Where was this path going to take me? It was cobblestone, which was quaint and old-fashioned, but rather fitting for Geri, who was almost three hundred years old.
I’d come to tell her about the message and all the things that had happened to me since. Maybe I just wanted reassurance that I wasn’t cursed—or maybe I secretly believed that I was, and I was looking for the cure.
But did she have one?
“Do you know what our ancient sisters had to say about bad luck curses?” Geri asked in this whispery, reverent voice that was probably supposed to make me feel intrigued.
“I’m sure you’re about to tell me,” I said with a raised eyebrow as the heel of my boot caught on the cobblestone, and I almost lost my balance.
“They believe that there are two paths running through this earth, along this mortal coil,” she said.
I hadn’t even realized we were headed so far away from the house until we stopped at a clearing, and the cottage where Geri lived was just a speck in the distance behind us.
All of a sudden, we had a decision to make.
At our feet, there were quite literally two little cobblestone paths—they got thinner and rougher as we moved farther away from the cottage.
“One is the path of good luck, and one is the path of bad luck,” she said, still talking metaphorically, but I was transfixed by the actual path forking off in two wildly different directions. Which one were we going to take?
“So, you could change the path that you are on?” I asked her carefully.
“Not if you don’t know you are on it,” Geri said sagely. “Look,” she said, nodding to something on the other side of the hill. “I have something to show you, dear. I think you are ready to see this.”
We took the thinnest path with the roughest stones. The one that headed toward the woods. Not the one I would have chosen. It was forbidding, and after about fifteen meters, it trailed off into no real path at all, just a section of grass that was a bit flatter than the grass surrounding it.
Geri was in front of me. She was familiar with the way.
I followed just behind her, slowing my steps down, almost scared to see what was on the other side of the hill, out of sight, hidden from the rest of the town. Had following a witch into the woods ever been a good idea for anyone?
There were crows overhead, but they didn’t seem bothered by us as we walked. None of them swooped nor pooped, but I was still sure they were keeping their beady eyes on us. Crows have excellent memories, and they might have recognized me from somewhere else along the path of life.
“Come on, dear,” Geri called out to me, but I had come to a complete stop. What if I was really on this path of bad luck? I should turn and go in the other direction, right?
“I—I’m not sure,” I called out, but Geri just tilted her head back and laughed. “Trust me, child, there is nothing to be frightened of on the other side of the hill. In fact, I can promise you that you are going to like it.”
I felt a little like one of the children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory being led by Willy Wonka to their doom, but I decided to just go with it and to follow her to the other side of the hill.
I was expecting thick forest, but there was another clearing. A field of color and light. Like something from a fairy tale. Colors, plants I had never seen, flowers that didn’t even look like they were from this world, all spread out in front of me.
“Whoa, what is this place?” I asked, feeling a little breathless. Because I had suddenly found myself in the middle of a different children’s book entirely. I felt like the protagonist of The Secret Garden. I whispered that to Geri as I came to a complete stop.
“Well, that’s actually what we call it,” Geri said with a little laugh. “Come closer, and I will show you.”
She opened the gate and led me in, telling me just how sacred this place was.
“This is where we grow all the herbs we use in spells.”
I knelt down and touched the soil, which was floury soft and had the perfect amount of moisture, even though the rest of the hill had been dried out due to the long and dry summer we recently had.
“Only witches have access to this garden,” Geri said sternly. “Do you understand, Ruby? This is not a place that can be shared with any of your human friends.”
Geri had been trying to drill home the division between me and these “human friends” for a while now. She wanted me just to think of myself as a witch, and not in any way human.
But I nodded. I could see that it would be dangerous to let anyone come here. They might get dazed.
They might cheat in the garden show.
I touched the soil again. I wondered how quickly a new plum tree could grow in it.
I stood up and gasped again as I spotted a mysterious-looking hedge on the other side of the garden. “Is this a maze?” I asked as I dreamily walked over to it. When I was a kid, it had been my dream to have a hedge maze in my back garden. I reached out and touched the spongy soft of the dark green hedge. It didn’t feel real.
“I’ll leave you to explore on your own for a bit while I attend to my squashes, dear.”
It wasn’t just a maze standing on its own. The garden itself formed part of the maze, and—this sounded crazy—it seemed to change shape and move when I was inside it. I’d been walking around for what only felt like ten minutes when I realized I was completely lost and had no idea where I was. And the moon was in the sky. The sun was setting. But it had been only two p.m. when I had arrived at Geri’s house.
How many hours had passed? I wasn’t sure how many exits there were, and I started to run around frantically as it got darker and darker. I could hear birds calling out in the sky and the flapping of bats’ wings. By the time I had gone down each possible route, doubled back and doubled back again, I was starting to think that there was no way out at all.
“Help!” I yelped out, jumping up as high as I could in the hopes that I would be able to see over the side of the maze and find a way out.
