Pawsitively Betrayed

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  “Ow!” Kim yelped, holding her cheek. Then her eyes widened; her voice was her own again. Without warning, Kim slapped Amber back.

  Amber toppled onto her side, narrowly avoiding whacking her head on the corner of a wooden pallet. Her head spun. “Kim!”

  “Oh my God, Amber, I’m so sorry!” Kim said, helping Amber back to her feet. “I was so caught up in the moment. I forget my own strength.”

  Once Amber got her bearings, she motioned for Kim to follow her, and they crept back the way they’d come. When Amber peered around several open-topped boxes of tomatoes stacked near the doors, she found a dozen wild-eyed girls creeping about the warehouse despite the fact that several annoyed men were threatening to call security.

  “There he goes!” Amber cried out, pointing to the open door before taking off for it, weaving around boxes and leaping over packing supplies as she went.

  She was relieved to see the girls were giving chase, their sights back on the prize. They leapt over boxes and crates with all the agility of hurdlers. It wasn’t long before they bypassed her and Kim, and were running out into the open loading area behind Ma and Paw’s. A few confused workers stood on the fringes, watching as the heaving teenage Hunters scanned the area.

  “Someone on Scuttle says they saw him near the library!” one of the girls called out and off they went, running out the open gate that surrounded the loading area.

  Amber and Kim slowly followed, but instead of turning left when they reached the sidewalk as the horde of teenage girls had, they went right. It would take a good twenty minutes for them to walk back the way they’d come, but at least they could do it at a leisurely pace now. Amber’s face stung and she rubbed her cheek.

  “Sorry about your face,” Kim said.

  “Sorry about yours.”

  Kim managed a chuckle. “If John has to deal with this nonsense on a regular basis, I’m surprised he’s as nice as he is. The adoration was only fun for like, two minutes tops, then it got … bizarre.”

  Amber let Kim ramble on about her traumatic experience, but she was only half listening. Everything Molly had said only made her that much more concerned about her aunt’s premonition, and that Henrietta might not wake up.

  Once they got back to The Quirky Whisker, Amber could tell how exhausted Kim was. The adrenaline likely had slowly ebbed away during their walk.

  “Do you have a lot more things on your agenda today?” Amber asked. “Other than Kids Day, that is.”

  “Ugh! Kids Day …” Kim blew out a weary sigh. She checked her phone. “The main events don’t start for another couple hours.”

  “Can you take a nap?” Amber asked. “Just for an hour. You’ll need it if you have to deal with that many kids hopped up on sugar.” Last year, Kids Day had gotten completely out of control when a cotton candy vendor decided to have a cotton candy eating contest. Nearly every kid participated and ten of them had gotten very sick. One had thrown up in Anne Marie’s lap.

  Kim shuddered. “I was going to go on a run this evening for my 5K training, but I think I can skip that, no?”

  Amber laughed. “If you run the 5K as if you’re being chased by Hunters, you’ll finish it in ten minutes flat.”

  Kim cackled. “I’ll call you later.”

  Even after Kim drove out of the lot, Amber still didn’t go inside her shop. Her aunt was upstairs holding onto information that was so upsetting, it altered her behavior, and Willow was presumably still out on the town with a superstar, so Amber didn’t want to bother her. Especially not after the lunch date she’d had with Connor yesterday. An outing with John Huntley hopefully was making up for that tenfold.

  Amber leaned against the wall of her building, well out of view of The Quirky Whisker’s front windows, and watched the milling tourists. Though they streamed down both sides of the sidewalk, she focused on the ones across the street.

  Of all the questions bouncing around in her head right now, two had moved to the fore. One, how was she supposed to identify who was a Penhallow and who wasn’t? Even if she managed to uncover the best way to combat the cursed clan without losing her mind, her life, or both, it wouldn’t matter if she couldn’t track the cursed witches down. It was hard to pinpoint your enemy when their face kept changing.

  Two, had Kieran’s plan to come to Edgehill been his own or someone else’s?

