He got away from that booth faster than fast and I slumped down into it. I couldn’t make it out at all. I guess I didn’t have enough practice interpreting guy behavior—blame Sarmine for that. I mean, he was clearly sitting here with me, but at the same time, our conversation kept falling all over itself and imploding.
Maybe someone else could use a love potion.
I think my heart rate doubled at the thought. I mean, if Henny was forcing me to learn the spell anyway … would it be such a breach of good-witch ethics to make a little extra for Devon?
That was a rhetorical question. Yes, it very much would be a breach of ethics. It would be all kinds of wrong.
And yet maybe it was okay to … imagine what it would be like if I gave him the love potion. Imagination didn’t hurt anyone, right? I picked up the Parmesan packets for the witch, fiddling with them. I slip a little potion into his soda … he turns to me and says, Oh Cam, why are we talking about ridiculous things like biology homework? Let’s go make out in the moonlight. Yeah, about like that.
I crumpled up Sarmine’s requested Parmesan packets and shoved them in my backpack. No, I knew perfectly well it was wrong. I was going to have to do all the hard work myself. And by “hard work” I meant pulling up my big-girl pants and, like, actually kissing him. Or actually asking him out on a second date, a real-er date. Something. Taking a stand.
Magic could solve some problems. But it couldn’t fix your relationships with people, and it sure couldn’t make you into a good witch. Else there’d be no such thing as wicked witches, I guess.
More and more students were coming in now. Laughing, chatting. There, a couple holding hands; there, a dude with his arm slung over his boyfriend’s neck. Why was there such a gulf between me and everyone else? Other people seemed to know how to take the next step with their crushes.
Someone had left the door open; it was banging, rattling in the wind. One of the servers went to close it—and it tore out of his hands, smashing back against the wall. A tornado-like gust blew through the pizza place, snuffing candles and ripping menus out of hands. Several people shrieked, and then all the lights went out for a second, and I found my heart beating like anything. Someone was near me, breathing down my neck—no, that was just the wind—no, there was nothing.
The lights came back on. The wind was gone. The server shut the door.
Chatter resumed, mixed with nervous laughter, and then relieved laughter, as bodies processed that the danger was past.
Me, I stood, looking around for Malkin. This seemed exactly her style, down to that eerie feeling that someone had been near me. Had anyone been hurt in the confusion, anyone I could help? But I could not see anything wrong.
At that point Devon came back with some folded notebook paper and sat down. “Are you okay?” he said. His kind face was filled with concern.
I nodded, and then we were back to just looking at each other.
Screw it, I was going to say something. And now, before we were all destroyed in an epic witch battle. “Devon, I—”
“Devon!” chirped a voice, and I looked up to see Reese herself standing there. Reese is a blond, rich, ditzy, reasonably not-terrible sophomore whose main current fault is that she got to do way more making out with Devon two weeks ago than I did. “Ohmigod, that was crazy, right? Are you okay?”
Now that the demon’s magic soul-sucking kiss had worn off, she was not forlorn over Devon anymore. But she still clearly liked him, and she unfortunately still perfectly well remembered having had a date with him right in this spot. Well, a date with the demon, if you wanted to be technical about it (and I definitely wanted to be technical about it). I don’t think she and the other four girls remembered anything from Halloween night itself when the phoenix exploded—Sarmine tended to clean up loose ends like that—but I wasn’t sure.
Devon smiled at her in a way that I chose to interpret as kind and not flirty. “Fine, thanks. Do you know Cam?”
She smiled absently at me. “Yes, we’re old friends,” she said. She was clinging to the arm of a tanned white guy who was brushing leaf debris off his sweater. Caden, looking much happier than I’d seen him that afternoon.
“Didn’t your car get destroyed?” I said.
He laughed. “Dad was mad for about five minutes,” he said. “Then he went and got me a new one, straight off the lot.” To Reese he added, “Pretty sweet, isn’t it?” and she giggled.
I snorted into my drink. Whichever witch had him was going to be sorely disappointed. Hard to bring someone down when their dad could replace whatever you destroyed.
