The Unwilling Witch (5 page)

A bell tinkled as I opened the door. The place was pretty dark. “Hello?” I called.

A plump woman with gray hair and glasses stood up from behind a counter on the left side of the store. “Lucinda!” she called, rushing around the counter. “It's you!”

She ran toward me. Then she stopped, took a good look at me, and fainted.

 

Ten

EXPERT HELP?

I tried to catch the lady as she dropped to the floor. I didn't quite break her fall, but I slowed it down a little.

“What should we do?” I asked Jan.

“Raise her feet?”

“You sure?” That didn't seem right to me.

Jan frowned. “Raise her head?”

“Stop guessing.”

“I know—let's raise her feet and her head.”

“Jan!”

I looked down at the woman. She opened one eye, peeked up at me, then closed it again.

“Lady,” I said, “what's going on?”

She scrunched her eyes tighter.

“Come on. I really need some help. Please.”

She opened one eye again. Then she opened the other. She looked like she wanted to run away from me. “Could I have some water?” she asked Jan. “There's a sink in the back.”

“Sure.” Jan got up and went through a door behind the counter.

“Relax,” I told the woman. “I won't hurt you. Honest.”

She shook her head. “This is a very dangerous time. Whether you want to or not, you might hurt yourself or those around you.”

“No. I'd never hurt anyone.”

“Yes, you might.”

There was a clink from the next room, followed by the sound of water running. I realized that this woman had sent Jan off so she could talk to me alone. “Who is Lucinda? My name's Angelina Claypool. Why'd you think I was Lucinda?”

“That's not important right now. But I must know one thing: Are you a good person?”

“Of course I am.” I blurted that out without even thinking. How else could I answer that question?

“Here we go,” Jan said as she came back. “Here's a nice cold glass of water for you.” She glanced at me. “Cold is good, right? We don't want hot water. That's for delivering a baby.”

The woman sat up and took the glass. “Thank you, dearie.”

“Are you Miss Chutney?” I asked.

“Yes. That's me.” She put down the glass and rubbed her hands together.

“Can you tell me anything about power?”

She still looked scared. But she also looked like she wanted to talk. “I don't mean to boast,” she said, “but I am considered quite an expert when it comes to—”

The bell rang as the door opened. The most beautiful woman I'd ever seen walked into the shop. If someone took all the best in me and all the best in Jan and all the best in every other girl in our class and put it together, the result wouldn't have been half as pretty as this woman. I heard Jan give a little gasp. I heard myself give a little gasp, too.

“I'd like some service, please,” the woman said. She looked at Miss Chutney, apparently unsurprised to find the store owner sitting on the floor. Then she looked at me. I felt like I'd been placed under a microscope.

“Girls,” Miss Chutney said, “run along now.” She rose from the floor and stood between me and the beautiful woman. Her voice had dropped to almost a whisper. “This is no place for you young ladies.”

“But…” I couldn't believe she was throwing us out.

“Please leave,” she said, making a shooing motion at us like we were flies. “I have a business to run.”

“Come on, Claypool,” Jan said, taking my arm and trying to sound like a cowboy. “We aren't welcome in these here parts.” She started to drag me from the shop.

I didn't want to leave—I wanted answers. But Jan was tugging at me, and Miss Chutney had turned her attention to the new customer. There didn't seem to be any point in trying to stay.

“Now what?” Jan asked as the door closed behind us and we walked away from the shop.

I had no idea. “Maybe I'll just go home.”

“Or we could go to the mall,” Jan said.

Before I could answer, I heard a shout from behind us. “Wait!”

I turned back. Miss Chutney came huffing out of the store, waving a bag. “You forgot your book.” She ran up and thrust the package toward me.

I just stared at her.

“Take it,” Miss Chutney said.

“Uh, thanks.” I took the bag from her.

She turned back toward her shop and left us standing on the sidewalk.

I opened the bag and slid the book out. It was a small, thin volume, covered with cracked leather that smelled like the furniture in our attic.

“Let's see,” Jan said.

I held up the book so she—and I—could read the cover. The title was
The Passage of Power
.

“Not exactly a light romance,” Jan said.

She was right about that. But maybe it had some answers. There was still a problem, though. I was leaving the store with something besides the book. I was leaving with another question—one I'd never even wondered about before today. “Jan?” I asked.

“What?”

“Do you think I'm a good person?”

 

Eleven

ANSWERS AND QUESTIONS

I guess I expected Jan to say
Of course you're good
. Instead, she said, “Do
you
think you're a good person?”

“I asked you first.”

“It depends what you mean by
good,
” she said.

“That's not a very helpful answer,” I told her.

“It's not a very easy question,” she said.

She was right. It was a tough question. I wasn't even sure what it meant to be good. I mean, I mostly listened to my folks, and I didn't get into trouble in school. But I don't think that's what Miss Chutney had in mind.

“So,” Jan said, “let's get back to my question: Want to go to the mall?”

I clutched the book. I needed to read it, but I knew Jan wanted to go to the mall. Well, there were nice places to sit in the mall and read. It would be real rotten of me to dump her and go home after she'd been so nice about coming to the Good Speller with me.

“Yeah,” I said. “The mall would be great.”

Jan grinned at me. “There's your answer.”

“What do you mean?”

“This proves you're a good person.”

We walked through town toward the mall. On Taylor Street, a couple of blocks from the spell shop, a guy was washing his car in his driveway. The water ran in a soapy stream to the street and into the gutter. When I tried to step over the water, I got that same sick feeling I'd gotten on the bridge in the mall.

