Witch Way to the Bakery

by Zoe Arden

Colt sighed. "I can't talk you out of this, can I?"

  "No," I said, shaking my head even though he couldn't see me.

  "Fine, then at least do me a favor and take my wand."

  "Your wand?" I said. "You don't mean your COMHA-issued wand?"

  Colt's wand was unlike most others. Issued by COMHA, there were only a handful of these in the wizarding world. They were like a jackhammer, a chainsaw, and a wand all wrapped up in one.

  "It's in my apartment. You have the key. Go in and get it out of my closet. It's in the lockbox."

  "What's the combination?" I asked.

  He hesitated. "Ava."

  "Yes?"

  He laughed nervously. "No, that's my combination. It's a letter combination. A-V-A. Ava."

  My cheeks burned crimson. "Oh," I said. I didn't know why I should feel embarrassed about it; it was actually quite sweet.

  I'd told my father to wait for me, then I'd gone to Colt's apartment, let myself in, and grabbed his COMHA wand. I'd returned to the bakery in record time and given it to him. He'd taken it and put it into his jacket pocket, then hurried off to Sadie's.

  Now we were home, waiting. We'd told my dad we'd give him an hour to get to Sadie's and get her to eat the cookies but now that we were here, an hour sounded like an eternity.

  "I think we should go now," Trixie finally said after another ten minutes had passed by.

  "It hasn't been long enough," Eleanor said. "He needs time."

  "I don't care," Trixie said. "I want to know what's happening. We can go over there and peek in through the windows. Sadie lives on the first floor. If anything seems off, we can go in. If not, we'll wait a little bit longer."

  "I think she's right," I said. "I'm worried."

  "Snowball can go, too," Snowy said. "Snowy makes a good lookout. So do Rocky and Tootsie."

  I looked at my aunts with raised eyebrows.

  "Sounds like a good idea to me," Eleanor said.

  Rocky jumped up from his spot on the floor and started running around the room, Tootsie and Snowball chasing after him. We took a breath, stood up, and headed to Sadie's. I texted Lucy on the way and told her that things had gotten bumped and we were heading to Sadie's now. I was worried she hadn't gotten it because I didn't get a response back but when we go there, she was waiting.

  "Good, you made it," I said, relieved to see her.

  "You kidding me? I'm not missing all the excitement."

  We sent Rocky, Tootsie, and Snowball ahead of us. They climbed around the windows, peeking in, and came reporting back to us a few minutes later.

  "Rocky sees nothing, only darkness."

  Eleanor pursed her lips. I looked at Snowball, who was purring loudly as she rubbed her head against my ankle.

  "Snowy saw a shadow. Snowy could not tell if shadow was man or woman but it was holding a wand."

  "Tootsie saw the same shadow. Tootsie thinks it was a man."

  I looked at Eleanor, my heart hammering.

  "If my dad was holding the wand, then that means he was probably aiming it at Sadie. And that means he's probably in trouble."

  Eleanor nodded. "Let's go."

  We rushed to Sadie's front door. The closer we got, the more we heard what sounded like shouts coming from inside. There was a rumble of thunder and a raincloud appeared overhead. The sky was a dark blue but where the cloud appeared, it went all black. I couldn't even see any stars behind it, it was so massive. It just blocked everything out.

  "That must be the biggest raincloud yet," Eleanor said.

  I tried the door and was surprised to find that it opened easily. It wasn't even locked.

  "Dad!" I cried as we ran in. He stood in the living room, the wand high in his hand. He looked over as we entered.

  "Thank the witches you're here!" he shouted. "I had to do it, she left me no choice."

  His eyes moved back to the floor and I saw Sadie's legs sticking out from behind the couch. I walked closer and saw her lifeless body sprawled on the floor. My dad repeated the words he'd already said. He was shaking.

  "I had no choice. I had to kill her. It was life or death, and I chose life. My life."

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-TWO

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  Eleanor and Trixie hurried around the couch as the sound of rain falling down hit the building. It was raining so hard it sounded like a jackhammer thundering against the windows.

