The Witch is Back

Chapter Twenty-Four




It was raining. And for the first time since we’d arrived at camp, it didn’t feel like a thousand degrees outside. I was so grateful I could’ve done flip-flops around the grounds. Only, there were puddles everywhere and I would’ve gotten all muddy doing it.

So instead, I showed my excitement by dressing for the occasion, summoning up a beautiful red-and-black-lined cape/poncho-style jacket. It was an amazing find straight from the runways of Milan. Large folds of fabric draped over my arms, and additional material wrapped its way around my neck, securing itself with snaps just above my breasts protectively. A belt cinched the coat at my waist, giving the garment the shape of a butterfly when I placed my hands on my hips.

Below that, I wore black stretchy pants decorated with a strip of black pleather darting straight down the sides of my legs. Nearly reaching my knees were my favorite pair of water-resistant cheetah-print boots, which zipped up the back. They’d keep my feet dry while making me look good on a rainy day.

I pulled the oversize hood up on my head before leaving the safety of the cabin and noted with glee that I looked like a couture Little Red Riding Hood. Considering everything that had been happening lately, I could use a little fashion pick-me-up right about now.

Just because my coven thought I was some crazy-jealous girlfriend monster, and Asher was barely talking to me, and it’s entirely possible that someone wanted me dead, it didn’t mean I had to dress that way. This was one of those “fake it ’til you make it” situations. One of the only times being fake was acceptable.

Making a mad dash for the amphitheater—which had seemed a lot closer until I was trying to avoid getting my hair wet—I listened for the silence that always came along with weather like this. It’s as if the whole universe stopped whatever it was doing and took a moment to listen to the methodical plinking sounds of the rain falling to earth.

Rain equaled rebirth, renewal, and growth. In other words: despite the frizzy hair, it was a good omen. One that I was willing to take.

“Hey guys,” I said, slightly out of breath by the time I got over to where Jasmine, Abby, and Sascha were sitting. They’d all been slightly frosty to me since our last meeting, but I’d decided to bury the past and try to get things back to where they’d been before we’d come to camp. Meaning, less Extreme Hadley Who Thinks Everyone’s Out to Get Her and more of Laid-Back Hadley Who Has a Passion for Fashion. At least when I was around them.

“Isn’t it amazing out?” I asked them, gesturing to the air around us and twirling around happily.

“Are you kidding?” Sascha asked, sounding more like Jasmine than herself. She tried to flatten her hair, but it just bounced back. Humidity had found its first victim. “It’s disgusting out.”

“Noooo, it’s not,” I said, not allowing her comment to spoil my day. “This weather’s magical! And I get to wear my new jacket. You like?” I posed to give them the full effect. “I can zap one for you too, Sascha, if you want.”

But Sascha seemed too annoyed to answer, so I looked over toward Jasmine and Abby to see if they knew what was wrong with our usually perky friend. There, I was met with more frowns and scowls.

“Do you think that anyone actually cares what you’re wearing on a daily basis?” Jasmine asked, her attitude harsher than usual. “You act like you’re some kind of celebrity and that cameras follow you around 24/7 or something. This isn’t a fashion show, Hadley.”

Now I frowned. Well, this isn’t going the way I’d hoped.

“I know it’s not a fashion show, Jasmine,” I said. “But what can I say? Great clothes make me happy. I wake up every day and ask myself, ‘What should I wear on the runway of life?’ And today I’m wearing power and fabulosity.”

“What you’re wearing is ridiculous,” Jasmine said. Abby snorted beside her but kept her mouth zipped.

What crawled up her butt?

True, it wasn’t unusual for Jasmine to be irritable. Hell, a guy had once asked her if she suffered from PMS year-round and she’d hit him. But this new attitude was something else entirely. Jasmine was being downright ornery, and it couldn’t have just been because of what had happened the other day with Brooklyn.

“Whoa, harsh,” I said, staring at them. “What’s up with you guys today?”

