by A. W. Jantha
The kids ran down the block and into an alleyway behind Allegra’s, one of Salem’s most popular restaurants. The alley was filled with stinking trash cans and discarded kitchen equipment—including an industrial oven and some broken blenders—waiting to be hauled away.
Max kicked the oven, cursing. He only managed to hurt his foot, so he limped back and leaned against the closest brick wall. “This is really bad!” he shouted.
“Max, come on,” said Allison, startled. “Calm down.”
“Look,” he snapped, “I want you to take Dani back to your house and don’t let her out of your sight.”
“Max, I’m not leaving you,” said Dani.
The restaurant door crashed open, and Max, Dani, and Allison ducked behind the piles of trash. A chef stepped out to pick a lobster out of the fish tank. Just as the door swung shut behind him again, Binx’s eyes widened. “Uh-oh,” he said, and jumped down to share the kids’ hiding place.
The three witches strolled up, following Mary, who sniffed loudly as she walked.
“I smell...” she muttered, tasting the air. “Winnie, I smell...I smell...” She paused. “Scrod.” She withered under Winifred’s hateful look. “It’s a bottom dweller,” she explained. “You know, you can eat it sometimes with lovely bread crumbs, a little bit of margarine. Oooh—or olive oil is good.” She began to stutter and devolve from nerves.
Winifred gave a disgusted sniff in her direction and abandoned the alley, but Sarah stepped toward the trash cans, her blue eyes wide as she searched for the source of some feeling she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“Sarah,” Winifred said shrilly, though she didn’t bother to wait for her. “Sarah!”
As Allison tried to inch past the oven, its door fell open and blocked her way. She reached for the handle to close it, then paused and turned to Max with a conniving smile. “I have an idea,” she said.
Mary and Sarah followed Winifred through town, toward a slender ironwork gate. Behind the gate was the largest building the witches had ever seen, its dark windows peering out of red-brick walls. They’d come because of the smell, which was strong enough that even Winifred, whose sense of smell was poor, had caught it as the wind switched.
“What is this place?” breathed Sarah.
“It reeks of children,” Mary said, almost humming in delight.
“It is a prison for children,” explained Winifred. She opened the creaking front gate and let in her sisters, then cast a spell to unlock the prison’s heavy front door. Above the door, tall white letters spelled the words jacob bailey high school.
The hallway was wide and quiet when the sisters crept in—wider than the river that once ran through town, and quieter than the nights when they went down to it to fish out dead fish and fishermen.
As they shut the door behind them, the place filled with an unholy howl. “Welcome to high school hell,” said a dark and warbling voice. “I’m your host, Boris Karloff Jr.” This announcement was punctuated by a thunderous crash and a crescendo of evil laughter. The sisters wove from one side of the hall to the other, trying to determine where the sound was coming from and how to avoid its owner.
“It’s time to meet our three contestants,” the disembodied voice continued. “Sarah, Mary, and Winifred Sanderson. Read any good spell books lately?”
The sleek, dark body of Thackery Binx flickered through an open door. He hissed at the sisters and scampered off.
Winifred began to lead her sisters toward him when a pleasant female voice said, “Hello, welcome to the library. Bonjour, bienvenue a la bibliothéque.”
The sisters looked at one another and then shuffled into the dark room and down a narrow hall. They found themselves in a distant wing, where strange carvings sat on narrow white pedestals.
“I would like a book,” the woman said. “Je voudrais un livre.” Her voice came from within a small room lined with metal. The sisters slipped past the iconography and into the room, which smelled strongly of burnt clay and children. The sisters grinned at one another, then looked for the source of the voice and the smell. A black box with a red blinking light sat on one shelf. The woman repeated her last request, but her voice filtered through the mesh paneling of the box.
“I think she’s trapped inside,” said Mary, sounding sorry for her.
Winifred’s eyes fell to the floor, where mounds of clothes—socks and sleeveless tops and shorts in coordinating colors—lay scattered.
