creepy hollow 05.5 - scarlett

  Beth kept her eyes on the boy as Malena and her client spoke in low tones behind her. She peeked over her shoulder at one point, expecting to see an exchange of coins or Madame Lucia writing a check—did checks even exist in this world?—but instead she saw the woman holding a vial against her temple where a faint wispy whiteness flowed straight out of her skull.

  Beth turned her head back quickly, hoping neither of the women had seen her looking. The boy began to stir, and Beth, noticing that the eye-shaped wound had now healed, leaned forward and pulled his shirt down so the poor child could at least wake up fully clothed. “Mama?” he said as he sat up, blinking slowly and frowning.

  “All done, dear,” Madame Lucia said. She crossed the room and took her son’s hand. “Is there anything else I need to know?” she asked Malena.

  “No, but if you have any problems with the spell, don’t hesitate to let me know.”

  Madame Lucia nodded as she removed what looked like an emerald encrusted pen from her coat pocket. She walked to the door, but instead of opening it, she lifted the pen and wrote on the wood surface. Beth couldn’t make out the words, but they seemed to glow faintly before disappearing. And then, right before her eyes, a dark void of space began to form at the center of the door. It spread outward like ink bleeding into paper until there was almost no door left. Without another word, Madame Lucia and her son walked into the darkness, which swallowed them up within seconds before quickly pulling back together and vanishing as if it had never been there.

  Beth, her mouth hanging open in shock, looked back at Malena for an explanation. “Faerie paths,” Malena said as she stood and returned to her workbench. “We can’t use them.”

  “Oh, is that what that was? I’ve never seen one before.”

  “Candles are better,” Malena said as she began to wipe the workbench clean.

  Beth stood there awkwardly, unsure if she was supposed to leave or stay now. She wouldn’t relax until she was out of Malena’s presence, but she was curious …

  Malena looked up with a hint of a smile on her lips. “Do you have a question, Scarlett?”

  She did, and Malena knew it. Malena always seemed to know these things. “Why did you tell the woman I was your apprentice?”

  “I doubt she would have been happy for you to stay if she’d known you’d never performed a spell with me before.”

  “But … why did you want me to stay?”

  As though it should be obvious, she said, “I thought it would be good for your education to observe one of our spells.”

  Beth nodded slowly. She supposed that made sense. Her eyes fell on an open book beside the stovetop. Malena’s spell book, no doubt. Curiosity getting the better of her, she moved to take a closer look at it. The words were in another language, but Beth could tell from the pictures that the page detailed the spell Malena had just performed. She looked up, a question in her gaze, and Malena said, “Go ahead.”

  She paged through the book, moving quickly past any pictures that seemed particularly gruesome. She felt uncomfortable looking at them, but it was probably just that she didn’t understand all this magic yet. Whenever she saw a page with English notes written beside the foreign text, she stopped to take a closer look. “Sprite wings?” she murmured. “Is that a real ingredient?”

  “Yes,” Malena said, waving a whole lot of used apparatus into the air and across the room to the sink.

  “Isn’t that sort of … wrong?”

  “Have you met a sprite, Scarlett?”

  “No.”

  “Nasty little things. Worse than rats. They’re of far more use to the world as a collection of ingredients than they are alive.”

  “Oh.” Beth added that to the long list of things she’d learned since arriving here. “Will I be able to do spells like this once I’ve learned to properly manipulate my magic?”

  Malena gathered her scattered herbs and tied them together. “Not all of them—not the spells that specifically require witch magic—but some, yes.”

  Flipping back to the watcher spell and hoping it wasn’t too out of line to ask, Beth said, “Why did Madame Lucia want this spell done on her son?”

  Malena groaned. “She’s a paranoid, overprotective mother. She’s purchased numerous protective charms from me before, but now she believes that someone wants to kidnap her son. We put a tracking tag on him yesterday, and today’s spell will allow the mother to see and hear what her son sees and hears whenever she looks inside that book. Poor child will have absolutely no privacy.” She shook her head, then added, “But that isn’t my problem. She is my client, and I must keep my clients happy.”

