The Witch Within

by M. Z. Andrews

  “We want it to be a surprise, though,” I added.

  Char wrinkled her nose. “You don’t think she’ll figure it out?”

  “Eh, if she does, she does,” said Alba. “But we need her out of our hair while we work on it. Are you in?”

  Char’s head bobbed backwards. “Ahhh, now I get it. You want me to babysit.”

  I swished my lips off to the side and nodded. “Essentially, yes. What do you say?”

  Char shrugged. “Phil said there’s no way you’re undoing her curse.”

  “Well, we gotta try,” said Alba.

  Holly nodded. “We owe it to Jax to try.”

  “Whatever,” said Char. “I get along with Jax. She’s a good kid. She can hang out here and watch the counter until you’re done trying. I’ll feel really bad for her when you can’t deliver, though. I’m afraid it’ll break the poor thing’s heart.”

  “We don’t intend to fail,” I said. The words came out sounding more assured than I felt.

  “Whatever. I’ll keep an eye on her while you try.”

  Sweets squealed and jumped up and hugged Char. “Oh, thanks, Char. You’re the best boss a girl could ask for!”

  15

  “Hi, Mercy,” said Jax.

  I stopped just inside my bedroom door, my hand frozen on the light switch. Jax was lying on our bed, cuddling her plush unicorn in the dark.

  “Jax! What are you doing in here? Why aren’t you in your room?” My plan had been to avoid her until I absolutely couldn’t anymore. Then I’d make an excuse about why I had to ditch her, and I’d hide in the bathroom for the rest of the evening.

  Jax’s face crumpled. “Why aren’t I in my room? This used to be my room until yesterday. I napped in here today, because Holly’s bed is lumpy, and I’m used to this bed. Plus it’s really messy in there. I can’t sleep around that much mess.”

  “Oh,” I said slowly. “Okay. Sorry, you just surprised me. I’m gonna go downstairs and have a snack.” I’d already had a snack, but Jax didn’t need to know that.

  “Mercy! Wait!”

  I paused as my hand touched the doorknob, but I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t look at her.

  “I was hoping you’d tell me all about what happened at school today.”

  “What happened? Nothing happened. Why? Did someone say something happened?” I wondered if she’d heard from her one of her other friends that classes had been canceled for the rest of the week.

  “Oh, no. No one said anything. I’m just lonely. I wanted to hear about school. That’s all.”

  I still couldn’t turn around. “Umm, school was fine. Nothing exciting to report. All’s well that ends well, you know. How was your day? Are you feeling better?”

  “My stomach is feeling a little better. I think I was just worried about getting my powers and all. Did you have any time today to research how to lift the curse off me?” I heard hope lifting her voice.

  “Mmm, not yet. We were really busy with classes. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Oh,” she said in a small voice.

  “I’m going to go get a snack now. I’m starving.”

  “Okay.”

  I disappeared into the hallway, shutting the door behind me before Jax could ask any more questions.

  Alba was coming out of the bathroom as I hit the top of the stairs. “Hey, Red. Where you going?”

  “Jax is in my room,” I whisper-hissed. “She grilled me about my day. I can’t stay in there. There’s too much pressure. I’m gonna go downstairs. Why don’t you come down there and bring the book? We can hide in the kitchen while we read it.”

  “Yeah, alright. I’ll leave my backpack in my room and change into some comfy clothes and be right down.”

  I blinked at her. She was wearing sweatpants and a crewneck sweatshirt. I wasn’t sure how she planned to get any more comfortable than she already was. “Mmmkay, see you down there, then.” I raced down the stairs and into the kitchen, where my brother was busy doing meal prep for the dinner rush that would start any second. “Hey.”

  Reign looked up from chopping vegetables. “Hey, sis, where’s the fire?”

  “Fire?”

  He chuckled. “I don’t know. Just seemed like you were in an awful big hurry.”

  I relaxed a little. “Oh. No. No hurry. I’m just trying to find a spot to hang out where Jax won’t find me.”

  “Hiding from Jax? She getting on your nerves or something?”