But before they could answer, a few loud claps rang out behind us, commanding our attention. Reluctantly, I turned to see the three counselors standing underneath the bright lights in the middle of the stage. They waited for us to quiet down, and when we finally did, Miss Peggy clapped again just in case we hadn’t gotten her point the first few times.

“All right, to start our day off . . .”

She’d barely gotten the words out when a huge boom cut through the air and we all watched in horror as more than a dozen large crates, barrels, and props that had been piled up in one of the corners of the platform flew across the area and landed on top of them.

“Omigod!” I shouted and was out of my seat before I knew what I was doing.

Sprinting over to the edge of the stage, I placed my hands on the black surface and propelled myself up into a handstand before rolling out of it and ending up just a foot or two away from the pile of rubble. I could hear the others shouting behind me as they raced to join me.


“Miss Peggy! Mrs. B! Are you guys okay?” I yelled out, trying to get a feel for where they might be trapped underneath the debris.

“Get us out!” a voice called back. I wasn’t sure who’d said it, but it was all the encouragement I needed to get moving.

I turned to see Jasmine, Sascha, and Colette coming up on the right side of the stage and Brooklyn rushing over to me on the left. About ten feet behind her, Eve and the other Barbie clones followed.

Not thrilled about my choices in cohorts—between Jasmine’s ’tude and Brooklyn’s general suckage, I was tempted to tell them all to back off—I tried to focus on how we could do what the adults had asked of us. Get them out.

So, in this case, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“We have to get this stuff off of them!” I screamed at the others as I attempted to pick up the first crate.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Jasmine muttered, but ran up next to me and began to do the same. Neither of us were having any luck though. I was a pretty strong girl, but the crates weighed a ton—too much for me to lift on my own, or even with the help of another twitch.

“What the heck are in these things? Boulders?” I asked, feeling my back strain under the pressure. A few other campers joined me in trying to move the crates, but after a couple of minutes, we hadn’t even made a dent in the mess.

“Stand back and let me blast them off,” Jasmine said, eventually getting fed up. She motioned for me to move out of the way.

I stepped right into her path. “No way! Jasmine, you can’t just blow this stuff up. What if you miss and hit one of them? Or debris flies and hurts one of us?” I said, pointing at the other twitches who were huddled down below the stage. Their eyes were wide and a few seemed on the verge of tears. It was obvious that it was their first time dealing with a crisis.

Fortunately for those who were trapped, it wasn’t mine. This was like old times.

As my eyes continued to sweep around the crowd, I saw Jinx standing all the way in the back of the amphitheater, just inside the covered area. Complete terror registered on her face and she appeared frozen in place. I wanted to go to her, make sure she was okay, but I couldn’t leave the others.

“Who made you boss again, Hadley?” Jasmine asked, taking a step toward me threateningly.

“We don’t have time for this,” I told her, losing my patience. Turning my back on her, I walked to the edge of the debris. “Anyone else want to step up and be the leader here?”

Nobody answered and I nodded before glancing back at Jasmine. We both knew I’d made my point.

“Okay then. Are there any other ideas about how we can get them out of this?” I gestured to the crisis at hand.

“Did anyone check out the other side? Maybe we could pull them out from there?” Sascha said.

I shook my head. “We’d have to climb over them to get there and risk crushing them even more.”

“Should we go get the other counselors?” someone asked from the crowd. I ignored this. We needed to get them out now.

“We could do a spell to get rid of all this stuff,” Brooklyn suggested. “Like, a floating spell or maybe we could make them disappear?”

I hated that so far Brooklyn had come up with the only useful idea, but it was true. Swallowing my ego, I nodded at her and motioned for everyone to take their casting stance.

As we got into place, the crates and props began to shake. The movement was small at first, but as we stood there, it became more noticeable. Then objects actually began to rise from where they’d landed, and I began to look around at the other twitches in confusion.

“Who’s doing this?” I asked, looking around frantically. The other campers looked just as clueless as I was. A few even began to move away. It quickly became clear that none of us had a hand in what was happening.

