1 A Hiss-tory of Magic

by Harper Lin

  Blake spoke up. “What was that?”

  “Real magic.” Sharply, Reuben said to me, “Didn’t I tell you to pick up that book?”

  “If you shoot me,” I said, “you’ll be short one person to say the incantation, and I’m the only one here who’s a natural-born witch.”

  “Cath?” Blake looked confusedly at me.

  “Right.” Reuben turned the gun on Blake. “Like all the Greenstones. Three people in a coven. Three cats. Three waterfalls. Three people to say the spell. If one backs out, every single one of us on this boat dies. I have the gun, remember?”

  I glowered at him.

  “Of course!” Reuben laughed, remembering. “Min’s going to die either way. You don’t care so much for your life, and you’re the type who would take me down with you and tell yourself it’s worth it. But if you do as I say, then Blake just might live.”

  “If I do as you say,” I argued, “no one lives. You’re in over your head! The forces of nature never answer to someone who doesn’t respect them!”

  Reuben scoffed and nudged Min. “Women! That’s what killed Ted in the end, you know. A treacherous woman.”

  Blake cleared his throat. “I think it was a big, burly thug who broke his head open and burned him up.”

  Yeah. It totally was. What on earth was Reuben talking about? “If you hate women so much, then I should be the sacrifice,” I told Reuben. “I’ll be the one sure to die instead of Min.”

  Reuben considered it for a moment. Then his phone alarm went off. He shut it off. “Ten minutes to midnight. How long does it take for a sacrifice to die from drowning?” He hauled Min up by the collar, dragging Min’s back against the railings of the yacht. “Because I don’t do eleventh-hour changes in plans.”

  “Don’t do this, Reuben!” I shouted as Min struggled against him.

  Sarcastically, Reuben said, “Oh, okay. If you say so.” He scoffed and shoved Min overboard. Over the roar of the falls, I could hear the splash.

  I saw a loop of rope hanging on the railing of the yacht where it hadn’t been before, and knew that Min had managed to tie it while Reuben and I were talking. Still, there’d been a splash. Min was underwater, tied up so that he couldn’t swim, and I couldn’t pull him up. I reached my mind out to any animals in the falls, but the roar of the churning waters and my own screams drowned it out.

  Reuben aimed the gun at Blake. “Stand beside Cath. Turn to the Wakening Waterfalls ritual and start reading! Now!”

  I pulled the spellbook from Felix’s hands and flipped through the pages quickly. Blake sidled up beside me, and I traced my index finger below the words so that he could follow. Blake caught on with the repetition—and, unfortunately, so did Reuben.

  Our voices joined in a chorus, and I hoped that Min managed to stay afloat somehow. Without his life, the three of us could say the words until dawn and the spell wouldn’t work.

  But the water began to glow.

  I let my voice keep on chanting, on autopilot, to catch sight of Blake’s expression. He looked at the water, too, disbelieving.

  The other world had crossed over.

  More tragically, this could only be possible if Min had drowned to death.

  Tears fell from my eyes as a pillar of light exploded from the center of the lake and reached into the sky. The book dropped from my hands. The spell was complete.

  “Cath, are you seeing this?” Blake wondered.

  “Bravo, Cath!” Reuben said to me. “It’s too bad we’ll have to share this power among the three of us, work in harmony or something. Can you imagine working in harmony with him?” Reuben gestured at Blake. “Actually,” Reuben said, “Now that it’s done, why don’t I kill the both of you and just do whatever I want with this portal of power? That’s not my holy book, after all.”

  “It would kill you,” I told him.

  “Oh, Cath. I’ve found out so many of your precious secrets. Do you want to know one of mine?”

  “Taking in that much power would kill you,” I told him again with certainty. “And the Maid of the Mist will flood the town and kill everyone in it. She only speaks to the Greenstones in her dreams, in our dreams. Even that’s too much for us. You do not want to wake her up!”

  To that, Reuben said, “I don’t care. For once, I did something great.” He aimed his gun at me.

  Blake pushed me aside. The shot missed.

