Sarmine set down her coffee so she could gesture in frustration. “Camellia, do you imagine that I deliberately do things just to annoy you?”
That was exactly what I did imagine, but I knew better than to say it.
“I’m not going to be creating the spells I give you to learn,” she said. “The spells are the spells. If you want to know how to cast a certain spell to help one of the victims, we’ll have to find a copy or buy it from another witch. A reputable witch—not one of those crazies you find on WitchNet.”
“So wait, you’ve never created spells on your own?”
I could feel the eye roll like a disturbance in the fabric of the universe. “Creating spells is one of the most dangerous and exhilarating tasks a skilled witch can undertake,” Sarmine said. “It takes years of study and practice.”
“So that would be a no?”
“In all the catalogue of spells I personally have created, Camellia, I highly doubt there is one for ‘passing a pop quiz’ or ‘finding out if that boy who sits in the front row secretly likes me’ or whatever else it is that goes on at your high school.”
My turn to roll my eyes. “Actually I learn things at that school,” I said. “Biology. Lab tests. You ever heard of a little something called the scientific method?”
“Well then,” she said. “You’ll be all set to come up with new solutions to anything that bothers you in these spells.”
“I, uh. Well…”
“Now. First things first,” Sarmine said. “Please recite for me the elements you need to cast a spell.”
“Well. The spell itself,” I said. “Time to study it.” Witch spells were written like some horrible combination of word problems, logic puzzles, and bad puns. “The ingredients.” The witch was always sending me around to fetch the unusual ingredients she needed, like leprechaun hairs or organic elk butter. “And a wand.” I had my father’s old one—one of the few things I had of his.
“Very good,” said the witch. “Now, as long as you cooperate, I will provide you with certain ingredients from my own stores—subject to availability. And cost. Unless I think it’s a better learning activity for you to track it down.” I was beginning to get the idea that there would be a lot of fine print to this agreement. “You will of course need a fanny pack to carry your supplies…”
But there I drew the line. “Esmerelda had a purse,” I said. “Can’t I do something like that?”
Sarmine sniffed. “If you want to spend your precious free time sewing hidden pockets into your backpack, be my guest,” she said. “In the meantime…” She handed me an orange leather fanny pack, well-marked with gray, green, and dark red splotches. It smelled of ginger, garlic, and compost.
“Thanks,” I said dubiously. I could always stuff it in my backpack.
“Now, is there a particular spell you would care to learn?” she said.
I thought about this. The problem with trying to stop the witches was that they could do literally anything. Whereas I knew about three spells so far and none of them were going to necessarily be the right ones. Like, if a witch broke a kid’s arm, I didn’t know a healing spell. If a witch turned someone turquoise, I didn’t know how to change them back. If a witch made someone float away, I didn’t know how to de-levitate them. You get the idea.
“Malkin had an aura of … menace about her,” I said. “Was that a spell? Or just natural charisma?”
“Both,” said Sarmine, adding modestly, “all witches are naturally charismatic.”
“Naturally.”
“But Malkin also had a favorite spell that she loved to work in college to make everyone more afraid of her. I’m sure she’s still doing it, or a more refined version.”
“I didn’t see her combine any ingredients or wave her wand,” I said. “Although, she did have that disguised wand.…”
Sarmine sniffed. “Malkin is fond of sleight of hand,” she said. “Like any common street magician.”
Actually it seemed pretty convenient to be able to hide what you were up to, but I didn’t say anything.
Sarmine crossed to the bookcase and brought back a limp leather-bound volume. “Some of the spells I wrote down in college,” she explained. “We were all building up our collections, and we would often trade spells.” She set the journal down on the bar between us and began flipping through. A small smile appeared as spells struck memory. “See, that’s definitely an Esmerelda spell. ‘How to Make Someone Always Appear Ugly in Pictures.’” That did sound like Esmerelda. “And oh, look, there’s one from Valda I’d forgotten about.”
