Potion Problems

by Cindy Callaghan

  “We’re on a mission,” Darbie added.

  “We are?” Charlotte asked.

  Hannah said, “More like a quest.”

  “I like quests, and I know my way around,” Mac said.

  Darbie looked at me. “Can Mac come along?”

  “Wait. What quest?” Charlotte asked.

  * * *

  Mac flipped the sign on the Frosty Cow’s door to CLOSED, and we piled back in the van.

  “Aunt Aggie, meet Mac,” I said.

  “Actually,” Darbie explained, “his name is Evan, but that’s confusing with his dad, who is also named Evan, so people call him by his middle name, Mac.”

  “Sometimes they call me E. Mac. And sometimes, just to be silly, Mac-E.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mac,” Aunt Aggie said. “That’s interesting that you and your dad share a first name. In our family, the women share a middle name.”

  “You do?” Hannah asked.

  “Sure.”

  32

  Samantha

  Aunt Aggie explained, “Some women change their last names when they get married, so way back somewhere in our family history, the women decided to use the same middle name. Kelly and I, Kelly’s mom, grandmother, great-grandmother, Aunt Elizabeth, et cetera, all have Samantha as a middle name.”

  “How did I not know your middle name was Samantha?” Darbie asked.

  “Jeez, even I knew that,” Charlotte said.

  Aunt Aggie added, “And that’s the way women in our family identified themselves—with their middle name more than their last name.

  Darbie said, “So instead of calling you KQ, I should call you KS?”

  Hannah asked, “Your mom would still be RS?”

  I added, “And so would my grandma. Hannah.”

  Hannah understood what I meant, “That makes sense.”

  “What makes sense?” Charlotte asked.

  “I’m lost,” Darbie said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, and I gave Aunt Aggie the address I’d researched for the cemetery where my relatives were buried. “It’s all coming together.”

  Mac, who sat in the passenger seat said, “I always wanted an Aunt Aggie.”

  “Now you have one. Glad to have you along.” Then she said to him, “I hope you like graveyards.”

  “How could I live in Salem if I didn’t like graveyards?” Mac asked.

  “Did you say ‘graveyard’?” Charlotte called from the third row, where she was now sandwiched in between Frankie and Tony. “I’m smooshed back here!”

  Each of the boys tried their best to move closer to their window and give her more room.

  “That’s a tiny bit better.”

  “Oh good,” Aunt Aggie said. “I would just hate it if you were uncomfortable, Charlotte.”

  “Thank you,” Charlotte said, then: “Wait. Was that sarcastic?”

  “We don’t have sarcasm in Salem,” Aunt Aggie said.

  Hannah whispered to me, “What are we gonna do about Charlotte?”

  “She already knows most of this.” I shrugged. “If we need her to forget, we can always make a potion, I guess.” Then I added, “Let’s worry about it later. I don’t want to miss this moment because of Charlotte.”

  “Here we are,” Aunt Aggie said. “Burying Point Cemetery. It’s the second oldest cemetery in the country.”

  My heart sped up. My grandmother’s oldest relatives are buried there. We were so close to finding out the last bits about the magic and the Book.

  “Wait,” Charlotte said. “You did say graveyard. This doesn’t look safe or . . . Do we even have authorization to be here?”

  “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to, Charlotte,” I said. “I don’t think Aunt Aggie would mind if you hung out with her for a little while.”

  Aunt Aggie said, “I don’t mind at all.”

  “No,” Charlotte said. “I’m not scared. I just wanted to make sure the proper paperwork has been completed so that we don’t get in any trouble.”

  The gang tumbled out of the car like a jamboree of circus clowns. I was the last. Aunt Aggie grabbed my wrist. “I’m really proud of you for figuring all of this out.”

  She surprised me.

  “How did you know?”

  She pointed to her head under her pointy hat. “We Samanthas have a sixth sense about some things.”

  “We do?”