  “Go!” Blake shouted, “Get back to the boat that you came in on and get out of here!”

  Didn’t he know a magic spell in action when he saw it? The town was doomed. This yacht was doomed. That tiny wooden boat that I had stolen didn’t stand a chance.

  I could only think of one thing to do.

  I pushed myself up and half ran, half stumbled across the deck and jumped over the railing and into the churning water.

  My hands grasped at the rope between Min and the yacht railing, burning with friction as I fell still holding it, and then it snapped. I kicked as hard as I could to keep my head above water, my hands pulling at the rope until it became taut. I pulled until Min’s drenched body came up to mine.

  The glowing water of the lake moved like an ocean in a storm. The magic hit me as if I was trapped in a house on fire—exactly how I’d felt while rescuing Nadia that morning, only a thousand times worse. I swam towards the bobbing wooden boat.

  Another gunshot sounded in the air. Reuben didn’t have any other targets but Blake. With the water’s turmoil, could he have missed?

  As Blake told me later, Reuben didn’t miss. Blake didn’t believe in magic, and he’d only taken my lead with Reuben’s gun aimed at his head, but he had taken part in the ritual of Waking the Waterfall. For a moment, he had magic, and the journal with the protection spell on it had stopped what would have been a fatal bullet.

  When the movement of the waters made the yacht lurch, he missed his next shot by a hair, and the bullet only grazed Blake.

  The final bullet in the gun embedded itself in Blake’s heart.

  Meanwhile, I’d reached the boat. I kicked and jumped, reaching for the side of the wooden boat with one hand, still hanging onto Min with the other. I caught the boat’s side and it tipped, filling with glowing magic water. I pushed the edge beneath me and, choking, hauled Min into the boat with me.

  I rolled Min onto his back, as flat as I could manage on this boat, and pushed down on his chest as hard as I could for a moment then released it. Again. I was imitating his heartbeat.

  “Min, you are not going this way!” I shouted at him. “Not because of me or my family secrets! And definitely not because of Reuben Connors!”

  I leaned over Min’s face, pinched his nose, covered his mouth with mine, and breathed into his lungs.

  I drew back and punched Min in the chest.

  The lake went dark.

  Min coughed and sputtered, then turned aside and vomited water. He pushed against the bottom of the boat with the heel of his hand and sat up, almost panting with panic. “Cath!” he gasped. “You saved me!”

  I was so happy that he was still alive that I kissed him.

  “Stay here,” I told Min, climbing up the ladder again as the waves calmed down. “I’ve got to take care of Reuben and Blake.”

  Blake shut the handcuffs with a snap. Reuben was now cuffed to the yacht railing.

  “Blake!” I shouted, seeing the deck drenched with blood. The moonlight made the red fluid look black.

  “You have the right to an attorney…” Blake persisted faintly. I shoved him a safe distance away from Reuben.

  “Blake, you’re bleeding really badly.”

  Blake stumbled, almost fainting. I put both my hands over the wound, trying to staunch the bleeding. “Hang on! Hang on, please! Stay with me. Jake and Talbot and everybody—they’re on their way.” They couldn’t have not seen that giant magical pillar of light, and they’d be curious about it.

  “My heart’s in your hands,” Blake said, faintly. “There are worse ways to die.”

 
“You are not going to die,” I told him. I knew it was a bad sign that Blake was getting so maudlin, though. “We saved the town. We saved Min! You don’t do something like that and then just die. You just have to stay with me, all right? Blake?” He was looking at me, but his eyes seemed to glaze over. I called out to him again, “Blake!”

  Reuben laughed, still struggling against the handcuffs and spewing threats that made no sense. My hands kept the pressure on Blake’s wound, through it all until the police boats came.

  One Loose End

  Jake drove me home. I had some leftover pancakes for dinner, chewing ravenously as I called Bea to tell her that the Order’s devious plans had been thwarted. After that, I took a hot shower, slept without dreaming, and woke without Treacle.

