Seriously Hexed

by Tina Connolly

  But then, a second later, I saw pine trees in front of me. Mountains. I stumbled forward, still clutching Poppy’s hand. We fell out of the flames and onto the cool mountainside. We rolled on pine needles. I wouldn’t let go of Poppy’s hand for anything. We came to a stop, fetched up against some trees.

  “I’m on fire, I’m on fire,” I found myself saying over and over. My hands were completely dry again, the protective oil burned away.

  Poppy looked rather wide-eyed herself. “That was … hotter than I was expecting,” she said.

  “You’ve never done it before?”

  In a lofty voice she said, “I knew the theory.” She picked pine needles out of her curly bun and dropped them to the forest floor. But I saw her fingers trembling. It had been an ordeal for her, too.

  “Poppy,” I said in a whisper. “Is this her house?”

  We slowly stood.

  We were on the side of a thickly forested mountain. Below was a pocket valley that, as far as I could tell, must belong entirely to Ingrid. There was a gorgeous, modern-looking mountain house with long clean lines and a billion plate glass windows. Beyond that were a number of outbuildings—a greenhouse, a garage, a beautiful red barn. A ribbon of blue river skated through the valley. It would, in fact, be a lovely place to have a dog breeding business. I imagined them running over the fields below, yapping their silly heads off, like Wulfie. It was so peaceful, so green. No other houses anywhere in sight.

  “Do you think she teleports in and out all the time?” I said.

  “That or helicopters,” said Poppy, pointing.

  “Ah.”

  Poppy pulled the invisible cloak from her messenger bag and we wrapped it around us. It had been made for someone larger than either of us, which helped, but I wouldn’t call it ideal. Also it was still a little whiffy from the eels.

  “Next case we solve, we’ll bring an invisible bedsheet,” I said.

  “Two bedsheets,” said Poppy.

  We inched closer to Ingrid’s house, my heart racing. I mean, at least I knew Valda and Esmerelda. They were terrible people, sure, but I knew what sort of terrors they might do.

  But if Poppy was right, then Ingrid was way worse than Valda or Esmerelda.

  And I had no idea what she might do to us.

  “Let’s peek in the side door,” whispered Poppy.

  It was dead silent in the middle of nowhere. “Maybe the hex has already got her,” I whispered back.

  Poppy silently tapped her phone. It was only 11:52. She held it up inside the cloak, scanning the door for defensive spells.

  I remembered the hex that struck Valda’s house and felt a little jumpy. “What if the hex thinks Ingrid is at home, but she isn’t? But we are.”

  “That would be an amateur sort of hex,” said Poppy, her voice still low. Quietly, she reached for the doorknob. “No spells I can see. Being out here in the wilderness must make you careless.”

  “Oh, it does, does it?”

  I turned to find myself looking into the eyes of the large German shepherd I had seen at my house the other night. But now he was rigid, his nose pointing straight at us. I could sense that he was only held in check by the woman standing next to him.

  “Rover,” said Ingrid. “Cloak.”

  The dog sniffed again, and then, with one swing of his head, got a sturdy mouthful of eely cloak. Another swing and he had pulled the whole thing out of our nerveless grasp. It landed on him, disappearing him for a second. He wriggled out of it, looking disdainful.

  Ingrid stood there in overalls and boots, shovel in hand. “Care to explain what you’re doing here?”

  Poppy was much smoother than I was. She fell back on her debating skills and rose to the occasion, while my brain was still going dog dog teeth dog witch shovel dog.

  “We’re here to warn you about the spell that happened at the coven Saturday night,” she said, massaging the truth a wee bit.

  Ingrid laughed in our faces. “You mean Sarmine disappearing? It’s a shame, of course, but I don’t see what it has to do with me.” She felt around in the grass, picked up the cloak from where the dog had dropped it. He growled at the smell. “Ugh, kids and their invisible eels,” she said, tossing it our direction. “Heel, Rover.”

