“I guess.” I tried to stop feeling so prickly. Poppy was trying to help.
“So you don’t need to know everyone. Just help me figure out who was standing next to your mother. That would have been a key place to cast a spell on her and miss the others.”
I thought carefully back to the witches I had managed to identify. “I was on Sarmine’s right,” I said slowly. “And on her left…” A short figure with a cigarette.… “Valda,” I said triumphantly. “And she’s awful. Likes to drop pianos on people. But this…?” A disappearing witch seemed too subtle for her.
“The first rule is to not rule out anybody,” said Poppy. “Even you and me.”
That took me aback for a minute. “Why you?”
“Oh, I have plenty of motive,” Poppy assured me. “I’m applying to Larkspur next year, and one of the application requirements is to complete some impressive magical act. So if I could do something amazing, like disrupt a coven—”
“Wait, are you saying you did disrupt the coven?”
“No,” she said patiently. “I’m just explaining to you how to think like a detective and not like a pile of mush.”
Despite her exasperation, she didn’t say it in a mean way, more like she had faith that I could overcome my natural tendency to think like a pile of mush. All the same, I stood up and started pacing. I guess I was kind of stressed out. Yet somehow I had to calmly solve The Mystery of the Missing Mother. It was easy for Poppy. She didn’t have a stake in this. I took a deep breath. Then another. Then another and another and—
“Okay, are you hyperventilating on me?” said Poppy. “Here, sit down on the dog bed with Wulfie. Look, I’ll solve it without you if you fall apart, so stop fussing.”
“Easy for you to say,” I said. I may have glared at her. “You don’t have a stake in it.”
“I do,” she said promptly. “If disrupting a coven would be a grand magical act, then surely fixing it would be a greater one. Larkspur will love it.”
“Not what I mean. It’s. Not. Your. Mother. She’s gone, and she’s never gone, and she was going to fix my hex—”
“Hold up a minute,” said Poppy. “What hex?”
I hung my head. “I accidentally hexed Devon last night. Before the coven meeting.”
“And Devon is…?”
“Boyf—New boy in school. Sings about butter.”
“I’ve heard the stories. What did you do to him?”
“I’ve cast like ten spells on him in the last three months.” I was gasping those short breaths again. “Trying to fix his stage fright. But the last thing I compounded turned him into a turnip—”
“You’re killing me.”
“And this time I invisibled him. And I can’t visible him again. And he’s stuck, and Sarmine was going to help fix it—”
“But she disappeared.”
“And, I mean, everyone was raising their wands at the end.” I couldn’t bear it. “What if some of the not-so-terrible witches were casting a protection spell and I got in the way of it? That spell I cast on Devon was supposed to fix his stage fright, not make him invisible. What if something’s wrong with … me?”
Poppy sucked air across her teeth. “You have a good point.”
“I didn’t want you to say that.”
She began pacing her room while I tried to calm my breathing. Strange, but just talking it all out with Poppy seemed to help. Probably if I could have a good cry I’d feel even better, but I didn’t want to cry in front of Poppy.
“Wand,” she said, and held out her hand.
“Oh. Yes. Um…”
“It’s not on you at all times?”
“I was sleeping.” I rummaged through my backpack.
“I’ll check it for hexes. I read of a case like this in Tattyburr’s Magicalle Historey. Maybe somebody did it to you.”
Maybe somebody did this to me. I liked the sound of that. I didn’t like the idea that I had an enemy, but I sure liked the idea that it wasn’t my fault. My breathing finally slowed as I found the wand, and Poppy got her phone from the charger on her desk. It was a nice room, tidy, in blue and white and wood. One wall was covered in framed certificates.
Poppy grabbed a corner of a geometric blue rug in the middle of the room and began tugging it to the side. I bent to help her and saw that, beneath the rug, the shiny hardwood was stained and pocked, scuffed and worn. “This is where you do your spells, I take it?”
“Mom doesn’t care what the floor looks like in the rest of the house, but I do,” she said. “Okay, stand in the center, here, and hold your wand.” She retrieved chalk from her plaid messenger bag and bent down to trace a pentagram around me.
