The Witch is Back

Chapter Thirty-Seven




I came to, still inside the dark and dirty cavern, only to find I was now propped up on my feet with my back against the wall. Invisible straps held me in place; I could feel the pressure of them across my chest, hips, thighs, and shins. They were so tight that I could barely move, and my arms were strapped down firmly by my sides, making escape impossible.

My chin had been resting on my chest while I slept, but now I forced my head up until I could see what was going on.

“Finally,” a voice said from my left. “You drool when you sleep, you know?”

“Do not,” I answered, bending my head to one side so my neck would crack and then doing the same on the other. I was sore all over, but nothing seemed to be broken. The blood had even begun to dry around the gash in my shoulder.

Turning to Brooklyn, I saw that she was in the same situation that I was. Suspended in the air by unseen chains, unable to move.

“How’s it hanging?” I asked, cracking a joke, because we both could use it.

She rolled her eyes at me and then laughed. Then her face grew more serious. “I’ve tried casting to break free, but I can’t even move my fingers. And my magic won’t work without it.”

I nodded, knowing what she meant. I’d already tried moving my hands to no avail, too. Twisting my head to the right, I noticed for the first time that we weren’t the only ones shackled to the wall. Eve was there, too. So were the rest of the Cleri and the other campers. Everyone was lined up in a row, like human-size decorations hanging on the wall. Most were still out cold, but a few had begun to stir and appeared to be just as confused as we were to be held in place.

So who, then, had put us there? Things were getting weirder, and weirder, and panic was beginning to grow in my chest.

The time had come to take drastic measures.

“Look, Brooklyn, I know we’re not really friends . . . ,” I started.

“That’s the understatement of the century,” she responded.

“But . . . ,” I said, continuing. “I think we’re gonna have to work together to get out of this.”

I tipped my head toward the invisible chains.

Brooklyn sighed and let the back of her head rest against the wall as she took in what I was proposing. “Fine. But it doesn’t mean we’re friends now.”

“Of course not,” I said.

“And I still don’t really like you,” she said.

“The feeling’s mutual.”

“And I reserve the right to go back to ignoring you after we get out of this.”

“Okay, I get it. We’re frenemies. Can we move on now please? Maybe get the hell out of here?”

She gave me a tiny nod.

“Okay, any chance you saw who did this?” I asked Brooklyn, hopefully.

“Nope. Woke up a few minutes before you did,” she answered. Her hair was a bit messed up and there was a goose egg growing on her forehead, but for someone who’d just been knocked around by her former best-friend-turned-psycho-witch after nearly completing a full obstacle course, she looked pretty darn good.

Bitch.

“In fact, I don’t remember anything after trying to get Eve away from you—you’re welcome by the way,” she continued. Then her forehead wrinkled up in confusion. “What are they doing here?”

I looked over at the others, who, for the most part, were all awake by now, murmuring and groaning and probably wondering the same thing.

“Eve brought them here hoping they’d turn all angry mob on us,” I said, trying not to hold it against any of them.

“Well, it looks like it sort of worked,” Brooklyn said, sounding calm, but her face giving her away. She was just as freaked to be here as I was. She was also just as proud, and her ego wouldn’t allow her to reveal just how scared she was. To me or to anybody else.

“Not totally,” I said. “Whoever did this got Eve, too. So, at least there’s that.”

“Does that mean we’re looking for someone even crazier then her?” Colette chimed in.

I hadn’t even noticed her on the other side of Brooklyn, but there she was, awake and alert, her lips zipper-free. Considering the circumstances, I was really happy to see her.

“I don’t think I can take any more surprises,” Colette added.

“Surprises, surprises. Oh what fun!” a high-pitched voice said from somewhere in the room. “Let’s look in my purse and find us one.”

To our horror, a girl bound out from the shadows and scurried over to us unnaturally.

Almost right away, I knew she wasn’t one of the girls at camp. First off, she was wearing a white nightgown that just skimmed her ankles. The style was plain and the fabric cheap and scratchy, resembling a burlap sack. There were stains along the bottom and muddy prints on the front of her frock, like she’d wiped her hands off on it dozens of times.

Her voice sounded incredibly young, but when she finally got close enough, I could see that she was actually around our age. Her hair rose up like a wild rosebush around her face, leaving shadows in places so it was difficult to make out her features.

