Putting on the Witch (23 page)

“Don't say another word,” Elsie reminded her. “I like having you around, and I believe Abdon will exorcise you if he catches us smuggling you around the castle again.”

We all nodded and smiled to another group of witches, who looked angry and ready to cause problems. We got past them quickly without saying a word.

“How are we going to find the library if none of you have been to it when it was here?” Dorothy asked. “It's a big castle, and I think some of it might be magical, so you can't tell if it's real or not.”

“Once you know the spell, you can see the golden glow,” Elsie said as we slipped into an alcove and recited the spell together. “That's what my mother always said.”

“Mine too. And look—I think we may have found the witches' library—where all the knowledge of the world is kept.” I opened the huge wood door, and the golden light
spilled out on us. “Dorothy, welcome to the biggest library in the world.”

“Oh. My. Gosh!” Dorothy's jaw dropped and her eyes grew wide.

“I think she likes it,” Olivia said.

“
Shh!
”

“Why didn't you tell me?” Dorothy's voice was barely above a whisper. “It's—it's beautiful. Awesome. Spectacular. I wish I could live here.”

“Don't get carried away,” Olivia said.

“If we have to tell you to be quiet again,” Elsie threatened, “I'll put you in my pocketbook. Now pipe down before we get caught with you.”

I ignored them as I urged Dorothy into the library. “There are books here from the library at Alexandria.”

“Really? I thought it burned.”

“It did, but magic saved the books. Don't forget the ancient past was the domain of today's witches,” I said. “Before the goddess's temples were destroyed, women took care of the world.”

“I can't believe it. Can I touch them?”

“Of course you can touch them.” A woman with bright red hair appeared from behind a tall desk. “It wouldn't make much sense if you couldn't.”

“But they're so old,” Dorothy marveled. “Aren't you worried about them falling apart?”

“These books have all been preserved by a powerful spell.” The librarian stared at me. “What's wrong with her? Every young witch knows about the library and the books.”

“Dorothy Dunst Lane, meet Sylvia Rose Gold,” I introduced the two women. “Dorothy was raised without magic but has since joined our coven. Sylvia has been the librarian here for hundreds of years.”

“It's wonderful to meet you.” Dorothy cautiously reached her hand toward Sylvia, who looked at it as though Dorothy was offering her a poisonous snake.

“I said you could touch the books, dear.” Sylvia took a step back. “I am obviously not a book.”

“Oh. I'm so sorry.” Dorothy drew back her hand. “How do I get a library card?”

“She really doesn't know anything, does she?” Sylvia asked me.

“Every witch has a library card,” I explained. “It's part of your magic heritage.”

Dorothy laughed. “I might never leave this place.” She started down an aisle of books that was twenty feet tall and went on farther than I could see.

“That's the wonderful thing about the witches' library,” Sylvia told her. “You can look at the books whenever you like. You don't have to be here.”

“We'll show you how later,” I told Dorothy. “Let's not forget why we're here now.”

“Sure.” Dorothy's brown eyes gazed longingly at the books. “You're right, Molly. Let's find what we came for.”

We went to the aisle that held the histories of witches.

“Every witch ever born has a history here,” I told her. “Here's your great-great-grandmother's. You'll have a book here too.”

“Where is Makaleigh's book?” Elsie glanced through the tomes.

“I see it.” Dorothy stood on the tips of her toes to grab the book.

Sylvia Rose Gold laughed as she watched her.

“You just bring it down to you, dear.” Elsie pointed at the book, and it came to her.

“Wow.” Dorothy grinned. “That's awesome.”

“It's big.” I helped Elsie with the book. “Let's take it over there and sit down.”

Dorothy started toward the table but was soon lost in the rows of ancient texts. Elsie and I were left on our own to go through more than three hundred years of Makaleigh's life.

“I don't see anything she'd have to make amends for,” Elsie said as we searched. “At least not anything that stands out.”

