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THIRTY-TWO

Eleven chairs were arranged around the table. Eleven pointy hats came together. The magical challenge had intrigued Alder enough to set aside the earlier damage to his pride. And everyone had been given the True Love potion antidote by now, anyway.

They worked through the night, developing recipes, scribing spells, and brewing potions. Penny kept the tea and fig tarts coming.

“How about mixing together a Flying potion and a Fast As a Horse potion?” a witch named Agnes suggested, and an hour later, Thorn was galloping and neighing into the clouds.

“How about we pour a Wake Up potion into the fireplace?” a warlock named Roger suggested, and ten minutes later, the witches were hastily putting out the raging fire engulfing Thorn’s fig tree.

Back at the roundtable, a witch named Elodie started scribing in a spell book. “What if we freeze her in time and let her thaw out in the twenty-first century? Let’s develop a recipe for a Stasis potion, and one for an Awake potion.”

Madam Maude slammed the spell book shut. “Enough with the potions. Let’s go back to the basics.”

“The most basic idea would be for her to go back there the way she came back here.” That was a warlock named Quinton.

Madam Maude shook her head. “I used a Steal potion, but it would only work in the other direction if there’s a witch in the twenty-first century who you can call. They could then brew their own Steal potion to pull you back to their present.”

“There’s one witch, Lily,” Thorn said. “But she doesn’t live in the cottage. And I highly doubt she’ll be willing to help. I ended up thwarting her nefarious plans.”

A witch named Susanna looked horrified. “Is there only one of us left in this town in the twenty-first century?”

Thorn hesitated. “I only met one.”

And, of course, there was Rose, who was technically still alive. Madam Maude kept her mouth shut about that. Thorn had no way of contacting Rose and no reason to trust the sister who’d tried to kill her.

“I’m out of ideas.” Quinton took off his pointy hat. The rest of the witches followed suit.

Thorn regretted asking to leave the future. “Even if I can’t go back, I want to apologize to Walls.”

Madam Maude pointed to the fireplace. “If someone is in the cottage in the twenty-first century and the fireplace is lit, you could ask them to pass along a message.”

She was right. Thorn walked over to the fireplace and sat down in front of it. She chanted, “Through the fire that burns within this enchanted hearth, chant, through history, through the spirits, I call upon the hearth of Covenstead, the abode of Pepper and Pumpkin.”

Everyone crowded behind Thorn, waiting with baited breath. But the fire remained just a fire.

“The fireplace in the twenty-first century isn’t lit,” Madam Maude said.

“When I first got there, it hadn’t been used in years. It might never be lit again.” Thorn buried her face in her knees.

Penny cleared her throat and held out a hand to Thorn. “Sorry, but if we’re not going back to modern plumbing and online dating, then I’m heading home. Please return the mirror I bought to protect myself from the black panther. I spent a lot of money on it.”

Thorn went to the wardrobe and rummaged among her black dresses and striped stockings, then paused.

“Wait a minute. My favorite armchair is destroyed, the roof has a giant hole, my hat is kinked, the fig tree is dying. So far, everything the Historical Society found in the future has resulted from something that’s happened in the past two weeks.

But this mirror was in the house in the twenty-first century—if Penny takes it with her now, how would the Historical Society have found it there? ”

Alder shot to his feet and pointed to the mirror in Thorn’s hand. “Is that one of my mirrors?”

“Oh! You’re the one who owns Enchanted Store!” Penny said to Alder. “I didn’t recognize you with your hat on.”

Thorn studied the mirror. “Alder, is there a way you can use it to send me to the future?”

He looked sheepish. “No, it’s not that powerful.”

Penny squinted at Alder. “I paid three whole pennies for it. You said if I ran into a black panther to point the mirror at it.”

All the other witches turned to Alder, who looked flustered. “In my defense,” he said, “I recommended Penny get the opal necklace that could stun a beast, but she kept asking for a discount, and it’s store policy not to give discounts. So I steered her toward something she could afford.”

“And you betted on the black panther being afraid if its own reflection?” Quinton asked.

