Spell Struck (4 page)

"What?" Evie asked.

"Oh my Goddess, oh my Goddess, oh my Goddess!"

Evie's blue eyes grew wide beneath her strawberry blond eyelashes. "What? Tell me!"

"There's a new boy in my art class."

"The love spell!"

"Shh!" I glanced at the rearview mirror. Mrs. O'Reilly's emerald-eyed cat gaze darted from us to the traffic ahead. Mom had called Mrs. O'Reilly yesterday and asked if we could join the carpool rotation.

Evie leaned closer. "Is he hot?"

"Like Shay Stewart in the foreign film where he played a gypsy, but with pale gray eyes. There was something mysterious about him, like he had seen and done a lot."

"Like he had stolen cars or done drugs?"

Mrs. O'Reilly tensed in the front seat. I sensed her upping her teen radar.

"No, of course not." I avoided the rearview mirror. "But I'll never find out what because I totally blew it."

"Oh no! What did you do?"

A fresh wave of recrimination blazed across my cheeks and stormed toward my dyed hairline. "He totally ignored the popular girls to sit next to me, then I practically called him a liar over his name."

"What's his name?"

"Aidan."

Evie furrowed her brow. "I'm lost."

I shook my head. "Don't ask. It was too embarrassing."

Evie ran her thumb beneath the seatbelt shoulder strap. She wore her usual navy Cal sweatshirt, jeans, and no makeup.

I caved. "When the bell rang, I told him 'bye,' but he didn't even look up from the plank of wood he planned to carve."

Evie tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "Wait and see what happens tomorrow. Things may not be as awful as you think."

"I wish." I slumped against the gray leather seat, wanting to believe her.

Evie glanced at the back of her mother's head, then whispered, "Are you going to work on restoring
Teen Wytche tonight?
"

"Depends on how my homework goes. Don't get your hopes up, okay? It's pretty far gone."

"I'm fine if you can't fix it." Evie shuddered. "The thing creeps me out. Maybe we should just bury it somewhere and forget about it."

"We can't. It might contain important secrets."

"Some secrets are better off at the bottom of a deep pit."

"But what if it contains a spell that could help someone? Someone who is ill."
Like Amy.

Evie's face twisted into an I-don't-know expression. Mrs. O'Reilly made a left-hand turn onto Lucas Drive. My neighborhood wasn't glamorous like Parvani's. Evie lived one street over. Both of our houses were single-story with low ceilings and overhangs that were nice in the summer but blocked the light in the winter.

The Volvo rolled onto my driveway. Rainwater had pooled in the cracks left from the most recent earthquake. The breeze lifted a maple leaf off the lawn and sent it skidding across the hood of the car.

"Call me later if you have a chance," Evie said.

"I'll try. But I have to go to the library and chase down some plays for Drama." I caught Mrs. O'Reilly's gaze in the rearview mirror. "Thanks for the ride."

"You're welcome, Sarah."

Evie waved as I got out and closed the car door. I forced a smile and waved back. The Volvo backed into the street, spraying rainwater. A sigh rose through my body and huffed out my mouth. Mom usually worked mornings at the university art library, but had said she would stay late today to make up for the time we had spent in Massachusetts. I steeled myself. If Amy had taken a turn for the worse, then Mom would be home.

"Hello?" I called out as I crossed the threshold.

Einstein raced toward me, nails clicking, his surly bark arriving before he did.

"Is Mom here?" I asked Einstein, lowering my heavy backpack to the floor. Einstein fixed his shiny black eyes on me and sat. I raised my voice. "Mom?" When no one answered, I took it as a good sign.

No foul-smelling grimoire smoke in the hallway, either — another positive development. Tension eased out of my neck and shoulders. Einstein escorted me to the pantry, where I gave him a treat. He scarfed the biscuit, then lapped water from his bowl, the one I had made in eighth grade art class and had painted on the side:
The Universe is expanding. Catch up!

A quick peek reassured me the spell book was still safely in my closet. My fears temporarily abated, I made a trip to the bathroom, took Einstein on a "potty break" around the block, and then checked my watch. The library closed at five. By the time Mom arrived home, it would be closed. Worry clawed my stomach. What if all the copies of
A Midsummer Night's Dream were checked out? It would so be Amy
's fault if I failed the assignment.

