“Let me know what happens,” said Jenah.
“I’ll try,” I said.
She swung her leg over her bike and set off in the opposite direction. I watched the back of her jacket head away. Then I turned back to the bike with the invisible rider. As I did, the pedals swung up, and it, too, started going away from me.
But we had to go the same direction. I followed him down the hills from the pizza place, back toward our neighborhood with the square blocks of old split-levels. A million emotions churned through me as I pedaled down the hill. I was upset and afraid and angry.
I caught up to the empty bike at the last stop sign before our street. “Devon,” I said to the thin air. “You know I am so, so sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
“I know,” said the nothing despondently.
“I wouldn’t have done it, except—”
He sighed. “Cam, I honestly don’t blame you. You made a tough decision in the heat of the moment. I’m not mad.”
But now he had to live with it.
“I promise you, the very first thing I’ll do is ask my mother to unhex you. We have all day tomorrow before school starts again, and she can do anything.”
The nothing squeezed my arm. “I know.”
I reached for where I could feel him touching my arm, wanting to cover his fingers with mine. To comfort him. But he released my arm and moved away and I only touched my own sleeve.
“I better get home and figure out how to avoid my parents all day tomorrow,” he said. The bike pedals changed positions as he put his invisible foot back on one of them. Then the bike was going, gone.
I sighed. After a few months of dating Devon, I knew that when he was depressed he just wanted to be alone. That he meant it when he said he didn’t blame me.
But I blamed myself.
What good was being a witch if I was just going to make everything worse? Sparkle had the right of it. Just give up witchery and live as a normal teenager. I mean, here I’d hexed Devon, and we hadn’t even saved the piano player from the witches. Who knew what they were going to do to him? I shuddered as I walked inside.
My mother, Sarmine Scarabouche, was waiting at the door.
Sarmine is tall and white, like me, but with bobbed silver hair. For some reason, she was wearing a long black cape.
“It’s about time,” she said.
“You said I could have a date,” I pointed out.
“A weak moment,” she said. “Now sit. I have something very serious to discuss.”
I sighed. “I know.”
“You do?”
“Sparkle found me and told me you were having some coven meeting tonight. I suppose you want me to buttle or something.”
“I want you to join the coven.”
“What.”
“The coven.”
“I heard what you said.”
“I want you to join—”
“I am tired of stupid witches and their stupid witch groups,” I said.
“Coven,” she corrected. “Stupid witch coven.”
“Evil, rude, spiteful, aggravating—”
“All right, who did you run into?”
“Four witches, just now,” I admitted. “Not counting me and Sparkle. Up at the pizza place.”
Sarmine narrowed her eyes. “Which ones?”
“Claudette and the Canadians. They were chasing some piano player who Sparkle said was a Bigfoot.”
Sarmine sighed. “Up to their old tricks. Claudette probably figured, since she was in the area, she’d do a little shopping.”
I shuddered. “It’s just, like, they want his toenail clippings, right? Nothing worse?” I seemed to remember Valda talking about that before.
“As far as I know,” Sarmine said. “I don’t know much about their uses. I’ve never used them myself.”
“And that’s not all,” I said. “Sparkle said Claudette is a mind reader—”
“She’s very dangerous,” agreed Sarmine.
“And she was going to discover from Devon that Leo was a shifter, so I—”
“Turned him into a turnip?”
“No!” I hung my head. “I invisibled him. I can’t get it off.”
“With what, invisible eels?”
“A new spell I was trying, for stage fright. Crushed watermelon seeds, saffron, and unicorn spritzer.”
Sarmine furrowed her brow. “And that made him invisible? That doesn’t seem likely.”
“Tell that to Devon.” I looked imploring. “Will you help fix him tomorrow? Like you did when I turniped him?”
Sarmine went silent for a second. Then she nodded, appearing to reach a decision. She picked up a black robe and mask that lay the coffee table and held them out to me. “Camellia. You come to the coven for me tonight, and then I will try to fix your boyfriend for you.”