What I could tell was that she was skittish. Even when she peered up at me, her eyes flitted from side to side like at any moment she expected to be attacked. She moved around erratically, talking mostly to herself and not making much sense.

Great. So we’d traded in one crazy for another.

“Who are you?” I asked her as she grabbed at my clothes and studied me from different angles.

“Oh yes, yes. I had a name once long ago,” she said, rushing down the line of girls along the wall. “But they took it away and now nobody knows.”

“Who’s this crackpot?” Eve asked, apparently awake.


“Well isn’t that the teapot calling the kettle crazy,” I said, watching the stranger make her way back to us. Once she’d ended up in front of me again, I asked gently, “What do you want us to call you?”

“Call me the forest or a pretty set of pearls. Call me the justice for all forgotten girls.” Then she giggled uncontrollably.

“So her name’s Pearl? Or maybe Justice?” Brooklyn asked me.

“Let me out of here!” Eve screamed then, startling all of us, including our captor, who began to run around the cavern, looking for a place to hide. She finally settled for the shadows of one of the entranceways.

“Shut it, Eve!” I yelled at her. “You’re not in charge anymore.”

“We’ll always be in charge,” she challenged back.

“Says the girl who’s currently strapped to a wall,” I said under my breath.

Then I turned back to Brooklyn and Colette.

“Is it just me or is there something really familiar about her?” I said to them.

“A cousin of yours, perhaps?” Brooklyn said with a chuckle. I didn’t laugh but tried to place her instead.

“She’s familiar because we know her,” Colette said finally. Her eyes had grown wide and her face had paled.

It was almost like she’d just seen a . . .

Oh, shit.

“Moll?” I called out in the direction of where the girl had disappeared. “Is that your name? Moll Brenner?”

A few seconds later, the girl stuck her head back out into the light and looked at me curiously. She took a hesitant step forward and then another. And then she ran over to me, until we were almost nose-to-nose.

“Moll,” she said. But that was it. No rhymes, no incoherent sentences. For the first time, she was clear.

“Omigod,” Colette said breathlessly. “It’s really her.”

“Who is she?” Brooklyn asked, not following.

“She’s the Witch in the Woods,” I said sadly as I watched Moll scoot backward a few feet and then sit down on the ground in front of us and hug her knees to her chest. She rocked back and forth, creating a rhythm with her motions.

She’d been so young and so lost back then. And it appeared she still was.

“No shit? The Witch in the Woods really exists?” Eve asked with a snort. “Well, that makes this easier. Hey, Moll. Let me go and we can wreak havoc together. Get rid of these bitches once and for all.”

Moll looked over at her, a frown on her face.

“Why are you keeping us here, Moll?” I asked her.

She shifted her gaze back onto me.

“You’re cruel, and you hurt, and you bring so much pain,” Moll said in a sing-song voice as she rocked. “The bad must get punished and it will come down like rain.”

“That. Is. Awesome,” Eve said with an evil smile. “Because those girls over there? They’re the bad people. They’ve hurt so many . . .”

“No, no, no, no, NO!” Moll yelled, shutting Eve up immediately. She ran over to Eve and covered her mouth with both hands. “You hurt the innocent and will reap what you sow.”

Eve’s face fell. For the first time since I’d met her, she seemed scared.

“You’ve all hurt and deserve to disappear,” Moll said, quieter now. “I will take you with me and no one will shed a tear.”

I wondered where she planned to take us. To the place where the other campers had left her? Wherever she’d ended up when she’d died?

I looked over at the others tied to the walls. They didn’t deserve this. Then again, neither did I, but maybe if she just took me, then I could find a way out eventually. . . .

“Moll,” I pleaded, terrified now. “I know we haven’t exactly been the best examples of good twitches, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s bad. Please, let the others go. You can take me. And Eve—because let’s face it, she’s just an evil person. But let the others go. They’re the good guys.”

Moll squinted at me. I could feel her weighing what she thought was true with what I was saying. Still, she didn’t seem convinced.

“See Jinx over there? She saved my life once.” I motioned with my head in Jinx’s direction. She seemed dazed from the spell Eve had cast on her and the others, but otherwise she appeared to be fine. “Jinx took a spell for me, right in her gut, trying to keep me safe from a really bad guy.”

