by Amy Boyles
I closed my eyes. The world crashed down on me as one of the biggest mistakes I’d ever made surfaced.
“Pepper?” Sherman prodded.
I opened my eyes and swallowed a hard knot in my throat. “Houston, we have a problem.”
Chapter 20
“You did what with it?” Sherman asked.
“Um. I threw it away.” I cringed. “It wasn’t the right thing to do; I know that now, obviously. But at the time, how was I supposed to know the dream catcher was the object we needed? I thought it was the crow.”
Amelia shrugged. “She has a point.”
Sherman raked his fingers through his hair. “Okay. Then we just have to find out where the trash goes after it’s picked up.”
“Pretty sure it goes to the dump,” Cordelia said.
I grimaced. “Isn’t there an in-between place? Like, maybe they tag all the bags with the household’s address and put them somewhere before they send them to a huge mountain of trash?”
It was silly and wishful thinking, I knew that. But come on, I didn’t actually want to come face-to-face with a dump. The smell alone would make me vomit, not to mention the…well, I think the smell would be the worst part.
But as my family stared at me, I gave up. “Okay, let’s go visit the Magnolia Cove dump. This should be awesome.”
Turned out, the dump was located on the other side of the Cobweb Forest. A side I’d never had the pleasure of visiting.
Two iron gates squeaked open when we arrived. If it weren’t for the words City Waste written at the top, I never would’ve guessed where we were.
The area simply looked like a barren stretch of land that had been forgotten. Brown dust whirled around as the wind kicked it up. We quickly spotted a man in a blue jumpsuit holding a clipboard.
His clothes were dirty, his fingernails stained brown. He rolled a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth, and I realized I wasn’t sure if his fingers were stained from the tobacco or from working at the dump.
I figured it was a fifty-fifty chance either way.
“Hey, y’all,” he said in a thick Southern drawl. “How’s it going?”
Sherman took the lead. Amelia stared at him, pride filling her eyes. I couldn’t help but to smile at myself. I loved that they were so into each other.
It was awesome.
“We need to find something that was picked up in the trash from Magnolia Cove yesterday,” Sherman said.
The man scratched his chin in thought. “Well, if you want to find something from yesterday, at this point it’ll be in the big hole.”
“Big hole?” I asked.
“Yep,” he said. “Over yonder’s a big sinkhole. That there sinkhole is where the Magnolia Cove trash goes, mainly because you never can tell if someone’s throwing away a magical object.”
He squinted one brown eye at me. “You wouldn’t be looking for a magical object, now would you?”
“It’s up for debate,” Sherman said.
“Well, that hole’s the place to find it,” the man said. “You just keep going straight until you come to the first hill, and then you take a left. You’ll find what you’re looking for.”
“Thank you,” Sherman said.
We started to walk away, but the man’s voice stopped us. “Be careful,” he warned.
The hair at the base of my neck rose. “Careful? Why?”
“Well, cause the sinkhole itself is magical. Things get tossed in. They hardly ever come out.” He tipped his baseball cap. “But the other thing is, sometimes people are drawn to it.”
“Drawn to a hole filled with trash,” Cordelia said, her voice thick with disbelief.
“Yep,” he confirmed. “Sometimes they are. You’ll see. Just be careful. And good luck.”
As we walked off, I did my best to get rid of the creepy feeling washing over me. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to be called by a sinkhole that was more siren than sinkhole.
Sirens—you know, the women who, according to mythology, would lure sailors to their deaths? Yep, that’s what old dumpster guy was basically suggesting this sinkhole would be like.
To be honest, the whole idea gave me the willies. And not the good kind.
Is there a good kind of willies? No. There is not. There are no good willies. Only the bad.
We found the first hill easily enough, and the hole was just a little ways away.
“I’m nervous,” Amelia admitted.
Sherman hugged her shoulder. “It’s going to be fine. We’ll do a homing spell, see if we can locate the dream catcher and help it rise to the surface.”
