The Witches of Merribay (The Seaforth Chronicles) (9 page)

Aunt Clover and I exchanged looks
. Aunt Cora always had what-if scenarios from hell.

Aunt Cora smiled
. “It happened to me once. I had to run into the trees. A mosquito bit me and I thought I caught something from it. Gangrene? No, not that…Dengue feverrr.” 

“Okay
, where are your keys? You're not driving home tonight,” Aunt Clover said.

“They are right there,” Aunt Cora said, pointing to the wall.

“Where?”

“In my purse.” She focused and pointed to her purse on the couch.

Aunt Clover took out the keys and brought them to her room. When she returned, she had blankets for the couches.

“If it's all the same to you, Ivy, I'm going to hit the hay
. I've had a long day,” said Aunt Clover.

“Sure
, that's fine.” Phew! She wanted to go to bed. I'd be able to sneak out without any problems.

She helped Aunt Cora to one of the couches and then covered her with a blanket
. I hopped on the other couch and covered myself up to my chin.

“Aren't you going to change into pajamas? Brush your teeth?” Aunt Clover asked me.

I got up and went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. While I was in there, Aunt Clover walked by the bathroom door. Speaking loudly she said, “Good night! See you in the morning.”

After a few minutes
, I came out and lay on the couch. I hadn't bothered to change into pajamas. She wouldn't be back out again.

The lights were off
, and I waited patiently for Aunt Cora to fall asleep. Before she nodded off, she started babbling about something, but it caught my attention right away.

“I never should have sent him in there
. He'd still be here.”

“What are you talking about
, Aunt Cora?”

She lay on her stomach,
with her cheek to the pillow, eyes closed, and an arm dangled over the couch. “He went in.”

“Where?”

“That place. The woods.”

My heart sped up
. “Who, Aunt Cora?”

She began to lightly snore
, but I still prodded her.

“Who went into the woods, Aunt Cora?” I asked again
, slightly louder.

She stirred
. The only thing that moved was her lips.

“My love
. He went in for my lovey.”

And then she was out.

***

The time had come
. I stood at the doorway of Aunt Clover and Aunt Cora's café, my hand on the glass doorknob, my feet planted firmly on the wooden floor. Could I really pull this off? I had never had the bravado of some people.

I took several deep breaths, opened the door, and stepped out
. Instantly, the rain pelted me in the face and soaked my T-shirt and shorts, making me cold. My hair was soaked, and the rain stung my eyes. I began to jog. As I approached the boat, the wind picked up and the surf swelled over the dock, causing it to sway back and forth. Fog had rolled in and thunder clapped overhead, shaking the ground. Lightning struck off in the distance.

Why did we have to have a thunderstorm on this night
, the night I had to sneak into someone's houseboat? I had a feeling, though, that no matter what night I chose, it would storm.

I was told by Izadora that if Magella hadn't left the boat, I was to pretend that I needed a reading and abort the mission.

I stepped on the dock and immediately almost fell into the water. I caught my balance and began to walk to the boat, feeling as though I were walking on the moon. When I picked one foot up, it was as though the dock flew up to greet it.

Through the fog
, I could see the boat. As wavy as the sea was, the boat sat peacefully, as though it were above any weather conditions. A chill ran down my spine, and not just from the cold.

On board
, I knocked on the door. No one answered. I knocked again. No answer. Before my hand reached the handle, the door slowly opened to darkness. Stepping in, my eyes adjusted to see that one lone candle had been left burning by the kitchen sink.

“Hello?
”

No answer.

I swallowed over the lump in my throat.

I
would never find this rolling pin without light, and I ran my hands over the walls for a light switch. There wasn't any. I would have to use the candle. As I stepped forward, another candle lit on the counter, and another by the stove. How were the candles lighting? As bizarre as the situation was, at least I could see now. I began searching the drawers.

After searching the kitchen completely, I moved on to the living room
, where more candles on the mantle lit, all on their own accord. Creepy.

I searched under the sofas, under the cushions, in a chest in the corner
. I even looked behind books on the bookshelves for secret compartments, checking the cauldron in the fireplace as well, to no avail. After a while, I knew it wasn't there. My eyes scanned the room until they landed on the shell curtain I had seen when Zinnia and I had first come here. A gut feeling overwhelmed me that that is where it had to be.

I crossed the room and gently pulled back the shell curtain
. The shells made tinkling sounds.

I didn't bother to bring any candles with me
, for I knew that when I stepped in the room, more would light. And as it so happened, I was correct. But I was not prepared for what I saw. What I thought might be a bedroom was no bedroom at all. The room glowed in candlelight, reflecting off from luminescent blue walls, causing the whole room to shimmer blue. Little individual specks on the walls, reminding me of stars, glowed and then dimmed repeatedly. Something lumpy moved slightly on the walls. Walking closer, I saw that there appeared to be several live starfish.
Ew.
It was creepy, but all the same, in a disturbing way, it was beautiful.

Significantly colder in here
, I rubbed my arms to gain warmth. My breath formed in front of my face.

At the end of the room, sitting under a window that overlooked the sea, sat an impressive wooden alt
ar, inlaid with jewels the size of my thumbs. I touched the white edges; they were covered in something cool and smooth. Ivory. I loved elephants, and I despised ivory owners.

