Grim Hill: Carnival of Secrets

by Linda DeMeulemeester

  I shoved the fake magic book under Lea’s lookalike poppet as the real Lea plopped herself on top of the real book.

  “How do you stand the cold?” I asked.

  “What cold?” Lea looked puzzled.

  Maybe my friend had become more human, but she was still a fairy.

  We threw the poppets and the sweater on top of Lea while Jasper rearranged the Lea doll and fake Grimoire against the tent pole. Lea ducked as we pushed the wagon through the tent flap. Back outside and around at the front of the tent, I signaled Amarjeet.

  “Oh, there’s your mother, little boy,” Amarjeet said, pointing randomly into the crowd. She and Skeeter waded through the people until they could loop back through the shadows and join us.

  “All right, let’s go home for dinner,” Mia said petulantly to Mitch, ending their fake argument. Seconds later, she and Mitch caught up with us.

  We rolled the wagon through the carnival and were almost to the front gate. I wondered if I’d been wrong about needing to plan things better. Our rescue had gone without a hitch. I couldn’t help but grin.

  But my cockiness only lasted a minute.

  “Thieves!” Something screeched above my ear. “Stop, thieves!”

  CHAPTER 11 A Wrathful Wind

  Noooooo. Sookie’s stupid white raven swooped from the sky, and as it dove, I covered my face with my arms. Its wings beat against my shoulders and sharp talons nicked my back. “Ow,” I screamed.

  Clive grabbed the sweater off Lea’s head and shooed the bird. It flew away squawking in protest.

  “Ah … not smart,” said Amarjeet.

  Even though Lea stayed scrunched inside the wagon, the ticket taker at the carnival had seen us, and now he was staring right at Lea.

  We froze.

  The man in the captain’s hat slowly lifted his arm and pulled a lever. The carnival gate began to shut, and a bell started clanging. Carnival folk poured from tents and booths and began moving toward us.

  “I suggest you run,” the man said quietly, in contradiction to his actions.

  That was all the encouragement we needed. Clive and I dashed under the closing gate and tried to hold it up. Skeeter and Amarjeet joined us. Lea jumped from the wagon and Jasper grabbed her hand. Mitch pushed them under the gate and then Mia dove for it. Our muscles strained as we held up the gate and Clive shouted, “Hurry.” We leapt back as the gate finally dropped. Mitch dove under at the last second, dragging the wagon with the Grimoire behind him.

  We broke into a run, but Maeb, that treacherous spy of a bird, had sealed our fate! Now it flew over us, screeching, so everyone could see where we were going.

  Don’t look back, I said to myself while I ran. That’s the worst move you can make in soccer – checking to see how close your opponent is. In a breakaway, you need to keep your eyes straight ahead if you want to score.

  But I looked back. A gasp forced precious air from my lungs. Strange folk had gathered at the gate. They didn’t leave the carnival ground. Something worse did.

  All the shadows of the carnival swelled and gathered into a gigantic black funnel cloud. Hovering, the cloud passed over the people by the fence. They screamed as if they were wrenched with pain. Then, like a huge swarm of bees, the black cloud lurched toward us.

  “Hurry,” I urged my friends. Skeeter stumbled, and Clive grabbed his hand. I grabbed Skeeter’s other hand. Between Clive and me, poor Skeeter’s feet didn’t even touch the ground.

  “Se`idea`n si`dhe,” Lea cried in alarm.

  “A fairy wind!” Jasper shouted.

  “That’s no wind!” Clive shouted above the clamor. “It’s more like a fairy tornado.”

  I remembered Jasper saying, “During Lamas, the Celts’ especially feared fairy wrath.” Just what we needed!

  The wind began to whip, banging shutters as we ran between the houses at the edge of town and snapping tree branches. It shrieked along the streets. Grit filled my eyes. The black funnel cloud grew in size and force as it spun toward us. If it caught up to us, I had no doubt we’d be swept into the Otherworld.

  “We should split up,” cried Lea. “All of you should cut through this graveyard. A boneyard is consecrated, and a se`idea`n si`dhe cannot follow you through grounds blessed by a church.”