“How’re we going to do that?” Cordelia asked.
Sherman picked up a small branch that had blown to his feet. Then he pulled a string from his pocket. He chanted a few words, and a second later the branch had become a rod and the string, a reel.
The entire contraption was a brand-spanking-new fishing pole.
“That is cool,” I said. “So cool! Wow, Sherman, you’ve really come a long way as a wizard.”
Red dotted his cheeks. “Thank you. Becoming head of the Order helped. I’ve had a lot of tutoring over the past few months.”
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s find this sinkhole.”
You couldn’t miss it. Seriously. Not in a million years. The sinkhole sat squarely in the middle of a barren stretch of land.
I might have fallen directly into it if it hadn’t been for the trash tornadoing above it. Newspapers, baby bottles, paper cups—all sorts of debris formed a whirlwind above the gaping hole.
“I think this is it,” Sherman said.
“Looks like it.” I swallowed a knot in my throat. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
Sherman flared his arms. “Y’all be careful. Remember what the man said. If anyone feels funny, like you’re about to launch yourself into the hole, say something. Okay? I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”
We each murmured agreement, and then we slowly stepped forward.
Y’all, the hole smelled. Like, I don’t even think a Christmas-scented Yankee Candle could’ve covered up the nasty stench of the trash.
But I wished I’d had a candle to stick up my nose. Seriously. The whole thing was rank.
I slowly edged toward the rim of the hole. The wind blew my hair from my neck. My clothes fluttered, and it took just about all my strength to keep my eyelids open.
I shielded a hand over my eyes and stared into the abyss. Not surprisingly, I expected to see a thousand garbage bags, but there was nothing, simply a bottomless pit that churned.
“Where is everything?” I yelled.
“Where we can’t see it,” Sherman called. He glanced at us. “Everyone doing okay?”
We each gave him a thumbs-up.
“Okay,” he shouted. “I’m going to do some fishing. Pepper, I need you to focus on the dream catcher. It belongs to you, so it may come. This is going to take all your concentration. Don’t get distracted.”
“Okay,” I said.
Sherman held the fishing pole. “Ready?”
I nodded.
Sherman threw back his arm. The line careened up and behind us. With a quick wrist flick, the silk sailed forward and plunged into the abyss.
Because that’s really what it was, a huge trash abyss.
I leaned over. The line had disappeared into the darkness.
“Pepper, you’re on,” Sherman yelled.
I fisted my hands and focused on the dream catcher, calling it with my mind. Thoughts invaded me, thoughts that maybe the dream catcher was bad, that it was no good, that it was better off lost than found.
It was true, but I did my best to shove all of that aside. I zeroed in on the object and willed it to return. Willed it to come back with every ounce of desire and want I had in my body. From my head to my toes my body tightened, twisted, as I wished to hold the dream catcher again in my arms. I prayed it would return to me, that we would be reunited so I could end this nightmare.
“I think I’ve
got something,” Sherman called.
My eyes popped open. I stared at him, hopeful, pleading with God that the dream catcher would wind up on the end of that line.
I shot glances to Amelia and Cordelia. They looked exactly how I felt. Fear and hope mingled together and filled their faces. We were all hopeful; we were all fearful. And we were all praying this would work.
“Here it comes,” Sherman called.
I held my breath as the wizard gave the pole a good hard yank. Something sailed up into the sky and plopped down at his feet.
I exhaled my breath.
A hairbrush. An old used hairbrush was hooked on the end of the line.
Sherman unhooked it and threw the line back out. “Let’s try this again.”
We stayed for I don’t know how long—an hour? Maybe two. Cast after cast was successful, but not one throw retrieved the dream catcher.
I don’t know when we collectively decided we wouldn’t be able to bring back what we’d came for, but eventually we reached a unanimous decision.
“It’s not coming,” I said.
“We might as well give up,” Amelia added. “If it hasn’t shown itself by now, it’s not going to.”
