The Darkness Within (24 page)

Mirabella put her hands up. “I understand. You don’t need to tell me anything. As long as you all know who it was, that’s good enough.” She walked to the couch and sat down. “Now, tell me what it is you’d like from me.”

I rubbed Ethan’s arm. “We want you to help Ethan, the way you helped Dylan.”

Mirabella nodded. “I see.” She stood up and walked to the bookshelf on the back wall of the living room. “What you’re asking will require time. I already have dark magic inside me. I work very hard to suppress it. If I take Ethan’s dark magic, there’s a very good chance
it will consume me. That there will be no trace of me left.” She took a book from the shelf and faced us. “But there may be a way for me to help Ethan get better control over the darkness.”

“No.” That wasn’t good enough. We had to get rid of it. Completely. “Mirabella, he’s new at being a witch. This is too much for him.” I stopped, regretting the words instantly. I didn’t mean he was weak. Just that he shouldn’t have to deal with this on top of figuring out how to use his magic. “Look, I’m guessing you had been practicing magic all your life before Dylan’s dark magic transferred to you.”

“That is correct. For over a hundred years, actually.”

My jaw dropped. “I’m sorry, but did you say over a hundred years?” That was impossible. This woman couldn’t have been a day over forty.

“I look good, don’t I?” She laughed. “When you’ve been using magic for as long as I have, you learn a few tricks.” She laughed again at her joke. “The aging process is a funny thing. It turns out the spell I used on this cottage works almost in reverse on people. I can make myself appear any age I want. I chose this age because it was the age my mother was when she died. I look like her.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. Somehow her story made her more human—even though she was a witch.

She waved it off. “That was lifetimes ago, and ironically enough, she died from dark magic. She dabbled in it. She pulled off some impressive spells, until one day when she tried one that was way out of her league. She wasn’t ready for that kind of power, or the backlash that came from it. The green energy consumed her, leaving nothing but smoke and bones.”

I let go of Ethan and stepped toward Mirabella. “That’s why I don’t want this dark magic inside Ethan. I can’t lose him. He’s everything to me.” With tear-filled eyes, I turned back to him. He looked at me with such love, and for the first time, I understood how he’d felt at my bedside, watching the cancer consume me. I understood how hard it had been on him to stand by, knowing he could do nothing to stop it. But I had magic. I could do something to help him.

Mirabella hugged the book to her chest and sighed. “What’s your name, dear?”

“Sam.”

“Sam, I wish I could simply take the dark magic and cure Ethan for you. I can tell you deeply love each other. But that would be suicide for me. I’m sure you can understand why I don’t want to go that course.”

I nodded. I did understand. I hated it, but I understood.

“I do think I can help, though. With one of the spells in this book, I can control the darkness inside Ethan. I can help him bury it.”

“But what if it resurfaces?”

She took a deep breath. “I won’t lie to you. That is a possibility.”

“Then it’s not good enough.” I wasn’t taking a maybe. Maybe it would work. Maybe Ethan would recover. No. It had to be definite.

“Sam.” Ethan walked over to me and wrapped his arms around me. “I can handle this. I have to. After the thing with the tree and the car… I can’t ever let that happen again. I hurt you.”

“The tree hurt me.”

“Because of me. It was my spell that brought the tree down. I was trying to crush us all.”

“No, the dark magic was. You even said you were powerless to stop it.”

He squeezed me tighter. “That’s why I have to do this. If there’s a way for me to get control over the dark magic, I have to try it. I won’t hurt you again. This is the only option.”

The only option. Why was there always only one option? I never got a choice in anything. When I’d had cancer, dying was my only option. When Nora brought me back to life, killing had been my only option. And now watching Ethan battle dark magic, hoping he could learn to control it was my only option. “One option isn’t an option at all. It’s being backed into a corner.”