  Beth nodded, though she wasn’t entirely sure she agreed with that. “Can I ask what the payment was for this spell, or is it confidential?”

  Malena smiled knowingly, almost as if she’d been waiting for Beth to ask that question. “It wasn’t too expensive a spell. A single memory was all I required from her.” A memory? Beth opened her mouth to ask if that really meant what she thought it meant, but Malena said, “Time for lunch now.”

  It was then that Beth remembered why she’d come to the workshop in the first place. “Oh, Tilda sent me to ask you for a small wooden block. For an … expunging spell?” she added hesitantly, hoping she’d got the name right.

  Malena sighed. “Very well.” She headed to the back of the workshop and bent down to open one of the cupboards. As Beth watched her, something in the far corner caught her eye. She hadn’t noticed it before, perhaps because of the plants that had been hanging in the way, but something had since moved and she could now see a pedestal standing in the corner. A large glass case with a closed window sat upon the pedestal, and within it was a glass bell jar balanced on a cushion. Something floated inside the bell jar. A flower? Beth walked slowly around the workbench, wanting to get a better look. It was a flower. A water lily, perhaps. Its petals were white with a pale blue tinge at their base, and it remained frozen in place in the air. “What is—”

  “Come, Scarlett, it’s lunchtime.” Malena strode past Beth with a small block of wood in her hands. She opened the door and looked back, her nails tapping impatiently on the doorknob. “We don’t want to keep the others waiting.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Scarlett, look! I did it!” Tilda waltzed into Beth’s room the next morning and spun around, her long skirt billowing around her. A skirt made of—

  “Smoke!” Beth exclaimed. “It worked. That’s amazing.”

  Tilda, almost glowing with pride, placed her hand on her hip. “I may not be a qualified clothes caster, but I can whip up a good enough dress when I’m feeling inspired.”

  “This is more than just good enough.” Beth bent to take a closer look at the way the smoke of the skirt blended into the fabric. “Seamless. But won’t you get cold with nothing to keep your legs warm?”

  “I’m wearing stockings and boots under here. Besides, the smoke provides more insulation than you’d think. And even if I do end up cold, who cares? Not me when I’m dressed in something this amazing.”

  “Hopefully that thought will keep you warm then,” Beth said with a laugh.

  “And guess what else,” Tilda added. “I made you one too.” She turned and swept from the room before Beth could say another word.

  Beth returned to the bed and finished pulling the blankets straight. Her elbow knocked Thoren’s hourglass off the little stool that stood beside the bed, but her magic managed to freeze it in the air before it struck the ground. Pleased with herself for successfully employing useful magic, she replaced the hourglass on the stool. The hourglass was enchanted, of course, like many of the items in the witches’ home. Not only did it give off a dim glow so she could read the time even in the dark, but after the sand had flowed past all twelve marks, the hourglass would automatically spin around and begin again to mark the passing of the next twelve hours.

  “Here it is,” Tilda announced, returning with a bundle of black smoke in her arms. “Try it on.”
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  Beth didn’t need to be told twice. She stood behind the wardrobe door and stripped her warm winter clothing off. After stepping into the dress and pulling it up, she looked into the mirror and—“Okay, why is mine so much more revealing than yours?” she demanded. “This neckline is far too low.”

  “Because, dear Scarlett, you are stunning and you should show off your magnificent beauty.”

  Beth snorted. “I’d hardly call it magnificent. And since when did ‘beauty’ become a synonym for ‘cleavage?’”

  “Scarlett,” Tilda admonished. “I don’t know what you see when you look in the mirror, but I doubt you see yourself the way the rest of us do.”

  Beth huffed out a sigh. “Well, we can blame siren magic for that.”

