A Charming Cure (19 page)

Meowl, meowl.

Mr. Prince Charming ran as fast as he
could toward the Dark-Sider’s part of town, disappearing into the woods. I ran
after him, as I felt Gus teleporting past me.

“The good Dark-Sider has to win,” His
whispers were heard in the wind. “She has to save her sister.”

I had to get to Raven. All this time she
had been trying to save her sister.

Sigh.
I inhaled as my intuition
started to kick in. “Welcome back,” I whispered.

“Yeah, welcome back,” sarcasm dripped in
his voice.

“I wasn’t talking about me coming back
here. My intuition seems to be back.” I stopped just inside of the Dark-Siders
territory. “Are you coming?”

“I can’t.” And he was gone.

There was no time to wait. Whispering
Falls was dying by the second, all because of Hili. If Raven and I could join
forces, maybe we had a shot at bringing the spiritualist world back.

Steam rolled out of Raven’s tree-house
windows. Unlike the last time I was here. My calves ached as I ran up the
stairs as fast as I could. The door was wide open, and Raven was frantically
stirring the cauldron with a long oar. Her long black hair was no longer lush.
It had fallen in strings, swinging back and forth with each circle she created
in the boiling potion.

The overwhelming smell of pinecones shot
up my nose, making me gasp for air.

“What are you doing here?” She ground
the words between her teeth. She was seething mad. Her tamed black straight
hair was mussed up. Her dark eyes were set back in the deep black circles that
formed around her eye sockets. “I can do this without your help.”

“No you can’t.” I walked in and took the
Magical Cures book from my purse. I held it up. “We can put our spiritual gifts
together and bring Faith back.”

“You fool!” She whipped around; her icy
fingers taking hold of my forearm. “It’s not Faith I’m worried about. It’s us.
The entire world will be destroyed if Hili has anything to do with it. Faith
knew it was Hili. She was willing to sacrifice her life for me to save our
family, our spiritualist community.”

“Like a spiritualist martyr?” If only my
intuition had worked while I was at University from the get-go, maybe this
whole situation could’ve been stopped.

Raven slowly nodded without looking at
me.

Without hesitation, I concentrated on
the book looking for any and all cures that would help reverse the spell that
Hili had cast on Faith. I had never reversed a potion, much less a cast.

“There is something that I’m missing and
I don’t know what.” Raven’s lack of sleep was beginning to show on her pale
skin. She was beginning to look like Faith. “If Hili comes up with a potion or
spell that will kill Faith, she will win and destroy us. Of course I want my
sister back, but stopping Hili will help us win the war.”

“I don’t understand.” There were so many
things that didn’t add up.

Raven viciously stirred the cauldron,
her hair swooshing from side-to-side. “When Faith figured out that Hili was
really a Dark-Sider, she started to talk about the Ultimate Spell. Hili was
unable to really talk about it because Dark-Siders don’t know the spell.
I
don’t know the spell.” She threw in a dash of Eyebright. The elixir turned
amethyst with copper accretions on the side. The pinecone smell turned to the
aroma of coffee. The moving liquid glowed, and then turned to brown.

The Magical Cures Book opened to a page
on its own. I stepped back, realizing this was a new power I had. I didn’t know
anything about Telekinesis, but I was going to use everything I could.

I concentrated on Faith lying in the
bed. My intuition told me to really focus on the fingernails and her lungs that
I had already brought back to life.

“Where is Hili?” I asked. Swiftly the
turning pages created a wind, blowing my bangs back.

“I don’t know.” Raven didn’t stop. She
no longer stirred in nice, neat circle. She used the oar erratically, causing
the potion to tumble over the sides. “I cast a spell around the perimeter of
the Dark-Siders village that won’t allow Teletransporter’s to enter.”

No wonder Gus couldn’t come.

“Wait.” I put my hand in the air. “Hili
is a Teletransporter?”

“Yes, among other things.” Raven let go
of the oar, but the oar continued to rotate. Sweat was pouring down her face.
“I’m just in my first year of University. I have no idea what I’m doing. Hili
has taken over the entire campus.”

“I think I know where I can find her.” I
looked down when the Magical Cures Book stopped. “Here, this is what you need
to add. You need to help your sister.”

“Thank you, June.” Raven slumped into my
arms, giving a gentle squeeze. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to find Hili.”

I left as quickly as I had come. Mr.
Prince Charming darted ahead of me to make sure the coast was clear. The street
was still empty and the grey cloud was looming closer. Magic hung in the air,
and it wasn’t a good form of magic.

The cottage dorm was dark and the door
was pushed open. Little puffs of smoke wafted from the light fixtures as if
someone had burned them. Mr. Prince Charming and I climbed the stairs.

The framed, retired professors’ eyes all
smoldered with fire.

Hiss, hiss.
Mr. Prince
Charming arched his back at the top of the stairs. His body turned toward the
hallway. Our hallway. Faith’s, Hili’s and mine.

The door to Hili’s room was wide open.
All the photographs on her wall flickered in the light of the lit candles. I
remember exactly what she said to me the first day I stepped in her room and
looked at those pictures.

“That’s
my daddy. He wants me to be really successful in school.”

I had a feeling her daddy didn’t want
her to be notoriously successful as the Jeffery Dahmer of the Spiritual world.

A shadow cast down the wall, catching my
attention, I jumped, turning around.

“I wondered how long it was going to
take you to come back.” Hili was no longer dressed in her cute little Capri’s
and matching tops. She was wearing a black cape with a pointy collar. She had
dyed her blond hair coal black. She peeled off the long black gloves,
finger-by-finger. “What? Never seen a dark witch before? Oh honey, my little
princess act was just that. An act!”

Slowly I backed up and found the wall
behind me.

