A Tale of Witchcraft... Page 12

“Sooooooo,” she said to break the tension. “Tell me about yourselves. How did you guys end up at the Ravencrest School of Witchcraft?”

  “I don’t see how my life is any of your business,” Hareiet said.

  “I was abandoned at b-b-birth,” Beebee sputtered. “I b-b-bounced from orphanage to orphanage until Mistress Mara f-f-found me.”

  “My parents are just extremely open-minded,” Sprout said. “They had no problem with me joining a school of witchcraft. They were happy I had a reason to get out of the house.”

  “My family was mauled to death by bears!” Stitches was excited to share. “Then the bears were shot by hunters! And then the hunters were attacked by wolves! I had to hide in a hollow log for nineteen hours before it was safe to come out! And the whole thing happened on my birthday!”

  “Gosh, that sounds traumatic,” Lucy said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Stitches said with a creepy grin. “It was the best day of my life.”

  Lucy could tell Stitches was proud of how uncomfortable she was making her. Her abnormally wide mouth curved into a creepy grin and she winked at Lucy with her small eye.

  “Hey, you want to know why they call me Stitches?” she asked.

  “Absolutely not,” Lucy said.

  After the first round of questions, the bedroom went silent again. Lucy looked around the room, desperate to find something to talk about. She noticed each of the witches had a unique collection on the shelves above their nests. Hareiet was growing a small vegetable garden in pots, Beebee kept a variety of insects in small containers, Stitches had an assortment of knitted dolls, and Sprout collected jars of what Lucy hoped was dirt.

  “It looks like you guys have hobbies,” Lucy said. “Hareiet, do you enjoy gardening?”

  “Obviously,” Hareiet snapped.

  “And Beebee, you like to collect bugs?”

  “It m-m-makes me feel p-p-powerful,” she said.

  “Sprout, are those containers of soil I see?”

  “Oh no—it’s fertilizer.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I grew up on a farm,” Sprout said. “The smell reminds me of home. You know what they say, you can take the girl away from the fertilizer, but you can’t take the fertilizer away from the girl.”

  “And Stitches,” Lucy said to change the subject. “Tell me about your dolls! Are they significant to you?”

  Instead of answering, Stitches lunged toward Lucy and plucked a strand of her hair. The witch carefully sewed the hair into the head of her doll, then closed her eyes, and whispered an incantation. When it was finished, Stitches began poking the doll with her sewing needle.

  “Can you feel that?” she asked.

  “Feel what?”

  “How about this?”

  “Um… no?”

  “What about that?”

  “I feel annoyed, does that count?”

  Stitches sighed and tossed the doll aside. “Then to answer your question, no, my dolls aren’t as significant as I wish they were,” she said.

  Lucy noticed the witches were still wearing the golden necklaces with white moonstones that they wore yesterday in the Fairy Territory.

  “What’s up with your necklaces?” Lucy said.

  “What’s up with all your questions?” Hareiet asked. “Are you writing a book?”

  “They just seem fancy, that’s all,” Lucy said. “I see everyone has a necklace except for Pip.”

  “That’s b-b-because you have to earn it,” Beebee said.

  “Before someone is officially enrolled at Ravencrest, they have to pass four entrance exams,” Stitches explained. “Mistress Mara tests their skills in jinxes, hexes, potions, and curses. Once you pass all the tests, she presents you with a golden necklace at your Enrollment Ceremony!”

  Lucy was confused. “If you guys have done that much witchcraft already, why do you look so normal? Why hasn’t witchcraft distorted your appearance like other witches?”

  “Ooooooh, we have our secrets,” Sprout teased.

  “S-s-stick around and you’ll s-s-see,” Beebee said.

  The witches exchanged a sly smile. Lucy knew they were eager to tell her, but the girls didn’t spill any other details.

  “Tell me more about Mistress Mara,” Lucy said. “Where is she from? What was she up to before she opened Ravencrest?”

  “We don’t know much about her,” Sprout said. “None of us knew her before the school opened—and that was only a couple of months ago.”

  “But we have theories about her,” Stitches said, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

  “Theories?” Lucy asked.

