B*witch

by Paige McKenzie

  The puppy panted happily and nudged the crow with its nose. The bird flipped over; its glossy black feathers were flecked with blood. Ew.

  Binx turned away and dialed the number. A woman’s voice answered after three rings. “Hello?”

  “Hi… I’m calling from the, uh, house up the road. Are you missing your dog? A puppy? Small, brown, kind of annoying?”

  There was a silence. “We do not own a dog.”

  Click.

  O-kay. Not very neighborly.

  The puppy was barking again.

  “Yes, yes, I hear you. So obviously, you belong to someone else in this neighborhood. Except, the only other houses around here are way over in that direction, and there’s a lot of them, and I don’t have time to… I know! I’m going to take some photos of you and post them to some sites and—WAH!”

  Binx’s gaze dropped to the single black, bloody feather on the granite paver. What the hex? She spun around in a full three-sixty.

  The dead crow was gone. Totally gone.

  “Did you eat it? That is the grossest thing I’ve ever—”

  Binx was interrupted by a dry flapping of wings. Startled, she glanced up and saw a bird watching her from the crook of a madrona tree. Glossy, black, flecked with blood.

  It was the crow. The same crow that had been lying dead on the driveway a second ago.

  What. The. Hex.

  Binx glanced around—she was alone (except for the haunted crow and the clingy canine, of course). She took a photo of the crow and texted it to Greta and Ridley with an all-caps message:

  I THINK I’M BEING STALKED BY A ZOMBIE CROW!!!!!

  Then she got her wand, Kricketune, from her backpack and pointed it at the bird.

  “Repellare!” she said, conjuring a repelling spell.

  It didn’t budge.

  “Repellare!” she tried again.

  It still didn’t budge. Maybe a fire spell would scare it away?

  She was just about to try out a new one she’d been practicing when her phone began buzzing. Likely Greta or Binx about the bloody crow photo.

  “Just a sec!” she yelled at her phone.

  And then she saw that it was a videochat request. From ShadowKnight.

  OMG, finally! She quickly hit accept. “Hey! Hi!”

  The screen was momentarily black as the buffering icon spun and swirled. A second later, ShadowKnight’s image appeared—fuzzy at first, then almost intact.

  “Hey, Pokedragon2946.”

  “Hey, ShadowKnight4811! I left you like a gadzillion messages.”

  “I know. Sorry.”

  ShadowKnight was cute in an intense, brooding sort of way. His brown hair fell to his chin, and he had the fuzzy beginnings of a beard and mustache.

  Now she tried to make out the background behind him. His bedroom? Some other room? Or was he outside? His face was superimposed on a bland, mottled collage of light and dark—and something that could be a window or maybe a glimpse of actual sky—so it was hard to tell.

  “Are you okay?” Binx asked him.

  “Yeah, not really. I got into a humongous fight with the parental units because my dad found my grimoire under my bed.”

  “What? No!”

  “I told him it was for my art history homework, but I don’t think he believed me. They took away my computer and phone for a month.”

  “Then how are you calling me?”

  ShadowKnight shrugged and grinned. “I have my ways. So how are you doing?”

  “Well, at the moment, I’m engaged in a death-duel with a zombie crow, and I don’t mean one of the ones in Witchworld.”

  “Zombie crow?”

  “Yeah, kind of. I found this dead crow in my driveway, or I thought it was dead, and then it came back to life.”

  ShadowKnight laughed. “Maybe it wasn’t really dead to begin with? Crows are smart; they can fake you out.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Binx glanced up at the madrona tree. The crow was gone. The puppy was still there, though, sniffing at the ground. “Cancel the emergency. The zombie crow has returned to its underworld lair or whatever.”

  “Whew, close call. Well done, Pokedragon.”

  “Thanks, ShadowKnight. Anyway, so… wow! We have a lot to talk about!”

  ShadowKnight leaned closer to the videocamera and spoke up. “I know. Listen, before we get to anything else, I wanted to ask you for your help on something. Something Libertas-related. It’s kind of urgent.”

