Seriously Hexed

by Tina Connolly

  I didn’t know what to say. Because the problem is, Lily was.

  I am not really any better at hugs than Poppy. I tentatively put my hand on her shoulder. She turned, and suddenly we were hugging. You couldn’t squeeze the worry away. But you could try. She drew back, scrubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. “Ugh, Cam, what are we going to do?”

  “Do you think—” The words broke off. My voice fell to a whisper. “Do you think she killed someone?” I hastened to add, “I’m sure it was only in self-defense or something.”

  “If not that, why wouldn’t she tell us?” said Poppy. “If she had exploded someone’s house, like Ingrid, then we could move to your house for a few days. If she made someone ugly, like Esmerelda’s hex, she’d tell us and we could laugh about it. Like the purple thing, I guess, except I didn’t believe that for a minute. Maybe she did it, but it certainly wasn’t the worst thing. She was lying. She’s lying.”

  “You said in the car you thought the hex was zeroing in on something you felt guilty about,” I said. “Maybe, if it was self-defense…?”

  “I’d still feel guilty about that, wouldn’t you?” said Poppy.

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, Cam,” she said. She sat down hard on the floor, as if she couldn’t even make it to a chair. “What are we going to do about our mothers?”

  I sat down next to her. Her question seemed unanswerable. “She wouldn’t really take away your wand, would she?” I said tentatively.

  “She’s done it once before,” said Poppy. “Worst week of my life. I had no way to protect myself. It’s … it’s criminal.”

  “Hey, at least your mom didn’t turn us into refrigerator magnets for disobeying her,” I said. “My mom would have done that.” My mom, who was kidnapped by a demon. “I wonder what your mom will say when she sees the car. We shouldn’t have made her mad, I guess.”

  Poppy’s brown eyes snapped open and she looked at me with disbelief. “I’m not trying to make her mad. But I’m going to speak my mind if I think she’s wrong. What else would I do?”

  “Maybe you couldn’t tell her temper was about to go,” I ventured.

  “Oh, I could tell.” She thumped her fist against the bed. “What’s she going to do, turn me into a newt?”

  “‘Horrible punishments are the established method for rearing young witches,’” I quoted.

  “Not in this house.” There was silence for a moment while I thought about the time that Sarmine punished me by making me gather one thousand perfect dandelion puffs under a full moon and bring them home without a single one going to seed.

  Poppy studied my face. In a less gruff voice she said, “I suppose I have heard the stories. You just know Esmerelda’s like that. And I guess even Grandma Iris, from what my mom says. You talk about having to be tough to survive; you should talk to her sometime. But times change.”

  “Not fast enough,” I said.

  She had a look like she wanted to say something, and didn’t want it to be the wrong thing. “I know you want to find your mother. I expect … it’s also hard when you have a challenging relationship. Was it … different when your dad was around?”

  “He disappeared so long ago I don’t really remember him,” I said. I spread my hands and considered them. “Everyone says he was nice. Too nice, Sarmine always said. But then Sarmine thinks you’ve gotta be tough. Put yourself first. Who knows, she’d probably tell me not to try to save her, like your mom.” I shrugged. “I want to save her anyway.”

  “I know,” said Poppy.

  “After that…” There was a pit in my stomach as I said it, but I was wondering if it was the right course of action. “Maybe I’ll step away from witch things permanently. All I’ve done is make things worse.” I tried to fix Devon and it backfired on him. I tried to stop Malkin and now my mother was gone. “I never wanted to be a witch.… I thought I could be a good one.… Maybe it’s best to not be one at all.”

  There was silence for a moment. Poppy was looking at me sympathetically, but she also wasn’t saying anything like “Don’t do that, Cam. The witch world needs you.” Maybe she didn’t know what to say.

  She stood and held out a hand to me. “C’mon, let’s go to sleep. Maybe things will look better in the morning.”

  “Maybe we’ll find out that Unicorn Guy got what’s coming to him,” I muttered.

  * * *

  “Cam,” hissed a voice in my ear. “Cam. Camellia.”