  “Oh no, nothing like that. Not today, anyway.”

  Reign stopped chopping and looked up at me. “Well, then, what happened?”

  I tipped my head sideways and looked at the swinging doors. “Where’s Mom?”

  “In her room taking a nap before the big rush. Why?”

  “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether it’s hurting Jax or not.”

  “Oh, well, it kind of is, but I think you’ll agree, I can’t tell her what happened.”

  A deep V formed between Reign’s eyes. He pulled his shoulders back to look down at me. It was very reminiscent of his Stone heritage. “Spill.”

  I sucked in a deep breath. “Something really really bad happened today at school.”

  He looked skeptical. “Can’t be that bad. I didn’t hear a word about it. I run a diner. We hear the scuttlebutt down here first. Sometimes even before things even happen.”

  “You didn’t hear about it because we didn’t tell anyone. We didn’t want Jax or Detective Whitman to find out.”

  “Whitman? What’s he got to do with this?”

  “I’m getting to it. There’s something you need to know about Sorceress Stone.”

  “Red!” barked Alba as she burst through the double swinging doors.

  “Alba!” My heart lurched in my chest.

  Alba trained her narrowed, suspicious eyes on me. “You weren’t about to tell Reign about our day, were you?”

  “Well, I…”

  Holly and Sweets were behind Alba. They both exchanged looks.

  “Because I’m pretty sure we agreed that was between the four of us.”

  I looked at my brother. “Reign’s not going to tell anyone, right, Reign?”

  He looked frustrated now. “Okay, what’s going on? What kind of trouble did you guys get into?”

  Holly, who would usually rush forward to assure my brother that she hadn’t gotten into any trouble, stayed still. I think she was still smarting over the embarrassment of being caught dancing around the kitchen with the green face mask on, wearing Jax’s unicorn onesie.

  “I’m just going to tell him, Alba. He might know how to help.”

  “It’s a bad idea, Red. I’m telling you.”

  “Alba, if my sister and my cousin are wrapped up in something serious. I think I have a right to know.”

  Alba stared at him and then swept her hand backwards in front of her, magically sending the veggies in front of Reign skittering across the counter. “You tell a soul and there’s gonna be consequences.”

  Reign put the knife down and tipped his head sideways. “Are you threatening me?” With his palms flat on the counter, he leaned forward to peer at Alba.

  “Just know that until we work this problem out, you’re gonna have to keep your trap shut. Got it, Slick?”

  Reign gritted his teeth. Ignoring Alba, he turned to face me. “Mercy, now I’m getting really worried. What’s going on?”

  I swallowed hard and then glanced around, almost unable to make eye contact with my brother. “Sorceress Stone is dead.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry. What?”

  I nodded. “She’s dead, Reign.”

  “SaraLynn is dead?!”

  “We didn’t kill her!” spouted Holly, her hand up in front of herself defensively.

  “Well, I’d certainly hope not!” He looked up at me. “Surely you’re kidding?”

  “No. I wish I was.”

  Reign shook his head, his
mouth gaping slightly. “I don’t believe it. How’d she die? And why haven’t I heard a word about it so far? I mean, this is a really big deal.”

  “The Great Witches Council, which is the governing body for the Paranormal Institute, is in town this week for graduation stuff. The five witches on the Council and Sorceress Stone were in the teachers’ lounge having a meeting about graduation requirements when someone must have done a magical spell on her and the rest of the group and killed her. We’re pretty sure it’s one of the members of the Council, but we’re investigating right now, trying to figure out what happened to her.”

  Reign shook his head. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing right now. This is huge. I don’t want to call her my aunt, because she’s not worth anything as an aunt, but she’s my father’s sister and my cousin’s mom! They’re gonna be devastated! Has anyone told Merrick?”

  “Reign! No! You’re not getting it. We haven’t told anyone! And you can’t tell either. We haven’t even notified Detective Whitman. We’re going to try and bring Sorceress Stone back to life.”

  “Back to life?!” Reign sounded appalled.