“You will?” I very much did not want to go to that coven. It was bad enough that a couple of Sarmine’s on-again, off-again witch friends—Esmerelda and Valda—knew that I was beginning to practice spellcraft. I didn’t want to out myself to any more wicked witches. I wanted to go along in my little corner of the world, have pizza with my boyfriend, and stay out of the way of nasty people forever.
But for Devon’s sake …
“I will,” I said. “But this isn’t going to be a weekly thing, is it?”
“Joining a coven is a tremendous honor, Camellia,” said Sarmine in an aggravating tone. “Covens can help set policies for a geographic region.”
I looked skeptical. “I’ve never seen a witch follow rules,” I said.
“Change is slow,” she admitted. “But if enough witches agree on a law, they can then enforce it and confiscate ingredients from witches who don’t follow it. They like that.”
“I bet.”
“Covens can choose to be forces for good. The Geneva Coven, for example—”
“And I have to go to a bunch of witch meetings when I could be seeing Devon, or…?”
“The Cascadia Coven hasn’t been called to order for over a decade,” admitted Sarmine, confirming what Sparkle had said.
I counted backwards. “So when? Was my … my father on it?”
Her lips tightened. “Yes. Jim was tremendously active in it. He thought we could make changes. He thought—” She sighed. “He was at the next-to-last meeting we had. Same old stuff, trying to protect the rights of shifters and werewolves and so on. He wanted a law granting full rights to Sentient Magicals. A pipe dream. And then … you know. He disappeared on us.”
That was the way she had always phrased it, transferring her anger onto him for leaving. But … “Don’t you mean ‘and then they got him’?” I said gently.
A tight shake of her head. “Perhaps.” She glared at me. “Which means it was his fault for putting himself in jeopardy. And not being willing to react with enough force, when required.”
“I see.”
“There was one final meeting, where Malkin and her cronies installed Ulrich Grey in your father’s place.”
“Ulrich—Wait, isn’t he the guy who runs the unicorn ranch?”
“A disgusting, lecherous cheat,” Sarmine said, “but not a killer.” She shrugged tightly. “After that, there was no way your father’s law could get passed. We had been trying to gather support for it—I think one or two might have swung our way—but now it was hopeless. The best I could do all these years was not call any coven meetings. It would have only made things worse.”
“And nobody else called one either?”
“Why would they? They were happy with the status quo. And then Malkin was off hunting the lindworm for a decade. Even her allies were happy to not see her.”
I shook my head. “But then why did you call one now?”
She was very still. Then she said, “Because I have been backed into a corner, Camellia.”
And then she did something that made me very worried. Very, very worried.
She hugged me.
* * *
After another
round of instructions—my mother loves to lecture—Sarmine went out to the RV garage to finish setting up, leaving me to answer the door.
Thirteen witches to make a coven. I let in Valda, short and grumpy and smelling of cigarette smoke. Esmerelda, dressed to the nines in an unseasonably warm white fur coat. Her mother, Rimelda, who was a hundred years old, but looked a spry sixty. The three Canadians. (“You look familiar,” said Boring Skirt. I shrugged.) Ulrich Grey, aka the Unicorn Guy, who stared at my black robes in a way that made me glad I was covered in black robes. And a woman I had never met, a tough-looking blonde with a German shepherd by her side. A couple of the witches never came to the front door—Sparkle knew where the RV garage was and went there, and Claudette must have snapped her way to it. I was glad I didn’t have to face her mind-reading powers again. Hopefully she wouldn’t dare use them in front of a coven full of witches.
Voices on the front step. Hopefully this was the end of the witches. I opened the door.
A middle-aged woman stood there, apparently alone, though I thought I had heard her speaking to someone. I looked around, but I didn’t see anyone else in the night. She had dark brown skin and her black curls haloed her head. She was wearing a flowy shirt and skirt, and a silver peace sign charm hung around her neck. She had her black robes in a bundle on her arm, and she smiled at me. That was unusual enough that I smiled back before I thought.