  “I will not go hang up the stupid snakeskins,” I growled at the voice. “I am done hanging up your snakeskins.”

  “Cam,” the voice said again. “I have an idea.”

  I forced my eyes open to see Poppy shaking me awake. The bedside clock said it was four a.m. “Why do all your ideas happen at night?”

  “My subconscious mind does its best work then,” said Poppy. “Now look. If my mom is right, then that lamp loosed a demon. The demon took Sarmine somewhere. But then what?”

  “But then what what?” I said.

  “Where did the demon go? He doesn’t have a body, so he can’t wander around long without losing all his substance and disintegrating. Demons have to have a physical place to live while on earth—that’s why they try to get a human. But he doesn’t have a human. He has some sort of enchanted lamp.”

  “Maybe his task was done, so he got to go home,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to hang out in a gravy boat.”

  “Or maybe his task was not done,” said Poppy. “Someone’s busy breaking those votives and setting houses on fire.”

  I shuddered. “But you scanned the garage with your phone,” I said feebly. “It was just you, me, Sparkle, and your mom.”

  “Because he was busy taking Sarmine somewhere,” Poppy said triumphantly. “You see? If my theory is true, he’s back in the lamp, back in your garage. He’s been hanging out there the whole time.”

  I closed my eyes and hoped against hope that this was all a dream. “You are not seriously going to say the next thing you’re going to say. Are you?”

  “We have to go to your house,” said Poppy, “and summon him from the lamp.”

  11

  I Am Not a Fan of Poppy’s Four A.M. Ideas

  I had thought we already found the rock bottom of things I wanted to do this week. Join a coven. Teleport onto a witch’s mountain. Study for one of Saganey’s American history quizzes.

  But it turned out there was a new depth I hadn’t found.

  “You want to summon an evil elemental, who is lurking in an ancient gravy boat except when he’s busy hexing us one by one, and sit him down for a pleasant chat?”

  “Yes, and we’ll go right now,” said Poppy, springing out of bed. “It’s four o’clock. Good time for sneaking out. No time like the present.”

  “Couldn’t we sleep until, like, four thirty?” I said. “Dawn light and all that?”

  “Come on.”

  We crept downstairs as quietly as possible. Poppy disarmed the wards on the back door and we slipped through. The chill of predawn spring made the hairs on my arms stand on end. I have experienced a lot of four a.m.’s doing chores for Sarmine Scarabouche and have never learned to like them. There is something positively hateful about four a.m.

  Poppy unlocked the garage and we slipped inside. “Now, I’ve never actually summoned a demon,” she explained blithely, “but I think he’s in the lamp, not in N-space, so theoretically it will be easier. Summoning a demon from N-space involves making complicated passes with your hands in and out of the other dimension.”

  “But you know the theory,” I said dryly.

  “Exactly,” she agreed.

  The station wagon was no longer an option, but we had our bikes. Which was good, because there wasn’t time to walk there and back without Lily waking up and catching us. My bike was leaning against the wall and Poppy’s was hanging from a hook in the ceiling. “Probably has two flat tires,” she said as she lifted it down and checked them. “It’s been ages since I rode anywhere.” But no,
they were fully aired up.

  “Right about now I’d usually be dusting the enchanted obelisks or something,” I said with a yawn. “What?”

  “The tires,” Poppy said suspiciously. “I don’t buy it.”

  “Nice of your mom to do it?” I hazarded.

  “And what else did she do?” said Poppy. She ran her phone over the bike.

  The avatar yawned—she must have programmed that in—and announced, “Ye Ancient Bike-Tyre Fixing Spell. Bethylyn’s Impressive Mud-Removeth Spell.…”

  “Maybe she can do mine next,” I said.

  “And Poppy’s Super-Cool GPS Tracking App,” he finished, and shut his eyes again.

  “Um, what?” I said.

  Poppy was livid. “I freaking made her that GPS app.” She gave the bike an angry shove and it fell against the wall. “We can’t take my bike to your house. She’ll know.”

  * * *

  It was a quiet morning in the old bungalow. Lily told Poppy she had fixed her tires, and I saw from her searching expression that she was hoping it would mend things between them. Poppy just glowered. Rice puffs were never eaten more tensely.