“Is this going to hurt?”
Poppy was getting impatient again. “Haven’t you ever been checked for hexes before? Don’t you know anything?”
“For your information, I never wanted to be a witch,” I snapped back. I was not going to be lectured by some girl about True Witchery, even if she was a junior. I already had my mother lecturing me.
Poppy stopped drawing the pentagram and stood, her temper rising. “You have the chance to study under one of the most powerful witches around and you don’t even care?”
“I don’t want any of it,” I shot back. “I don’t want invisible eels and endless lectures about baby rocs and I most especially don’t want to be part of some stupid coven—”
“Stupid? Don’t you know I’d give my left arm to be part of that coven? And here you are—”
“Oh yeah? So what were you doing there? I mean really.”
Poppy folded her arms. “I was trying to get Malkin’s old spot in the coven.”
“You mean—”
“The spot you got.”
“I didn’t take it from you!”
“You sort of did, didn’t you? Look. We had heard Malkin had disappeared. And good riddance. Her effects were getting sent around to people—like that pretty trick Sarmine got. That doesn’t happen unless you had stuff set up to trigger on your death.”
I shuddered.
“And you heard your mother. There are two ways to join the coven. A witch sponsors you into an empty seat and you are voted in. Or you take it in combat.”
I felt sick. “It wasn’t combat, not really.”
“I thought if Malkin was really gone, then maybe we had a chance to move before someone worse was put in. That was the only reason Mom allowed me to come. Even she had to admit that anyone else those goons would put up would be terrible. I promised to stay out of sight until the right moment. And then—you were there.”
This was all wrong. “I didn’t take it from you on purpose! I don’t want to be part of the coven!”
“You have no idea what you’re saying—”
“I hate witches!” I shouted. “I want to be having a normal weekend like a normal person, eating doughnuts or something, not checking for hexes and looking for disappearing mothers—”
She shouted right back over me. “That’s what I mean! And just because you’re Sarmine’s daughter, you get this special place, and you don’t deserve it!”
“But I didn’t ask for it!” I stabbed the air with my wand. “I hate all this responsibility! I don’t want to be a witch!”
Wulfie started howling just as Lily stuck her head in to find us facing off against each other. Her kind face looked both worried that we weren’t getting along and like she might shortly order us to get along.
“How are you two doing?” she said, in a tone that said she knew exactly how.
We lowered our wands and stepped apart.
“All right,” I said.
“Fine,” Poppy said.
“Thanks so much for taking me in,” I said.
Poppy sent a sideways kick at me for sucking up.
“Oh, sweetheart, of course,” said Lily. “Now, you two come eat breakfast while I figure out what to do about this business.”
We trailed Lily down the old wooden stairs, Wulfie padding along behind us. N
ow that it was light, I could see that the rest of the house was a well-loved, well-lived-in old craftsman bungalow, completely stuffed with books and art. Lily’s tastes seemed to run to Americana, and particularly dolls; there were dolls of all sorts hanging on the walls and propped up on the bookshelves and mantel. A narrow shelf ran above the curving banister, displaying a collection of black fashion dolls from the sixties and seventies.
“Do you do something with dolls for a living?” I said politely, and Poppy snorted.
“It’s just a collection,” Lily said kindly. “I teach at the college.”
“Her most popular class is called Feminism, Race Relations, and UFO Sightings: A Geopolitical Overview,” Poppy put in helpfully. “What? It is.”
We sat down at the old wooden kitchen table and Lily passed us a giant bag of rice puffs and a carton of skim milk.
“Isn’t there anything with sugar?” groaned Poppy. She hopped back up to poke around the kitchen.
“No,” said Lily shortly. She was studying her phone, which was sounding off intermittent text message beeps. “Cam, are you okay with that cereal? We also have bread, if you want toast.”
“Much better than what we have at home,” I said. Anything was better than homemade beetroot muesli. Poppy shot me a dirty look for sucking up again, but it was true. “I might potentially have a hexed wand, but at least I have breakfast.” It felt better to admit it. Maybe I could downshift some of these problems onto an adult. Let the real witches deal with it.
