Putting on the Witch (24 page)

A cup of coffee crashed to the tile floor, spilling brown liquid all over the blue tile.

“Molly! When did you get back?” Joe's startled tone greeted me.

“I don't know.” I looked around the room and down at myself. “I mean, I just wished to be home and here I am.”

“Are you saying you can wish things to come true and it happens now?”

“I'm not sure. Magic doesn't work that way. Not my magic anyway.” I hugged him. “I don't know how I got here, but I'm glad to be home.”

“What's going on in here?” Mike joined us, rubbing his eyes, half awake. “Mom? I thought you were out of town?”

“I was. I am.” I went to him and hugged him tightly too.

He squirmed. “Are you guys fighting or something? What's with the coffee cup on the floor?”

“We're not fighting.” Joe grabbed a bunch of paper towels
and started cleaning up the mess. “Go back to bed. I'm sure we'll all understand what's happening later.”

Mike yawned. “Sure. Okay. See you later, Mom.”

I helped Joe finish cleaning the broken cup and coffee from the floor.

“So what happened?” he asked. “You got away? Everything is fine now?”

“I don't know. Someone put a spell on Elsie, and I couldn't wake her. We were trying to figure out who killed Makaleigh—she's a member of the witches' council. Cassandra took away our spell book and banished Olivia into another world or something. Dorothy got angry and turned Cassandra into a snake. Of course they can't keep our spell book, Joe. It belongs to us.”

“Yeah. That sounds bad,” he agreed. “I'm surprised with all that going on that you wished yourself home. Did Elsie, Dorothy and Brian come with you? Did you get Olivia back?”

“No. I didn't do anything. Wishing myself home shouldn't have worked. I can't even do things like that outside of the castle, never mind inside, which drains half a witch's magic. I don't know how or why it happened.”

“At least you're okay.” He put down the last broken piece of cup and hugged me.

“But I'm not. Not really.” I wished I was as I stared into his eyes. “I have to go back and help them. I got out of the spell that's keeping the castle closed. I guess I can get back in too.”

“I know they're your friends, Molly, but maybe you should just wait for them to un-spell themselves or whatever. I don't like the idea that you're going back in there with people being killed.”

“Thanks.” I kissed him. “I don't have any choice. It's not just Elsie and Dorothy. If the council finds out that I got out of the castle, it could be very bad for me too. I could be branded a renegade or an outsider like Drago.”

“Who?”

“Dorothy's father.” I smiled at him. “I'm sorry you don't understand, and I wish I could explain, but I have to get back.”

“Okay. But take me with you. I can help solve the murder.”

I smiled and kissed him again, loving him more now than I had thirty years before when we'd first married. “Believe me, I wish I could. You might be the only one who can figure out what's going on.” I glanced at my watch. “We've got another eight hours until the spell falls away from the castle. We have to catch the killer before that happens.”

“Molly, if you could get out of the castle, what's stopping the killer from doing the same?”

Thinking of Drago Rasmun, I shook my head. “I don't know. Probably nothing. But I have to go back. I love you.”

“I love you too. Be careful!” He kissed me fiercely and stepped back.

Holding the glowing amulet, I closed my eyes and wished myself back into the castle again.

But when I opened my eyes again, I wasn't at the castle. The sharp tang of sea air was in my nose. I could hear gulls crying and the lapping of the ocean at the shore. There was the lighthouse and the ferry, trees jutting out from the old gravestones.

“Oak Island?”

“And what did you expect, Molly Renard?” the Bone Man demanded. “Why are you flitting around from place to place using your magic? I think your council would find this highly irregular.”

He laughed boldly. The sound scared a group of birds in the trees around us. It shook the dried bones that hung around his neck.

“Why am I here? Did you bring me here?”

“Yes. I thought you might be in need of assistance. How goes the murder hunt at the castle?”

“I don't know. I wished to go home and ended up there. I wished to go back and ended up here instead. Did you have something to do with it?”

My question amused him so much that he had to drop his thin, seven-foot-tall frame to the damp cemetery beneath his feet. He put one large, bony hand to his corpse-like head and then stared at me with his empty black eyes.

“Did you think you did this on your own? Council magic sealed the castle. Even though the magic in your amulet is not of their magic. It couldn't have overcome it alone. Of course I brought you here after I helped you get home. Why do you want to go back?”

“My friends are still trapped there. I have to go back and help them.”

“Oh, Molly. Witches are so amusing with their spells and magics. I quite enjoyed my time at the castle, but I wouldn't want to return anytime soon. Neither should you.”

“I don't care what you think about this, MacLir. I'm going back.” I used his real name to let him know that I meant business. He might be an ancient sea god, but he couldn't tell me what to do. I kept his secrets for both our sakes, but this was different.