I headed to my room
. A faint brimstone stink, like spent matches, hung in the air. I opened the door wide. At least the grimoire hadn
't ignited anything. I rolled my desk chair over to the closet and pulled down the boot box. Once it was on the floor, I flicked off the lid and stepped back. The grimoire gasped. My heart did one of those gymnastic vaults you see during the Summer Olympics.

The spell book wheezed. For a second I thought two eyes, one brown and the other blue, appeared on the cover and glared at me. I blinked and they disappeared.

You're losing it. Books don't breathe or wheeze or have eyes. I studied the grimoire from a safe distance. It appeared no worse than it had this morning, but no better, either.

I placed the grimoire on my altar. It heaved a sigh.

"Let's start with a crystal healing." I addressed the book as if it were a patient and I its doctor.

Candles, wands, pentagrams, crystals, and other magickal tools crammed the bottom shelf in my closet. Someday I'd make special boxes for them so I wouldn't have to search through the jumble of bags. For now, I rummaged until I located a lavender drawstring pouch and emptied its contents onto my meditation altar. The seven quartz crystals were each about the size of my thumb. I positioned them so they formed a triangle around the grimoire.

"You're spell struck, so I figure you got zapped with a lot of bad mojo when Parvani's wrongful love spell set off your self-destruct mode."

The grimoire stopped wheezing and seemed to listen.

"So send any lingering, bad magic into the crystals." I straightened the lower right crystal. "Meanwhile, I'll make a snack, then summarize
Romeo and Juliet
."

Einstein met up with me in the hall and followed me to the entryway, where I had left my backpack. As I knelt and unzipped the main compartment, my cell phone, which I'd tucked into a side pocket, rang. Evie's name flashed on the screen.

"Hey," I answered.

"Hey. Sorry to bother you. I just wondered if everything was okay."

"Mom's still at work, so Amy must be all right. The grimoire—"

A small explosion sounded down the hall, like pebbles pinging against wood and glass. Amy's twenty-three trophies rattled in their display case. Einstein barked and dashed toward the noise.

"Einstein, no!" I ran after him, phone still pressed to my ear.

"What happened?" Evie's voice rose.

"I don't know. Hang on a minute." Foul smoke wafted from my bedroom, setting off the smoke detector in the hall. The high-pitched screeching sent Einstein retreating toward the front door. I fanned my face with my hand and peered into my room.

"Salem, are you okay?"

"Yes. I'll call you back." I flipped the phone shut and slid it into my pocket. I lasered in on the picture window behind my desk. Crystal shards, scattered like buckshot across the floor, crunched beneath my boots. Reaching across the desk, I unlocked the window and tugged. The window stuck.

"Come on!" Using both hands, I forced it open. Cold November air poured into my bedroom, like one of those low-pressure troughs the meteorologist on television always talked about. Some of the smoke slipped out. With my ears splitting from the smoke detector, I approached the altar. The crystals had vanished. Grey dust and tiny crystal splinters coated the altar.

The grimoire burped.

Chapter Six

Mount Diablo Boulevard, with its shop windows decorated with fall foliage, ceramic turkeys, and pilgrims, gave way to quiet older neighborhoods. My breath formed vapor clouds as I walked the twenty-one blocks from school to the foreclosed house. The final leg took me up the hill, past two-story apartment complexes squished against single-family homes. A bus rumbled down the tree-shaded street, probably ferrying renters to the library and grocery store, or the elderly to their doctor appointments.

Before first light, I had removed the For Sale sign. No police cars were stationed out front.
Guess the Don't-See-Us spell worked. As I reached the little wrought-
iron gate next to the mailbox, the hairs on my forearm lifted like hackles on a cat.

"Young man! Over here!"

The voice had a grandmotherly quiver, a trick Magdalena used to lull treasure hunters into spilling their secrets. I pulled in my aura to form an invisible armor.
Act casual. Act like you weren't about to trespass. I brushed a leaf from the gate as if I had happened to notice it and had stopped. Then I angled toward the caller, forcing my shoulders to relax, and readied an alibi.

An Asian woman, probably in her late fifties, regarded me from beneath a knitted cap. Tiny paw prints muddied her sky-blue ski pants below the knee. A mangy Yorkshire terrier with a ragged ear blinked at me from a baby carrier strapped to the woman's sternum.

