by Sarina Dorie
Fortunately, I knew just the witch with sewing skills and supplies to assist me.
Before dinner, I found Josie teaching a group of students to knit in her classroom. A sign on the chalkboard read: Knitting Club. I recognized some of the students.
Chase Othello, a student with purple hair and a lip ring, waved at me. “Hi, Miss Lawrence. Look what I’m making!” She held up a dark blue blob she was very proud of.
I pulled Josie to the back corner of the classroom and whispered what I needed. She snickered when I told her my sewing plan.
“First of all, do you know how difficult it is to sew something you can’t see?”
“I already thought of that.” I held up a bottle of talcum powder. “Problem solved.”
She tugged on the rim of her orchid-and-mauve patchwork witch hat absentmindedly, as if thinking it over. “What do you even need a hood on this invisibility Snuggie for?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Hey!” Josie raised her voice and waved at the students. “Do not eat that yarn! It will get tangled up in your intestines and cause problems. Plus, I only have so much.”
Ben O’Sullivan pulled a dark blue line of yarn from his mouth. He kept pulling and pulling. He looked like he would gag. It was like a very bad magic trick.
Josie made a face. “I don’t have any invisible thread. I’m going to have to dye some so it becomes transparent.”
“I have a feeling if you created gray thread that turned hot pink after Thatch wore it, you can create transparent thread.”
She giggled. “Yeah, that was good.”
“He was really mad at me until he figured out it was you.”
“I wish I’d been there to see his expression.” Her giggle rose into a Vega-like cackle. Students stared at us and whispered. We snuck out into the hall to finish our conversation.
“You know, I feel a little bad about it now. I thought Thatch ate my chocolate to get back at me, but I’m not so sure anymore,” she said. “I think he thought Vega hexed it, but maybe he didn’t realize how severe a curse it actually was.”
“Don’t tell me you like Felix Thatch now.” I nudged her, teasingly.
“No. He’s too sneaky. I know he’s hiding something. Don’t you get that feeling? Like he knows something is going on, but he’s covering for someone?”
I nodded. “I believe he is. Someone he cares about. Someone he loves.” I tried to give her hints before the tongue twister took over.
She chewed her lip. “That’s why you want help making this thing, isn’t it? You’re going to spy on Gertrude Periwinkle. She’s freakier than Thatch. I wouldn’t mess with her.”
I lowered my voice to a whisper. “She’s already tried to ghost aghast jinx school.”
Darn it!
I tried again but my words came out just as jumbled.
“She hexed your tongue?” Josie asked.
I nodded.
“Have you tried talking to Khaba? You don’t need to do this alone.”
“Yes, I do.” I carefully selected my words. “Someone bewitched him just like she does with everyone else. Someone used siren magic and makes men do what she wants. I have to find evidence of what she’s doing and show someone who can resist her powers. Another woman, maybe.”
“Oh! Like Mrs. Keahi!” Josie said.
Maybe. Jeb was most likely out of the question. If there was a school board, I didn’t think they’d stand for it. Not that I knew if Witchkin schools worked the same way public schools did.
“Will you help me?” I asked.
She threw her arms around my neck and hugged me. “I thought you’d never ask! But you have to promise me you’ll let me spy with you.”
After my dinner duty was finished, Josie made me assist her in her room with the sewing. It took hours to magically “dye” thread transparent.
“Transparent thread is easier to create than invisible thread,” Josie said.
“I don’t see what the difference is.”
“Har har,” she said dryly. “Sounds like you’ve been hanging out with Khaba too much.”
“No, really,” I said.
“Transparent means the color underneath will show through, but the thread won’t have any color of its own. Invisible will hide what’s underneath. It takes less skill and less magic to dye thread transparent.” Josie explained the process matter-of-factly, as though this was normal to her.
It was hard to talk about invisibility clothes and not think about Derrick. If we had repurposed this Snuggie earlier, we could have made him a pair of pants. He wouldn’t have needed to leave the school in the first place.