“It’s a trap,” she said, but before she could turn, the heavy metal door swung shut. Even before she saw the girl’s face through the window, she knew that she and her sisters were toast.
Winifred reached for Sarah’s arm. She was more afraid than she had been three hundred years before, on the night she’d gotten them caught by the townspeople. Then as now, it was because of things she hadn’t bothered to do. Her mother would have been so angry at her, were she there. She’d have criticized her and told her she should be more thorough, more thoughtful. More like—
There was a click, and the room grew warm enough to make Winifred sweat.
She muttered spells beneath her breath—every spell she could remember, in fact—spells of protection and revenge, spells for clearing storms and finding a lost pair of spectacles.
The three children—and even that damned cat, who looked awfully pleased with himself—peered through the narrow window of the box.
Winifred’s hair began to smoke and then alighted, and so, too, did the lace hem of her dress, and then she yelled “Wretches!” and she and her sisters burst into flames.
Allison wanted to check the kiln for debris, but Max worried that seeking the witches’ smoking bodies would scar Dani for life. Instead, the two of them decided to put the kiln on a longer second cycle, hoping that the Sandersons would have mostly turned to ash by morning. They’d sneak back in the next day or Sunday to clean it out, and by Monday morning no one would have any idea what had happened in the arts wing.
Max turned to Dani, then, who had moved away from the kiln door when the witches started to burn. She held Binx close to her, petting him and kissing the top of his head.
“It’s done,” Max said to her, and when the words sank in, Dani beamed up at him.
“Really?”
He ran over and scooped her up, spinning her around and nearly knocking over an unfired ceramic skull that someone had made.
“Really,” he said softly against the side of his little sister’s head. His own body relaxed, then, as all the adrenaline seemed to pour out of it.
Allison walked over and put one hand on each of his shoulders, which sent butterflies careening through his digestive system.
“Let’s get home,” she said. She was looking at Dani, but it sent a happy shiver down Max’s spine.
Allison took Max’s hand when he set Dani down, and they all slipped out of the school, breaking into a run as they neared the ironwork gates. Dani whooped, and the sound of her celebrating made it all feel real to Max, too.
“Farewell, Winifred Sanderson!” shouted Binx, leaping from Dani’s arms to the rain-slicked street and racing about not unlike a dog after its own tail.
Max grabbed Allison around the waist, spinning her, and then set her down and gave Dani a big kiss on the cheek. Dani squealed but didn’t push him away. Instead she grabbed his face and kissed his forehead, grinning.
Binx dashed away, leading the jubilant kids down the block. Leaves fell around them like confetti in oranges and browns and golds. They crossed into a park, and Allison took off after Dani, toward a grassy field where Dani could show off her handstands and cartwheels.
Max relaxed against the park fence and looked up at Binx, who had settled onto the nearby branch of an oak tree. “We did it, Binx,” he said, grinning. “We stopped them.”
“I’ve wanted to do that for three hundred years,” Binx said thoughtfully. He paused and then added, “Ever since they took Emily.”
Max’s smile faded into a serious look. He turned to face Binx, who
was silhouetted against the opalescent moon. “You really miss her, don’t you?” he asked.
Binx looked away without answering, but Max could see the pain and self-loathing knitted across his small furry face.
“Man, you can’t keep blaming yourself for that,” Max said. “That happened so long ago.”
Binx’s narrow shoulders shifted up in a small shrug. “Take good care of Dani, Max,” he said. “You’ll never know how precious she is until you lose her.” He leaped out of the tree and headed across the park, slipping into the shadows.
“Hey, Binx!” called Max, straightening. The cat turned and looked at him. His eyes seemed to glow yellow in the low light. “Where do you think you’re going?” Max asked, walking toward him. “You’re a Dennison now, buddy. One of us.”
“Come on, Binx!” Dani called from the clearing. “Let’s go home.”
“Home,” Binx repeated wistfully. He glanced from Max to Dani and then scurried after her as she linked one arm through Allison’s and headed back to the sidewalk.