“It took everything I had not to dive
into your delicious little Oscar.” A thunderous laugh left her body. “I don’t
have time for a wannabe sorcerer. You should’ve seen his little wand.
Pit.I.Ful.”

There was a desire in her eyes, as she
looked me up and down. I stood, waiting for my intuition to kick in.

Please don’t fail me now.

“Umm…June, you shouldn’t leave a man
like that alone in this big bad spiritual world.” She walked past me and
abruptly turned back around. “Any girl would gobble him up. Including me.”

She opened the door that I had tried to
open when I first visited her room. What a fool I was.
Some intuition I had
.

The room was filled with shelves of
potion bottles, and a big cauldron sat in the middle. UnHidden Hall Chronicles
were stacked in the corner.

I remembered how she stopped me from
opening the door because she was “
too embarrassed for you to see my messy
closet.”

“What? You think that I was going to let
you in on my little secret just because you are the Dean’s niece?” She scoffed.
“You are no threat to me. You are old. Your man on the other hand is just my
type. So mark my words, when I do away with all of you, I’ll go back and get
him for myself.” An evil grin crossed her lips, exposing her pointy eyeteeth.
“Honey, we young girls love older men.”

She pulled out an ingredient from
underneath her cloak and dropped it in the boiling cauldron, sending the calm
potion into a fury. Sparks flew everywhere.

“What was that?” Anger boiled in me, but
I had to keep my calm. Hili was on the edge and she was completely insane.

Laughing, she walked back with her
fingers outstretched, pushing me down onto the couch. Suddenly her eyes held an
eager evilness. Something I had never seen before. Something that frightened me
to my core.

“It’s time to do away with you June
Heal, and all of Hidden Hall. Any last requests?”

“Why? Why are you doing this? Why did
you hurt Faith?”

“Those are easy questions to answer.”
She drummed her fingers together while she paced back and forth in front of me.
“I was only curious to find out what the Ultimate Spell was made of, so I
pretended to be a Good-Sider. That was when Little Miss Prissy Pants started to
dig around.”

As she turned to back, my eyes darted
around the room looking for anything to hit her over the head with and knock
her out. Somehow, I had to get her tied up. Just like she had done Eloise.

Why? Why couldn’t I have any cool
magical abilities? Like turning her into a beetle so I could step on her and
squish her.
There
was no sense in asking such fruitless questions now.

Hili continued, waving her hands in the
air as sparks flew from her fingertips. I ducked; making sure none of them hit
me. Her voice escalated, “I warned her not to come clean with any of it, but
she refused. She gave me what she called ‘time to change,’ but there was no
changing. I sick and tired of being on the wrong side.” She tilted her head
from side-to-side and rolled her eyes. “Change? She or you have no idea what
it’s like to be an outcast among your peers all of your life. I’m going to make
a change when I have the Ultimate Spell in my hands. The Dark-Siders will rule
the world!”

Her words stung. I concentrated on the
pictures of her family hanging on the wall.
Was this the success your father
wanted?
I wanted to ask, but kept my mouth shut. Time. I needed to buy some
more time to figure something out.

“What spell did you cast to put her in a
deep sleeping coma?” This was one thing I couldn’t figure out.

“No, no, no.” She took the ripped out
page from the Mortimer file off her desk and threw it at me. I quickly glanced
down at it:

Remember that Faith has very special
powers. She made the Ultimate Spell at the age of three without ever touching
on her spiritual gifts. And it could be very dangerous if anyone knew about
this.

Please, Faith is extremely allergic to
Rosemary Pea and it can kill her. Some potions call for it, but unfortunately
her love of pine cones overshadow her innate ability Faith has to know the
ingredient is in the potion.

As for Raven, she is a sweet Dark-Sider.
Her mother and I have learned everything we can about the Dark-Sider community.
Raven has attended the prestigious Pitch-Black Academy. She’s completely aware
of her amazing powers of having some Good-Sider traits.

We’d appreciate it if you could keep it
quiet that Faith and Raven are sisters. This is due to the fact that they want
to set their own ways in life. They had decided at an early age to respect each
other’s lot in life.

She snatched the note from my
fingertips.

“I don’t care about Raven. She’s
nothing. But I care about the Ultimate Spell and taking over the spiritual
world.” She neatly folded the page and stuck it on the desk. Her eyes were
hooded like a hawk. “You have no idea what I’m going to do when I rule the
world.”

“That’s the problem. If you try to do
the spell, you will destroy the spiritual world, not just the one you live in.”
The words left my mouth, as I searched my mind for any intuitive inkling left
in my body. I was fresh out of intuitive notions. Maybe some quick talking
common sense would kick in.

“Unfortunately for you, I’m willing to
take that chance.” Her brows drew together in an angry frown. “I’m a very quick
Teletransporter. Since Faith was allergic to the Rosary Pea, I quickly slipped
in the ladle after she pushed you aside like a mutt during Intuition Class when
your ever-so-wonderful Eloise offered you the sleeping potion. Just like I
added a little Rosemary Pea to Eloise’s cleaner.”

Hili moved around the room in swift
motions. Never once did I take my eyes off her.

“It really is a shame, for a moment I
really did believe that you and I could be friends.”

“Yeah, well this little stunt proves we
can’t.” I made the crazy sign with my finger.

“Oh shut up!” She bent down and pressed
her pointy little nose to my nose. “You are nothing but a little psychic.”

She straightened up and pranced to the
other side of the room.

“My daddy always said I was going to
leave a mark on this world.” She brushed her hand along the picture of the two
them framed on her wall that I had been concentrating on.

“How did Eloise fit into your grand
scheme of things?” There had to be some way to outwit her. A white flash caught
my attention. Without moving my head, I looked out of the corner of my eye. Mr.
Prince Charming was doing figure eights around someone that I couldn’t see.