After we powdered the Snuggie, Josie assisted me in cutting off the extra pieces of fabric, hemming the edges, and sewing a hood with the clear thread.
“What are we going to do for you?” I asked. “We don’t have an invisibility cloak for you. How are you going to sneak around with me?”
“It’s fortunate we’re about the same size.”
We might have been the same height, but we weren’t the same size. Josie was curvy and voluptuous, an Amni Plandai fertility goddess or some equivalent.
Josie grinned. “I’m going to teach you a replication spell for making a second Snuggie. It makes an exact copy.”
“Cool! That sounds like a replicator from Star Trek.” Already my mind saw the endless possibilities of where I could go with this in an art classroom. I could multiply my art supplies.
Josie held up a finger in warning. “There’s a catch. Anything that happens to the original, happens to the copy—and vice versa. If the original gets a tear, the copy is torn in the same place. If the copy catches on fire, the original burns too.”
So much for my plan to create hundreds of sheets of paper and supplies.
By that point, it was already nine thirty p.m. I should have been in my own room for curfew. Vega would be pissed if I made too much noise coming in when she was sleeping. I held on to my invisibility Snuggie so we could finish our project on Thursday. Already I felt better about my goal to catch Miss Periwinkle and prove her guilt.
I would catch her and force the truth out of her. I would help Derrick in any way I could, and this was the only lead I had at the moment.
On Thursday, I covered my own breakfast duty and Vega’s dinner duty. I could hardly wait until dinner was over so I could work on my project with Josie in the privacy of her room. Near the end of my shift Hailey came panting into the cafeteria, her face red from running.
“There’s no need to run. There’s still plenty of food left,” I said.
“It isn’t that. I just came from the library. Maddy wanted me to give you this.” She pressed a note into my hand.
I unfolded it.
Miss P just left. When I asked if she would be in the dungeon if I needed her, she said no. She said she was going for a walk. If you hurry, you might find her outside.
I still had ten minutes left before my duty was over. The other teachers had already gone, and most of the students had left for school clubs or gone to their common rooms to study. If I left Vega’s shift and she found out, I didn’t know what she’d do. If I didn’t try to follow Periwinkle now, I didn’t know if I would have another chance.
“Would you go to Miss Kimura’s room and ask her to come down here? Tell her I had to leave to take care of something,” I told Hailey.
Hailey rolled her eyes.
I ran to my room, retrieved my invisibility Snuggie and put it on. It would probably have been less conspicuous if I hadn’t run down the hallway, my feet slapping noisily against the stairs, but I needed to find Periwinkle before she disappeared. I traveled along the back wing, through the ruined section of school, and climbed over the crumbling wall. From the mound of rubble, I was able to see a lone figure in a witch hat across the school grounds about to enter the forest. I ran out the back of the school, passing topiary animals who turned their heads in puzzlement
as I passed. My breath made cold clouds in the air, and my feet crunched over gravel and pressed footprints in the grass. Only at the edge of the trees did I pause.
The forest was ominously dark for this time of day, and I had no light. Nor could I carry one if I wasn’t going to draw attention to myself. Up ahead, something glowed, flickering in and out of view. Miss Periwinkle was silhouetted by the light of her wand.
I continued, less noisily than before, but I was still trying to hurry. A twig snapped under my foot. Periwinkle froze. Her light dimmed, but it was still enough to see where she stood. I remained still, not daring to breathe until she continued. If she was willing to poison me and try to kill people, she would have no qualms about doing so here and leaving my body to be devoured by chimeras.
The gloom of the forest pressed in on me. A wolf howled in the distance. I shivered from more than the bite of cold.
I wished I had my phone. I only had an appropriated wand, and that wasn’t any help without a good spell. I slipped my hand out of my sleeve and under the invisibility robe to grope around for my pocket to find the wand. Multitasking was not one of my stronger tasks apparently. I tripped on the hem of the robe, catching myself before I plunged headfirst into the foliage. Several twigs snapped this time. My heart pounded in my ears.
