Witch

Fourteen





I climbed through my bedroom window. Once inside I could hear my father on the phone. He was talking to another policeman about finding me. He’d probably called my friends, too. I needed to officially come home to stop them looking for me; then I could get what I needed and sneak out again. I slid back out through the window, and moments later I was knocking on the front door.

My mother opened it. ‘Vania, I was so worried! Your father was about to go in to work!’

‘I’m sorry, Mum, I know I overreacted. I went over to Bryce’s place.’

‘We called his parents. They said you weren’t there.’

‘I asked him not to tell them.’

My father appeared and promptly clipped me over the ear with his palm. I put my hand to my throbbing head.

‘You’re grounded, missy.’

The snake in my stomach twisted in fury, and I wanted to strike out and hit him right back, but I knew I had to play it smarter than that. ‘I’m sorry for running off, Dad.’

‘Get to your room.’

I slunk past both of them.

In my room, I got into bed and turned out the light. A few minutes later my mother appeared, silhouetted in the doorway.

‘Vania, we need to talk, but it’s too late now. Try to have a good sleep. Things will be clearer in the morning, I promise.’

‘Okay, Mum,’ I said in as normal a tone as I could manage.

About ten minutes later they switched off the light in their bedroom.

I slipped out of my bed and took off my red jumper. Scrunched in the corner of the room was a black one; it badly needed a wash, but I didn’t care. I slipped it over my head. Now all I needed to complete my stealth uniform was a beanie to cover my glowing blonde hair. I scraped open the top drawer of my dresser, coughing to cover the grinding sound it made. I grabbed a black beanie with a silver skull and wings stitched on the side, turned it inside out and put it on, tucking my hair up under it.

I switched on my torch and carefully pried open the loose floorboard under the rug. From the space I pulled out a slim book with a black cover: A Witch’s Cures and Curses. I knew what I was looking for, a binding spell – one that could stop a murderer and force him to confess his deeds. I found what I needed on page 33 and was relieved to see that I had all the key ingredients to hand.

Next I removed the black velvet drawstring bag from beneath the floorboard, which I’d been using to store a bunch of magical accoutrements I’d been accumulating. I set aside the rose quartz for love and the dried daisy petals for friendship, and instead assembled the more ominous items required by the spell: the ancient witch’s herb, hemlock; salt, extracted from the Dead Sea; and a bullet – mainly because it was made of lead, one of the densest substances on the chemical scale – which meant it had powerful binding properties.

Within minutes I was silently sliding out of my bedroom window again.



The moon was now blazing like the sun in the sky, its light casting a shadow under me. I ran through the spell checklist in my head. I needed to hypnotise Mr Barrow by waving the hemlock in an anticlockwise direction over his head. I had no idea how I was going to get close enough to him to achieve this, but I would cross that bridge when I came to it. And then when he was in the trance I had to sprinkle the salt around him in a circle with no gaps, to bind him from moving and getting away. And then I had to hold the bullet in my right hand and state the incantation quickly to capture his thoughts and force his confession:

Thou art beholden to my will

And answerable to my decree

Bound in limb but not in tongue

Thou shall render

Thy confession.

In twenty minutes I was in front of the house on Queen’s Cross Road. I started up the driveway, but stopped halfway as the stupidity of what I was about to do hit me. This was insanity!

Then the angry snake twisted in my gut and up my spine, forcing my head back. I looked up to the full moon. Its blazing light felt like it was burning a hole in my forehead when, from the glare, three familiar shapes appeared. The voices of the witches swirled in my ears.

‘Calmly, quietly, little one

The spell you cast has begun

To the right and to the left

Your destiny you must accept

And now with no procrastination

Second shall be your destination.’

And then they were gone. I took a deep breath and continued edging up the driveway. Even I wasn’t stupid enough to go waltzing in the front door, so I made my way down the side of the house. I saw two doors.

‘Second shall be your destination.’ The witches were telling me to open the second door.

There was a small window set high up the wall. I stretched up as far as I could on my tiptoes to peek in and saw that the door led into a small laundry, and through that was a room in which I could see a TV screen flickering.

I tried the handle. It creaked a little, and my breath caught in my throat like a fish hook. But it continued to turn, and with a light push I was able to open the door.

I hesitated, but the snake in my belly hissed, ‘Proceed! ’

I crept to the edge of the hall. I could see the back of Mr Barrow’s head. He was watching the television. My mind raced. If I could sneak up behind him and wave the hemlock over his head this could work.

I took a couple of steps along the hall towards the lounge room and then I heard it.

Snoring.

Mr Barrow was asleep! A rush of adrenalin went through me.

I opened up the neck of my spell bag, withdrew the sticks of hemlock, and snuck up behind his chair.

