by Chris Colfer
Lucy presented the broken watch to the witches, but they weren’t impressed. Stitches took the watch from Lucy and examined it with her bigger eye.
“Are you sure you used witchcraft to jinx this?” she asked.
“Of course I did,” Lucy lied.
“Then why d-d-didn’t the witchcraft affect you like P-p-pip?” Beebee asked.
“Yeah, you don’t seem any uglier than you were before,” Sprout noted.
Lucy groaned and adjusted her striped tights. “Actually, I think a nasty wart just popped up, but believe me, you do not want to know where it is,” she said.
The witches weren’t buying it. Mistress Mara wasn’t convinced either, but surprisingly, she looked past Lucy’s blatant dishonesty.
“Congratulations, ladies, you’ve both passed the first examination,” Mistress Mara said. “Your next exam will test your hexing abilities, but hexes are more challenging than jinxes. They require special participation.”
Mistress Mara whistled and the girls heard a loud bang. They turned toward the noise and saw Brick and Stone burst through the doors of a nearby mausoleum. The gargoyles dragged a man and a woman behind them whose hands and feet were wrapped in chains. Brick and Stone placed the prisoners on the ground in front of Mistress Mara. They trembled in her presence.
“Please, don’t hurt us!” the man pleaded.
“We have children!” the woman cried.
Mistress Mara rolled her eyes. “Children, children, children,” she said. “Why do people always bring up their children when they’re caught doing something wrong? If you really loved your children, you wouldn’t have tried stealing from me in the first place!”
She snapped her fingers, and the couple were silenced by two black cloths. Lucy had a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach about whatever was going to happen next.
“This man and woman are grave robbers and were recently caught raiding the tombs on my property,” Mistress Mara said. “For your next examination, you will alter their appearance, behavior, or functionality with a hex. Now, a hex is just like a jinx but it’s applied to a living thing. Hexes can range in severity, but there’s really no point if it’s subtle or easily remedied. Remember, if it can be cured by a doctor, then don’t even bother. Pip, would you like to go first?”
Lucy could tell Pip didn’t want to hurt the couple but still wanted to prove herself to Mistress Mara. The grave robbers shook their heads and mumbled frantically, begging her to stop, but Pip stepped toward the couple anyway and waved a hand over their frightened faces. The witches heard two pairs of pops but couldn’t tell what had changed.
“Am I missing something?” Stitches asked. “How did you hex them?”
“I gave them each two left feet,” Pip said.
Sprout and Beebee removed the grave robbers’ shoes to be certain. The grave robbers let out muffled screams when they saw Pip’s enchantment.
“That’s not so b-b-bad,” Beebee said.
“Are you kidding?” Pip asked. “They won’t be able to dance or walk in a straight line! And if there’s an emergency, they’ll be running in circles for—”
Pip went quiet because she felt something itchy under her nose. Unfortunately, the hex had caused long whiskers to grow on her upper lip. Pip was mortified and covered her whiskers with her hands.
“Never be ashamed of your accomplishments, dear,” the witch said. “Congratulations, Pip, you’ve passed your second examination. Lucy, it’s your turn.”
“But I don’t want to hex them!” Lucy said. “Look, I know they tried to rob you, but they didn’t do anything to me personally!”
“You’re very mistaken,” Mistress Mara said. “A crime against one witch is a crime against every witch. And it’s important we stand together and demand the world’s respect! Without hexes, people would have no reason to fear us. Now go on.”
Lucy didn’t know how she was going to get out of this one—the witches were watching her like hawks. She reluctantly stepped toward the grave robbers, raised her hand, and summoned the most harmful—yet painless—hex she could muster. As if the grave robbers were being marked by invisible pens, the couple were suddenly covered in hundreds of awkward tattoos. Their skin was full of disproportionate animals, unflattering symbols, and motivational phrases that were misworded like Live everyday like it’s your past, The glass is always half bull, and Knowledge is powder.
The witches didn’t know what to make of Lucy’s strange hex—even the grave robbers seemed more confused than scared.
