Willow waved her wand above her head and recited the spell again.
Everything around them turned white. The scenery began to grow clearer, and Willow saw they were in the middle of a bustling city. She turned around and saw a young college student sitting on the side of a fountain and staring at them with her mouth hanging open. A book sat open in her lap, and she was writing a paper. Judging from the position of her hand, she had stopped writing mid-sentence when they just appeared out of nowhere right in front of her.
P”retend you didn’t see that!” Willow said, remembering that she should have recited the spell so that they landed outside Shimmerwater and no one would see how they arrived there. The student shut her mouth and continued writing her paper. Willow had never seen such large buildings. She knew the University of Aralin was reputed to be huge, but she didn’t imagine that it was this big.
Magical remedies were not a part of formal education and were passed down through families. Since Willow wanted to go into the family business, she didn’t go to college. “Riordan, did you go to college?” she asked.
“Yes. I went to Havorgrind University for Investigative Science.”
“What’s that?”
“Being a newspaper reporter.”
“How in the world do we find out where this guy worked in here?” Christabel asked.
“Certainly there must be an admissions office. They exist at universities in America.” Angelina replied.
“Did you go to college?” Willow asked.
“Yes, but my school wasn’t as big as this one,” Angelina replied.
“So did I! I went to college to be a criminal investigator!” Christabel said.
“As a princess?” Riordan asked, raising his eyebrow.
“Yes! I went because I am good at finding out the truth about strange incidents. I have solved cold cases and caught several criminals by using my intuition!” Christabel said.
“Uh-huh . . .” Riordan mumbled.
“Okay, so who will do the talking here?” Willow asked.
Riordan said, “I will.”
“No, I will. You can’t lie, remember?” Christabel asked.
“Oh, yeah . . .” Riordan said, remembering that his truth-sensing abilities might hinder their task.
Angelina turned around and saw a large building that had the words “College of Music” written on the sign outside of it. “Perhaps we don’t have to go very far to ask someone for information about him. Let’s go inside here.”
They walked into the music building and heard the sounds of several instrumental ensembles practicing inside the locked rooms. They walked through the halls, searching for someone who looked as if they might be a professor.
They finally came upon an office. A young man was sitting at a desk. He was either a student who held a job at the school or a young professor. Christabel asked, “Excuse me?” The young man looked up. “Could you tell me where Doctor Edward Smith lived?”
The young man looked at her as if she were crazy. “He died three months ago. I never had him as a professor.”
“Where is the archaeology department located?”
“In the humanities building,” the young man replied.
H”ow can we get to the humanities building?” Christabel asked.
The young man handed her a map. “Here’s a map of the campus,” he said. They looked at the map and took mental notes of all the names of streets and buildings.
“Thank you,” Christabel said to the young man.
They walked outside and saddled their horses. They rode past beautiful large stone buildings as they rode through the city. Willow had never seen such beautiful architecture before.
“Man, this place sure is nicer looking than the capitol!” Angelina said.
Christabel laughed. “Well, just about anywhere is nicer than the capitol.”
“I wonder what humanities is,” Willow wondered aloud.
“I took a humanities class in college back home. It is about history and art, music, archaeology, and things like that,” Angelina replied.
“What is archaeology?” Willow asked.
“Archaeologists are people who study ancient cultures and search for ancient relics. Which seems to be what Dr. Smith was doing,” Angelina replied.
They finally came to a building with a sign that read “Humanities” hanging over the doors. They tied their horses to posts outside the building and walked inside. Willow, Christabel, Angelina, and Riordan walked around until they found an office. A woman sat behind a desk.
“Hello! I am looking for Doctor Edward Smith,” Christabel said.
“You didn’t hear? He died three months ago,” the woman said.
Christabel feigned sadness. “I am so sorry to hear that! I am a former student, and I was in town and wanted to see him in between his classes.”
“He was murdered by his girlfriend. At least, that’s what the police think. The investigation is ongoing. They had been dating for a week when it happened,” the woman said.
“What was his girlfriend’s name?” Angelina asked.
Girlfriend? After just a week? Willow wondered.
“Her name was Aslin Thornflower. He was so excited when he introduced her to us after he met her,” the woman said sadly.
“Do you know anything else about her?” Riordan asked.
“Well, no. Not really. I only know that he went on a camping trip and returned with her. She fled the city immediately after his murder.”
“Do you know where he lived?”
“No, I do not, and we don’t give information on professors’ addresses, anyway.”
Willow said, “Well, thank you very much. We are sorry to hear about Doctor Smith’s passing.”
They walked out of the building. “Don’t you want to get more information from that lady?” Christabel asked.
“I have an idea. Something that I didn’t think about when we got here,” Willow said. She showed them her dragonfly bracelet. “This is a pendant I use to help me find things and people. I cast a locator spell on it to help me find something or someone I am looking for. We can use it to find Dr. Smith’s house.” She pinched the pendant and said, “Earth and wind, come together to guide this little dragonfly pendant to the former residence of Doctor Edward Smith.” The pendant jolted forward. “Follow me. This pendant will lead us to where the professor lived.” They all saddled their horses again and followed Willow.
