Page 53 of Never Been Witched (Starfall Point #3)

“Well, I’m sorry I basically let my ghostly grandma kill you out of boredom,” Caroline admitted. “Her boredom, not mine. And then you got sucked into this afterlife vacuum thing, which seems kind of scary.”

“It isn’t so bad, really,” Cole sighed. “Peaceful, quiet. Like taking a deep nap that you fade in and out of.”

“Well, that’s weirdly comforting. At least we didn’t shove Bobby Carlucci into some hell dimension,” Alice said.

“Really, you’re worried about Bobby now?” Riley asked.

“He was a gross catcaller, but I’m not sure he deserved hell,” Alice muttered, shrugging.

“I can bring him forth too,” Margaret offered, only to have everybody but Ben and Mina shout, “ No! ”

“Eh, Bobby’s not so bad,” Cole said, only to have Margaret make a gesture that resulted in him flying upward into the void.

Margaret smiled. “I am never going to get tired of this feeling. The power. Knowing that you’re watching my every move, dreading my every decision.

It’s just so delicious. I know it can’t last forever.

Well, it can’t last longer than tonight, really, because I’m going to kill you all, but I’m old enough to know when to savor a moment. ”

“Really?” Stanford asked. “You don’t think leaving the bodies of seven people behind one of the most famous homes on the island will attract some attention?”

“We have all sorts of things that can explain weird occurrences now,” Margaret told him.

“Carbon monoxide, electrocution, mass food poisoning. And people will accept those explanations because they just want to move on to the next weird thing that happens in the news cycle. It’ll simply be another strange footnote in the Shaddow House history, and I’ll have the locks, and I really won’t care. ”

“That seems like a limited perspective,” Stanford told her, sounding disappointed.

“Fine, I’ll only kill half of them,” Margaret sighed. “No one will believe the other half anyway.”

“And how are you planning on going about that?” Stanford demanded. Margaret gave him a pointed look. “Oh, I’m supposed to snuff out the lives of three or more people?”

“Well, I was going to have Chester do it, but he’s not responding when I call!” Margaret explained, sounding a bit like a petulant teenager.

“Yes, it’s almost like creating a weird Frankenstein monster out of ghost energy is a bad idea,” Mina muttered.

“Who’s Chester?” Stanford asked.

A chittering echo in the distance caught Alice’s attention. She saw a small, dark shape darting around the corner. Was it a rabbit…or a rat?

Or an evil hamster?

“Oh, no.” Alice shoved Collin out of the path of the oncoming ghost hamster. She might have been upset with him, but she didn’t want him to die an evil ghost-hamster death. That seemed to be emotional progress.

Unfortunately, Collin refused to be protected by her. He shielded her with his body, stepping in front of her, facing the direction where she was staring in horror. In the process, she tripped over his feet and they both landed on the freezing-cold ground with a thump.

Collin cradled her body, covering it with his own, protecting her head with his huge hands. Behind them, the basement ghosts were hiss-whispering among themselves, buzzing with excitement about the thrill to come.

That was ominous.

“What?” Collin demanded, searching around for the hidden danger. “What’s happening? What’s coming? What do you need me to do?”

He looked down at her like he was counting her essential body parts again. He’d chosen her…over himself. He didn’t know what the threat was, or where it was coming from, but he’d thrown himself in front of her with his own body.

She did not know how to process this.

While she appreciated his concern, this was not the best position from which to fight an oncoming evil ghost hamster. As soon as Collin realized what was running by, he scrambled back, carrying Alice with him. “Gah!”

But Chester just streaked past them on the ground. He slid to a stop in front of Margaret and bared his little shark teeth. Alice heard Ben breathe out, “No…”

“Chester,” Margaret cooed. “Oh, sweetie, you took a while but you got the job done. I’m sure you did, didn’t you? That’s my good boy. Oh, was that big, dumb, gangly boy mean to you?”

To everybody’s surprise, Chester hissed at Margaret and snapped at her hand, sinking his teeth into her finger. Even if they were transparent ghost teeth, it looked painful.

“Chester, what are you doing ?” Margaret cried, shaking her hand.

A young voice sounded from the depths of the night.

“Chester doesn’t want to work for you anymore.

” The collar of his peacoat was pulled up like some adolescent TV vampire, and Alice thought maybe Josh knew exactly how cool he looked as he stepped into a shaft of moonlight and said, “Chester works for me now.”

“Josh!” Ben yelled. He almost bolted toward his son, but Edison gently took his arm and shook his head. As much as they all shared the relief that Josh was all right, this sort of distraction was exactly what Margaret needed to do something bloody and terrible.