  Both questions kept leading her back to the same answer—an answer absolutely no one in her life would think was a good idea. So she pulled her phone out of her back pocket and called the one person who was sure to back this idea even if it were awful.

  “What?” he said in greeting.

  “Are you still mad at me?” she asked.

  “It’s safe to assume I’m always a little mad at you about something,” Edgar said. “What do you want? Have any more earth-shattering family revelations you forgot to share with me?”

  Yeah, it was going to take him a while to get over this one.

  “Wanna take a trip to the abandoned neighborhood?” she asked.

  She could practically hear his scowl. “I don’t even have details and I already think this sounds terrible.”

  “It sounds terrible to me, too,” Amber said. “But there are a couple of people there who might be able to answer several of my questions at once.”

  “This idea keeps sounding worse, cousin,” he said. “I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”

  Chapter 14

  Amber headed into The Quirky Whisker, unsure of what she might find. The ward on the door was down, but the door was locked. She let herself in and peered around the space, finding it empty. Thea’s cage wasn’t immediately visible either.

  Locking the door behind her, she made her way across the shop and up the stairs, only to stop halfway up at the sound of laughter. Her aunt’s laughter. Amber took the remaining steps two at a time to reach the top landing.

  Sitting at the dining room table on one end was Thea’s cage. Thea crunched her way through a piece of lettuce two times the size of her body. Aunt G and one of the bodyguards sat across from each other, each nursing a mug of what smelled like cinnamon tea.

  “Oh, hi, little mouse,” Aunt G said, turning in her seat to smile at Amber.

  “Uh … where is everyone?” Amber asked.

  “Willow and John are sightseeing. Tad and Todd are keeping an eye on him,” Aunt G said.

  “And you?” Amber asked Troy, an eyebrow raised.

  “Well,” Troy said, his voice as nondescript as the rest of him, “Tad and Todd don’t actually know where they are. They’re scouring the town for them. I stayed here in case they come back. Your aunt was kind enough to offer me refreshments.”

  Eying the hamster cage, Amber said, “And our … pet … is doing okay?” It wasn’t until then that Amber noticed Tom Cat and Alley were sitting side by side on one of the chairs, watching the hamster diligently, but keeping their distance.

  “Indeed,” Aunt G said. “I gave her the latest dose of medicine already. She’ll be good until tomorrow.”

  “I’m going to meet Edgar in a few minutes,” Amber said, then moved to her window bench seat. Underneath it was a cabinet where she kept her witchy materials, namely her grimoire and a few crystals. She took the spell book out of its hiding place. “I just came to get a few things.”

  Aunt G eyed the book. “Troy, dear?”

  “Yes, ma’am?” he asked.

  Oh no, Amber thought just as her aunt said, “Sleep.”

  Troy’s head immediately pitched forward, his chin resting against his chest.

  Aunt G was on her feet in a second and stalking toward Amber. “What are you up to?”

  “I need to figure out what’s going on,” she said, bypassing her aunt so she could stuff her grimoire into the purse she’d left hanging off the back of a chair. “Damien and Devra might know what the Penhallows have planned. Maybe they’ll cough up information if I promise to let them out.” She slung her purse over her shoulder, then headed for the stairs. “Ho
pefully you’ll be willing to talk about whatever the heck is going on with you once Willow is back later.”

  Amber was a moment away from her foot hitting the top step when her aunt blurted, “The vision changes every night.”

  She turned and crossed her arms, waiting.

  “One night you get run off the road,” Aunt G said. “The next night, Willow gets kidnapped. The night after that, The Quirky Whisker burns to the ground. Willow gets cursed. You get arrested. You’re both sacrificed on an altar. But every single night, something horrible happens to one or both of you.”

  Amber frowned.

  In a softer tone, Aunt G said, “I’m scared, little mouse. You girls are in danger and I don’t know how to stop it. There are so many variables being added every day that not even the future can keep up. All I know is that something is coming and I fear I can’t save you from it.”

  “Oh, Aunt G …” Amber said, her earlier anger dissolving instantly. She searched her aunt’s brown eyes, searching for some lie or manipulation. But all she saw was her aunt’s worry—worry that mirrored Amber’s own.