  Poppy grabbed the cloak out of the air and tucked it safely in her messenger bag. “Sarmine wasn’t the only victim,” she said to Ingrid.

  “Is that so?” Ingrid said, dusting dirt from her hands. “What a shame. I’m sorry for … who did you say disappeared next?”

  “Nobody disappeared next,” I said. “It’s actually the worst spell you’ve ever done, coming back to bite you. And soon. So you need to think quickly: What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

  “Ha,” Ingrid said. “You think you can catch me out with that?”

  Poppy and I looked at each other. “We’re not making it up,” I said. “We just saw it happen to Valda and Esmerelda.”

  “To—What on earth are you talking about?” Ingrid shook her head. “This is nonsense. Those two nitwits probably did their own backfiring spells. Valda in particular is a menace. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have actual work to do.” She scraped her boots on the mat, whistled to Rover, and watched as he obediently wiped his paws. “I’ll thank you two junior scouts to get going before I call your mothers.” She snorted laughter. “That is, mother.”

  “Now look,” said Poppy. “In about two minutes, the worst spell you’ve ever done is going to backfire on you. We are warning you. We are trying to help.”

  “Or Lily sent you to find out if I was the one who blew up Vera Quatch’s house when she was in it,” Ingrid said dryly. “She’s always suspected me, with no reason. It would be like her and Jonquil to concoct a harebrained strategy for digging up the past and make you saps believe in it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got important work to do.”

  She slammed the side door in our faces, and Poppy and I went glumly down the porch steps. “That was fun,” I said.

  Poppy’s mouth was set. “I know this was my stupid idea. And I forgot to bleach the cloak.”

  “It could have been helpful,” I consoled.

  “We are detectives!” said Poppy. “We are saving our mothers! We are not responsible for saving a bunch of terrible awful witches who never did anything for anybody.”

  “Well,” I began—and I guess I’ll never know exactly what I intended to say, because at that moment the house exploded.

  9

  Witches Are Positively Ungrateful

  Poppy and I dove for cover. I barely had the wits to protect my head, but Poppy grabbed a fistful of ingredients from her messenger bag and flung it over us, shouting something. Immediately we were enveloped in an invisible dome. I could tell it was there because I saw a flaming board hit solid air a foot away from my head and bounce off.

  “I’ve had that protection spell prepped and ready to go for two years,” panted Poppy. “Mom said, ‘What makes you think you’ll randomly be near an exploding building?’ and I said—”

  “That liar! I can’t believe she stood there lying to us!”

  “So you haven’t been around witches your whole life or anything?” Poppy said dryly.

  “We were trying to help her!”

  “And she was a big jerk, so yay burny house.”

  I scrubbed the dirt and soot off my face as I watched the house burn. “Do you think she made it out okay?”

  “Witches are cockroaches,” Poppy said succinctly, and indeed, through the smoky haze at the back of the house, I watched a figure, enveloped in an enormous black cloak, totter through the wreckage toward the helicopter, dog racing along at her side.

  “Do you think we should see if she’s okay?”

  “And have her hex us for ‘starting the fire’?”

  “Good point.”

  But the fleeing form was not headed for the helicopter. She was headed toward the barn.

  And the explosions were not finished.

  Halfway dow
n the hill, the greenhouse exploded, a shower of glass and metal. We ducked, covering our heads. As we rose, it was clear that Poppy and I were having the same worry.

  “The barn,” I said. “She’s a dog breeder.”

  “That must be where she keeps them,” said Poppy.

  We ran around the house, around the fire and smoke, looking for a good path down the hill. Down below, Ingrid was coming out of the barn, lugging two wriggling puppies in her arms, and now running for the helicopter, her German shepherd herding them all on board.

  One of the sheds exploded.

  Wind swept the fire toward us as the helicopter took off. There was smoke and soot in my eyes. But through the crackling and the blades I heard—yes, I was sure I heard howling down below.

  Ingrid hadn’t rescued them all.

  We found a safe path down the terraced mountainside, going as quickly as we could around the rubble of the destroyed buildings. The second shed exploded as we went. There wasn’t much left to go, except that barn.