“You must be Camellia,” she said, and her eyes were kind behind her wire-rimmed glasses. “I’m Lily. I haven’t seen you since you were a baby.”
“Cam,” I said, and, “Yeah,” I said. What do you say to the people who tell you they knew you as a baby? Obviously I didn’t know her from Adam. But she was smiling, and that was a pleasant change, to be honest. “Everyone’s in the RV garage,” I said.
“Thanks, dear.” She followed me in, her hand lingering on the door, letting in the chill spring night. Her voice rumbled, warm and wistful. “I haven’t been here since…”
“Since?” I inquired, as I was supposed to.
She broke off. “Well. Since a very long time,” she said. She let the door swing shut and headed to the back door as if she knew right where to go. She lingered there, too, as if she was looking around at a place she had memories of. I wondered if she and Sarmine had had a falling out. That was remarkably common among witches.
I trailed Lily to the garage and found Sarmine at the side door, smiling and waving everyone through as if she was a glamorous hostess welcoming people in for a cocktail party and not an uptight, recycling-obsessed wicked witch welcoming in a bunch of black-clad hooligans for a little evening of dancing around a cauldron. Or waving incense and myrrh. Or whatever it was that was about to happen.
“Mask,” she said to me as I went in, and I obeyed immediately. Apparently coven rules had one good point. Maybe no one would realize that an intruder had joined their circle.
It was approaching midnight and the inside of the garage was quite dark. A low, yellowish fog hung in the air. I wondered if Sarmine had been trying to add atmosphere to what was, after all, a fairly ordinary garage, even if it was painted sky blue. The only light came from the small garage windows—the moon was nearing full and was bright enough to be seen through the soot-smeared panes.
It also stank. It smelled like a swamp—acidic and sulfuric, with pockets of rotten leaf stench leaking out. It was like we were in a haunted bog instead of on a city street of seventies split-levels.
In the middle of the garage was Sarmine’s old black cauldron, and placed around it were thirteen glass candleholders—the ones like small glass cups. They appeared to be empty. Circling that were thirteen tall, dark, narrow chairs, each one fantastically carved and decorated. I had no idea where those chairs had come from. I have to admit, I was impressed by our garage.
“We should do this at Halloween,” I whispered to Sarmine, as she directed me to stand on her right. “The neighbor kids would love it.”
Sarmine, of course, did not answer this suggestion. She seemed unusually tense—but then, anyone would be tense at inviting eleven wicked witches over for a séance. It wasn’t making me feel so great myself. The last time she’d had friends over, they’d tried to ruin my high school, and that was just three of them. Now we’d turned the witch dial to eleven.
“Please take your places,” said Sarmine.
I guessed that meant me and Unicorn Guy, who was busy trying to creep on one of the witches. I sat down in the chair next to Sarmine. He took the last open place, directly across the circle from Sarmine. I looked around, trying to figure out who was where. But everyone was masked and robed, and it was dim, it was fogged. Classic witches: paranoid and suspicious. Yet, at the same time, I was glad for my own mask. The sooner I could get done with this coven thing, the better. Let them think I was just the butler.
Sarmine was to my left, and the short, black-draped figure next to her, smoking a cigarette, had to be Valda. The woman on my right was too heavily cloaked to identify, but on the other side of her I saw the moonlight glinting off a black halo of curls and identified Lily, the witch who said she had known me as a baby. The German shepherd stood sentinel by the door—perhaps his witch was over there. I remembered the redheaded Canadian and looked for her hair, but many of the robes had hoods, and I couldn’t make her out.
There was an unusual air of expectation in the room. A funny, crackling sort of energy. I expected Valda and Esmerelda and so on to be heckling Sarmine, throwing off witticisms. And yet everyone was still. Waiting. It gave me an unusual feeling, as though I had walked into a different witch world than I had previously known.
