“Not my parents’,” I said.
Are they not eager for praise from the world? Dost they not hunger to find the best care, not just for others, but for thy sister? Alastor mused. Thy parents did not make the contract, but they have cherished its effects, benefited beyond their dreams. And if it should all come tumbling down, if thy parents should lose thy good name…ahhhh, what a delight it would be.
My heart thumped painfully in my chest. As if Toad could hear it, he fluttered over from the end of the couch, his wings flicking and snapping against my face.
“Don’t do it,” I whispered. “It wouldn’t just hurt my family. It would hurt thousands of kids around the world—”
They will feel my pain. They will feel the agony of the girl-child your forefather burned alive. I swore I could hear the smirk in his voice. And it will be all thy fault, Maggot. Who would accept you then, knowing you were the cause of such misery and misfortune? Who could love such a weak fool? But thou art well acquainted with scorn and mockery, art thou not? How certainly thou will prove their every suspicion that there is nothing remarkable, nothing worthy about you.
He wasn’t…I tried to breathe, to fight the sting in my eyes. He wasn’t wrong. Everything he said was true. If I couldn’t stop him, if I was the reason my own family failed, faltered, fell—
Thy misery tastes of pepper, Maggot. Delicious. But there is a way to save them, to ensure they will not hate thee. Thine own family—mother, father, sister alike. All safe, all cared for. You would only need to agree to a contract of your own….
A tiny black paw pressed against the tip of my nose. Toad’s gleaming emerald eyes glared at me, his claws out, just above my tender eyeballs. Rather than blind me, he removed his paw and leaned down, peering into my eyes. For the first time I noticed that his ears weren’t as small as the rest of him, they were just folded down. Now one rose of its own accord, forming a perfect little triangle, listening.
“Can you hear him?” I whispered, wondering.
Changelings are nothing more than mice in my realm, Alastor said. I see this fiend is no more than a lowly lap pet. Foolish. The only good use for them is to pickle them and roast them over a blazing fire.
Toad answered my question, and Alastor’s charming mental image, with a howl, drawing his claws back to strike. I seized him by the belly and launched myself up off the couch. “Come on, come on, buddy, you know I don’t think that. He’s just trying to get us worked up. Let’s find a good distraction.”
Since I couldn’t read half the books on the shelves, and the other half would most definitely give me nightmares, that was out. I stood at the center of the attic, hands on my hips, orange pumpkin shirt glowing in the moonlight. The smell of sour milk seeped into the air, and, just as suddenly, I knew what I had to do.
So gross, I thought hours later, trying to breathe through my mouth as I tied off the rancid trash bags and walked them over to the open window. I squeezed and shoved them through, trying not to squirm as one of them started leaking mysterious liquid all over my hands. So, so gross.
Nell and Uncle Barnabas didn’t seem surprised to find me still up, but they did seem a little confused by the fact I was in the middle of sweeping the floor.
“What?” I said defensively. “It was dirty.”
I don’t stress about things being clean, I swear, but I like to organize my clothes by color in my closet and for there to be no dust or crumbs on my desk at home. It wasn’t like there’s anything wrong with that. People shouldn’t have to live with boxes and bags left out everywhere to trip over, never mind mugs crusted with days-old dried oatmeal. Or unmade beds. Or spider-infested curtains. Or the threat of stacks of books falling over and crushing them.
“It’s…” Uncle Barnabas began, taking off his glasses to wipe them before replacing them back on his face. “Very clean in here.”
You bet it was.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Nell asked, raising an eyebrow. She didn’t sound tired in the slightest, and I felt like I had taken cold medicine. I had to drag myself around the room. It was almost midnight—my parents usually forced me and Prue to be in bed by nine thirty, ten at the latest if we had family movie night.
Tonight was family movie night.
Don’t think about it, don’t picture it, don’t miss it….A whole lot of good telling myself that was going to do.
Still, a small, excited part of me recognized there was at least some good in all of this. No bedtime, no plain, boring food, and no Grandmother. In Redhood, you lived by the rules, or you couldn’t live there at all. As much as I wanted to think my parents were different, they still had their own unique set of them. Here, with the exception of my two commands from the resident witch—no mirrors and no revealing my name or location—I was mostly free of them.
At least, as far as I could tell. But if Nell and Uncle Barnabas knew what had happened, that Alastor had been able to control my arm and toes…
“He—” I began, but stopped myself. Did I really want to tell them about the toe controlling? If they knew that, would they strap me down, or lock me in some kind of closet? “Alastor’s like a baby. All he does is whine and cry.”
“I might have something to help shut him up,” Nell said. “I’ve never tested it before, but it could work….”
Uncle Barnabas’s hand came down on my shoulder and Nell’s eyes locked on it.
“Is it a new spell,” he asked eagerly, “or a hex?”
Nell grabbed her purple backpack and pulled out a sheet of notebook paper and a pen, bringing both back to the couch.
“It’s just a pocket spell,” she said.
“Pocket spell?” Uncle Barnabas grunted as he tossed his costume’s hat off onto his bed. “This folksy stuff is beneath you, Cornelia. Your mother was a magnificent witch, and I have to think she would be disappointed you aren’t trying to push yourself more.”
Nell kept her eyes down on the paper. I thought I saw her hand tremble around it, but just as quickly, she handed it to me.
“It could help,” she said quietly, smoothing back a loose ringlet of her hair. “What you want to do is write down the fiend’s name. A-L-A-S-T-O-R.”
“Why don’t you write it?”
“Because you’re the one seeking protection, not me, genius.” Her eyes rolled behind her glasses. “Just do it, okay?”
Alastor stirred in my mind, like a pile of fallen leaves, disturbed by the wind. He let out a curious Hmmmm? as I wrote his name down.
“Now fold the sheet along the middle, right through his name. Keep folding it smaller and smaller. As you do that, imagine his power diminishing until it’s nothing.”
Not likely.