  We biked to school and locked them up. Yet again, I missed Jenah at our locker. I looked for her in Algebra, but she wasn’t there, either. I desperately wanted to see her. I hoped she had listened to me and Sparkle and not gone chasing after that piano player. I had enough to worry about.

  Foremost on my mind, of course, was the terrible feeling that my mother might not be coming back. I told that feeling to go away, tried to concentrate on algebra. But it is very hard to solve for x when you only want to solve for Sarmine. Across the room I saw Devon, looking not so hot himself. His stocking cap was pulled down to his sunglasses. He was wearing his winter gloves, his fingers tapping out whatever song he was working on.

  I firmed up my resolve. Sarmine wasn’t going to be back anytime soon, and I still had an obligation to fix Devon. Even if I was going to quit the witch business forever, I couldn’t hang up my witch hat until that was done. I scribbled out a note and, when Rourke’s back was turned, passed it across the classroom to Devon. It said, “Am so sorry I’ve failed you. Poppy & I aren’t the only game in town. We’ll try P’s mom next.” He tried to smile my direction, but it wasn’t very convincing. I shook my head. As soon as school was over, I was going to find Devon and drag him to see Lily. She was a strong witch—surely she could fix him.

  Right about the time I was watching Devon try to fake a smile at me, a runner arrived with a note for me to come to the principal’s office. Rourke looked disdainful as he read it out loud. Several members of the class giggled. Suck-ups.

  I gathered my things and went. What kind of trouble was I in now? It occurred to me that it might have something to do with our absence from school yesterday afternoon. Maybe Rimelda hadn’t called in after all. Or worse, maybe she had said something that was about to get me suspended.

  I stopped at the secretary’s desk. “Um, Camellia Hendrix?” I said. Heads swiveled toward me and the secretary drew back from my mere presence.

  “I trust you are feeling better today?” said the secretary.

  “Yes?”

  “Your grandmother’s description of your stomach illness was quite … graphic.”

  “It was terrible,” I assured her. “But it’s all over now.”

  “Good,” said the secretary. “You have some paperwork or something here; just let me find it.…” She bent down to look for whatever it was, and I turned to see a familiar face.

  Jenah.

  Sitting on the chair inside the door, spine straight, looking as if she was about to spit nails, and gleeful about it. Jenah always did like a good righteous anger.

  “Jenah?” I said, and I could feel my spirits lifting at the sight of her. “What are you doing here? Is that a sweatband in your hair?”

  “Ah, yes. A letter came in the mail for you,” the secretary said, sliding it across the counter. She withdrew her fingers immediately, wary of the nonexistent stomach bug. I picked the manila envelope up, absently noting the typewritten label made out to my nonwitch name, Camellia Hendrix, c/o Hal Headley High. Probably some information about science camp scholarships. Mrs. Bell had said she would send my name in.

  “Well,” said Jenah, “it’s like this.…”

  “Jenah Lee?” said the secretary. “The principal will see you now.”

  Jenah stood and I noticed that the sweatband look extended to the rest of her outfit. Yesterday the leg warmers had been paired with regular street clothes. But today she was in a shiny electric-green leotard and neon-orange leggings, with the hot-pink leg warmers over that. White socks and black character shoes completed the ensemble. She looked like she was about to star in one of those dreadful ballet movies she made me watch with her.

  “Were you doing cartwheels in the hallway?” I said dryly.

  Jenah drew herself up to her full height of extremely short. “I,” she said with great dignity, “have been dress coded.”

  “For this?” I said with surprise. The leotard was not low cut or anything. “What about the time you wore all those feathers and you kept shedding bits every time you went to the board in Algebra? Or the time you came as Anna Karenina for English and you covered yourself in train track markings? You didn’t get coded for any of that.”

  “It is a Feminist Travesty,” said Jenah, “and I Will Not Stand for it.”

  “Jenah Lee?” the secretary said, with more impatience this time.