  Halfway down, Poppy grabbed my arm.

  I looked down to see the barn cracking open, as if a giant hand had twisted it. The mournful sound rose louder, and my heart clenched tight, thinking of Wulfie howling his heart out in a barn like that.

  “I don’t see any fire,” Poppy murmured. “Maybe she has a protection spell on the barn.”

  I hoped with all my might that Poppy was right, as, wands out, we made our way down to the barn. There was a giant hole in its side, but torn boards and broken glass lay across the hole, blocking our entrance. Poppy scanned it with her app.

  The avatar began to list off the spells in his monotone. “A Verie Good Protection Spelle for Large Outbuildings. A Nice Spelle for Containing That Which Does Not Wish to Be Contained.…”

  “What doesn’t she have on this?” Poppy said.

  “They probably hate her so much she has to hex them to stay in,” I said. “Poor things.”

  We moved as one to disassemble the boards. “Wait,” Poppy said. “Let me cast a glove protection spell on us.” She did, and then we began pulling apart the cracked and twisted lumber. I could feel a nasty buzzing sensation in my fingers, even through her defensive spell.

  As we pulled the boards away, I could see inside—a barn full of fuzzy gray puppies, tumbling over each other … well, four of them, anyway, though they were active enough to look like twenty. Their conditions looked adequate if not exciting; I suppose Ingrid couldn’t scare away the buyers by leaving them in squalor. Still. They were puppies. They should be out running in the field, not shut up in this barn.

  Poppy grimaced. “There’s a big containment section here,” she said. “Set up to zap them anytime they tried to escape. Here, grab one end of the spell and start pulling.” The pocket of her pink linen jacket had snagged on something—it was ripped. Dirt caked my shirt and hands. We ripped and tore at the wood and the spell, and the buzzing sensation slowly dissipated as a great gash opened up in the spell on the barn.

  The puppies hung back for a moment, not knowing if they would get zapped again.

  “Come on,” said Poppy. “Who’s a good boy? Come on.”

  First one, then another—the four puppies tumbled out and onto the field.

  Six puppies total, and Ingrid had only bothered to grab two? She hadn’t even left the door open to let them run to safety. It made me livid.

  One of the puppies tore out and back and then jumped on me, knocking me over. He licked my face and I let him. It reminded me of my brother, in his sweet puppy form and not his current crazy monkey form.

  Slowly a thought percolated through my brain. Poppy was probably right that it was mush. In my defense, I had been dealing with flaming houses for the last fifteen minutes and it didn’t leave a lot of room for thinking sharp and incisive thoughts.

  “Poppy,” I said slowly. “Are these really dogs?”

  Poppy sat down hard next to me. “Werewolves?” she said, shock in her voice. Another puppy immediately jumped on her, licking her all over. Through puppy kisses she said, “But it’s the full moon. They would be people. Your brother is.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I’m being dumb.”

  But Poppy shook her head. She wasn’t dismissing my idea. She pulled out her phone and scanned the puppy on top of her. The avatar shook his ponytail. “No spells found,” he said, and again and again with the same inflection, as Poppy checked the other puppies and their collars. “No spells found.”

  “Even witches have to earn a living,” I said. “So she raises dogs.”

  “And what better way to smuggle werewolves around than to raise them alongside actual dogs?” Poppy said. “I bet you anything those were the two she rescued.” She went back to the barn and found several more collars hanging on a hook.

  Nothing, nothing … and then the avatar paused. “Unknown spell detected,” he said calmly. “Ingredients used: wheatgrass, wolfsbane, words of power…”

  Poppy’s face sobered, and it hadn’t been cheerful before. “It’s a spell I don’t have in my database. And I have lots of spells in my database.” She took her glasses off, absentmindedly cleaning them with her dirty shirt while she sorted out the implications. “Wheatgrass is used in several different spells that involve repressing physical change. And wolfsbane…”

  But I could make an educated guess. “You may not be a werewolf, but we love you just the way you are,” I told the puppy licking my face. I set him down. “Run, little one.” The four of them tore around as Poppy and I looked at each other. “We can’t leave them here.” I was certain on that point.