  Just as Edgar had said yesterday, it was easy to get angry at those closest to you. Amber and Aunt G seemed to butt heads often, both frustrating each other in ways few others could, but Amber knew deep down that Aunt G would do anything for her. Sure, she’d taken on the responsibility of raising Amber and Willow due to necessity, but there was nothing forced in the concern in her aunt’s eyes now. Her aunt loved Amber and Willow as if they were her own children.

  Amber pulled her aunt into a tight hug. One that startled a little sob out of Aunt G, who hugged Amber around the middle, her temple resting on Amber’s shoulder. As they stood like that, Amber explained her plan for visiting the abandoned neighborhood.

  “How do you even know they’re still there?” Aunt G asked, still holding tight to Amber.

  “I don’t,” she said. “But if we want any chance of finding Penhallow-specific spells, we need Penhallows, right? We’ve got two trapped in 1971.”

  Aunt G finally let Amber go and took a step back. “What if they’re wreaking havoc on 1971 and rewriting history right now? What if that’s what’s making my premonitions change so wildly every night?”

  Well, that was a new horrifying possibility. It had only been a week, but two ticked-off Penhallows could do a lot of damage in a week. “All the more reason to go.”

  Aunt G nodded. “Okay, well, I’m going with you. We need to get a hold of Willow and tell her what we’re doing. I suggest you call Simon as well. We’ll need all the magical backup we can get.”

  Amber opened her mouth to protest, but snapped it shut again when Aunt G sent her a look that clearly said, If you argue with me, I’ll turn you into a hamster.

  While Aunt G tried to get a hold of Willow, Amber called Simon. It was midday on a Tuesday, and though Amber knew he made wreaths, she didn’t know if that was part of his business, or merely a hobby. She really didn’t know much about the guy.

  “Hey, Amber!” he said after the first ring. “Jasper’s folly.”

  Laughing, glad that he remembered her request to use code words, she said, “Hi, Simon. So … uh … are you busy?”

  “Cashing in a second favor so soon?” he asked with a chuckle. “I’m still working on that first favor. I think I’ve got a decent clarity spell worked up. I started another tincture last night. The tincture is supposed to be a milky orange color, but every time I used the spell, it just brought clarity to the tincture itself and turned it from orange to clear. Tastes like water, too. I think I might use that instead of my filtration pitcher. It was utterly useless for your purposes, though. So far, the new one is maintaining its color, but I haven’t had a chance to test it out yet. What’s up?”

  That all sounded promising, at least. “Remember that story you told me about magic veins under the ground in Edgehill?”

  Simon was silent for a moment. “Sure. The legend about Edgehill once being a magic town.”

  “It’s not a legend,” Amber said, then told him the version of history she’d learned from Zelda.

  Simon whooshed out a breath. “That version of history was never taught in any hybrid town I know of. How strange …”

  She wondered again how these two very different histories existed in the minds of people who were either old enough to experience part of it—like Zelda—or knew people who had. Wouldn’t Simon’s parents or grandparents have heard this version?

  “Uhh … not to be rude,” Simon said, “but how did you find this out?”

  “I met a witch who was there when the ley lines exploded in the 1970s,” Amber said. “She showed me the day they all had to abandon the neighborhood. She also had family who lived through the day the council short-circuited magic. The council, even after it disbanded, did a good job of controlling the narrative, but the witches who lived through it remember what really happened.”

  “From what little I know about the council, it makes sense they were the ones behind it, to be honest. But I wonder if they had help controlling that narrative,” Simon said.

  Men and women in black suits popped into Amber’s mind.

  “So … is this related to why you asked if I was busy?” Simon asked.

  “Just hear me out, okay?” Amber said, knowing that this next part would sound next-level bonkers. She then explained the connection she felt to the ley lines in the abandoned neighborhood, and how, with the help of the magic there, Amber had sent two Penhallows back in time.

