After a moment, a breeze materialized from nowhere. The curtains fluttered. The candles flickered and danced.
A tiny spark flew through the air and landed on the shadow message. A glowing orange fault line began to sizzle across the paper, sprouting baby flames.
“Uh… people? Hello? We have a little problem,” Binx announced.
Greta and Ridley opened their eyes, too.
“Holy machines!” Ridley cried out.
Without a word, Greta pulled her wand, Flora, out of her sleeve and aimed it at the quickly escalating flames. “Restinguere!” she commanded, her face tight with concentration.
But instead of extinguishing, the fire cascaded up, up, up like a slo-mo volcano eruption. All three girls jumped to their feet and backed away. Ridley grabbed Paganini from her backpack. Binx found her wand Kricketune (which looked like a gaming console, for disguise purposes) among the strawberry-shaped twinkle lights and anime indexes on top of her dresser. “Restinguere!” they shouted in unison, brandishing their wands at the fire.
In response, the mini-inferno hissed and shrieked… but continued to rise.
Binx turned and directed her wand toward Magikarp. Help us!
In response, the Magikarp card shimmered—or maybe it was just the flames reflected in her UV coating?—and in the next instant, the three glasses of milk (almond, chocolate, chocolate) began to levitate. When the glasses were a foot or so above the fire’s apex, they tipped over.
Milk gushed out. The flames sizzled and faded and died with a gasp of gray smoke.
Binx exhaled and nodded gratefully at Magikarp. “Thanks for putting out the fire, buddy.”
Magikarp stared up at Binx with her large, vacant eyes.
Next to Magikarp, the shadow message was perfectly unscathed, the paper a pristine white.
“Why didn’t it burn?” Ridley asked nervously.
“I don’t know.” Greta bent down to study the shadow message. “Wait… what’s happening?”
Binx and Ridley bent down, too. Whoa. New letters were materializing at the bottom of the paper—faintly at first, then clearer and clearer.
No, not letters. Numbers.
1415.
“What the—” Binx began.
Just then, the classical-music doorbell chimed through the house.
Greta yelped in surprise. Ridley spun around on her heels and aimed Paganini at the window, then the door. Binx grabbed for her phone and checked the security camera feed.
Div, Mira, and Aysha stood at the front door.
Div seemed to be shouting up at the security camera. Binx activated the audio.
“… need to talk. We have a serious problem!” Div yelled.
“Um, we’re kind of busy at the moment?” Binx replied curtly.
Greta shook her head. “If Div is coming to us for help, there’s something really wrong,” she whispered to Binx and Ridley.
On Binx’s phone, Div was holding up a piece of paper to the security camera.
It was her copy of the shadow message.
It, too, had numbers on it.
1415.
10 THE DREAMLESS ONE
The Natural world is full of Magic.
Harvest it with care and love.
(FROM THE GOOD BOOK OF MAGIC AND MENTALISM BY CALLIXTA CROWE)
“We need a plan,” Div told Greta as she slid behind the wheel of her white Audi.
Greta didn’t respond as she carefully buckled her seat belt. After Div and Mira and Aysha had shown up unexpectedly at Binx’s house, the six witches had gone around and around trying to figure out who’d written the shadow messages and also who’d enchanted them (to catch on fire, then not catch on fire, then mysteriously sprout the numbers 1415). Was one force at work, or several forces? Were they witches or witch-haters or some of both?
The two covens had gotten nowhere, and so Div had offered to drive Greta home in order to speak privately, coven leader to coven leader. Greta had balked at first. She didn’t feel comfortable being alone with Div. First of all, she didn’t trust her. Even now, she wasn’t 100 percent certain that Div and her girls weren’t behind the shadow message business. (Ninety-nine percent, maybe, but not a hundred.)
And there was their personal history, too. Back in eighth grade (before they even knew Binx and Ridley and Mira and Aysha), Greta and Div had formed their own little coven, and the two girls had been so close. Then one day, Div had tested Greta’s “strength” (she’d called it that, but really, it was more like “unquestioning, unconditional loyalty”) by making Greta watch as she fed a small, helpless little creature to her familiar, Prada. Div had known how much Greta loved animals and she’d wanted to see what Greta would do. What Greta had done was leave their little coven—leave their friendship—and she’d never come back. The breakup had been a long time coming as far as Greta was concerned. The two of them had been developing divergent magical paths—Greta’s positive and nurturing, Div’s negative and toxic, and that incident had been the last straw.
Greta now knew that underneath Div’s cool, confident exterior was a cruel soul. Greta couldn’t stand cruelty. It was anathema to her. Like Callixta, Greta believed that love and light should be the abiding principles in magic.
“… clearly the work of the Antima,” Div was saying. She turned on the engine, backed smoothly out of Binx’s driveway, and headed left onto Cliffside Drive. “We have to stop them before they follow through on their threat.”
Greta folded her hands in her lap. “Stop them how? Maybe the best thing to do is to lie low. Maybe even take a break from using magic. We need to keep our witches, and ourselves, safe.”
“You don’t seem to be grasping the situation,” Div said coldly. “The Antima appear to be onto us—or at least onto you and me. They’re capable of anything. Their shadow messages said that we should ‘disappear.’ Plus, as far as I know, aside from you and Aysha, the rest of
