Page 69 of Witch and Tell

Lise looked at me in panic. Bind my magic? She could do it. In fact, it was possible that Beata was the only witch who could do it, and that was all thanks to me and my tragic misstep in the woods. Yes, Beata was powerful, but I was here, in the library, surrounded by the source of my magic. I had my books.

My birthmark burned on my shoulder as if pierced with hot pins. I raised my hands, and a surge of energy powerful enough to rival lightning, energy fed by centuries of literature, illuminated my body. I was shielded. Beata threw her hands toward me, and fire bounced off the dome. My ears screamed with the text of war novels—firing cannons, shrieking soldiers, arrows tipped with fire. The books possessed me.

At my feet, Rodney had become something fierce. His tail whipped, and ears flattened to his skull.

Beata’s eyes narrowed. She turned her hands to the rooms around us, spinning slowly, pointing her fingers first at eye level, then at the floors above. Windows rattled as if a tornado had taken hold of the library, although I knew Wilfred slept peacefully outside us. Lights crackled on and off. Whether this was Beata’s magic or mine, I didn’t know.

Then fire ripped along the old house’s floors, following the trail of Beata’s fingers.

No!She was destroying the library—and the books. She was killing the source of my magic.

The books screamed as flames enveloped their shelves. Their pain raked through me.

I half expected Beata to be standing, mouth wide in an evil laugh, but she regarded me calmly. My gaze dropped to Lise, slumped lifeless on the floor.

Rodney yowled, and every hair on my body prickled like needles.

A book glowing green dropped from the sky and hovered in front of Beata. The grimoire!

As I watched, fire raging around me, the book lost shape and remade itself as the beating heart of the ghost of my grandmother. She floated two feet above the floor, her hair waving free, a tranquil smile on her face. Grandma’s lips moved as if she spoke, but I heard nothing but the screaming of the books.

I tore my gaze from her. I had to stop the fire. I thrust my hands up again to hurl every micron of energy I could muster against the magic that fueled the flames. My magic hit the edge of my shield and swirled back at me. Beata had sealed it.

Anger and fear suffused me. I was a helpless spectator to my own destruction.

Beata’s face was contorted with anger, but the specter of my grandmother, with her grimoire beating in her chest, regarded her serenely. Both women were power ful witches, but family dynamics persevered. Beata was once again the wheedling teenager, and my grandmother the steady older sister. I couldn’t hear their conversation. Panic rising, I could only watch their body language and imagine the long-ago drama they rehashed.

Meanwhile, all around me, the library burned. My anger had become a gut-deep sorrow now. What had I done? Why had I been so foolish? Everything—telling Sam I was a witch, freeing Beata’s magic, leading Lise into this trap—were fodder for a cannon now loaded with powder and pointed at me. All that had been left was for Beata to light the fuse. And she had.

Then I felt a zap course through me. I looked down. Lise, barely conscious, rested her hands on the dome, meant to protect, that now trapped me. Her fingers, blanched and trembling, moved against the magical wall. At first slowly, then quickly, the spell vaporized, and my magic thrust back into me like jolts from a defibrillator. I widened my stance, raised my arms, and drew in every letter of every book not yet consumed by flames and liquidated it into magic. I’d done this once before—just after I’d come into my magic—but then it had been a frightening accident. My magic had grown since then.

“Fire,” I shouted. “Cease!”

Time wound backwards like a movie shown in reverse. Flames shrank and disappeared, rendering books once again whole. Smoke furled in upon itself, and burnt shelves became embers, then merely blackened, then whole again, leaving nothing but a faint smell of smoke, almost like incense. The force of the magic drained me, and I blacked out for a moment.

When I came to, the atrium was dead silent. Nothing was burnt but my grandmother’s grimoire, which lay cold and charred on the dark floor. My grandmother was gone. Lise, exhausted, leaned against the wall, her eyes half-closed, one hand resting on Rodney’s back.

Where was Beata? I had to get to her. I had to bind her magic.

“Over here.” Beata stood at the entrance to the atrium. She was her young self again, irresistible. Her glamour enveloped her like a heady perfume. “You’ll never find the key. However, Sam will.” She glanced at the grimoire, then at me. She smiled. “You’ll soon discover another surprise, as well.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but invisible ties gagged me. I couldn’t move, either.

“Leaving family is such a trial. Goodbye.”

By the time I could summon my magic to free myself, she’d be gone. I’d never find her; she would make sure of that.

She waved and placed a hand on the brass doorknob. At the same time, a long, low creaking sounded above us, and the portrait of Marilyn Wilfred tumbled from its perch of a hundred years. It landed smack on Beata, knocking her out cold.

I swear Marilyn was smiling.

Chapter Thirty-seven

Iwas exhausted. Utterly, completely, to-the-bone exhausted.

Once the portrait had knocked out Beata, the enchantment holding me hostage had broken. I’d been able to easily bind Beata’s magic. Not only did I remove her supercharge of power, I contained all of her magic, leaving behind only a thin residue, no more than anyone had. When she regained consciousness, she was merely a woman in late middle age with traces of her former beauty in her pale eyes and sharp cheekbones, but none of her former glamour. I reached down and peeled her blouse from her shoulder as she looked up, fear in her eyes. The birthmark was gone.

She walked away. I knew I would never see her again.