He pushed me back by my shoulders so we were looking each other in the eyes. “I know. I’ve been there with you before.” He was talking about watching me die. He kissed my forehead. “Please, Sam. Let me prove I can handle this. Let me try to be as strong as you are.”

I wasn’t strong. I was falling apart. I reached up on my toes and kissed his lips. I knew I had to let him do this. It was his call. “Okay.”

Mirabella walked past us and waved for us to follow. “Good. I think we should start right away.” She took us to the basement, the nicest basement I’d ever seen. The floors were hardwood. There
were plush couches in a circle, and in the middle stood a fountain. An actual fountain.

“Oh my God! You have to teach me how you do this!” Shannon rushed to the fountain, staring at it like it granted wishes. Maybe it did.

Mirabella laughed. “Yes, that one took an awful lot of magic to conjure up.”

“Will you teach me? Can you?” Shannon never looked so eager.

“Perhaps I could teach you a few things after I’ve helped Ethan.” Mirabella turned to Ethan. Her eyes seemed to stare through him. It was unnerving, but I assumed she was trying to sense the dark magic inside him.

“Eeep!” Shannon squealed. “Oh, Mirabella, you are seriously the most awesome witch I’ve ever met.”

I was still up in the air on that one. Sure the cottage was impressive, and she
had
cured Dylan. But I wasn’t making any decisions about her until I saw what she could do for Ethan.

Mirabella waved us away. “Okay, I think the rest of you should go upstairs, make yourselves some tea, and relax. Ethan will need total concentration for this spell, and even then it will take multiple sessions for it to be complete.”

“How many sessions?” I wanted this over with now—no, yesterday.

Mirabella shook her head. “I can’t be sure yet. I should know more after we try this a few times.”

After a few tries? That meant we were going to be here for a while. No school. No working at the diner. It was going to take some mega-sized spells to alter the memories of everyone at school again so they didn’t think we’d skipped for days in a row. At least tomorrow was Saturday. We had two days without school. But that didn’t help with the diner. I hated the thought of doing magic on Gloria and Jackson, but how else could we explain why we took off when Ethan and I were supposedly so sick? If I pretended we were still sick, Gloria and Jackson would insist on coming to check on us. That wouldn’t work. “What are we going to tell everyone back home? We need some excuse for taking off.”

Shannon groaned. “Ugh, you’re right. Now that Tristan is dating Beth, I can’t lie my way out of this. Normally, I wouldn’t even have
to say a word to Tristan. He’d assume I was off with friends. But now that Beth’s around, he questions my every move.”

I’d forgotten about Beth. This was getting worse by the second. “Ethan and I don’t have family to report to, but we do have Gloria and Jackson.”

“For once, I’m glad I have no one.” But Dylan didn’t sound glad at all. He’d lost so much, and I knew every ounce of him was wishing he had the problems we did right now.

“It can’t be anything school-related,” Shannon said. “Beth would figure that out.”

“And we have to make sure we tell everyone the same excuse. If we tell Gloria and Jackson it’s a school trip, she might say something to Beth and Tristan if they go to the diner.”

We were stumped.

“You could do a spell to make everyone
think
you were still around,” Mirabella said.

“How would that work? I wouldn’t be able to wait tables, and Ethan wouldn’t be able to cook. Gloria and Jackson would notice for sure.”

Shannon rolled her eyes. “Beth, too.”

“We could transform some deer into clones of you all. They’d walk, talk, and do everything you can do.” Mirabella said it like it was so easy and totally obvious.

Shannon’s face lit up. “You are seriously awesome! Let’s do it!”

Dylan, Ethan, and I weren’t quite as enthusiastic. Mirabella said she had her dark magic under control, but this spell felt completely dark to me.

25

I
DIDN’T
like this one bit, but once again, I had no idea what else to do. The idea of a deer parading as my clone seemed more than a little bizarre.

“So, what do you say?” Mirabella tucked her spell book under her arm. “Shall we go outside and find your new twins?”