I continued.

“And next to her? That’s Jasmine. She’s superprotective of the other members of our coven and looks out for them when she thinks nobody’s looking. She’s the most honest person I know,” I said. I flipped my head to the other side. “That’s Colette. And she’s actually related to you. You’re her great-great-aunt. She stuck up for you when everyone else was saying you were hurting people here at camp. And she’s really smart and brave and talented—she’s everything your lineage wanted to be but couldn’t because of crappy circumstances you couldn’t help.”

Colette smiled at me, a tear running down her cheek.

“And Brooklyn, well she’s really . . . fit,” I said grasping at straws. When she gave me a look that said, “are you kidding me?” I forced myself to try harder. “Brooklyn helps people fall in love. She just wants everyone to be happy.”

It killed me to say it, but I had a feeling it was true. There had to be a reason that Asher still thought so highly of her and I don’t think it was because of a love spell.

As much as I wanted her to be the villain of this story, she wasn’t.

Moll considered all of this and after a few silent moments she nodded her head.

“So be it.”

And then, Moll raised her hand and the others disappeared. Everyone except for Colette, Eve, and me. The three of us remained pressed against the wall, unable to move.

Still, I breathed a sigh of relief to see that Moll had let the others go. I didn’t like that Colette was still here, but Moll had at least given me something. She wasn’t the ghost everyone had made her out to be.

“Thank you, Moll,” I said gratefully, as I began to devise a new plan to get Colette and me out of there, too.

The disheveled girl tiptoed over to Colette, who, shockingly, seemed to look happy despite the fact that she was still here.

“Hello,” Moll said.

“Hi, Moll,” Colette answered, still strapped to the wall. “My great-grandmother used to tell me stories about you, that her mother had told her. You know they never stopped looking for you. Where have you been this whole time?”

Moll looked down at the ground and then back up at her great-great-niece. When the two of them were next to each other, it was easy to see the family resemblance. Even with the dirt that marked both their faces, they still looked alike.

“I went away,” Moll said quietly. “Life was too hard. I couldn’t brave the day.”

“But you did come back every so often, right? To prove that you were still here?” Colette asked.

Moll nodded.

“You’re the one who left the message at the theater, didn’t you? ‘I’m watching’?” Colette said, watching her face. “You wanted us to know that you were watching us. Making sure people treated each other right.”

Moll nodded again.

“But the whole world’s not like the kids who hurt you back then,” Colette said. “There are some great people out there. People who care about you and invite you into their lives and treat you like a friend. You just had a really bad experience. Life can be magical—if you let it.”


After a pause, Moll smiled. “Then you let it,” she said. “Let it be magical.”

And, suddenly, Colette dropped down from her place on the wall, freed from what had bound her. Colette steadied herself and then reached her hand out slowly until it hung in the air next to Moll’s.

“I will. Promise,” Colette said “But one more thing. Hadley is not a bad person. She is as good as they come. The world needs heroes like her in it. Someone to make the hard decisions and be brave when the rest of us can’t. If she’d been around when you were here, things wouldn’t have turned out like they did. Please. Don’t take her from us. We still need her.”

Moll remained silent and stared at the girl who had her own blood running through her veins. It was nice to hear what Colette thought of me, but I knew it was a desperate plea. After all, I had made some questionable decisions in my life. I’d been selfish, unthinking, and often argumentative. I’d been jealous and plotted against others. Who knows, maybe that qualified me as a bad person. Or a good person doing bad things. Either way, what was about to happen was out of my hands.

“Stop with the vomit-inducing family reunion  !” Eve shouted, breaking up the moment. “All of you are just sheep who should’ve been slaughtered a long time ago. You’re an embarrassment to our kind and I’m going to wipe you out the first chance I get. And if I don’t, then the reverend will, because he knows that people like you don’t deserve to walk this—”

“Good-bye,” Moll said and just like that, Eve was gone. Her last words echoing through the passageways as if she was drifting away from us.

“What did you do with her?” I asked, shocked at what had happened.

Moll looked at me with a childlike smile on her face. “I will take care of her,” she answered and then gestured to Colette, “if you will take care of her.”

“Okay,” I said, scared to ask Moll to elaborate on just what was to become of Eve.

“Make your lives magical,” Moll said again and then Colette and I disappeared too.