Sherman glanced at Cordelia. She nodded. “I agree. As much as I’d love to stay here all night, I don’t think it’s going to change anything. The dream catcher would’ve shown itself by now.”
“You sure you threw it in the trash?” Sherman asked me.
I nodded sadly. “I did. I bagged it up and threw it away.” I fisted my hands and crushed them to my temples. “It was stupid, I know. But I didn’t see the object for what it was.”
Amelia patted my shoulder. “You weren’t supposed to. Misery wouldn’t have been so sloppy as to make it obvious that the dream catcher was evil. No way.”
“I agree.” Kindness filled Sherman’s voice. “She’s too smart a witch for that. You were taken advantage of. Don’t blame yourself.”
Then why was it so hard not to? But blaming myself and wallowing in sadness wasn’t going to help anybody, least of all the town of Magnolia Cove.
If I was going to right this, which I had to do, we needed a concrete plan. Something that would change the course of the nightmares for good.
“Let’s get home,” I said. “See what Betty and Axel accomplished.”
“Yeah.” Amelia shot me a hopeful smile. “Maybe they were able to get Misery to call the whole thing off. That’s probably why we didn’t snag the dream catcher—because this whole nightmare, pardon my pun, is over with.”
I laughed half-heartedly at her joke. “Maybe so.”
We packed up the fishing rod and headed out of the dump. I can’t lie and say I was happy to stay. I had a feeling the stench clung to every pore in my body. As soon as we were home, I was going to take a shower and burn my clothes.
No way would I ever put them on again.
I had a feeling the town would thank me for that decision.
When we reached the house, Betty and Axel were still gone. My cousins and I took the opportunity to shower and change. We let Sherman use Betty’s bathroom so that he could freshen up.
I hoped Betty didn’t kill us for that, though I had the feeling if and when she found out, she wouldn’t be too thrilled about it.
By the time I was cleaned up, everyone else was already downstairs.
“Any news from Betty?” I asked.
My cousins shook their heads. I was about to suggest we call her when the door flew open.
Betty, Axel and Garrick stood in the frame. Excitement—or was that fear—burned in their eyes.
I reached for Axel. “Are y’all okay?”
He slowly followed me as if trying to shake off a spell. “Well, it seems we’ve got some good news and bad news.”
I searched his face to see if he was joking, but his blue eyes had turned dark, which meant something seriously bothered him.
Panic fluttered into my throat. I pushed it down. It wouldn’t do us any good for me to freak out.
“Okay,” I said calmly. “Y’all come in and tell us all about it.”
The three of them—Betty, Garrick and Axel—stood in the living room, somber expressions on their faces.
“Well,” Betty started, putting her fists on her hips, “the good news is we were able to get to Misery’s mountaintop haven.”
I nearly clapped for joy. “That’s great!” But their drawn faces stopped my celebration. “Okay,” I said. “What’s the bad news?”
Axel stepped forward. His eyes narrowed to slits of intensity. “The bad news is that Misery wasn’t there.”
My blood froze in my veins. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. “And?” I was afraid to ask. “What do y’all think that means?”
Garrick tucked his thumbs into his belt. “We think it means she’s left and is here, in Magnolia Cove, hiding out.”
I swallowed a knot in my throat. “So she’s stalking us? Waiting for our nightmares to destroy us?”
Axel scrubbed a hand down his chin. “I’m afraid so.”
Chapter 21
So that’s where we were—with Misery on the loose. Garrick had left a handful of deputies to watch the witch’s home, but I had my doubts she would return.
No, Misery wanted to see the terrible destruction she’d cast on Magnolia Cove.
“And the bird?” I asked Betty.
She clapped her hands, and the crow appeared in its gilded cage. I stared at the creature. It seemed so harmless, yet the black eyes glared at me harshly.
I was afraid if I stuck my hand through the bars, that the bird would peck me.
“So what do we do now?” I said.