“Must be nice,” said Devon, whose thoughts were clearly running along the same lines. “I can’t exactly haul speakers with my cargo bike.”
“Ooh, speakers?” said Reese. “Are you playing this week?” She slid in next to him on the other side of the booth. “You don’t mind if we join you, do you? It’s so nice to catch up with you and Cam.”
“I thought we were having a one-on-one, babe,” said Caden. To me he added, “No offense.”
“None taken,” I said. I doubted I was his idea of a prime booth-mate any more than he was mine.
“Oh, just for a minute,” said Reese to Caden. “Then we’ll take your new car out for a drive.” She took her gum out, leaned across the table, and kissed him.
Devon’s expression flickered over to me and back. I didn’t know what it meant, but I could tell you that my current feelings were a prime mix of embarrassment, annoyance, and envy.
Reese dominated the conversation for the rest of dinner. I mean, thanks to her I found out how many girls Devon had dated (three), how many pairs of jeans he had (two), and what the names of his former bands were (Owl Pellet, Betty & Veronica, Planet of the Bacon Monkeys), so hey, she wasn’t entirely useless. Caden threw out a bored “yeah, whatever” every so often, and Devon? Well, Devon answered her ridiculous questions with his normal tact and courtesy, and tried vainly to include me in the conversation. I appreciated the effort, but at the same time, I really wanted him to tell Reese to get the hell out of Dodge and leave us alone.
But that wasn’t Devon.
And since he was being so sweet and considerate to her (which was nice of him, seeing as the demon had just broken her heart and briefly borrowed a large chunk of her soul), I couldn’t bring myself to be rude, either.
And I was too stubborn to get up and leave.
So we sat. We ate pizza.
And finally, finally, when I couldn’t take Reese’s inane questions a second longer, and after Caden had said, “Shouldn’t we get going?” at least five times, Devon stood up and said, “Well, I’ve got homework, so.…”
“This was fun,” said Reese. “We should all do this again.”
Caden and I grunted.
We went to the register for the moment of check-splitting truth, and I was frankly interested to see what would happen. But what happened is Reese nudged Caden to pay for all of us, and he said, “Whatever, babe,” and complied. So that bullet was dodged, I guess—and now I had some money for a change—but I also didn’t learn anything.
Outside, I watched Reese and Caden peel off in Caden’s shiny new SUV.
“That is a very big car your friend has,” said Devon.
“Not my friend,” I said.
“Your friend’s boyfriend.”
I looked sideways at him. “Not my friend, either,” I said. Had he really thought Reese meant it when she said we were friends? She was, in fact, generally nice to everyone about 80 percent of the time. If you didn’t ever run into her when the chips were down you would probably think she was the nicest popular girl on the planet.
There was an expression like light dawning and then he started laughing. “Dude, I wasted an hour of our lives,” he said. “I am sorry.”
My grouchiness melted away. “At least I now know that your favorite breakfast food is chocolate-chip pancakes,” I said. “I mean, that’s highly important information.”
Devon unlock
ed his bike from the bike rack. “Did you bike?”
I shook my head. “Bus,” I said. “But it’ll be along soon, or I can walk.”
He smiled at me, a little shy. “You can ride with me,” he said, “if you don’t mind.”
Mind? Of course I wouldn’t mind. But … “Like what, on the handlebars?”
“When my parents had the animal shelter, they would have me go pick up emergency supplies for them,” he said. “Like huge bags of dog food. And obviously I couldn’t have a license yet so they got me a cargo bike. Moving truck finally delivered it last week.”
He pointed at the back and I realized now that his bike looked different than other bikes. It had some extra horizontal tubing sticking out in the back. Devon pulled a green foam cushion from one of the saddlebags and plopped it on, and suddenly the bike had an extra seat. “Hop on,” he said.