As Max watched them saunter ahead of him, he thought about how he’d hated Salem as soon as his parents had announced their move—even before he knew anything about the town or their house or Allison Watts. “Home,” he said. The word sounded weird to him, but it also sounded right.
In the cool October night, wisps of vapor the color of moss-green algae or fresh growth on old branches filtered across the moon’s full face. The vapor slipped through low-hanging clouds but didn’t become part of them, and after a few minutes the vapor began to fall back to earth, as if weighed down by the condensation that had begun to bead on grass blades and window glass.
It funneled down the chimney of Jacob Bailey High School’s kiln, and when every last breath of it was inside the school, it whirled and churned and knocked down the reinforced metal door. Winifred strode out of the kiln, hacking and batting at the smoke still hanging in the air.
“Hello,” she muttered testily, “I want my book. Bonjour, je veux mon livre.”
Her hair was even wilder and wirier than before—and the grin plastered on her face was murderous—but she otherwise looked just the same as when those bratty kids first trapped her. Her sisters followed her out of the broken kiln in similar condition, Sarah trying desperately to wipe black ash from her sleeves and skirts.
“Find them,” Winifred ordered, turning on Mary.
“W-what?”
“The boy and that blasted girl,” she said. “And that child with the wretched cat. They have my book and that book is our last chance to stay in this world. Find them.”
“I—I don’t know,” stuttered Mary.
“You don’t know?” said Winifred scornfully.
“Well, Winifred, everything smells like smoke now.”
“What are you good for, then?” demanded Winifred.
“I—well—I don’t know. I—I’m still your sister, Winnie.” She quailed under the look Winifred gave her then. “Never mind!” she yelped. “I didn’t mean it!”
Spinning away, Winifred swung angrily at the nearest sculpture, grabbing a cobalt blue vase and throwing it onto the concrete floor. The vase shattered into a dozen pieces. Winifred groaned. “Just find them,” she said over her ash-dusted shoulder.
Max caught up with the others and led the way home. He could tell that Dani was getting sleepy because she kept repeating herself, and because her eyes stayed closed a little too long when she blinked.
He took her hand as they passed by Town Hall, where the Pumpkin Ball was still going strong. The lead singer’s vocals poured through the open door: “Jump, magic, jump; dance, magic, dance....”
“Getting back into the kiln tomorrow’s going to be easy,” Allison said wryly. “All the adults are going to be asleep till lunchtime.”
Max yawned into the crook of his arm. “That doesn’t sound so bad,” he said.
Allison smiled at him and shook her head.
When they reached the Dennison house, the lights inside were still out. Max unlocked the door as Dani checked the bowl of candy they’d left on the porch.
“Aw, man,” she grumbled. “Only Almond Joys are left.”
Allison patted her back reassuringly. “Don’t worry; you can have whatever’s left over at my house.”
“Promise?”
“Only if your brother brings you over tomorrow,” Allison said, smiling at Max.
Dani rolled her eyes. “There’d better be Twix bars if I’m covering for you two.”
“Mom?” Max asked, leading the girls inside. “Dad?” He flipped on the light. His parents’ coats were nowhere to be found. Nor were his mom’s keys, which she always had trouble tracking down despite dropping them on the entry table each time she came home. His dad had left behind his Swiss Army knife, though, and Max plucked it up and pocketed it just in case. He had a feeling that after their night, he’d be paranoid of witches for the rest of his life.
“We got a new cat!” Dani said, pushing past him. “Mom?”
Max looked at Allison. “Well, I guess they’re still partying,” he said, stepping out of her way. “Come on in.”
They went to Max’s room, because Dani always liked to sleep there when she was anxious. She said that even monsters were afraid of the stink of teenage boys. Dani gave Binx a bowl of milk before slipping under Max’s covers. “You’re my kitty now,” she said, petting Binx’s head. “You’ll have milk and tuna fish every day, and you’ll only hunt mice for fun.”
“You’re going to turn me into one of those fat, useless contented house cats,” Binx said.
Dani giggled. “You betcha.”