  “Sure, anything! I wanted to talk to you about Libertas, anyway.”

  “Yeah? Great. And once again, this is top secret. I shouldn’t even be discussing it with you, but I totally trust you, and you’re already kind of a Libertas member in spirit. So.” ShadowKnight glanced over his shoulder. “You’ve probably heard that President Ingraham is working on a new initiative with Congress. It’s a bill to increase enforcement of 6-129 and seek maximum sentences. The rumor is that he’s planning on signing it into law during a big ceremony next month, on the anniversary of Callixta Crowe’s death. Well, we’re going to be there, too. We’re going to march on Washington, DC, to oppose it, and we’re going to present the White House with a new law we wrote that repeals 6-129, prevents his other law from happening, and protects the civil rights of witches.”

  Binx gasped. “Are you serious? That sounds… epic! And really, really dangerous. Aren’t you guys worried about the Antima showing up? And the police, too, and the FBI? What if the president orders all of you to be arrested?”

  “Of course there are risks. But we need to take a stand.” ShadowKnight nodded to himself, then continued. “So here’s what we need from you. You know about Callixta’s descendant who posted her book and that letter, right? Well, we’ve learned that she or he isn’t the only Callixta descendant who’s still alive. There are others, and we’re in the process of trying to find out who they are and where they live—including the letter writer. We think that if we can have some of them with us at the march, it will really help legitimize our cause. Anyway, I kind of designed a magical genealogy app to try to find these descendants. It’s super-glitchy, though, and I was wondering if you’d take a look. The group really wants to find some Callixta descendants before the march so they can stand with us in Washington.”

  Binx felt goose bumps again. “Yeah, of course! I can do that, no problem.”

  “Awesome. Thanks.” ShadowKnight glanced over his shoulder again. “Oh, great… there’s a car in the driveway. I think it’s my dad. I’d better go. I’ll send you my app within the hour, through our usual server. Maybe we could chat again this weekend?”

  Binx had so many other things she wanted to discuss with him. But it would have to wait. “Definitely. Bye, ShadowKnight.”

  “Bye, Pokedragon. Stay safe.”

  “You, too.”

  She ended the session and peered around. Now the puppy was gone, too. (Maybe it finally went back to its owner?) As she picked up her backpack and headed into the house, her mind churned and raced.

  Her back-to-back conversations with Div and ShadowKnight seemed destined to be, somehow. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that Div was right. The Antima movement was growing, and the prospect of more violence against witches (and against their familiars, too?) was really scary. (For the first time ever, Binx was happy she hadn’t found her familiar yet.)

  Binx had to get involved. She needed to help hit the delete button on the Antima… and on the anti-witchcraft law (laws, plural, if the super-bigoted president had his way).

  Binx cast a quick obex spell on the front door, then went up the stairs to her room, two at a time. She would treat herself to some Witchworld to unwind, then jump into her new C-Squared–related assignment from ShadowKnight (as well as her other assignment, from Greta, researching potential other witches at their school).

  Things were happening. Shifting. Changing.

  Forget about the Antima revolution… Binx felt like she was getting swept up in a witch revolution.


  And she liked it.

  18

  PUMPKIN SPICE AND EVERYTHING NICE

  Truth spells and potions are sometimes not as potent as speaking straight from the heart.

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

  “Wow. This is amazing,” Ridley said, taking a sip of her pumpkin spice latte. “Why have I never had one of these?”

  She and Penelope were sitting across from each other at a table on the Starbucks patio. Penelope had gone home first to get her dog, Socrates; now the big white poodle lay at her feet, sleeping and snoring quietly. The late afternoon sun barely broke through the clouds, and it was definitely sweater weather; in fact, they were the only customers hanging out outside. And Ridley had forgotten to wear a sweater (or jacket or hoodie) to school today.

  Still, she was just happy being with Penelope.

  “It’s how I kick off the season every year,” Penelope explained, taking a sip of her latte.

  “You mean fall? That’s still a few weeks away.”