  Eleanor's and Trixie's jaws dropped open when they saw Sadie lying on the floor. Eleanor's hair had come undone from the bun she'd had it in, and she spun her head so quickly now that it trailed out behind her and struck Trixie in the face.

  "Hey!" Trixie shouted, swatting at the hair like a fly. Eleanor paid her no mind.

  "What happened?" Eleanor asked my dad. I could see her mind already working, spinning to set things in order again. This was not part of her plan. She needed answers. Fast.

  My father was crying. The wand dropped out of his hands and hit the floor. His words came out thick and jumbled. It was hard to understand him.

  "She refused to eat the cookies. I tried to get her to take a bite... even one bite... but she just wouldn't do it." He took another breath and his words came out a bit clearer this time. "All of a sudden she just... changed. Right in front of my eyes. It wasn't Sadie anymore. It was some other... thing."

  I put my arms around him, hugging him tightly. His whole body was like a bowl of Jell-O. He was shaking and sobbing. I was amazed he could still stand. I couldn't imagine how he must feel right now. If it had been me and Colt in this position, I didn't know what I'd have done. I imagined that I'd have done something similar though but then again... with Colt's wand at my dad's disposal, he should have been able to stun Sadie without killing her.

  But how would he have known that? It wasn't like he'd had any training with a wand like this before. He'd probably just cast the first spell he could think of. It was just unfortunate that it had killed Sadie instead of stopping her in a gentler manner.

  "She's still alive," Lucy said, bending over her and taking her pulse on her wrist. She put her head to Sadie's chest and listened, double checking that her diagnosis was correct.

  My father stiffened against me.

  "Sh-She is?" he asked. It wasn't hope in his voice... it was disbelief.

  Trixie kneeled next to Lucy. "Lucy's right. She's breathing."

  "That's not possible," my father said. He was still hugging me but his body began to burn. I pulled away from him, afraid he was having some sort of episode.

  "Dad, are you okay?"

  "Of course, I'm not okay," he snapped. "My girlfriend is dead."

  "She's not dead," Trixie corrected him. "She's still breathing. Look." She put her hands on Sadie's chest and we watched the rise and fall of her body as she breathed in and out.

  My dad began to crumble. "Thank the witches. I thought I'd killed her for sure."

  "I think we should call Sheriff Knoxx," Lucy said, looking at Eleanor.

  "Agreed," Eleanor said and pulled out her Witchmobile. She started dialing.

  "There's no time for that," my dad said. "We need to get her to Sweetland Hospital right away. Let me put her in the car. Dr. Dunne can fix the real Sadie up and help us get the evil one out."

  "I'm not sure we should move her," I said.

  "We don't have much choice." He grabbed Eleanor's phone out of her hands and threw it across the room.

  "What the devil are you doing?" Eleanor screamed. "I was talking to Zane."

  "I need your help," he said. "This is more important right now. Grab her feet. Help me pick her up."

  Eleanor hesitated, looking from me to Trixie to Lucy.

  "Eli, I know you're anxious to get her help but I agree with Ava. I don't think we should move her."

  "Right. What if she comes to?" Trixie asked. "She might kill us all."

  "We can force one of tho
se cookies you made down her throat on the car ride over. Expel the dark spirit while she's still unconscious."

  "We can't do that. She might choke on it," Eleanor said, her eyes growing wide at the idea.

  "Well, we have to do something," he said. "It's not her fault she's possessed. She's already killed two people, I don't want anyone else to die." He choked up. "She needed to be stopped. That day at the cliffs, she almost killed you, Ava. If Lucy hadn't been there to stop her..." He was sobbing again now.

  Except that he wasn't.

  His body was shaking. His chest was heaving. It looked as though he was crying but his eyes were dry.

  "I never told you about that day on the cliffs," I said.

  His body stopped shaking. He looked at me with blank, dead eyes. "I told Eleanor and Trixie but I didn't want you to know." I was looking at him, watching him. His eyes weren't right.

