B*witch

by Paige McKenzie

  Greta felt a frisson of alarm. Were they discussing Antima business? Did they do something to Div? She grabbed Binx’s hand and pulled her along so they wouldn’t be spotted through the doorway. She considered using a distraction spell on the five guys, but at the moment, she was too distracted to remember how to do it.

  Mira waved them into a room on the left.

  “And this is the TV-room-slash-den!” she said in a high, cheerful voice. “They used to have family movie night every Friday! I’ve been to a bunch.”

  As Mira stood guard in the doorway and jabbered on about movie night, Greta, Binx, and Aysha searched the room for any sign of Div. Greta also tried to sense Div’s presence, connect to her aura and her emotions, but came up empty. Her chest tightened; what if they were too late? What if Div was dead? But she couldn’t allow that thought to be in her mind or out there in the universe. She shook her head back and forth, back and forth, and envisioned a white light of protection around Div.

  Goddess, please watch over my friend.

  Keep her safe until we find her.

  Part of her couldn’t believe she’d automatically used the word “friend,” but she went with it. They repeated their search in three more rooms: a home office, a home gym, and a guest bedroom with a private bathroom. Just as they walked into a second guest bedroom, a voice called out to them.

  “Are you guys lost?”

  It was a young girl, maybe a tween, holding a cardboard box filled with bottles of shampoos, conditioners, and lotions. A tablet was propped on top of the bottles, its screen flashing brightly

  “I got this,” Mira whispered to the others. “Oh, hey, Caitlin! It’s me, Mira!” she called out to the girl.

  “I’m Cassie, not Caitlin. Hey, Mira.”

  “Ohmigosh, I’m sorry! You two look so much alike! Yeah, so, I was just showing my friends around your house. Didn’t this room use to be yellow? I like the new color, plus this silk bedspread is to die! Is it Italian?”

  “I have noooo idea.” Cassie chin-nodded at the box in her arms. “’Scuse me, I just need to get to the bathroom. I’m moving my stuff down here. It was Liv’s idea. Caitlin hogs our bathroom all the time, plus she uses my stuff without asking!”

  “Liv?” Greta repeated.

  “She’s Colt’s friend… or maybe Hunter’s? She’s nice, and she has cool hair. It looks like ice.”

  Greta’s eyes widened. “Is she here at the party?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Could her name be Div, not Liv?”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “Do you know where she is? We’ve been looking all over for her.” Aysha spoke up.

  “Dunno. She was in the library before.”

  “What’s the fastest way to get there, Cassie?” Binx asked.

  “There’s a shortcut through the laundry room. I can show you if you want. I just need to tell Sienna I’m AFK.”

  Cassie set the cardboard box on the bed, typed a message on her tablet, and gestured for them to follow her down the hallway. Along the way, they ran into some of the catering staff, but no one paid any attention to them. Which was good, because Greta really didn’t want to have to resort to memory-erase spells.

  A few minutes later, and after a confusing exchange between Binx and Cassie about Mad City versus Jailbreak, they reached a heavy-looking oak door. Cassie turned the large brass knob and pushed, but the door wouldn’t budge.

  “I think it’s locked. I can get the key from my dad.”

  Binx coughed. “Obex.”

  The door creaked open.

  “Oh, weird, I guess it’s not locked!”

  Cassie ushered the girls into the room. Greta scanned it quickly. Hundreds of books, an Oriental rug, a desk… but no sign of Div.

  “I guess she left,” Cassie said, shrugging. “Oh, well. Maybe she went back to the party?”

  “Guys! Over here!” Binx had crossed the room and was crouched on the floor next to the desk. “Vivifica!”

  No.

  “Vivi-what? Is that like a secret code?” Cassie asked Greta.

  Greta didn’t reply. Vivifica was the revival spell for someone who was unconscious or badly hurt. Or dying.

  Mira and Aysha rushed to Binx’s side. Greta followed, stumbling a little, dreading what she might see.

  Div lay on the floor behind the desk, her wrists and ankles bound with rope. Her eyes were closed, and her lips had an odd blue tinge.

  “Div!” Greta cried out.

  “Vivifica!” Binx repeated.

  “Vivifica!” Mira and Aysha said in unison.

