Witch

Eight





I was woken by sunlight streaming through my bedroom curtains. I dragged myself out of bed, wondering if any light would be shed on the success of my spell from last night.

I pulled on a pair of jeans and then procrastinated about which T-shirt to wear.

‘Vania! You’ll miss your bus,’ my mother said, sticking her head around my door.

‘It’s cool, Mum, I’m ready now.’

I’d chosen a tight, bright-blue T-shirt with sparkling magenta lips stencilled on it. Not my usual style, but if I was going to cast manipulative love spells I figured I might as well dress the part.

I was excited as I approached the bus stop. I couldn’t wait to see if my spell had worked. But when I got on the bus I was disappointed to see that Matt wasn’t there. What had I been expecting anyway – that he’d be sitting there waiting for me with a bunch of roses?

When the bus pulled up at school Bryce was standing out the front waiting for me. I pulled my hair over my eyes to mask how happy I was to see him. But he didn’t even try to hide the smile that lit up his face when he saw me, and my heart leapt and my legs started to feel shaky as I stopped in front of him. I worried that the tight T-shirt was too much.

‘Vania, you are not going to believe this,’ he said in an excited rush. ‘I spoke to a ghost last night!’

I pulled myself together, relieved but also a bit disappointed; I guess I’d been hoping that he would comment on my T-shirt, even though if he had I would have just dismissed him. I knew I was a mess of contradictions.

I fiddled with the shoulder strap on my backpack. ‘Actually, I do believe you,’ I said. ‘Was it your great-grandmother?’

‘No. It was someone I didn’t know. I had been ghost-calling—’

‘Ghost-calling? What on earth is that?’ I interrupted.

‘Um, you stare at one spot and make your mind really still and then when you are totally focused you say inside your head, “Is there anyone out there who wants to speak to me?” Well, I had been ghost-calling for ages, over an hour at least, and I was tired and actually starting to fall asleep when I realised someone was standing at the foot of my bed. A man.’

‘Argh!’ I squealed. ‘You’re freaking me out. Did he say anything?’

‘Not at first— Oh, I’m sorry . . .’ Bryce’s voice trailed away, and I felt a tap on my shoulder.

‘Vania!’

Matt Rock was standing there, all spiky hair, blue eyes, brown skin and . . . red roses!

I looked back to Bryce, but he wasn’t saying anything. It was his turn to look shocked.

‘I hope you like these,’ Matt said.

‘Umm, thanks,’ I replied, taking the roses.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t see you on the bus this morning,’ he said. ‘I got up early to find these for you. See you on the bus this afternoon?’ He was smiling, but his eyes looked a little glazed, like he wasn’t quite all there. I figured I could stop wondering whether the spell had worked.

I glanced back at Bryce nervously, but he’d turned away.

‘Sure,’ I said to Matt. ‘See you later.’

Matt smiled and practically skipped away towards the senior hall.

Cassidy Walters was standing on our school steps staring at me. She obviously couldn’t believe what she’d just witnessed. I felt a tingle of pleasure. Her horror alone would make the whole thing worthwhile.

I shrugged and clasped the flowers to my chest, smiling in a way that I hoped was a mixture of innocence and surprise. No doubt the entire school would be talking about this for the rest of the day: Matt Rock giving Fish Lips a bunch of red roses!

I felt victorious until I saw the angry look on Bryce’s face. This wasn’t supposed to happen! I wanted Bryce to be jealous, not angry. He shook his head and walked away.

Well, it had definitely worked, but it looked like this love spell had got off to a rocky start.

And Bryce was nowhere to be found at lunchtime.



‘Vania!’ Amelia squealed as soon as she got to our table in the cafeteria. ‘Everyone’s talking about Matt giving you roses. Do you like him, too?’ She was tripping over herself with excitement.

I looked at her carefully. Surely their psychic ability would tell the twins I’d cast a spell to make this happen? But no, she and Alyssa seemed completely clueless. Maybe when it came to enchanted situations their psychic powers didn’t apply? I glanced at Dean, but he was burrowing into a meatball sandwich and wasn’t saying a word, just as we’d agreed. I had to keep up the charade, too.

‘Well, you know I catch the same bus as Matt now, and we’ve gotten to know each other recently,’ I said casually.

‘He is so hot,’ Alyssa gushed, ‘almost hotter than Bryce. It’s so exciting that a senior likes you! Are you going to introduce him to your parents?’

‘Hey, slow down.’ I laughed. Was everyone coming under the power of this spell and getting carried away with it? ‘It’s very early days.’