Poppy glared. “I was trying to—”
Lily picked up my wand. She pulled out hers and touched mine with it, checking.
Poppy’s face was horrified. “You’re supposed to do that in a pentagram.”
“Practical advice,” agreed Lily. “And you should always follow it, just as I’ve taught you. But I could tell when I touched it that it wasn’t hexed. I have seen hexed wands, and this is not one.” She returned it to me.
A disgruntled Poppy closed the cabinet door rather sharply, relieving her feelings. Lily’s phone went off again. “Who are you texting?” said Poppy.
“Your aunt Jonquil,” Lily said, her fingers flashing over the phone.
“I’m going to make more coffee,” Poppy said. “Mom, do you want the last bit from the pot?… Mom?”
Lily’s face was ashen. She hurried from the room, her skirts billowing behind her. We heard her clattering up the stairs, and then her voice calling back, “Put it in a travel mug, will you?”
Poppy hurried to obey. She didn’t say anything, and I didn’t know what to say. I shoveled cereal into my mouth. The coffeemaker percolated.
“Do you think it’s something to do with last night?” I finally said in a low voice.
“Unless it’s something about Grandma Iris,” Poppy said. Her fingers laced around her mug, holding it tight. “But she’s only a hundred and fifty; she’s still pretty healthy.”
“Iris,” I said. “Poppy. Lily? Jonquil?”
Poppy looked down her nose at me. “Flower names are very common among witches,” she said, and then added pointedly, “Camellia.”
“Cam,” I said. I hastened to add, “Not that I was criticizing. Just wondering how many more flower girls were going to show up in this story.”
“This story?”
“The Story of Camellia and Poppy,” I said grandly, “and How They Solved the Disappearance of Wicked Witch Sarmine.”
“Poppy and Camellia.”
“What?”
“If it’s becoming a story,” said Poppy, “I’m insisting on top billing.”
“Then you have to write it out,” I said. “I’m not going to be the sidekick of my own story.”
“Not your story,” whispered Poppy under her breath.
There was clattering on the stairs as Lily hurried down and into the living room. Rummaging noises emanated from that direction. Poppy and I converged on the living room to find Lily whirling about, stuffing things in a satchel and muttering. Poppy looked at the satchel. “Are you going somewhere?”
Lily stopped her examination of the dolls over the hearth. “Oh, Poppy. I can count on you girls to be safe here today—can’t I? I know I can. At least your father’s traveling, so he’s likely out of harm’s way—”
“I won’t say a word to him,” Poppy assured her.
“I know,” she said. “Good,” she said. “Now—stay inside, girls, okay?” She felt around behind the dolls. “Where did I hide those jackalope whiskers? Not that you would know.”
Poppy crossed to the fireplace and picked up a doll sitting on the mantel. “In the pocket of her apron,” she said, and handed the small packet to her mother.
Lily narrowed her eyes at Poppy. “Very volatile, jackalope whiskers. Keeping them safe.”
“They were safe,” said Poppy calmly. “Do you want me to tell you where the attar of roses and powdered claw are, too?”
“Hm,” said Lily. “I suppose you’d better.”
Poppy crossed to a doll on the bookshelf and procured a small vial from inside a zipper on her back, which kept her cotton fluff inside—and apparently, small vials, too. A third vial was stored in a tiny purse belonging to an old wooden doll. Poppy rolled this last one between her palms, considering. “Jackalope whiskers, attar of roses, and powdered claw. You’re teleporting somewhere. You hate teleporting.”
“You guys know how to teleport?” I whispered.
Poppy ignored this. “Is Grandma Iris okay?”
Lily turned. “Oh honey, she’s fine,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make you worry. Now look. I texted your aunt Jonquil, and I just heard back from her.” Lily looked at me. “My sister knows something that might have a bearing on your mother’s disappearance.” My blood ran cold at that. I mean, obviously I didn’t want Poppy’s grandmother to be sick, but there had been a moment where I had been able to pretend that things with Sarmine weren’t as dire as they seemed, you know? But Lily, who looked like someone unflappable, now looked worried. And it filled my stomach with dread.