  Div’s eyelids fluttered, then blinked open. Color returned to her lips.

  Oh, thank Goddess.

  Div coughed and tried to sit up.

  “Hold on. Solvo!” Binx said quickly.

  The ropes around Div’s wrists and ankles loosened and slumped to the floor. “Thank you, Binx,” she said with a weak smile. “Thanks, Mira; thanks, Aysha.”

  What about me? Greta wanted to say. But mostly, she was just relieved that Div was okay.

  As Binx helped her to her feet, Div turned to look at the wall behind the desk. She ran her hand across the wood paneling.

  “It’s gone,” she murmured.

  “What’s gone?” Greta asked.

  Div twisted around. “What are you doing here?”

  “Rescuing you,” Greta replied, trying to keep the hurt out of her voice.

  “I didn’t need rescuing.”

  “Well, you obviously did!”

  “I’m quite fine with just my girls here.”

  “Div, I was scared!” Greta blurted out before she could stop herself.

  Div cocked her head. “Yes, that’s why you’ll never be as powerful a witch as I am. I don’t get scared.”

  “You guys are witches?”

  Cassie was still in the room. Greta had forgotten all about her.… They all had, in the urgency of the moment.

  “Actually—” Div began.

  “Praetereo,” Aysha interrupted.

  Cassie blinked. Her expression went blank.

  “Um… hey! Are you guys here for Dad’s party?”

  Mira hooked arms with Cassie and hustled her out of the library. “Yup! Colter invited us. I love your earrings! So, are you dating yet? The last time I saw you, you were crushing on someone named Dylan.”

  “Dylan? Ew!”

  Behind Greta, Div was speaking quietly with Binx and Aysha.

  “… and there’s a good chance she’s a witch, too.”

  “What?” said Binx.

  “How do you even know this?” Aysha asked.

  Div whispered a response as she led Aysha and Binx out of the library, but Greta couldn’t hear. She trailed behind, suddenly depressed, wondering when she had become the odd witch out.

  27

  WITCHES DON’T BELONG HERE

  Some believe that Witches want to take over the world with Magic. They are not entirely wrong.

  (FROM THE GOOD BOOK OF MAGIC AND MENTALISM BY CALLIXTA CROWE)

  Iris was having a strange dream.

  In the dream, she was walking through a forest—a forest of sycamores, pines, and willow trees. Long strands of silvery-green moss dripped down from above. Invisible birds called to her from the shadows, a cacophony of chirps and songs and cries.

  She thought it was daytime, but it was hard to be sure; the thick canopy of branches overhead let in only slivers of sunlight. Nervous and unsettled, she wrapped her hand around her smiley-face moonstone pendant. Calm and serenity washed over her.

  “Love and light,” she whispered. Greta’s phrase… and Callixta’s, too.

  Just then, a spotlight switched on. Had she done that? Would she get into trouble? Argh, maybe a detention. A beam like a stage light pierced through the half darkness and landed on a statue, illuminating it.

  No, not a statue.

  A living thing. A cat.

  Gofflesby.

  Greta’s familiar was sitting under a crape myrtle tr
ee in sphinx position, blinking against the bright, unnatural light. Iris hurried toward him. It was going to be okay, after all.

  “Nice kitty. Have you seen Greta?” she asked.

  “Elle est avec ma reine,” Gofflesby replied. She is with my queen.

  “Oh, okay. Huh. Where is this queen, then?”

  “Elle arrive bientôt.” She will arrive soon.

  “How soon? Who is she, anyway? What country is she from? Does she know Jadora or Amarantha? Or Ilyara and Draska from the Valkyrie Valley High Council? Why are you speaking French?”

  Gofflesby meowed, once, twice, three times. The purple blossoms on the crape myrtle tree turned yellow, then silver. A moment later, someone stepped out from behind the tree, shrouded in shadow. A girl. She wore a fancy black dress. A crow sat on her shoulder. Its eyes were milky and opaque, unseeing.

  She looked like…

  “Ridley?” Iris said, confused. “What are you doing here? It’s not a school day.”

  “Did you take the red pill or the blue pill, Iris?”

  “I think I took one of each. Is that your familiar?”

  “Yes. It’s blind. Do you like blind crows?”

