Seriously Hexed

by Tina Connolly

  “Fancy,” I said.

  “You should do that more often,” said Jenah.

  Sparkle shot her a look, but I figured Jenah meant it honestly.

  “How many people know about your reappearance?” I said.

  Sparkle sighed. “Mostly just your mother. Malkin might have realized who I was, but she’s gone. I was kind of hoping I wouldn’t ever have to get back into it. I just want to be a regular person.”

  “And protect Leo.”

  “Sure.”

  “And magic up new clothes from time to time.”

  “Obviously.”

  “And maybe a few more things, like—”

  She gave me the side-eye.

  “A regular person. Sure. I got it.”

  It was about then I noticed that the piano music had stopped. I looked up to see the piano player staring straight at the old photo of Sparkle. He glanced up and saw me looking at him.

  Then he grabbed his keyboard and stand, jumped off the plywood platform, and booked it through the bead curtain that led to the kitchen and restrooms.

  “Uh, where’s that dude going?” said Leo.

  “I don’t know,” I said, standing.

  “He’s been listening in,” said Jenah, and then added, “He’s cute, in a kind of fuzzy way.”

  “You should make a move on that,” advised Sparkle.

  “I’m not interested in dating,” Jenah said calmly. “I appreciate cuteness in people, is all.”

  “And you enjoy setting up other people,” I reminded her.

  “Purely vicarious,” said Jenah.

  Sparkle furrowed her brow as she stood. “Cute in a fuzzy way, huh? There was something familiar about him.…”

  She made a move as if to follow the piano player, but just then the door to the pizza place chimed again.

  In blew a small woman, white, with short black hair, in a black and white checkered dress. Her eyes scanned the darkened room. I meant to look away from the sweep of those black eyes, but there was something unusual about her face that commanded attention. Her face was magnetic. Arresting. But not because she was so particularly beautiful or anything.

  Her face was cold. Like ice.

  Behind me, Sparkle swore. I reluctantly pulled my gaze away from the woman, turned to see genuine fear on Sparkle’s face.

  “Leo. Down,” she whispered urgently.

  Leo was in the corner of the booth. He couldn’t see the woman at the front door.

  But he could see Sparkle’s expression.

  He dove under the booth. And there was a lot of him to dive, so it was not graceful and it involved a lot of Jenah pushing and him grunting.

  The woman’s gaze swept the dim restaurant, searching for someone.

  The family had left. The tables of teenagers looked back at the top girl in school. Sparkle raised black eyebrows at them. “Scatter,” she said.

  To a person, they did, down to every last tennis player and flautist and Goth girl. They picked up their pizza slices and they all rushed different directions in an attempt to obey Sparkle.

  The woman turned, trying to track who went where.

  I stood next to Sparkle. I couldn’t let her face this person alone—whoever she was.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Sparkle hissed. “I’ve worked on my shields and you haven’t. She’ll get anything she wants out of you.”

  “You mean…?”

  “Claudette can read your thoughts,” said Sparkle.

  I could believe that of this strangely magnetic woman. I pulled a fact from the depths of my memory. “But that was outlawed by the Geneva Coven,” I said plaintively.

  “Tell that to her.”

  The woman’s—no, the witch’s—eyes met Sparkle’s. She strode to us, chairs scattering out of her path like frightened squirrels.

  “Think of Devon,” whispered Sparkle as Claudette approached.

  “Huh?”

  “Romance! Crushes! Strong emotions help shield.”

  I marshaled my thoughts to think about my boyfriend, who was still in the back of the restaurant somewhere. Unfortunately, most of my current thoughts were not of the strong crushy-love variety and were more of the poor Devon variety.

  Claudette stopped at our booth and my attention was irresistibly drawn away from thoughts of Devon and back to her. She glanced at me and Jenah and dismissed us, turning to Sparkle. She was not as tall as Sparkle and me, but it didn’t matter one bit. I wanted to crawl under the booth myself.

  “Where is the … the pianist?” she said to Sparkle in a heavy French accent.

  “Who?”

  “The—Sam. Where did he go?”

  “Who’s Sam?”