‘Wow, you’re so strong to be able to resist Bryce and now Matt,’ Amelia said admiringly.

‘I don’t know about resisting Bryce.’ I shrugged. ‘He doesn’t like me in that way.’

‘Well, we thought he did,’ the twins said.

‘But now that you have Matt you don’t need him,’ Dean spoke up between mouthfuls.

I glared at him. It was time to change the subject.

‘Speaking of Bryce, he was telling me he saw a ghost last night,’ I said brightly.

‘Yeah, he told us, too,’ Amelia said. ‘Talk about horrifying.’

‘Why? What happened?’ I immediately felt bad – Bryce had been in the middle of telling me his story when Matt had turned up with the flowers.

‘Well, it started out okay,’ Alyssa explained. ‘He said the man was just standing there, and Bryce wasn’t scared – he had been hoping to connect with a ghost, after all.’ Alyssa paused, looking to her sister.

‘I’ll finish the story,’ Amelia said. ‘The next bit freaks Alyssa out too much.’

I felt a little sick. If I was honest, I didn’t think I’d have the courage to communicate with ghosts. I thought Bryce was really brave for trying it. Dean was sitting, up straighter, too, his attention now off the meatball sandwich and totally focused on Amelia.

‘Bryce said the guy was moving his mouth like he was talking to him, but he couldn’t hear any words. And then the guy grabbed his foot.’ I gasped. ‘And he kept tugging on it. Bryce was trying to shake him off, and all of a sudden he could hear what the man was saying . . .’

She paused dramatically.

‘C’mon, Amelia, spit it out,’ Dean urged her.

Amelia’s hands gripped the table. ‘He was saying, “COME WITH ME.”’

‘Urgh.’ Alyssa shuddered. ‘That’s so creepy!’

‘So what did Bryce do?’ I asked, trying not to show that this was totally spooking me.

‘He just said no,’ Amelia said seriously. ‘He had to say it about twenty times, but eventually the ghost let go of him, and then it just faded away.’

I felt chilled. What can of worms had I opened? I was doing love spells with blood, and Bryce was being told by ghosts to go with them! Where did they want him to go? Where were we all going with this?

The afternoon classes passed in a blur. I passed Bryce once in the hallway but he looked the other way, which was incredibly depressing. I couldn’t wait for the day to be over so that I could go home and put this love-spell drama behind me. But there was no such luck – Matt was standing at the top of the school steps waiting for me.

‘Vania! Vania! Vania!’

I tried to avoid him by slipping around the side of the building, but he came running over to me. I was shocked to see that he had a huge black eye.

‘Matt! What happened?’

He looked at the ground sheepishly and then grinned. ‘Some of the guys gave me a hard time for buying you flowers, but I stood up for you!’ He rubbed at his eye. ‘It hurt, but you’re worth it.’

I wanted to tell him it served him right for spitting in my face, but try as I might, I couldn’t be that mean. So much for getting my revenge. So I just said, ‘Thank you, Matt.’

At this he grabbed my hands and wrapped them around his waist! I was so shocked I didn’t know what to do. All of a sudden I was conscious of the fact that he was older than me and a lot more experienced.

He bent his head to kiss me, but at the last second I managed to twist my head away. His mouth landed on my chin, catching part of my bottom lip on the way then slobbering all over the lower half of my face. It was disgusting!

So this was my first kiss. And unfortunately it was witnessed by the rest of the coven. Bryce looked dismayed, the twins looked impressed and Dean looked smug, no doubt congratulating himself on the success of the spell.

Meanwhile, I was once again seriously questioning my sanity for having performed the spell in the first place.

I finally managed to untangle my arms from around Matt’s torso and push him off me. ‘Matt,’ I said breathlessly, ‘I have to go . . . I have to do research for a school project, so I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.’ I ran over to my coven before he could stop me.

‘Oh my gosh!’ squealed Alyssa. ‘He is in love with you!’

‘Hmmm, I’m not so sure about that.’ Amelia folded her arms and gave me a quizzical look.

‘Whatever,’ said Dean brightly. ‘Let’s go to the Purple Raven.’ He practically hauled me up the street ahead of the others. ‘Are we going to tell them?’ he hissed when they were out of earshot.

‘I think Amelia already knows. Whatever psychic shield the spell threw up is obviously wearing off now.’

‘Well, let’s own up before they take offence that we didn’t tell them about it in the first place,’ Dean said. I nodded.

We stopped and waited for the rest of the coven to catch up.

‘We have something to confess,’ I began.

‘I think we know,’ said Amelia and Alyssa together.