  Just then, the crow began breaking up into pieces… feathers, bones, flesh. A macabre kaleidoscope of crow parts. Slowly, the pieces spun around and gathered together and re-formed into a thing, into a violin.

  Ridley bent down and picked up a long sycamore branch. She tucked the crow-violin under her chin and positioned the branch on top of the strings.

  “Écoutez.” Listen.

  She began to play, bowing back and forth with the branch. Iris closed her eyes and hummed along.

  The tune was eerie, familiar.… What was it?

  It was that piece by Schumann. Schubert. “Death and the Maiden.”

  “Why are you playing that?” Iris asked.

  “Because she’s dead.”

  “Yup. Uh-huh. I understand.”

  Ridley continued to play her violin. Iris watched and listened, mesmerized.

  There is so much I need to learn, she thought.

  Gofflesby was still sitting in his sphinx position under the crape myrtle tree. A crow, a different crow, flew down and landed on his back. Its glossy black feathers were flecked with red nail polish.

  “Sollst sanft in meinen Armen schlafen!” the crow sang. Softly shall you sleep in my arms.

  Gofflesby’s head swiveled, birdlike, and his emerald-green eyes fixed on some distant place in the forest. Iris turned to follow his gaze, but all she saw was a labyrinth of trees… and beyond the trees, a cave of darkness stretching endlessly into an infinity of sky and space.

  “There she is! Ta-da!” Ridley announced.

  “Who? Where?”

  An ethereal figure was wafting toward them through the cave of darkness. She wore a gold brocade dress with a high neck and long sleeves. An elaborate jeweled crown covered her head. She held a listless body across her outstretched arms. Green velvet cloak, long auburn hair. Was that Greta?

  “Greta! Finally! I found you!”

  Iris began running, running, toward Greta and the woman in gold, the queen. As she got closer, she could see that Greta was asleep in the queen’s arms.

  No, not asleep. Unconscious?

  “Greta?”

  Something was very wrong. With Greta. With this place. With everything.

  “This isn’t fun anymore!” Iris cried out. But no one was listening.

  Her chest heaved as she gasped for breath. She was hyperventilating, having a panic attack. She stopped running and reached for her smiley-face moonstone pendant, to calm herself, but it was gone.

  Fear coursed through her, and her brain felt scrambled, dizzy. The queen was standing in front of her now. She was beautiful, so beautiful. Greta’s face—no, actually, it was Penelope’s face—was sickly white. Her eyes were open, unblinking, staring vacantly up at the prison of tree branches.

  “No!”

  “It is her time,” the queen told Iris.

  “Her time for what?”

  “You know the answer. You’ve always known the answer. It is the fate of all crows.”

  The queen lowered Penelope gently, carefully onto the mossy ground. In the same instant, the earth opened up and engulfed Penelope’s body.

  Iris tried to scream. Instead, she began singing.

  “Sollst sanft in meinen Armen schlafen!”

  The earth closed up over Penelope, the dirt particles glinting red and gold and copper as they avalanched onto her lifeless form, covering it entirely. A hundred, a thousand, a million wildflowers shot up, blossoming frantically into a wild tapestry of colors.

  “Let us pray for the crows,” said the queen.

  She reached up and pulled something out from under her high collar. It was a pendant—Iris’s pendant. Except that the edges of the moon shape were changing, bending, curving. Soon, it became a heart.

  “I’ve lost my heart!” Iris cried out.

  “That is not your heart. It belonged to Penelope and Greta, but no more.”

  Gofflesby joined them, the crow still on his back. “Les sorcières n’appartiennent pas ici,” he and the crow said in unison.

  “Witches do not belong here,” the queen repeated.

  “Witches do not belong here,” Iris repeated, too.

  “Witches do not belong here!” Dozens—hundreds?—of angry-looking people holding signs and pitchforks came marching through the forest toward them. Some of the signs said 1415.

  It was over.

  They had won.

  The forest, the dreamscape, began to fade to black. At the last second before it faded, too, the crow whispered something to Iris.

  “You must find Margaret.”

  “Iris! Iris! Hey, doofus!”

  Iris bolted up. She was drenched in sweat, and her limbs were tangled up in a jumble of sheets, stuffed animals, and dirty laundry.