  “I do not have the time for this, Hikari,” said Claudette. Sparkle tensed at the confirmation that the woman knew who she was. “You have seen the email. Whatever Sarmine has planned, I am not walking into that without preparation. Out with it! Voyons! Where did he go?”

  Sparkle’s chin firmed up as she called upon her everyday hauteur. “I am not interested in your turf wars, Claudette,” she said with a sneer. “If you feel you have a claim to the Bigfoot, you find him.”

  Turf wars? Bigfoot?

  “Eep,” said Jenah. I glanced down into the gloom under the table. Just peeping out of the darkness was one small fluffy white rabbit foot.

  Oh no. No wonder Sparkle had shoved Leo under the table.

  Shifters were in high danger around witches. See, witches—terrible, horrible people as far as I was concerned—were definitely not vegetarian, and they used lots of animal parts in spells. Magical animals—pixies, unicorns, et cetera—had more potency than regular animals. And since shifters, who were extremely magical already, could theoretically change into any animal required for a spell … I shuddered. If this ice-faced witch was willing to chase an innocent piano player through a pizza parlor, just imagine what she would do if she found a shifter.

  “Eep?” said Claudette, shifting her gaze to the booth.

  “Burp?” said Jenah.

  “It would be very foolish to be hiding something from me,” said Claudette, and her attention was laser-focused on Jenah now. “Très, très stupide,” she reiterated in French, apparently to make sure we got it. We got it.

  That was when Devon bounded through the bead curtain, his guitar slung over one shoulder and a wide, goofy smile on his face. He pushed himself into the conversation, arms draping over our shoulders. “Yo, girls,” he said, in a total stoner-dude voice. “Did you, like, see my set? Ama-a-a-azing, huh? I really killed those songs.” He turned to Claudette, who looked slightly stunned. “Whoa, gorgeous. You must be up next, right? You’re a singer, yeah? You gotta have some great act.…”

  My heart melted. Devon was trying to distract the witch from all of us. So brave. So stupid.

  Claudette pointed her finger at him. “You. Are not an idle distraction. You have seen the pianist. You are hiding him.”

  He demurred, backing away. “No, dude, I’m just a—”

  She crooked one finger at him. I saw him lurch toward her, stumble a half step. His eyes were wide. Her finger beckoned, as if thoughts were coalescing inside his brain and she was going to pull them out, one by one.

  “Think of your girlfriend,” hissed Sparkle.

  His eyes went glassy as the finger kept beckoning.

  “She did, eh?” said Claudette, a smirk on her face. “Très intéressant. Tell me more.…”

  The trials and tribulations of our relationship might fill a couple books, but even so, I knew idle gossip wouldn’t hold Claudette for long. Not when she got wind of Leo.

  I had to do something.

  The only thing I had ready to go in my backpack of magical ingredients was the new compound I had been working on for Devon. While it might seem unlikely that an anti–stage fright spell would help Devon at this moment, on the other hand, the Showstopper potion had worked once to distract a witch by making her victim completely, irresistibly charming. Same idea, right? And my
mental Good Witch Ethics List had determined that it was okay to cast a spell on someone without their permission if it was to save a life.

  And this was.

  I reached into one of the backpack’s pockets and grabbed the ziplock bag of ingredients I had been compounding. No time to do anything fancy like combine it with unicorn hair sanitizer or heat it in a silver bowl or anything else.

  Claudette was staring deeper into Devon. “You saw him go through the curtain,” she was saying. “And then—”

  I blew the compound off my hand and onto Devon. It coated the back of his head. And then—

  He was gone.

  2

  A Seriously Bad Hex

  Oh no.

  Oh no no no no no.

  Claudette blinked. “I was just about to learn—” she said. Her eyes focused on me. “You … stupid … épais…” She took a breath. “What did you do to your charming friend? Did you teleport him somewhere?”

  My mouth hung open. I had no idea what I did. My heart was going a mile a minute.

  “Eughh.” She flapped a dismissive hand at me. “It is no matter. I have learned from him where the Bigfoot has gone.” She disappeared down the hall toward the restroom, and a few seconds later returned, dragging the much bigger and burlier piano player by his sleeve. His face was a peculiar mixture of angry, frightened, and resigned.