I collapsed, exhausted, and leaned up against the hedge, which suddenly didn’t feel as soft. The night sped up, and I realized I was going to be there until Geri found me in the morning.
If she even ever came back at all.
I stared up at the crows overhead and cursed them. Even if I had fallen into a bad luck curse, why couldn’t they at least be on my side?
But in the end, it was the crows who helped me out. Who helped me find my way home. I followed their calls, and they led me to the spot in the hedge where I’d come in.
I wasn’t sure whether to expect Vicky to turn up to work the next day when I pulled up on the street where the office was. I was running late myself as I hurried down the sidewalk.
There was a woman blocking my path, her shopping trolley taking up the whole sidewalk. I tried to weave my way around her, but there was just not enough room to squeeze through unless I walked directly into oncoming traffic.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Can I get around . . .”
But I may as well have been talking to myself.
She was staring down at her hands. Turning them over and over, inspecting first one side and then the other, a look of awe on her face.
“Are you okay?” I stopped and asked her, but she barely seemed to register what I had said to her. She was still staring at her hands.
And then she did something really strange. Something that made my heart leap into my chest.
She picked up a stone from the sidewalk and then dropped it again, directly below her hands. Then she placed her hands over the stone. And the stone slowly rose from the ground and into her hands, like they were two opposite magnetic forces.
“Can you see this?” she whispered to me, holding her hands up in astonishment. She showed me the stone. “I think that my hands have magical powers.”
“Um, what?” I said, glancing around. Even though I had seen it with my own two eyes, I was strangely trying to discourage her. I wanted her to think she was wrong.
Maybe I was seeing things myself, I thought. Or maybe it was just a trick or an optical illusion.
“I feel this strange tingling through my entire body,” she said.
“Have you eaten anything usual lately?” I asked her. “Or drank something anyone gave you that tasted a little strange?”
She shook her head, and then showed me her hands. “The only thing I have done differently is applied this new hand cream that I bought at a party yesterday.”
Hmm.
Oh, no.
Of course Vicky hadn’t come into work that morning. She was in hiding. Because she had unleashed a virus of her own into Swift Valley.
I banged on Vicky’s door and called out for her when there was no answer. Her roommate Shu answered with a sullen look on her face. I think she was a little over me turning up all the time, demanding to be allowed inside. But she told me that Vicky was home, holed up in her room practicing her scales on the guitar.
Funny, because I couldn’t hear any music when I marched in.
Because Vicky, of course, was not practicing music. She was practicing witchcraft. Specifically, a spell to undo what she had unleashed upon the unsuspecting party guests.
“Ruby!” she said, snapping the book shut, trying to make out like she hadn’t been doing anything.
“I saw some very interesting things while I was walking into work this morning,” I said. “A woman who could move objects with some sort of invisible force. She lifted a stone like it was on an invisible string. It seemed as though the rock was lifting itself off the ground. Almost like magic.” I said the last word with emphasis and peered down at Vicky on her bed.
Vicky was still and pale, just staring at me with a sorrowful look in her face. “Oh, Ruby, it was so hard to get anyone to actually buy the products . . .” Her voice was wavering a little as she tried to explain it to me.
“And so you added magic to them?” My jaw dropped open
“Well, you see, the thing is . . .” She gulped. “Everyone kept asking me why they were so expensive, and what could possibly be in them that would justify a sixty-dollar price tag. And so, I said that they contained a magic ingredient.”
Quite literally. She had added a magical ingredient that had given anyone who used it magical powers. And because they had applied it so liberally to their hands, the hands had soaked up most of the magic skills.
“But what did you think was going to happen when they actually applied the creams out in the wild?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “I guess I didn’t think that far ahead. I just wanted to sell the creams.”
I groaned a little as I sat down on her bed. Now we essentially had a dozen amateur, faux witches out on the loose. Who didn’t know how to use magic, or how to control it. What if they applied the hand cream to their heads and started to draw oncoming cars toward them, or spilt it on the carpets or something?
I didn’t need to give Vicky a lecture, though. It was clear that she hadn’t thought this through at all, and that she now gravely regretted her actions.
“Please don’t tell Geri that I did this,” Vicky said, picking up the spell book. “I know that I can fix it if I just have a little time to figure it out.”
I told her that I had seen the Secret Garden. Vicky dropped the book—she looked both shocked and impressed. “Wow. Geri usually doesn’t show that to witches until they are proper members of the coven,” she said, wide-eyed. “You must be really impressing her lately.”
I wondered if that was really the case, or whether Geri had another reason for showing me the garden. I mean, she had left me alone to get lost in the maze. It had been a very strange night indeed before the crows had rescued me. Well, that bit had been very strange as well, to be fair.
“Okay,” I said, grabbing the book off Vicky so that I could have a proper look myself. “We’re going to have to cover up your mistake.”
