bees.
Sabina glowers at the sky. Raising her fist, she splays her fingers out. “Be gone!” A blast of air shoots straight up, slams into the brilliant orbs, and scatters them across the entire cemetery. The buzzing quiets and they hang still as their light dims.
Laughing, Sabina flies straight for me, stopping just inches from my face. Her eyes are two empty pools of malevolence. The air is icy and smells of bitterness and venom. “You, little girl, have listened to the doctress and that worthless guide of yours. Do you know what that makes you?”
I shake my head. “N-no.” My voice is just barely above a whisper.
“A traitor!” she bellows, blowing frigid air over my face and up my nose. Her breath is laced with the corrosive scent of the deadly
A
She hovers above the ground. “I worked my spells for a reason. It is not for you to decide when the Beaumonts have suffered enough. I won’t be satisfied until they are gone forever.” The fire flickers, drawing her attention. The pirate’s dagger sits atop the pile of burning artifacts. Her nostrils flare as she scowls, her brow creases with thick, dark lines and her eyes blaze with hatred and betrayal. “And now you attempt to purify that knife? Even when you know the evil it has committed?”
“Purify? No, that’s not—”
She thrusts her stout palm in my face. “You have overstepped your bounds for the last time. Prophesy or no, your destiny must not be fulfilled.” Still floating on air, she zooms backward into the middle of the clearing, then tosses her head back and gazes up into the sky, yelling something in a language I don’t recognize. It must be ancient Akan, her native tongue.
High above the stagnant spirits, the black, shadowy clouds part, revealing the moon in its silvery glory. A stiff breeze blows off the salt marsh, through the clearing, rustling leaves and swaying sheets of Spanish moss. Emerald kudzu vines shudder and rattle as they stretch and grow, encroaching toward us from all directions.
I blink to make sure I’m not imagining things. Nope. The kudzu vines are multiplying, rapidly extending their long trailing fingers along the ground.
“Emma!” Jack yells.
“What do we do?” Cooper asks.
Honestly, I don’t have the vaguest clue. I’ve read a lot of nature charms in Miss Delia’s spell book, but never one like this. I can’t begin to guess at how to make plants grow, much less attack. But even if I had, Miss Delia never got around to teaching me how to blend my energy and intention to do magic with my mind.
After glancing around to find some place to jump or escape the onslaught, I realize it’s hopeless. We’re at the epicenter of the clearing, the bull’s-eye target for Sabina’s advancing threat. The nearest tombstone is too far away, and even if I could jump up on it, it’s so thin and tilted, it would never hold me, much less Jack and Cooper, too.
Cooper races to my side.
“Stay behind me!” I thrust my palm against his chest and push him back.
He shakes his head. “We’re going to face this together.”
“Emma, it’s coming!” Jack screams, his voice filled with panic.
I twist around to see his eyes are as wide as silver dollars. A thick green vine leaps up from the ground and lashes around Jack’s ankle. He screams, and then bends to pull at the snaking greenery, but another strand lurches toward him, binding both his wrists to his already bound ankle. A third, leggy cord whips around his free limb, effectively hog-tying him. He wrenches against the restraints, but another, thicker vine lengthens and encircles his waist. Top heavy and unbalanced, he crashes to the ground.
“Jack!” I shriek and pivot to run to him, but two bright green kudzu ropes lasso both my shins, then coil around the rest of my legs and hips, rooting me where I stand.
Cooper isn’t spared either. Vines spiral both his ankles. When he reaches to free me from my ties, two more kudzu lines leap up and corkscrew around his elbows, pinning him in place.
From the corner of my eye, I notice the boo hag’s cage is untouched by the creeping vines. Thankfully, the bloodred creature is still writhing on the ground, obsessed with counting the broom straws and completely oblivious to what’s going on.
Sabina’s laugh roars across the graveyard. “I’ll teach you not to mess with what doesn’t belong to you! Only after you’ve experienced loss will you understand the virtue of revenge.”
Reflex kicks in and I lunge for Cooper. Just as I pry at the vines fastening his arms, new lines of creeping foliage wrap around my chest and shoulders, then drag me back and away from him. I resist, but the vines grip tighter and pull me down to the ground. My heartbeat pounds in my ears as I frantically yank at the paralyzing vine, but more leggy trails shoot up from the soil to fasten my biceps to my sides. At least my forearms are still free.
Jack whimpers, his voice a muffled grunt. Straining against my binds, I peer over my shoulder. He’s also trapped on the ground, completely ensnared by the kudzu, which is even wrapped around his mouth and forehead. Only his pale blue eyes shine through the green leaves.
Fury churns in my gut. With nothing left to lose, I narrow my gaze at Sabina. “Stop this! You worked those spells hundreds of years ago but those charms are broken now. It’s over. You need to move on.”
She vanishes.
My heart hammers against my ribs as my eyes dart around, wondering if she’s actually gone.
Besides the pulse in my ears, the only sound comes from the night creatures beyond the trees and Cooper and Jack’s ragged breath.
Maybe all it took was a stern talking to. Could it really have been that easy?
Just as I begin to hope, Sabina reappears, crouched in the kudzu, her face mere inches from mine. “Oh, it’s over all right. But not for me,” she growls, then chants more foreign words before dropping her jaw wide.
Black mist flows out of her mouth. I hold my breath as it curls around my head, then zips around the clearing. Sabina floats up and away from me, pointing a stocky finger toward the water. The cloud obeys her command and shoots out over the salt marsh. There, I can just make out the black mist spinning, gaining velocity until it creates a tall, thin tornado. Sabina’s hand stretches wide and she drags the dark funnel cloud back to the clearing, and aims it directly at the boo-hag cell.
“No!” I scream, anticipating her next move. I strain to sit up.
Sabina laughs. “Foolish little girl, listening to those who have led you astray. So much wasted potential. Despite what the doctress has told you, hate is the most powerful emotion.” She shakes her turbaned head. “Love will not save you tonight when you and your friends are slain by an ordinary boo hag.” Hitching her brow at the kudzu, the vines tighten and constrict my chest, making it hard to breathe.
She snaps her fingers, unleashing the tornado. It careens toward the mullein posts. Mesmerized by the straw strands in the broom, the boo hag pays no mind to the advancing freak weather phenomenon. Under Sabina’s guidance, the tornado skirts around the cell’s perimeter, ripping each reedy bundle from the ground, then launching them high into the air and into the surrounding forest. After the last post is knocked out, the funnel cloud dips just far enough inside the cell to snatch the broom from the boo hag’s grip and suck it up into its vortex. The tornado whirls back across the clearing, jumps the bank, and dissipates over the marsh, dumping the broom in the water.
Free from its counting fixation, the boo hag springs to its feet and shakes its head as if to clear itself from a trance. It trains is shiny, lidless eyes on me, and then snaps its rectangular head toward Cooper. “You are mine!” It recoils its long, spindly legs, readying to pounce.
Sabina snarls. “No! Take the girl first. After she’s gone, you can take your time with the others. I’ve already wrapped them up for you.”
“Yes, Sabina.” In one giant leap, the boo hag springs toward me and straddles my bundled body. “Pesky child. Why did you have to be so feisty? It didn’t have to end this way. We could have done so much together.” It readies to squat on my chest to ride me and suck out my life force.
Cooper jumps in the air, waving his arms. “Hey, meathead! Don’t waste your time on her. I’m what you really want. You know you need a new body. Especially after we covered your old one with salt.”
The boo hag jerks toward Cooper. Its lizard-like tongue licks its thin lips. Clenching its three-fingered hands,
