by Amy Boyles
"Yeah, Dylan," Sera grumbled from the corner. "You're finally home."
Nan stood by the kitchen. I tried to gather from the perturbed looks on everyone's faces what the heck was going on, but their narrowed brows conveyed only worry.
Uncertain what to do, I decided the best thing was to hug my grandmother who'd been in a frozen state for the past three years. I wrapped my arms around the frail person in front of me, expecting her to return the gesture, but she pushed me back.
Grandma hustled to the front window. She flattened herself against the wall and peered behind the curtain. "Dylan, there's no time for hugs. The witches are approaching the eastern front. We must be ready for battle."
"Um. What?"
A look of frustration washed over her face. "You too?" she said. "I understand how they got to Reid and Sera. They're the simpletons of the three of you—"
"Thanks, Grandma," Sera said.
Grandma ignored her. "But you?" she said to me. "Don't tell me they've brainwashed you as well?"
Okay, I won't. I tiptoed over to her, afraid I'd shatter what little brain she had left. "Afraid who has gotten to me?"
She threw up her hands. "The Witches of the North. The Northern region. We're in the middle of a battle for our very lives."
"We are?"
Sera plopped down in a chair and swung her legs over the arms. "Didn't you know? It's nineteen sixty and we're in the middle of the great Witch War."
Oooh, I mouthed. I turned to Grandma, who clung to the floral curtains for dear life. "Grandma, we're safe from the witches. The war is over."
"The war is never over!"
Well, crap.
"We've been trying to call you," Sera said. "She's been like this for half an hour. It doesn't look like it's going to let up."
"Great," I whispered. "So Grandma's awake and she's crazy."
Reid crossed to us and sank onto the rug. "Simpleton Number Three agrees with you."
I threw Nan a desperate look. "What do we do?"
She shook her head and retreated several steps. "Don't ask me. I've never had to deal with anything like this."
I decided the direct route would be best. "Grandma, the witches have us surrounded. Step away from the curtain."
She shimmied so fast from the window I thought she'd set the floorboards on fire. "Stand back, girls. I'll protect you."
I kicked Sera's foot. "Actually, Grandma, Sera will protect us. She's a class A certified witch."
"Class A certified?" Sera asked.
I shot her a dark look. "Just roll with it."
Grandma raised trembling hands to her lower lip. "But I'm supposed to protect you. You don't know you're witches. I'm your guardian."
Sera yawned, stretched out her arms and rose. She extended her palm. A ball of fire flamed over the surface of her skin.
"Have you been practicing?"
She shrugged. "Maybe."
Grandma's face darkened. "Who told you?" She whirled toward me. "Who corrupted you? You weren't supposed to know!"
"Good job, Sis," Sera said. "Now she's really in a tizzy."
Grandma spread her arms wide. Rays of light exploded from her hands, pointing toward the ceiling. Anger twisted her face. "Who are you and what have you done with my granddaughters?"
I shrank, furiously trying to think of a way out of this. I glanced at Sera and Reid. Both stared at Grandma, lines of fear etched on their faces.
The rays beaming from Grandma's palms intensified. The building shook. Pictures fell from shelves. Glass splintered across the floor. The walls rumbled, threatening to cave in. I covered my head, knowing this was it. It wasn't going to be another witch that killed me. It would be my own grandmother, who'd gone crazy Carrie-style.
The light from her hands blinded me. I closed my eyes, waiting for my inevitable demise.
The front door slammed open, and a wash of blue swept over the room. "For God's sake, Hazel, stop trying to kill everybody. Don't you know these are your own grown granddaughters?"
I peeked out from under my arm. Milly stood in the center of the frame, her gray hair sticking out like wires. With hands fisted on her hips and legs spread wide, the small five-foot-something-or-other woman glared a look of death at my grandmother.
Grandma pointed to the sky. "The Witch War!"
"Come off it, Hazel," Milly spat. "The war's been done for a long time. Take a chill pill and calm down. You've been asleep for a while. There's a lot for you to catch up on."