I did as requested, feeling entirely awkward. It wasn’t like when you see two people riding on a motorcycle. The extra seat was several inches lower than Devon’s seat, so my face was level with the middle of his back. Plus, I hadn’t been on a bike since the dragon squashed mine. It was hard to concentrate even on stable ground, and now here I was with the bike shifting underneath me, feeling as though I was going to make him fall over through sheer clumsiness.
“I don’t have an extra helmet,” he mused. “I wonder if mine would fit you.”
“As kind of you as that is,” I said, “I feel reasonably certain that Sarmine Scarabouche would find a way to put my scrambled brain back together if it did, in fact, scramble.” After all, who else would dust her jars of rutabaga root? “And I doubt she would feel the same sense of urgency toward yours. You’d better keep it.”
“Well then,” he said. “Hang on tight.” He grinned at me, and for a heart-stopping moment there was that devilish charm I had seen so often a couple weeks ago, when I wasn’t sure which parts of him were Devon and which parts were the demon. I knew it couldn’t be all Estahoth.
I took the excuse, wrapped my arms around his waist, and held on tight. He smelled of soap and boy. He pushed us off and away we went.
It felt like flying.
The strange wind had died down and it was a gorgeous, crisp-cold night as we flew down the hills. I was glad the pizza place was uphill from our street, because I could well imagine the embarrassment I would feel if I had to sit and do nothing while Devon got a workout. As it was, I could sit back and enjoy the ride.
“Not too fast for you, is it?” he called back over his shoulder.
“Perfect,” I called back. The word felt like an admission. This was perfect, everything was perfect. I could forget about the nasty witch club and just sail along with Devon as life whisked by.
All too quickly, he turned onto my street, stopped in front of my house. I reluctantly let go of his waist and got off the bike, my legs shaky from using them to hold on. Kind of like horseback riding, I guessed. Then I wondered why I was thinking about horseback riding instead of about the fact that finally, finally, Devon and I were alone together. No Reese, no band members, no stray demons infesting his soul. The moonlight lit up his cheekbone and his neck. His hands on his helmet.
So far Devon and I had shared exactly one kiss. It was right after I’d saved his life and a phoenix was bursting into fire all around us. Pretty impressive stuff, but not entirely clear whether he wanted to go on kissing me as a matter of course or if he just felt awfully grateful to me and bowled over by the romance of kissing in a magical phoenix explosion.
He stood there, fiddling with his helmet. His blond hair fell down over his face.
“Cam, I…”
“Yeah?”
“Well. I mean.” He buckled and unbuckled the straps. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”
“Now I know the demon’s gone for sure,” I said. “He always knew exactly what to say.”
The minute I said it I wished I could take it back. I was trying to make a joke, but I saw his face fall as he turned away. The moment came crashing down around us. “I’m not him,” he mumbled.
“Well, good,” I said as cheerily as possible. “I mean, he was always talking about Elvis and eating people’s souls and stuff. Better you don’t know what you want to say than to, like, kiss every girl in school and stuff like that.” This was getting worse by the minute. “I mean, not that exactly but you know he was nuts. All the girls running after him thought so. I mean, running after you. But not you, him.”
Devon tugged his bike closer to him like it was a shield to hide from the crazy girl who couldn’t stop talking. “Cam, I … I better get home.”
The bottom fell out of my stomach. Reese hadn’t ruined this night. I had. “Yeah,” I said. “I’d better get back to the witch. Before I turn into a pumpkin.” The night no longer seemed crisp and beautiful but cold and pathetic.
He swung his leg over his cargo bike.
“See you in algebra?” I said.
He smiled the same polite smile he had been giving Reese all night. “Definitely.”
His foot came down and the bike left, going down the street, away.
I sat down on the curb. I didn’t care how cold I was; I didn’t want to go inside. I wanted to rewind the last five minutes and try again, this time with no stupid jokes. I huddled in my jacket, running through the ending over and over. Maybe I would sit out here until I figured out how to fix it. Or morning, whichever came first.
And that’s when I smelled it.
Cigarette smoke, across the street. Someone lurking in the bushes.
My first thought was humiliation that someone had seen that little scene. But the second thought was anger. Stupid witch club.