But if not us, then who?

One by one, each object floated into the air and moved back to its place in the corner. It was as if someone were stacking them there, all orderly and where they belonged. The whole thing was so bizarre, that all we could do was stand there, slack jawed, and watch.

After what felt like forever, we finally saw Miss Peggy and then the other two teachers. Well, parts of them, anyway. First it was just a leg, then a head, and then, Miss Peggy’s shiny vest. When the counselor’s whole body was fully revealed, I noticed that her hand was outstretched as if midcast. She motioned for the last of the boxes, which had been covering the other women, to be deposited onto the top of the heap in the corner.

“What just happened?” I asked them as they brushed the dust and dirt from their clothes.

Mrs. B took out a handheld mirror and reached up to run a hand through her vibrant hair, making sure every strand was perfectly in place. For someone who’d just nearly been killed, she seemed oddly okay with it. Something wasn’t right.

“Was that all a joke? Some kind of prank?” I asked, growing mad at the thought. They had no idea that for some of us, this sort of thing happened all too often. I glanced toward the back of the amphitheater to find Jinx, but she was gone. Case in point.

“If it was, it wasn’t funny,” Brooklyn echoed, sounding just as upset as I was at the prospect.

“No, not a joke,” Miss Peggy said. Then she started to fiddle with one of the pins on her jacket. “Oh, dear. That last barrel ruined my ‘Life’s a Witch’ button.” After a few words, the button went back to looking good as new. “There we go. Now where were we?”

“We were about to tell them about the challenge,” Mrs. B said, attempting to keep the kooky counselor on point.

“Ah, yes!” Miss Peggy said. A stopwatch appeared in her hand and she pressed one of the buttons on top. “Six minutes and forty-eight seconds. It took you almost seven minutes to figure out how to get us out and put your plan into action. Not horrendous, but also not very impressive. It’s like the last week and a half hasn’t happened at all.”

“Is it possible they have brain damage?” Sascha whispered to Abby, though it was loud enough for everyone to hear.

I’d actually been wondering the same thing myself.

“Have a seat, have a seat,” Miss Peggy said then. “More will be revealed.”

Locking eyes with Brooklyn, I realized we both had the same look on our face. We were skeptical about what was going on and neither of us liked being the brunt of any joke. In any case, we walked off the stage and sat down in the stadium seats.

My heart was still racing over what had just happened, there was dirt on my new cape-jacket, and Jasmine, Abby, Sascha, and Jinx had chosen to sit a few rows behind where I was. The day was quickly going downhill for me.

“What’s going on?” Colette asked, her eyes wide with concern as she finally showed up to class and sat down next to me. She hurriedly explained that she’d been running late and then had run into Jinx, who’d been rushing back to the cabin. It had taken Colette more than five minutes to calm Jinx down and convince her to come back. Sitting on the other side of Sascha, Jinx still appeared shaken, but she was there.

“Settle down!” Miss Peggy said loudly. Slowly, the whispered conversations petered off until the place was silent again.

“We’d like to thank you for bearing with us during our little demonstration,” Mrs. B said. “And please accept our apologies for those of you who were distressed over the situation we created. Soothing spells will be provided directly after this class for those still afflicted.”


“As Mrs. B mentioned, this was a demonstration,” Mrs. Jeanette said, all business as usual. Nothing about her suggested she’d just been trapped under a bunch of heavy crates. Her hair was pulled out of her face and lay in a braid down her back—a style more for function than fashion—and she stood at attention, practicing perfect posture while peering out at us critically. “Or rather, it was a test.”

“A test?”

“Seriously?”

“Are you kidding me?”

Everyone began to whisper to each other, which forced Miss Peggy to quiet us again.

“We wanted to see how well you’d act under pressure,” she explained. “Since you arrived, we’ve been teaching you how to use your powers effectively. It should become second nature to cast when you’re put into a situation that’s potentially dangerous. Yet, when it appeared that we were in trouble up here, you all froze.”