"Have you seen Artemis?"

"Artemis?" I asked.

"My fourteen-year old Yorkie. She got tired of being in the carrier with Mitzi and insisted on walking ahead. I can't find her."

My gut unclenched. "I haven't seen her. But I'll keep an eye out."

"Thanks." She halved the distance between us. "I got Artemis from the shelter a few weeks ago, just before my son took off for college. No empty nest for me. No sir. Then the rescue club called me about Mitzi." She pointed to the dog in the cloth pack. The creature was so pathetic it was cute in a moist-eyed, half-bald kind of way.

"I'm June. I live three doors down. Just look for the broken step."

"I'll let you know if I spot your dog."

"Thanks. Nice to meet you."

"You too." I watched her cross the street and walk to the end of the block before I lifted the gate latch and slipped into the yard. The lawn needed mowing, but at least the rain had kept it green. The scraggly boxwoods and a shrub with pink bell-shaped flowers needed pruning. One of the window screens had been torn off and left on the ground.

I'd seen worse. Much worse. At least vandals hadn't stripped the place. From the outside it still appeared as though someone lived here, someone legit. The former owners must have believed in
feng shui
. The front door had been painted red for protection. Guess it hadn't worked so well against the bank.

I knocked three times and waited.

"Nico." Papo loomed in the doorway. We're the same height, five-foot-nine, but his mean streak made him seem bigger. We have the same dusky skin, wiry build, and raven hair. No wonder strangers think he's my father.

"Hey."

"You're late. The light is fading. You try to work now, you'll go blind."

"Don't worry. I started a new piece in art class. By Saturday I'll have an appointment with the owner of the local New Age store."

Papo's chin jerked up. "Remember, you don't work on consignment. The owner has to
buy the pieces.
"

"I know." I considered asking Papo for a ride so I wouldn't have to haul my carved boxes and altars on the bus. But then he'd follow me into the store and hover, throwing off my pitch and making me look like some kid. Besides, Papo made merchants nervous.
Better I bring a few samples. Whatever will fit into my bag.

"Good. Just make sure you have enough to sell at the Crystal Faire. Business first. School second." His hand swept toward my face. I flinched before I could stop myself. Papo laughed and ruffled my hair, as if I were a dog or something.

"On Saturday, I may hang around town for a while. Scavenge."

He grunted in approval. "Find us some more matches while you're at it."

"Sure." I knew the drill. Go into the nicer restaurants, pretend to look for someone, and then casually lift some matches from the bowl before you leave. Except we were in northern California now, and not too many people smoked. At least not in the ritzy areas. We wouldn't need so many matches if we lived in a real home with electric lights instead of candles, and a stove instead of a little grill, which was useless in the rain.

Bone-aching cold permeated the house. I headed for the family room where someone, Kali probably, had lit a fire in the fireplace. The heat raised the temperature from about fifty-two degrees to fifty-five. I hoped none of the neighbors noticed the smoke. How typical of Kali to ignore Rule Number Four: no fires until dark. She must have charmed Papo good. And used up more of his precious matches. The Earth would probably stop rotating if he broke down and bought some.

Through the sliding glass door, I spotted Magdalena on the cement patio, hunched over the little hibachi, her satchel at her feet. Her hands were stuffed into knitted fingerless gloves, and her dingy flea-market coat billowed around her ankles. She lifted the cooker's lid. Onion and cheap beef stew scents sluiced in through the drafty windows. My stomach gurgled.

Kali slunk in like a cat and stole the sweet spot in front of the fire. "Good school?"

Salem's face popped into my mind. "It's mellow. You should try it some time."

"No thanks." She shivered and hugged herself. She had thrown her thrift-store down jacket over her looking-for-work outfit: a white button-down shirt, short gray skirt over wooly black tights, and boots with rundown heels.

"Find any work?"

"Not yet, but I will."

I remembered June. "Well, keep your eye out for a Yorkie named Artemis. She's gone AWOL."

"Is there a reward?"

I shrugged. I hadn't thought to ask.

Night descended quickly. We gathered in a half-circle around the fire and silently ate Magdalena's stringy stew. Kali and I huddled on our bedrolls. Magdalena and Papo sat in folding chairs from the back of the van, their legs and laps encased in old blankets. A stout pillar candle from the dollar store provided extra light.