They rounded corners and walked through the city before they came upon a plain small house on the outskirts of the city. There was a For Sale sign placed in the front yard. Willow remembered that they needed a small pin to unlock the door. As far as she knew, neither Riordan nor Christabel had the power to turn into a cloud or a firefly.
“Does anyone have a straight pin?” she asked. She remembered the unlocking locks spell that she learned when studying with Tareth, but she didn’t want to use any of his spells any more than was absolutely necessary.
Angelina rummaged around in her bag and pulled out a needle. She always kept a small sewing kit with her. “Thank you!” Willow said as Angelina handed her the needle. Willow stuck it in the lock and wiggled it.
The lock popped open. Willow opened the door, and the musty smell of a house that had been closed up for months hit Willow in the face. They walked inside, and the house was very dark. Willow followed where the pendant was leading her.
She walked down a hallway and into a room that might have been a library at one point. It was a vast room, and empty bookcases lined the walls. She remembered a journal entry she had read about Tareth taking everything from the man to stock his library back on Enchantica Island. She decided to ask Riordan a question that had been bothering her for several days. “Riordan?”
“Yes?” Riordan replied.
“Do you think Dr. Smith was up to something evil, trying to bring magic back to Ethermoor?” she asked.
Riordan ran his hands over the shelf and said, “I don’t think so. I can sense
if someone did something purposely dishonest, but I’m not getting that vibe here. I think he was a hobbyist magician.”
“What’s a hobbyist magician?” Willow asked.
“A person who loves to study magic to learn about its history and significance in Ethermoor.”
“But there is a reason it is now illegal for a human to practice magic, isn’t there?”
Riordan sighed. “Yes. Too many wicked people used it solely for power.”
“I wish there was something that could give us a clue as to what happened to this man,” Willow said. She felt the pendant turn her in another direction. Willow followed the pendant into the living room and felt it pull her to a place behind the sofa. She got behind the sofa and began pushing it. “I need help moving the sofa!”
Angelina got on one side of the sofa, and Riordan got in the front. “Now, on the count of three, I’ll pull while you push,” Riordan said. “One, two, three!” He pulled on the sofa while the others pushed.
The sofa made a screeching sound as it slid across the wooden floor. There was a rotten place in the floorboards and a large hole in three of the floorboards. Willow made her hands glow so that she could see what was inside the hole. She stuck her hand inside and saw a small fairy trinket lying in the dirt. She tried to grab it with her hand but discovered that the floor was about six feet above the dirt.
“Angelina, could you use your magic to bring that fairy figurine to us?” Willow asked.
Angelina stuck her hand out, and a small vine came out of her palm. She wrapped the vine around the small trinket and pulled it up to her hands. Willow was a bit confused. What did the trinket mean? Was it a gift or a reminder of something?
“Is there something significant about this?” Angelina asked.
Christabel said, “Hand it to me. I can sense things about items that belonged to murder victims.” Riordan thought this was an odd statement. Willow handed the fairy to Christabel, and she studied it closely.
“He just collected fairy art, all things fairy, to be exact. He collected books, trinkets, and all kinds of things having to do with them. This thing just fell out of his pocket as he was sitting here the day he bought it. It fell between the cushions on the sofa, and eventually onto the floor.” She lifted the cushions and saw that there were large spaces in between the planks that made up the seat of the sofa.
“Yup. It fell through the planks,” she said.
Riordan said, “Hand it to me. I want to see if there is any dark magic associated with it.” Christabel handed the object to Riordan, who coated it with the fire-pants soot. Nothing happened. “There is no kind of dark magic attached to it.”
“Well, there wouldn’t be! He bought it at a flea market! He stuck it in his pocket and promptly forgot it when he got home. It fell through the cushions of the sofa,” Christabel said.
“How do you know this stuff?” Angelina asked.
“I had a vision when I held it,” Christabel replied.
“What else did you see?” Riordan asked.
“Nothing. The vision just showed me how he got it.”
Willow sat on the sofa, totally stumped. She heard the sound of an owl hooting outside. Angelina looked up and saw a large eagle owl perched on the ledge of an open window, carrying a leather-bound book in one of its talons. The owl hooted, and Angelina understood every word it said.
“Are you a fairy?” the owl hooted.
“No, I am a sorceress. How did you know I am one of the magical people?” Angelina asked.
“I was hunting for my breakfast outside this house, and I saw you shoot a vine out of your hand. You also look like a human and can talk to me, so that is proof that you are,” the owl hooted.
He let go of the book with his talon. “This is for you. The fairy who lived here for a little while told me to give this to someone who possesses fairy magic. It’s the professor’s notes. She said someone murdered him, and she instructed me to hide his most prized book in my hole so that the evil man who killed him wouldn’t find it.”
Angelina’s heart throbbed with excitement. “Do you know what the murderer’s name was or what he looked like?”
“He had brown fur, and like all humans, his fur was only on top of his head,” the owl replied.
“Is that all you can tell me?” Angelina asked.