“No disrespect, Miss Peggy, but that’s not true,” I said. I knew the adults were trying to make a point, but what she was saying wasn’t right. “We may not have freed you, but some of us were there right away, trying at least.”

“You’re right, Hadley,” Mrs. B said, giving me a smile. “You did act immediately. In fact, some of you were quite valiant in your efforts. What Miss Peggy means, is that in all the drama, most of you forgot to use your best assets.”

“You fell back solely on your human instincts, instead of utilizing your powers in tandem,” Mrs. Jeanette said.

“Not that your human instincts should be ignored either . . . ,” Mrs. B added, shooting a quick look over at the scientist.

“Because a combination of both is what makes us most powerful,” I finished, understanding what she was trying to get at.

Mrs. B nodded at me encouragingly.

“The reason that we put this whole show together today is because we have a challenge to propose,” Miss Peggy said.

“The Brighton Battlefield!” Mrs. B shouted and thrust her arms into the air spectacularly.

The other two women looked over at her disapprovingly. “I thought we’d decided we weren’t calling it that, Rose, on account of it sounding too . . . violent,” Miss Peggy warned.

“Oh, come on! It has a great ring to it. It’s supersexy, right guys?” Mrs. B asked us, raising an eyebrow. None of us answered, considering we were still completely clueless as to what they were talking about. In this case, though, I had to agree with Miss Peggy. Describing something as a “battlefield” wasn’t exactly making me psyched to participate.

“The Brighton Challenge,” Miss Peggy continued, as Mrs. B crossed her arms over her chest and began to pout, “is something new this year and you will all be asked to participate.”

“Each person will compete in a series of obstacle courses, designed to test your casting ability, reaction time, intelligence, creativity, power levels, execution of skills, accuracy, and strength of character,” said Mrs. Jeanette. “You’re encouraged to utilize any of the spells we’ve taught you here at camp as well as those you may have brought with you from home.”

“You will be judged individually upon completion of each task and a point system will be put in place to keep track of who’s in the lead,” Miss Peggy said.

“Are you going to spring these challenges on us like you did today?” Brooklyn asked, sitting back in her chair about fifteen feet away. Her foot rested on the seatback in front of her, like she wasn’t fazed by what had happened earlier. Yet, she’d been the first to ask the question we were each wondering.

“Oh, dear, no,” Miss Peggy said, lifting her hand to her chest like that would’ve been crazy. “The challenge will happen three days from now. We ask that you come ready for anything. Wear clothes that you can move in, preferably nothing loose, as they could get in the way.”

“The person with the most points after each challenge has been completed will be our top witch,” Mrs. B said. “The boys will be doing a similar challenge over on their side of camp.”

“What’s in it for us?” Jasmine asked.

The adults blinked at the bluntness of her question. I cringed as I worried about the impression Jasmine was leaving for the rest of the Cleri.

“Yeah, what do we win?” Sascha asked, her eyes lighting up at the thought of being awarded something.

“That’s the best part!” Miss Peggy said, clapping excitedly. “The top girl and boy twitches will win an exclusive four-week apprenticeship with the elder of their choice. Including counselors of the past.”

“Meaning—you could work with a fabulous mogul like moi,” Mrs. B said, gesturing to herself.

“Or with a famous scientist,” Mrs. Jeanette said with far less flair.

“Or any of the other dozens of powerful and groundbreaking witches we’ve had the pleasure of working with here at Brighton,” finished Miss Peggy.

My head was spinning with thoughts of heading to Hollywood to learn from the most clever businesswoman in the world. Mrs. B would be able to teach me how to create an empire that I could use to accomplish every goal I’d ever had. Imagine what I could learn in just four weeks . . . My future would be golden after that.

I looked around at my fellow campers and could tell they were all thinking the same thing. Maybe their apprenticeships would be with other witches, but everyone knew that this was an opportunity that would change our lives.

I needed to win this challenge.