  “What’s she doing with him?” said Jenah.

  “We can’t let her take him—” I said.

  “Stand back or she’ll discover—” hissed Sparkle.

  Claudette turned on us. “Yes, discover,” she said. “Whoever said that, repeat again, s’il vous plaît? There was something I was failing to discover.…”

  Her gaze held mine. Sparkle was right. I had witch blood, but I had no training on how to hold mind-reading shields. I tried to keep her out, but I could feel her thoughts questing into mine, poking around my brain like a little cat tongue.

  I tried to hold Sparkle’s command in mind, to think of crushing on Devon. Crazy hard to do when I was filled with frantic worry about what I had done to him. But I had to, if I was going to save—

  No. Don’t think of that.

  I thought about when I had first seen Devon, standing at my bus stop. When he had waited for me on the bus. When we sat on the roof together. Sparkle was right. There was so much emotion in those thoughts that it filled my brain, blocking any other stray thoughts. Sitting beside him, our sleeves barely touching, wondering if he liked me, my breath coming fast—

  Claudette’s eyes bored into my brain. I held the rooftop image as hard as I could, but I could feel my control slipping. In another moment it would be gone; in another moment I would think of the thing I wasn’t supposed to think of, which was right there at the edge of my mind—

  That’s when the soccer moms stood up from their booth, wands flicked out. “Hand over the Bigfoot,” ordered one of them.

  What …

  Claudette turned to face them, her mind releasing mine.

  “The Canadians,” whispered Sparkle. “Live in Vancouver. Always together.”

  They were advancing now, still looking like some soccer moms that had sat down for pizza. One was black and wore a blue Toronto Maple Leafs sweatshirt. One was white, with frizzy red hair and yoga pants. One looked Indian and was wearing a frumpy blouse and skirt.

  “I believe this is not your territory,” said Claudette, penciled eyebrows raised. Her grip tightened on the piano player.

  “Not yours, either,” said Sports Team.

  “Hand him over,” repeated Leggings.

  “You may have noticed there’s three of us,” said Boring Skirt.

  Claudette raised her wand—

  The soccer moms raised their wands—

  “Epic witch battle,” whispered Jenah gleefully—

  And then Claudette and her victim disappeared in a puff of smoke. It was pink and smelled like roses.

  Sports Team yelled at the thin air. “Stupid teleporting witch!”

  Leggings: “You’ll pay for this!”

  Boring Skirt, in a mumble: “Once we track you down, eh?”

  They wheeled and hurried out the front door.

  “Ohmigod, you guys can teleport?” said Jenah. “Where do you think Claudette went?”

  “Who cares about Claudette?” I said.

  “I care,” said Jenah. “That poor piano player—”

  “I know, I know,” I said, more brusquely than I meant. “But what about Devon?”

  Sparkle wheeled on me. “You mean you don’t know?”

  I was shaking. “Half the people just disappeared and I don’t know what happened.”

  Sparkle rolled her eyes. “It’s very simple. Claudette and the Canadians were looking for that piano player, who is obviously one of the Sentient Magicals known as a Bigfoot. He tried to hide because he didn’t want them to get his toenails. Claudette snapped her fingers and teleported somewhere. I don’t know how you do it, but she’s known for it. The Canadians will be grouchy at the coven tonight. And Devon—” But there she stopped. “What did you do with Devon?”

  I opened my mouth to wail, I don’t know, but a familiar voice stopped me.

  “I’m right here,” Devon said.

  There was nothing there.

  “You invisibled him,” said Sparkle. “Except…” She sniffed the air. “I don’t smell invisible eels.” Her face was puzzled. “There’s also that weird vegan invisibility spell, but it doesn’t work nearly this well.” She poked a finger in the general direction of his head.

  “Ouch. My ear,” said the nothing.

  “Devon,” I breathed. “You are there.” I hadn’t disintegrated him, at least. But what had I done?

  “Seriously,” said Sparkle. “I can’t see anything. Leo, can you see anything?”

