Page 51 of Never Been Witched (Starfall Point #3)

Alice

Alice had always considered herself good at compartmentalizing. It was why she thought she was the best choice to go to Collin and demand to search the hotel for Josh. Currently, Edison and Riley were at Shaddow House, trying to coach Ben and his family through their first kidnapping.

Well, it was their second kidnapping, technically, considering what had happened to Caroline.

But seeing that tape torn on the cold cement floor, all the little walls dividing her panic about Josh from her seething indignation over the tub violation came crashing down and she felt everything all at once. Maybe it was good for her, Alice thought, as she and Collin bolted around the corner.

Nope. Feeling really, really mad at Collin while also admiring how his long legs seemed to eat up the pavement? That was just confusing. It was not good for her. Also, her calves were starting to cramp.

Just as they ran into the yard, Alice heard repeated thunk s at the back of the Shaddow House.

She and Collin practically hockey-slid into the backyard to find Margaret standing in front of the reading gazebo, wearing a hunter-green wool coat, her arms raised.

Inside the house, the ugly ceremonial candelabra was smashing against one of the rear windows near the kitchen, as if trying to escape.

“Oh…no,” Alice said, shoving Collin behind her.

She didn’t know what Margaret could do to him, exactly, but between the two of them, Alice was the only one who could fight magic with magic.

She was very relieved when the rest of the coven came pouring out of the back door.

Plover was left standing in the kitchen doorway with Natalie and Eloise.

“Margaret, this is not the behavior of a reasonable senior citizen!” Riley yelled.

“I was really hoping you would be out trying to find your annoying little teenage friend,” Margaret sighed, not bothering to drop her arms. She sounded bored and annoyed that the coven was interrupting her repeatedly bashing the candelabra against the window through some magical means.

Alice suspected Margaret’s Welling magic had something to do with it, but she didn’t have time to think too much about it.

It was impressive, really, that the window was holding up to this abuse.

“Should I go get…somebody?” Collin asked Alice. “Or a weapon…or something?”

It was flattering that he was asking her, but unless Collin had some sort of paranormal enforcement unit’s information saved in his phone, she wasn’t sure what he could do.

“Give us back our young man, right now!” Plover thundered.

“Wait, all of you were still in the house?” Margaret huffed. “Don’t any of you care about Todd?”

“It’s Josh ,” Ben barked. “Margaret, where is my son ?”

“We knew we would just have to wait for you to show up,” Caroline growled. “Where. Is. He?”

“Well, I thought I laid an obvious enough trail to make you follow him to the hotel. Maybe to find his lifeless body in the basement. Who knows?” Margaret shrugged. “Chester’s a little more unpredictable than I thought he would be.”

That was enough to make Mina attempt to launch herself off the back porch. Fortunately, Edison caught her around the waist and kept her earthbound.

“Margaret, please,” Edison implored. “We worked together for years. I know you. This isn’t you.”

But Mina was having none of it. “I don’t care that you’re an old lady.

If you don’t tell me where my brother is, I will end—” Ben clapped a hand over his daughter’s mouth to prevent a threat that might escalate the situation beyond repair.

The only muffled words that came through were “hot poker” and “badger” and “fluffernutter.”

Even Collin took a step back on that one.

Alice tried to reassure Ben. “We looked in the hotel basement. Josh wasn’t there. Neither was her creepy little murder-pet.”

Margaret’s head whipped toward Alice. “Impossible.”

“No blood, no signs of a struggle,” Alice added. “It was like he just walked away. It’s entirely possible that he’s fine.”

“It’s equally possible that Chester wanted to take him somewhere private and is munching on his entrails as we speak,” Margaret countered.

Riley took a deep breath, her eyes locked on Alice and Caroline, who gave her a shaky nod. All of their work. All of their effort. What did it mean now?

Edison shook his head. “Riley, no.”

Riley disappeared inside the house and walked back out with the candelabra in hand. Alice felt the magical wards shift as Riley exited the kitchen door, like the clicking of gears. Mina’s lip trembled, “Riley.”

“What good is this without Josh?” Riley demanded. “Our family is worth more than the house or anything in it. We can work around the greater good issue later, when we know he’s OK. Besides, the locks are in a safe in the house. We have that much bargaining power left, at least.”