Grandma's eyes widened with worry. "Asleep?"
Milly extended her cane, knocking it against the wood floor. She stepped inside. The door shut softly behind her. With a twirl of her hand, the broken frames and shattered glass mended themselves. Dumped flowerpots righted, and the air settled as a layer of dust floated to the floor. Milly sauntered to the middle of the room. "Yes. You've been asleep. ’Bout time you woke up, you old biddy. Your girls are in trouble."
Grandma's weepy eyes fixed on us. "Trouble?"
Milly bent over and yanked at her knee-high nude-colored hose. "Yeah, trouble. Some crazy witch is trying to kill them."
"Is it you?" Grandma asked.
"Hells bells no. Why would I want to kill them? They're half mine, remember?"
Half hers? But that would mean…I clutched the back of the couch. Could it be?
"You're our father's mother?"
Milly winked at me. "You got it, toots. Now let's learn some serious magic."
CHAPTER TWELVE
I wasn't sure what to think, or even say. The fact that I had another living grandmother amazed me, elated me. But when I considered that she'd been kept a secret, anger burned in my gut. Or maybe that was an ulcer.
It took all of five minutes for my Grandma Hazel to calm down once Milly arrived. Let's just say Milly seemed to have a magical touch when it came to soothing my grandma. And goodness knows I was thankful she did. If she hadn't shown up, there's no telling what would have happened to us.
Reid handed Milly a glass of iced tea. "Why didn't we know about any of this?"
"Thank you," Milly said. She nodded toward Hazel. "You want to tell them?"
My grandmother smoothed the edges of her hair. Her fingers glided over the metal tiara. She frowned and pulled the combs through her steel-wool tresses, and then tossed the thing on the table. "Because I didn't want you to know, among other reasons. Magic isn't something to be trifled with, and the way I saw it, there were enough witches in the world. We didn't need three more."
"Good theory." I twisted a paper napkin between my fingers. "But the reality is our abilities were always going to get out into the public. If we'd known, we never would have done the interview in the newspaper."
Grandma clutched her throat in dramatic fashion. "You did a newspaper interview?"
"To get our businesses some exposure," Sera said.
"You have witchcraft businesses?" Grandma said.
"I'm a dressmaker and Sera's a baker," I explained, trying to be ever so patient with a woman who'd been asleep for three years. Well, not really asleep. Catatonic. And it might be bad, but the thought occurred to me that it would have been easier if Grandma had stayed that way.
"You have to shut them down," Grandma said. "Your lives are in danger."
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. "Now you tell us. Grandma, we're not shutting down our stores. You have to teach us how to be witches."
"I don't want you to be witches," she said.
Milly knocked her fist on the table. "Your grandmother had it out with the council. She doesn't like witches, and after your parents died in the car crash, she decided never to tell you the truth of your heritage. And she wouldn't let me, either. That's what ruined our friendship. I respected her wishes, but the fact of the matter is, there's no point in hiding anything from you. You're grown up. If you want to use your power”—she waved her hand—"use it."
"So why didn't we know about you?" Reid asked Milly.
Her lower lip tremble
d. "Because your father and I didn't get along. He didn't like the man I married after his father, Mr. Apel, died. There was no love between him and Mr. Jones. We never made up."
"So if you lived here, and Grandma and our mom lived in Savannah, how did our parents meet?" I asked.
Milly flapped her lips. The sound reminded me of a lawnmower engine. "Your mother is from Silver Springs. Her early childhood was spent here, before Hazel decided to up and move her to Savannah." She wiped a tear from her eye. "Your parents were friends as children. They never lost touch. I can't say the same for your grandmother and myself."
"But that doesn't explain why you've decided to tell us now," Reid said.
Milly stamped her cane on the floor. "Because you girls need all the help in the world to survive as witches since you've never been trained."
Hazel gnawed at the inside of her cheek. Her mouth worked the flesh hard. I placed a hand on her shoulder. "Grandma, we're witches. We need to learn how to protect ourselves. Will you teach us?"