  “I mean the season. The long celebration season. For me, it starts on the first day these are back on the menu, and goes through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. After that I take a little break, and then I have a whole bunch of other traditions for Valentine’s Day and the first day of spring and Easter.”

  Ridley laughed. “I guess you’re really into holidays.”

  “Oh yeah. Big-time. You should come to my house at Halloween. I spend, like, weeks turning our front yard into a psychedelic graveyard filled with ghosts and zombies.”

  “Nice!”

  Ridley took another sip of her drink and set it down slowly. What should she do now? After the big… whatever-that-was with the two covens and Iris and Penelope at lunch, Greta had pulled Ridley aside and given her explicit instructions: to accept Penelope’s offer to go out for coffee, find out if she was, in fact a witch, and—if so—invite her to join their coven. Greta was convinced that Div was trying to recruit Iris and Penelope to her coven, and she wanted to get there first. Ridley knew that Greta didn’t approve of Div’s form of magic, and that she wanted all witches to practice her way, which was 100 percent Callixta. Natural, creative, nurturing. Love and light.

  But sometimes, Ridley wished they’d stop it with their rivalry. Honestly, couldn’t they just put their differences aside and help each other—support each other?

  Ridley watched Penelope as she bent down and offered a piece of her blueberry scone to Socrates. So Penelope was a witch. Or she was probably a witch… the only “evidence” they had so far was Div’s apparent belief that she was one of them. But she could be. Was that why Ridley had been drawn to her yesterday in history? Had Ridley’s inner witchness sensed Penelope’s inner witchness? Was that even possible?

  She and Binx and Greta had not found each other via witchness radar. Instead, one evening last September, Ridley had spotted a couple of bullies in the park, beating up on a smaller kid. The park appeared to be deserted, so she’d hidden behind the swing set and brandished Paganini, to stop them. But then she’d spotted Binx behind the slides, doing the same with a video-game console (Kricketune) and Greta behind the monkey bars with a fountain pen (Flora). Afterward, the three witches had carefully, tentatively walked up to each other in the middle of the park, and Greta had introduced herself and invited Binx and Ridley to come to her house for a pot of rose-hip tea and carrot muffins, then burst into (happy) tears and hugged them both.

  Thankfully, no one needed magical rescuing on the Starbucks patio at the moment. So how was Ridley going to suss out if Penelope was a witch or not?

  “Colter seems nice,” Ridley blurted out. Smooth. She was supposed to steer the conversation toward witches, not boyfriends.

  Penelope nodded and touched something on her right wrist peeking out from under her sleeve; it was a silver charm bracelet with a single heart charm.

  “He’s super-nice. His family’s nice, too.”

  “That’s nice.” Hadn’t Penelope just said that? Dumb. “Soooo… what are they like?”

  “Mr. Jessup’s a real-estate developer. Dr. Jessup’s a pediatrician. Colter’s got an older brother, Hunter, who’s at the university, and two little sisters, Cassie and Caitlin. They’re twins, fourth grade, and they’re way into rainbow hair and making music videos of themselves.” Penelope grinned and added, “They’re kind of obsessed with my YouTube channel, even though their mom said they can’t wear makeup until they’re in middle school.”

  “Cute.”

  “I know. The whole family’s super-close. I wish my family was like that. I mean, don’t get me wrong! My parents are great. But my dad’s always traveling for his work, and my mom has a stressful job, too—she has her own PR firm—so we don’t do a lot of stuff together. Plus, I wish I had a sister or brother. Do you have any? Sisters or brothers, I mean?”

  “I have a little sister. Harmony. She’s four, almost five. And, um…”

  Ridley hesitated, wondering if she should mention Daniel. Nope, bad idea. She’d never even told Binx, or Greta, or anyone else in Sorrow Point. She didn’t want to jeopardize her true identity. More than that, it was too hard to talk about, and she’d come to believe that if you didn’t bring up certain matters, or think about them even, then you could make them go away.