“Well, I better make sure someone scooped up after Wulfie,” I said out loud. I moseyed out into the street, pretending to look around. The bushes were silent. And then, I ran straight to the bushes and pounced on them.
There was some truly amazing swearing from the bushes, and all four foot six of Valda came stomping out of them, waving her cigarette. “What are you doing?”
“Me? What are you doing, spying on us?”
A pause, and then, “Nooooothing,” said Valda in a shifty sort of voice. “Just checking out the competition. Making sure nobody was cheating.”
“Nobody in this house is cheating,” I said coldly. “Are you sure you weren’t following me?” My eyes widened. “Or Devon? Did you draw Devon?” I seized her shoulders. “Did you make our date go all rotten through magic?”
She snorted. “You wish.” She flounced free of my grasp and took a step back. “Maybe I like looking at bushes on a Monday night.” She blew some smoke in their direction.
I took a step toward her. She took a step back. We could dance like this all night.
“Then why are you really here?” I said.
“Oh, that’s an interesting story,” she said around her cigarette. In the dark, I caught the flash of her fingers at her waist.
She was going for a spell.
Oh god.
I was about to have that epic witch battle.
I grabbed my fanny pack from my backpack and buckled it on. It was pretty dark, except for porch lights. Luckily the dark would hamper Valda, too—but she probably had muscle memory to go on, and I had no idea where Sarmine had put the ginger and thyme. If I had them at all. I stuck my finger randomly into one of the pockets and smelled it. Cinnamon. Another. Something disgusting.
Meanwhile, Valda had finished combining things in the palm of her hand. She jabbed at them with the cigarette, starting a little smolder. She must have hands of iron. She pulled out her wand …
Think, Cam.
I grabbed my water bottle from my backpack and dumped it on her hand. Her spell flickered out and streamed away. She shrieked at me, finally dropping her cigarette.
Good. That would make things easier to smell.
Aha. Now that was ginger. A pinch in my hand. A couple more pokes … did I even know what thyme smelled like? Then the next pinch
took me back, very strongly, to the smell of the witch’s chicken noodle soup. I dumped it in my hand, hoping that I wasn’t confusing it with oregano or tarragon or heaven knows what else. A hair from my head. A drop from the dragon’s tears vial.
Valda was still drying her hands when I touched my wand to my palm and flicked it toward me, inhaling the slightly damp powder.
The moonlight picked out the whites of her eyes, growing big and round.
I felt something strange surging through me. Animalistic. Like I didn’t care about anybody else. Valda backed away and instinctively I lashed out my wand, stopping it a millimeter from her throat.
“You will tell me why you’re here,” I said. Menace rumbled through the words.
“I—I urp,” she managed. “I’m following Malkin. Take your wand away.”
“Malkin?” I said, not budging. “Was she here? Was she at the pizza place?”
“She’s been all over town. You don’t understand. She always has ulterior motives. Take that wand away, now.” Valda put her fingers between my wand and her neck, glaring up at me and my aura of menace. I didn’t think she should be able to do that, and then I realized that my menace was fading. I was returning to my normal self, and Valda was no longer intimidated. I pulled the wand away as she laughed. “Beginner, aren’t you?”
“You talk big for someone who was vanquished by a water bottle,” I said. “What do you mean, ulterior motives?” Another porch light snapped on, next door. I held my wand steady.
Valda rubbed her neck. “Malkin wouldn’t have stopped her hunt for the lindworm just for this contest,” she said. She was tugging on something behind her back. “She’s hiding … something … and I want … in on it.…”
Suddenly the thing was free. It was a broom, and she was astride it. It lurched down the street, straining under her bulk. I chased it down the street, but it finally grunted up into the air and then she was zooming away, too fast for me to follow.
4
A Lovelie Spell to Open You to Possibilities
Late that night I sat in bed, staring at the wand in my hands. I had finished my homework and remade my bed for the cold weather with additional spare blankets from the hall closet (the witch does not believe in running the heat at night) and now I was trying to figure out how I could be more like Malkin.
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