A Tale of Witchcraft... Page 13

  “Yeah,” Lucy said with a sigh. “But even when I’m not causing trouble, trouble has a way of finding me! My specialty is what guided me through the woods to your school, and now it’s guided me directly into your study! Please don’t be angry with me!”

  Mistress Mara didn’t seem angry at all; in fact, she was fascinated by everything Lucy had told her. The witch quietly rubbed her pale chin, like she was deep in thought about several things at once.

  “We mustn’t punish people for what they can’t control; otherwise, we’d be no better than mankind,” Mistress Mara said. “You’re forgiven, Lucy, but just this once.”

  “Ah, gee, thanks!” Lucy said. “I promise it’ll never happen again!”

  Mistress Mara turned to Hareiet, scowling with disappointment.

  “Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about you, Hareiet,” she said.

  “Me?” Hareiet gasped. “What did I do wrong?”

  “Lucy may have accidentally broken the rules, but you intentionally disobeyed me by following her inside my study,” she said. “I’m sorry, my dear, but it’s you who deserves punishment.”

  Mistress Mara crept toward her, and Hareiet fearfully backed away.

  “But… But… But I was only trying to protect the school!” Hareiet proclaimed.

  “I warned you about sticking your twitchy little nose in other people’s business, Hareiet,” the witch said. “If my words aren’t enough to teach you a lesson, then perhaps a curse will.”

  Mistress Mara pointed at Hareiet, and the young witch was surrounded by a whirlwind of black smoke. As the smoke spun around her, Hareiet’s appearance started to change. Her purple braids shrank into wispy ears, her skin was covered in dark fur, and her twitchy nose turned into a snout. Hareiet tried to run away, but she tripped as her hands and feet turned into paws. She tried to scream but a growl came out of her mouth instead. In just a few moments, Hareiet had completely transformed into a lynx!

  “Now get out of my house and join the other animals outside!” Mistress Mara ordered.

  Horrified, Hareiet jumped out the window and climbed down the side of the manor to the graveyard below. A jack-o’-lantern appeared on the floor where Hareiet had been standing, and it was carved with a lifelike depiction of Hareiet’s face. Mistress Mara hummed a pleasant tune as she scooped the pumpkin off the floor and put it with the others in her closet.

  Lucy was mortified by the whole ordeal and was too frightened to speak.

  “Don’t be scared, Lucy,” Mistress Mara said. “Hareiet made a grave mistake, and I wouldn’t be a good teacher if I didn’t enforce consequences. As long as you follow the rules of this house, you’ll have nothing to fear. Besides, Hareiet’s pompous attitude was starting to get on my nerves. It’ll be nice to have a break from her.”

  “How long will Hareiet be a lynx?” Lucy asked.

  “One hundred years,” Mistress Mara said.

  “One hundred years?” Lucy gasped.

  “Lessons are like stones; the harder and heavier they are, the more they’ll sink in.”

  “So are all the lynxes outside other people you’ve cursed?”

  “My techniques may seem cruel, but I’m doing them a favor,” the witch said. “Now they have a century to reflect on their poor decisions, and when they transform back into people, they’ll be better people than they were before.”

  “And the pumpkins? Are they some sort of curse record?”

  Mistress Mara smiled. “We’ll save that for another time,” she said. “Trouble may have guided you to my study, Lucy, but I believe you were guided to my school by something much greater. I’m confident Ravencrest can offer you more than the fairies ever could—that is, if you’re willing to be adventurous.”

  Lucy was too afraid to turn the witch down.

  “Sure,” she said with a nervous quiver. “It’ll give me something to do while I’m here.”

  “Splendid,” Mistress Mara said. “Now you should go back to the eleventh floor and try to get some sleep while you can. Your and Pip’s introduction to witchcraft begins tonight. I’ll meet you and the other girls in the graveyard after dusk.”

  Lucy nodded and hurried out of the study, but Mistress Mara stopped her when she was halfway through the door.

  “Oh, and, Lucy? Just one more thing before you leave,” the witch said. “Don’t take the mercy I showed you today for granted. If I catch you anywhere near this study again, you’ll be spending the next hundred years hunting mice with Hareiet. Is that understood?”