He got up from the damp sand, not bothering to brush it from his black suit. “Things may get very ugly there before they get better, my dear. Please reconsider. I am saying this to spare you any harm or ill.”

Straightening my shoulders and ignoring the strong wind blowing through my hair, I faced him. “Thank you. But I have to go.”

He sighed, the sound like the sea. “Your choice, of course.”

I didn't have to use the amulet to get back to the castle. In an instant, I was there in the hallway outside the room I shared with Elsie, as though I had never left. It was very disconcerting and made me feel the need to straighten my clothes and hair, though neither were out of place.

Drago was watching me.

“And where have you been, Molly?” There was a sly smile on his face. “Does the council know you wield outsider magic? I don't think they'd approve, do you? What were you doing?”

I already felt like a Ping-Pong ball being bounced around the ether. I faced Drago angrily. “What about you? I know that you and Hedyle are involved in a forbidden relationship.”

“Quite the pair of rogues, aren't we?” He grinned. “I never knew Olivia's friends were so outside the norm.”

“Speaking of Olivia, she's been banished somewhere by the council. Can you help me find her?”

“Where did you get your magic?” His gaze narrowed on my face. “I've never felt anything like it.”

“Will you help me find her or not?”

“You have plenty of magic for the job,” he said. “Why do you need my help?”

“Do it for your daughter, Drago. Do it for the woman you once cared for. Help me find Olivia and bring her back.”

He nodded slowly. “I could do that. No matter what the council says, no ghost is ever permanently banished. They've just sent her to a nether realm. She doesn't have the power to get back through their magic.”

“But you have the power to bring her back,” I coaxed. Let him think what he would about why I chose not to use the magic in the amulet.

“Yes.” He looked down his aquiline nose at me. “But I want something in return.”

What could he possibly want from me? “Yes?”

“Help me find Hedyle.”

“I assumed you took her somewhere. You were in the room when she vanished.” Was it really true that he didn't know where she was? It was hard for me to believe.

“I was there, but I didn't take her anywhere. I've looked everywhere I can think to look. I can't find her.”

I was contemplating his words—was he setting me up for something, maybe taking the fall for Makaleigh's death or Hedyle's kidnapping?

“That doesn't make any sense.” I wouldn't be his patsy for whatever game he was playing. “I know that you and Hedyle are lovers. Did you attack her?”

“No. Of course not. The deed was done, and I found her injured. Just as you found Makaleigh. That makes you guilty in some people's eyes. But we both know simply being there isn't a crime. Now she's gone, vanished right before my eyes. I suppose I was hoping your
unusual
magic could locate her.”

I thought about what he was asking. Drago was dangerous. He was outside of the council. We all knew what
that meant. And yet if the council suspected I was using borrowed magic from an ancient sea god, I would be considered an outsider too. I wondered if Drago had received magic from a nontraditional way, possibly passed down through his family line.

But how could I deny him when I needed him to find Olivia? Contrary to what he thought, I had no idea how to find her. Even the best magic in the world doesn't work if you don't know where to look or how to find what you're looking for.

“I'll assume that you're telling me the truth, Drago, and that you don't know where Hedyle is. I'll help you find her, if you bring Olivia back.”

“Good.” He offered me his hand. “Then we have an understanding. You will keep my secrets, and I will keep yours. We'll help each other through this without telling anyone else.”

I put my hand in his. His hand was hot to the touch. It suddenly occurred to me that we were looking at him the wrong way. He wasn't an ancient witch. And Drago wasn't his first name—it was his family name.

“Drago. The dragon.” I smiled. “Dragon magic is rare.”

“So is an amulet full of sea god magic.” He turned to go. “I'll bring Olivia to your room. Be careful that you hide her better in the future. You can return a ghost to our world, but if it happens too many times, there will be nothing left of the woman you knew.”

He walked away, to my surprise. He could have vanished if he'd wanted to. I started into the room and remembered that Brian had spelled the lock from the outside. I had to remove his spell to get back in.

Elsie was still asleep on the bed—but this was not a natural sleep. She was growing colder, and the color was leaving her face. Her body was stiffening as though she were dead. I knew she was still alive, but how could we bring her
back? I wished I could ask Drago for help with that too, but I didn't want to get any further enmeshed with him. Brian, Dorothy and I had to take care of her first before I honored my pledge to Drago.

I was thinking about a removal spell and wishing I'd been able to bring our spell book out of the library, when Brian and Dorothy came in. Dorothy paled when she saw Elsie and rushed to the bed. Brian spelled the door closed behind him.

“Did someone take my spell off the door?” he asked angrily. “No one has any respect for privacy.”

I smiled as the words came out of his young mouth. He sounded just like Abdon.

