Page 34 of Bewitched By the Headless Horseman (The Bewitching Hour #1)

Stevie sat on top of Lucia’s shoulder, releasing one high-squealed whistle after another as her sister-in-law sped the car through the streets.

If Levi and Clara had snatched Roxy, then they could easily use the fox against Stevie.

Not many people or cars were out and about, the town’s population most likely either getting ready to go to the cemetery tonight or staying behind warded doors.

Which the second might be the best option at this point.

“Roxy will be fine. She was at your parents’ after I left to come for you,” Lucia soothed.

But Roxy might’ve still ventured home at some point, then wanted to see what all the fuss was about when the evil duo entered her home.

Lucia’s phone rang, and she sighed in relief as she answered with the speaker on. “Finally! I called and thought you were kidnapped!”

“I’m at my parents. What’s going on, babe? Do I need to kick some ass?” Gideon asked.

“No! Stay where you are until I say to leave. There are some dangerous shenanigans afoot and we can’t afford a distraction. Your pain tolerance is horrendous and these asshats would easily get something out of you. It’s too risky,” Lucia rushed out.

“What about Stevie?” Worry filled his voice.

“I have a story to tell you later, but at the moment I need to get her back to normal size after a nefarious encounter she had since Maxine could easily eat her.”

“Someone is about to be dead,” he ground out.

“Don’t worry, they already are, but this will make time number two.

Go take care of your parents, keep them safe, and I’ll see you soon.

I love you.” Lucia ended the call just as she turned down Ginger’s street, and shrill, familiar barks sounded.

Stevie couldn’t see through the fog, but the barks were coming right behind the car.

“Roxy’s behind us!” Stevie shouted.

“She can meet us at Aunt Ginger’s. There isn’t time to stop for a single second.”

Stevie agreed. Things were about to completely spill from the cauldron—there’d been no answer at the council, and if anything, she bet the duo had turned them into some sort of small critter. Ginger was home, working on more brews to bless the land, but Lucia had only told her to be ready for them.

As Lucia threw the car in park, Roxy met them, hopping up and down in a frenzy.

“Good girl, Foxy Roxy,” Stevie squeaked.

The front door burst open and Ginger bounded toward them, her gray braid in disarray. “Charms and hexes, Lucia, what’s going on?”

“So much!” Lucia took Stevie from her shoulder and held her out to Ginger.

The witch gasped. “Get to the basement and tell me everything as we work!”

“It was too risky to go to my house, so I came here,” Lucia said while rushing toward the basement. She fled down the carpeted steps, and Stevie held back nausea from how the room spun around her.

Lucia placed Stevie on one of the shelves as Ginger spelled an empty glass jar into a chair that was fit for her doll size.

While Lucia took a few jars from another shelf and poured their contents into the far-left cauldron, she told Ginger what had happened.

Roxy lingered beside them, listening too.

Levi inside of Reese, Clara taking Adelia as her own, Kit in their grasp to be used as a sacrifice, Stevie being the next, Lucia’s body to become Clara’s if the witch got her way.

“I’ll turn them into cockroaches and crush them,” Ginger seethed.

“Unfortunately, their ghosts would slither right out,” Stevie said, but her voice was too meek to be heard from across the room.

Lucia dipped a teaspoon into the cauldron and poured the small amount into a silver thimble. She then rushed it to Stevie, who clasped the large thimble and drank down the liquid. A flavor of spiced cake caressed her taste buds, and she held out the polished-off thimble toward Lucia.

“Grab her from the shelf!” Ginger bellowed as Stevie’s muscles twitched, her hands looking like clown hands compared to the rest of her.

“Oh right!” Lucia lifted Stevie from the shelf and placed her on the floor.

Stevie’s muscles twitched again, her feet becoming larger, and she sprouted up like a weed until she was back to her normal, not-so-tall, height.

“Well, that whole situation was completely uncalled for.” Stevie glanced down at her body that no longer wore the costume shop gown, the tiny ripped fabric resting near her bare foot. She would just have to pay for that. “Why am I naked ?”