  "Are you sure you didn't tell me?" he asked. "Because I'm quite certain you did."

  "I'm positive," I said, looking at my aunts. "Unless one of you..."

  Trixie and Eleanor shook their heads. Sadie coughed, and they returned their attention to her.

  Suddenly, my dad's smile broadened. His teeth, normally straight and even, began to narrow to points at the end. His eyes went from blank to black.

  "Eleanor..." I said. She was kneeling beside Sadie, trying to wake her up with a spell.

  "Just give me a minute," she said and began reciting something quietly under her breath.

  "Eleanor!" I snapped.

  This time, she looked up. Then she saw him. "Oh, my roses," she breathed.

  "Ava, come here quick," Trixie said. Her face was white.

  I backed toward her as my father's body continued to shift and reshape itself into something resembling my father but not quite. The body was just a little too large. His eyes just a little too round, a little too black. His legs were longer than they should have been, and his arms stretched out abnormally, almost touching the floor. He lifted one foot into the air, and I realized his shoes were missing. They must have come off when his body was contorting. It looked like he was kicking at an invisible target but I thought he was just jumping, or maybe stretching. On the bottom of his foot, I saw a strange, circular mark. It looked like the face on an ancient coin had been stamped into the pad of his foot.

  "It was there the whole time," I said. "I was just looking in the wrong place. I should have seen." I couldn't believe it. Lucy had read that a dark spirit's mark was usually on the palm of the host's hand. Usually. In this case, it had been on the bottom of his foot. "All this time, you were right under us."

  "I don't understand," Trixie said. "I thought it was Sadie who was possessed."

  "It was never Sadie," I told her. "Sadie conjured the dark spirit but it never entered her. It was living in my dad the whole time."

  "It can't be," Eleanor said. "How could I have missed it?"

  "He sneezed that day Sadie conjured the spirit. He was probably getting sick. It must've used that to get inside him. Dad," I yelled. "Dad, fight it."

  But the eyes that looked back at me were not his. There was no sign of my father anymore, just this monster.

  "Dad!"

  "Ava, run!" Eleanor shouted as he started toward us.

  His long, right arm swung out, striking me in the back. I screamed and flew across the room, hitting the wall. My head thumped against the wall, and I saw stars float in front of me. I heard Eleanor scream next but her scream sounded far away, like it was coming from the next town over.

  "Ava?" Lucy asked. "Ava? Can you hear me?"

  My eyes were closed. I wanted to keep them closed. Something rough and wet licked my nose. I forced my eyes open and saw Snowball hovering just in front of me.

  "Is Mama hurt?" she asked, her cat eyes wide with concern.

  "No, Mama's all right," I told her and scratched her head

  I looked over just in time to see Trixie zap my dad with a stun spell. It bounced off him like a rubber ball. Nothing was sticking to him. Whatever they tried only seemed to make him madder.

  "Trixie!" Eleanor cried and grabbed her sister's hand. Together, they stood against the opposite wall from me and closed their eyes. A soft yellow glow emanated from them, rising up from their feet and reaching for the ceiling.

  A beam of light shot out of them, much stronger than the stun spell Trixie had tried alone. This time, my dad seemed to feel it. Instead of bouncing off him like a rubber ball, it stuck to him like water. The yellow glow kind of moved around his body like a river. He let out a roar and the light dissipated.

  Lucy and Snowball curled up next to me, scared out of their wits. I didn't blame them. Rocky and Tootsie were nowhere to be seen. If they had any sense, they'd have run back home by now.

  "You think you can beat me?" he cried. "I've been living far longer than any of you. I know what it takes to win." The voice that came out of him was not my father's. It sounded gravelly and strained. The voice of an old man who'd smoked for fifty years.

  "You monster!" I cried. "Leave my father alone!" I ran toward him.

  "Ava, no!" Trixie, Eleanor, and Lucy shouted together. He grabbed hold of me, one long arm wrapping around my waist like something out of a child's nightmare. Snowball hissed at him, the white fur on her back standing on end.