“What do we do?” she asked, panicking.
“Well, first of all, we are going to have to throw another party,” I said. “And invite all the same people, so that we can cast a new spell on the women.”
Vicky interrupted and told me about the Oasis Creams party policies, and that representatives were not supposed to have more than one party a fortnight.
She looked at me hopefully as an idea spread across her face. “You could always throw one, Ruby.”
“Oh, no way,” I said. “I am not getting sucked into this scheme, Vicky. You’ll have to find someone else.”
6
“Welcome!” I said, opening my front door and handing out a welcome bag full of candies and samples of the product. It had cost me almost a hundred dollars just to throw the party, even though Vicky had told me it would be “free.” But I’d still had to serve refreshments to my guests to entice them to come back so soon, and I also had to put together the gift bags that weren’t compulsory, but were expected.
Not to mention the fact that I’d had to sign up to become a seller of Oasis Creams, and that had cost me money as well. I was starting to get a little nervous about this entire plan going south.
It was a little dicey, having so many non-witches over to my home.
Risky. In case they saw something that they weren’t supposed to.
My roommate Taylor was skulking around that day, but he already knew what was up with the whole witch thing. As a twenty-two-year-old guy, though, he had no interest in scented hand creams, and so he was more than happy to go outside and tend to the chicken coop while the party went ahead. But he still stared at all the pastel-colored women who were arriving as he backed out the door.
Akiro had never attended Vicky’s party in the end. That was one saving grace, at least.
I’d told Indy to stay in the laundry while the party guests were over, but I wondered if she really would. You never knew just when she would appear out of thin air. I was fairly sure that she could pop in and out of places whenever she pleased. Some sort of advanced teleportation skill. But as a favor to me, I asked her to stay put and latched the door shut so that none of my party guests accidentally wandered in there and found a cat talking to herself in plain English.
A text flashed up on my screen. It was from a man named Bruce. Well, make that a warlock named Bruce, actually. He lived one town over in Mayfield and ran a coffeeshop there while he cast magic spells on the side. He’d been texting me and trying to get back into my good books, even asking me out on a second date.
He must have seen my post about the party on someone’s social media.
“I heard you were having a party at your house. No invite for me?” Followed by a sad face.
But I was still ignoring his calls and texts. Part of me wanted to explain that this wasn’t actually a party party, and so he was missing nothing, but I just turned my phone over and kept handing out the gift bags, trying not to think about all the money I would be out.
I recognized one of the women from my run-in with her on the street—the rock woman. Her name was Karen, and she was rummaging through the creams I had laid out that day. I’d ordered creams in a different scent than the ones that Vicky had already sold them.
Karen was opening up the lid of one of the tubes to take a sniff. “After last time, I can’t wait to see what this one will do!” she said, her eyes gleaming.
Vicky and I glanced at each other. Little did she know that we had put another spell in these creams, a reversal spell, so that when the ladies rubbed the new cream on their hands, it would undo what the first cream had unleashed.
At least, that was the plan.
Vicky was going to be the guinea pig. That was how we were going to pull off the ruse. She was going to put on the cream and then suddenly develop the power to lift object that were far too heavy for any human to lift. She was going to use the marble coffee table to demonstrate.
Because none of the ladies knew that Vicky was a witch, they would assume it was the new cream that had given her the powers, when really, she was using her own powers.
Plus, Vicky could be facing expulsion from the coven if Geri found out what she had done.
“I feel kinda terrible about charging them sixty dollars for these,” I said to Vicky, unsure that this was such a good idea. The whole thing was dicey, and charging them money felt like I was ripping them off.
“But if you don’t, you will lose money,” she whispered, determined that this plan had to work. “Plus, they won’t understand why you’re giving them away for free, and they might not even use the creams if they don’t believe they are worth anything.”
“Ahem . . . !” I cleared my throat to stop the ladies from chattering, and then called Vicky to the front of the gathered crowd to be the product demonstrator.
“Ooh,” she said, purposefully not taking too deep of a sniff when she took the cap off the cream. This one didn’t smell quite as bad as the one that Vicky had sold, but it did still have a strange, mold-like smell lurking in the background, underneath the strong lime scent that seemed like it was there to cover it up.
There was a knock on the door just as Vicky was rubbing the stuff into her hands, and all heads turned to look toward the door.
Maybe we had a late comer. But I did a quick head count, and there were a dozen women there. No one was missing.
So, who could it be?
It was Kaylan. He pulled his hoodie off and asked what all the cars parked in front of my house were about. I was trying to keep him out of sight of the guests, and so I quickly told him that I was having a private gathering. You know, quiet.
“I thought you were off the case,” I whispered, trying to keep him out of view of the ladies who were all craning their necks to see who was at the door, trying to crash their party.
“I have to talk to you right now. I found out something you’re gonna be very interested to know,” he said.
Stop and Spell the Roses Page 4