The snoring continued.

I waved the herb over his head. He spluttered and made a choking noise, and for one terrifying moment I thought he would wake up. But then the snoring started up again.

I crawled on my hands and knees around his chair, sprinkling the salt. I was shaking so hard I thought the sound of my chattering teeth would wake him. But then it was done.

Now all I had to do was stand up, create a protective sphere of light around myself, focus my magic and state the incantation. He would wake up, find himself unable to move and then confess. Nothing to it.

I stood in front of him and raised my arms, tracing them in a big circle like a windmill as I saw blue light start to form around me in a bubble. I closed my eyes and focused on the light. I remained very still, sensing the light growing brighter around me.

Until I heard his voice.

‘You’ve forgotten something,’ he said.

My eyes flew open. The light I was seeing behind my closed lids was not my protective shield – it was a table lamp that he had switched on. This was definitely not part of the plan.

And he was holding a gun and pointing it straight at me.

I started to say the incantation as quickly as I could. ‘Thou art beholden to my will, and answerable to my decree . . .

’ ‘Be silent!’ he said, waving the gun at me.

I finished the incantation in my head, using every ounce of magical will I had. I stared at him defiantly, though my mouth had gone so dry I felt like I was choking.

‘Vania Thorn, how wonderful to see you here,’ he said. ‘Nice try with your clumsy spell-casting attempt, but you did forget something.’

What did he know about my spell-casting?

‘The bullet? Aren’t you meant to be holding that so that I am bound to your will?’ he said smugly.

Too late I remembered the lump of lead in my spell bag. I had forgotten it. But how did he know?

‘The hemlock, the salt . . . looks like you’re trying to cast a binding confession spell.’

He flicked the gun and I felt as if something else had control of my feet. I took two steps backwards. The back of my knees hit a chair and I fell into it.

‘I’ve been waiting fifteen years for this.’ He smiled menacingly.

I tried to speak, but it was as if my lips were sewn shut.

‘Now you know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a spell. Not much fun, is it?’ he said.

I couldn’t move. It felt like my whole body had been encased in cement and sunk into a deep lake.

Mr Barrow walked up to me and peered into my eyes.

‘Yes, you have your mother’s eyes,’ he said. ‘Do yours change colour like hers?’

What was he talking about? How did he know my mother? I’d never seen her eyes change colour!

Mr Barrow backed away to sit on a chair on the opposite side of the room. He rested the gun in his lap.

‘Well, here is your confession, Vania Thorn. I killed the woman of Queen’s Cross. She was a witch. A real witch, not like the people who pretend to be witches nowadays. I am a member of an ancient order of righteous crusaders, the Anti-Witches League.’

I couldn’t move my body, but the neurons in my brain were firing a million miles a minute trying to digest what he was saying.

‘I was born and bred to kill her,’ he continued. ‘She was the last pure-blood witch in the world. She carried the seed of magic from which future generations would be born, and my league could not allow this aberration to continue. It has been necessary over the centuries, however, for members of the league to ourselves learn something of magic to thwart our quarry, hence the rather effective binding spell I have cast on you just now.’

I tried to move again, but I still felt as if I were sunk in a pool of lead.

‘I watched her for many weeks, waiting for the right time,’ Mr Barrow continued. ‘True witches don’t die easily – they must be killed while they are committing an act of magic and on a full moon. My task was difficult.’

He put his hand to his forehead, sighing as if he felt sorry for himself. I wanted to kick him, and would have if I could have moved at all. His binding spell was working on me, but my incomplete binding confession spell was also clearly working on him as he continued to pour out information.

‘But I was patient, and I was finally able to drug her with a little untraceable chemical concoction I cooked up.’ He laughed as if he had just said the funniest thing in the world.

I stared at him, filled with horror, as he continued gloating.

‘It was easy to destroy the evidence of my presence. I started the fire, and I was standing on the street with the neighbours when the firemen showed up.’ He picked up the gun in his lap, stroking the barrel slowly.

‘I was enjoying the show until I saw them bring the baby out.’ He pointed the gun at me again.

‘Yes, there was a child. Her seed had spread. I don’t know how this had escaped me.’ His tone was becoming angrier, and the hand that wasn’t holding the gun started thumping repeatedly against his leg.

Growing panic rose inside me, and I could tell my fear was starting to shake the foundations of his binding spell. My right foot moved an inch across the floor.

‘Once the baby was taken away there was nothing I could do but wait until the witch-child turned sixteen and came into her full powers and then catch her in an act of magic. I was prepared to do this, of course, but then there was one very annoying hitch.’ His teeth bared in a grimace as he spat out the words. ‘She was moved!’

