? Wouldn’t that be enough for her? She doesn’t have to kill her.”
I mouth Gee, thanks at him.
Kendra says, “She could, but only if she reveals herself. She can change someone else’s appearance only if they know about it. Otherwise, any spell she casts reverberates back to her.”
I understand now. “Is that why she lost her voice when she made me lose mine?”
“Yes. But there are other ways she can hurt you, as she found a way to hurt your mother.”
“You mean kill my mother.”
“Yes.” She sits closer to me. “You must go into hiding.”
“Hiding? But how? I have school.”
“School will wait. It has to.” She places her hand on my shoulder. “Violet has confided her plan to murder you. I’ve offered to help.”
“Help?” Goose says. “What kind of sick—?”
“I lied,” Kendra says. “I told her she needs to withdraw you from school, say you’re moving in with your aunt in another town. Then, I will take you away and murder you. I told her I’d help because she’s been such a delight to me. And she was. She was like my own daughter.” She looks down. “Where did I go wrong?”
“I’ll tell you where,” Goose says. “Where you didn’t tell the world about her years ago, when you knew she had something to do with what happened to Celine’s mother.”
Suddenly Kendra is gone. The space where she was is just empty. Seconds later, she materializes downstairs.
“There’s not a jail cell that can hold her,” she says. She disappears again.
Then, she’s back with us. “Besides, I didn’t think it would get this bad. I loved Violet like my daughter. She was all I had. It’s like how parents of killers always say they never suspected.” She turns to me. “I wi
ll take you away, but to a safe location. Is there someplace you can go, to hide?”
I stare at Kendra. She looks different than the first day I saw her, younger. I have a feeling she can change everything about her looks, if she wants. She could kill me and disappear, and no one would know. I have to trust her because there is no point in not trusting her. It’s like she said before: If she wanted to kill me, I’d already be dead.
“My friend, Laurel. I always stay with them. Her mother was my mom’s best friend. She hated Violet. If she thought I was in danger—”
“Ah, yes, but you do often stay there, which is precisely why it wouldn’t work. Violet would immediately look there to see if you were hiding. No, it needs to be someone else, someone she doesn’t know, a distant relative, perhaps. Or a friend.”
She’s looking at Goose, who has paced closer again. He picks up on the cue.
“She could stay with me, with my family.” He holds out his hand. “I’d do anything for Celine.”
“Yes,” Kendra says. “I know.”
And I know too.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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14
Goose drives Kendra and me to his house. The whole time, my head is throbbing from the conversation with Kendra. Could it be true? Could Violet actually want to have me killed? But, of course. It makes perfect sense. Violet has never loved me, maybe not even back when she acted like she did. Did I think that, without Dad, the one thing that bound us together, she would suddenly want to be my mommy? Of course not. Her loathing for me would only increase. Without her darling Greg there, I was only a reminder of my mother, a girl she’d hated.
My stomach, my heart, my entire body feel empty: There is no one now in the entire world who loves me.
It’s hard to remember a time when there was.
We’re at a stoplight. Goose reaches over and touches my arm. “It’ll be okay, Celine.”
I shake my head. “How do you know that?”
“Because it has to be.”