  With the Brew-Ha-Ha still closed, I didn’t know what I would do. Still, I didn’t feel like curling up in bed and replaying the horrors of the past three days in my mind. I also felt as though I was coming down with another case of magic burnout. It wasn’t as awful as I’d anticipated after doing a huge spell like that, but Min had given his life force—if only temporarily—and therefore did most of the magical heavy lifting.

  Blake had said the ritual with me. I hoped the spell hadn’t taken too much out of him, either. He’d need his life force to, well, live.

  I didn’t know who to call first, so I decided that I’d go to the animal shelter, make a donation, and thank some of the strays personally for all their help the night before. Maybe that would bring me back down to earth and clear my head.

  The old man who ran the animal shelter, Murray Willis, turned out to be related to young Cody from the insurance office. I found this out when I arrived to see a whole crew of news reporters filming an interview with Cody for a TV spot.

  Old Murray cheered with pride. As we doled out kibble into serving dishes, he chatted about how Cody had been studying bioluminescent flora and fauna in the Wonder Falls lake. “Glowing animals,” Murray said, “Too tiny to see just one. You can’t even pet ’em! I never understood it.”

  I stroked a long-haired calico cat with a missing eye, and I said that understanding Cody’s fascination was beyond me, as well.

  “I would have wanted to be where you were last night, though.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. “Seriously, Mr. Willis?”

  “Without the life-threatening hostage taking, o’ course,” Murray corrected himself. “But that bioluminescent pond weed made the falls glow brighter than a lightning storm. Think about that!”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Nature’s wonderful. Too bad people try to get in the way, right?”

  “Folk like us and Cody just do our best,” Murray replied. “And Samberg—is he out of the hospital yet?”

  I answered that I didn’t know. “You know Blake? Detective Samberg?”

  Murray nodded. “He’s my most enthusiastic volunteer here at the animal shelter. It would be a pity if we lost him, and he hasn’t even been a month in this town!”

  The animal shelter didn’t have a lot of volunteers. I decided to drop by more often, not just when I had to pick Treacle up again for wandering away.

  At that moment, Bea called my on my cell. “Have brunch with us!” Bea said. “We’re at the Parks’ place.”

  “Still?”

  “Of course we are. Mrs. Park wouldn’t let us go off at—what, two or three in the morning? And with Mom just out of the hospital! Besides, Min’s here, and…” Bea lowered her voice, teasing me. “He’s really eager to see you again.”

  I smiled. “That wasn’t some overwhelming trauma, then?”

  “You’re his hero! He doesn’t mind the broken ribs. Mrs. Park and Mom have been catching up.”

  At that, I gasped. “Aunt Astrid’s alive! I mean, awake! Awake and talking!”

  “Go,” old Murray said to me.

  I hung up the phone. “Thanks, Mr. Willis!”

  “Thank you!”

  I ran out past Cody and the news crew and uphill to the Parks’ home. The townsfolk had found a cover story for the giant display of magic that happened the night before, and they found it all by themselves. Aunt Astrid had come back to us. The sun was shining. Things were looking up.

  When I saw the smoke rising from somewhere in the front porch of the Parks’ house, I admit to having a moment of panic, what with this town having had two suspicious fires in three days.

  It was just Mr. Park at the barbecue, though, which was surprising. He nodded a greeting and waved with the hand that wasn’t turning a burger over with a spatula. I waved a greeting as I jogged towards him, noting out the corner of my eye that the rest of the group was gathered at a giant wicker porch table, and Treacle was sharpening his claws on one of the table legs.

  I was focused on stopping him, which was why I didn’t see Min break away and come towards me. I jogged right into his cracked ribs.

  “Oww!”

  “Min! I’m so sorry!”

  Min laughed and hugged me. “Worth it!”

  We eventually broke apart, but we still couldn’t quit grinning at each other. I craned my neck to look at the table. “What a crowd!”

  Mrs. Park set a tray of lemonade down and beckoned me over as Bea followed up with a stack of paper plates and biodegradable plastic cutlery. I know that last part because Aunt Astrid exclaimed at it, telling Mrs. Park, “You know me too well!”

  Astrid really did look fully recovered. She turned back to chat with Jake.