  She giggled. “Nah. Grandma told me about the Book. I always wanted to see it. You found it, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. It’s great. I can show it to you later.”

  As I was about to hop out of the van, she tugged me back. “What is it?” I asked.

  “This could be life changing.”

  “Life changing?”

  “Once you dig things up, you can’t put them back. Are you ready for that?”

  “I don’t think I have a choice. It’s not like I just want to know. It’s like I have to know. I couldn’t stop myself if I wanted to.”

  “Then, good luck. I live a few houses down the street. Walk there when you’re done; I’ll drop you a pin.” She added, “I’ll get your stuff all set up. Take your time.”

  I leaned over to hug her. “Thanks, Aunt Aggie. Thanks for understanding.”

  I jumped out.

  Tony asked me, “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s great.”

  We stood out front of what looked like the world’s oldest wrought-iron gate, which was covered with vines that had died in the chilly autumn air. The moon was low in the night sky. It wasn’t quite full, but bright enough to light our way through the slips of clouds that were out.

  “Go on, Kelly Samantha Quinn,” Charlotte said.

  Tony took my hand. “I’ll go with you.” He pushed the gate open. It let out a high-pitched screech that I felt in my bones.

  “Will you be Shaggy?” Darbie asked Mac.

  “I’m so Shaggy.”

  Hannah said, “Frankie, Charlotte, and I will take the perimeter. Kelly and Tony, check out over there. And, Darbie and Mac, comb the rows in the middle.”

  “What exactly are we looking for?” Charlotte asked.

  Frankie said, “A tomb.”

  “Duh,” Charlotte said. “How silly of me.” I could actually feel her sarcasm.

  “You know,” Darbie said to her, “you might have fun, if you tried.”

  Charlotte dropped her hands from her hips and huffed. “Fine. I’ll try.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Really,” she said in a very un-Charlotte-like tone that made me think she meant it.

  We divided up.

  “How could a letter be hidden inside a solid headstone?” Tony wondered. “A crypt makes more sense.”

  “They don’t have crypts or mausoleums here,” I said, sharing some of my online research.

  We walked along for a while looking at the names. “Would you rather spend eternity under a gravestone or in a cement house?” He was always more talkative when it was just us.

  “I never thought about it. I guess it would be nice to be in the cement house with other people close by.”

  “I think so too.”

  He looked on the right side of the row, and I looked left.

  “Look at that.” He pointed to what was clearly a crypt. In fact, there were three. They were tucked, nearly hidden, by trees, adding extra spookiness that I didn’t need.

  “I guess Mrs. Eagle was right, you can’t believe everything you read online.”

  “Hathorne.” He stated the name over the door of a crypt. “He was one of the witch trial judges.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I may have read about it before coming.” He read the second one. “Bishop. Bridget Bishop was a victim of the witch trials. Did you ever read The Crucible?”

  I heard Tony start talking about Abigail Williams, but his voice faded into the background as all of my attention focused on the third and final crypt. The big, block letters carv
ed in the cement: SMYTHE.

  33

  The Power of Three

  Tony doubled back to where I was standing and stared at the name. “You okay?” he asked.

  “I guess. I have chills.”

  “Me too,” he said.

  I peeled my eyes from the letters to look at him. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Me too,” he said again.

  For half a second I thought he might . . . I mean, probably not, but I thought maybe . . . he could possibly . . .

  “You found it!” Frankie said, hip-checking Tony.

  Tony and I jumped apart.

  “What are you waiting for, Kelly Quinn?” Charlotte asked.

  For once, Charlotte had a point.

  They stayed where they were as I pushed the door to the crypt open. It was dark inside, but a bright light emerged over my shoulder. Tony was behind me using his cell phone flashlight app.