  My friends dived through the hedge and Lea and Jasper passed the Grimoire over to them. I hesitated. I didn’t like graveyards at night. I always felt if you walked by a cemetery at night and stared, you would see a ghost. Maybe if I kept my eyes straight on the ground and made sure I didn’t look ahead, everything would be alright.

  Then I noticed Lea wasn’t following either. “What about you?”

  Lea shook her head. “I’m a fairy. I can’t cross graveyard soil either.”

  “C’mon, Cat.” Amarjeet urged. “This will lead us straight to Sookie’s backyard.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” said Lea. “The wind will hover here to find out what direction you go. I’ll meet up with you.” Then she took off.

  The sky had grown purple and the street lights were turning on one by one. The tornado was a black empty hole against the night sky. Not a single cloud or star shone through the ugly gash. The funnel had stopped moving and was spinning on the spot. But it was getting bigger. There wasn’t a choice. I climbed through the hedge, feeling branches and twigs bite and scratch my legs.

  The moon was out, so even though it was dark inside the graveyard, I could see the forms of my friends just ahead. Headstones reflected the rising moonlight and looked like phantoms. I still lagged behind, carefully making my way and trying to avoid walking over the top of any graves.

  Tangles of blackberry brambles covered the yard and when I tripped on a thick vine, thorns dug into my calf. “Ow.” I reached down to swipe the blood from my leg and yank a thorn from my skin.

  When I stood up, my heart stuttered and began to race at the horror I saw. Keeping my head down wouldn’t work this time.

  Not when a ghost loomed right in front of me.

  He was a boy around my age and I could see him quite clearly – except for the fact I could also see straight through him.

  He began to move his mouth, and his whispers rustled in the night air. The noise echoed as if other voices had joined in. Horrified, I stared at his mouth while a whole chorus of ghostly voices spewed out, growing louder. Was I hearing the voices of the corpses and skeletons that lay below my feet? My heart pounded, and I choked back a scream. I wanted to run, but I felt frozen to the spot. What was he saying? I tilted my head, forcing myself to listen.

  “Help us. Free us. Bring it to us.”

  Was he pleading for all the dead? Why did something about his words sound so familiar? My heart beat so fast that blood rushed in my ears and made it hard to concentrate. Stop panicking, I told myself. Try to listen.

  Behind those ghostly sounds was the calliope from the carnival and the rattling of the carousel. And those voices that I swear I had heard before …

  “Heeeelp us, pleeeease,” wailed the boy, in his strange chorus of voices. “Bring it to us.”

  I felt as if my feet were half buried in the graveyard. I couldn’t run or move as he reached out his hands toward me.

  “Briiiing it to us.”

  CHAPTER 12 Widdershins

  “Cat, snap out of it.” Clive barged through the ghostly image and the boy disappeared. Clive grabbed my arm and it was as if I’d woken from a dream. We charged past the gravestones until we reached the hedge that bordered Sookie’s yard.

  We burst through the hedge into the backyard. The gang was all by the back porch huddled around the wagon with the Grimoire. Outlined in flickering candle light, Sookie stood on the porch in a full witch’s outfit. Her peaked hat with its gigantic brim perched on her head, shadowing her long blond hair. Her black witch’s cloak swirled menacingly around her. Jabbing her witch’s broom into the air, she twirled the broomstick counter clockwise.

  Trust my sister to go all out to guard against Fairy while she�
��d waited for us. Sookie had poured a ring of salt around her house. Five poles had been shoved in the ground along the path, and from them dangled blue crystal wind chimes. Iron and silver bells of all shapes hung from the porch railings and clanged in the rising wind. Black candles burned and guttered inside the kitchen window. Just as Clive and I arrived, Lea crashed through the side gate. Relief broke on Jasper’s face and he rushed toward her, leaving Clive holding the giant book. Clive almost toppled backwards until Amarjeet grabbed the other side of the Grimoire.

  “The fairy wind is moving again,” warned Lea. “If it reaches us, we’ll never escape.”

  With a simple shrug of her shoulder, Sookie pointed at the open kitchen door. “Come in. Hurry, we don’t have much time.”