Shannon was already opening the sliding-glass door. “Relax, guys. It will be fine, not to mention totally awesome!”

“How will they get back home?” We couldn’t jump into this without thinking it through. “We don’t even know where we are.”

“You’re in the northernmost part of New Jersey,” Mirabella said. “Way up in the mountains.”

So about an hour and a half from home. “I don’t think the Mazda is in good enough shape to survive a trip that far.”

“I bet Mirabella could fix the car in no time.” Shannon beamed at Mirabella, who nodded in response.

I wasn’t winning this battle. “All right. I guess it’s worth a shot.” A thought hit me. “Wait, if we’re only an hour and a half from home, why did it take so long to get here? We drove for hours.”

Mirabella sighed and shook her head. “Sounds like whoever is messing with the four of you is doing a pretty good job of it.” She was right, which meant having deer clones was probably a good way to get the other coven off our backs for a while.

We headed outside and into the woods. I had no clue how to
catch a deer. All I knew was that they snorted when they felt threatened and they liked to eat leaves. I grabbed a branch with big green leaves and shook it. I was tempted to call “here, little deer” but I felt way too stupid already.

Mirabella laughed. “Wait until you’ve been at this as long as I have.”

“You’ve made clones from deer before?” Why did that thought send shivers down my spine?

“I meant being a witch.” She raised her hands in the air, and even though she wasn’t saying a word, I knew she was casting a spell. She lowered her hands, folding them in front of her.

“Well?” I asked.

“Now, we wait. Shouldn’t be long.”

Rustling in the woods got my attention. A family of four deer headed toward us. The smallest one stopped to eat some leaves from the branch I was holding. It was hard not to smile. I’d never been this close to a deer before.

“This is amazing,” Shannon said, walking over and patting the deer on the head.

Mirabella waved us over. “Come over here. I need each of you to stand facing a deer. I’m going to tell the deer to mirror your images.”

I put the branch down and walked back into the yard. I wasn’t exactly eager to do this. The little deer followed me, like it knew what to do. More like it was being told what to do by Mirabella.

“Good. Now hold very still. I don’t want you to move until I tell you to.” Mirabella closed her eyes and held her hands up.

I barely breathed while she performed the spell. But then again, breathing was hard to do, considering the deer in front of me rose on two legs and began transforming before my eyes. Its legs took human form first. The magic worked its way up until I was looking at my own face. Creepy. Truly creepy.

“Perfect,” Mirabella said. “Now, if you will all raise your arms.”

I wasn’t sure why she wanted us to do that, but I listened. The deer-me raised its arms, too. Freaky.

“Good!” Mirabella clapped her hands. “Feel free to move about any way you’d like now.”

I was having trouble doing anything in my state of shock, but
Shannon started dancing. And her deer look-alike danced, too. “Looking good, deer-me!” She laughed and continued like this was the best thing ever.

Ethan looked at me and shrugged. “At least we know she’s powerful. That’s good, right? It means she should be able to help me.”

He was right. As weirded out as I was, I had to focus on the positive. Mirabella had the power to help Ethan.

“Let’s get that car running and send these guys on their way.” Mirabella headed into the trees where our car was.

“Wait!” I ran after her. “What about our thoughts and memories? These deer versions of us can totally screw things up without them.”

“I cloned everything. They share every thought and emotion you do, but they can’t do magic.” Mirabella gently squeezed my arm. “Nothing to worry about, Sam.”

Then why did I feel so scared? Mirabella had the car fixed as good as new in a matter of minutes. No doubt about it, the witch was powerful. She motioned for our clones to get in the car. The Ethan-deer went right for the driver’s seat. It apparently
did
know the car belonged to him—or Ethan. Still, I wanted to be sure. I walked over to…well, myself. “Hang on.” I grabbed the door before I—she—could shut it. “What’s your real last name?”

“Thompson.” Hearing my own voice answer was unnerving.