  I walked in. The floor was surprisingly swept free of dirt, dust, or leaves. There was a stone bench in the middle of a room a little smaller than my bedroom. On each wall there were compartments dedicated to a different person and several ledges that I guessed people would put flowers on, but there were none. The cubbies were marked with a name and date of birth and death. The most recent person who had died was Rebecca Samantha, 5/17/47–4/13/03.

  My throat choked a little as I said, “My grandmother.”

  Tony said, “She was not even fifty-six years old when she died.”

  “I wish I’d met her. I have so many questions that she’ll never be able to answer.”

  “No. But she left you a letter,” Tony said. “That’s something.”

  I looked around the crypt for someplace a letter could be hidden. I ran my hands along the walls and in the crevices. When I didn’t see anything, I sat on the stone bench, wrapping my hand on the seat. The very tip of my finger brushed against something. I reached down, and there was a paper inside a plastic bag secured to the underside of the bench with duct tape. No one would ever find it unless they were looking for it. I really had to work to get it off.

  “Hey, guys,” Darbie called into the crypt.

  Then Hannah said, “What’s going on in there?”

  “She found the letter,” Tony said.

  The girls came in, followed by Mac, Frankie, and Charlotte.

  Charlotte asked, “Letter? Why do I feel like there is a whole lot of backstory here that I don’t know?”

  Darbie said, “Because there is. Did you ever think we don’t include you and don’t tell you things because we don’t trust you to keep a secret?”

  “Well, Darbie O’Brien, did you ever think that I tell those secrets because you don’t include me?”

  “No,” Darbie said. “I never thought of that. I thought it was just because you’re mean.”

  For once, Charlotte had nothing to say.

  Frankie said, “Can we talk about that stuff later?”

  “Yes, focus, people!” I agreed. Then I unfolded the letter, and everyone stood around me and listened to me read:

  “The Power of Three:

  “In the summer of 1959 I met two friends with whom I wrote a very special book of recipes. These recipes were extraordinary in that they were potions. We conducted many experiments and learned that special ingredients from the Island of Cedros gave the recipes their power. I took special note of when the potions worked and when they didn’t and discovered a common denominator that only I knew: The recipes only worked when my two friends and I did them together. There had to be three of us. We made a pact to keep this rule of magic secret. I was never good at keeping secrets, and I couldn’t let this information die with me, so I hid this rule of magic in this letter, only to be discovered after my death.

  “From, R.S.”

  “That’s it,” Hannah said. “That’s totally it. The potions that didn’t work were the ones we made alone.”

  “We didn’t have the Power of Three for those,” I said.

  Darbie said, “There are three of us; there were three of them.”

  I nodded. “The encyclopedia volume was Volume T for three; your soccer number is three; mine is six; Hannah’s is nine; Memory Maker is a three-part potion. Threes are everywhere.”

  Hannah said, “It’s been all around us.”

  I said, “It’s like she was trying to tell us the whole time, but we didn’t see it.”

  Charlotte said, “People try to tell you a lot of things, but you never seem to see it unless it’s right in front of you.”

  34

  Aunt Aggie’s Big Secret

  We sat in Aunt Aggie’s backyard around her fire pit.

  “I am so full,” Darbie said. “I love lasagna. And I love your mom,” she said to Frankie and Tony. “Is it possible she’s my fairy food godmother?”

  “On puh-lease, Darbie O’Brien, we have potions and powers and magic and now fairy godmothers? Next you’ll be waiting to go on an expedition to find leprechauns.” And Charlotte did something strange—she giggled. This was a typical sassy Charlotte comment, but she said it in a completely different way than ever before. The giggle wasn’t rude and mocking of Darbie, it was just . . . an actual, genuine kind of teasing the three of us do. She had made a joke for fun, not to be horrible, like usual.

  Then, to top it off she added, “I’ll check the weather app, and tomorrow we can start searching for rainbows. A true expedition. Who’s in?”

  Darbie said, “We don’t have to have an expedition for that. We can lure them in with gold. Those characters are always on the hunt for gold.”