Lucy shrugged. “What? It was the worst thing I could think of.”
While she defended herself, Lucy felt a strange tingle at the top of her forehead. She ran her fingers through her hair and felt something unusually soft in her bangs. The witches pointed and cackled at Lucy when they noticed it, too.
“What’s going on?” Lucy gasped. “What’s wrong with my hair?”
“The witchcraft gave you feathers!” Stitches said.
“White feathers!” Sprout said.
“And they’re f-f-fluffy, too!”
Lucy plucked a feather from her head and stared at it in utter horror. She retrieved Pip’s mirror from the ground and saw that a patch of fluffy white feathers had appeared at the front of her hairline.
“Oh my God!” Lucy cried. “I look like a woodpecker!”
“It could be worse,” Pip said, and pointed to her whiskers.
“Congratulations, Lucy, you’ve also passed the second exam,” Mistress Mara said. “Give me a moment to clear our supplies and we’ll move on to the next exam.”
The witch twirled her fingers, and the grave robbers were suddenly surrounded in black smoke. As the smoke swirled around them, the couple were slowly transformed into lynxes. Once the transformation was complete, the chains slipped off their bodies, and the grave robbers dashed into the graveyard to join the other cursed felines. Two jack-o’-lanterns with lifelike carvings of their faces appeared on the ground behind the couple.
“Put them with the others,” Mistress Mara instructed the butler.
The invisible servant scooped the pumpkins off the ground and headed inside the manor.
“Moving on,” Mistress Mara said. “The next examination will test your potion-brewing abilities. Unlike jinxes and hexes, the potions examination doesn’t require witchcraft, but instead will test your aptitude for following instructions and making measurements for—”
The witch was interrupted by the sound of galloping. In the distance, the witches saw someone approaching the manor on a black horse. Whoever it was, Lucy assumed they weren’t a stranger to Ravencrest because neither the trees nor the gargoyles tried to stop them. When the visitor reached the iron fence, the gate automatically swung open and the horse entered the graveyard.
As the visitor rode closer, Lucy got her first good glimpse. It was a man, wearing a red suit that shimmered in the dark, but his identity was hidden behind a mask shaped like a ram’s skull. The man dismounted his horse, tied its reins to a gravestone, and then approached Mistress Mara. The witch was anything but happy to see the visitor—in fact, his presence had made her tense. It was the first time Lucy had seen Mistress Mara look uncomfortable. Without saying a word to him, Mistress Mara nodded toward the manor, and the man headed for the front door.
“Forgive me, ladies,” the witch told the girls. “We’ll have to finish your entrance exams at another time. I’ll see you again tomorrow after dusk.”
Mistress Mara followed the man inside the manor without saying another word.
“Who was that?” Pip asked the witches.
“We’re not sure,” Sprout said. “We just call him the Horned One. He visits Mistress Mara every so often but she’s never told us anything about him.”
“He g-g-gives me the c-c-creeps,” Beebee said.
“Me too,” Stitches said, and her eyes fluttered. “It’s so attractive!”
“What are we supposed to do now that Mistress Mara is busy?” Pip asked.
“If
I were you, I’d search the grounds for some spotted fungi and purple-leaved shrubbery,” Sprout suggested. “They might be helpful for your examination tomorrow—they always give potions a little extra kick.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Lucy said. “But first I’m going to go inside and try to do something about these feathers.”
Lucy returned to the manor on her own and headed to the witches’ bedroom. She was fairly familiar with the layout by now, but still, the labyrinth of staircases, bridges, and hallways was tricky to navigate by herself.
She was halfway across a corridor on the fourth floor when, out of nowhere, the corridor started spinning. It spun so fast Lucy became dizzy and had to hug the wall to stay on her feet. When the corridor finally came to a stop, it led to a completely different part of the manor than it normally did.
“What the heck was that all about?” Lucy asked, but no one was there to answer her.