  “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Of course not. Do you need help with the laces?”

  “Laces?” Beth felt the back of the dress with one gloved hand. “Oh, terrific. There are laces. This is basically a corset.”

  “It’s basically stunning, is what it is.” Tilda stepped around the wardrobe door and reached for the laces. When she’d finished tugging them tight—tighter than Beth felt necessary—she stepped back and said, “What do you think?”

  Beth surveyed herself in the mirror. The gloves looked silly; they ended at her wrists and were too puffy to be considered elegant. For a strapless dress like this, she needed slim gloves that reached above her elbows. Satin, or perhaps lace, if she could find lace thick enough to keep her skin from coming into contact with anyone else’s. The dress itself, though … Well, Tilda was right. It was stunning. But it pulled in her waist and pushed up her chest in a way that reminded her of the red dress. The one she’d worn for Jack. In a quiet voice, she said, “I can’t wear this.”

  “Why not?”

  Because only Jack should see me like this. Jack, whom she thought of less and less as each day passed. The realization filled her with immense guilt, and this dress only magnified that distressing emotion. “It just … isn’t me.”

  Tilda raised an eyebrow. “You’re a siren. You were born for a dress like this.” When Beth didn’t reply, she said, “Don’t you feel beautiful? Don’t you feel like you could conquer the world in this dress?”

  Slowly, Beth placed one hand on her hip and tilted her head. She swayed her hips so that the smokey skirt swished around her legs. She turned a little to the side and looked across her shoulder at herself. The thing was … she almost did feel like she could conquer the world in this dress—and she wasn’t sure that was a good thing.

  “That’s right, Scar,” Tilda said. “It’s all about confidence. Find it and hold onto it and never let it go.”

  “How?” Beth murmured. She’d been searching for confidence her whole life, and it finally felt as though it might be within her grasp.

  Tilda’s reflection looked back at her. “I am independent. I am strong. I am powerful. Tell yourself that enough times, and you won’t ever believe anything else.”

  “Is that how you were brought up? Being told to believe that about yourself?”

  “It’s how all witches are brought up.”

  Beth met her own gaze in the mirror as Tilda sashayed around the room. “I am independent,” she whispered to herself. “I am strong. I am powerful.”

  “Scarlett?”

  Beth looked up and found Thoren peering around her bedroom door. Well, it was technically his bedroom door. She still felt bad about forcing him into a storeroom. “Hi,” she said, suddenly wishing she had a shawl to wrap around her shoulders. No, she reminded herself. Strong, independent, powerful. She didn’t need to cover herself up.

  “Uh …” Thoren stared, apparently having lost his voice or his train of thought—or perhaps both. Beth stared back with as much poise and self-assurance as she could manage.

  Across the room, Tilda started giggling. “What happened to your protective charm, little nephew? I thought you were supposed to be immune to Scarlett’s siren ways.”

  Clearing his throat, Thoren lifted his arm to show that the charm was still there. “I may be immune to the siren part, but I’m not immune to a lady’s natural beauty.” Tilda laughed even harder at that, doubling over while Scarlett felt her cheeks flush. She couldn’t keep her own grin from pulling at her lips, though.

  “I’m, uh, doing deliveries today,” Thoren said, “and I wanted to ask if you’d like to join me, but, uh, I’ll wait outside while you change.” He ducked out and pulled the door shut.

  “Oh, yes please!” Beth called after him.

  “Who said she’s changing?” Tilda shouted.

  “I’m definitely changing,” Beth said, reaching for the laces with her magic and coaxing them undone. “No way am I leaving the mountain in this dress.”

  “But it’s a waste of a good dress if no one else ever sees it.” Tilda dropped onto Beth’s bed with a morose expression.

  “We can think about letting the dress out of the mountain another time, okay?”

  “Mm hmm.”

  “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be at your assessment now?” Beth asked as she stepped out of the dress and picked up her warmer clothes.

  “Soon.”