“You specifically waited for a moment like this so you could make a dramatic entrance, didn’t you?” Mina asked, her eyes shiny with happy tears. “You enormous jerk.”

Ben nodded, similarly teary. “I’m pretty sure he popped the collar on his coat too.”

Josh shrugged, grinning like the much-beloved smart-ass he was. “How many opportunities like this am I going to get?”

Caroline was just wiping her cheeks. “I’m going to hug the hell out of you, kid. Just prepare for it. And then we’re going to have a long remedial talk about stranger danger.”

Josh sighed and dropped his head. “I know.”

“Has everyone forgotten the point here?” Margaret demanded, gesturing up to the void. “I’m standing here with a portal to the afterlife open like a gaping chest wound and you’re talking about hugging ? Can I get a little attention, please?”

“Coming across as a little needy, Maggie,” Josh noted. “Be a little gracious about other people getting attention. Were you an only child?”

“Now, you listen here.” Margaret took a threatening step toward him, but before she could reach Josh, Chester snapped at her again. He was like a tiny protective dragon, guarding his treasure. And that treasure was Josh.

“Now, Chester,” Margaret barked. “You listen to me. I’m in control here. I made you. And I want you to hurt every single person here except me, do you understand?”

Margaret pulled out a little silver charm, shaped a little bit like the locks. She used it to gesture at Josh. Chester sat on his back haunches and licked his fore…paw? They were going to have to create a whole new anatomical language to deal with ghostly murder-pets.

“Impressive,” Stanford told her.

“What’s happening?” Margaret seethed. “Why isn’t he obeying?”

“I talked to him,” Josh said. “You left me in a basement with a seething ball of rage, hoping he would hurt me. Because he doesn’t speak in a language you understand, the language of a wounded person who feels alone and helpless.

The language of an anxious teenager. But it’s amazing what sort of loyalty you can secure when you just listen and treat someone like they matter. ”

Riley burst out laughing at the angry expression on Margaret’s face.

“That was your big move, wasn’t it?” Riley asked, shaking her head. “Chester the evil hamster—”

Chester turned and hissed angrily at Riley, who cringed.

“Sorry, buddy, we’ll become friends later,” Riley promised Chester. “Chester was your nuclear option. The big, bad weapon. And you just got outplayed by a teenager. A teenager with an unusual degree of emotional intelligence, but a teenager . That has got to sting !”

Riley probably could have enjoyed this less, Alice mused, but she’d had a long year.

“Enough of this!” Stanford yelled. “We’ve waited long enough. Avenge your family, Margaret! End them!”

“Chester, heel!” Margaret barked. Stanford took a running start at Riley.

Behind her, Alice saw a tall, dark shape step slowly out of the gloom of the kitchen door.

Plover was on the move, breaking through the shredded wards and stepping in front of Riley.

When Stanford reached her, he burst into a sort of dust cloud against the shield that Plover’s love provided.

Stanford re-formed just in time for Alice to cast the same “containment bubble” spell she’d used earlier, encapsulating him like an angry ghost pill.

Alice moved, her hands like a conductor, manipulating the bubble back toward the void as she and Collin moved to the porch. Stanford was beating angrily at the bubble’s walls, his screams silenced. He became the ceiling ghost again, formless and empty, filling the bubble entirely like ink.

Alice gathered all the strength of her magic, thinking back to every harsh word that had ever been said to her, every rejection, every hurt. She extended her hand and pushed that ball of Welling rage into the void.

Margaret growled in frustration. “Do you think that’s it? That you’ve won?”

“Well, it doesn’t feel like losing.” Josh sauntered toward the porch with all the charisma a teenage boy could hope for—right up until the moment that Ben and Mina smothered him with hugs and kisses. Alice thought that he deserved the moment.

“You’re sure of your control over Chester?” Alice asked Josh.

He nodded. “As anyone can be of the friendship with a tiny pocket ghost you’ve trauma-bonded with during an abduction.”

“OK.” Alice nodded. “I think we should let Chester determine Margaret’s fate.”

“Wait, Chester gets to decide this?” Riley asked.

“Do you want to be the one to kill Jeff Flanders’s mom?” Caroline asked.

“No,” Riley sighed. “It just seems risky.”

“Trust me, Chester’s going to vote thumbs-down,” Josh told her. “Margaret’s ‘training’ methods were pretty awful. Also, she named him Chester.”

“When Margaret loses control of the locks, however that happens, we’re going to have to deal with the ghosts that escaped the wards,” Riley reminded them.