Jan looked back at me and asked, “Afraid to get your shoes wet?”

“Just being careful,” I told her as I walked into the street and went around the water.

“Home at last,” Jan said when we reached the mall. “Where do you want to go first?”

“How about we sit in the Hub for a while? I'd like to look at my book.”

Jan made a face. “Gosh, that sounds like tons of fun. I can watch you read. If I'm good, will you let me turn the pages?”

“Okay. You choose,” I said, feeling guilty.

“Greeting cards?” Jan asked. “My grandma's birthday is next week.”

“Sure.”

We headed to the card shop. While Jan looked through the choices, I sneaked a peek at my book. The first part explained how power itself wasn't good or bad. What mattered was the way people used power. I guess that made sense. I mean, you could use gasoline to drive someone to the library or to start a fire. You could do good things with electricity, like light a room, or bad things, like give someone a shock.

The one sentence in the book that really got me thinking was:
Power seeks its rightful owner.
The woman in the park must have gone there to pass on her power, but I doubt it was meant for me. Maybe the rightful owner would try to find me.

“Move!”

I'd been standing in an aisle, reading. Someone pushed me aside and walked past. “Hey, don't be so pushy,” I said before I realized who I was talking to.

“What did you say?” May asked, turning slowly back toward me like an oil tanker moving out of a harbor.

“Nothing.” I thought how nice it would be to blast her with some of my power. I imagined changing her into a pig. I could just see her running around on four legs, still wearing that tacky outfit. The thought made me smile.

“You laughing at me?” she asked, balling the fingers of her right hand into a fist the size of a canned ham.

I shook my head.

“Take it back,” May ordered. “I'm
not
pushy.” As she said this, she reached out and pushed my shoulder.

“I take it back,” I said as my amusement was replaced by fear. “You're not pushy.”

“That's better.” She glared at me, and I think she still wanted to hit me just for the fun of it.

But then the breeze drifted in. And on the breeze was the most marvelous aroma. Pies. Fresh-baked pies. May looked. I looked. Outside, just past the entrance to the card shop, a man pushed a cart displaying a sign that said:
MRS. NYE'S HOUSE OF PIES. FREE SAMPLES.

May didn't even glance back at me. She dashed off. The moment she left, the breeze stopped.

I noticed Jan standing off to the side. “That was close,” she said.

I nodded.

“I never understood how you can take something back,” Jan said. “I mean, once it's said, it's said. Right? It's not like you can suck back the words or something. Or maybe you can.” She grinned and said, “Pushy.” Then she said it backwards. “Eeshup.”

“Jan, you're getting weird.”

She giggled and kept on saying it. “Pushy, eeshup. Pushy, eeshup. I said it. I took it back. I said it. I took it back.”

I was about to tell her how annoying it was when the idea hit me. “That's it,” I said, grabbing her arm. “I have to go.” I'd realized how to turn the doll back into my brother. Holding tightly to the book, I ran home.

 

Twelve

DUH

“Mewwp.” Darling greeted me in the hallway.

“Hi,” I said, scooping her up. “I missed you.”

“Merroop.”

I guess she missed me, too. I cuddled her as I carried her upstairs. “This has to work,” I said, walking over to the dresser where the doll waited patiently for me. I tried to sit it up, but it fell back and hit the wood with a loud
clunk.
I winced and picked up the doll. I didn't see any damage. The head was nice and hard, just like Sebastian's.

I thought back to what had happened right before he changed. I'd grabbed him and shouted, “Stop!” If I'd really caused the change, maybe I just had to reverse things. “Here goes,” I said to Darling. “Wish me luck.”

I was afraid it wouldn't work. I think I was even more afraid it
would
work. Up until this moment, I hadn't caused anything to happen, except by accident. I took a deep breath. Then I held the doll by the shoulder and shouted,
“Pots!”

“—a kitten!”
Sebastian yelled. He'd changed back in midshout. Whatever had happened to him—whatever
I'd
done to him—had been reversed.

“Angie has a kitten!”
he shouted again.

Then his eyes shot wide open and he gasped. I guess it took him a second to realize he wasn't outside. I knew I had to come up with an explanation fast, while he was still confused.

“Whoa!” He looked wildly around.

“Will you stop following me,” I said. It was a struggle, but I managed to act as if nothing strange had happened. “You've been shouting that for the last ten minutes. It's really annoying. And get out of my room. Okay?”

“But…” Sebastian looked around. Then he grabbed the back of his head with both hands. “Owww. Oh, man, my head really hurts. Whoa—there's a bump on it!”

“If you hadn't been so busy trying to annoy me, you might not have slipped when you were chasing me up the steps,” I told him. “You really took a hard hit. I'm surprised you even know where you are.”

He gave me a puzzled look. Then he glanced at my clock and said, “Oh, man, I'm late. Norman's waiting for me. I was supposed to be at his house an hour ago. He probably thinks I ditched him.” He staggered out of the room, still holding his head.

“Put some ice on it,” I called after him. As I heard the front door slam, I realized no time had passed for him. He still thought it was Saturday. I wasn't looking forward to his reaction when he learned he'd lost a day. If he got mad at me, he'd dedicate his entire life to getting revenge.

There was a chance I could still get out of this. I ran to the phone and dialed Norman's number. Maybe I could make an excuse for Sebastian, so Norman wouldn't tell him what day it was.