A dead puffer fish blown up to its full capacity hung in a corner
, or at least I assumed he was dead.

There was m
ovement on the floor. Crabs?

“How were these things alive?
” I began talking out loud to myself. It was something I was fond of doing when I was alone and became extremely nervous.

Quickly I walked to the alt
ar; it had to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I quickly sorted through some things
: vials of liquids and a huge book, each page filled with gibberish.

“Oh my, I wonder if Izadora knows about this book
?” I said to no one.

And as I spoke
, the pages turned to English.

I read a few lines about some spell that would glamorize a man
. The ingredients all had to do with the ocean: sea cucumbers, squid legs, porcupine fish. This was no ordinary book for an ordinary witch that you'd find at a bookstore. This was the book of a master witch, who I had no doubt could
literally
turn me into a frog.

I slammed the book shut, causing a noise like a grunt to escape from
its pages.

“Oh God
,” I said.

I had to get out of there soon
. I searched through things such as animal hair, bones, and teeth. I searched through things that I don't even want to describe, until I came to one solitary box that was totally out of place compared to the altar. It was a simple wooden box that looked to be two hundred years old.

No lock
. I opened it to find one picture. A picture of four children sitting on a little hill under a single tree, with rolling fields spread out as far as the eye could see. It had to be taken somewhere such as Ireland or Scotland. None of the children had smiles; in fact, they frowned. I had to wonder what their problem was. The clothing was simple. The girls wore dresses, and the boys breeches with plain shirts.

If this were a childhood picture
—although I couldn't imagine Magella as a child—then the other girl must be Izadora. And one of the boys was Izaill. But who was the fourth child? I shivered to think who this could be, knowing what I knew about the other three. Maybe he was dead?

I la
y the picture back into the box, and as I moved forward to set it back down, a floorboard creaked. I looked around to see nothing, averting my eyes away from the creatures on the walls. I stepped again, and the floorboard creaked. There was something below the floorboard.

I grabbed a gold knife from the
altar; it looked more like a thick letter opener. Placing the edge between the floorboards, I pried the board loose.

I breathed deeply, trying not to pass out
. There in front of me, wrapped around what I believed to be the rolling pin, was a black snake. It had to be the rolling pin, although it looked different than I thought it would. It was a really old version of a rolling pin, a solid piece of wood, about a foot long, and the handles were carved out of the same piece of wood.

I whimpered aloud.

Being scared of snakes, I froze. How would I get the rolling pin from this snake? I had to think of a way. If I picked him up, what would he do? I didn't even know if he was the poisonous kind, and right then I decided that I would return to Izadora empty-handed. I moved to lay the floorboard down.

And then I stopped and pulled the floorboard back up
. I would not leave without the rolling pin. He couldn't be more than two feet long, and he looked as though he were dead anyway.

I held my breath, reached down
, and grabbed the snake by the back of the head and pulled. He surely was not dead. His eyes opened, and his tongue flailed out of his mouth, hissing. He wriggled his body with such force that I threw him to the other side of the room. As I tried to back out of the room,  I heard a
pop, pop, pop.
He raised himself up, growing five to six feet, and his head grew three times the size as it had been before. Fangs popped out his mouth, and his eyes blazed orange-red. No ordinary snake, he was about to kill me.

My screams echoed loudly off from the walls.

I turned to run but he was so fast, his body coiled around the full length of my body, including my neck, and he began to squeeze the life from me.

Thoughts of my failure filled my mind
. What would happen to Father now? I would never see him again. I should have been more prepared for something like this to happen. So much for Izadora's blood potion.

But there came a point when the snake could squeeze no more
, and I could barely breathe. In all rights, I should be dead by now. But something inside me wouldn't let the snake squeeze any tighter. Or he had planned a slow death.

We lay there for some time on the floor
. I could see the crabs scurrying around, maybe ten or so. My eyes began to feel heavy, and I thought I might be dying after all. Just as I closed my eyes, I heard, “Caesar. Release the girl.” My eyes popped back open. I hadn't heard anyone enter the boat.

The snake uncoiled itself from my body, went to the corner of the room
, and rolled up into a ball.

I
breathed in full mouthfuls of air. Breathing never felt so good.

I focused my eyes to see the old woman
, Magella. A frown spanned her face. Her eyes squinted and she said, “Well, look who decided to grace us with a visit. No doubt my sister sent you. For the rolling pin, of course.” And she motioned toward the opened floorboard. She leaned down and picked up the rolling pin.

“Come
,” she said.

Standing, my legs felt shaky
, but I managed to make it to a chair she pointed to in the dining area. She then proceeded to tie my hands to the chair. Feeling too weak to fight her, and knowing that I couldn't beat her, I let her do it.

“What does she want with the rolling pin
? Did she tell you?” asked Magella.

“She said the rolling pin is hers and she needs it.”

“Ah, of course she did.” She paced the floor back and forth and then stood in front of me. “The rolling pin is mine.”

“But it is hers, she said so
.” My hands tingled from the ropes being too tight. “And you possess it unrightfully.”

The old woman cackled and said, “She must need it to break the spell
. And guess what, my little friend? She cannot have it.”

“What spell?
” I asked.

“A spell my dear brother
, Izaill, has cast upon her. He indeed is a genius. He has always been her equal, but this time, he has outdone her. She'll never be freed!” She laughed loudly then.