“I’m not a crook. I betted on there being no black panther in the woods. It was sighted once, thirty years ago, and hasn’t been seen since. I… um… suggested that the mirror’s magic would protect her from the beast.”

“You’re a swindler,” Madam Maude said. “That little thing isn’t worth three whole pennies.”

Alder shook his finger. “Like I said, I’m not a crook. This is an enchanted communications mirror. Three pennies is a steal.”

Penny gasped, clearly excited to share her idea. “Thorn, maybe you could use this mirror to contact the future!”

“Even if the enchantment is strong enough to traverse time, which I doubt it is,” Alder said, “the person you’re trying to contact in the future needs to have an enchanted communications mirror, too.”

Penny’s shoulders slumped. “Oh. Too bad.”

“Hmm…” Thorn gazed into the mirror. Behind her reflection was her wall of drawers. Three centuries later, it would still be standing there, and she would hang this very mirror on it. “I’ve got it!”

All the witches—and Penny—leaned in, waiting on tenterhooks.

“This mirror will contact itself in the twenty-first century,” Thorn said. She placed the mirror on the table. “If we all pool our magic, it could work.”

Thorn sat before the mirror. The other witches took their seats around the table.

But the wide brims of their hats got in the way of making such a tight circle.

They took them off and tried again. Finally, they linked hands.

Together, they chanted, “Take flight and be our eyes and ears and lips to visit Covenstead.”

Thorns stared at her own reflection in the mirror. Then her face melted away. Another image flowed in. Not a face, but a place. Her home.

“The fireplace!” Thorn tightened her grip so hard that Madam Maude and Alder on either side of her grimaced. “When I left, the mirror was hung from a drawer. I can’t see much of the rest of the house from this view. Is that the rocking chair in that corner?”

Let me see. Bandit hopped onto the table. He circled the mirror. The mouse toy the vet gave me is right on the fireplace. It is the twenty-first century.

Then a figure stalked into view. A woman in a black dress, curly shoes, and a black pointy hat.

Penny, not part of the magic circle, peeked over Thorn’s shoulder. She whispered, “Is that you, Thorn?”

It’s not. Bandit said in a low voice. My witch has a slouch. And her eyes are milky brown.

Thorn didn’t understand what she was doing there. “That’s Rose!” Immediately after the outburst, she brought her hands, fingers still interlaced with Madam Maude’s and Alder’s, over her own mouth.

All the witches held their breath. They waited for Rose to look around in search for the source of the outburst. But she didn’t even look up from the cauldron.

After a few moments, Madam Maude said, “The magic must not be enough to transmit sound through time.”

The witches watched on as Rose bent down in front of the fireplace. With white chalk, she inscribed something on the floor. First, she made a big circle around herself. Then, inside that circle, she drew a line. And another.

All the witches in the seventeenth century exclaimed at the same time, this time not caring to be quiet. “A pentagram!”

“She’s going to take someone’s soul!” Alder said, and everyone gasped.

“Or their life,” Quinn said softly, and everyone gasped louder.

“What potion is she trying to make?” Elodie asked. “A King potion?”

“No,” Thorn said softly, and everyone turned to look at her. “The Forever True Love potion.”

“But why?” Madam Maude asked. “Your mother is long gone. Is Rose trying to finish what she couldn’t?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Rose wants it for herself.”

Then something other than Rose moved. A dark blob perched on the rocking chair. It flapped its wings.

“The raven! It looks like Lily’s raven.” Then Thorn gasped. “Lily is Rose.” Rose must have taken a Shape-Shifting potion. That tourist kid had mentioned that Lily looked remarkably like a certain actress, just the way Thorn had before she’d grown giant.

But then the fireplace became blurry, as if water was flowing into the mirror. And then Thorn was staring back at herself. The witches unlinked their hands and slumped back into their seats. “We can try again after a bit of rest.”

“But,” Quinton asked, “who would willingly step inside a pentagram? Even non-witches know to avoid them.”