  “Yeah. We know it can be done. She’s not a mortal. She’s a witch. We sort of did it with Mr. Bailey, but we didn’t think to preserve his body. This time, Libby thought of it.”

  “Who’s Libby?”

  “The Ice Princess. She’s a second-year,” said Sweets from across the room.

  “A friend of ours,” I added.

  “Okay, so, I have a million questions I need to have answered before I agree to keep this to myself,” he said uneasily.

  “Yeah, see, I told ya, Red. Telling Mr. Macho here wasn’t a good idea. You shoulda listened to me.”

  “No, you did the right thing, Mercy. I’ll do what I can to help.”

  “Well, we’ve already got Char Bailey helping keep Jax entertained for the rest of the week so we can work on solving the murder, bringing Stone back to life, and getting the curse lifted off Jax.”

  “You’re going to try and get the curse lifted?” asked Reign, his eyes wide. “Oh man, Jax will love that.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not going to mean a thing to her if we can’t bring her mother back to life,” said Alba.

  “So what can I help with?”

  “We’re going to try and go back in time,” revealed Holly. “And undo some of the things that were done.”

  Reign looked down at me. “Go back in time?! Is that safe?”

  “I guess we’ll find out,” I said with a little shrug.

  “When?”

  “Hopefully tomorrow. We checked a book out from the Great Witch’s Library. Hopefully it’s got some good information in it about time travel.”

  Reign shook his head as if his mind was blown. “Wow. Time travel. I don’t know, sis. That sounds dangerous. You girls shouldn’t go alone. I wanna come along.”

  I was shocked to hear Reign’s offer.

  “You?!” Alba’s head shook immediately. “No. Absolutely not. No way. We work alone.”

  “I’m okay with Reign coming,” said Holly, her face red.

  “Yeah, me too,” agreed Sweets.

  Reign looked at me. “Look, I wanna help Jax. And if that means saving her mother, then I’m in. I’d also like to see Jax become a witch. If anyone deserves good things, it’s her.”

  I knew my brother had magical powers, just like I did, but I’d yet to see him use them. I had no idea what he could bring to the table, but I couldn’t imagine him coming could hurt anything. I shrugged. “Fine with me. We have tons of work to do.”

  Alba frowned. “Are you guys kidding me? Should we just take the whole freaking town too?”

  “Alba,” I breathed. “You can’t be serious. It’s Reign. He’s hardly the whole town. He’s Jax’s cousin and my brother. This is his dad’s sister we’re talking about here. Can’t you see why it might be reasonable of him to want to go along too? He’s not just some guy off the street. He’s family.”

  Alba threw her hands up in the air and strode out of the room. “Whatever. I’m going to bed.”

  “But what about dinner? What about the book, and making plans?” I hollered after her.

  But she was already gone. I dropped my arms next to me. “I guess we’ll be making plans upstairs. But, Reign, you can’t tell Jax any of this. Or Mom. If you tell Mom, she’ll feel required to tell Detective Whitman, and then our plans might as well be shot.”

  “Yeah, I won’t tell. Just keep me in the loop, alright?”

  I threw my arms around my brother, thankful that he wanted to help us. It had felt like such a daunting task, but knowing that he was willing to help seemed to take a little of the pressure off. “Thanks, Reign.”

  Surprisingly, I managed to avoid Jax all evening. But it wasn’t until later that night that we had a chance to talk about the book Alba had spent the last few hours absorbed in reading. She’d had time to cool off by then.

  “This Krasnikov guy really goes through a lot of technical stuff trying to figure out how to make time travel possible,” said Alba. “He spends the entire beginning of the book talking about his failures.”

  “I really don’t care about his failures,” I said as I channel surfed. “I just want to know he did it.”

  “He talks a lot about astral planes and astrophysics and wormholes and the theory of relativity. He’s a really smart guy.” Alba shook her head. “I wish I understood half of this stuff. Time manipulation woulda been a really cool major.”

  I didn’t have the energy to think about astrophysics and other crazy intelligent mumbo-jumbo like that. I was tired, so the cogs in my brain were barely turning. I just wanted to know how to go back in time and stop Sorceress Stone from getting killed, and then we could go unwind Jax’s curse and be done with it. I didn’t need to know the hows and whys, just the solution. “Mmkay, skip to the part where he figured it out, Alba. Can we do it?”