Allison chuckled, watching them. She and Max were sitting on a pile of pillows near the staircase that led into the bedroom’s loft. Allison grabbed a nearby blanket and wrapped it over her shoulders, then leaned into Max. He was sure the sudden acceleration of his heartbeat would startle her, but her breathing was soft and steady. He wrapped one arm around her gingerly, afraid to disturb her, and she pressed her cheek more firmly against his chest. He wanted to touch her hair but was afraid that might be too forward. Instead, he tucked his fingers around her elbow and thought about how he might ask her on their first proper date. Part of him still wanted to take her to the hill in the graveyard that overlooked the harbor, where he went to think, but after all they’d been through, it seemed a bit creepy. Maybe he’d take her to a movie, like Dani had suggested.
“You know, Binx,” Dani said sleepily as the cat finished his milk and leaped up to snuggle into her arms, “I’ll always take care of you. My children will take care of you, too. And their children after that, and theirs after that. Forever and ever...” She trailed off, and when Max looked over, he saw that she was fast asleep.
The night had gone quiet. It was so late that all the children of Salem were tucked into bed. So late, in fact, that their babysitters had fallen asleep, as well, drifting off as they waited for their employers to come back from the Town Hall Pumpkin Ball.
As a result, the town felt deserted and eerie beneath the harsh light of its own streetlamps.
Jay and Ernie didn’t seem to notice, however.
Long-haired Jay perched on the hood of an old black sedan while stocky Ernie leaned against the front bumper, unwrapping fun-size candy bar after fun-size candy bar and stuffing himself silly. Toilet paper cascaded around them from the branches of a sycamore tree that had mostly shed its leaves for winter. The boys knew the local cops would unfairly presume them guilty if a stranger’s house—or worse, a classmate’s—ended up decked out this way, so instead they’d TP’d Jay’s house. In the morning, his parents would just look disappointed and point them toward the stepladder.
“You wanna smash some pumpkins?” Jay asked, toying with a half-empty roll of toilet paper.
“No,” said Ernie around a mouthful of chocolate.
“Well, then you wanna look in windows and watch babes undress?”
“It’s three o’clock,” Ernie said. “They’re
undressed already.”
Jay flung the paper away. “Well then, you think of something.”
“I don’t feel so good.”
“That’s ’cause you’re eating too much candy, you oinker,” Jay said, smacking the latest bar from Ernie’s hand. He hated when Ernie got this way—so fixated on one thing, and usually a thing that was totally boring and didn’t involve Jay at all.
The witches saw the boys before the boys saw the witches.
Mary, who had been desperately sniffing the air for what felt like two hours but was probably merely minutes, was the most excited to spot them.
“The boy, Winnie!” she hissed, tugging on her redheaded sister’s sleeve.
“Are you sure that’s the right one?” Winifred asked.
Mary was not, but she knew that Winifred did not like insecurity.
“I am,” she said. “It must be.”
“It must be,” said Winifred, “or it is?”
“It is!” Mary said with more conviction than she felt.
“Good,” said Winifred. Her voice grew darker and more vindictive then: “The girl who trapped us in that fire box is mine. I’ll teach her to try and burn a witch.”
Jay and Ernie were, to an outside observer, old enough to be more men than boys, but the night was heading toward dawn and the Sanderson sisters were not eager to discriminate.
The witches crept up behind them. As they did, Sarah danced through the soft, waving curls of white paper, spinning and smiling.
Mary homed in on the strongest scent in the street: without a second thought, she pressed her nose against the larger boy’s left foot.
“Yo, witch,” Ernie said, smacking her with Max Dennison’s nearly empty candy bag. “Get your face off my shoe.”
Mary scuttled backward, fixing her hair. “Oh,” she said, frightened more of Winifred than of this boy with the strange hair and the useless weapon. “Wrong boy. Oh, sorry, Winnie.”
Sarah plucked up a scrap of toilet paper and swung it about, watching the thin material make exquisite shapes as it caught the air.
