“You have to get my brother! He’s the only one who can help! His name is Conner Bailey—he should be at Saint Andrew’s Children’s Hospital in Willow Crest—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Rudy said, and grabbed her arm. “This city is full of places that help people like you, but you can’t stay here.”
The security guard tried to escort her to the exit, but the young woman wouldn’t budge. He pulled on her arm with all his might, but she stayed exactly where she was, as if she were glued to the floor.
“It’s too late!” the young woman said. “The spell—I feel it coming! The witch must be close! Please, you have to run!”
To the security guard’s horror, the young woman’s eyes rolled back and began to glow. Her hair rose above her head and floated in the air like a slow-flickering fire. In all his years in security, Rudy had never seen anything like this before.
“What the heck is happening to you?”
The young woman placed a palm on his chest, and a bright blast erupted from her hand, knocking him all the way down the hall. As Rudy lay on the floor, his whole body tingled as if he had just been electrocuted. His vision was blurry and fading fast. With all his remaining strength and in the few moments of consciousness he had left, Rudy reached for his radio and held it against his mouth.
“Police…” he wheezed. “We need police at the library… NOW!”
Within minutes, Fifth Avenue was illuminated by red and blue lights as two police cars sped toward the library. A policeman emerged from the first vehicle and a policewoman from the second. The officers hurried up the front steps with their guns raised.
“I just got the call. What’s the situation?” the policewoman asked.
“We don’t know,” said the policeman. “A distress call came from somewhere inside the library. Approach with caution.”
“Oh my God.” The policewoman gasped. “Look!”
The officer pointed to the library’s entrance as the large doors slowly opened on their own. A moment later the young woman in the white dress levitated through the doorway and landed at the top of the library’s front steps. Even in New York City, the police weren’t accustomed to seeing someone with glowing eyes and floating hair flying out of a building. Once the initial shock faded, the officers knelt behind a lion statue and aimed their weapons at her.
“Hands up!” the policeman ordered.
The young woman didn’t follow his instructions. Instead, she pointed at the statues and two powerful bolts of lightning struck the lions. The police dived to the ground to avoid getting hit.
“What was that?” the policeman asked.
“Lightning!” said the policewoman. “But I don’t understand. There aren’t any clouds in the sky!”
Once the officers helped each other to their feet, they jerked their heads toward a strange cracking noise coming from the statues. They watched in astonishment as the stone lions stood up from their perches, leaped into the air, and landed on the steps in front of the young woman, blocking the officers from coming any closer. The statues roared so loudly, they set off all the car alarms within a block.
“Holy crap,” the policeman said. “The statues are alive! How is this possible?”
The policewoman clicked the radio on her shoulder. “Officer Sanchez to Dispatch,” she said. “The library is under attack, I repeat, the library is under attack! We need all available units to join us immediately!”
“Copy, Officer Sanchez,” a voice responded over the radio. “All available units have been notified. Are you able to identify who or what is behind the attack?”
Still in disbelief, the policewoman hesitated to respond.
“It’s magic,” she said breathlessly. “The library is being attacked by magic!”
CHAPTER TWO
ACCIDENTAL YET UNEXPLAINABLE
The Willow Crest Fire Department had never seen an incident like the one at Saint Andrew’s Children’s Hospital. The firefighters were called in the middle of the night to view the damage from a reported explosion, but when they arrived, they had no idea what they were looking at. There weren’t any flames to extinguish, there was hardly any debris to clear, and the remaining walls of the hospital weren’t blackened or singed by the alleged blast. As far as they could tell, the women’s bathroom hadn’t exploded as much as it had vanished.
“It’s not damaged, it’s just missing,” one firefighter said to another. “If there had been an explosion, this place would be covered in bits of porcelain, but there’s not a piece of the bathroom anywhere.”
“The hospital staff swears a fully functional bathroom was right here just a few hours ago,” the second firefighter said. “If it wasn’t an explosion, what could have removed it so quickly?”
The firefighters asked around the hospital, but no one had witnessed the phenomenon, further complicating the strange situation. They checked the grounds surrounding the hospital in case the bathroom had been detached by some type of tractor, but there were no tracks on the ground.
“What should I put on the report?” the first firefighter asked the second. “The hospital’s insurance company is going to need something from us, but I can’t exactly say the bathroom got up and walked away.”
“Write accidental yet unexplainable,” the second firefighter said. “I think this case is above our pay grade. They’re going to need an investigation to get to the bottom of this—a thorough investigation.”
With no further assessments to make, the firefighters taped off the area and gave the hospital manager the contact information for a destruction investigator who lived in the next town. The specialist wasn’t available for another week, so the missing bathroom remained a giant and mysterious hole until his arrival.
The scene was completely untouched until midnight on the eve of the inspector’s visit. A fifteen-year-old young man stepped over the yellow tape and had a seat in the doorway that led to nowhere. His eyes were baggy, his heart was heavy, and he hunched as if the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. Deep in thought, he gazed through the large hole at the buildings of downtown Willow Crest in the distance.
The young man had hoped that if he returned to the missing bathroom, it might provide answers to the questions haunting him. Unfortunately, all the answers had disappeared with the bathroom.
“Hey, Conner!”
A sixteen-year-old young woman suddenly peeked into the hospital from outside, almost giving Conner a heart attack. She wore a purple beanie and had blonde hair with a streak of pink and blue at the front.
“Bree!” Conner said. “What are you doing here? I thought you were grounded for running away.”
“Oh, I am,” Bree said. “I’m not allowed to leave the house until college. I’ve never seen my parents so furious. As far as they know, I just snuck off to visit family in Connecticut. I can’t imagine how they’d react if they knew we flew to Germany and back.”