  “Greta!” she cried out.

  Nyala was standing over her, her hands on her hips. Her expression was a typical Nyala mash-up of annoyed and skeptical. “Wake up, it’s time for school. And why is Lolli with you? Stupid mouse, I am so replacing you with a new pet that’s loyal. Maybe an iguana!”

  Confused, Iris rubbed her eyes. She reached for her glasses, which were on her nightstand. Lolli was curled up on the pillow next to her, her whiskers twitching in sleep. Iris touched her head lightly; she sensed that her familiar was dreaming about her new spinning wheel. Also fruit salad.

  “Oh, and by the way, your friend’s here,” Nyala announced.

  “What friend?”

  “The one you just mentioned. Gretel.”

  “Greta?”

  “Yeah, her. I have no idea why she’s friends with you. She’s cool, you drool. You drool more than Mrs. Wendlebaum’s Saint Bernard.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m serious!”

  Iris got out of bed, jammed her feet into her fuzzy blue slippers, and rushed out of her room. “You’re welcome!” she heard Nyala yell behind her.

  “Close the door when you leave!” Iris yelled back. “Pleukiokus,” she added softly, to make sure that Lolli would stay safe.

  Heading down the stairs, Iris tried to shake off her dream fog and return to reality. (There’s my favorite bird on the wallpaper… there’s a sippy cup on the carpet… the house smells like muffins.) She wondered why Greta was here. Was it Penelope-slash-Antima business or some other kind of business? Or maybe Greta really did just want to walk to school together, maybe talk about makeup and boys and whatever else girl friends (not girlfriends, one word, but girl-space-friends, two words) talked about with each other. Not that Iris would know, since her only real friend back in New York had been Fareeda, and their conversations had been 90 percent about Witchworld and 10 percent about their shared hatred of school. Maybe not hatred so much, but a big old casserole of fear, anxiety, and boredom.

  Likely, Greta was here on Penelope-slash-Antima business. Iris already knew tha
t Div was safe and sound, because Greta had texted last night about the big rescue mission. So maybe Greta had new news to share? Like, maybe they’d caught Div’s attacker and solved the mystery of Penelope’s death and invented a super-spell to make all Antima love witches? Case closed?

  Or… was Greta’s surprise visit somehow related to Iris’s insane nightmare (or should it be morningmare)?

  Downstairs, Iris found Greta and Ephrem nestled side by side on the ancient brown corduroy couch; they were poring over Ephrem’s rain forest coloring book. Maxina and Oliver P. were both meatloafing on Greta’s lap—or Maxina was, anyway, being the petite, prissy creature that she was; Oliver P., who needed to lose at least ten pounds, was spilling over Greta’s right thigh like a massive wad of jelly, forcing her to nudge him back up with her elbow as she rooted through a shoe box full of crayons.

  “What do you think, Ephrem? Should our macaw be blue or yellow?”

  “Blue and yellow. And red and orange and green and blue.” Giggling, Ephrem pulled off one dinosaur-print sock and threw it across the room.

  “Perfect. Yellow, red, orange, green, and double blue.” Greta glanced up. “Hi, Iris!”

  “Are you okay?” Iris demanded.

  “Yes, I’m fine. Are you okay?”

  “How about Gofflesby?”

  “His breathing problem seems to be totally gone, and he hasn’t… he’s been acting totally normal.”

  “Oh, whew.” So the morningmare hadn’t meant Greta was in trouble. Or Gofflesby, either.

  “I like your pj’s,” Greta said.

  Iris glanced down. Argh. She was still wearing her flannel SpongeBob pajama top and sweatpants. The pajama top had a blobby strawberry jam stain across the front and a ripped sleeve from when she’d accidentally slid down the ladder of Ephrem’s bunk bed during action-hero hide-and-seek. The sweatpants had holes in the knees.

  “I’m a mess!”

  “No, you look cute.” Greta leaned over the coloring book. She shaded in the rain forest bird’s feathers with a sky-blue crayon, holding it sideways instead of point down, then added on a layer of sunflower yellow. Her long, long hair splayed across the page; she swept it back over her shoulder. Iris’s heart skipped a beat. Greta was so pretty, like a figure from a Rembrandt painting.