“We look for her,” Betty answered.
Amelia raised her arms in frustration. “Misery could be dressed as anybody. She could look like anybody.”
Betty poked the air. “Which is why we need to go door-to-door and let everyone know what’s going on.”
“Wouldn’t an assembly work better?” I suggested. “I mean, you know, if we tell everyone at once, then it’s all out in the open.”
Betty narrowed her eyes and studied me. “But if we’re all together, she could attack the entire town when we’re not looking.”
“But we’re all witches,” I argued. “Surely Misery can’t fight us all? With that much manpower, we’d be able to stop her. Don’t you think?”
“Unless,” Betty said mysteriously, “she raises an army of zombies. Then we’ll be so busy fighting zombies we won’t have time to stop her from committing a worse spell.”
I rolled my eyes. “What makes you think she would raise an army of zombies?”
“Because someone could’ve dreamed it.”
“Did you dream it?” I accused.
Betty moved to the fire, uncapped a bottle of oil and dropped some in the hot cauldron. “No. But that doesn’t mean someone else didn’t.”
I looked to Axel for help.
He nodded to Garrick. “We agreed it was the best way. We’re going door-to-door, asking people to spread the word.”
I shrugged. “Okay. I’ll take a stack of flyers, if you’ve got some.”
“Coming right up!” Betty placed a finger over one nostril. A line of magic zipped from her nose and splashed into the cauldron. Suddenly a stack of papers flew from the pot. They surged around the room in a great flutter that reminded me of wings before landing in a pile on a table.
Amelia pointed to Sherman. “We’re a pair.”
We divided the papers and decided who would hit what areas.
“Pepper,” Betty said, “you’re with me.” That surprised me. I figured she would let me go with Axel. “Axel, you’re with Grumpy.”
The creature was outside. Without any argument, Axel took his stack. He did give me a quick kiss on the cheek before we separated.
“Catch up to me tonight,” he said. “I want to talk to you.” He stroked my hand. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
I smiled. �
�It hasn’t been that long.”
“A moment away from you feels like a lifetime.”
My heart was full. I smiled widely at him. “You know just what to say to a girl.”
“Only you.” He tapped my forehead. “And that’s because you are you.”
I gave him a quick hug and joined Betty, who was already outside pacing up and down the sidewalk.
“We’ve got a lot of houses to hit, kid. Quit you’re dillydallying.”
I looked around in confusion. “I didn’t realize I was. I only said goodbye to Axel.”
“That goodbye could’ve cost us precious time. We’ve got to stay ahead of Misery.”
I scoffed. “Right. Because we’ve been so good at that already.”
Betty glowered. “I’ve been trying to stay ahead.”
I gestured as I spoke. My hands waved in the air, almost a bit wildly, I’ll admit it. I think it was more out of frustration than anything else.
“We’ve been playing catch-up,” I said. “Let’s face facts. That witch has had us by the wrists this whole time, and now she’s going to sit on top of some tree and watch as Axel turns into a werewolf on a night when there’s not a full moon and attack me. But somehow I’ll end up at a cabin with you, and like in a B-rated horror movie, my cousins and I will disappear one by one. And oh, wait, that’s not all—Rufus Mayes is going to try to take control of town. Because that’s not utterly predictable.”
Betty sniffed. “Well, he hasn’t done it for a while.”
I shot her a dark look.
“And maybe he won’t again,” she said. “I hope not. Gosh darn it, that’s what we’re trying to stop here, don’t you know? We’re trying to keep Misery from getting her claws on this town and destroying it, or turning us against each other. I’m trying to stop that, too. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. All I want is for us to work together and end this.”
A pang of guilt hit me. Here I was complaining and Betty was doing what she knew best—trying to help this town.
“Don’t you think I blame myself?” Betty said. “I’m the one who told you that Misery wasn’t a threat.” She rubbed her chin. “All I can tell you is that someone has been very busy on that mountaintop. Very busy.”