Sarmine began without preamble. “By the order of Lily Jones, Rimelda Danela, and myself, Sarmine Scarabouche, I call this meeting of the Cascadia Coven to order!” The crack of a gavel sounded, though I saw no gavel and nothing to crack one against. “Now. Women—”
“And men,” muttered Unicorn Guy.
“Please initiate your votives so we can begin.”
Everyone leaned or kneeled down to their glass candleholder in front of them, muttering something. Sarmine, on my left, leaned to touch her wand and pronounced her words clearly. “Sarmine Scarabouche.”
Ah. I bent forward, but Sarmine stopped me with a motion of her hand.
The others sat back down. My votive looked very obvious, a black spot in the ring of light. I didn’t like that.
Sarmine raised one pale hand. “It has been thirteen years since a coven was last called. Too long, perhaps. But we have some … unfinished business to deal with tonight.”
You could have heard a pin drop in that smoky, boggy room.
“But first,” she said, more brightly, “a point of order as we induct a new member into our group. Some of you may have noticed that the witch Malkin Hexenbesen is no longer among us.”
Now there were murmurs. Heads turned, looking. I shrank back into my robes as masked eyes turned toward me.
“Ordinarily, of course,” said Sarmine, “there is a standard procedure for filling a vacant spot. Any member can nominate a witch, and the coven can vote on the nomination. That happened when the witch James Hexar disappeared thirteen years ago.” I started at the mention of my dad. Sarmine was able to say his name so coldly, yet I knew that was not how she really felt. “Ulrich Grey was nominated in his spot, and the motion barely passed.” Someone snickered at Sarmine’s acidic phrasing.
“But there is another way, far older. It has hardly been used in these more … modern times. Yet it is true that if a witch overthrows another witch through combat, she may obtain her place in the coven. As Camellia Hexar overthrew Malkin Hexenbesen, she is now eligible to claim Malkin’s place in the circle.”
More gasps at that, and the biggest one from me. I didn’t mean to have Malkin killed. She was the one who had made Leo turn into a giant worm thing. I had merely helped him get free so he could eat her. I definitely wouldn’t have done it to obtain this coven spot, and indeed, this seemed like the kind of thing
I would have actively avoided. Sarmine really should have said “Do not kill Malkin or you will have to join a coven when you could be making out with your boyfriend.” And, anyway, if anyone should get the credit, it should be Leo, for doing the eating. I opened my mouth to say all this, but Sarmine looked ice daggers at me through the holes in her black silk mask.
“Really, Sarmine?” said someone. “We’re supposed to accept your word for it? You have more than a little stake in this.”
“If my word isn’t good enough for you…” Sarmine snapped back.
But then a familiar voice spoke up from somewhere around the seven o’clock area of the circle. “I saw and witnessed,” it said. Sparkle. I craned my head, trying to see.
“Oh, very well,” said the first grumpy voice.
“Bad egg anyway,” said someone, and there was an uneasy rumble at that. Even these witches had been afraid of formidable Malkin.
“Who admits Camellia Hexar under the old law?” pronounced Sarmine in a deep and resonant voice.
Around the circle the lights went green. Well, not all the lights. Mine stayed dark, and two went red. Apparently two people didn’t quite believe Sarmine’s story of me ousting Malkin. I wasn’t sure I believed it myself.
“Ten to two,” said Sarmine impassively. “Motion carries.” The cauldron glowed green, accepting the results of the votives. “Now that we are officially thirteen again, we may proceed.” I sensed the tiniest bit of relaxing in her tight voice, as if step one of the evening had gone as planned. “Camellia?” She gestured at my votive.
“Camellia Hexar,” I told the candleholder as I tapped it, and my glass cup lit up white.
There was silence for a second. I guessed I was now an official member of the coven, like it or not. I wondered if I needed to know a word to turn my light green or red, or if thinking would do it. I wondered if anyone was going to serve snacks.
The cranky voice of Valda broke the silence. “Well, you didn’t call a coven meeting after more than a decade just to introduce your daughter to everyone. What else are we here for?”
Seriously Hexed Page 3
