Spellbound

by Samantha Combs

  With Prudence having arrived, and Cordelia and Finola here already, Eden was awaiting the arrival of seven more coven-‐‑sisters.

  I had no idea what the size of the Council was, either. Hopefully, we outnumbered them.

  Tomorrow would be another interesting day. I yawned, suddenly as tired as I imagined my sweet Logan must be. A sigh escaped my lips as I had an image of him defending Dave. He was turning out to be everything that I knew he could be, and so much more. What had my sister said? Not far off from being a man? In my eyes, he already was. I’m sure I went to bed that night with a delicious smile on my lips.

  Chapter Sixteen

  LOGAN

  Monday morning, Serena and her sister Tabitha came over right on time for school. Just the sight of her beautiful, sunny face made me forget all the horrible details of last night and I found myself grinning back at her like a fool until Jade jabbed me in the ribs.

  “Cool it, Logan. You’re acting like a clown.” I spun to growl something nasty at her, but found her grinning too. I realized I did resemble the cat that ate the canary, but I just couldn’t stop. Serena just made me that happy.

  We drove to school holding hands while Tabitha and Jade giggled and snickered in the back seat. I didn’t care. I had sunshine in the front seat.

  We got to school and I scanned the parking lot for dead demons or smushed rats or something. I didn’t spot anything. I knew we had a spell of forgetfulness or whatever and it’s not like I didn’t believe in it. Quite the contrary. It’s just that I felt like I had gotten my share of luck and that sooner or later it was bound to run out. I kept waiting for someone to run up to me and blame me for all that crap that went down at the dance. No one did. I still flinched every time someone talked to me, so much so that Serena finally had to talk to me about it.

  “Logan,” she whispered, after grabbing me into a corner,

  “you need to get it together. Every time someone comes up to you, you practically jump ten feet in the air. NO ONE thinks anything went on, but if you don’t stop acting like a long-‐‑tailed cat in a room full of rockers, they’re going to!” She hissed the last part at me and it made me glad she did. It brought me to my senses. She had me. If I didn’t shape up, I would throw up all kinds of red flags. I forced myself to act natural, and we joined our group of friends.

  “Hey guys, what’s going on?” Dave and Tamera, arms around each other'ʹs waists, had a crowd of kids surrounding them.

  Tamera whirled around to me full of excitement, thrusting her left hand out toward Serena and me.

  “Look, look, looky, looky, look!” And there, on her third finger, twinkled a teeny diamond ring. Sweet Lord, had Dave lost his mind? Why didn’t he call me? I stared up at him and he had the hugest grin on his face and I knew why he didn’t call me. Because what I thought didn’t matter. What anyone thought didn’t matter.

  He loved this girl and wanted to tell the world. I stepped forward to take him in a giant bear hug. I clapped him on the back and said,

  “Shoot man, congratulations! You got a great girl there!”

  “Don’t I know it, Buddy. Don’t I know it?”

  Serena and Tamera were hugging and I think crying. Patty lurked in the background, trying to appear happy, but my heart almost broke for her when I caught her eye. She had to be devastated. I leaned in and whispered, “Patty, you will be the most beautiful Maid of Honor.” This had not occurred to her yet. While the idea formed and took shape, I watched some of the hurt and envy ebb away and a little shred of happiness for her best friend crept in.

  The morning bell rang and we gathered ourselves to go to our first classes. I kissed Serena and told her I’d wait for her at lunch. Dave and I walked to class together.

  “I guess you’re wondering what made me do it.” Dave began.

  “No, I’m not. I know you love her.”

  “I just got to thinking after we got home from the warehouse last night.” Uh oh, I thought. Did we miss something with him?

  He continued. “I just had this strong feeling, so I called Tamera and met her outside her house. Funny thing is, I’ve had that ring for the last six months. Just been waiting for the right time. And for some reason, last night never felt more right.”