  “I’m coming,” Jenah said calmly. But her dark eyes were snapping fire. She picked up her pink duffel—of course Jenah had abandoned her backpack for a ballerina’s duffel today—and walked with grave and shiny dignity back to the principal’s office.

  “Miss Hendrix? Is there anything else I can assist you with?” the secretary said.

  “Er. No.” I turned and fled back to Algebra, worrying about Jenah all the way.

  * * *

  Jenah never made it back to Algebra. I spent French and English worrying about, in order, Sarmine, Devon, Jenah, Lily, and the fate of the world if left to the devices of the wicked witches. I say “in order,” but the truth is that Jenah kept bubbling to the top, partly because I was worried about her, and partly because of the thoroughly selfish reason that I wanted to tell Jenah about all my other worries. Jenah had told me so many times that I needed to share things with her and stop trying to do everything myself, and I was slowly getting better at it.

  After English, I hurried down to the cafeteria, hoping to finally catch up with my best friend instead of teleporting somewhere with a stranger. Although, I admonished myself, Poppy wasn’t really a stranger anymore, was she? She was at least an acquaintance. We had saved each other’s lives a few times, and that counted for something, right? Sherlock and Watson were getting used to each other.

  But she wasn’t Jenah.

  Jenah wasn’t alone. She was talking to a familiar black-clad curvy girl. Henny was there—aka Henrietta Santiago-Smith, occasionally lovelorn cartoonist and Kit Kat girl number nineteen.

  Well, that wasn’t so bad. Henny had been involved in the dramatic incident in November when we had saved Leo the shifter from Malkin the Terrible. Thereby kick-starting this new disaster, apparently. I liked her well enough, but she had a disturbing habit of sizing me up like I could be the centerpiece of her next big comic. The rest of the time, she was off in the throes of artistic vision, eating a sandwich while sketching the skateboarders or something.

  Still. Jenah was there, and that was key. I had to tell her my worries about Sarmine. She was the only one who knew my long, complicated history with my mother. Maybe I could trust Henny not to include this in her comic. I sat down next to the cartoonist and said hi.

  Jenah had changed into an entirely different outfit, which she had apparently stored in our locker just for this occasion, and was ranting about her dress coding. “Ooh, it makes me so mad,” she said. “Nobody fussed when I dressed up as Queen Elizabeth
for a day, and that was way more distracting. That giant ruff.” She nodded at me. “Hi, Cam.”

  “Are you all right?” I said. “You didn’t get suspended?”

  “Well…” Jenah began, and in the middle of that dramatic pause, another girl came and plonked her tray down on the other side of Jenah. She was white, with short, bleached white-and-pink hair and a rainbow T.

  “It’s total BS,” the new girl said. “I’m sorry, but if the VP has the nerve to say it’s ‘distracting,’ then he’s the one with the problem.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, Olivia. Olivia, everybody.”

  Olivia flashed a smile full of braces at us. I couldn’t decide if she had more metal on her teeth or in her ears. “Kit Kat girl number three,” she said.

  “I’m Cam,” I said. “Kit Kat girl number zero.” To Jenah, I added, “So it was the VP who turned you in? I was wondering if it was Rourke.”

  “Stopped me before I even got to class,” said Jenah. “And no, not suspended, but definitely reprimanded.”

  Two boys sat down next to Henny. One was dark, with a quirky smile and bright yellow suspenders. The other was pale, with sleepy blue eyes and an eyebrow piercing.

  “Ugh, we heard about the dress coding,” said the first.

  “Terrible,” said the other.

  “Kit Kat boys number thirteen and fourteen,” said Jenah. “Aka Bryan and Bobby. Also, dating.” She looked at them. “Wait, are you dating this week?”

  “Yes,” said Bryan.

  “This week,” said Bobby.

  They grinned, and Bryan stuck his hand around the back of Henny to shake mine. “Don’t mind us,” he said. “It’s actually very nice to meet you.”

  The problem was, it was nice to meet them, too. Jenah had a knack for making friends, and she had a knack for sitting with one person or twenty and making it feel like a party. Our high school was so huge I barely knew anyone. Sure, these people looked familiar, but they were new.