  Lucy gulped. “Yes, Mistress,” she peeped.

  Once she was out of the study, Lucy ran through the manor until she found her way back to the eleventh floor. She was panting so hard Lucy was afraid she might wake her roommates, so she leaned against the bedroom door and slid to the floor while she caught her breath. As she rested, Lucy spotted something moving out of the corner of her eye and saw Old Billie standing in the wall beside her.

  “What the heck is your problem?” Lucy whispered. “I asked you for a bed and you almost got me cursed!”

  The illustration beamed with confidence, as if the goat knew exactly what she had done.

  “Well?” Lucy asked her. “Did I do something to offend you? Or do you just put people in danger for fun?”

  Old Billie stared at Lucy for a few moments of silence, like she was trying to communicate something telepathically. Lucy could tell the goat had a reason for sending her to Mistress Mara’s study, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.

  “You’re trying to send me a message, aren’t you?” Lucy asked. “There’s something in that room you wanted me to see, isn’t there?”

  The goat walked down the hallway and disappeared from sight, but her confident gaze remained on Lucy as she went. Mistress Mara had warned Lucy that Old Billie was a mischievous little creature, but there was obviously much more than mischief on her mind.…

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JINXES AND HEXES

  At six o’clock in the evening, the taxidermy clock in the entrance hall erupted with a bloodcurdling roar to wake everyone in Ravencrest Manor. Lucy was already wide awake and anxiously pacing across the witches’ bedroom floor. The events in Mistress Mara’s private study played over and over again in her mind, and each time she watched the scene unfold, the more questions and fears she developed.

  Why had Old Billie sent Lucy to Mistress Mara’s study? Was the goat trying to show her the closet of jack-o’-lanterns or was there something else Lucy had missed? Did Lucy actually recognize one of the carvings or was her exhausted mind playing tricks on her? And now that she saw how Mistress Mara punished her students, was Lucy foolish for staying at Ravencrest? Or was it more dangerous to leave and risk disappointing the witch?

  As her concerns rose, Stitches, Beebee, Sprout, and Pip rose, too. The witches began to yawn and stretch in their nests as they slowly stirred to life.

  “Good evening, everybody,” Pip said. “How did you sleep?”

  “B-b-blissfully,” Beebee said.

  “Like a log,” Sprout said.

  “Well, I had terrible daymares all day!” Stitches declared. “First, I dreamed I was swimming in an ocean full of man-eating sharks! And then I was chased up a tree by a pack of lions! And then I was plucked out of the tree by an enormous hawk! And then the hawk dangled me over the open mouths of her hungry babies!”

  “I’m sorry, Stitches,” Pip said. “That doesn’t sound very restful.”

  “What do you mean?” Stitches asked with a wide grin. “It was the best sleep I’ve had in months.”

  Lucy’s tired eyes darted back and forth between her roommates and Hareiet’s empty nest. She didn’t know how she was going to explain what had happened to Hareiet, and she worried the witches might blame her for it. Lucy felt like she might explode if she kept the news to herself for a moment longer and decided to just get it over with.

  “Guys, something horrible has happened!” she blurted out.

  Stitches, B
eebee, and Sprout seemed rather excited by the announcement and scooted to the edges of their nests.

  “Did we g-g-get termites?”

  “Did my dolls move while I was asleep?”

  “Did you make your own fertilizer?”

  “No—and gross, Sprout!” Lucy said. “It’s about Hareiet! Last night, I couldn’t sleep in my nest so I went looking for another bed. I accidentally wandered into Mistress Mara’s private study and Hareiet followed me inside! She thought I was spying for the fairies and tattled on me! Mistress Mara let me off the hook with a warning but she turned Hareiet into a lynx for breaking the rules!”

  Pip shrieked but the witches were disappointed by the news.

  “Well?” Lucy pressed. “One of your friends is going to spend the next century as a big cat! Doesn’t that concern you?”

  The witches exchanged smiles and giggled at Lucy.

  “N-n-not really,” Beebee said.

  “Mistress Mara turns students into lynxes all the time,” Stitches said.

