creepy hollow 05.5 - scarlett (7 page)

Beth raised an eyebrow and said, “I thought Malena was the bossy one.”

“Sorena has her moments,” Tilda said as she rolled her eyes. “Thankfully they’re few and far between.” She looked around the kitchen. “Okay, I’ll start gathering the things we need from here. Can you go to Malena’s workshop and ask her for a small wooden block?”

“Uh, okay.” As she left the kitchen and headed for Malena’s workshop, she felt a twinge of anxiety. She’d never been alone in a room with Malena or Sorena, and she had hoped to keep it that way. They’d been friendly enough toward her, and while she was now accustomed to the subtle reverberation of their voices, their black eyes still freaked her out and their pointed teeth were more than a little threatening.

She knocked on the workshop door and waited until Malena shouted for her to enter. She pushed the door open and walked in. Malena was standing at her workbench’s stovetop tending to a boiling pot—but she wasn’t alone. Sitting on the couch near the desk was a stern woman with hair that was, interestingly enough, both blonde and green. A young boy nestled against her side. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Beth said. “I didn’t realize you—”

“It’s not a problem at all,” Malena said with a wide smile that showed off her magnificently sharpened teeth. “Please come in. I was about to call for you anyway.”

“Oh.” Confused, Beth paused for a moment before closing the door behind her.

“Madame Lucia,” Malena said to the woman, “this is Scarlett, my newest apprentice. I would like her to observe the watcher spell on your son. With your permission, of course.”

Apprentice?
Beth thought. Both she and Malena knew she was nothing of the sort, but she didn’t dare contradict the witch.

Madame Lucia pursed her lips, then said, “I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

“Wonderful.” Malena motioned for Beth to join her at the workbench. “You can add the magnolia bark to this pot, Scarlett. Stir for a minute, then strain the liquid into a cup.”

Terrified of doing something wrong, but excited at the prospect of observing a real spell in action, Beth forced herself to approach the bench. On one side, atop the stove, grayish liquid bubbled within a small pot. Spread out across the bench were numerous bottles, vials, cloths and scattered herbs, but Malena had pointed to the bowl containing bits of a rough, dark substance. Beth assumed it must be grated magnolia bark. She picked up the bowl and whispered to Malena, “All of it?” Malena nodded, and Beth tipped the grated bark into the pot. She picked up the wooden spoon balancing across the handle and stirred the liquid. Should she count to one minute now? Had Malena meant exactly one minute, or was that simply an estimation? She was about to ask when Madame Lucia loudly instructed her son to stop kicking his feet against the furniture.

“Also add a drop of midnight spider venom,” Malena added in a low voice, nodding to a vial containing a dark blue liquid. Beth’s eyes flicked toward Madame Lucia, but the woman hadn’t noticed Malena’s instruction. Beth opened the vial and allowed a single drop to fall into the pot. It sizzled as it hit the potion’s boiling surface. She stirred the concoction once more, and Malena, who was busy swirling a flask of liquid as black as soot, said, “You can strain it now.”

Beth’s eyes darted across the workbench surface and found a sieve. And there was the cup Malena had mentioned. Wrapping a cloth around the handle to keep from burning her hand—her glove surely wouldn’t be thick enough to protect her—Beth lifted the pot and poured the contents over the sieve and into the cup. Bark, herbs and leaves gathered in the wire mesh, leaving a smooth blue-grey potion in the cup.

“We’re ready,” Malena announced, and Madame Lucia turned her attention back to the witch. “Bring the potion,” Malena said to Beth as she carried her flask and a quill across the room. She sat on a low table across from the boy while Beth stood awkwardly beside her.

The boy took in the sharp tip of the quill with wide eyes and asked, “Will it hurt?”

“Not at all,” Malena said. She nodded for Beth to hand him the cup and added, “Drink this.”

With shaking fingers, the boy took the cup and sipped the contents. His face twisted as he swallowed, but he finished the remaining liquid and returned the cup to Beth’s hand. Barely a second passed before he slumped back against the cushions, his eyes sliding shut and his head drooping to the side. Madame Lucia turned her accusing gaze on Malena. “What is the meaning of—”

“I lied, I’m afraid,” Malena said. “The mark will hurt a great deal, which is why I put him to sleep. He won’t feel a thing, and the pain will be gone by the time he wakes.”

Madame Lucia hesitated, but her eyes remained narrowed as they looked Malena up and down. “You could have warned me.”