Once she regained her bearings, Lucy found a circular chamber at the end of the corridor that she had never seen before. The chamber had thirteen doors that were all different shapes and sizes. As soon as Lucy took her first step inside the chamber, a door slammed shut behind her, locking her inside. She tried to go back but the door wouldn’t budge.
“Hello?” Lucy called. “Is someone there?”
She pounded on the door but there was no response.
“Okay, this isn’t funny anymore! Who’s doing this? Is that you, Stitches?”
Still, no one replied—in fact, Lucy didn’t hear a single sound come from another soul. It was as if the manor itself was playing a practical joke on her.
Lucy checked all the doors in the chamber, but all of them were locked. Just when she thought she would be trapped in the chamber forever, one of the doors suddenly opened on its own. Without anywhere else to go, Lucy cautiously peeked through the open doorway and found a very familiar hallway on the other side—it was the hall outside Mistress Mara’s study! Before Lucy could turn around, the door slammed shut and pushed her into the hallway.
“No, I can’t be here!” Lucy whispered. “Whoever is doing this, you’ve got to let me back in! If I get caught anywhere near the seventh floor, Mistress Mara is going to—”
Suddenly, Lucy heard footsteps coming from the study. She quickly dashed to a corner of the hallway and hid behind the scaled armchair. The Horned One stormed out of the study, and Mistress Mara chased after him.
“Wait! Don’t leave!” she pleaded.
“I’ve given you months, and you’ve given me nothing.”
“But we’re so close! We can’t stop now!”
“There is no we. Our alliance is over.”
The Horned One spoke in a soft yet commanding whisper, but the horns of his mask amplified his voice to the volume of a scream.
“I understand your frustration, but I’m telling you, the curse is going to work this time!” Mistress Mara said. “This one is different—she was born to be the host! And the next full moon is a blood moon! When it reaches the center of the night sky, for a few brief moments, all of witchcraft will be heightened!”
“I can’t waste any more time,” he said. “The clan is growing restless. If they lose their faith in me, I’ll lose everything.”
“But you’ll gain nothing if we don’t work together,” Mistress Mara said. “You do your part, I’ll do mine, and by this time next week, you and I will be unstoppable. King Champion XIV will be gone, the Fairy Godmother will be dead, and mankind will finally be held accountable for what they’ve done to us.”
Lucy covered her mouth to silence a gasp. Mistress Mara had got the Horned One’s attention now, and he stopped in his tracks.
“How much longer for the curse?” he asked.
“Three days,” she said.
“And you’re certain it’ll take?”
“Positive.”
The Horned One seethed and clenched his fists as he considered his options.
“Very well,” he said. “But if you’re wrong about the curse, I’ll send the clan after you and your students. The Brotherhood will need something to occupy their time while I find another partner.”
After the warning was issued, the Horned One proceeded down the hallway and disappeared from sight. Once he was gone, Mistress Mara’s face filled with fear and she let out a desperate sigh. The witch returned to her study and locked the door behind her.
Lucy was so overwhelmed by what she had just witnessed, she felt like she was in the spinning corridor all over again. She had no idea how or why she had ended up in the hallway outside Mistress Mara’s study again, but she was glad she had. Hearing that Brystal’s life was in danger made all of Lucy’s bitterness toward her fade away. The hard feelings were replaced with an urgency to return to the Fairy Territory and inform the Fairy Council about everything she had just learned. However, as Lucy planned her departure, she had a sudden change of heart.
“Wait a second, I don’t need the Fairy Council’s help with this—I’m going to save the day this time!” she whispered to herself. “I’ll stay at Ravencrest, figure out exactly what Mistress Mara is up to, and then I’m going to stop her! And once I do, Brystal and the fairies will beg me to come back!”
Lucy nodded confidently—this was her moment to shine.
CHAPTER NINE
POTIONS AND CURSES
It was a good thing their closest neighbors were miles away, because the fumes wafting out of the Ravencrest chimney were anything but pleasant. The witches were in the kitchen brewing potions and wore clothespins on their noses to ward off the smell. For their third entrance exam, Lucy and Pip had each selected a recipe from an old book of potions and did their best to follow the complicated instructions. As they mixed the bizarre ingredients into their cauldrons, the potions bubbled and gleamed with bright colors.