  “It happened to Deerdra, Collie, Wizabeth, and Jorilla,” Sprout listed. “And Fincher, Dogatha, Hogbert, Smuggles, Camella, Pandy, Hylena, Rat Mary—”

  “She g-g-gets the point, Sprout.”

  “I’m just bummed I didn’t get to see Hareiet transform in person,” Stitches said with a frown. “It always makes me warm and fuzzy on the inside when someone becomes warm and fuzzy on the outside.”

  “Who put her down on the lynx pool?” Sprout asked.

  Stitches pulled out a large board from behind her nest, and the witches inspected a colorful chart drawn on it.

  “Aw, man!” Sprout moaned. “Beebee wins again!”

  “She always wins!” Stitches groaned. “How does she do it?”

  “It’s a g-g-gift,” Beebee gloated. “Now p-p-pay up, witches!”

  Sprout and Stitches begrudgingly handed Beebee a few gold coins each. Lucy and Pip couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

  “You guys make bets on who you think is going to be cursed next?” Pip asked.

  “Yeah,” Stitches said with a shrug. “Witches never miss the fortune in a misfortune.”

  Once they finished placing bets for the next lynx pool, all the girls changed into their black cloaks and striped stockings and went downstairs for breakfast. In the dining room, the invisible butler served them tarantula-leg stew and squid-ink smoothies. Lucy hadn’t eaten since the day before, but after watching the hairy legs floating in her bowl, she didn’t think she’d ever be hungry again.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Stitches said. “It needs more salt.”

  Lucy felt sick to her stomach and pushed her spoon aside.

  “Are all the meals this decadent?” she asked.

  “Oh yeah, the butler is a wonderful cook!” Sprout said. “He also makes great feetloaf, chicken-and-lice soup, stench fries, yak-and-bony cheese, beaver salad, ferret cake—”

  “B-b-breathe, Sprout! B-b-breathe!”

  “Sorry, I like making lists,” Sprout said, and then tapped on her head. “It fills the space.”

  When the girls were through with breakfast, they gathered in the graveyard outside and waited for Mistress Mara to join them. The sunlight was fading fast, and the darker it got, the creepier and colder the graveyard became. The lynxes roamed through the grounds around them, and now that Lucy knew they were all cursed people, their prying eyes seemed even more eerie than before.

  “Which lynx do you think is Hareiet?” Pip asked.

  “Mhmmm,” Lucy said as she glanced around. “Oh, definitely that one.”

  She pointed to a lynx that was lounging on a tombstone nearby.

  “How can you tell?” Pip asked.

  “Because a cat’s never given me such a dirty look before.”

  Sure enough, the lynx was glaring at Lucy with human-level hatred. Lucy felt horrible about what had happened to Hareiet, and clearly, Hareiet blamed Lucy as much as Lucy blamed herself.

  “It’s ironic,” Pip said. “They say curiosity killed the cat, but curiosity turned Hareiet into one.”

  Hareiet didn’t appreciate the comment. She hissed at the girls and then dashed to the other side of the graveyard.

  “At least she’s not pussyfooting around her feelings,” Lucy said.

  Once the light had completely faded from the sky, a cloud of smoke blew out of an open window at the manor and floated to the center of the graveyard. The smoke swirled into a tall vortex, and Mistress Mara appeared inside it. The witches applauded their teacher’s entrance, but Lucy took a timid step back.

  “Welcome to witchcraft!” Mistress Mara declared with open arms. “Tonight, Pip and Lucy will discover talents they never knew they possessed, and they’ll begin the first day of their authentic lives! However, before becoming a student at the Ravencrest School of Witchcraft, your abilities will be put to the test. Lucy and Pip must pass four entrance exams that represent the fundamentals of witchcraft—jinxes, hexes, potions, and curses. Once you complete the exams, you’ll be officiated in our sacred Ravencrest Enrollment Ceremony under the next full moon. And then you’ll continue your education with the others. Any questions?”

  Pip raised her hand. “Why does the Enrollment Ceremony take place during a full moon?” she asked.

  “Purely for tradition,” Mistress Mara said, but the twinkle in her eye told another story. “You’re both in luck because the next full moon is only two days away. Some girls have to wait weeks for it.”