‘We figured that, but let me explain please,’ I said.

I looked to Bryce, who was frowning. ‘What do you have to confess? That Matt Rock likes you and you like him? That’s obvious.’ He was rolling his eyes.

‘Actually, Dean and I did a spell . . .’ I began my explanation hesitantly, but then a feeling of defiance came over me. What was I grovelling for? I had done a spell that worked. Why did I have to apologise for that? A rush of power started in my feet and sped all too quickly to my head. ‘And it worked!’ I lifted my chin.

‘What kind of spell?’ Bryce was looking at me like he didn’t want to hear the answer.

‘A love spell,’ I said proudly.

Alyssa shook her head. ‘And I thought Matt Rock liked you for real.’ She seemed genuinely upset.

‘Why did you need to do that?’ asked Bryce. He sounded disappointed, and my defiance evaporated, once again I was reminded that this stupid spell hadn’t been a good idea.

‘Well, it was revenge, to be honest. The other day he was really mean to me, and I got so mad – I wanted to get him back, so I did a spell that Dean helped me find on the internet.’

‘You found a spell on the internet?’ Amelia said. ‘That’s stupid – there are all sorts of freaks out there, and you can’t just trust anything someone puts online.’

‘I did warn her – but then I helped her find it,’ Dean said in a guilty tone.

‘I want to break it now. I’m glad to know it worked, but I don’t want Matt bugging me anymore. It was a mistake. I’m sorry,’ I said sincerely. I looked at them all, but my eyes settled the longest on Bryce.

‘Let’s go and ask Brenda what to do to sort this out,’ he said decisively and strode off up the street towards the Purple Raven.

‘But Bryce, don’t you have to ask Brenda about your ghost first?’ I called out after him.

‘Don’t worry about me – I have my magic under control,’ he retorted over his shoulder.

I looked at the twins and they shrugged.



Brenda was waiting at the door of the cafe as we came down the alley. She was wearing a voluminous black caftan and a solemn expression.

‘This is a serious matter,’ she said, giving me a cold look.

‘What?’ I gulped. Was she psychic, too?

‘I sensed a shift in energies last night during my full-moon meditation,’ she began. She beckoned us with a long, bejewelled finger and then continuing in an odd singsong tone: ‘A wayward spell shall not go unnoticed. Come inside, all of you.’

The furniture inside the cafe had been pushed to the sides of the room. The rugs had been rolled back. There was a star painted on the floor. Four of the five points were the directions of the compass – north (painted white), south (red), east (green) and west (blue). A symbol that looked like a figure-eight lying on its side was painted in gold at the top of the fifth point. A large circle of black candles surrounded the star, and in the centre of it all, somewhat incongruously, there was a yellow bucket, filled with white powder.

I felt a bit unnerved. My newly magical world was becoming increasingly surreal. The others seemed a bit spooked, too; we all stood there in silence until eventually Bryce plucked up the courage to speak. ‘Brenda, we want to help Vania reverse her spell,’ he said.

‘A spell can only be broken by the person who cast it.’ Brenda looked at me as she spoke. ‘And just as the spell had to be cast with intention, it must be broken with intention. So, tell me yourself, Vania, do you wish to break your wayward spell?’

‘Yes, I do,’ I said earnestly.

‘Why?’ Brenda asked.

I felt hot and pressured, as all eyes were on me.

Why did I want to break it? Just to appease my friends and follow the ‘rules’ of spell-casting? When Brenda had given me my first lesson she’d said that you could not cast a spell on another without their consent. It was the number one spell-casting rule. But weren’t rules made to be broken? Matt had spat on me – surely that was a good enough reason for revenge. Then again, revenge hadn’t been that sweet. It had led to a disgusting and embarrassing first kiss. I had always hoped that my first kiss would be romantic and special. Even worse, I hadn’t made Bryce jealous, I had just made him disappointed in me. That sucked worse than Matt spitting on me.

‘I want to reverse my spell because I don’t want a creep like Matt to be in love with me,’ I said. I knew it was a lame reason, but I didn’t want to blab everything I was thinking and make more of a fool of myself than I already had.

‘I hope you’ve learned a valuable lesson here, Vania,’ Brenda said sternly. ‘Enchanted love rarely brings rewards, because magic is powered by the energy you put into it.

You were angry and unhappy when you cast the spell on Matt, so even though it was a love spell, it just brought more reasons to be angry and unhappy. So be careful what you wish for and, more importantly, how you are feeling when you wish for it.’

