Rags To Witches

by Bella Falls

  Knowing Gloria might be gone for a while, I drove her car back to my place to park it until she needed it again or her brother wanted it returned to her garage. Our barn cat waited by my front door to greet me, meowing and pacing as soon as he saw me.

  “What’s wrong, Buddy? Why are you all the way back here instead of at your normal spot?” I picked him up in my arms and noticed some light red streaks across his nose. “Has Rex been giving you a hard time?”

  He rubbed his head underneath my chin and purred. Normally, I’d fix him a bowl of tuna or whatever I had that he might eat and bring it to him outside. But his warm fur and the slight rumble of his pleasure comforted me.

  “Tell you what. I’ll let you come in and take a break from that big bad rooster.” I kissed his little mustached head and set him down, closing the front door behind us.

  He wrapped himself around my ankles, his tail curling around my legs. With short mewls, he demanded to be picked up again, and I found it impossible to deny his request.

  “Fine, you big baby. You can come nap with me on one condition.” I scratched behind his ears, enjoying the increased volume of his purrs. “You keep your fleas to yourself.”

  Deep sleep continued to elude me, and I turned over to my other side, spooning Buddy, whose little paws beat in the air while he dreamt of chasing mice. My mind raced to process everything that had happened so far and tried to prepare itself for what would come.

  Now that the mystery of who did the stabbing had been discovered, another hole presented itself. This morning, everyone kept using the term spellbound, but it did seem there was a general lack of understanding of exactly how any witch could pull that off. Granny Jo might know a little as did the lieutenant. But if I wanted to get a clearer picture of how whoever it was pulled it off, I needed to understand the act of spellbinding in the first place.

  Careful not to disturb Buddy, I rolled out of bed and grabbed my spell phone. Scrolling through the contacts, I found the one person who I’d already called on once today. The line rang, and my stomach clenched in anticipation.

  “This is Ebonee Johnson,” the coven leader answered.

  My voice caught in my throat, and I stuttered to speak.

  “Who is this?” she demanded. I pictured her stony stare on the other end.

  “It’s Ruby Mae Jewell, ma’am.”

  A sharp sigh echoed in my ear. “We’ve barely gotten your friend settled, so I don’t know why you’re checking in on us.”

  I paced across my kitchen floor. “No, that’s not why I’m calling. I wanted to ask you where I could find out more about how one of us could make someone be spellbound. Is there someone who’s an expert on it that I can talk to?”

  “There are many experts,” she said with a sniff. “But none of them are in our immediate vicinity. However, I see the value in what you’re asking, and if you’re serious about putting in the work, then I can give you access to the coven’s library.”

  I didn’t even know the coven had a library. Then again, I’d barely been a member for long enough to have explored all of the building other than knowing where the bathroom was and having sat like a schoolgirl in the leader’s office.

  Looking down at my disheveled appearance, I calculated how long it would take me to get ready. “I could meet you there in about forty-five minutes.”

  I listened to Ebonee talking to someone else on her side and excuse herself. Her steps echoed on the floor as she walked somewhere else. “I will be occupied here for longer than I anticipated. And I’d prefer if other members did not see what you were searching for and get curious. Rumors can have a more damaging effect than the truth sometimes. I think you’d agree it’s better we keep things as quiet as possible.”

  “Y-e-a-h,” I drew out. “About that. I was wondering if I could bring some additional help to get through things a little quicker.”

  Even without seeing her, I knew I was testing Ebonee’s patience. “As long as they’re coven members, I don’t see the harm in you having the help of one or two of your friends.”

  “How about three?”

  “Fine.” Her tone suggested it was far from it, but since she wouldn’t be there in person, it didn’t matter as much. “I will make the arrangements for you to have access with three guests. Be at the west entrance by eight thirty sharp. Any earlier or later, and you will not be let in.” She hung up before I could ask her who we were meeting if it wasn’t her.

  With several hours between now and then, I could go check on the stalls at our big barn of shops even though it wasn’t my day to run them. Or I could go back to bed and attempt to get as much rest as possible so I could be at my best tonight.

  “Watch out, Buddy,” I called out to the family cat. “I’m coming to join you.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The girls and I finished eating our shrimp burgers from Mel’s Drive Thru in Crystal’s car while parked at the coven building. I stole a few fries from Dani and stuffed them in my mouth before she could slap my hand. Stolen fries were the best.

  “We’ve got one more minute if you trust the time on my dashboard,” Crystal announced. “Maybe we should go ahead and be waiting at the door.”

  We piled out and tossed our trash in a nearby bin as we walked by. Dani wiped ketchup off the corner of my lip despite my thievery, like a good cousin should.

  “Do we knock?” Cate asked, staring at the large wooden door.

  I shrugged. “I’m going to follow Ebonee’s instructions to the letter. She said be at the west door by eight thirty sharp. And here we are.”

  “Uh, Rue? This is the east door,” Crystal pointed out.

  “Holy Hexes!” I cried, running to make it to the other side of the building as fast as my legs could carry me.

  Cate, a regular runner, passed by me and got to the portico first. I followed behind Crystal, and Dani and I arrived last, our chests heaving from the effort.