“Yes. I do not know his name. I was perched on a branch to sleep one day, and I saw this hideous human with brown fur on its head run by my tree. That night, the fairy who lived here told me that she was leaving and that I was to guard this book. So, I put it in my hole where no other human would ever think to look for it. She told me to only give it to a magical person,” the owl said.
Angelina excitedly flipped through the pages, but since she was not very familiar with Ethermoorian magic, she was not familiar with most of the terms and places in the book. She recognized the legends about fairy rings that were written there because the fairy ring stories were similar to the ones she had heard back in America. She was shocked to learn about the fairy rings in Ethermoor. According to the notes, fairy rings were gateways to both the world of the fairies and the Afterlife. She had previously only known about fairy godmothers, the tooth fairy, and her ancestor Queen Zadelia.
She handed the book to Willow, whose mouth dropped open in shock at the contents of the book. “This contains the locations of rock rings as well as the forests where the disappearing rings appear and what time of the year they occur!” She gasped.
Riordan interrupted, “Are we forgetting that time is of the essence here with Tareth having conquered Ethermoor?” He sounded irritated.
“Oh, right. No, we haven’t forgotten,” Willow said.
“I mean, yes, it’s important that we found this notebook, but we kind of need to get back to Ethermoor City. We can work on solving the rest of the murder later.”
Chapter Ten
Back at the castle, Tareth was infuriated. He pulled out a map he made to cast desperation spells to find out where something he was looking for was located. It was something he’d made in the weeks before he lured Willow to him. He painted the map with human blood, and made a pointer for it out of human bone.
“Are you sure that is going to work? It hasn’t worked to find the location of either Princess Christabel or Willow,” Desdemona said.
“Remember that my magic doesn’t work on Willow. As for Christabel, I don’t know why it isn’t finding her,” Tareth replied. He placed his fingers on the pointer. “Show me the location of my latest journal!” He lifted his fingers off the pointer. It slid right to Shimmerwater.
“That’s strange. It’s at the place where Dr. Smith taught. How did it get there?” Desdemona asked.
“Well, let’s go to Shimmerwater and find out!” Tareth growled. He tied the pointer on a string and tied the string around his neck. When they got to Shimmerwater, he could use it to point them in the direction where the book was. He got his sword out of the closet. They all grabbed hands. Tareth recited the transporter spell. Seconds later, they were all standing in the university town. He remembered where Dr. Smith’s house was, but it was nighttime, and the pointer was not pointing in the direction of the house.
Back at the house, Angelina wondered why Tareth had wanted to leave his world. “Why did Tareth come to Ethermoor?”
“No one knows. Only the wicked fairy who brought him here knows the answer, and he took the secret to his grave,” Riordan replied. “Not all fairies were kind. There are all kinds of stories about evil fairies, ones who drug people to the Dead Realms through the fairy rings. It wasn’t just humans who were followers of Tareth, and that’s what makes his kind of magic all the more dangerous.”
Suddenly, Christabel jerked violently, and her eyes rolled back into her head.
“Christabel?” Riordan asked.
She walked back to Dr. Smith’s bedroom with her arms outstretched. “This is where it happened! Right here!” she wailed.
“Where what happened?” Riordan asked.<
br />
Then Christabel started screaming. Her face returned to normal. She sat on the bed and started sobbing violently.
“What just happened?” Riordan asked.
“Don’t send me back to the asylum! Please don’t send me back!” Christabel begged.
“We won’t send you back to the asylum, I promise,” Riordan said.
“I saw Halvor kill Professor Smith! The fairy tried her hardest to stop him, but he was immortal! Edward let her go as a fairy helper as he was bleeding to death because he didn’t want her to go to a murderer!” Christabel sobbed. There was silence.
“We should be going. We have Professor Smith’s notebook,” Willow mumbled.
They decided to get a room at an inn because they needed a place to stay for the night, and the house terrified Christabel. They ate at a restaurant and rented rooms at one of the inns. Angelina and Willow slept on the third floor, and Christabel and Riordan rented rooms on the fourth floor because those were the only available rooms.
Riordan decided to confront Christabel about what he had discovered about her magical abilities. He knocked on her door, and she opened it. “Hey, I need to talk to you.”
“Okay, come in,” she said. He walked inside the room, and she shut the door.
“Last night, when everyone went to sleep, I tested one of your hairs for magic with a potion that I got from Tareth that he invented for detecting magic in the apothecaries’ medicine. It glowed brightly, which is a sign that you have fairy magic in you,” Riordan said.
Christabel grinned, folded her arms, and said, “Come on! Prove it! There’s no way I can have any kind of magic.”
“All right, I will,” Riordan said. He took out the bottle of Tareth’s potion. “Give me one of your stray hairs.”
Christabel pulled one hair out of her head and handed it to Riordan. He opened the vial, dipped the hair in, and the vial glowed brightly. “How is that possible?” Christabel gasped.
“You said you had a vision of Tareth killing the professor. You also told us that you, your father, and another person had strange visions the night of the full moon that began to make more sense after magic returned, and that you have a knack for solving crimes. Dream Sorcerers, who were the descendants of Luna Fairies, had those abilities.”
The Night Sorceresses Page 20