‘So how do we reverse this dodgy spell?’ Dean asked enthusiastically. After his initial hesitation when we’d started our club, he was now really embracing his inner shaman.

‘I’ve made all the preparations,’ Brenda said. ‘Thirteen black candles in a circle will banish the negative energy this spell has harnessed and is using to function, and the salt in that bucket will purify Vania and free her from any karmic fallout.’

‘What do I have to do? Tip it over myself?’ I joked.

‘Actually, no,’ Brenda said, ‘we’ll be throwing it at you.’ She didn’t seem at all amused.

Bryce burst out laughing. ‘Good one!’

I turned and glared at him, while the twins giggled and Dean looked sympathetic. ‘Don’t worry, Vania, this will be over and done with before you know it. Right?’ he asked, turning to Brenda.

Brenda looked forbidding as she stepped forward and picked up the bucket with both hands. ‘A reversal is no laughing matter. It will take as long as it takes.’

Everyone was silent.

‘Let’s do it. I’m ready,’ I said.

Brenda carried the bucket outside the circle, nodding reassuringly as she walked past me, her caftan billowing around her body. ‘Vania, take a handful of salt and sit in the centre of the circle,’ she ordered. ‘The rest of you can each take two handfuls of salt and then choose one of the compass points to stand on. I will stand on the point of infinity.’

The twins, Dean and Bryce got their salt and stood on the compass points, shifting and shuffling their feet around. Bryce was staring at me with a strange intensity, like he was already zoning out and casting some kind of anti-magic. I sat in the centre, cross-legged on the hard floor.

There was a loud click as Brenda switched off the lights. The room went dark. Only a sliver of light gleamed under the blind that covered the large window at the front of the cafe. I heard Brenda’s caftan swishing as she moved past me and stopped on the point with the sideways figure-eight – the point of infinity – and then silence.

After a few moments, Brenda clapped her hands loudly and the wicks of all thirteen candles leapt into flame.

‘Whoa!’ I gasped.

‘Vania, sprinkle salt around you on the floor in a circle,’ she commanded.

I let the salt trickle from my hand, swooping it in a semicircle in front of me before swinging around and closing the circle behind me.

‘Magic-makers and spell-takers . . .’ Brenda’s voice was so loud it rang in my ears. ‘Close your eyes and focus on the task at hand, for we must as one undo what’s done by the folly of our brethren’s hand.’

I closed my eyes in shame. All this trouble because of my stupid spell! But I was also excited by the drama of it all. What was going to happen next?

‘Salt,’ bellowed Brenda, ‘squeezed from the womb of our Mother Sea, dissolve all impurities. Reverse the magical deed!’

Uh oh, I thought, and I squeezed my eyes and lips shut.

I had expected the salt to be dry and sting, but it seemed to fall in slow motion, making it feel more like a shower of snow, cold and damp, swirling around me in a spiralling mist.

I realised I could no longer feel the floor of the cafe beneath me. It was like I was suspended on invisible wires over a bottomless black pit. I suddenly felt really scared and tried to call out, but my throat made no sound. I was being sucked down into a whirlpool, and I couldn’t breathe. I clawed at the air around me, my hands brushed against solid objects that were flapping about my head. They felt like bat wings, and I swatted at them frantically. The air was filled with screeching and squealing. I was losing my mind! I had to hold on to something – a thought, a concept, anything other than this nameless terror that was smothering me. What was I doing? Why was I here?

Images from the previous night on the clifftop flooded my mind, and I finally remembered the wayward spell I wanted to reverse. I again experienced the feelings of revenge and frustration and insecurity that had fuelled the spell. They built up into an enormous wave inside me and then rushed out like a tsunami flooding into the cavernous space underneath me, filling the pit until I was no longer suspended. Instead I was floating on top of it all. I felt precariously cradled for a moment, and I breathed a sigh of relief – the first sound I could hear myself make. I took another deep breath, and then I felt . . . safe. The bats’ wings were gone and the screeching sounds were replaced by a hum, like bees, far away – it was soothing, and the sound drew me to it until I opened my eyes and saw that I was back in the room, in the centre of the circle, covered in salt.

I shook my head and the salt flew off me like dandruff. Looking around, I tried to make out the faces of my coven and Brenda behind the glow from the candles. They came into view slowly, their faces glistening in the candlelight and their eyes closed. Their hands were stretched towards the circle, towards me, and the buzz was coming from them as they hummed in harmony.

My legs had gone to sleep. I moved to release the pins and needles gathering in my calves. At the rustling of my clothes, Brenda’s seeing eye shot open (her other had never closed) and she smiled and clapped her hands once, sharply. Everyone’s hands dropped and eyes opened.