Thorn pondered this. Would it be one of the men she’d dated as Lily? But she’d been using them only for their cats.

Then Thorn remembered their confrontation in the cottage. Before Lily took the Dire Dagger to Bandit, she had guessed that Thorn loved Walls. And her raven had watched Thorn go on her last twenty-first-century date.

“Walls,” she whispered. “Rose is going to kill Walls.”

“Wart of spider, beard of goat, mole of rat…” Thorn plopped the ingredients with one hand and stirred the bubbling cauldron with the other.

Nine other witches and Penny crowded around the fireplace, watching her carefully. Some took notes in their spell books. Madam Maude wasn’t one of the keen observers. She just sat on the bed with her lips pressed into a thin line.

But Thorn ignored Madam Maude’s disapproval. Walls was always doing something for Thorn. It was her chance to do something for him.

“Next is a pinch of salt, right?” Agnes asked, looking up from her spell book.

“A pinch of salt,” Thorn said, salting the brew, “is for the New-and-Improved True Love potion.” Thorn dipped her thumb and forefinger back into her jar of salt.

“But three months ago, I screwed up by adding an additional pinch of salt. And that turned the New-and-Improved True Love potion into the Time Travel potion that propelled me to the future.”

“You didn’t.”

Thorn’s fingers froze above her cauldron, salt still between them. “What do you mean, Penny?”

Penny dipped her finger into the jar and licked it. She grimaced. “You only added one pinch of salt. I saw it.”

“I don’t trust your frog eyesight.”

“No, it was right before you turned me into a frog. I was watching through the window. I saw you pinch some salt from this jar. At first, you were startled when you saw me at the window and you salted your feet. You dipped your hand into the jar again and dropped that one pinch of salt into the cauldron. Then you turned me into a frog.”

“Then I added the last ingredient: one feather of vampire parrot. But that doesn’t make sense.

If I made it right that day, it should have been only the New-and-Improved True Love potion.

And I re-created that same potion with one pinch of salt in the twenty-first century, and it did make Walls fall in love with me. ”

“That would mean the New-and-Improved True Love potion and the Time Travel potion are the same—they’ve got the exact same ingredients, with a single pinch of salt,” Penny said.

“Why would the same potion cause such different effects?” Thorn asked. She dropped the second pinch of salt back into the jar.

“You’re the witch. You tell me.”

Thorn racked her brain. When she had drunk the mystery potion, it had resulted in her running into Walls. “I have no idea why it made him love me instead of transporting him through time, but I can only hope that when I drink it this time, it will take me to him once more.”

Madam Maude rushed over and jostled past the other witches to stand before the cauldron. “You shouldn’t go around making and taking brews you don’t understand. It’s too dangerous. You’re staying here until we figure it out.”

“I’m sorry, Madam Maude. I will risk everything to save Walls from getting hurt or killed.”

Madam Maude’s grim face softened. She went to the table and returned to the cauldron shortly after. Then she dropped the last ingredient, a feather of vampire parrot, into the brew. The concoction bubbled up orange, then blue, then purple, and finally red. She said, “Thorn, you found love.”

Thorn looked up and smiled. “And not from a cauldron.”

Madam Maude’s eyes shone with pride.

Thorn scooped up a ladleful of the mystery potion and began pouring it into vials. “In case this goes awfully awry… Thank you.”

Now Madam Maude’s eyes glistened with tears, but she quickly wiped them and helped pack the vials into a basket. “Are you taking this to the future?”

“If this potion does what I think it does, it could come in handy dealing with Rose.” Thorn grabbed her cell phone from the wardrobe and tucked it into her pocket. Bandit hopped onto her shoulder.

She grabbed one vial from the basket and uncapped it. “Bandit, I’m not a hundred percent sure about this potion. If I’m wrong, there’s a chance we might end up—”

Shut up and drink, witch.

Thorn tipped the vial into her mouth. As soon as she swallowed, she realized her pointy hat, though kinked, was on the table, not on her head.

The last word the seventeenth century heard from Thorn was “My—”