  Simon was silent for so long, Amber pulled the phone away from her face to make sure the call hadn’t dropped. “And since the only way to be sure a glamour-detecting clarity spell works on a Penhallow is to test it on a Penhallow, you were thinking you could use these two as guinea pigs?”

  “More or less, yeah,” Amber said. “You down for some time travel?”

  “You could take me with you?” he asked, his voice a little reverent.

  “If you hold onto me when I cast the spell, you should technically be able to travel with me,” she said. “I think. I’m not totally sure if I left this time and went into another one, or if I had just been transported to a memory. I went somewhere … I just don’t know where. Or when. Time travel literally and figuratively makes my head hurt.”

  “There’s no way this is a good idea,” he said. “Where do I meet you?”

  Amber smiled to herself. She was lucky to be surrounded by people who were willing to put themselves in compromising situations. “Meet us here and then we can caravan over.”

  Disconnecting the call, she found Aunt G sitting on the end of the bed, waiting for her. She was idling petting Alley’s head, which rested on Aunt G’s leg. Tom was still wholly focused on Thea at the table.

  “Willow didn’t answer, but I left her a very ominous voicemail,” Aunt G said.

  Glancing toward the still-dozing Troy, Amber jutted her chin at him. “What do we do with him?”

  “Leave that to me,” Aunt G said.

  Amber frowned but went about collecting her belongings all the same. She grabbed the handle of the hamster cage and her purse, then descended the stairs.

  Edgar idled at the curb. He warily eyed the cage that she put on one of the small back seats of his truck. Amber was in the middle of catching Edgar up on everything when Troy went sprinting out the door and down the sidewalk. Aunt G followed a few moments later, locking up the shop and resetting the ward as she did.

  Aunt G took the seat beside Thea in the back, while Amber rode shotgun.

  “Do I want to you know what you did to Troy?” Amber asked.

  “Nope,” Aunt G said.

  Within a few minutes, Simon arrived in his vehicle, and then Edgar led the way to the abandoned neighborhood. It wasn’t until Edgar made a right on Korat Road that anyone spoke.

  “So what exactly is the plan?” Edgar asked. “The last time we used magic here, you got your butt thoroughly kicked, Amber.”

  Amber’s ankle still throbbed
some mornings. A little twinge of pain went through it now as if it, too, were reminding Amber that the magic here wasn’t something to fool around with. Not to mention the fact that the two Penhallows who were potentially trapped there were would be livid.

  Instead of answering him, Amber called Simon, putting the phone on speaker.

  “Hi, Simon,” she said when he answered. “So, first, we should pool together our best defensive spells. I don’t have many of my own. When I used magic against Damien and Devra a few days ago, I was channeling the magic in the ley lines. I was a … I don’t know … vessel, and the ley lines worked through me more than anything else.”

  “The rest of us likely won’t be able to rely on that,” Edgar said as he made a slow left turn onto the unmarked road that led into the neighborhood. “I tried the last time we were here and the magic wouldn’t respond to me.”

  “I tried a couple times myself,” Aunt G said from the back.

  “And I don’t even know if it’ll work for me again,” Amber said. “So we need to go in as armed as we can. Simon, the house we’ll stop in front of is about halfway up the street. I don’t know if the connection I felt to it was because it used to belong to that friend of mine or because of something else.”

  “Do we have any idea if Damien and Devra are even still alive?” Simon asked.

  “No,” Amber said. “They were unconscious when I last saw them.”

  Simon didn’t reply to that.

  Once they pulled up outside Zelda’s old house, Amber disconnected the call and climbed out. They left Thea inside.

  Armed with their grimoires, they met behind Edgar’s truck. He pulled open the tailgate and laid his book down. Amber did the same with hers.

  For the next half hour, they brainstormed the best spells to take with them when they went into the memory. The Ricinus clan, like the Blackwoods, were skilled kitchen witches. Tinctures were one of Simon’s specialties. Amber knew now that the right tincture could be thrown or consumed in the heat of an altercation and be just as effective as tossing a bomb or instantaneously donning a full suit of armor. But a witch had to anticipate what he would need and have said tincture at the ready.