“Reversal spells can’t solve everything, especially when the original spell wasn’t my own. But at least you have all your fingers and toes, right? There’s always the possibility not everything lines up correctly.” Lucia shrugged.

Horrified, Stevie counted her toes and fingers to double-check they were all there as Ginger wrapped a knitted blanket around her. And thank the witches they were!

“We need to find Levi and Clara,” Stevie said.

“I do have another trick up my sleeve.” Lucia smiled. “One good thing I learned from my Crowned Witch training before it went kaput is the secret location of the gate to the Hollow. I should’ve told you yesterday when I saw you, but I wasn’t supposed to until today.”

“It’s best to make sure it’s out of other’s hands when truth spells are a slippery tactic these days anyway. Where is it?” Stevie asked, hope bouncing in her chest.

“It’s at the edge of the creek near the Headless Horseman’s bridge.” Lucia ran a hand over her messy bun.

Stevie furrowed her brow as she mulled something over. “Wait, you’re sure it was Adelia inside of her body, or could it have been Clara giving you a false location?”

“Pretty sure it was Adelia. The training had been non-stop that day. Also, I never felt Inferno in the library, so everything must’ve happened with Adelia before Clara sent me the forged letter.”

“So let’s believe it was, but on the negative side, even if we show up there, the sketchy duo will be prepared for you to come since I’d wager both my eyes Clara knows Adelia told you about the location, which means she’s planning on it so she can steal your body tonight!

” Stevie hissed. “They didn’t want to make people suspicious by taking out Adelia beforehand. It’s their perfect little plot.”

Lucia’s forehead crinkled. “So we have Clara, who is a mediocre witch, inside of a powerful Crowned Witch that isn’t quite double the power but still a lot.

And then you have a warlock, who is a step below a Crowned Witch, inside of a seer.

They both dabble in the dark arts, a challenging magic to fight against, but one I can easily make a barrier for that will hold if I stay concentrated on it.

Clara is the one I’ll have to keep my eye on the most since she has Adelia’s power. ”

“Do you want me to call on more witches?” Ginger asked. “No one’s taking my niece’s body.”

“Have them make sure every house in town is warded.” Lucia tapped the end of her chin. “If only we had Kit’s bones.”

Kit’s bones . Stevie gasped. “I still have one if they didn’t find it! His finger bone is in my purse on the counter.”

“Now that was an answer I needed.” Lucia grinned. “So, before we retrieve Kit’s bone.” Lucia clapped her hands together. “The original plan I had for tonight has to be tweaked somewhat, but this might be even better. Let’s start with Roxy. Go back to Stevie’s parents and watch over them.”

“Listen to her.” Stevie nodded toward the fox when she didn’t budge from her spot. Roxy nuzzled through Stevie’s leg and took off up the basement stairs.

“Oh, Auntie,” Lucia called. “You’re next. This one will be a bit risky, a dangerous game we might not survive, but I want you to pretend you’re Stevie. It won’t distract them for long—however, it might catch them off guard.

“Hmm.” Ginger clucked her tongue. “Look young again for an evening, feel the youth pulse within me, bones not creaking—I say it sounds like a good night. If we don’t do something, then we will be a lovely dinner for demons crawling about the earth, tearing bodies in half and lapping up their blood before drinking their ghosts up as an everlasting snack. ”

Stevie’s lips parted, clutching her blanket tighter. “I think I just pissed myself.”

“I’m sure most of Sleepy Hollow will be,” Lucia said, grabbing a glass from the shelf and filling it with liquid from the first cauldron. “Stevie, I need three drops of blood.”

Ginger handed Stevie a needle—she pricked her finger, then squeezed the droplets into the brew.

She ignored the slight sting and watched as Lucia stirred the liquid.

The brew bubbled, a light red smoke curling up from the glass.

Lucia blew on the contents, chanting a few words, before passing it to her aunt.