  Stitches hurried to the bedroom door and peeked through the keyhole to make sure Mistress Mara wasn’t standing in the hall. When the coast was clear, she took a seat beside Lucy.

  “I’m sure you’ve noticed Mistress Mara has a unique specialty,” Stitches said.

  “You mean, her frightening but fashionable taste?” Lucy asked.

  “No,” Sprout said. “Everything she touches dies!”

  “At first, we thought Mistress Mara was a witch with a specialty for death,” Stitches said. “But now we’re convinced she might be something more than a witch! Have you heard the legend about the Daughter of Death?”

  “The Daughter of Death?” Lucy asked as she thought about the name. “Is that the undertaker in the Eastern Kingdom who runs the cadaver puppet show?”

  “Not even c-c-close,” Beebee said.

  “Then I’m thinking of someone else,” Lucy said. “Who’s the Daughter of Death?”

  “Oh, I know that story,” Pip said. “When I lived at the Bootstrap Correctional Facility, the wardens used to talk about her to give us nightmares!”

  “Would you care to fill me in?” Lucy asked.

  Pip sat up straight and cleared her throat.

  “According to legend, in the beginning of time, Death was very different than he is today. They say that he dressed like an angel, that he loved to sing and dance, and that he treated life with kindness. They say Death allowed every creature to live for one hundred years before escorting them to the other side. However, all this changed when humanity was created. Unlike the other species, humans always grieved the people they lost, despite all the years they had together. Death found this behavior extremely curious and he became desperate to understand it. So Death created a daughter and sent her into the world of the living. The separation made Death miss his daughter terribly and he finally understood what it was like to grieve. He looked forward to reuniting with his daughter once her hundred years of life were over.

  “Unfortunately for Death, his daughter liked the world of the living. Over time, she learned how to avoid her father and live forever. On the day of her one-hundredth birthday, Death searched for his daughter everywhere, but he couldn’t find her. Panicked, Death invented disease and injury to help him look, but his daughter was clever and knew how to avoid his inventions, too. Death was so distraught, he traded his angel wings for the black cloak he’s infamous for. Although it’s been thousands of years since he’s seen his daughter, Death still hasn’t given up hope, and he continues to invent new ways of finding her. Today, they say whenever Death takes someone before their one hundred years are up, it isn’t because he’s cruel—he’s just searching for his daughter, and he takes people randomly in case she’s wearing a disguise.”

  Even though the witches knew the story by heart, Pip’s version was the most chilling they had ever heard.

  “That was some s-s-seriously scary s-s-stuff,” Beebee said.

  “I’m going to have daymares now!” Sprout cried.

  “Are you guys yanking my tail feathers?” Lucy chuckled. “I mean, you don’t actually think Mistress Mara is the Daughter of Death, do you?”

  “Of course, we do!” Stitches said.

  “Have any of you just asked her?” Lucy asked.

  The witches looked at Lucy like she was crazy.

  “Why are fairies always tryi
ng to solve everything?” Hareiet grumbled. “Can’t you people just enjoy a perfectly good mystery?”

  Stitches let out a big yawn and stretched out her arms.

  “The Daughter of Death story always puts me right to sleep. We should go to bed before it gets too early.”

  The girls shut the curtains and lay down in their nests. Within a few minutes, the witches were fast asleep, but Lucy couldn’t sleep after hearing about the Daughter of Death. She didn’t know if the witches were serious or if they were just trying to scare her, but either way, they had given Lucy a lot more questions about Mistress Mara than she already had.

  “Pssst, Lucy,” Pip whispered. “How do you like Ravencrest so far?”

  “It’s hard to say,” Lucy said. “I’ve only been here a couple of hours, and so far, I’ve been manhandled by possessed trees, insulted by talking gargoyles, stalked by a living illustration, and spooked by ghost stories about Death.”

  “I know, I know,” Pip said. “It’s not for everybody.”

