The Hex Breaker's Eyes (8 page)

“Does it have a
counter-spell?” I ask.

“Nada. It’s the
same as the websites; I see the same line everywhere about how
hexes are bad feelings made manifest and it’ll fade when time heals
the ill will.”

“But this thing
is getting stronger,” I say.

“So then we’ll
just have to find that talisman and break it apart,” she says. “At
least now, we know what it’ll look like.”

“Black feather,
black wax,” I say, nodding. “But let’s hope for a counter-hex. Keep
reading. I’ll look in the other books for any kind of protection
magic. Maybe we can keep Dina safer, in case we never find that
talisman.”

Marlene agrees
and we go back to reading separately. After a couple hours, my dad
knocks and asks if Marlene is staying for dinner.

“No,” she calls
through the door. “I’m just leaving.”

We haven’t
found a viable counter-spell, or even a protective hex that will
work on someone who’s already hexed. Unless our bad guy’s feelings
suddenly change, our only hope of destroying that yellow aura is to
find the black-feathered talisman, which could be anywhere in
town.

Hopefully Dina
doesn’t do anything else to anger her foe.

Wednesday,
November 14

It’s been a few
days since anything serious happened. While Dina’s yellow glow
remains, the aura hasn’t sprouted any new tentacles, and as far as
I know, she hasn’t had any “accidents” since the electric shock. I
haven’t tried to talk to her again, since she was downright mean
last time, but we’re still keeping our eyes on Mason and Wayne to
see if either of them have any black candles or feathers around. So
far, it’s been an uneventful week.

School’s out,
and I’m just pulling books from my locker, making sure I take home
everything I need for tonight’s homework. I’m going pretty slowly,
since Tam’s not at her locker yet, and Ryan’s not around either.
Usually, they’re waiting for me to be ready to walk home, but not
today. I finish packing and close my locker. Still no sign of my
friends. It’s at times like this I wish I actually had minutes for
my phone. After another five minutes go by, I decide I’m just going
to have to walk home by myself.

As I walk past
the cafeteria doors, I hear someone call my name.

“Vefreet!”
shouts a male voice. I turn and enter the cafeteria slowly, not
sure what I’m walking into. There are about ten students in the
cafeteria, with a lot of banners and posters laid out on tables.
Two of the students are Ryan and Tam. “Hey,” calls the guy who
first shouted at me. It’s Wayne, standing at a table near a long
banner of brown paper.

“What’s all
this?” I ask.

“The council
debates are tomorrow. We’re getting ready. Tamara volunteered you.”
He smiles and I can’t stop myself from smiling back a little,
before I turn to Tam. She just winks and says “We’re helping the
democratic process.” Nobody else hears the sarcasm in her voice,
but I know her well enough to know that she must hate this.

“OK,” I say.
“In the name of democracy, what do you need?”

Wayne waves me
over. “We’re painting every candidate for president’s name on this
banner. It’s going to be hung above the stage in the gym. You any
good with art?”

“Not really,” I
say. “More of a math person.”

“We’ve got two
colours. Just write each name in alphabetical order, alternating
colours.”

“What will you
be doing?” I ask.

“I’m gonna run
to the gym and get up on a ladder. A lot of things have to be up on
the walls, and since I’m still the Prez I have to make sure it gets
done.” He smiles again. “So can you handle this?”

“Yeah,” I say,
stirring a pot of blue paint with a brush. “Alphabetical by first
or last name?”

“Last. Just
paint what I typed out on this sheet,” he says, pointing. “If you
spell anything wrong just blame it on me!”

“Got it.”

Wayne jogs
around the table toward the exit, and as he goes he calls over his
shoulder, “Any questions, Dina’s in charge!” That’s a surprise
since I haven’t noticed any glowy yellow girls in the cafeteria.
For a moment I think maybe Dina’s hex has been lifted, and that’s
why I didn’t notice her. But after Wayne leaves, Dina enters
through the back doors. She’s just as glow-in-the-dark as ever,
with three arms of light floating aimlessly around her. She sees
me, and marches right over.