  Leaning back against our headboard, Alba nodded wide-eyed, staring at the open book in her lap. “Oh, totally. I think between all of our skills, we’ve got the capability to make it happen.”

  Sweets clapped her hands together. “Yay! You have no idea how much I needed this! I’ve been working nonstop, and getting to practice a little witchcraft again is so exciting.”

  I yawned before crawling under the covers. “I’d hardly call this exciting, but I can understand not wanting to spend the day cooking for once. I’m lucky other people like to cook, because if it was up to me, I’d eat Pop Tarts and jelly beans twenty-four seven.”

  Alba looked at me out of the side of her eye. “How old are you again?”

  I kicked her under the blankets. “Quit.”

  “Okay, so anyway, the gist of it is, Krasnikov was finally able to go back in time via a wormhole he created using magic. So we create the wormhole, which I think is going to be harder than it sounds, then we do the spell asking the spirits to send us back to the time of whatever-we-want, and then we travel backwards. We do what we need to do, then we repeat the process all over again, and off we go.”

  “And it all works out for him in the end?” asks Sweets.

  Alba bit her lips between her teeth. “I mean, I’m not that fast of a reader. I’m up to about chapter seven. There are…” She flipped through to the end of the book. “Forty-two chapters.”

  “Well, we don’t have time to read forty-two chapters. We need to do this tomorrow.”

  “I am a little concerned about how fast time in the present moves while we’re back in time. Krasnikov makes it sound like time moves much faster in present day than in the past,” said Alba, flipping through the pages.

  I reached over and clicked off the lamp on my side of the bed. “You know what? We’ll deal with that tomorrow. I need to get some sleep. I’m exhausted. Today was too much for me, and tomorrow is going to be even worse.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ll just read a few more chapters to see exactly how he made the wormholes, and then I’ll shut the light off.�
��

  “Alrighty. Night, Sweets.”

  “Night, Mercy.”

  “Night, Alba.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

  16

  The next morning, we all stared down at Sweets as she writhed around on her futon, holding her stomach and whining. “Ohhh, Jax! I think I got whatever it is you had yesterday.”

  Jax pouted out her bottom lip. “Aww, poor Sweets. Want me to go make you some breakfast? Maybe some toast or a bowl of oatmeal?”

  Sweets’ eyes widened and she shook her head. “No, thanks. I don’t think I can eat.”

  Jax put her hand on Sweets’ forehead. “Wow, you can’t eat? You must really be sick. Maybe I should call Char and tell her you won’t be in to work today.”

  “I called Char earlier this morning. She said she’d open up for me. But I can’t stay home. There’s no way Char can do everything by herself all day. She needs to at least have help watching the counter.” Still wearing her pajamas, Sweets attempted to get up off of her futon.

  Jax put a hand on either shoulder and pushed her back down. “Sweets. You can’t go into work today! You’re sick! What if you breathe on all the cupcakes? You’ll make everyone in Aspen Falls sick! I’ll call Char and tell her you can’t make it.”

  “Jax, you heard her,” I said. “Char can’t work alone. Sorry, Sweets. I think you’re going to have to go in. I can drive you if you want?”

  Jax’s eyes widened. “Mercy! You really think Sweets can go to work like this? Look at her. She looks terrible! Look at the dark circles under her eyes! And look how pale she is! I think she even looks a little bloated.” She turned to Holly. “Doesn’t she look a little bloated to you?”

  Sweets wrinkled her nose as she looked up at Jax. “Thanks?”

  Jax waved at hand at her assuredly. “Oh, it’s just the virus. It’s not you, Sweets.”

  I had to stifle a giggle. The four of us knew Sweets wasn’t any sicker than I was at that moment, but we needed to invent a reason for Jax to offer to work for Sweets so she wouldn’t suspect that anything was up. If it was her idea, then she wouldn’t question anything that came up in the next few days.