  I’ll bet, I thought. Almost dying at the hands of a demon could do that to you. Even if you didn’t remember it, I bet it’s still there in your subconscious somewhere, swimming around. Instead, I sounded lame when I said, “When it’s right, it’s right, man.” And clapped him on the back again.

  “I know we’re young, but we can wait till right after we graduate, and her parents will be happy at least we did that. I’ll be eighteen then. Maybe I’ll work for Sully’s dad. I don’t know. I just know I love her.” He shrugged his shoulders. That one I understood.

  “She’s a great girl, Dave. You guys will be real happy.” I leaned in conspiratorially. “She just better make Patty her Maid of Honor or there could be a killing.” We both laughed.

  ****

  My morning classes bored me to tears and I couldn’t wait for lunch. When I got there, everyone clustered around Tamera, oohing and aahing over the world’s tiniest diamond. She beamed and basked in all the attention. Patty hung off to the side, grabbing what leftover attention she could get, and I could tell, beginning to revel in the part of the spotlight that being the Maid of Honor afforded her. Clearly, she and Tamera had had “the talk” and she’d been made Tamera’s chosen one. Serena, also there, loved not being the center of attention for once. I watched her for a minute and realized that wasn’t it entirely. What she enjoyed was letting Tamera have some of the limelight. I understood that it must be hard being the new girl and having everyone watch your every move. And have all that complicated with having to be careful not to use your powers, powers that come so natural to you. She sure was something, I thought again, for like, the millionth time.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a pack of sophomore girls approaching. Then I spotted my sister in the middle of them.

  With Jade there, I expected Tabitha would also be among them, since they’d been inseparable lately. But she wasn’t with them.

  What surprised me was who I did recognize. Nicole. Until recently, she had been one of Natalie’s little step-‐‑and-‐‑fetch girl’s, so how had she come to be with my little sister? I watched them for a minute or two and pretty soon I could make out that Nicole was the leader of this little herd and sweet mercies, my sister seemed to be a receptive follower. When the heck had that happened? Could I be so self-‐‑absorbed in my own world with Serena that I had failed to safeguard and protect my sister from the evil settling in our happy little town? Quickly, I glanced around to check if Serena caught any of this action, but as usual she jumped two steps ahead of me. She had already made her way over to where the group had rolled to a stop and were now listening with feverish focus to what Nicole was saying. “Jade, Jade, over here!” Serena called out while walking. My sister either didn’t hear her or ignored her on purpose. I walked toward them from the opposite direction.

  “Hey, Sis!” I called out. This too, failed to budge my sister.

  When I got close enough to her face, I could make out her eyes were glassed over and she kept staring at Nicole with a look of pure idolatry. So were all the other little girls in the group.

  Thankfully, Tabitha wasn’t one of them. But shoot! My sister was!

  Serena put her hand on my arm and whispered, “Logan. Look at Nicole.” I followed Serena’s gaze and stared at Nicole’s face.

  What I saw there made me want to recoil in horror. No longer the pretty blonde I had grown up with since we were kids; she had become something horrible and possessed. Her hair dirty and matted, it seemed as though it hadn’t been washed in days.

  Her eyes were sunken and caked with some kind of crud. Her face had drained of color, her lips were dry and cracked and split at the corners, and it gave the impression her nose had bled recently, with dried blood crusted in her nostril
s.

  “Jeez, Serena,” I gasped, “Don’t they know what she’s become? Why aren’t they freaking out? My sister won’t even watch a horror flick with me…why isn’t she screaming and running? Why aren’t they all?”

  “They can’t envision her the way we do. She has them in a spell. In fact, we’re the only ones seeing the real version of her right now. No one else can.” She whispered back.

  “What the heck can we do? That’s my sister right there! Isn’t she supposed to know better, being a twitch and all that?” I knew my voice had veered into hysterical territory, but I couldn’t help it.