“She hadn't been on the council for three hundred years,” I said. “Maybe we should concentrate on that time before she was a member.”

“What about the third word she said to you,” Elsie added. “What was it—ord—the point of a weapon or a beginning?”

“That's what she said.” I didn't look up from the book, which had been penned in gold ink.

“So she did something terrible that she needed to make amends for and she wanted to change that and start again,” Elsie interpreted. “I don't think that would be in this book.”

“Maybe it is.” I pointed to a spot that had happened during the witch trials in our country. “Look. She turned in another witch to save her life. That could be something that would fit that description.”

“Yes. But I've never heard of this witch before, have you? Let's look for her name in the histories.”

We searched, but there was no history for the witch that Makaleigh had handed over to the madness of the Salem witch trials. We asked Sylvia Rose Gold if she'd ever heard of the witch. She searched through the histories as well.

“I don't think there was a witch by that name,” she finally
decided. “Maybe it wasn't a witch at all. Most of those killed in the Salem fires weren't witches, you know. They were healers and midwives mistaken for witches. People lumped them all together at the time.”

Elsie and I thanked her, even though it wasn't the answer we were looking for.

“So that was nothing,” Elsie said. “Do we have to look through Makaleigh's whole life to see who she wronged? The castle doors will be open by then.”

“You're right. We need a better way to do this.”

“Try using magic inquiry,” Sylvia suggested. “No one reads the whole book. Just tell it what you need. The book should be able to do the rest.”

This was an improvement that we'd never heard of. To our embarrassment, it had been some time since Elsie or I had used the library. We probably had the magic for it but just didn't have the time.

“Aba. Mho. Ord,” Elsie said to the book.

The book pages fluttered back and forth for a moment before finally settling on one page.

“Words of power,” I whispered as I read from the book.

“So Makaleigh was trying to save herself?” Elsie observed.

“She was invoking magic when she died. These weren't her last words, not exactly.”

“Why didn't the spell work?”

I looked into Elsie's eyes. “Maybe she didn't have time to finish it.”

“Hey, guys!” Dorothy called from what seemed like miles away in the shelves. “You have to see this.”

“We found something,” I said to her. “You should see this.”

“No, Molly. If I leave, I'm not sure if we can find this again. and you really need to see
this
.”

“I'll wait here,” Elsie said. “Go see what she found. Maybe it's something that will get us out of here.”

I left Elsie with the book of Makaleigh's life and followed the sound of Dorothy's voice until she became clear to me. “How did you get so far away?”

“I don't know,” she said, her voice full of youthful excitement. “But you won't believe this. And I can't tell you why. I have to show you.”

Finally reaching her, I saw that Dorothy had her hand on a book but hadn't taken it down from the shelf.

“Guess what's up here?” She nearly squeaked with delight. “We looked up my mother and found a reference to this book.”

“For goodness' sake.” Olivia's voice slid out of the bracelet. “Tell her.”

Olivia was excited about the find too. That made me curious as I helped Dorothy move the book. It took both our magic to get it from the shelf.

“It's our old spell book! I can't believe it.”

“How did it get here?” I examined it carefully.

There was the last spell we'd written in it a few months before Olivia's death. The book had disappeared the same night that she'd died. We had been given to understand that Olivia's killer had sold it to someone. None of us ever expected to see it again.

“I don't know.” Dorothy shrugged. “And why did it take extra magic to get it off the shelf?”

“Not extra magic,” Olivia added in a tinny voice. “It took magic from one of the three of us. Even though you're my daughter, your magic is different. We haven't imprinted it to the book, since it was missing. But how did it get here, Molly?”

“I think we should ask Sylvia Rose Gold,” I decided. “I've always heard nothing goes in or out of here without her knowing.”

With the spell book firmly in my hands, Dorothy and I marched to the tall desk at the front of the library.

Sylvia, back at her desk, glared at us. “What do you want now?”

“This is our missing spell book that was stolen two years ago,” I said. “We haven't been able to find it. How did it get here?”