  “If that doesn’t work, we can try baiting them with this lasagna,” Charlotte said.

  And we all laughed.

  This was unlike anything I’d experienced with Charlotte Barney since before my surprise ninth birthday, when she’d spoiled the surprise.

  It was truly a magical night.

  * * *

  I put the last of the dishes in the sink while Aunt Aggie washed them. “So now you know. How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Good, I guess, but something still isn’t adding up.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If it takes three girls and ingredients from Cedros to make potions, why didn’t anyone else ever figure that out? I mean, that’s not rocket science.”

  “What exactly did the letter say?”

  “It explained the Power of Three—that there have to be three girls to make a potion work.”

  “Then Grandma hadn’t figured it all out,” Aggie said.

  I asked, “There’s more?”

  “Kind of a biggie.”

  35

  Witch Blood

  Are you going to tell me?”

  “Follow me.” Aunt Aggie wiped her hands on a towel and walked down a hallway and opened a big, heavy, wood door. Inside she lit candle sconces on the walls, one at a time as she walked around the room, until we were circled by them. They illuminated the rows of shelves built right into the room’s woodwork. In the center was a round table with an ancient-looking book. Aunt Aggie blew dust off its leather cover and opened it, careful not to crack its already fragile binding. Every page contained a handwritten list of names.

  I recognized some of them from the history lesson that Tony had given me earlier in the cemetery. “Are these the names from the witch trials?”

  “No. The witch trials weren’t really about witchcraft. It was a political thing to show power. Most of the people who were put to death weren’t witches at all.”

  “Then what are those names?”

  “At the same time as the famous witch trials, there were real witches in Salem. Hiding. A few of them got caught up in the trials, but most remained under the radar.”

  I finished her thought. “This is a list of the real Salem witches.”

  She nodded.

  “And their descendants.”

  She nodded again. “Every generation the powers have faded a bit, I think.”

  She pointed to a nam
e: Rebecca Samantha Charlesworth.

  “The Rebecca Samanthas in this book are related to us,” I said, not a question, because I was starting to understand. Does my mom know this?”

  “I don’t think so,” Aunt Aggie said.

  “If she did, she would’ve named me Rebecca too?” I asked.

  “That’s what I think,” Aunt Aggie said. “So, do you see what I’m telling you, Kelly?”

  I nodded. “That my grandmother, and mother, had inherited witch blood—only my mom never knew it. That all of the female descendants of the Rebecca Samanthas have . . . special abilities?

  “Exactly . . .” She added, “All of the RSs and their children, even if they aren’t named Rebecca Samantha.”

  I stared at her until I realized what she was trying to say.

  “Me?” I asked.

  36

  Memory Maker Part Three

  You,” Aunt Aggie said. “You’re special.”

  I shook my head. “I like the idea of being special, but it also feels like a big responsibility.”

  “You can handle it,” she said. “The actual powers, like I said, have faded over time, but still have that spark for just when it’s needed.”

  I wondered out loud. “Should I tell my friends?”

  “That’s up to you. I don’t think Grandma ever put all the pieces together, and I don’t think she ever told the other girls. I would guess she didn’t want them to treat her differently.”

  “That’s how I’m feeling too, but I’ve never kept a secret from Hannah and Darbie before.”

  “You’re lucky to have such good friends. Not everyone has that.” She gave me a peck on the top of my head and went to say good night to the girls. But I didn’t sleep much.

  * * *

  We woke up and found a note from Aunt Aggie on the counter.

  Gang,

  I went to yoga. I’ll be back in time to take you to the train station.

  Kelly,

  I left ingredients for you to make a special breakfast. The kind that will give you three times the memory you ever thought you needed.

  Xo,

  Agg

  I knew she had written in code about Memory Maker Part Three. There was no recipe for Memory Maker Part Three in my book, so I wondered how Aunt Aggie could have had it. This made me think that maybe she had more potion-related knowledge than she’d told me so far.