Sarmine rose and looked around the room. It was a mess. Besides the random pile of nine eggplants and jar of earwig and so forth, the feathers from the pillow that Wulfie had shredded clung to the bedspread and the wall and covered the floor in drifts. Sarmine considered. “Do you have a piece of Scotch tape?” she said.
“Um. Yeah.” I found her the dispenser. The witch gathered two feathers and dusted them with a red-brown powder from her fanny pack that smelled like cinnamon. “EhLARu,” Sarmine said, and pointed at the pillow with her aluminum wand.
Feathers whisked off the floor and into the pillow. The cotton case rewove itself around Wulfie’s rips and tears and stitched itself closed. “You like animals, don’t you?” Sarmine said.
The scope of the question was like asking someone if she liked food. Nevertheless, I was amazed at this sign that she knew anything about me at all. “Yes.”
The mended pillow plopped into the pillowcase, which rewove its own damage. “EhLARil, larIL,” she said, and blew something off her fingertip at the case. A pattern of tiny green turtles embroidered itself along the edges. The pillow plopped down onto the head of the bed with a soft thump.
“Thank you,” I stammered.
The witch nodded and left my room. “See you tomorrow night,” she said.
I flung my hoodie aside and finished chopping the pear. Combined it with the syrup and water and spices and mixed them all in a plastic pencil box.
It looked like pie filling.
Maybe I’d managed to interpret spells, but that didn’t mean I could work them. I dug under my bed for the wand I’d taken from the witch’s study and pulled it out.
It was black wood with a white tip. I hoped the white tip wasn’t ivory, because I would hate that. But when I looked closer it seemed to be made of that shimmery stuff that comes from seashells. The black wood felt solid, but I knew it couldn’t be. All wands have to have something elemental in them, which in practice is usually dragon milk, dragon scales, or phoenix feather. I wondered if anyone had ever managed to make a wand with essence of demon in it. It seemed unlikely.
I hefted the wand in my hand. It was shorter and sturdier than the witch’s wand. I liked the feel of it. It felt practical, and somehow warm, too.
I held it over the pencil box of pear mixture. What would a self-defense spell do if no one was attacking me? I dipped the tip of the wand into the pear.
Nothing.
“Because I’m not a witch,” I growled, then stopped. If I was doing this because Jenah was right that maybe anyone could work spells, then I was going to have to go about this the right way. Spells required intention. Not me thinking, I’m not a witch.
“Even goats have magic in them,” I said. “I’m practically a goat. I’m a goat, I’m a goat.” I lowered the tip of the wand to the pear.
This time a shot like a bolt of electricity went up my arm. I jerked back, the wand flicking out just like the witch’s always did—straight at the pyramid of nine eggplants.
The pyramid exploded.
Bits of eggplant covered my backpack, my desk, my ceiling. My bedspread. My new pillowcase with its tiny green turtles.
Despite the mess, I laughed hysterically. “Eggplant,” I said. Chicken container plus green leafy thing. “Egg. Plant.”
*
Friday morning. Halloween.
The school was buzzing with the holiday. Officially, the school prohibited costumes during the school day, but I saw lots of people with add-ons like kitten tails or nerd glasses. The Halloween Dance Committee whisked in and out of classes on “official” business. Rourke passed out gawdawful root beer candies.
Devon wasn’t coming to classes anymore, but he was there at school, wandering all around and looking for the phoenix. In some ways that was the most important thing of the day, because if he didn’t find it, the school would blow up. He didn’t seem worried, though I suppose he expected he could teleport away or whatever if the phoenix blew. But the rest of us didn’t have that luxury, and the idea of telling the principal to cancel the Halloween Dance because something in her school was going to blow up tonight would probably get me arrested on a bomb threat charge.
I couldn’t concentrate on classes with everything jumping through my brain. I pulled out my list to see where we were:
? Solve Ye Olde Demon-Loosening Spell (MOST IMPORTANT)*****
? Get demon-loosening ingredients and self-defense ingredients
? Retake algebra test
? Figure out how the demon is planning to steal “the hopes and dreams of five”
? Figure out why Devon is hanging out with Reese and her blue bra
? Trap Devon in a pentagram
? Compound Demon-Loosening Spell (in progress!)
? Check and see if Devon has located the phoenix