She looked at us over the top of her very large dark-rimmed glasses. “It was probably somewhere it shouldn't have been. Spell books and other magic items that fall into the hands of non–magic users frequently turn up here—especially spell books, for obvious reasons. Centuries ago, the council put a covering spell that accomplishes keeping magic for witches. They don't call this the witches' circulating library for nothing.”

“We'll take it with us,” I told her. “It can't stay here.”

“Sorry.” She lifted a finger, and the book quickly flew out of my hands and back down the aisle where it had come from. “You were careless with it. Once it ends up here, it becomes property of the Grand Council of Witches.”

“You can't keep it from us.” I lifted my hand, and the book returned to me. “My family, and those of my coven, wrote our spells and preserved this book for several past generations. We aren't leaving it here.”

This time when she tried to re-shelve it, I was ready for her. The book trembled a little in my arms but didn't move.

“No one leaves here with one of my books,” she said in a voice of quiet thunder, her eyes glowing behind her glasses. “You know the rules.”

“In this case, the rules don't apply.” I stared back at her, my amulet beginning to glow as it perceived a threat.

Sylvia took a step back. “We'll just see about that. The council shall hear of this.”

When she said the council would hear of it, I thought she meant she'd call for a hearing or file a complaint. Instead Cassandra—herald of the council and sometimes liaison
between witches and the council—instantly appeared there with us.

“What?” Cassandra was covered in bubbles, apparently from the bath she'd been snatched from, and her long raven tresses but nothing else.

“I have a complaint against this woman,” Sylvia told her. “She's trying to steal a book from the library.”

Cassandra's eyes swiveled from Sylvia to me and Dorothy, who stood close by. Elsie was behind us. “Molly? What's the problem?”

“This is our spell book.” I almost held it out to her but remembered that Sylvia could command it and kept it close to me. “It was on a shelf in the library. You know we've searched for it everywhere and finally decided to start a new one.”

“Yes, but—”

“But nothing,” I objected. “This belongs to us—Elsie, Dorothy and me.” There was no point in using Olivia's name. That would bring up a whole other issue. “We're not leaving the library without it, Cassandra.”

“You know books can't leave here or thousands would have been lost through the generations.” Sylvia made her point. “She can't take the book.”

“It doesn't belong to you or the library,” I argued. “Obviously we couldn't find it because it was cloaked here. But now that we know, it's going home with us.”

Sylvia lifted her hand to try to take it again. I held my amulet, ready for her with a good grip on the book.

“Ladies!” Cassandra inserted herself between us, bubbles and all—though the bubbles were quickly fading. “This will have to be decided by the council. I can't make this decision. As you are both aware, the council is short two members and unlikely to take up this matter immediately. The library has a claim to it, Molly. I can't negate that without permission from the council.”

Before I could speak, the book disappeared.

“Nooo!” Olivia wailed, emerging from the bracelet. “You don't know how I've suffered believing it was my fault our spell book was stolen. You can't take that away too.”

She flew at Cassandra, arms outstretched, screeching in the most terrible way.

Cassandra stepped aside, and a door opened in the air. Olivia continued into the opening and disappeared when it closed.

“No!” It was Dorothy's turn to screech. “Where did she go? What did you do with her?”

“She's had plenty of warnings. So have the rest of you,” Cassandra told her. “You shouldn't have had her here. She should have moved on after she died. I'm sorry, Dorothy. She's gone.”

“What? You can't do that. What gives you the right?” Without another thought, Dorothy used her very emotional magic to strike down the herald of the council.

“Dorothy!” I pulled her back. “What are you doing?”

“I was giving her a taste of her own magic.” She stared at the floor.

A black snake was slithering across the ancient wood and slid behind the desk with Sylvia Rose Gold. The librarian let out a shriek and jumped on the desk, losing her huge glasses. The snake went across them and continued toward the shelves.

“Change her back, Dorothy,” I implored. “Right now.”