She leaned back in the chair, letting limp arms fall to her sides. She stared at each of us in turn and finally said, "I only wanted to keep you safe."
Milly folded arthritic hands over the knob of the cane. "You can keep them safe by making them lethal."
"Lethal?" Grandma asked.
"You heard me. By the time I'm finished with these girls, they're going to be the Terminators of the witch world."
"Oh, I like the sound of that," Reid said.
"You don't have any power," Milly replied.
"Dang it."
Grandma regarded us with weepy eyes. "Do you want to learn witchcraft?"
"Yes," Sera confirmed.
"Yes," I said. "But on one condition." She quirked an eyebrow at me. "That you and Milly make up. Become friends again."
Grandma looked at Milly and pressed her lips into a thin, straight line. "Nan!"
Nan popped her head out of the kitchen. "Yes?"
"Better make some sandwiches; we've got a lot of work to do."
***
The next few hours blew past like a spring tornado. We mastered a light spell and an ice spell. Well, perhaps mastered isn't the right word.
"Keep your ice in front of you," Milly hollered when my ice ball whirled out of my hand and splashed against the fireplace, coating the brick in a sheen of crystals.
I cringed. "Sorry."
Sera didn't fare any better. Her light ball whisked around the room like a feral cat, dodging our best attempts to restrain it. It broke the same pictures that Milly had fixed earlier, and even managed to knock down one of the curtain rods, sending it crashing to the floor.
"Oops," Sera said.
"Big oops," Milly snarled.
"See?" Grandma said. "This is why I didn't teach them magic."
Milly snapped her head in Grandma's direction. "If you'd taught them, they'd be much better than this. They'd have mastered these techniques by now."
Grandma only shrugged. "I've been asleep."
"Fine excuse," Milly mumbled.
I sank down to the couch. My hands hurt from trying to hold on to a ball of ice. A ball of ice. Like, what is that even good for? Making snow cones on a hot day? Milly didn't even teach me how to make flavored syrup to go on top. What a waste.
"Maybe there are other spells we can learn. Milly, how do you make a glass of iced tea appear?"
Milly knocked the cane gently on the floor as if it helped her think better. "That is a combination of spells. It includes creating ice, glass and drink. You have to master each one and then combine them."
My head throbbed. So there were no shortcuts. "What are we supposed to do if the killer shows up? Our powers should be increasing, right? The summer solstice is only a week and a half away."
Grandma twitched her finger. The curtain rod sprung from the floor and hung itself back on its brackets. "If the killer shows up, you've only got one chance."
"And that is?" Sera asked.
Granda shook her head. "Run."
"All kidding aside," I said. "We need some help."
Milly swiped a finger over her gnarled nose. "You certainly do." She heaved and hauled her ancient body from the wooden dining chair. It creaked under her weight. "I don't know what that Queen Witch has been teaching you, but her lessons are certainly lacking."
That reminded me. "Yeah, about that—"
Milly pointed to the glass she'd been drinking from. "Dylan, hold out your palm and wish that glass into your hand."
"What?" I said.
She motioned her head toward the sweat-rimmed tea glass. "Imagine it in your hand. Make it so."
I snapped my fingers. "Just like that?"
Grandma folded her hands on the table. "Just like that. You can do it." She spread her hands out in a welcoming gesture. "Just think of sunbeams and mistletoe."
Sera mouthed sunbeams and mistletoe?
I guess Grandma's brain still needed some thawing from its three-year freeze.
"And unicorns," Grandma added. She winked at me. "That's the ticket."
Oh boy. I glanced at the glass and then my hand.
"See yourself holding it," Milly prodded. She tapped her cane to a rhythm that only existed in her head. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.
"Do you mind?" I said.
"What?"
"Can you knock off the cane? I can't concentrate."
"Is that any way to talk to your grandmother?" Milly said.
I stared at the spitfire of a woman. With wiry hair, a knotted nose that hung over her frowning mouth, and a pork barrel body with stick arms, Milly didn't look much like the grandmotherly type.
"Yeah, I'm not going to apologize," I said.