“‘How to Drop a Piano on Someone’s Head,’” I read. “Lovely.”
“I wonder if Malkin’s early sympathetic resonance spells are in here,” Sarmine murmured as she flipped. “Oh, here’s the one you want. Malkin used this daily. ‘A Mystikal Spelle of Great Power.’”
“I think there’s a Mystikal in my grade at school,” I muttered.
“Creative spelling aside,” said Sarmine, “this is a nice beginner’s spell for looking more powerful, and it shouldn’t give you any trouble. I’ll leave you to it.”
I glanced at the handwritten spell, which started, in typical witch fashion: “If the day of the week begins with S, find yourself some slugs.” I looked back up at Sarmine. “I thought these were lessons.”
“They are.”
“But I have to work out the spell by myself?”
“While I drink coffee, yes.”
I rolled my eyes and grabbed a piece of paper. I’d almost rather be hanging up the snakeskins.
* * *
An hour later, my paper was a mass of scribbled blue ink and I was no closer to deciphering the spell. I sighed as I got a fresh sheet and began copying the spell again. Among other things, I was hung up on the line that read, “If the day of the week begins with Y.…” Was I supposed to be reading all the days backward? Yadnom. Yadseut. Wulfie was curled on the couch next to me, busy shredding a chew toy into tiny bits. I stroked his fur as I tried to make my brain do brainy things. “Can’t you give me a hint?” I said.
“Whiny teenagers get turned into solar panels,” the witch said.
I shut up. I shoved the book into my bag. Maybe I could find some time to work on it at school. In between finding the four victims of the witches, and trying to retain my tattered bits of a social life.
“Interesting,” said Sarmine. “Esmerelda’s bubble is rising.”
“That’s good news though, right?” I said. “Her victim is having a good day?”
“Perhaps,” said Sarmine. “Esmerelda does enjoy building people up.…”
She trailed off and I filled in the rest. “And then tearing them down, I bet,” I said. Classic mean-girl strategy from a middle-aged witch. “She might be at the school already.” I stared at the thermometer, watching to see if it rose or fell.
“Well, hurry up,” said Sarmine. “You won’t find Esmerelda here.”
“I don’t suppose you’d drive me? This once?”
Sarmine’s eyebrows shot through the roof.
“Right.”
I caught the next city bus to school. It left fifteen minutes earlier than my regular one, but it definitely didn’t get there any faster or smell any better. I reviewed what strategies the four witches might use. Sarmine, of course, dearly loved to teach people a lesson. But she had promised me not to make her victim miserable. I didn’t know whether to trust her or not. Or, even if I could trust her, would she understand the difference between teaching someone a lesson and making their lives a living hell? For example, last March she dropped live eels down the chimney of the guy who was still running his Christmas lights display. (They were electric eels. It was supposed to make some sort of symbolic statement about wasting energy. I don’t think he realized that.)
Still, whatever Sarmine got up to would probably not be as bad as Malkin. Malkin was the most frightening witch I had ever met. I shuddered to think what she would do to her victim. Probably only her promise of n
o lasting harm would stop her from turning her student into little tiny pieces and calling it a day.
Valda? Valda I didn’t really know yet. I tabled her for later.
Esmerelda—yes, Esmerelda would probably try to humiliate her victim. She had looked pretty happy at her card last night, so maybe she thought she had an easy mark. A geeky boy she could seduce. A nerdy girl she could destroy.
I got off the bus and made a circuit around the school, scanning the grounds for any sign of either Esmerelda or of an incident about to go down. Not for the first time, I wished Sarmine would let me have a real phone like everyone else. I could text Jenah and Devon and see if anyone had tried to drop an anvil on their head.
The crowd was growing by the minute as kids parked or got dropped off. It was crisp but not freezing—jean jacket weather. A couple girls were clustered on the steps, and I studied them, but they were griping about being up this early, going to class, et cetera. I kept going around the building. A few boys were playing Hacky Sack. They also did not look like they were having an incident.