“No. Not unless she brings my mother back.”

“Well, she can hardly do it as a snake,” Elsie said.

“Then I guess she'll be a snake for a while,” Dorothy replied. “I'm tired of her constant threats and stupid proclamations. She's not all that much anyway.”

“No, but the council is,” I reminded her. “Where do you think she's slithering off to right now?”

“I don't care, Molly.” Dorothy was defiant. “Everyone is
so prejudiced against my mother. They all need to get over it. I'm not hiding her anymore. At least not once I find her.”

Dorothy stormed out of the library. Sylvia Rose Gold was yelling for help.

I glanced back to see how Elsie was taking it—laughing no doubt. She wasn't there. She must have gone back to where we'd left Makaleigh's book. But there was no one there. The table was empty. Makaleigh's book was gone too.

“Elsie?” I looked around me. There was no sign of her.

Even though my magic was at half strength, I grasped my amulet. “Take me to Elsie.”

I had never tried doing anything like that before. It was a far cry from fixing the car or running a load of laundry for my son. It involved magic I wasn't even sure was available to me. But the circumstances were so traumatic that I spoke and acted without thought.

And yet, it worked.

There was Elsie, lying on a small bed in a part of the castle that had seen better days a thousand years before. I tried to wake her, but she was under a powerful spell. Her breathing was shallow but regular. She seemed safe for the moment.

I wasn't leaving her there.

Grabbing the amulet again, I took her hand. “Back to our room,” I said. When I opened my eyes, we were back in our room in the castle. I went one step further, since I seemed to be on a roll, and tried to leave the castle, but nothing happened when I told the amulet I wanted to go home.

“Better than nothing,” I said as I carefully arranged Elsie on the big bed. “What did you find? Who did this to you?”

Brian burst into the room. “Where's Dorothy?”

“I don't know.”

“Did you know she turned Cassandra into a snake?” He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “What's left of the council wants her put in prison. The herald is protected by the council.”

“Did you know that our spell book was confiscated by the library and Cassandra wouldn't let us take it with us without a hearing from the council?” I asked him. “Cassandra also sent Olivia somewhere. I don't know where or if she can get back. That's why Dorothy changed her. And then someone put a spell on Elsie and moved her from the library to some shabby tower room. I brought her here, but I can't wake her.”

“Is everyone going crazy?” he asked. “I have to find Dorothy before anyone else does.”

“I understand. But Brian, we found something when we were looking through Makaleigh's life history. I think that's why someone took Elsie away. It's about the words that Makaleigh said to me before she died.”

“Okay.” He put his hands on my shoulders and stared into my eyes. “Let me find Dorothy and we'll get on that and then wake Elsie. Just stay here, Molly. Let's not lose anyone else.”

“All right. Be careful. You're right. Everyone is crazy after being locked in here.”

He surprised me by giving me a quick hug before he left the room. I heard him use a magic key on the outside of the door, probably hoping to keep anyone from getting inside.

I sat next to Elsie on the bed and tried every spell I knew to wake her. Nothing happened. I went back to the desk and rewrote the three words on another sheet of paper. What was it about those words that had made someone spirit Elsie away before she could find any further answers?

It was hard sitting there and waiting for Brian to return. I wasn't even sure he could find Dorothy in the state she was in. I tried calling to her, but she didn't answer. I hoped she wasn't in danger. It was going to be hard enough to get the council to overlook her emotional outburst.

Something of the same nature had happened between Cassandra and Dorothy once before. Dorothy's magic was only strong enough to do anything to Cassandra when she
was upset. I didn't know if the council would be willing to take that into consideration.

I was worried about Olivia too. Had she been completely exorcised and couldn't be brought back? I'd heard of it happening before. If she was entirely gone, there might be nothing we could do to help her.

Closing my eyes, I wished I was home with Joe and Mike, away from this place. I knew it couldn't happen. I'd already tried to get Elsie and me out of there.

And then I opened my eyes to find myself in my kitchen.