“What does she know?” said Poppy.
Lily shook her head. “That’s all I’m going to say, Poppy.”
“I want to help.” Poppy gestured at me. “This is our fight, too.”
Lily raised a hand, cut off anything else Poppy might say. “I don’t want you girls mixed up in this. I know you’ve studied and practiced in your room, Poppy, but this isn’t one of your carefully planned out spells. The majority of the witches in that coven are repulsive, horrible people. Yes, sometimes magic can push people into doing good. But them? You’re fighting a brick wall.”
“You always told me never to balk at brick walls,” returned Poppy. “Brick walls are made of bricks. And bricks can be—”
“Dismantled, I know,” said Lily. Apparently this was an old argument. She sighed. “It’s a lot of work to dismantle entitlement, backed up with decades of power. Jonquil thinks—” But there she pressed her lips tight together and cut off that sentence. “I expect you to renew the wards around the house, Poppy, just like we’ve practiced. I’ll be back by tonight.” She plucked the vial of powdered claw from Poppy’s hand and added a tiny portion of it to a vial in her fanny pack. Then she turned, opening her arms to hug both of us. “Oh, girls. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Poppy—and Cam, I know your mother feels the same about you.” She squeezed us and let go. “I’ll be back soon.”
Lily hurried up the curving staircase to work her spell, leaving a mutinous Poppy behind.
I felt a little lost, honestly. I barely knew Lily, but she was an adult—and now she was going. She knew more spells than we did. Had more experience. And she thought there was still more danger on the way. Someone that protective wouldn’t be leaving us alone if she didn’t think it was absolutely necessary.
Upstairs, there was a clap of thunder. Rose-scented smoke drifted down the stairwell. It was way more dramatic than Claudette’s spell. I didn’t know if that meant Lily was going farther or that she was
less practiced in teleportation.
“When Claudette did it, it didn’t have nearly so much smoke,” I said, before I thought.
Poppy might be angry at her mother, but that didn’t mean I could slam her mother’s witch skills. She gave me what might charitably be considered a stare of death. “My mother rarely teleports,” she said. “It is expensive.”
“Jackalope whiskers?” I whistled. “I bet they’re expensive. Catch me working that spell.” I was really on a roll.
“And you have some incredibly clever reason for that, from your extensive witch studies?”
It was hard to be pleasant when this know-it-all girl was getting up my nose. “I’m a vegetarian witch,” I said. “There are certain ingredients I don’t consider ethical.”
“For your information, these whiskers came with a certificate of authentication that they were sourced from a jackalope who died of natural causes in the American Southwest.”
“Ah.”
Poppy snorted. But she looked satisfied that she had cowed me. “Come on,” she said gruffly. “You ever renew wards before?”
4
Two Mothers Minus Two Mothers
I followed Poppy around the house, and Wulfie followed me. Poppy used her phone to scan the locks on every window and door. She saw me looking and grudgingly held out the phone so I could see the app. It had a little avatar on it—a cute black guy, his locs held back in a ponytail.
“I programmed it to detect traces of magic,” she said. “Phone, tell me how well-warded this window is.”
The avatar switched to a frowny face. “Thirty-eight. Percent,” he said. The words came out in a robotic monotone with pauses in it, but I was still plenty impressed.
“Wow,” I said. “All that and he’s cute, too.”
Her face lit up. “Mom said as long as I was making an avatar I should think carefully about what I wanted to convey with it, and then Dad said I should make it be a guy because they don’t have any good role models in the witch community for studying hard and learning spells, because witch dudes usually give up and go into unicorn selling or whatnot. So I haven’t even made the app and already it’s all symbolic and important, but okay, I get that, that’s the way it is around here. So I made a guy. And then Mom was all ‘I didn’t know you were going to make him look like that,’ and Dad kind of coughed a bit, but there you have it. I said I didn’t see why he couldn’t be hot and be a good role model, and nobody had any answer to that.”
Seriously Hexed Page 5