  We charged into the candlelit room with Jasper and Clive hauling the Grimoire and Amarjeet steadying the humongous tome. Sookie had cleared the pedestal table of the Monopoly game and hot chocolate mugs. The round tabletop had been lined with a circle of small stones. Each stone had a hole in the center and had been threaded with red string.

  “Witch’s stones,” Skeeter said with satisfaction. “That’ll show those stupid fairies.”

  “Show them what?” My eyes shifted to Sookie, who was now waving her broomstick around the table.

  Jasper pointed to her broomstick. “Hazel wood circles are what the Celts used to ward off trouble, and the stones and crystal and bells are enchantments of protection.”

  “Sookie is the biggest and bestest magician of all,” chimed Skeeter.

  I gulped and hoped that there was still enough of a nine year old left in this formidable witch to be tricked by her big sister.

  This is a big risk, said the pesky voice in my head. But I knew deep down I had to turn back the magic that had changed my sister and this town. I had to try something.

  “Place the Book of All Magic in the center of the table,” commanded Sookie. Clive and Amarjeet dropped the Grimoire onto the table, and it landed with a wallop.

  “Gather in a circle around the table and hold onto the string of stones.” We obeyed my sister.

  Sookie began chanting in her singsong voice. The kitchen curtains fluttered and then began flapping frantically against the open window. Baskets of hanging plants outside on the porch bumped and banged and then flew off their hooks dumping dirt and creepy plants everywhere.

  The black tornado smashed through the fence and into the yard, sweeping up everything in its path. When it hit the house, the walls and floor began shaking. Chairs toppled. Pictures on the wall crashed down. A window shattered. Fairy’s wrath was upon us.

  “O … M … G,” shouted Mia. But even though the storm rocked us about, we all hung onto the table with the Grimoire in the center.

  Sookie’s big black cat screeched and tore out of the house looking for a safer place to live. Who’s the scaredy cat now, I thought.

  Sweat beaded on my sister’s forehead as she fought to keep the protection spells in place. She dropped her head and drew in her breath.

  “I command you, Grimoire, to do my bidding.” Sookie began to shake.

  The Book of All Magic flew open with a loud electrical snap. A strange blue light surrounded us, and it was as if the whole kitchen were inside a glass dome – like we were trapped inside one of those snow globes Mom used to put in my Christmas stocking. The fairy tornado swirled all around the house, but inside the blue light, the sounds were muffled. Sookie was breathing hard as she tried to keep us safe inside her protection spell.

  Because the spell took my sister’s entire concentration, I decided my only chance to trick her was while she was distracted. It was time to enact my own plan. Keeping one hand on the stone ring, I pulled my feather from its chain. I waved it over the Grimoire just as I had done during Halloween when I’d snuck into the fairy school. “Undo all the magic of Grim Hill,” I cried. “Release this town and my sister from its evil, enchanted snare!”

  My shouts were drowned in the shrieking wind, but the Grimoire heard me. Its pages flipped and then stopped on a page with an illustration of the stars, sun and moon swirling counter clockwise around a sundial.

  The passage underneath said: When the veil between Fairy and the human world is thin, enchantments woven between time and space can be reversed.

  Beware! Undoing enchantments in this way can have perilous consequences. Only the most skilled and magical of creatures should attempt this.

  Say your magical command and then repeat the command widdershins.

  Widdershins? What was that again? Oh yeah, backwards or counter clockwise. I swallowed nervously. Despite what Lucinda had said, I didn’t think I had enough magic or knowledge to pull off such a huge spell.

  In the end, it was Jasper who gave me the clue. He’d told me how the number three was magical and that the threshold where opposites meet was, too. Well, there couldn’t be two more opposite people than my sister and me. She was fair, I was dark; she loved magic, I hated it; and she … was a witch, and I was a fairy fighter.

  I grabbed Sookie’s hand in mine, and I grabbed Lea’s hand with my other hand, so that we were three. It was as if I’d grabbed onto lightning bolts. Power charged through me.

  “Turn back the time that Fairy stole from my sister. Turn back the magic that’s enslaved our town.”

  Lea gasped.

  Sookie snapped up her head. “No, Cat.”