Margaret waggled her fingers, summoning the candelabra from Riley’s hand to land at her feet in the dirt.

“Finally,” Margaret panted. “ Finally .”

Her smile equal parts gleeful and mad, she raised her arms. Alice’s gut churned as the sound of metal ricocheting around the house filled her ears.

The wards weren’t as strong as they’d been before Riley actively chose to give Margaret a piece of her family’s history back.

The unspoken contract of that choice had weakened their position—deteriorated it so much that the first lock came rocketing out of the kitchen door like a bullet.

Ben flung himself over Mina and Caroline, covering their heads with his hands as more locks came flying out of the kitchen door.

“Well…shit,” Riley marveled as the big copper objet d’art elegantly assembled itself, each lock cupped in its little indentation on the loops.

Alice could feel the magic around Shaddow House shifting; the pleasant tension that was always present in her chest whenever she walked through its doors was starting to unravel. And apparently, Riley’s safe was toast.

This was bad.

“You didn’t know what would happen once the set was complete, did you?” Margaret asked, her grin making her face look skeletal. “It’s more than the sum of its parts. Each lock serves a different magical purpose, doing its own little trick, but when they’re combined…”

She paused to wave a hand over the locks, making a few of them rotate in their little containment cups.

Slowly, ghosts began crawling out of the open door behind Plover, like ants swarming out of a hill, slithering along the surface of the house.

And none of them were familiar faces Alice recognized from her days in Shaddow House.

Haggard, bloodied, radiating angry confusion—these were the ghosts that lurked in the shadows, watching, making the hairs of her arms stand up when she realized the outline of a person standing in the corner wasn’t her imagination.

Alice shivered, stepping back, moving Collin with her.

“All of you, stick around. No sense in running off to terrorize the locals just yet,” Margaret told them, her triumphant smile sickly sweet and more than slightly mad. “You’re going to want to see this.”

To Alice’s surprise, the ghosts did exactly what they were told, perching on the roof as if to watch how it all unfolded.

Dozens more were gathering at the kitchen door, creating a sort of gray, misty traffic jam as they all tried to escape at once.

Plover was at the front, shoving at them, shouting for them to stay where they were.

“What is happening?” Edison asked.

“The magic is crumbling,” Riley whispered. “ Margaret’s holding the ghosts here, all of them.”

“Oh, sure, the locks can make ghosts do whatever I tell them to,” Margaret told them, sounding bored. “Like this.”

She turned her wrist, making one of the locks spin in its cup. She looked around, as if choosing a teammate for dodgeball, and made a beckoning gesture with her fingertips. A clown ghost emerged from the swirling misty chaos near the kitchen door, smiling broadly at Mina.

“Oh, hell, no,” Mina said, turning and planting her feet.

Alice stared in horror as the clown ghost drew close to Mina in the creepiest way possible.

“Is that a clown ghost?” Collin whisper-hissed. “ Why is there a clown ghost? ”

Ben and Caroline attempted to throw themselves into the ghost’s path, but he didn’t seem to notice at all. Caroline even made the “repel” hand gesture as Riley dashed back into the kitchen, yelling, “I’m getting the salt bombs!”

“Let me try something!” Alice yelled, raising her hands.

“What are you doing?” Collin asked, sounding panicked. “Is it going to make the clown ghost come closer?”

Alice made a hand gesture based on the “repel” spell, but intended a different outcome.

She imagined an invisible bubble around the clown ghost, sealing him away where he couldn’t hurt anyone she cared about—or, at least, would stop creeping Collin out so badly.

She pushed her right hand forward, picturing the bubble floating through the kitchen door.

The clown disappeared into the churning spirit chaos.

Margaret looked irritated but didn’t seem to realize it was Alice who had interrupted the undead fisticuffs.

“I always forget you have some grasp of magic. Do you know what it’s been like for me, listening to Edison talk about you all day long, knowing what you and your little friends were, while he bored me with lies about paint swatches and bookshelves?

It’s been so frustrating . Helpful in the long run, really, gleaning all that information about your schedules and your habits, to add to what Clark was telling me.

But it was so excruciating to put on an interested, neutral face while he blathered on.

To know that I was so much more suited for his job but was obligated to not kill him because I needed his information? It was galling .”

“Well, that hurts my feelings more than I expected,” Edison muttered.