Legacy (20 page)

The donkey set up a non-stop bray and kicked the fence over and over again.

"No way!" Felicity said. "Greg has more sense than to
fall for
a hateful person like Lindy.
He'd have to be an idiot not to
see through that
fake act she puts on when she's around him. Everyone knows how mean she is."

Kelli nodded. "Yeah, nobody likes her except for those two losers who trail around after her and do everything she says. The Lindy-C
lones. Mean, meaner and meanest."

The girls all laughed, but the donkey continued its tirade and the goose joined in, sq
uawking and flapping its wings.

"That crazy animal is going to ki
ck the fence down," Kelli said.

"Maybe it's in pain," Mercy said. "Maybe there's something wrong with it."

Felicity
shrugged. "Yeah, it's crazy."

"No, seriously, I'm going to see." Mercy climbed to her feet and gazed at the irritable animal uncertainly. Its ears were back and it wore
a most disagreeable expression.

"I swear, it sounds like Lindy's laugh
,
"
Kelli said.
She demonstrated, giving a long series of
donkey-like
guffaws that sounded suspiciously close to Lindy's laughter
.

By this time, the donkey appeared to be furious. It reared on its back le
g
s and
put its front hooves on the top of the fence, all the while braying like mad.

A squeamish sensation warned
Mercy
to be careful, but she
took a few steps closer to the animals
anyway
.

"There is definitely something wrong with that donkey, Mercy. But I think you better stay away from it. It might bite you, or something
,
"
Felicity said.

Kelli made a scoffing noise. "Donkeys don't bite."

"They have teeth, don't they
?”
Felicity countered.

Mercy was aware of her friends bickering, but something seemed to draw her toward the animals. Just as she was within a few feet of the fence, she heard Feli
city squeal and whirled around.

"Oh, my God!" Felicity was pointing toward the lake. She and Kelli were on their feet, so Mercy ran to see what had them so
excited
.

Felicity had both hands over her mouth
and her skin had gone ashen
.

Kelli pointed to something
in the mud close to the water.

"Don't touch it!" Felicity warned.

"What is it?" Mercy asked when she got near enough to see. The girls were clustered around something
gleaming
just at the edge of the lake. Her heart nearly stopped when she got close enough to identify the shiny silver object. It was Lindy's charm bracelet
half buried in the mud
.

"Lindy would never go anywhere without that." Kelli reached
in her pocket and drew out her cell phone. "I'm calling the sheriff's office."

Mercy's stomach squeezed with fear.
What if someone really kidnapped them? What if they're dead?
She felt a pang of remorse for all the anger and resentment she had held for so long. Now al
l she felt were fear and dread.

Within a few minutes they heard the scream of sirens. The sirens grew louder and they saw flashing lights as three patrol cars from the
s
heriff's
d
epartment pulled into the
field, Sheriff
Ringold sprang from the first car as fast as a man of his
size
could manage. He ran to where the girls
stood, his hand on his weapon.

"Where are the bodies?" he demanded.

"Bodies?" Kelli frowned at him. "I didn't say we found any bodies. I called in to report that we found Lindy Boyd's charm bracelet by the edge of the lake. If there are bodies,
we didn't
find them."

The Sheriff glowered down on her. And then his gaze shifted to Mercy. "You!" His pronouncement made her shrink within herself. "How are you involved in this?"

She moistened her lips. "I was just here."

Felicity raised her hand, like a little girl in class. "It was me. I saw it first."

"Yeah," Kelli added. "And when she about fell over, I came runnin
g up to see what it was."

His gaze shifted between the two girls and then back to Mercy. "And just where were you, young lady, while these two were finding the victim's bracelet?"

"Me? I was over there." She pointed to the fence.

"By that stupid-looking jackass?" His brows drew together in disbelief. "Are you interested in jackasses?"

"No, but...It was being very loud and I thought it might be hurt or something." She felt his bulging frog eyes boring into her.

He turned his gaze on the donkey. "It's not making any noise now. Are you sure about your statement?"

Felicia and Kelli
began speaking at once, both assuring him that the donkey
had been
making a lot of noise.

"Have you girls contaminated the crime scene?"

They exchanged glances and shook their heads.

"We didn't touch anything. I called you straightaway, Kelli said.

With one of his monstrous huge paws, h
e motioned for the
girls
to step back
, while with the other, he
gestured for one of the deputies to come
forward. The
s
heriff
ordered hi
s man
to gather the evidence. The deputy pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and used a long pair of tweezers to pick up the bracelet and place it in a plastic bag. The
s
heriff told him to
rush
it to the crime lab in a nearby city. The young deputy returned to his vehicle and climbed inside. He backed up to the road and took off again with his siren blaring.

The
s
heriff turned back to the girls. "You young ladies go on home now. I'll be talking to you again after we
finish gathering evidence
."