  The door creaked open, and a sliver of light beamed out into the dark. “I’ve been told to expect a Ruby Mae Jewell.”

  Still panting, I raised my hand. “That’s me.”

  The door opened wider and a voice invited us in. We heard a click from the wall, and the hallway lights flickered on. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to the member library.”

  Crystal bumped her hip against mine. “Are we being escorted by a ghost?” Her eyes flitted to the translucent figure wearing a simple skirt and a blouse with a bow at the collar floating in front of us.

  Dani and I both shrugged, used to a lot more spectral presence in our lives. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” I said. “These are my friends Crystal and Cate, and that’s my cousin Danielle.”

  Our footsteps reverberated through the empty building until we got to a set of double wooden doors with ornate carvings over it. Our guide paused at the entrance and waited for us to give her our full attention.

  “What we have in here is for coven members only, of which I’ve been assured y’all fulfill the requisite by the current leader. When you pass through these doors, your intent will be judged. If you come here seeking anything other than knowledge to grow as a witch and benefit the good of the coven, then you will not be permitted to enter. I suggest you take a moment to calm yourselves before you enter.” She passed through the wooden barriers, leaving us on the outside.

  With a quiet click, the door unlatched and creaked open. Taking a deep breath, I volunteered to test out the system. “I’ll go first.” I concentrated on my purpose to learn more about spellbinding to help Gloria, and in the long run Azalea and Harrison.

  As I walked past the threshold, a slight tingle pressed against me. Without pausing, I continued until I stood on the other side. “I’m fine, girls, just walk through with clear intent.”

  The ghost shushed me. “This is a library,” she reminded me.

  Once all of us were inside, we took the time to look around. Dark stained tables were situated in the middle of the floor with more comfortab
le wing chairs dotting the immediate landscape. A few cubicles provided more privacy for anyone who came to read through the numerous books resting on stacks and bookshelves surrounding us.

  “That’s a lot of books,” Crystal exclaimed. “How are we going to find what we need in one night?”

  The spectral guide closed the door and faced us with a grin on her ghostly face. “All you have to do is tell me what you’re looking for and I’ll know right where to point you. I’m sorry for all the mystery, but until new visitors to the library have been tested, I try not to waste time going through my usual introduction.”

  Her new demeanor eased my initial tension. “I guess we should introduce ourselves again.”

  She held up her hand. “No need. I remember Crystal, Cate, and your cousin Danielle. Which makes you Ruby Mae Jewell.” The spirit touched her chest. “I’m Marcia Gandry, the former and I suppose ongoing librarian, and it will be my pleasure to help you find whatever you need.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Gandry,” I said, gesturing at the books surrounding us. “But how did our small regional coven create such a large collection of resources?”

  The ghost vanished and reappeared by the desk in the middle of the expansive space. “You can read all about the history of the library in these pamphlets when you come back with more leisure time on your hands. Simply put, the leader of the coven in the fifties, Professor Calvin Rockwell, liked to accumulate books and resources. He thought the strength of a coven lay in the knowledge they contained. When he passed, he bequeathed his entire collection, which was the building blocks of what you see here.”

  Maybe some time, I would return to dig through any sources that could help me understand my fire talents better since I’d missed out on learning from my missing mother. “We need your best books about spellbinding.”

  Marcia shimmered out of sight and emerged again at my elbow. “Since you passed the test to come in, I can assume you are trying to expand your knowledge of the outlawed magic.”

  “It’s illegal to make someone spellbound?” Dani asked. “What’s the punishment for the crime?”

  The librarian wavered in the air with a happy countenance. “These are things you can learn if you look in the right place. Along with legal consequences, I would advise you to also study the history behind how it came to be banned in civilized magical society, and then some case studies.”

  She escorted each of us to the different bookcases, and the stacks of books piled higher than our heads when finally we sat down to study. “How will we ever get through all of these? We don’t have months to read them all,” Cate complained. “My plants at home will wither without me.”

  “How much time do you have, ladies?” Marcia asked. “A serious subject like this deserves your utmost attention for as long as possible if you’re to gain a full understanding.”

  I glanced at the clock on the wall. “Well, I didn’t intend to stay the entire night, but we kinda need to know everything as soon as possible.”

  “I’m afraid I was only authorized to let you stay until midnight,” the librarian explained with sadness. “Perhaps you can make another entreaty to the coven leader to come back another time as well.”

  The longer we waited, the more chance the guilty party might get away. For all we knew, he or she could have been long gone, leaving Gloria behind to take the fall.

  Out of desperation, I disobeyed Ebonee’s order to keep things private, hoping that the amiable ghost knew how to stay silent. “This is more important than you can imagine, and we’re running out of time. We have a friend we want to help who we think has been spellbound. Ms. Johnson is with this friend right now at the nearest warden facility.”

  The librarian’s corporeal being wavered with shock. “It has been a long time since I’ve heard of any witch attempting powerful magic like that. Based on the whispers and rumors circulating throughout the membership, I can only guess who the players are that are involved.” She unbuttoned her spectral sleeves and rolled them up. “I have a way for you to get to the information faster, but I’d prefer if you don’t tell others about this method.”

