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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“ N ow, to start with, this is one of the strongest magic potions I’ve ever encountered,” Madam Healer said briskly.

The town doctor was an older woman with silver hair swept into an elegant chignon at the back of her neck. She was wearing a white lab coat and a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles pulled low on her elegant nose as she looked at the sample of purple potion Rath had brought her.

“I thought it might be potent,” Rath said, speaking to his phone screen, which he was holding up so both of us could see Madam Healer. “It, uh, seemed to have quite an effect on Sarah.”

I was glad he didn’t say what effect exactly. He had promised to keep the events of last night just between us, which I deeply appreciated.

“And you are the one who brewed it?” she asked, looking at me.

I nodded mutely. FaceTiming with a stranger was a little easier than talking face-to-face, but my words were still caught in my throat.

“And did you intend to brew a truth spell or a lust potion?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at me. “Because this concoction is both .”

I shook my head rapidly in negation. Rath must have seen my panicked look, because he spoke for me.

“Sarah didn’t mean to brew any kind of a potion,” he said quickly. “She just found a recipe in her Grandmother’s Grimoire and she thought it would help her be less shy. She has social anxiety and Selective Mutism,” he added.

“Selective what?” Madam Healer asked, frowning.

Rapidly, Rath explained. I was impressed that he got it right—he really had been listening to me when I told him about my condition.

“But Goody Albright thinks that the problem Sarah has speaking to strangers might have to do with her magic being bound,” he added. “She thinks that the spell binding her magic is binding her voice as well.”

“She does, does she?” Madam Healer frowned and then snapped her fingers. “Wait a minute—are you Elvira Pruitt’s granddaughter?”

I nodded eagerly.

“Ah—I thought you looked like her. You have her eyes. Just a minute while I pull your chart.”

My chart? I wanted to ask, but of course I couldn’t.

She moved away from the phone and I was surprised to hear a dry, slithering sound. A moment later I saw where it was coming from—from the waist down, Madam Healer was an enormous snake . She slithered over to a filing cabinet and began thumbing through the files inside.

“She’s a Naga,” Rath murmured in my ear, seeing my surprised look. “They’re exceptionally wise and they live for thousands of years, so of course she has everyone’s medical history dating back to forever.”

A moment later, Madam Healer slithered back to her phone with a thick manila folder in her arms.

“Yes, indeed,” she said briskly, paging through it.

“I see here that your mother decided to have you bound at a very young age. Only five years old.” She shook her head and made a tsking sound.

“Your Grandmother and I both disagreed—in fact, it was Elvira who brought me in to consult on the matter. But your mother was determined that binding your magic was the only way to avoid the curse.”

“The what?” Rath exclaimed.

“The what?” I mouthed the words at the same time. What curse was she talking about? I didn’t remember my mother ever saying anything about a curse. But then, she hadn’t told me we had magic or that we were a family of witches, either.

“The Pruitt family curse—apparently it affects every woman in your bloodline. I’m afraid that is all that your Grandmother disclosed to me,” she said, looking up at me for a moment.

“According to my notes, your Grandmother felt that you would become a strong enough witch to break it, but your Mother disagreed. And since she was your primary caregiver, your Grandmother was unable to stop her from having you bound.”

“So Goody Albright was right—Sarah’s magic is bound,” Rath said.

“Yes, and considering how strongly she was bound, it’s amazing to me that she was able to concoct this potion.

” She held up the purple liquid again, which she had in a white ceramic mug.

“If you can do this with your magic bound, I’d be very interested to see what you could do with it un bound,” she said to me.

“Have you ever done anything like it before?”

I shook my head and then whispered in Rath’s ear.

“Sarah says she’s never done any kind of magic that she knows of,” he translated for me. “But she’s only been in Hidden Hollow for a few days.”

“I see.” She nodded thoughtfully. “It’s possible that being in the same proximity of so much magic is beginning to wear on the spell that binds you. It’s beginning to fray around the edges—unraveling in a way.”

I remembered that Goody Albright had said something very similar. I whispered again to Rath.

“Sarah says she wonders if that’s the reason her mother kept her away from Hidden Hollow for so long. She grew up in the human world,” he added.

Madam Healer nodded.

“Yes, that’s very possible. The presence of strong outer magic like the barrier surrounding our town, rubbing against a strong binding like the one on Sarah, will almost always erode the binding.

I’m fairly certain your mother wanted you bound for life,” she said to me.

“Which could very well be the reason she took you away from Hidden Hollow and never let you return.”

I shook my head, wondering why my mother would do this to me. How bad could the family curse be for her to screw up my life so badly? Another thought occurred to me and I whispered to Rath again.

“Sarah wants to know, since the spell has started unraveling, will it keep on coming undone? Will the issue resolve on its own as long as she stays in Hidden Hollow?” Rath relayed for me. He sounded as hopeful as I felt.

But Madam Healer shook her head.

“I’m sorry, but with a binding this strong, she’ll need to seek help in order to get herself completely unbound.

The core of the binding won’t dissolve on its own, even if the edges fray.

She may in time be able to do some magic, but she will never reach her full potential—which I believe is considerable—until she is completely unbound. ”

“Well, then—how do we go about unbinding her?” Rath asked, frowning. “She’s been under this spell most of her life—she needs to be free of it, Madam Healer.”

“I am sympathetic to her plight,” the Naga said. “But I’m afraid that since I didn’t cast the spell myself, I can’t help with the unbinding. In fact, with magic this strong, you need to go right to the source.”

“The source? What do you mean?” Rath asked. I was so glad he was asking the right questions—I didn’t have to say a word this time.

“You must go to the witch who placed the binding in the first place,” Madam Healer told us. “You must go to Baba Yaga.”

Rath sucked in a breath and his skin went a paler shade of green. I looked at him, alarmed and mouthed,

“Who is Baba Yaga?”

For once, he didn’t answer me. He kept his eyes on Madam Healer.

“Are you sure there’s no other way?”

“There is not. And as the little witch’s power is bound, she’ll need a champion to see her through the woods.” She raised one silver eyebrow at him. “Are you prepared to take on the task?”

Rath lifted his chin.

“I am,” he rumbled. “I’ll see Sarah safely through to Baba Yaga’s hut and back again.”

“Very well. Then I wish you good luck on your journey,” Madam Healer said. There was a noise in the background and she cocked her head to one side. “I’m afraid I need to end this consultation—my next patient is here.”

“Thank you for talking with us,” Rath said.

“Any time. I hope to see you again, Rath—if you get back in one piece. A pleasure seeing you as well, Sarah. I hope you’re successful in getting your magic unbound.”

She nodded briskly at us both and then the phone screen went black.

But though what she’d said had shed some light on my situation, somehow I now had even more questions than before.