“Oh, you’re
here?” she says with unconcealed spite.

“Yeah,” I
mutter. “I’m helping.”

“Well don’t
spell any names wrong,” she admonishes. “And make sure every name
fills the whole width. For example, my name is short, so it should
be in bigger letters than the others.”

“Isn’t ‘Al’
shorter than ‘Dina?’” I ask. “Shouldn’t that make his name twice as
big?”

“Nevermind,”
she says. “Just do whatever but don’t screw it up. That’s the last
big roll of paper they had.”

For a while I
busy myself writing the four candidates’ names on the page,
alternating between blue and black (our school colours). Tamara and
Ryan come over to inspect my work.

“Not the worst
penmanship I’ve ever seen,” says Tam. “Second worst, but not the
worst. The people in the front row might even be able to read
it.”

“It looks
fine,” says Ryan. “Considering the brushes you had, I’m sure that’s
the best you could do.”

(Gee, thanks
guys.)

“So why are we
volunteering?” I ask quietly.

“It’s a good
place to scope out our top suspect and our cursed girl all at the
same time,” Ryan says.

“Yeah except
for the part where Wayne’s in the gym,” says Tam. From the twinge
of anger in her voice it seems like this was Ryan’s idea and Tam’s
not too happy about it.

“Are you kids
done?” calls Dina. I can’t believe she just called us kids.

“Yeah,” replies
Ryan. “The banner’s ready and our painting of the student council
logo is over there.”

Dina goes to
their work station to inspect the picture the two of them were
working on. “You totally forgot the glitter for the wildcat’s eyes
and claws,” she says.

“The wildcat
has glitter claws?” asks Tam, barely hiding her disdain.

“Of course it
does, duh. I proposed that at the last council meeting, which you
would know if you ever read the school paper.”

“Oh, sure, I
remember now,” says Tam. “But nobody ever gave us any glitter,
so…”

Dina looks
around the table and realizes that they’re right. No glitter. She
sighs, and points to the far wall, where some backpacks and
shopping bags are sitting on the floor. “It must be in one of
Wayne’s bags. Go find the glitter and the white glue, and I’ll make
sure it gets done right.”

We roll our
eyes at the fact that Dina can’t be bothered to walk across the
room for the glitter even when she’s the only one who cares about
it, but then we do what she wants and head over to the bags. We dig
through the plastic shopping bags, finding art supplies and the
white glue, but no glitter. I call out to Dina that the glitter
isn’t here and she insists we just aren’t looking hard enough. Tam,
who has obviously had enough of this, grabs one of the backpacks
and unzips it. I feel like we’re invading people’s privacy, but at
least we can put the blame on Dina if anyone gets mad about it.

Tam digs
through a black backpack but finds nothing but binders and a
textbook, so she moves on to the next one. “Holy crap,” she
whispers. Ryan and I crowd close to her so we can look inside the
bag.

There’s a
plastic bag inside the backpack, filled with black feathers. “No
way,” I say.

“Whose bag is
that?” Ryan asks. We pull out one of the textbooks and check the
sign-out sheet that’s glued inside the cover. This book belongs to
Wayne Shepherd.

“What are you
lookin’ for?” Wayne asks from behind us. We were so busy poking
through his things that we didn’t notice that he had come back.

Tam stuffs the
textbook back into the bag.

“Glitter,” Ryan
says. “Apparently, the wildcat had a manicure.”

“Oh,” he says,
coming over. He looks down at us, crouching in front of his open
backpack. “You won’t find it in there.”

“Oh, sorry,” I
say. I’m about to start blabbering an apology for opening his bag,
when Wayne says:

“It’s in the
side pocket. I didn’t want it anywhere it could roll around. If you
spill glitter, you’ll never get it off your stuff.”