And then I saw a tall blonde in a pink suit with a green handbag disappearing into the side door.
Esmerelda.
I hurried after her. How had she gotten permission to actually go on campus? I had thought the witches would at least be stuck outside of school bounds. I went into the side door, trying to look casual and keeping a sharp lookout for a certain blond witch.
The pink business suit bobbed and weaved through the growing crowds. I followed her upstairs. Ducked behind a door as she reached her destination. The art room.
The first few art students trickled in. There were a couple in ordinary clothes. As we got closer to the bell it was more black and chains and goth and punk and tattoos and piercings and every other different kind of style. I heard one of them say as they entered the room, “Where’s Mrs. N?” and then another: “Dude, the sub is hot.”
Of course. What better way to get into the school than to pose as a sub? Just magic up some teaching credentials and a clean background check. Further, it seemed a reasonably good bet that her victim was an art student. Esmerelda must have learned that from the victim’s playing card. I hoped she hadn’t done anything to Mrs. N.
The bell ringing shocked me out of my fugue. Crap. Rourke was not going to be happy with me for being late to his class.
I hurried off to first period, trying to formulate a plan for the day. I could stake out the art room between classes. I could surreptitiously ask around if anyone was having a bad day. No, I was terrible at that sort of thing. My best friend, Jenah, was great at it, though, and she knew everyone.
It was weird asking Jenah for help with this. I mean, we helped each other with mundane things all the time. But I had only let her in on my big secret about my personal life a couple weeks ago, when all the crazy demon nonsense was going down. So it wasn’t my first instinct to ask for assistance with a wicked-witch standoff, you know? But I had promised Jenah no more keeping secrets from her.
I firmed my resolve. I was never going to get through this week without Jenah running backup. She would have to be let in on it.
I mean, for starters, if Esmerelda was just showing up to school now, then Sarmine and I were wrong about her interacting with her student twenty minutes ago. Which meant that the victim had been happy for some completely unrelated reason, like getting to eat waffles for breakfast. I groaned. How on earth was I going to figure out which art student was her target?
Malkin had said she was plucking the images from my memory. Did that mean that everyone chosen was actually a friend of mine? I tried to reassure myself. I must have seen every kid in school—and it was a big school—walking around at some point. On the negative side, that would make it harder to figure out who the victims were, but on the positive side, hopefully I didn’t have to see any of my close friends get their lives destroyed.
Not that it was right to destroy anybody’s life. Of course, there were some obnoxious kids in school. If only I had gotten to pick.…
No, I reminded myself firmly as I hurried into algebra II and dropped into my seat, panting. No one’s life should be destroyed by an overgrown witch club.
“Glad you could join us, Camellia,” said Mr. Rourke dryly.
On the other hand, if the club had gone after teachers, I could think of one to give them. Frankly, the only nice thing about Rourke’s class is no one laughs when he says rude things because they know he might call them out next. It’s kind of a mutual bonding experience—everyone who’s managed to survive Mr. Rourke’s teaching.
Across the aisle, Devon smiled sympathetically at me. Which made me feel a little better. Devon is white, with floppy blond hair and a sweet face. He’s the new boy in school, and we sort of had one date ten days ago, not that I was counting or anything. Date one was mixed up with a lot of annoying things like demons and exploding phoenixes so I wasn’t really sure if there was going to be a date two or if he thought high school would be a little easier if he stayed away from me.
Okay, to be fair, he had been sick all last week after recovering from fighting a demon out of him.
Still. When you’ve only had one date, and you have no way to contact your crush because your phone only connects to the witch system, you spend time obsessing about that perennially stupid question of “Does he like me? Circle here Y/N.” It was kind of amazing I had any brain cells left to stop wicked witches, when you came right down to it.
