Witch Way to the Bakery

by Zoe Arden

  "Yeah. I found a spell in one of Eleanor's books that should make me feel light as a feather while you're holding me."

  "Wait, what? While I'm holding you?"

  "Yeah. How did you think I was gonna get down the cliff?" I cocked my head to the side. She was looking at the rope distrustfully now. "Look, I tied one end of the rope around me, now I just need you to hold the other end and lower me down."

  "Oh, no," Lucy said, throwing her hands up in the air. "No way. I'm not doing that. What if the rope slips? Or I slip? I could go careening over the side with you. Why don't you just tie it to a rock or a headstone or something?"

  "Because a rock or a headstone won't be able to pull me up or lower me down. I'm not just gonna jump over the cliff and see how far the rope goes. This isn't bungee jumping, it's climbing. I need to go slow."

  She was kicking her shoe at the ground.

  "I'd fly down the cliff if I could but I couldn't find any flying spells."

  "There aren't any," she said. "Flying's very difficult to do unless you're born with the gift. Fairies can fly because they're born that way but for us it's nearly impossible." She was staring at the cliff, a worried expression on her face.

  "Just try it," I told her. "If you're still not comfortable with it, then... then I'll take you back to Sweetland and drag Colt down here with me instead." I hated the idea of asking Colt to help me, though. He would just tell me how dangerous this was and how silly I was being for doing this. A lot like Lucy, actually.

  "Fine. I'll help you climb down a foot or two but that's it. If you're too heavy—"

  "I won't be. And one foot? Are you kidding me? I can go down one foot just by dangling my legs over the edge."

  "Good, then you don't need me." She turned and started back to the car.

  "Please," I called after her. "I can't lose the Goblin Ball. It's not just because Eleanor would be crushed, either. I would be, too."

  Lucy turned around, her eyebrows raised.

  I sighed. "When I first came to Sweetland, I didn't know anybody. Hardly anyone even liked me. I was an outsider. Now I'm helping to cater the Goblin Ball. We're the first outside bakery ever to be asked to do that. I finally feel like I'm an islander instead of an outsider. I don't want to ruin that."

  She let out a heavy breath. "Hand me the rope," she said.

  I smiled and gave it to her. She took it in her hand and gave it a tug. The other end pulled at my waist but it didn't hurt. "Feels secure," she said.

  "Good." I pulled out the only other item in my bag.

  "What's that?"

  "An ice ax. I got it at a store in town yesterday. It's supposed to help me climb up and down this thing. I watched a bunch of videos online about how to use it."

  "Did you enchant that, too?"

  "No," I said and bit my lip. "You think I should? I wasn't sure what sort of enchantment to use."

  "Give it to me," she said and held out her hand. I handed it to her and she did a quick incantation then handed it back. "There, I made the blade sticky, so that when you dig it into a rock, you don't have to dig as hard and it'll stay."

  "Thanks."

  I sat down at the edge of the cliff and dropped my legs over the side. Slowly, I scooted over the edge, climbing down about five feet. I dug the ice ax into the side of the cliff without any problems, and my feet managed to find soft grooves or small ledges to stand on. The top of my head was just above the edge of the cliff and I could still see Lucy holding steadily onto the rope.

  "How is it?" I asked.

  She was pressing her lips together but didn't look strained.

  "You feel like you weigh about ten pounds," she said. "So, I guess your enchantment worked. Go on."

  I stuck my feet into whatever grooves I could find as I made my way slowly down the cliff. The leaves weren't that far from me. I couldn't believe that this was actually working.

  I'd never been rock climbing before and realized that I actually sort of enjoyed it. It was freeing dangling in the air like this. I began to move faster. I was sure I was doing this all wrong and if I ever decided to rock climb for real I'd have to take a class but for my purposes today the enchantments on the rope and ice ax seemed to be all I needed.

  I felt a tug on the rope around my waist and looked up to see Lucy peering down at me from over the edge of the cliff.

  "Ava? Are you okay?" she shouted down. I was about twenty feet below the edge now.

  "I'm fine."

  "I think you should come back up. You're getting heavier."

  My face tightened. "I am? I shouldn't be."

  "Well, you are."

  "How heavy?" I asked.

  "About thirty pounds."

  I bit my lip. My enchantment must not have been as strong as I thought if it was already wearing off.

  "Just a few more feet," I said as I looked toward the patch of green closest to me. According to what I'd found online, I wouldn't need much to honor Zulubar's request. A little loonercullen went a long way.

  "If you get any heavier, I don't know if I'll be able to pull you back up," Lucy shouted and I heard the anxiety in her voice.

  "Just a little farther," I said, dropping another foot.

  "Ava! Forty pounds!"

  "Just hang on, I've almost got it."

  "Fifty!"

  The leaves brushed the tips of my fingers. I stretched out my hand to grab them.

  "Sixty! Ava, hurry!"

  I missed them by an inch. I pushed off the cliff with my feet, propelling myself a tad more to the right. My fingers clasped around them. I grabbed a handful.

  "Got them!" I cried, then felt the rope go slack. I looked up and had just enough time to think what a bad idea this had been as the other end of the rope fell toward me and I plummeted toward the rocks below.