  But. There was something about Penelope. A deep, warm, sunshiny kindness. For the first time in a long time, Ridley found herself wanting to connect, to be vulnerable, to reveal herself to another person.

  She dropped her gaze. “I have an older brother. I mean, I had.”

  “Had?”

  “He, um, died. When I was in eighth grade.”

  “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!”

  Penelope jumped to her feet, rushed to Ridley’s side, and wrapped her arms around her in a fierce hug. Such a tidal wave of emotions hit Ridley—relief, gratitude, grief, sorrow—that she felt as though she might pass out.

  And from somewhere within the tidal wave, a small, shimmering voice rose up.

  “I’m a witch,” she whispered.

  Penelope didn’t let go. “So am I,” she whispered back.

  The two of them stayed like that for a long time, holding each other, not saying a word. There would be plenty of time for conversations later. And Ridley hadn’t told Penelope all her secrets. It was enough to come out as one thing at a time. For right now, the moment was exactly right—not in a happy way or a romantic way, but in a necessary way. A new beginning.

  Ridley began to cry. Penelope hugged her harder.

  Under the table, Socrates leaned against the girls’ legs with a quiet sigh.

  It was almost six o’clock by the time Ridley said goodbye to Penelope and Socrates at the intersection of Lilac Street and Coyote Drive, just inside the Seabreeze development. The two girls promised to have lunch together tomorrow, just the two of them, and to meet up over the weekend, too.

  Ridley was dizzy with wonder from their talk… and also exhausted, spent, weak. She wanted to go home and curl up in bed and sleep for a month. She’d told Penelope about Daniel. They’d revealed their witch identities to each other. They’d told each other about their discovery moments (Ridley’s at age ten, when she’d wished for long, beautiful hair and it had spontaneously happened; Penelope’s when she was fourteen, when she’d wished for a dog and Socrates had shown up at her doorstep at that same instant). Ridley had told her about Greta and Binx being witches, too, and asked Penelope to think about joining their coven. Penelope had said yes before Ridley even finished her sentence.

  They had a lot more to discuss at lunch tomorrow and this weekend and beyond. For now, though, Ridley had to hurry; around 5:15, Daddy had texted that he was leaving work soon and picking up pizza for dinner. By her calculations (he had to finish out his shift, drive from the hospital to Ned’s Pizza, pick up the pizza, then drive home), she had about ten more minutes, depending on if he’d remembered to call Ned’s with the order first, which
was a toss-up with him. She also tried to guess his driving route; he’d likely take Pine, not Laguna, because of traffic.

  She couldn’t risk running into him. (Yes, there was always a memory-erase spell, but what if it didn’t work?) Momma she didn’t have to worry about; she rarely left the house anymore. Likely, she was taking a nap in her room while Harmony watched TV.

  Ridley eyed one of the still-under-construction McMansions on the street. Half of it was almost finished, at least on the outside, and the other half was just wooden frame. It was also set way back on the lot and out of the neighbors’ sight lines. Perfect.

  Glancing around, confirming that she was indeed alone, she strolled casually toward the more finished part of the house. She ducked behind what looked to be a future six-car garage.

  Reaching into her backpack, she unzipped one of the compartments and pulled out a small black velvet pouch. She loosened the drawstring and shook out a piece of moldavite. The moldavite was a gemstone from the Bohemia region of the Czech Republic, and it was super-rare. Like all other moldavites, it was believed to have fallen from the sky in a meteor shower nearly fifteen million years ago. Which was pretty much the coolest thing ever, in Ridley’s humble opinion.

  The moldavite had been a gift from her aunt Viola, the other witch in the Stone family (that Ridley knew of, anyway). It was Aunt Viola who’d recognized Ridley’s powers when she was ten (she’d accidentally witnessed Ridley’s discovery moment with the hair, and helped her reverse it before Daddy and Momma found out), and it was Aunt Viola who’d taught her her first spells. (Back in Cleveland, Aunt Viola had belonged to a small coven that possessed a dozen or so torn, faded pages from Callixta’s book.)