“Yup,” I said. My ingrained caution tried to stop me from saying the next part, but as long as I was going to trust Jenah, then I ought to show her some of the fun parts of being tied to the witch as well. “I’ll show you someday.”
“It might be worth a trip to Creepy Guy’s place.”
I shuddered. “No. But I’m sure he’s not the only guy with unicorns. I’ll keep an ear out.” I turned more pages of the demon book. “Okay, pentagrams can be made of anything,” I read. “As long as the circuit is complete. Many things have been used to attempt to trick demons into being caught in pentagrams, since nobody likes a demon on the loose. One unusual pentagram that caught the demon Bezerath was made of an unbroken stream of water. The pentagram was a shallow trough in the ground. The witch ran a garden hose into it while activating the pentagram. The demon was caught, along with a confused squirrel.”
Jenah shut her book with a thump. “So the question is, what do we possibly have that we can get near to him, that won’t alert him? Not to dim those nice sparkly blue bits that just appeared in your aura, but if we surround him with five brooms or try to quick-fling five streamers around him, he’ll notice real fast.”
“Ah, but we do have something,” I said. “In fact, we have five somethings.”
14
Halloween Dance
If the awesomeness of a dance can be judged by the number of streamers, then the Halloween Dance Committee had outdone themselves. There were black and silver ones everywhere. Starry black balloons trailing twenty-foot silver ribbons bounced against the ceiling.
Most everyone entering the gym was in costume. Lots of boys with dripping blood faces and lots of girls in miniskirt cat costumes. Witches, too. But all the witches were cute and wore stripey tights and tiny pointy hats.
None of them looked like the evil witches I knew.
Including the one stalking right through the gym doors with me in a pencil skirt and support hose. “I expect this will be quite dull,” Sarmine said. “Luckily we shall be spending most of the evening elsewhere.”
“Good,” I said. “Why don’t you start now?”
“Nonsense. I must check in with your choir teacher. I don’t want to be an unsupervised adult on the school premises.”
“Fine time to worry about that,” I said. “Why don’t you tell them what you’re up to while you’re at it?”
“Oh, there’s that interesting root beer–smelling man,” she said. “Did you doppelg?nger yourself like I suggested?”
“I made up the test and improved my grade like you didn’t suggest,” I said. “Still didn’t stop you from coming to school. Are you planning to do anything embarrassing tonight?”
“I think I’ll go say hi to him,” the witch said. “It’s rather nice to talk to a man who doesn’t want to cheat me on the price of unicorn hairs. It’s been a long time since Jim.”
“Jim Hexar?” I said. “Of Hexar/Scarabouche?”
She studied me as if I were a pinned insect. “Who else?”
“Witchipedia said he disappeared in a demon mishap.”
“Jim was too nice, just like I caution you about. It got in his way again and again. I remember one time he refused to work the fortune-telling spell, simply because it used live mice. When of course, that’s what mice are for. I spent a long time being angry with him for disappearing on us.”
“On us?” I said.
I swear, the witch rolled her eyes at that point. But I couldn’t question her further because Jenah showed up. Jenah stuck out her hand to be introduced and kept her face as bland as if she had no idea that this was the woman who had rolled me up in a pumpkin patch.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” said Jenah.
“I suppose it must be,” said Sarmine.
Jenah shook her head. “You two look so much alike.”
“Thank you,” said the witch. “That’s quite a compliment.” She did not specify to whom.
“Ostensibly this woman is here as a school parent,” I said. “It’s the school’s lucky day.”
“Oh, there’s your choir teacher,” said Sarmine. “Talking to my root-beer man. Who does she think she is?” She stalked over in that direction.
I cringed, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about any of that at this point. So I rounded on Jenah, who was saying, “You don’t take choir.”
“We are not related,” I said. “Why do you say those things?”
“Are you sure?” she said. “A, your auras are like totally different colors—but they have the exact same spiky green brightnesses around the head. I think it’s a witch thing. B, you make the same face when you’re about to get stubborn. She looks like she could be your older sister. You didn’t tell me she was so young.”
“Witches look like whatever age they feel on the inside,” I said. “She usually looks sixty.” I peered through the dim dance lights to where Sarmine was apparently speaking politely to both Miss Crane and Visible Undershirt. “She does look awfully young tonight. Maybe that’s what fooled you into thinking you saw similarities.”