Miss Periwinkle turned around. Her eyes narrowed. I ducked down. I knew she couldn’t see me, but she might be able to sense me. She kept walking along the winding path. Originally, I had thought this was the path to Lachlan Falls, but we must have taken another trail at some point, because we would have reached the meadow by now. I hoped we were still on school grounds. In the distance, water burbled over rocks.
The lullaby of a stream grew louder.
Eventually Periwinkle stopped before a rocky embankment. She sat down and removed her hat. My nose was numb with cold, and I fought the urge to sniffle. The cold must not have bothered her, though. She removed her clothes and went skinny dipping in the water. Of all the things I had imagined she might do, it hadn’t been that.
I shifted from foot to foot uneasily, waiting for her to call emissaries from the Raven Court or drink a baby’s blood or do something horrible. There was no reason for her to sneak off to go swimming. She could easily have invited Thatch—or any one of her lovers to go with her for this. Sure, Khaba had said leaving school grounds wasn’t permitted, but I didn’t think we were even outside the school boundaries, though I couldn’t be sure.
I thought about the sirens I had met earlier in the semester who had wanted to lure Maddy into joining them. Periwinkle had been the one to stop them and the one to insist there was another way for Maddy. She had insisted Maddy resist the call of siren magic and the lure of draining someone.
What if she hadn’t been able to resist that call of siren powers herself? As she had said, I couldn’t possibly understand how difficult it was for her now that she was young and beautiful. Perhaps my affinity had released her suppressed siren magic when she had coerced me into helping her regain her youth and beauty. It would make sense how she managed to seduce all the men in the school—though I didn’t understand how she could bewitch the ones who weren’t straight.
Periwinkle sat on the rocks and sang, combing out her hair and looking angelic in the gloomy light. She glowed with inhuman beauty. I leaned against a tree and sighed. She was so perfect. I would have given anything to look like her. I wasn’t even sure why I had thought she would kill me.
The wind rustled the leaves in the trees. The perfume of earth and water, starlight and dusty books washed over me. My tongue tasted honey and nectar in the air.
“I know you’re out there,” she said. “Why don’t you come out and show yourself?” Her voice rushed over me like that of a tide, drawing me closer.
My feet walked forward. I didn’t want us to fight her magic. Something niggled at the back of my mind. There was some reason I was supposed to be afraid of her, but I couldn’t remember why.
“You caught me, lass,” a male voice said from behind me.
I flinched to the side, Periwinkle’s spell broken by the gruff words, caustic on the ears after the siren lullaby. That wasn’t Thatch’s British monotone. Nor was it anyone else I knew.
Had I discovered Periwinkle’s secret?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A Kilty Pleasure
The man’s accent might have been Scottish, but I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t make out more than a silhouette on the path.
“Come closer, love,” Miss Periwinkle said with a coquettish smile.
The honey in her voice compelled me to obey, but I fought against it.
He stepped forward, his movements slow, as though he were fighting her as well. “You’re a student at the school?” he asked.
“Maybe. Who are you?”
Maybe this wasn’t her big secret as I’d hoped.
“You shouldn’t be wandering about,” he said. “There are dangerous creatures lurking outside these woods. The Raven Court, for one.”
“Are you one of them?” She laughed.
The man stepped past me, so close I could smell his cologne. His features were in shadow as he stepped toward Periwinkle, but I was able to make out his red hair. He didn’t glow like she did. I could see enough of him to note the kilt and traditional clothes.
“My name is Brogan McLean.” He sat beside her on a mossy rock.
I could see his face now. He looked like the man who had met Khaba in town as we’d looked for Derrick. I had been afraid he intended to lure Khaba away from being my chaperone as a trap, but nothing bad had happened. Now this man was here, on the grounds to the school for some reason. His eyes raked over Gertrude Periwinkle’s voluptuous curves.