Tam nods, zips
the main compartment shut and opens the side pocket. Sure enough,
there’s a bottle of blue glitter inside. “Got it,” she says. I’m
looking at Wayne, wondering if he’s secretly enraged that we went
into his bag. He seems calm enough. Tam and Ryan take the glitter
over to Dina to complete their painting, leaving me alone with
Wayne.

“Is the banner
ready to go?” he asks.

“Paint is
probably still wet, but yeah it’s done.”

“I’ll be
careful. Sydney’s waiting by the ladder to get it hung up. Could
you lift one end and carry it to the gym with me?” I nod and we
head over to my banner. As we walk the hallway between the caf’ and
the gym, Wayne’s walking backward, looking right at me, while I’ve
got the other end of the banner so I’m looking back at him.

“How come you
memorize everyone’s name?” I ask.

“It’s not just
everyone’s name. I memorize the yearbook. I know all the clubs, the
teams, what championships we won last year, which teams are never
any good. It makes it easy to talk to people about school
issues.”

“Watch the
turn,” I say as we get close to the gym. He looks confused but
smiles bashfully when he realizes I mean for him to look behind
himself, and then we manage to turn the long banner into the gym
without it touching the ground or smudging the paint. When she sees
us approaching, Wayne’s girlfriend Sydney climbs up a ladder next
to the stage. Janelle, the studious girl from my chem class, is
already atop a ladder on the other side of the stage.

“Just lay the
banner on the stage and we’ll get it hung up,” Wayne says.

“OK.” I do what
I’m told and get the banner safely to the stage. I tell them all
that I’m going home and to have a good debate tomorrow. I’m about
to leave when, for some reason, I decide to take a risk.

“What are the
feathers for?” I ask Wayne.

“The what?”

“The black
feathers. They were in the bag with the glitter. It’s not like the
wildcat has feathers.”

“I don’t know,”
he says, a funny half-smile on his face. “Maybe someone grabbed
them at the craft store and figured we could use ‘em. If they’re
black they’re Cats colours.”

“Guess so,” I
say. “Have a good night.”

Wayne says
goodbye and the girls on the ladders do likewise, and then I go to
the caf’ to get my backpack and my friends. We walk home wondering
where Wayne’s hiding his magic talisman.

“Just think,”
Ryan says as we walk through a cold wind. “If Dina has a good
showing at the debates, and it seems like she might win…”

“Wayne’ll be
pissed right off,” says Tam, completing his sentence. “And that
psychic lady did say the hex was fueled by anger.” I don’t add
anything to the conversation. I’m too distracted worrying that
Wayne can be so charming and earnest while also holding enough
anger to power the hex. (What did Tam call him? A cult leader?)

“Think on the
bright side, says Tam, “If Dina’s as much of a bitch on stage as
she is in real life, she’ll be out of the running. Then Wayne won’t
need the hex.”

Ryan laughs a
bit, and eventually we branch off to our own roads home, but I
think deep down they’re both feeling what I am. Terrified.

I arrive home
to find Marlene waiting on my front step.

“What are you
doing here?” I ask.

“I tried to
call but I guess your phone is still down,” she says. “I think I
know who’s behind the hex.”

“So do I, his
name is Wayne,” I say. I pull the door open and usher Marlie
inside. We head to my room and close the door, so my brother Devon
doesn’t hear us talking about magic and hexes.

“Wayne?” she
says finally, as I pull my bedroom door shut. “Why Wayne?”

“Who did you
think it was?” I ask.

“I was thinking
we never really ruled out Mason Charles, so I wanted to know more
about him. I creeped him on Facebook but I didn’t find anything,
but I had the idea to check out his brother Matty’s page.”

“And you found
something?” I ask. I sit down in the chair, so Marlene sits on the
floor, her back against the side of my bed.

“Black candles.
In the background of pictures. And you can’t make the talisman
without dripping wax from a black candle.”

“So Mason’s got
the candles and Wayne’s got the feathers,” I say, weighing the
options.

“No!” She
blurts. “Not Mason. Matty. That kid’s whole room is full of occult
stuff.”