A woman was pushing her shopping cart toward them. She wore a black leather jacket and red Doc Martens. It was the person from the cash register.
So this was Ms. O’Shea? Binx’s gaze moved to her jacket. No Antima symbol of any kind. But maybe she was wearing a shoulder patch under her jacket? Or maybe she just didn’t advertise her loyalties?
Ms. O’Shea moved closer. Binx’s muscles tensed.
“Hi, Ridley! Hi, Binx! What’re you up to?”
“J-just getting a bunch of stuff for my mom and little sister,” Ridley said nervously.
“How did you know my name?” Binx asked Ms. O’Shea suspiciously.
Ms. O’Shea raked a hand through her short black hair and smiled. “I know quite a bit about you, Binx. And about you, Ridley. And about Greta, too.”
Ridley exhaled sharply. Binx felt the blood drain from her face.
Stay calm. Don’t panic. Figure this out, Binx told herself, trying to still the sudden pounding of her heart. She searched her brain for a spell. Should she do a memory-erase? Or something more… combative? In her peripheral vision, she saw Ridley reaching into her backpack, probably to retrieve her wand.
Binx reached into her backpack, too, and pulled out Kricketune (disguised, as usual, to look like a gaming console). She pointed it at Ms. O’Shea. “Are there more of you here? Is the mall the cool new meeting place for the Antima?” she snapped sarcastically.
Ms. O’Shea fluttered her hands. “Absolutely not! Please, it’s not what you think.”
Binx eyed the exit, which was just past the candy display. Should they just run for it? Then she noticed the contents of Ms. O’Shea’s shopping cart.
Inside the cart were small glass bottles with cork stoppers, beeswax bars, and two bags of amethyst chips.
What the hex?
Ms. O’Shea slipped off her retro rhinestone glasses and pointed them at her cart. “Donare,” she said softly. The bags of amethyst chips rose slowly and traveled through the air. One landed in Binx’s cart, and the other in Ridley’s. “I love amethyst, don’t you?” she added merrily.
Binx and Ridley gaped at her.
“You’re… you’re…” Ridley stammered.
“Exactly,” Ms. O’Shea said, then held up her glasses. “And this is my wand, Theia, named after the Greek goddess of vision. Can I buy you guys another pretzel at Auntie Anne’s? We have a lot to talk about.”
“I first noticed the three of you about a month ago. At Misthaven Beach,” Ms. O’Shea explained as she took a bite of her jalapeño pretzel. The three witches were sitting around a table in the food court, protected by a calumnia spell. “It was around sunset, and you guys were toasting marshmallows over a bonfire.”
Binx thought back to that day. “But the beach was totally deserted.”
“It was, except for me. I was taking a walk on the far north end. You wouldn’t have seen me. But I saw you.” Grinning, Ms. O’Shea pointed to her glasses. “Theia magically enhances my vision so that I can see across great distances. From where I was standing, I could tell that Greta was enchanting each of your marshmallows to make them perfectly golden-brown. You, Binx, were using a spell to stoke the fire. And you, Ridley, must have gotten concerned about privacy, because you morphed the air into a heavy fog and surrounded yourselves with it.”
“Holy machines! You saw all that?” Ridley sounded alarmed.
I so need to score a pair of those Theia glasses, Binx thought.
“I did. And needless to say, you girls need to be more careful. Especially now that the Antima movement has spread to Sorrow Point.”
“Is that why you came to our school?” Binx asked curiously.
“Yes, in part. My coven and I—”
“Oh my gosh, there’s another coven in Sorrow Point?” Ridley exclaimed.
“Not here. Way north of here, in the mountains. I’m there every weekend. My coven’s mission is to keep a lookout for young witches and mentor them, help them. After I saw you guys on Misthaven Beach… well, the school needed a history sub, so I jumped at the chance.”
“So Ms. Hua is really expecting a baby? She didn’t… she isn’t…” Ridley stopped and shook her head. “I thought that maybe something bad happened to her. Sorry, I guess I was just being paranoid.”
“No worries. And yes, she really is expecting a baby. She was having a rough second trimester, though, so she asked to take her leave early. She’s fine, and the baby’s due around New Year’s.”
“Oh, whew,” said Ridley.
“I also know about Div and Mira and Aysha. Well, as of today, anyway,” Ms. O’Shea continued. “At lunch, I happened to pass by that little alcove with the vending machine, and I saw the two of you and Greta having an intense-looking conversation with them… except that from what I could hear, you all seemed to be talking about what to wear to the Homecoming Dance. I had a hunch, so I did a quick scrying spell and realized that calumnia was in effect.”
“Huh!” Binx took a bite of her cinnamon sugar pretzel.
“See, I told you! Calumnia isn’t perfect because it doesn’t scramble stuff visually,” Ridley reminded Binx. “In fact, we should all be smiling right now because all these food court people could be watching us!” She fake-smiled.
Binx fake-smiled, too, wondering if Ms. O’Shea knew about Iris Gooding being a witch (according to Greta, anyway). She made a mental note to tell Ms. O’Shea about Iris after she’d had a chance to talk to Greta first and confirm that Iris was indeed one of them.
As they snacked on their pretzels, Binx and Ridley filled Ms. O’Shea in on the shadow messages, the 1415 hexes, and the defaced gravestones, as well as their belief that Orion, Brandon, and Axel were Antima members.
When they’d finished, Ms. O’Shea said, “Wow, those shadow messages must have been scary for you. The graffiti on the gravestones, too. And no, I didn’t hex the shadow messages, and neither did any of the other witches in my coven. Maybe I could take a look at Greta’s? And Div’s?