  Leo hopped out from under the table. The white bunny shimmied, and then he was a hawk. He peered at the patch of nothing from one eye, then the other. Then he cawed and shimmied back into a boy.

  I sighed and gestured to Jenah. “Clothes,” I said.

  Laughing, she grabbed them from under the table and tossed them in Leo’s direction.

  “Dude, I can’t even see him with my hawk eyes,” Leo said as he got dressed.

  “Or his clothes,” mused Sparkle. “How on earth did you invisible both things?”

  “It was a powder?” I said.

  She whistled. “That was a seriously good hex.”

  “Bad hex,” I corrected. “Seriously bad hex.”

  “Can’t you undo it?” said Jenah.

  “I don’t know how,” I said.

  “How did you unturnip him?”

  “Sarmine did it,” I admitted. I swallowed my pride and looked at my former best friend. “Sparkle, can you try?”

  She shook her head. “Not without my ingredients.” She looked at my woeful face and slugged me on the shoulder. “Cheer up,” she said. “Maybe it won’t last that long. You’re not a very good witch, after all.”

  “Thanks,” I said glumly.

  “How are you going to go to school?” said Leo.

  “Makeup,” suggested Sparkle.

  “All over?”

  Jenah slipped around the table and held out a stack of her jelly bracelets. “Try these on,” she commanded.

  The nothing took the bracelets and hung them in midair.

  “A neat party trick,” said Sparkle.

  “My point is, it’s only your current clothes that went invisible,” said Jenah. “Makeup plus new clothes might actually work.”

  “And a wig,” said Leo.

  Devon didn’t say anything, just stood there while they talked around him. I wished I had something useful to add, but I couldn’t get my brain to stop worrying about how I had done it and how I would undo it. I wished I could believe Sparkle that the spell would fade, but it seemed just my luck that I would come up with a really good spell at exactly the worst time. Oh, why had I tried my stupid powder on Devon? I knew better th
an to fling untested spells around.

  One of the employees finally poked his head through the beaded curtain. College kid. “Uh, you know we’re closing soon,” he said.

  “Okay, dude,” said Leo. “We’re clearing out.”

  There was silence as we regarded the nothing in the center of our group. Finally, it said, “Thanks, guys. I guess I’d better go home and try a disguise.” By now I knew Devon well enough to know he was feeling pretty discouraged. Lousy performance, didn’t stop the witch from kidnapping that piano player, and now his girlfriend had made him invisible. You couldn’t blame him.

  The nothing gave the bracelets back to Jenah, Leo left some cash on the table to pay for all of us, and we headed out the front door.

  “What are we going to do about that piano player?” said Jenah, as we went to our bikes. “We have to try to rescue him.”

  Sparkle rounded on her, her face cold with fury. “We do not. We have no responsibility to him. This isn’t a game, Jenah.”

  “I didn’t think it was.”

  “His life is at stake,” Sparkle said, and her finger jabbed at Leo. “You will not jeopardize that, or I will wipe your mind clean, and I don’t care how much I mess it up while I’m doing it.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Jenah, holding up her hands.

  Sparkle turned, shooting daggers at me. “That goes for you, too.” Her glare raked all of us, including the spot where invisible Devon was probably standing. “None of you have shields. You see that witch again, you run the other way. Do you hear me?”

  I nodded. So did Jenah.

  “Got it,” said Devon.

  Sparkle nodded curtly at me. “I’ll see you in an hour,” she said. She and Leo got into his convertible and peeled off.

  Jenah’s face was still angry. “She’s wrong, wrong, wrong.”

  I shook my head. “As much as she annoys me, this time she’s right. We can’t face Claudette. Not without risking Leo’s life.”

  “Then she should.”

  I sighed. “Maybe so. But I don’t think she’s going to.”

  There was a clatter as a bike detached itself from the bike rack.

  “Wait up, Devon,” I said. The bike continued to the edge of the parking lot, then stopped there as Jenah and I unlocked ours. I couldn’t tell if he was actually waiting for me or just being a gentleman, making sure we got safely on our bikes.