  “I wouldn’t leave a fly I cared about with her,” said Poppy.

  “But can they go through N-space with us?” I said.

  “If we had a firm grasp on them, sure,” said Poppy.

  I looked dubiously at the four frisky pups. “What happens if our grasp is not so firm?”

  Poppy made a face. “Bad things. Getting lost in N-space, in the demon lair. Unable to get back out. The oil burns off quickly. If you dropped a pup, we might be able to find him again, if we were quick and he didn’t go anywhere. But you’d only have a couple seconds before you’d burned through all your traveling juice. And then all the books say that you’d be stuck. In … well, in limbo, almost literally.”

  I shuddered. “But you’d be able to come find me, right?”

  Poppy shook her head. “It’s like you’re traveling through another dimension. Even if I turned around and came right back to Ingrid’s, it wouldn’t be the same path. The only way I could find you would be to make a deal with…”

  Ah. “A demon.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s stick together.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not let any puppies go off the path.”

  “Right.”

  Poppy flipped open her messenger bag to pull out the ingredients. “Oh no,” she said. “No no no.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  She faced the bag toward me. Something had leaked all over it.

  “I landed on my bag during the explosion,” mourned Poppy. “I didn’t have a spot for the attar of roses so I put it with the carrot juice. And now…” That did explain the carroty smell.

  We looked at each other, uncomprehending. A moment ago we had been discussing how to get four puppies home with us. And now—without the proper ingredients for teleportation we were stuck here. On a witch’s mountain. Four hours from home. “What are we going to do?” I said.

  Poppy sighed. “We can try my mom again. But (A) she hasn’t been answering, and (B) I’m going to be grounded for life if she finds out I’m on Ingrid’s mountain instead of safely at school.”

  “The SUVs,” I said. “There were three of them in the driveway. Maybe one has the keys.”

  We found four leashes in the barn, tackled and clipped them to the puppies one by one, and finally clambered back up to the smoking wreckage of Ingrid’s house, debating the merits of grand theft auto
all the way.

  One of them did have the keys. There were benefits to living on a mountain by yourself. Except …

  “I’m not really up for stealing cars,” said Poppy. “I know what happens if you get pulled over for that.”

  “Then I’ll steal it,” I said. “I’ll drive.”

  “I’m maybe more worried about that, if that’s possible.”

  “We aren’t stealing it,” I said. “We’re borrowing it. Not just to save ourselves—to save the puppies.”

  “That is true,” said Poppy. “Maybe I can change the tags.”

  In the end she changed the tags and the color, flicked a “do not notice us” spell on the car, and we headed down the twisty road out of the mountains, with four puppies happily exploring the backseat.

  “This counts as playing hooky from school, you know,” she said.

  I sighed. “I know.” There went my American history quiz.

  “And the car is bugging me big-time. I don’t want that on my record when I’m applying to Larkspur.”

  “You said that name before. It’s a college, I take it?”

  “You’ve never heard of—”

  “No, I’ve never heard of! Stop lecturing me on everything I haven’t heard of!”

  There was a pause, and then Poppy said, “It’s the Larkspur College of Applied Witchcraft and Theoretical Sorcery, it’s the top school for witches in the U.S., and I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” I said, my anger cooling immediately. “I shouldn’t have yelled. Sarmine’s probably mentioned it.”

  “I think your mom went to the state university,” she said. “Like mine, only my mom’s a bit younger. They have secret classes you can take, along with your regular education.”

  “So what do you want to do?” I said. “At this Larkspur.”

  “Nuh-uh,” said Poppy. “That’s not the point.”

  “I thought the point of going to college was to major in something, blah blah.”

  “Nonsense,” said Poppy. “I mean state school, sure. The point of going to a top school is to meet the other people who are there, going to a top school. It is irrelevant what you actually major in.”