‘And so you’re back,’ Brenda said, sounding pleased. ‘That didn’t take as long as I’d thought it might.’

‘How long did it take?’ I asked. Dean looked at his wristwatch and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

‘How long?’ I asked impatiently.

‘An hour and fifteen minutes,’ he said.

‘We were standing here all that time?’ Amelia and Alyssa said.

‘No wonder my feet are numb,’ said Bryce, shifting from one foot to the other.

‘Oh, you’re all babies,’ exclaimed Brenda. ‘Trust me, that was a quick reversal. They can take hours. You did very well, Vania. You were fearless and acknowledged your mistake and were willing to learn from it. The energies flowed unimpeded, and you have successfully vanquished your spell. Matt is free and, just as importantly, so are you.’

‘Will Matt remember anything?’ I asked. Now that it was over I felt a tinge of regret that there would be no red roses waiting at school for me the next morning.

‘You’ll be invisible to him now. He won’t seek you out or insult you. And no one else will remember what happened, either.’

I nodded and stood up. I was shaky. Dean put out his hand to steady me.

‘And now it is time for feasting, to ground any excess magic,’ Brenda announced. She walked over to the counter and switched on the light.

Alyssa and Amelia started brushing salt off me. ‘Are you okay, Vania? How do you feel?’ they asked together.

‘It was intense and kind of scary,’ I admitted. ‘I felt like

I went to another place, and it was all weird energy and noise, so it was hard to know what was really going on. What was it like for you?’

‘Well, Brenda told us to start humming and hold our hands out,’ Alyssa said.

‘And to think about sending you white light for healing,’ finished Amelia.

‘I kept feeling like someone was tapping me on the shoulder,’ Bryce added, ‘but I didn’t want to turn around and break what we were doing for you.’

‘There were spirits in the room,’ Brenda said. ‘I felt them, too. You are definitely a ghost magnet, Bryce. I sensed that they wanted to help, but I’m glad you stayed focused. The depth of your caring was one of the strongest forces in our energy spiral.’

The depth of his caring? What did that mean exactly? I snuck a look at Bryce, but he’d sat down in a chair with his back to me.

Brenda placed a large plate of cookies on the counter, followed by a big jug of iced tea. We tucked into the food hungrily. I was glad to be eating – it made everything seem solid and normal again as we chatted about other things.

‘You know, I feel stupid for making us spend so much time on this stuff with Matt when we’ve got so many other things to focus on, like solving the woman of Queen’s Cross mystery,’ I said.

‘How are you all doing with that?’ Brenda looked around the table.

‘In our next class we’re going to hit the school library and see if we can find anything on the web,’ said Bryce.

‘You’re not tempted to contact her ghost?’ Brenda asked.

‘We’ve agreed not to use our magical powers just yet to solve this,’ Amelia said.

I sat there chewing and thinking about the other mystery I wanted to solve – Mr Barrow’s relentless persecution of me. But I definitely didn’t want to bring any more of my personal problems to the table tonight.

After a while I looked over to the star painted on the floor. The candles had burned down, and there was salt everywhere – it was a mess.

I looked to the rest of the coven. ‘We’re going to have to go home soon, guys – maybe we’d better start cleaning this place up,’ I said.

‘Actually, you will clean up alone, Vania,’ Brenda said. ‘One must always clean up their own mess.’

I rose out of my chair, resigned. ‘All right, have you got a broom?’ I asked.

‘Brooms are not for cleaning!’ exclaimed Brenda.

I looked at her, confused. ‘What do you use to clean, then?’

‘A vacuum cleaner, of course. And don’t forget to snuff the candles, don’t blow them out. Otherwise you’ll blow away the magic.’

The twins, Bryce and Dean said goodnight and headed out as I plugged in the vacuum cleaner. My skin felt itchy from the granules of salt that had crept under my clothes. I hurried to finish so I could go home and have a shower.

Finally the salt was sucked up, the candle remains stacked neatly on the side bench and the rugs straightened. Brenda helped me with the tables and chairs. We worked together in silence, and it wasn’t until everything was back in its normal place that she spoke.

‘You have powerful magic in you, Vania,’ she said, ‘and I think you’ve only begun to scratch the surface.’

I thought for a moment about the black feeling that lurked inside me, especially when I was angry. I knew that was dark magic, and I wanted to understand it, but I didn’t want it to control me.

I wanted to know what light there was inside me, too. I knew I still had a lot to learn before I understood it all.