  “Detective Williams joined us only ten minutes ago. Other than him, our place was packed last night,” Min said.

  I watched as Jake nodded and waved goodbye at everyone. He gave Peanut Butter a rub under the chin on his way towards us.

  Min continued, “Bea brought her mom and all three cats up here to comfort my mom while I was … you know ….”

  “Our families have always been so close,” I said, hoping that he wouldn’t say how weird and unlike Bea that action was. I also hoped that if Min didn’t get a chance to say it, he wouldn’t get a chance to really think it through and get suspicious about it.

  “Mom wouldn’t let me go back to the inn room where I got kidnapped.” Min gave an embarrassed shrug. “So it was a bit crowded. We still missed you, though!”

  I grabbed Min’s hand. “The last three days might have been hell, and I know you don’t have good memories of this town to begin with, but I swear, it’s not usually like this. How long can you stay? So that we can catch up?”

  “I can stay as long as it takes for us to get properly caught up.” Min said, “Besides, not all my memories of this town are bad.”

  “Cath,” Jake said to me.

  “I guess you need a statement or a testimony or something?” I said to him.

  “I’ll go get my dad to put something on the grill for you,” Min said by way of excusing himself. “We’ve got burgers, hot dogs, and sausages—oh, and Mom made her pork sausage patty mix-ins, so—”

  “That last one! I want that! Two of them, please,” I called to Min as he went.

  I walked Jake to the police car down the slope, afraid of what he had to say. Aloud, I begged, “Tell me that Blake made it.”

  Jake said, “He’s fine. It’s not the first time he survived a bullet to the heart, even. He told me so.”

  I sighed with relief.

  “The doctors had to keep him sedated so that he wouldn’t try to work. Today! Can you believe that?”

  “From Blake Samberg, I’m not surprised!” I laughed. “What’s the Wonder Falls police department going to do with someone like that?”

  Jake answered, “Well, lately I’ve been wondering what we’d do without him. His testimony, though … his and Mr. Park’s …”

  They’d both heard me admit to Reuben that I was a witch. “Reuben had me at gunpoint,” I said to Jake. “He obviously believed that this old spellbook that was the prize of Aunt Astrid’s collection was real for some reason. But he had a gun on me! So I tried to play along.”

 
“Blake believed that the three of you reading aloud from the book was what caused the lake to light up.”

  “Coincidence.” I said, “I just came from the animal shelter. Cody was telling this news crew all about what happened last night—with the glowing, I mean. Of course, Cody wasn’t at the standoff. Maybe when Blake’s recovered a little more, he’ll think more sensibly.”

  Jake persisted, “Min Park said that he had the vision of this goddess in the lake.”

  “Of course he would! He’d just had a near-death experience.”

  “Isn’t his family Buddhist?”

  I shrugged. “Last night was just confusing. By the way, when can we have that book back?”

  “We have to hold it as evidence, unfortunately, until after the trial. It could be months before we can release it. It’s obviously valuable to your family, but I’ve already bent too many rules. The chief has filed it as evidence with the justice of the peace. Someone would notice that it was gone. I’m sorry.”

  You don’t even have the slightest hint of how sorry you should be! If that book falls into the wrong hands…

  Almost as if he read my mind, Jake said to me, “If there were a way I could get it back to you, you know I would. It’s safer with your family.”

  I looked at Jake, startled. Bea couldn’t have told him. But he’d figured something out. I told him, “It’s just an old book.”

  “Really?” Jake said, in a tone of voice that was exactly between dismissive and challenging. Then he put the palm of his hand to his head. “Oh, would you look at that. You’ve been answering all my questions, and here I am without a notepad. We’ll talk later, once you’ve thought through what happened last night. Right?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m off to follow up with Nadia LaChance,” Jake said to me. “Reuben Connors and Dexter Edison haven’t been cooperative.”

  “One goon got out alive, then?”

  “Alive, but behind bars. We don’t have enough to implicate the entire Order, and Reuben Connors’s alleged involvement with both fires … complicates things, especially in LaChance’s case. But don’t worry about the book.”