  We followed her beckoning finger to the front desk. She unlocked the bottom drawer and pulled it out. Reciting a magical password, the bottom of the drawer dropped open, and a bundle of fabric fell onto the floor. With permission, Dani picked it up and unwrapped the contents. Two magnifying glasses rested in the middle of the cloth.

  “Those are bespelled to find exactly what it is you want to know. Whichever two are going to use them, you hold them over the open book and tell it what you need to know. It will flip through to the specific pages,” Marcia instructed.

  Crystal volunteered to use one of the magnifying glasses as did Dani, leaving Cate and I to be the readers. We got to work and narrowed down the most helpful books, putting back the ones with either brief mentions of spellbinding or repeated information from better sources.

  Dani got caught up reading one of the passages her magnifying glass flipped to. “It says here that spellbinding was generally thought to only be used by the most powerful or the highest in rank witches throughout history. But those are only the cases that made it into written record. There were probably thousands of people who attempted to bend someone’s will that never got noticed.”

  “Or the caster or victim died because of it,” Cate whispered. “I haven’t found any examples where the person who was spellbound survived.”

  The gravity of our quest stopped all of us, the silence of the empty building weighing down on our shoulders. “Oh, Gloria,” I uttered, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Even if we’re able to figure out how it all happened, they still might not be able to do anything for her?”

  The librarian hovered closer to us. “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t be eavesdropping. It’s terrible etiquette for one of my profession, but I think I may have misled your search by giving you more history. It’s my desire for people to learn as much from the past to help them inform and change the future. But I didn’t mean for you to lose hope for your friend. If one of you will follow me, I can get you better books.”

  Crystal returned with three more tomes to search through. Her shoulders slumped with relief. “Oh, good. Here’s a written case from the eighties where the spellbound victim didn’t die and was even instrumental in finding the culprit.”

  Dani took one of the other books and gave her magnifying glass the same search parameters. “Here’s another one. And right here, it says that with more modern ways to record or communicate with more people, the details of spellbinding were shared for healers to use to help those afflicted. It was also in the twentieth century when some of the strictest laws were created to punish those who were caught.”

  I raised my hand to garner Marcia’s attention. “These are all good references, but is there something that could summarize it all? Like a step by step instructional of how one would even attempt a spellbinding? Or what it takes to make it work?”

  “We don’t need an encyclopedic explanation. We’ve learned a lot already.” Cate pointed at a book she’d laid to her right side. “Usually, the spellcaster had to be near their victim. Only a handful of records exist of a witch who spellbound someone from a great distance, and they were noted as being someone of great importance or strength in magic.”

  I considered the books I’d read through. “And, I don’t know if you noticed, but there seem to be some common themes of why people were spellbound. Love, money, or power were at the top.” That realization would narrow down the list of possibilities by a mile. “I’ll need to talk more with Harrison to see if he can produce a list of suspects now that he’s home.”

  “Azalea will be thrilled,” Crystal snarked. “She’s been a little possessive of his time. When I brought by a cute coffee mug, I thought would make him laugh with a cartoon of an older woman wearing a bikini and laying by the ocean that said Beach, Please, she kicked me out. I think being cooped up with him is getting to her a lit
tle.”

  I rubbed my stiff neck and stood up to stretch. “What time is it?”

  “Almost midnight. We’ll be kicked out of here soon.” Cate followed my lead, complaining about the soreness of her behind.

  Panicked, I thumbed through the book in front of me. “We’ve got some plausible reasons we can work with. But how about how the spell is cast in the first place?”

  “I said the caster would have to be close to the victim,” Cate repeated. “But I read at least two accounts where the initiating spell was put into an object the victim kept on them. Like in one of the stories, it was a wedding ring.”

  “Ew, someone spellbound their spouse?” Dani asked. “That’s all kinds of horrible.”

  Giving it too much consideration with our time winding down, I wouldn’t have put it past Dad to try and spellbind my mother to get her to stay if he weren’t such an honest man. “Love or passion can be a powerful catalyst.”

  Marcia materialized. “I’m sorry, ladies, but I must ask you to take your last minutes to return the books to their rightful places.”

  I pleaded with her, hugging one of the books to my chest. “Can we have just a few more moments? I think we were really onto something based on your superb recommendations.”

  The ghost clasped her hands in front of her and bowed her head with more apologies. “That will not be possible. If you can receive authorization again, I’m sure you can come back, and I’ll be happy to assist you.”

  Dani wrapped the magnifying glasses in the fabric and returned to the desk. The librarian accompanied her to secure the instruments of examination to their hiding place.

  It wasn’t Marcia’s fault we hadn’t completed our task in one night. And maybe Ebonee would allow me to come back, even if that meant a further delay in saving Gloria. But as we finished cleaning up, I felt like I’d failed our friend.

  On our way out the door, the librarian stopped me. “From what I heard, you gained much more knowledge than you possessed when you entered. Focus on that positive note rather than mourning what you have yet to learn. Also, please give my kind regards to your great-grandmother.”