She leaned back, her smile growing.
“I’m a friend of Khaba’s,” Brogan said. He still hadn’t answered her question about whether he was a dangerous creature or from the Raven Court. I couldn’t tell if he intentionally avoided answering the question or if his mind was muddled by magic.
“A friend? Or a lover?” she asked.
“A wee bit of both.”
I wondered if he was the man I’d seen in Josie’s magic-mirror spell at the pub with Khaba. I hadn’t examined him carefully at the time. Now I wished I had.
She leaned forward, purring like a cat. “And what were you doing in the forest alone? On your way to the school to see our Mr. Khaba?”
“Aye.” He swallowed. “Khaba sent a message that he needed to stop going to Lachlan Falls to meet me. Ever since the Raven Court has been showing up, he thought it wise not to leave the school. Since he couldn’t leave, I thought I’d pay him a visit.”
“Is our Mr. Khaba breaking the school rules? Sabotaging wards to sneak a stranger in during these dangerous times?” Everything Periwinkle said came out teasing and merry, but under her words I sensed a predator about to strike. Her eyes were full of cunning. She was wheedling information out of him, whether he realized it or not.
“There wasn’t going to be any sneaking about it. I can walk in the front door freely because I’m a former student. So long as I check in at the office first,” he said. “That’s the rule for visitors. And you know how Fae are with all that red tape.”
“Rules.” She lifted her silvery-blonde hair and piled it on top of her head.
He watched her breasts lift as she raised her arms. Her smile turned smug. I really didn’t like her.
She batted her eyelashes at him. “Is Mr. Khaba truly that concerned with his own rules if he breaks them?”
The man wet his lips. “It isn’t breaking them if I only rub his lamp.”
She leaned forward. “Is this the truth?” She stroked his cheek with a finger. “Or did Khaba send you out here to spy on me?”
“Khaba didn’t send me. I saw you walking in the woods, and I thought you might be a student. At first I thought I would leave you be. Students are always sneaking off to Lachlan Falls, and it’s none of my business.
But these be dangerous times, and I reconsidered. Then I felt something, a presence following you.”
“I didn’t feel anyone.” Her eyes flickered to the trees, to the place I stood, and kept scanning the shadows.
“I’m a telepath,” Brogan said. “When I touch someone, I can read minds.”
She withdrew her hand from his cheek. Served her right! He would know she was up to no good.
Brogan swallowed. “From a distance, I sense feelings. I could tell the person following you didn’t have your best intentions in mind. He or she—I can’t tell—hates you. I didn’t want you to come to any harm. But then I saw you bathing, and, well—”
I did not hate her! Well, maybe a little. But I did have good intentions—they were to prove her guilt. They were to help me find Derrick. I could see how following her might look suspicious, but if he knew what I knew, I doubted he would disagree with my intentions.
“That’s sweet of you, thinking I couldn’t take care of myself.” She stroked his hair. “Have you ever been with a siren?”
He laughed. “I’ve never been with a woman.”
She leaned forward and kissed him. I was done here.
Miss Periwinkle’s big secret of the day was that she snuck off to the stream. And she was disgusting, seducing anything with a penis she could get her hands on, but I already knew that. I had to find another way to prove her guilt.
Once I returned to the women’s dorm, I tried to wash the mud off the Snuggie in the sink, but as I did so, the fabric started to turn opaque. Oh no! Maybe there were special washing instructions for invisibility fabric. I wrung it out the best I could and hung it on a hanger. There wasn’t any place to hang it without getting anything else wet or muddy, so I hooked the hanger onto the empty birdcage suspended from the ceiling and set a towel underneath to catch the drips.
When I told Josie what I’d done, her face turned red. “You were supposed to bring me with you! What were you thinking? You could have gotten seriously hurt by that psycho.” She slugged me in the arm, harder than her usual punch.