Milly gave me a cunning smile. "Good. Rule one—never apologize to a witch."
"I thought that was never anger a witch," Reid said.
"I thought rule one was don't perform magic in front of humans," Sera added.
Milly's cane thundered against the floor. We jumped. "Just move the glass."
"Okay." With needle-edged focus, I imagined her glass in my hand. I visualized myself holding it. I pursed my lips, furrowed my brow and concentrated. Nothing happened. I shook out my hands, rolled my neck this way and that, and closed my eyes, thinking all the while about having the glass in my hand. I opened them and blinked.
There it sat. In my palm, cool water trickling down the side and onto my skin. "I did it!"
I rushed over to Sera and thrust out my hand. "Look! I did it!" She gave me a warm hug.
"When you're all finished giving each other high fives, Sera can try," Milly said.
"You don't have to be so snarky," I said.
Milly planted her orthopedically shoed feet in the middle of the room. "You're right. I don't have to be."
Which apparently meant that she still would be. I shrugged at Sera and said, "You're on. Let me put the glass on the table."
"No," Milly commanded. "Take it from her hand."
Sera cringed. She looked at me. "Are you okay with that?"
An overwhelming feeling of discomfort gurgled in my gut. I slouched. "I guess?" I didn't know the worst that could happen, but it couldn't be catastrophic, could it? She couldn't magic my hand away, could she?
"Don't amputate her hand, dear," Grandma said in a singsong voice.
Great. So it was possible.
Reid smirked. "Yeah, Sera, don't amputate her hand. Guess there are some advantages to not being a witch. For instance, I can't cause my sisters to bleed out."
Grandma wiggled a chastising finger. "You may get your magic, yet. Don't despair."
"Great," Reid said.
Sera rubbed a spot behind her ear. She circled her arms as if she were loosening up for the big game. "Okay. Don't amputate Dylan's arm. Don't amputate Dylan's arm."
"Saying it doesn't mean it won't happen," Milly said. "You need to focus."
Sera licked her lips. "Okay. Don't move, Dylan."
"I won't."
My sister stared at
the glass. She rolled her shoulders back and narrowed her eyes. My heart pounded, and I repeated the mantra in my head—Don't screw up. Don't screw up. Don't screw up. Worth a shot, right?
Half a minute later, the glass vanished from my hand and appeared in Sera's. "Yes," she exclaimed.
"Thank God," I said.
"I knew you could do it," Reid said.
We gave a round of hugs. My grandmother sat at the table, a smile curling her lips. "Good thing she didn't remove your hand. I don't think I have a spare lying around anywhere."
We stopped. We gaped. I opened my mouth to say something. Sera pushed my jaw closed. "Don't. Just don't. I don't think there's anything you can say to that."
"There's something I can say," Milly said.
"What's that?" I asked.
She hobbled over to the couch and sat with a huff. "What the devil has that Queen Witch been teaching you?"
After we explained how Em had been conducting our "studies," Milly and Grandma exchanged glances.
"Well, if you want to teach a ring of monkeys magic, you'll circle them up and make them hold hands, but to teach people, it's individual," Grandma said. "I should know. I taught a circle of monkeys once. Ungrateful primates is what they were. Biting and spitting. I swore I'd never educate any ever again."
A vacant look clouded over Milly's eyes as she listened to Grandma. I couldn't blame her. Grandma had always been a free spirit, but now her brain appeared cryogenically impaired.
Milly rubbed her palm on the head of her cane. "Newer techniques indicate witches should be taught in groups. But the way your grandmother and I were raised, we learned individually." She swatted the air in disgust. "This younger generation is so obsessed with not hurting one another's feelings, they think one-on-one attention leaves others out. Bah. It's silly nonsense, if you ask me. And obviously the strategy doesn't work, because you're awful witches."
"Thank you," I said.
"Don't mention it. But the real thing we need to know is who's trying to kill you. They only have a few more days while your power grows toward the solstice. They'll make another move soon."
Sera tugged at the tips of her bob. "As far as I know, we're all out of ideas on that front."