  “I had to wait two months because it was cloudy!” Stitches said.

  Lucy raised her hand next. “And what happens if we don’t pass the exams?” she asked.

  “Then I’m afraid Ravencrest is not for you and you’ll be asked to leave,” Mistress Mara said. “But neither of you should worry about that. The exams are merely a precaution to make sure my students are capable and serious about witchcraft. We don’t want any impostors roaming through Ravencrest—at least, not on two legs.”

  Mistress Mara threw her head back and cackled at the remark. Lucy and Pip exchanged an anxious glance and laughed along with her.

  “Now before we begin our first exam, I want you to forget everything you’ve been told about witchcraft,” Mistress Mara said in a somber tone. “It’s commonly believed that witchcraft is a vile, cruel, and demonic alternative to magic—but that is utter nonsense you must unchain yourself from. In truth, magic isn’t any kinder, more pleasant, or more natural than witchcraft—it’s simply different. Like darkness to light, cold to heat, and death to life, witchcraft and magic have their own unique purposes and importance, and they cannot exist without the other. So when someone says magic is better or worse, right or wrong, moral or immoral compared with witchcraft, they are not stating a fact but giving an opinion. And just because more people enjoy the daytime doesn’t mean the night shouldn’t exist. No, no, no—the planet needs the sun and the moon to work properly. So therefore, the world needs witchcraft, whether they like it or not.”

  Mistress Mara motioned toward the manor, and the invisible butler emerged through the front door. He carried a hefty wooden chest into the graveyard and placed it on the ground in front of Lucy and Pip. The butler opened the chest, and the girls saw it was full of pots and pans, combs and toothbrushes, tools and gears, pens and pencils, among several other household objects.

  “Since fairies like to make improvements with magic, to keep a harmonious balance, it’s a witch’s job to make impoverishments with witchcraft,” Mistress Mara said. “One of the ways we accomplish this is by performing jinxes. A jinx is an enchantment that temporarily alters an appearance, behavior, or function in a negative way. It usually lasts a couple of days and can easily be reversed with a little magic. For your first examination, you will each select an object from the chest and jinx it to appear, behave, or function abnormally. Pip, let’s start with you.”

  Pip was a little nervous but mostly excited to do witchcraft for the first time. She dug through the chest and searched
for the perfect object to bewitch. Eventually, Pip settled on a small hand mirror with a brass frame. She held it close to her chest, closed her eyes, and concentrated on how she wanted to jinx it. The hand mirror started to rust in her grip, and when Pip looked into it, instead of seeing her normal reflection, she saw the face of a wild boar.

  “I did it!” Pip cheered. “I jinxed the mirror to show a hideous reflection!”

  The witches gave Pip a polite round of applause.

  “Holy scratch-and-sniff!” Lucy exclaimed. “Pip, look at your hands!”

  The celebration was cut short when Pip glanced down. After performing the jinx, Pip’s fingernails had grown three inches long and were as thick as animal claws. She screamed and dropped the mirror on the ground.

  “What’s happening to me?” Pip shrieked.

  “Don’t be alarmed, dear,” Mistress Mara said. “It’s just a little side effect of the witchcraft. But fret not, once you pass your entrance exams, your appearance will return to normal.”

  Pip was very embarrassed of her new nails and hid her hands in her pockets.

  “Lucy, you’re up next,” Mistress Mara said.

  Lucy was afraid to follow the witch’s instructions. She wasn’t a stranger to causing damage, but she had never before caused harm intentionally or without good intentions. What would happen when she mixed her specialty with witchcraft? How horribly would it affect her appearance? Lucy wondered if she could pass the exam without performing a jinx. She found a watch at the bottom of the chest and came up with an idea.

  “What’s that over there?” Lucy shouted.

  She theatrically pointed toward the gate at the edge of the property. All the witches turned around to see what Lucy was referring to. While they were distracted, Lucy used her teeth to rip the dial off the side of the watch, and the gears stopped ticking.

  “I don’t see anything,” Sprout said.

  “What are you p-p-pointing at?” Beebee asked.

  “Sorry, it was probably one of those moving trees,” Lucy said. “Anyway, I finished my jinx. Behold! A watch that is frozen in time!”