“My apologies,” Malena said, but as she caught Beth’s eye she smiled discreetly, and Beth knew she didn’t feel sorry at all for startling the woman. “Where would you like the mark to be placed?”

“Does it make any difference to the effectiveness of the spell?”

“No.”

“Then … on the side of his torso, beneath his arm. I obviously don’t want anyone to know it’s there.”

“Of course. Please lift his clothing.”

As Madame Lucia moved the boy onto his side and pulled his shirt out of the way, Malena dipped her sharpened quill into the flask. Then, with movements slow and precise, she drew an eye onto the boy’s side. As her quill pressed into his skin, black ink tinged with red dripped down his side, looking eerily as though the eye were crying.

“A cloth, Scarlett,” Malena instructed as she finished the eye and sat back. Beth hurried to the bench and returned with the same cloth she’d used to pick up the pot. Without sterilizing the cloth in any way, Malena wiped it across the boy’s skin, cleaning away the excess ink and leaving the perfect dark outline of an eye. Germs and infection clearly weren’t a concern when magic was involved.

Malena then pressed her hand flat against the tattooed shape, closed her eyes, and began reciting words Beth didn’t understand. She assumed at first that it was the same language she’d heard the witches speak before, but it sounded different. Hard edges and guttural sounds. As she spoke the final word, her hand tensed, her nails dug into the boy’s skin, and a flash of light blazed briefly from beneath her palm.

Then she stood, wiped her hand with the cloth, and said, “That’s it. Leave the shirt up for a few minutes to let the wound heal.” She walked to her desk and sat in the chair, crossing one leg neatly over the other. “The other half of the spell has already been performed inside this book, as you previously requested.” She moved a tattered old journal to the edge of her desk and patted it. “You’ll be able to see and hear everything he sees and hears. Now, let’s settle the payment while the sleeping potion wears off. Scarlett, please watch the boy until he wakes.”

Beth kept her eyes on the boy as Malena and her client spoke in low tones behind her. She peeked over her shoulder at one point, expecting to see an exchange of coins or Madame Lucia writing a check—did checks even exist in this world?—but instead she saw the woman holding a vial against her temple where a faint wispy whiteness flowed straight out of her skull.

Beth turned her head back quickly, hoping neither of the women had seen her looking. The boy began to stir, and Beth, noticing that the eye-shaped wound had now healed, leaned forward and pulled his shirt down so the poor child could at least wake up fully clothed. “Mama?” he said as he sat up, blinking slowly and frowning.

“All done, dear,” Madame Lucia said. She crossed the room and took her son’s hand. “Is there anything else I need to know?” she asked Malena.

“No, but if you have any problems with the spell, don’t hesitate to let me know.”

Madame Lucia nodded as she removed what looked like an emerald encrusted pen from her coat pocket. She walked to the door, but instead of opening it, she lifted the pen and wrote on the wood surface. Beth couldn’t make out the words, but they seemed to glow faintly before disappearing. And then, right before her eyes, a dark void of space began to form at the center of the door. It spread outward like ink bleeding into paper until there was almost no door left. Without another word, Madame Lucia and her son walked into the darkness, which swallowed them up within seconds before quickly pulling back together and vanishing as if it had never been there.

Beth, her mouth hanging open in shock, looked back at Malena for an explanation. “Faerie paths,” Malena said as she stood and returned to her workbench. “We can’t use them.”

“Oh, is that what that was? I’ve never seen one before.”

“Candles are better,” Malena said as she began to wipe the workbench clean.

Beth stood there awkwardly, unsure if she was supposed to leave or stay now. She wouldn’t relax until she was out of Malena’s presence, but she was curious …

Malena looked up with a hint of a smile on her lips. “Do you have a question, Scarlett?”

She did, and Malena knew it. Malena always seemed to know these things. “Why did you tell the woman I was your apprentice?”

“I doubt she would have been happy for you to stay if she’d known you’d never performed a spell with me before.”

“But … why did you want me to stay?”

As though it should be obvious, she said, “I thought it would be good for your education to observe one of our spells.”

Beth nodded slowly. She supposed that made sense. Her eyes fell on an open book beside the stovetop. Malena’s spell book, no doubt. Curiosity getting the better of her, she moved to take a closer look at it. The words were in another language, but Beth could tell from the pictures that the page detailed the spell Malena had just performed. She looked up, a question in her gaze, and Malena said, “Go ahead.”