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

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  Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion. My body fell; my feet flew away from the cliff and hung in the air; my hands reached out for the cliff and grabbed hold of nothing but empty space. It felt as though I was somersaulting through the air like a trapeze artist careening toward a net. Only I had no net.

  I reached out with the ice ax, trying to dig into the side of the cliff, but it slipped from my fingers and plummeted toward the ground even faster than I was. I made a mental note that if I ever did something like this again, I'd have Lucy make the handle of the ice ax as sticky as the blade. Heck, I'd glue it to my hand if I had to. I'd already dropped the looner leaves, I had nothing else left to drop now, except myself.

  The rope was still tied around my waist but now I felt the weight of it as the other end—the end Lucy had been holding—fell past me toward the ground. Rope was heavier than you'd think it would be when it wasn't enchanted, or rather, when your enchantment failed. Now it just felt like it was weighing me down rather than pulling me up.

  I had just enough time to realize that I couldn't blame anyone for this other than myself. If I hadn't been so silly as to think I could climb a cliff—or so desperate—I might have heeded Lucy's warning. Eleanor had told me to do whatever it took to get the leaves but I was pretty sure that if I'd outlined my plan for her before coming down here, she would have objected just as strenuously as Lucy had. Which was probably why I hadn't told her.

  My head was light and dizzy, and I thought this whole thing was taking far too long. Shouldn't I have hit the ground by now? I looked down at the rocks below me on the shore, which was a mistake. Seeing them getting closer only made my head that much lighter, that much dizzier.

  I'd always thought that people who fell from great heights had no time to think about what was happening to them because it happened so fast but I realized now how untrue that was. I was falling and falling, and it seemed to just stretch on forever. I had plenty of time to think. Colt's image flashed through my mind. I wondered what
I'd been so afraid of with him. I loved him; why shouldn't I marry him? Life was so short.

  I blinked and looked around me.

  Time really was stretching on forever. I should definitely have hit the ground by now. My body was already braced for impact.

  "Ava!" Lucy's voice called to me from up above.

  I looked up and saw Lucy's head peeking over the side of the cliff.

  "Are you okay?" she shouted.

  I looked around me. I had stopped falling and was hovering in the air. I was flying!

  "I guess," I said, more confused than scared now. "What's going on? I thought you said there were no such things as flying charms?"

  "You're not flying," she shouted. She sounded far away but I could hear her clearly enough. The wind wasn't strong today, thank the witches, and her words carried to my ears easily enough.

  "What's going on then?" I shouted, still hanging in the air. I reached out toward the rocks with my hand and found a groove to dig my fingers into.

  "I used a time spell to slow you down," she said. "You're still falling, you're just doing it really, really slowly."

  I looked down at the rocks again and realized she was right. In the time we'd been shouting at each other, I'd moved an inch closer to the ground.

  "Climb back up," she shouted.

  My fingers dug deeper into the side of the cliff. My feet found pieces of rock to support myself with. I looked to my right. The next closest looner leaves were a good ten feet away. I had no intention of risking my life any more than I already had. The leaves would have to wait for now. I'd find another way to get them. Maybe I could even retrieve the ones I'd dropped.

  "Ava, what are you waiting for? Climb up already!" Her voice was still filled with anxiety. Even from this far away, I could hear it.

  "Wouldn't it be easier just to climb down?" I asked her.

  "No, climb up! I'm not that good at time spells, I don't know how long this will last. You're closer to the top than the bottom."

  That was all I needed to hear. I was about thirty feet from the top of the cliff. I was more than twice that distance from the bottom.

  I untied the rope that was now hanging around my waist, pulling me down instead of up. It dropped to the ground below me and I bid it good riddance. My body felt light as a feather as I made my way back up to Lucy. Whatever spell she'd used to slow things down must have also caused me to feel weightless. The air was oddly still. I wasn't sure what I was experiencing exactly; it was almost like I could feel time stopped around me.

  It's not stopped, I reminded myself. She only slowed it down. I looked down again and saw that I'd made some progress. I was a foot closer to the top now. I kept climbing. I hadn't fully appreciated before how straight this cliff was. The rocks I was climbing went straight up and down. The ledge at the top was directly over me, not jutting out like I would have thought. It was the sort of thing an experienced rock climber would have noticed immediately, I was sure, but which my silly self hadn't noticed until now. At least I wouldn't have to try climbing up a ledge that jutted out an odd angle.

  About five minutes in, my body began to feel heavier. The light as a feather feeling was replaced with a feeling that I was light as a gallon of water, which wasn't really light at all.

  "Uh oh," I muttered and started to climb faster.

  I grabbed hold of a piece of rock jutting about three inches out of the side of the cliff. It crumbled as I tried to pull myself up and my feet slipped. I started falling again. Only this time, it was more like floating than falling. Lucy's time spell was still working, just not quite as well as it had been at first.

  "Ava!" she shouted. "Hurry up! The spell is wearing off!"

  "Cast it again!" I yelled up to her, trying to get a grip on the rocks. My hands and feet finally found a footing and I managed to stop myself from falling any further.