I shook my head a tiny bit as the binding spell slowly loosened further.

‘This was most annoying, as a witch can only be killed on the soil upon which she was born. And so I was forced to set into motion a rather clever plan, if I do say so myself.’

I wanted to throw up. Something about what he was saying was resonating inside me like a memory stirred up from long ago.

‘I got a job at the local high school, and then not long after that I killed the head of the Summerland Police Department. And home the witch-child came!’

He stood up and took a step forward, the gun now pointed directly at my chest. ‘I want to thank you for making this easy for me. I had to spy on your mother for months to catch her in an act of magic on a full moon. But tonight you have delivered yourself to me on a silver platter.’

My body started to shake.

‘Vania Thorn, you are the daughter of the last witch, and tonight is your last full moon!’

A bolt of energy burst through me. I felt like I had been shot, but the gun hadn’t been fired – invisible rubber bands that had been tightly bound around me were snapping off and feeling flooded back into my body. His binding spell was failing.

I started to rise off the chair, but he put the barrel of the gun against my chest and pushed me back down.

My mind reeled. If I was the daughter of the woman of Queen’s Cross that meant my parents were not my parents. And it meant that I wasn’t just messing around with magic. I was a real witch.

A real witch with a loaded gun aimed point-blank at her heart.

Mr Barrow’s eyes narrowed until they were cold black beads. His finger squeezed the trigger.

I waited for the pain and wished more than anything that I had listened to Bryce and Brenda and not come here tonight.

But the pain didn’t come. Instead, Bryce, Dean and the twins burst into the room.

‘Vania, get up now!’ Dean yelled.

Mr Barrow looked furious, but the gun was by his side and he wasn’t moving.

‘The twins have taken care of him – move!’ Bryce said urgently.

I looked at the twins, who were standing in the doorway with their eyes closed and their hands outstretched towards Mr Barrow. I could see light like electricity shooting from their palms towards him.

I leapt out of the chair just as Alyssa screamed.

‘Vania, we can’t hold him much longer,’ Amelia said.

There was a huge blast and a blinding flash of light, followed by Bryce flying through the air in front of me. I looked down to see him lying on the ground at my feet, his shirt covered in blood. On the other side of the room Dean was on top of Mr Barrow, straddling his chest and punching him in the face.

‘Bryce!’ I cried, dropping to my knees by his side.

‘It’s just my arm . . . Get Barrow,’ he said shakily.

The twins were beside me, pushing me out of the way. ‘Vania, move. Let us help him.’

I saw Mr Barrow throw a punch at Dean, knocking him off his chest. Dean grabbed after him, but Barrow managed to evade his reach and get up, racing for the door.

I hesitated, looking at Bryce, but the twins were already laying their hands on him, and by the way their hair was standing straight up on end I could tell they were using their psychokinetic skill to stop the bleeding – they were making the blood flow back into his veins, not out of them.

Dean was running out the door after Barrow. I followed close behind.

As I bolted out into the yard I heard a car engine roar to life.

Barrow was in his car and, with tyres squealing, was reversing backwards down the driveway with Dean running alongside, holding onto the side mirror.

‘Dean! Be careful!’ I screamed.

He let go rather than be crushed under the wheels as Barrow swung the car around into the street. I caught up to Dean and we both stood at the end of the driveway bathed in the headlights of Mr Barrow’s car. For a moment I wondered if he was going to charge forward and run us over, but then with a screech of rubber the car turned and roared away down the street.

The black snake churned inside me and a volcanic eruption of fury burst through me. I thrust my hands at the retreating car. ‘THOU ART BEHOLDEN TO ME!’ I screamed. And suddenly I was sitting in the passenger seat next to Mr Barrow. ‘You are not getting away with this,’ I growled.

He turned and looked at me in shock. ‘What the hell?!’

I opened my mouth and the snake came out of me like a torrent of black tar, wrapping itself around Mr Barrow in thick coils, pinning his arms to his sides.

The car started to careen wildly.

And then in the headlights I saw a tree falling across the road. I squeezed my eyes shut – now I was going to die for sure. But I suddenly found myself standing next to Dean as I heard an explosive bang. ‘Oh. My. Gosh,’ I gasped. ‘I was just in the car with Barrow.’

‘No you weren’t, you were standing right next to me waving your arms around!’

‘Dean, I was with him, in the car. I think it just hit a tree.’

It was then that I noticed Dean did not look good. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah. He busted my lip pretty bad, though.’ The full-moon light revealed the blood on his mouth and chin as a dark-purple stain.

Lights were coming on in the houses around us, and a man and a woman in dressing-gowns were walking towards us from across the street.

In the distance I heard the wail of police sirens.