  "Dad, please, don't do this," I cried. "I love you." There was a huge clap of thunder overhead. It sounded like the roof of the apartment building was being ripped off.

  "Your father's not here right now," the dark spirit said, and I felt my body begin to heat up. I didn't know what he was going to do but I knew it was bad.

  Just then, Sadie's front door opened. Mike Bison burst into the room. He was soaking wet from head to toe but it didn't seem to faze him. His jaw was set in a hard line and I could tell that whatever had brought him here was serious. He meant business.

  "Eli Fortune, I need to speak with you—" He stopped talking when he saw the scene before him. His eyes bugged out of his head. The gun he was holding must have looked so menacing to him just a moment before but now, face to face with a real-life monster, it seemed useless.

  "What the...?" His voice trailed off. He looked from me to my aunts.

  "What's going on here?" he asked. "Is... is this a costume party?"

  It was his human mind trying to rationalize what he was seeing. It was enough of a distraction for my father to let me go. I ran away from him and into the arms of my aunts, who pulled me into a tight embrace.

  "Detective Bison, be careful," Trixie shouted.

  But Bison was not being careful. He refused to believe what his eyes were showing him. He kept rubbing at them, thinking he would wipe away the vision before him. "This can't be real," he said. "What are you?"

  "I'm nothing but what I've always been," my dad said, giving the vaguest answer ever, then threw Bison across the room. He landed even harder against the wall than I had and dropped to the floor, a warm lump of clay.

  "Now," my dad said, "let's finish this."

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-THREE

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  I ran over to Mike Bison. His body was limp but, like Sadie, he was still breathing. His chest rose and fell, rose and fell, and with it brought a certain level of comfort. I might not have liked the guy but that didn't mean I wanted him to get hurt, or even worse... killed. Snowball started licking his face and he groaned loudly.

  "I think he's okay," I yelled, the relief in my voice evident.

  When I looked back over my shoulder toward my aunts, I saw my dad run toward the front door, which was standing wide open. Rain poured into the room and wind whipped through the air.

  His long arms and legs looked even stranger when he ran. He actually looked less threatening; his body was just gangly and awkward looking rather than menacing, like a teenager who was still growing and didn't quite fit their own
skin. Then, of course, he stopped running for a moment and looked at me, eyes burning liquid black, and all the fear I'd felt a few minutes ago returned full force.

  He paused, staring at me, and for just a moment, I thought I could see my father's eyes—my real father's eyes—hiding behind this monster's. Then he started to run again, and the moment was gone.

  "Don't let him get out!" I cried, afraid that once gone we'd never see him again. Or if we did, it would be standing over another dead body. Maybe even one of ours.

  The last thing we needed was a dark spirit masquerading as my father running loose all over Heavenly Haven. I almost laughed as I realized that's exactly what had been happening ever since Sadie dropped her keys in the sewer. That day seemed so long ago now, as if months had passed instead of a week or two. I didn't want to think about how much had gone wrong since then. None of it mattered; all that mattered now was our opportunity to set things right. Today. Before it was too late.

  Lucy made a mad dash for my father, reaching out to grab hold of the shirt he was still wearing. It had ripped open when his body had shifted but it was still there. The back of his shirt hung off him in large threads and Lucy managed to grab hold of one of them and pull. Instead of stopping him, though, the shirt only tore some more. It made a terrible rrrrpp sound as he pulled away from her, and she fell flat on her face.

  "I missed him!" she cried, her voice stricken with grief and irritation.

  Suddenly, Rocky and Tootsie appeared at the front door; Snowball joined them. The three of them stood together just outside the doorway itself, a barricade determined to stop my father from making his escape. I saw the rain pelt against them but none of them seemed to notice it. They were too engrossed in the task at hand.

  My father did not look in the least deterred by this new threat. He only ran faster, gaining momentum so that he might push right through them and get away. His feet picked up speed. He put one arm out in front of him like a football player getting ready to tackle another player.