  “Will you be gone long?”

  “Only a few hours. There isn’t much left for me to be tested on. I should be ready for the next Change Ceremony.”

  “Oh, should I rather stay here and wait for you if you won’t be gone long?”

  “No, go with Thoren. It’ll be fun for you to see some other parts of this world. Besides, Malena and Sorena are cooking up something super smelly in the workshop, so you probably don’t want to be anywhere around here for the next few hours.”

  “I thought I smelled something unpleasant after breakfast.” Beth pulled on her boots, wrapped a scarf around her neck, and closed the wardrobe door. “Okay, I’m ready to go.”

  She opened the bedroom door and found Malena storming toward her. No, storming toward Tilda, she realized in relief. “The High Tester just contacted me,” Malena said to Tilda. “You’re late.”

  “But I’m only supposed to be there in ten minutes.”

  “No, Tilda,” Malena exclaimed, before launching into a string of words Beth couldn’t understand.

  Thoren stepped closer to her and said, “Ready to go?”

  “Definitely.” Malena was intimidating enough on a normal day. With fury rippling through her, she was positively terrifying.

  The words echoed along the tunnels as Thoren headed for Malena’s workshop. “Your language is so beautiful,” Beth said, “even when spoken in anger. I wish I could speak it.”

  “I may not be able to grant you that wish,” he said as they entered the workshop, “but I can help you understand the language.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. There’s a charm spell for that.”

  “Of course there is. There’s a spell for pretty much everything, isn’t there?”

  Thoren shrugged and smiled. “Almost. I’ll show you.” He walked to the shelves above Malena’s desk and pulled a box down. He reached inside, then held up a simple leather bracelet almost exactly like the one he wore to protect himself from her influence. Instead of a piece of wood, an off-white shape was attached to the leather. Bone or ivory, perhaps.

  “Is this the way all your spells work?”

  “All the charm spells, yes.” He frowned. “Didn’t Tilda tell you about them?”

  “No.”

  “It needs to be something that can hold onto magical energy. Wood, ivory, a stone, a tooth. Something like that. This is a piece of pixie bone. The charm needs to be dipped into a specific potion—my mother has a whole box of pre-dipped items so she doesn’t have to make a new one every time—and then you simply transfer energy into the item while saying the words of whatever spell you want to use.” He wrapped his hand around the bone and spoke three words. The air seemed to ripple around his closed fist for a moment, and Beth assumed that
was to do with the release of energy. “Here,” he said, handing it to her.

  “Thanks.” The words to the spell had sounded simple enough, so she repeated them as she pushed the leather bracelet onto her wrist.

  Thoren, who had just returned the box to the shelf, looked back at her in surprise. “That sounded correct, actually.”

  “Would I be able to do this spell? Is it as simple as you made it seem?”

  “Yes. You’ve got to make sure you have an excess of energy, though. Wouldn’t want to run out of your own while doing spells.”

  “Oh, right.” As he examined the dozens of vials and bottles lined up in rows on Malena’s desk, she added, “So where do I get extra energy from?”

  “Uh, other magical beings.” He began packing the bottles into a wooden box so small she doubted it would hold even ten bottles. “I don’t know the rituals because I’m not a witch. You’d have to ask my mother about that. Anyway, can you understand me?” he asked.

  “Yes, because you’re—Oh.” Abruptly, she realized he’d been speaking a different language, and yet somehow, as impossible as it seemed, she could understand it. “Yes,” she said with a laugh as she moved to stand beside him. “That’s amazing. Why didn’t Tilda give me a charm like this? It would be so much easier than all of you having to speak English around me.”

  “We don’t mind speaking English. We use it for most business dealings.”

  “Wait, are you putting all these bottles inside that box? How are they … Of course,” she said, knowing the answer before she’d even finished her question. “Magic. It somehow makes extra space inside the box.”

  “Something like that.”

  “So where are we going for these deliveries?”