  "I can't!" she shouted back to me. "I only had one time shoe with me."

  I had no idea what a 'time shoe' was and wasn't sure it mattered, at least not right at this second. I grunted and decided to be grateful that at least my body felt light enough that I could pull myself up. I was woefully out of shape and vowed that if I ever got out of this, I'd start exercising. Then again, I'd vowed things like that before and had yet to stick with any exercise for any length of time.

  Halfway up the cliff, I felt the weight returning to my body that much more. This must have been what it felt like for Lucy when she was holding the rope. I stopped looking around me and focused only on the task at hand. Dig, pull, climb, repeat. I was continuing to make progress, I just wasn't going as fast as I would have liked. I felt ten pounds heavier, then twenty, then thirty. It was getting harder and harder to pull myself toward the top.

  "I'm not sure I'm gonna make it," I called up to her.

  "Of course, you are," she said, and her voice sounded far closer than it had last time she'd spoken. I dared a glance up and saw that I was only a few feet from the edge of the cliff now. Lucy was lying on the ground, flat on her stomach, her head and hands hanging over the side. She was reaching for me.

  I climbed faster. Rocks tumbled out from under me. I heard them plummet down the cliff to the ground below and my heart stuttered more than once. Finally, I felt Lucy's fingertips brush my own. I took a deep breath and really dug my feet into the side of the cliff; Lucy's hand wrapped around mine and pulled me up the rest of the way.

  "Thank the witches," Lucy said when my body finally came up over the side and was no longer hanging in the air. I felt the weight of the situation roll off my shoulders. I was breathing hard but I knew that for the rest of the day, maybe the rest of my life, I wasn't going to take anything for granted.

  "There's one problem," I said, panting.

  "What?" Lucy asked.

  "I still need the looner leaves."

  She picked up a handful of dirt and threw it at me.

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

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  "It was weird," Lucy said. "One minute the rope felt fine, the next minute you were getting heavy." Her face was slightly pale, and her eyes were drawn together in worry.

  "I guess I'm not a very good spell caster," I said, brushing the dirt off my clothes. I was covered in dust and sand. My own face felt drained of blood. If I had a mirror to look in, I was certain I'd be whiter than snow.

  "I don't know," Lucy said, pursing her lips. "I'm not so sure."

  "What do you mean?"

  Her brow wrinkled. She was sitting on the ground, resting her chin on her knees, which were drawn up to her chest. I was standing, pacing slowly back and forth and fidgeting nervously. I still had too much nervous energy from my fall.

  "It's just that it happened so fast," she said. "When a spell stops working, it tends to happen more gradually. Not all at once. Then my spell did the same thing—it stopped working. It just seems fishy to me is all."

  "What are you saying?"

  "I don't know exactly. I guess I'm just not convinced that this was a coincidence."

  I shook my head. "You're getting paranoid. How could anyone break our spells? Look around, we're the only ones here."

  She turned her head to look. The land here was vast and silent. The trees could hide a lot but they were down at the bottom of the hill, not at the top near the cliff. The headstones might have served as a good hiding place, though. Some of them were huge and could have hidden three people behind them.

  "Anyone could be hiding in the trees," she said. "If there was someone already here when we got here, we probably wouldn't have noticed."

  "So, you think someone was hiding up here, waiting for us to arrive, then waited until I went over the ledge to try to kill me?"

  She shrugged.

  "I didn't tell anyone where we were going today except my dad and aunts. Do you think they were the ones waiting to kill us?" I snapped. This convers
ation was getting us nowhere.

  "No," she said. "All I'm saying is that something isn't right."

  "It was my first time casting that spell I used on the rope. And you said yourself you're not very good at time spells."

  "I lied. I'm great at time spells. I only said that because you were dangling in the air, and I didn't want you to freak out any more than you already were. I was afraid if you thought someone else was up here with us you might panic and make things worse."

  I looked at her and bit my lip. "Are you really that good at time spells?"

  She nodded.

  "Oh. Still..." But her words left me unsettled. "Let's just climb down to the shore and get those leaves I dropped so we can get out of here."

  She opened her mouth to protest but I held up a hand, stopping her. "I meant climb down the long way. Walk around the base of the hill and through the forest till we get to the water."

  "Oh. All right," she said and stood up. "For a minute, I thought you'd hit your head against the cliff when you were falling."

  "No such luck," I said and laughed.

  "Are you sure the leaves are still there?" she asked as we started back through the cemetery and down the hill.

  "They have to be. I'm out of options. I can't make that climb again, and I can't get them any other way. I pulled out a good handful before I fell. The wind wasn't blowing; they must have dropped straight down."

  "Makes sense," Lucy said as we stepped into the forest. Whisper Crossing's forest wasn't as thick as Beggars Forest, nor did it stretch on for as long. If we were walking the opposite direction, there would be several miles of forest to contend with but in this direction there was very little. The ocean cut it off.

  "There," I said when we reached the shoreline. "They must be just ahead." We started to walk along the shore and back toward the spot where I'd almost fallen to my death. "Keep your eyes open for the leaves." She nodded, and we walked along in silence for a minute or two.