“Remember to always stir counterclockwise,” Mistress Mara said as she paced between them. “And make sure your measurements are precise. One lizard scale more, or one crow feather less, and your potion could end in disaster.”
Lucy was trying to brew an Ease Elixir—a concoction someone could drink to make all of life’s challenges seem easy—but ironically, the potion was incredibly complicated to create. Pip seemed much more confident with her potion and whistled while she chopped up a scorpion tail and sprinkled it into her potion. Lucy read her recipe over and over again, but it might as well have been written in a different language.
“‘Four goblets of platypus broth, six chalices of donkey dandruff, three pickled peacock feet, one liberal leech, and an elfspoon of emu gizzard,’” she read. “What the heck is an elfspoon?”
“It’s a quarter of a teaspoon,” Stitches whispered.
“Don’t forget to add eye of newt,” Sprout suggested.
“It’s like b-b-butter for witches,” Beebee said.
“Girls, stop helping Lucy,” Mistress Mara said. “She’s supposed to do this on her own. Stay focused on your own assignment.”
While Lucy and Pip made potions for their exams, Stitches, Sprout, and Beebee were brewing something in a cauldron the size of a bathtub.
“What are you guys making?” Lucy asked.
“It’s for the Enrollment Ceremony tomorrow night,” Sprout said.
“Don’t worry, you’ll find out soon enough,” Stitches said.
“Assuming you p-p-pass the exams,” Beebee said.
At this point, Lucy wasn’t sure she would. It was incredibly difficult to concentrate on the potion with all the questions she had about what she’d seen and heard the night before. What exactly were Mistress Mara and the Horned One planning? What kind of curse was the witch trying to produce? Why hadn’t it worked before and why did it require a host? And most concerning of all, if Mistress Mara was successful, how would it put King Champion XIV, Brystal, and mankind in danger?
The questions were daunting and worrisome, but if Lucy failed the entrance exams and got kicked out of Ravencrest, she would never find the answers she needed to stop t
he witch. So she tried to quiet her troubled mind and put all her energy into finishing her potion.
Lucy went to the supply shelves for her missing liberal leech and elfspoon of emu gizzard. Finding the right ingredients was the hardest part of making potions. Lucy searched a pot of leeches for a liberal one, but she couldn’t tell what their political views were. So she picked one at random. She didn’t know which jar contained emu gizzard, because the majority of the ingredients were labeled GIZZARD. Lucy selected the gizzard that looked the most birdlike and hoped it was the correct one.
She added the leech and the gizzard to her potion and then double-checked the recipe’s final instructions.
“‘Yee whoth wish for completion, may doeth by bestowal of childhood remembrance,’” she read aloud. “Oh, I understand—to finish my potion, I have to give it a childhood memory. Well, I suppose I wouldn’t miss remembering the time I—”
Suddenly, Lucy couldn’t recall what memory she was talking about, but her potion bubbled with more intensity than before.
“I think I’m done,” she announced.
“I just need one more second,” Pip said.
She reached into her pocket and dropped in the spotted fungi and the purple-leaved shrubbery Sprout had recommended the night before. Pip’s potion churned and turned bright blue.
“Finished!” she said.
“Fantastic,” Mistress Mara said. “Pip, you had such wonderful beginner’s luck yesterday, let’s start with you. Tell us which potion you selected and give us a demonstration.”
“I chose the Tooth Tonic,” Pip said. “It’s supposed to grow teeth on everything it touches.”
Pip held up the wooden spoon she was using to stir the potion, and it was covered in dozens of human teeth.
“I guess it demonstrates itself,” she said.
“Terrific work, Pip,” Mistress Mara said. “Lucy? Which potion did you choose?”
Lucy lost confidence after seeing how successful Pip’s potion was. Her final product looked nothing like the illustration in the book of potions. Instead of a smooth green liquid, the potion was brown and chunky. Lucy felt sick just from looking at it, so she improvised.