She paged through the book, moving quickly past any pictures that seemed particularly gruesome. She felt uncomfortable looking at them, but it was probably just that she didn’t understand all this magic yet. Whenever she saw a page with English notes written beside the foreign text, she stopped to take a closer look. “Sprite wings?” she murmured. “Is that a real ingredient?”

“Yes,” Malena said, waving a whole lot of used apparatus into the air and across the room to the sink.

“Isn’t that sort of … wrong?”

“Have you met a sprite, Scarlett?”

“No.”

“Nasty little things. Worse than rats. They’re of far more use to the world as a collection of ingredients than they are alive.”

“Oh.” Beth added that to the long list of things she’d learned since arriving here. “Will I be able to do spells like this once I’ve learned to properly manipulate my magic?”

Malena gathered her scattered herbs and tied them together. “Not all of them—not the spells that specifically require witch magic—but some, yes.”

Flipping back to the watcher spell and hoping it wasn’t too out of line to ask, Beth said, “Why did Madame Lucia want this spell done on her son?”

Malena groaned. “She’s a paranoid, overprotective mother. She’s purchased numerous protective charms from me before, but now she believes that someone wants to kidnap her son. We put a tracking tag on him yesterday, and today’s spell will allow the mother to see and hear what her son sees and hears whenever she looks inside that book. Poor child will have absolutely no privacy.” She shook her head, then added, “But that isn’t my problem. She is my client, and I must keep my clients happy.”

Beth nodded, though she wasn’t entirely sure she agreed with that. “Can I ask what the payment was for this spell, or is it confidential?”

Malena smiled knowingly, almost as if she’d been waiting for Beth to ask that question. “It wasn’t too expensive a spell. A single memory was all I required from her.”
A memory?
Beth opened her mouth to ask if that really meant what she thought it meant, but Malena said, “Time for lunch now.”

It was then that Beth remembered why she’d come to the workshop in the first place. “Oh, Tilda sent me to ask you for a small wooden block. For an … expunging spell?” she added hesitantly, hoping she’d got the name right.

Malena sighed. “Very well.” She headed to the back of the workshop and bent down to open one of the cupboards. As Beth watched her, something in the far corner caught her eye. She hadn’t noticed it before, perhaps because of the plants that had been hanging in the way, but something had since moved and she could now see a pedestal standing in the corner. A large glass case with a closed window sat upon the pedestal, and within it was a glass bell jar balanced on a cushion. Something floated inside the bell jar. A flower? Beth walked slowly around the workbench, wanting to get a better look. It was a flower. A water lily, perhaps. Its petals were white with a pale blue tinge at their base, and it remained frozen in place in the air. “What is—”

“Come, Scarlett, it’s lunchtime.” Malena strode past Beth with a small block of wood in her hands. She opened the door and looked back, her nails tapping impatiently on the doorknob. “We don’t want to keep the others waiting.”

CHAPTER NINE

“Scarlett, look! I did it!” Tilda waltzed into Beth’s room the next morning and spun around, her long skirt billowing around her. A skirt made of—

“Smoke!” Beth exclaimed. “It worked. That’s amazing.”

Tilda, almost glowing with pride, placed her hand on her hip. “I may not be a qualified clothes caster, but I can whip up a good enough dress when I’m feeling inspired.”

“This is more than just good enough.” Beth bent to take a closer look at the way the smoke of the skirt blended into the fabric. “Seamless. But won’t you get cold with nothing to keep your legs warm?”

“I’m wearing stockings and boots under here. Besides, the smoke provides more insulation than you’d think. And even if I do end up cold, who cares? Not me when I’m dressed in something this amazing.”

“Hopefully that thought will keep you warm then,” Beth said with a laugh.

“And guess what else,” Tilda added. “I made you one too.” She turned and swept from the room before Beth could say another word.

Beth returned to the bed and finished pulling the blankets straight. Her elbow knocked Thoren’s hourglass off the little stool that stood beside the bed, but her magic managed to freeze it in the air before it struck the ground. Pleased with herself for successfully employing useful magic, she replaced the hourglass on the stool. The hourglass was enchanted, of course, like many of the items in the witches’ home. Not only did it give off a dim glow so she could read the time even in the dark, but after the sand had flowed past all twelve marks, the hourglass would automatically spin around and begin again to mark the passing of the next twelve hours.