  Lucy smiled. “Actually, I could learn to love this place.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A MISCHIEVOUS LITTLE CREATURE

  Even though Lucy hadn’t slept a wink the night before, she was having a terrible time adapting to the witches’ nocturnal schedule. She tossed and turned for hours in her nest but couldn’t get comfortable—apparently nests had to be broken in like a new pair of shoes. Even worse, all her roommates snored like wild animals, and their constant belches and flatulence sounded like an orchestra of wind instruments that never stopped.

  When it was around three o’clock in the afternoon, Lucy decided to search for a softer bed. She quietly snuck out of the witches’ bedroom and tiptoed down the windy hall of the eleventh floor. The hall eventually split into three directions, and Lucy didn’t know whether to take the spiral stairs going down, the crooked ladder going up, or the bridge that zigzagged ahead. As she weighed her options, Lucy had the unsettling feeling of being watched. She turned to the parchment wall beside her and jumped when she made eye contact with a dark figure that was glaring at her.

  “Oh, hey, Old Billie,” Lucy said. “You scared me.”

  The goat didn’t move, but Lucy knew it was her from the liveliness in her illustrated eyes.

  “Do you know where I could find a normal bed?” Lucy asked. “I mean, there’s got to be a mattress in one of these seventy-seven rooms, right?”

  The illustration stared at Lucy as if it was looking into her soul and then slowly nodded.

  “Would you mind showing me where it is?” Lucy asked. “I’ll sketch you a big, juicy patch of grass as a thank-you.”

  Old Billie suddenly sank through the floor and descended to the tenth story below. Lucy hurried down the spiral staircase to catch up with her. She followed the goat through the manor like she was being led through a giant maze. Old Billie took her down foyers that were slanted like slides, over walkways that were humped like camels’ backs, and through corridors that were built completely upside down. They eventually came to a tall hallway with dozens of black doors that covered the walls like a checkerboard. Old Billie moved through the wall and brushed her horns against the door in the center of the farthest wall.

  “So I’m assuming there’s a bed behind the door?” Lucy asked.

  The goat nodded eagerly. Lucy found a scaly armchair in the corner of the hallway and used it to climb into the open doorway. Once she was through the door, Lucy discovered a frightening office behind it. All the furniture and fixtures, from the desk to the chandelier, were made from human skulls. The walls were decorated from floor to ceiling with black masks, and each one was uniquely terrifying, as if they were all screaming with different expressions of pain and fear.

  “Nope,” Lucy muttered to herself. “No mattress is worth this nightmare.”

  As she climbed back out the door, Lucy saw something moving out of the corner of her eye. She looked up and saw that a door behind the skull desk had opened on its own. It was only open a crack but filled the office with an orange glow. The light was alluring, and before Lucy could talk herself out of it, she crept across the office and peered inside.

  The door led to a long closet lined with shelves made from charred wood. Hundreds of glowing jack-o’-lanterns were displayed on the shelves, and every single pumpkin was carved with a different lifelike face. Lucy thought it was a strange collection to keep in a closet, so she stepped inside for a closer look. She peeked inside a few of the jack-o’-lanterns and saw that a black candle was burning inside each of them and that the wicks were burning at different heights and different speeds.

  At the very end of the closet, set on a shelf of its own, was a pumpkin carved with the face of a young woman. As soon as Lucy laid eyes on it, the jack-o’-lantern gave her chills. The young woman was eerily familiar—it was a face Lucy had seen many times before—but she couldn’t recognize who she was off the top of her head. Lucy knew the young woman’s name would come to her if she concentrated, so she leaned down and studied the carving.

  “Aha! Gotcha!”

  Lucy whipped around and saw that Hareiet was standing in the office behind her. The young witch’s eyebrow was raised with so much suspicion it was practically floating above her forehead, and her nose twitched so wildly Lucy thought it might fly off her face.

  “Hareiet, what are you doing in here?”

  “The real question is, what are you doing in here, Lucy?”

  Lucy shrugged. “I was looking for a mattress.”

  “Save your lies!” Hareiet exclaimed, and dramatically pointed at her. “As soon as I saw you were missing from the bedroom, I knew you were up to no good! And now I have proof! The Fairy Godmother sent you to Ravencrest to spy on us!”