A shiver coiled down Mercy's spine. She clasped her arms around herself. Although it was a warm and sunny day, the sheriff's words chilled her.
They're dead. They're really dead
. She regretted all the less than kindly feelings she had held about them, although she had to acknowledge that Lindy was the major bully while Becca and Amy were her toadies. She had wished them gone, not dead.
She had wanted them to stop making her life miserable. And now they were dead.

She helped Felicity fold her blanket and they gathered their trash to recycle. Mercy took one last look over her shoulder to where the
s
heriff and his men were combing the area looking for more evidence. She followed behind Kelli and Felicity, walking her bike toward the narrow road. The donkey brayed again, as though imploring them to come back. It no longer looked angry
,
but rather appeared to be frightened. "You'll be okay. Go on home to the farmer and he'll feed you."

She threw her leg over her bike and pedaled after
Kelli
and Felicity, dropping off when she reached her house. She replaced her bike under the car
port and ran inside the house.

"Gran! Gran!" Then she remembered to light the
purple
candle. That seemed to help Gran to appear. The fragrance was appealing, although she was beginning to associate it with her grandmother's absence. Mercy swiped her hand over the mirror's surface. "C'mon, Gran. Where are you?"

"Did it ever occur to you that Lavinia might be busy?" Alastair asked. "She might not always be at your beck and call."

"But she said she could always hear me." Mercy heard the whine in her own voice. She hated that. Drawing a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she squared her shoulders. "Yes, I suppose you're right. She might be tied up in something. I...I'll just do
my homework and wait for her."

She tried to concentrate, but found her mind wandering. She kept picturing Lindy’s bracelet, half-buried in the mud. What if Felicity hadn’t spotted it?

She finished her homework and stuffed it in her book bag. Then she checked the mirror again, but there was no si
gn of Gran.

With a flash of determination, she decided to see if there had been any progress on the
s
heriff’s investigation. She stifled a shudder when she wondered if he had
found the girls...or what was left of them
.
I have to know for sure
.

She
shrugg
ed
int
o a sweater and went out to the carport. She mounted her bike and pulled out onto the roadway.
Surely I can just take a peek
. She retraced the route she had traveled that afternoon with her two best friends, only it was somewhat sinister at night. There were no cars out this late. All the townspeople appeared to be tucked into their snug homes…Everyone except Mercy. She supposed this was what witches did…poke around in the dead of night doing witchy business.
Stirring
their
cauldron
s
…turning people into toads…
An image of t
he
s
heriff’s face burst into h
er brain…
Toads indeed!

When she turned onto the dirt road leading to the lake, she could see the area cordoned off ahead. Bright lights had been set up to
illuminate
the
section where the bracelet had been found
.

She
left her bike resting on its kickstand and crept a little closer. A
boat on the water slowly troll
ed
back and forth. A shiver wracked her body when she realized the officers on the boat were
search
ing for bodies in the water.
The image of lifeless forms being dragged from the belly of the lake filled her brain and roiled her stomach.

She stepped back into the darkness and fell back into the ditch. A surprised yelp escaped when she landed among the soft, grasses. A vision of snakes and other slimy things rose up to terrify her. She scrambled to her knees and groped her way to the road again. Her foot struck something solid.
She reached down to find something smooth and shaped like a big metal ball or a half ball. As she turned it over she discovered it was Gran’s
graniteware
egg bowl.

A rush of joy and fear washed through her. She was thrilled to find where she had banished it to, and somewhat fearful recalling Darynda’s words
. "Wherever you banished the bowl to, that's where you'll find the others."

“But where?” she said aloud. “It’s just me and that dumb old donkey…and…and…”
She fell back onto her rear, clutching her grandmother’s egg
bowl. “Oh, noooo…” she wailed.

Suddenly the truth came flooding
into
her consciousness. It was right there in front of her all along, plain as day.
Plain as the nose on my face
…Plain as the donkey braying out insults just as Lindy had when she was a girl. Plain as the goose, squawking up a storm, just as Becca had in her human form…And poor little Amy, clucking along as a
complete chicken in real life.

What have I done?
Some sort of combination transformation and banishing spell had converted three mean girls into equally annoying
farm
animals.
Oh, my
…

Mercy climbed on her bike and pedaled home as fast as she coul
d, clutching the egg bowl.

~*~

CHAPTER TEN

Mercy was digging in her locker when Greg came up behind her. "Hey!" he greeted her and she jumped. "Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."
He placed his hand over the one she
had
gripp
ing
the metal door.

She tried to control the
flutter in her chest. She thought it was because he startled her...Maybe not.

She smiled and tried to act normal.
As normal as any other young witch-in-training who just discovered she had changed her three sworn enemies into animals. Yeah. Like that.

"Hi, Greg
.
"
Her voice came out a whisper.

”Hi," he dropped his voice to her level. "You didn't forget about our date tonight, did you?"