“Bottoms up,” Ginger announced as she drank the brew down. “It’s a bit tangy. You’ll have to show me what I did wrong with mine sometime.”

As Lucia continued the chant, Stevie felt a sharp tug at her body, her skin growing wrinkled, hugging her bones, while Ginger’s flesh tightened, smoothed.

Stevie knew this rodeo from when she’d first learned all of Lucia’s spells, so she wasn’t going to curl up and rock somewhere in the corner.

Her muscles turned heavy, and in the reflection of a glass jar, her hair became limp and gray.

Then, as if a balloon were filling with air inside her, Stevie’s flesh plumped back up, her strength and everyday appearance returning.

Ginger stood in front of her, a perfect carbon copy of Stevie from the orange hair to her shorter legs.

“Miraculous, dear niece,” Ginger exclaimed, even her voice sounding like Stevie’s.

Lucia faced Stevie and scanned her over. “For you, we will start with a cloaking spell.”

“And what if they performed a cloaking spell on themselves?” Stevie asked.

“That’s the spell I already had prepared for if Levi showed up.” Lucia smirked.

As her sister-in-law raised her hand in the air, Stevie said, “Can you make some clothes for me first? Holding up a blanket the entire time doesn’t scream battle ready.”

“Good catch.” Lucia spun her hand in a circle and the blanket cradled Stevie’s body until it formed a tube-top dress that flared out at the waist. “When we leave you can slip a pair of Ginger’s shoes on and she’ll fit them to your size.

Now let me cloak you before we leave.” She held up her hand again, and a tingle spread through Stevie’s body, tickling beneath her flesh.

Stevie blinked. “Am I invisible?”

“Not to me, but to everyone else, as much as the Invisible Man, except you don’t have to be naked to not be seen.”

Stevie laughed softly as Lucia gathered what she needed and passed Stevie a dagger to tuck through a belt loop that had been fashioned at her waist.

“Apologies, we’re going to need more seer blood than usual tonight. Getting the ghosts out of the bodies is my main concern.” Lucia sighed.

“Tonight we’re going to perform our own version of an exorcism, and I think I know who can help us.” Stevie grinned.

Lucia’s gaze slid toward Stevie’s. “Who do you have in mind?”

“Just someone we’ll be borrowing from my brother,” Stevie said innocently. “Her name’s Maxine.”

“That’s perfect!” Lucia clasped her hands together. She then instructed Ginger to cloak herself until the reveal.

Before they left the house, Ginger gave Stevie a pair of flats that were two sizes too big, but as she slipped them on, they cradled her feet perfectly.

Just when she thought the fog couldn’t get any thicker, it had. Not a single star lit up the sky, the darkness hiding them from all of Sleepy Hollow.

As Lucia drove toward their duplex, Stevie asked, “I know you’re going to use Kit’s bone for spells, but is it possible if we don’t bring it, that the Hollow will stay closed?”

“The skull is what will open the gate. I believe the bones and his ghost are more for the sacrifice. If it’s still at your place, you’ll keep it in your dress pocket until I give you the signal.”

As a backup plan, Lucia pulled up beside the curb instead of in the driveway in case for some reason she didn’t come out and Stevie had to take the wheel and speed off.

It only took Lucia a couple of minutes to run into both sides of the duplex.

She hopped back into the car, her chest heaving, and tossed the purse to Stevie.

“Bone is inside, but the rest of Kit’s skeleton is gone.

Go ahead and give Maxine a drop of your blood and guard her with your life, or Gideon will never get out of bed.

” She carefully passed the plant to Stevie, and she held onto Maxine as the plant opened and closed her mouth.

Just as Lucia’s foot hit the gas pedal, the ground shook like an earthquake and she slammed on the brakes. Stevie’s heart hammered when orange smoke wafted up outside the window, swirling within the fog.

“It’s beginning,” Lucia breathed. “The demons are lining up at the gate, waiting for it to open.”