  I felt fairly hysterical. Serena placed a calming hand on my arm again and said, “I’m trying to mindjump her, Logan. She’s blocking me, but I can tell she’s still in there. I’m going to have to try something pretty radical. You’ve never seen me do it, so I don’t want you to be alarmed, okay.”

  I just stared at her. I trusted her with anything. Right? Right.

  Okay, I thought. Let’s go with some more hocus pocus. After all, we’re talking about my sister. I only had the one. I stared at her and said only three words. “Go for it.” She reached out with both her hands and held my face.

  “Logan, no matter what I do, please don’t love me any less.

  Okay?” She stared at me for my answer. I didn’t hesitate.

  “Never. I could never love you less. Never, never, ever.” She gave my hands a squeeze in silent acknowledgment, then dropped her hands and walked towards my sister and Nicole. Over her shoulder, she said, “Just stand back, okay, Logan? And no matter what you watch me do or hear, don’t interfere with it I love you.”

  And turning her back, she walked away.

  Nicole sensed Serena approaching and I noticed her go into a defensive stance. She hunched her shoulders and the crowd of girls around her subtly parted, clearing a path between her and Serena. The girls stood around her, my sister included, nearby but not crowding her. They seemed to me like zombies from this old, creepy movie I once watched. They were looking at things but not focusing on them.

  Serena moved toward Nicole quickly. I became aware that as she walked she raised her arms slowly and as she did that, everyone around her began moving, or should I say slowing, to the same speed as her arms. She brought her hands together over her head and by the time she brought them back down, all activity in the schoolyard had ceased. Literally. Not a soul moved save for me, Serena and Nicole. I stared at Jade and even she was standing there like a cement statue.

  I noticed the air around Serena rising and swirling and creating a vacuum, sucking in all the leaves and debris on the ground. In the middle of it she stood, her hair flying in the wind she was creating, her cheeks flushed and her eyes closed, head thrown back and arms spread wide again. To me she never appeared more beautiful. In one motion, she harnessed the cyclone she’d created and hurled it at Nicole. It struck her in a tremendous spark of electricity in the middle of her chest and she screamed a piercing sound so loud I had to clap my hands over my ears. I watched while the embers seemed to curl around her flesh and melt it from her bones until it dripped off of her and puddle around what remained of her feet. I stared in horror while the Nicole-‐‑form slimed to the ground, writhing and wriggling and shrieking in agony. I tried to remember that Serena had to destroy a demon, that Nicole had stopped being Nicole when they, the Council I guess, had gotten hold of her.

  Serena stepped over the puddle of slime that used to be Nicole and reached my sister Jade. She put her hands on top of her head and started speaking words I didn’t recognize. Suddenly my sister’s eyes opened wide and she flung her arms around Serena.

  “Oh, Serena! Oh, thank you!” She buried her face in my girlfriend’s arms and they hugged each other hard. “I didn’t know what happened to me until almost too late. One minute she was just talking to me about what she wore to the dance, and the next thing I knew, I think she hypnotized me. Oh, gosh, I was so stupid!” She started crying now, hard. Okay, I drew the line at little sisters crying. I ran over to where the two of them stood and gathered them both in my arms.

  “Can we please just unfreeze the school now? They’re starting to creep me out?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  SERENA

  After the excitement of the schoolyard at lunch, I wasn’t sure I could handle anymore, but I forgot about all our new houseguests. All the rest of Eden’s coven-‐‑sisters were to have arrived while Tabitha and I were at school today. Elizabeth had stayed home to help Eden receive everyone. As Logan drove us down our street, we could practically count all the newly arrived rental cars parked in our driveway and in front of our house. I kissed Logan goodbye and went inside to meet all the new people.

  Eden, Cordelia, Finola and Prudence were already there.

  Eden introduced me to her new coven-‐‑sisters and their various talents. Aisling and Echo were experts in spell casting, while Eve specialized in astral-‐‑projection. Raven had been considered the foremost authority in mixing potions and animal control and Libby and Rochelle excelled in different forms of flight. By the end of the introductions, my head spun, but some of the most talented witches in all of witchhood surrounded me.