“It was a mistake,” I said. “I was trying to use a spell to unlock the spell on Elsie and the door unlocked. I'm sorry. You know how it is sometimes.”

My spells very rarely went wrong anymore, not since I started wearing the amulet, but it was a good excuse. I didn't want to tell my friends what had happened either. They were already suspicious of the Bone Man and the gift he'd given my family.

We lit some candles. Brian found a sage smudge stick and cleared the air. We joined hands around Elsie and agreed on a spell Brian knew to release her from the enchantment she was under. We closed our eyes and repeated the spell together until it had become a chant.

Elsie didn't move. She didn't seem to change at all. After about thirty minutes, we released hands and blew out the candles.

“What else can we do?” Dorothy asked with tears in her eyes. “This is terrible—they have Mom somewhere, won't let you take the spell book and now something's wrong with Elsie.”

“We keep trying different spells,” Brian concluded. “That was only one spell. It's not helping that we're all on half
power until the doors open. We may not be able to help her until then.”

“I don't know if she'll last that long.” I was holding Elsie's cold hand. It felt as though she was drifting farther away from us. “Who would've done such a thing?”

“Someone who didn't want you to continue reading Makaleigh's story,” Dorothy replied. “And how could that book vanish? It still has to be in the library, right? Isn't that what Sylvia said? That's why you can't take the spell book out.”

“I didn't even think of it. So much has been happening,” I said without discussing the part where I went back home and then to Oak Island. “But you're right. Maybe one of us should stay with Elsie and the other two go back to the library and keep researching those words of power. Things seem to be tied to them.”

“Brian and I will go,” Dorothy decided. “You've already been through enough. Plus, everyone seems to be more willing to take Brian's word for everything than ours.”

I had been about to suggest the same thing but for different reasons. I didn't know if Drago would come here with Olivia when he released her, and I didn't want them to know about my deal with him.

“That sounds like a wonderful idea.” I heartily endorsed it. “And I think Elsie will feel more comfortable with me here if she wakes up.”

Dorothy hugged me tightly. “Don't worry, Molly. We'll figure this out. We'll get Mom and Elsie back—and the spell book too.”

“I'll have a word with my grandfather about the spell book issue,” Brian promised.

“Thank you. But you have to tread very carefully here,” I warned. “If you don't want to be leveraged into being part of the council, don't owe them too many favors.”

He nodded. “I know what you mean. And in normal circumstances, I'd figure this stuff out by myself. But these
aren't exactly normal circumstances. We don't know if we can wait until those doors open.”

I watched them leave. They were not only the hope of our coven but the hope of witchcraft for the future. I knew Brian didn't want to sit on the council, but I couldn't think of anyone who'd be better than him. He might still be subverted by the power the witches on the council had given to them. I could only hope it wouldn't be so if he decided to take up his grandfather's offer.

Sitting in the quiet room with only Elsie, I knew how Brian felt about getting out of the castle. Still, I was filled with wonder and amazement that I'd escaped even for a short time. The Bone Man had helped me. I realized that. The amulet had turned out to be so much more than I'd ever thought. My mother had never worn it, calling it ugly. I wasn't sure if she would have worn it if she'd known about the magic it contained. She wasn't exactly an adventurous witch.

But then neither was I. The same was true for Elsie, though her life had changed as well. Olivia had always been the traveler, the witch who did it all. Now she was dead, and I only had it on Drago's word that she could come back at all.

I wished I was home with Joe and Mike, eating cold pizza and watching some sports event on TV. I was careful not to touch my amulet as I wished it. Things here had to be resolved first.

When Drago didn't show up with Olivia and Elsie stayed asleep, I finally drifted back to the desk and stared at the three words of power. It would've been nice if I could have willed them to make sense. Things didn't work that way.

I put them in different order, changed the letters. Even made crossword puzzle–type pictures of them. Was Makaleigh trying to create her final spell, or was she muttering the words so I'd understand what she was talking about?

But if she'd wanted me to know, why hide them? Why make me dig them out of my head with another spell?

Perhaps it was impossible for me to understand a witch that old and powerful. I had only lived one normal human lifetime, as had my mother and my grandmother. Our witchcraft had been simple—that of the moon, the water, the earth and fire. This more complicated magic, such as the one contained in my amulet, seemed unnatural to me.

Makaleigh and Hedyle had no doubt started their lives the same way. Something had happened to them that made things different too. They'd joined the council to wield more of their power and created rules that governed and protected witches' lives, though some of them were bad for us all.

And yet I had liked and admired Makaleigh. All witches believed that things happen with a purpose. That meant there was a reason that I had found her before she died.

The question would be: Why? Why had I found her? Why had she given me her secret before dying? And how was I ever going to figure it out, much less on a timetable in less than eight hours?