  “What?! I’m not a spy!”

  “You expect me to believe that you stumbled into Mistress Mara’s private study by accident?”

  Lucy’s eyes grew large and she nervously glanced around the chamber.

  “Wait, this is Mistress Mara’s private study?” she asked in disbelief. “Dang, I should have known that from the creepy masks! She decorates like an actor going through a breakup!”

  “Don’t act innocent, Lucy! I’m not as dumb as you think I am!”

  “Hareiet, if you were half as dumb as I think you are, you wouldn’t be able to stand and talk at the same time—but that’s beside the point! I promise you this is a big misunderstanding! Honestly, I didn’t even know I was on the seventh and a half floor!”

  “Mistress Mara! Mistress Mara!” Hareiet shouted into the manor.

  “No, wait!” Lucy pleaded. “I’m telling you the truth!”

  “MISTRESS MARA! MISTRESS MARA!”

  Suddenly, the study’s windows were burst open by a powerful wind. The sound startled the girls and they both dropped to the floor. A cloud of smoke seeped inside and floated to the center of the room. The smoke began to swirl, growing thicker and thicker, and soon Mistress Mara appeared in the midst of the smoky vortex.

  “What are you two doing in my study?” the witch roared.

  “I was right, Mistress Mara!” Hareiet said as she got to her feet. “The Fairy Godmother sent Lucy to Ravencrest to spy on us! I caught her peeping around your private chambers!”

  “Lucy, how dare you!” Mistress Mara hollered. “I give you a place to stay and this is how you thank me?”

  Lucy knew she was in serious trouble. She wanted to tell Mistress Mara that Old Billie had brought her there, but the witch had specifically warned Lucy to stay away from the goat.

  “I didn’t know this was your study—I swear!” she said, and quickly thought of a different excuse. “It’s my specialty for trouble—it’s always sending me to places I shouldn’t be!”

  “She lies even worse than she spies!” Hareiet declared. “Don’t believe a word she says, Mistress Mara! She broke the rules and deserves to be punished! Punish her! Punish her! Punish her!”

  Hareiet was rabid with excitement, and an evil smile gr
ew under her twitchy nose. Lucy curled into a fetal position on the floor while she waited for Mistress Mara’s punishment. To the girls’ surprise, the witch’s anger faded and was replaced with curiosity.

  “Did you say you have a specialty for trouble?” she asked.

  Lucy nodded vigorously. “I’ve been causing strange and unfortunate things to happen for as long as I can remember,” she said. “Actually, since before I can remember.”

  “Really?” Mistress Mara asked. “Do tell.”

  “Oh gosh, where do I begin?” Lucy asked herself. “For starters, when my mother was pregnant with me, a flock of ravens gathered outside my family’s home and didn’t leave until the night I was born. Then, when I was a baby, I caused all kinds of weird things to happen around the house. I made frogs appear in the bathtub every time my mother tried to bathe me, I used to levitate out of my crib whenever I took naps, and I even turned my stuffed animals’ button eyes into real eyes that blinked and stared at people. And it only got worse when my family went into show business—I’m sure you’ve heard of the world-famous Goose Troupe.”

  “No,” Mistress Mara said.

  “Not once,” Hareiet said.

  Lucy frowned. “Well, you weren’t our target demographic,” she scoffed. “Anyway, my specialty would really show itself whenever we performed for tough crowds. This one time, we were in a pub in the Western Kingdom, and when the audience started booing us, I accidentally turned all their drinks into dog urine. Another time, we were doing our act for aristocrats in the Northern Kingdom, and when a lady yawned during my tambourine solo, I turned her hair into snakes! And then one night, we were doing a gig in the Southern Kingdom, and at the end of our performance, the theater manager refused to pay us. So I made the whole theater collapse!”

  “My, my, my,” Mistress Mara said. “How delightfully ghastly.”

  “My parents were worried something bad might happen to me if I stayed on the road, so they sent me to live with the fairies. And the rest is history.”

  “And all these incidences happened unintentionally without any magical training whatsoever?” Mistress Mara asked.