“Camellia,” Rourke said with the air of someone who has said it five times, “Please come to the board and work through the first homework problem for me. Unless, of course, the answer is to be found on the side of Devon’s head.”
There were a few snickers at that as I took my homework and my red-faced self to the board. Traitors.
I made it through the rest of class with a minimum of angst. Algebra II was going a lot better now that math whiz Kelvin had caught me up to speed. Rourke’s terrible word problems even made sense, which was good, because that meant I had a prayer of solving Sarmine’s spells. I wished I dared pull out the Power spell to keep working through it, but I figured I was on thin ice today. I kept my head down and tried not to glance over at Devon for the rest of class.
When the bell finally rang I mustered my courage and turned oh-so-casually to his desk. “How are you feeling?” I said. Witty banter, that’s me.
“Much better.” He smiled at me and then I guess we ran out of conversation. He smelled like soap. I like that in a guy.
“So, I…”
“Look, would you…”
I stopped. “You first.”
“Well, uh,” he said. “So I have band practice after school.”
“Okay?”
“And then the band’s going to get pizza. Like five-ish. At Blue Moon. I thought maybe you’d like to come?”
“Yes,” I said, lighting up. I would worry about what the witch would say when I got home. “I would love to.”
Next period’s students were filing in and Rourke was swooping down on us to say something sarcastic.
“I, uh, better go,” he said. “See you then.”
“See you then.”
And then of course we both gathered our books and had to go out the same door, so it was like, awkward for a second. But I got another smile from him before he turned to go the other direction, so it was worth it.
“I have a date, I have a date,” I sang-chanted to Jenah when I caught up with her at our locker. Jenah is Chinese-American and my best friend from way back. She is tiny and chic-punk and knows everyone in school.
She looked amused. “With Devon?”
“And his band. But whatevs.”
“Hey, baby steps,” she said. Today she was wearing solid white with a million neon bracelets. She retrieved a yogurt tub from the depths of the locker and pulled out even more bracelets, loading up each arm. “That boy may look like a boy-band boy, but he’s really kind of shy.”
“He is, isn’t he?” I
said. “I mean, he is.” Hard to figure out sometimes if someone was shy or just not into you. Especially when they were cute.
“Worth it, though,” she said.
I took a breath. “So … I’ll see you at lunch?”
“Of course?”
“I have Important Things that I need your help with.”
Jenah lit up. “Ooh! Is that secret code for Witchy Things?”
“Hush,” I said. “Secret code should stay secret.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” she said.
* * *
The next two hours passed reasonably without incident. I was caught up in English, so I snuck Sarmine’s spell out during that class. I decided to ignore the Y business for now and went back to “If the day of the week begins with M, find yourself a monkey,” because today was Monday, after all. Once I focused on that, the spell started coming together. Witches like to throw in nonsensical stuff to distract you, and it had worked.
I wrote down the final list while Mr. Kapoor rambled on about the geopolitical climate of Macbeth. A pinch of ginger, one dragon’s tear, one of my own hairs, and, because it was Monday—yes, there it was. A teaspoonful of monkey brains.
I was livid. Sarmine had deliberately given me a spell to work that she knew I would not want to perform. This was helping me? This was working on the same team? I crumpled up the paper and shoved it into my backpack. I was so angry I even pulled out my phone, ready to text her something I would likely regret, when I realized Mr. Kapoor’s eyes were upon me.
I dropped my phone into my backpack and my backpack onto the floor.
“What do you think, Miss Hendrix?” Mr. Kapoor said patiently. “Are the witches really to blame for Macbeth’s downfall? Or did he bring it all on himself?”
“Blame the witches,” I said. “One hundred percent.”
* * *
By the end of class I had calmed down enough to not send a scathing text to someone who regularly threatened to turn me into a wind turbine. I mean, I hadn’t worked through the entire spell yet. Maybe it was just Monday that was a problem. Maybe on Tuesdays you only needed happy thoughts and rainbows.
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