  My lessons began immediately. For the rest of the afternoon, I spent my time with Aisling and Echo, honing my skills with spells. They were identical twins and impossible to tell apart. I got them confused so often, I simply stopped trying to tell them apart.

  They were so passionate about the art of spell casting, as they called it; they made it easy to get caught up in their excitement.

  They opened up their Grimoire to me, which was what they called their personal book of spells, and taught me how to start my own. Echo explained that using maleficium, or causing harm with witchcraft, would never be our lot on this earth. I learned that as good witches, we did not mean to influence the mind, body or soul in a negative manner. We were never to cause sickness in animals, bad luck, or sudden death. Raven introduced me to the properties of belladonna and wolfsbane and to be certain to never mix the two. She showed me potions for falling in love, creating fortunes, and even for revenge, although she admitted she had personally never used one.

  In the early evening, I met with the coven-‐‑sisters of flight, Libby and Rochelle. They were the most fun. Rochelle flew without props but Libby preferred the old-‐‑fashioned version with her trusty broomstick. It would have been almost comical if she had not been so graceful sitting astride it, her legs peeking out from under the skirts of her long gown. We went out into the night air of our back yard which afforded us a lot of privacy. She would hold the stick at an angle just beside her legs and in an instant she would be off! She would wind and dip and streak through our back yard so smoothly. It proved harder than it seemed! The first few times I tried it, I fell right off into the dirt, face first. So frustrating! It made me more determined not to let that darn broom get the better of me. I kept at it until I learned the right ratio of balance, and which way to lean, slightly forward and a little to the same side I dangled my legs. The first time I got it I clapped my hands together in triumph and nearly fell off again! The pair of witches training me laughed, but I showed them. I kept my balance and swooped up into the night sky, screaming with delight.

  “Not too high, Serena. You don’t want to be seen, darling,”

  cautioned Rochelle.

  “Yes, Serena. Not too high,” trilled Libby. Short and fat, she had the most angelic voice and everything she said sounded like a song. Also, she rhymed all the time. “Not too high, Serena can fly,”

  she sang and danced around our yard.

  The screen door opened behind us.

  “Serena? Sisters? Come inside now to eat.” Eden gathered us for dinner. We had been outside for so long, we hadn’t even noticed the time. And here came the funny part: the training I had been dreading started to be fun. I began to enjoy it. Smiling in spite of myself, we all went inside for dinner.

  ****

  Logan called a
fter dinner to check on my training. I told him it turned out to be more fun than I thought. He sounded like he wasn’t as surprised by that as I had been.

  “Check it, Serena, I told you. You are so smart there would be no way you weren’t going to do well in your training. I told you.” He sounded so smug; I could almost picture his face.

  “I’m glad you were so sure.”

  “Yep. I know you like a book now.”

  I laughed at that one.

  “Oh, you do, do you?”

  “Well, the non-‐‑witchy part is pretty predictable anyway.”

  He laughed now too. “How about that news with Dave and Tamera today. Pretty crazy, huh?”

  “I don’t think it’s that crazy. I know she loves him and he adores her. Do you think it’s crazy?”

  “No, I don’t. Of course I’m not the best judge of ‘crazy’

  anymore, am I?”

  “I guess not. That’s my fault.”

  “Not. Don’t forget, I recently learned my mom and sister also share in the blame.”

  “Okay, I don’t have any sympathy left for you today. Did you forget I had to annihilate a former friend today? I think I win in the sympathy category.”

  “Yeah, you definitely win. That goes in the so surreal category.”

  “And that’s just for starters. You wouldn’t believe the amazing things I’m learning. All I can say is, it’s a good thing I’m not evil. I could cause some serious damage around here.”

  “I’ll bet.”