  “Time back turn. Magic back turn.” I quickly said my command widdershins before Sookie could stop me.

  “Wait,” my sister cried. “You don’t understand.”

  Pages of the Grimoire began turning backwards at super speed. A thick white fog streamed out from the book and swirled around the room. Light rose and fell inside the room at a superfast speed. It felt like we were spinning faster and faster like those cyclone rides at big amusement parks – the kind where the centrifugal force pins you into your seat. My knees began to buckle, and I swore I could feel the skin tug my mouth into a horrible grimace. Maybe it did that to the others, but I couldn’t tell. Things were spinning too fast.

  The Grimoire slammed shut with a tremendous bang.

  An explosion rocked the house. The floor beneath our feet began to roll and the walls buckled.

  We all spilled from our chairs onto the floor. Something hard hit my head, and flashes of light spun in my vision like stars. Had the roof been ripped away?

  Then the lights winked out and everything went black.

  CHAPTER 13 A Calamitous Mistake

  I was having the best dream. At least, it started out that way … Sookie was little again, and Mom and Dad had taken us to an amusement park. The ticket taker opened the gate, and we ran into the funhouse. We were walking through a striped tunnel when it began turning and making us dizzy. We started tumbling and falling over each other while we laughed and the colorful world spun around us.

  Then Dad was sucked out of the tunnel. Mom tried desperately to hang on to my hand, but then she, too, was torn away. I screamed and clung onto Sookie.

  “It’s okay, Cat, it’s stopped.” I was holding on tight when I opened my eyes to see that I’d been clinging onto Clive’s legs. I dropped my arms as my face burned.

  Clive hovered over me. “The fairy wind trashed the house, and I think you got dinged on the head with one of those witch stones.”

  I sat up and gingerly rubbed my skull. There was a small lump. I looked around the room and saw my friends pulling themselves from a tumbled heap on the floor.

  “Good thing the house didn’t catch fire.” Amarjeet stood up and stamped out a small fire from one of the toppled candles. “Is anyone hurt?”

  There were a few groans, but everyone said they were fine.

  “What about you, Cat?” Clive’s eyes brimmed with concern.

  “I’m okay,” I said rubbing the bump. Ouch – as long as I didn’t touch my head!

  I got up and looked at the mess. Everything had fallen from the cupboards and spilled onto the floor. The chairs were knocked
down and all of Sookie’s peculiar jars had smashed; the crimson and yellow liquids pooled onto the counter and a sugary smell lingered in the air. Then I remembered – Sookie!

  The kitchen door banged open, and my sister walked in from the porch. “The fairy tornado is gone. We’re safe for now,” said Sookie. “But there’s something strange …”

  A grin spread across my face. My heart exploded with happiness. “The spell worked. You’re little again.” I said joyously. “You’re not a witch anymore.”

  The witch that the whole town had feared was now nothing more than a little blond girl in pink shorts and a ladybug T-shirt. Not to mention she had a ridiculously huge witch’s hat perched on her head.

  But then some of my happiness dissolved. My words caught in my throat as anger burned through me. I choked out, “Sookie, why did you behave so wickedly? You scared people. And think about Mom. She lost her little daughter.”

  Sookie got a stubborn look. “Mom couldn’t remember me, so she didn’t lose anyone. And I didn’t actually do anything bad.”

  I began shaking my head from side to side.

  “Okay, maybe a little bit bad, but I didn’t hurt anyone – that part was just pretend. When I returned from Fairy, my magic was so strong. I had to think of a way to make people leave me alone, so I could use it and have fun.

  Then Sookie did her best to look fierce. “Especially you, Cat. You wouldn’t let me use my magic, and it’s as if it’s going to explode out of me. So I thought if I was a wicked witch, you couldn’t boss me around anymore. Nobody could.”

  “But you hurt me.”

  Sookie’s expression softened and her eyes, which had switched back to their normal saucer blue, glistened with tears. “Sorry, Cat,” she said. Then she swiped her nose with her arm and said with a sniff, “There were some bad parts about being a grownup witch, you know. At night there was nobody to tuck me into bed, so I would have to wait until late when everyone was asleep before I could sneak into our house and say goodnight to you and Mom.”