She felt a gentle hand on her arm. It was Binx.
“Come on. We’re going to go find that house.”
20 DEATH AND THE MAIDEN
A spell or other Magical action can be rendered ineffective in many ways: an inadequacy of intention; ambivalence or fear; a more powerful Magical action or presence; or simple bad luck.
(FROM THE GOOD BOOK OF MAGIC AND MENTALISM BY CALLIXTA CROWE)
The sun had begun to set by the time Iris and the other three girls reached the Seabreeze development. In the distance, down the hill, the lights of downtown Sorrow Point twinkled on as the sky over Puget Sound turned pink, then purple.
Using some magical apps on her phone (before today, Iris had never heard of such things), Binx had hacked into the Sorrow Point City Hall records to find current building permits for new houses. She’d turned up forty of them, all in Seabreeze, on eight new streets that extended across a hundred-acre lot. The only other building permits on file had been for an apartment complex near the hospital, a new dorm at the university, and some sort of wellness retreat on the outskirts of the city.
Now, walking down an eerily deserted street (no people, no pets, no cars, just the skeletons of future homes and a single streetlight) with Greta and Ridley and Binx, Iris was nervous. Granted, she was always nervous, but this was a different kind of nervous. For one thing, she’d never engaged in a mystery-solving adventure through a strange, eerily empty neighborhood in search of a missing familiar that had communicated to them via scrying bowl. Maybe in Witchworld, sure, but not IRL.
And for another thing, her SPD was starting to kick in. Her clothes itched, and her eyes felt hot, and the evening breeze grated painfully against her skin. Greta’s voice, calling out for Gofflesby, sounded like a series of mini-explosions.
“Gofflesby? Where are you?” Greta shouted, over and over again.
Iris covered her ears.
“I don’t see any houses that look like the one we saw in the scrying bowl,” Greta said, chewing on her thumbnail as she glanced this way and that.
“We have a bunch more streets to go.” Ridley spoke up. “I walk here on my way home from school sometimes, so I kind of know the area. Kind of.”
“What about that red pickup truck? That was part of the vision, too. If we can find it, then we should be able to find the house, right?” Binx pointed out.
Greta nodded. “The red pickup truck… right! Ridley, have you ever seen a red pickup truck around here?”
“Umm… not that I remember. But this is a pretty big development, so…”
Soon, they turned the corner onto another deserted street. There were no streetlights at all, and the block ahead seemed even gloomier than the previous one.
Binx pulled something out of her backpack and pointed it at the ground. Iris was confused; it looked like a gaming console.
“Malorna!” Binx called out. “My wand,” she explained to Iris.
“So cool!” Iris replied.
As Binx’s gaming-console-slash-wand cast a bright circle of light on the pavement, Iris pulled her own wand out of her backpack. “Maloona!”
“Malorna,” Binx corrected her.
“Oops. Malorna!”
An even larger and brighter circle of light lit up the pavement.
“Wait, why is your light bigger? Did you use a hack?” Binx asked curiously.
“A hack?”
“Yeah, a hack. As in, a shortcut to achieve—”
“We can debate about hacks later. Come on, we need to find Gofflesby!” Greta interrupted.
She and Ridley illuminated their wands, too, and the four girls hurried down the street.
“Gofflesby, where are you? Come back to me.”
Still no answer. Greta’s lower lip trembled. Iris could sense the distress radiating from her—even the light from her wand dimmed.
A strange whirring noise cut through the stillness. Binx reached into her pocket and held up her phone; today’s case was an orange dragon, which Iris recognized as Nyala’s favorite Pokémon, Charizard.
“This is weird. My security-alert enchantment is vibrating like crazy.”
“Your what?” Greta asked.
“It’s an enchantment I put on my phone to warn me if something’s up. It’s like off the charts. But that doesn’t make sense because I disabled it, like, two days ago. Why is it doing that? Why are you doing that?” Binx asked her phone. “I wonder if there might be a—you know, like a malevolent magical presence nearby. Something that woke up my enchantment.”
Greta stood a little straighter. Her distress had sharpened and became something else. Resolve.
“Formation,” she said quietly.
Without a word, Binx and Ridley flanked Greta on either side. The three of them turned so their backs were to each other, their wands directed toward the north, east, and west. They reminded Iris of The Last Jedi when Kylo Ren and Rey had positioned themselves that way and fought off a rushing hive of Praetorian Guards, just the two of them. Except Greta and Ridley and Binx were three.
Greta locked eyes with Iris. Iris understood. She quickly joined the formation and directed her wand toward the south. Now they were four.
“I wish Penelope were here,” Ridley whispered.
“Lights out,” said Greta.
The four witches darkened their wands. They waited, barely breathing. The only sound was the vibration of Binx’s security alert.
A cool breeze stirred, carrying with it the scent of pine needles and sawdust and… something else. Iris’s senses, including her sense of smell, were on overdrive. What was that smell? Was it roses?
“Guys, there’s the red truck!”
Binx had turned her wandlight back on and was pointing it down the block. A vehicle was parked on the street next to a construction site—the red pickup truck from the scrying bowl.
The girls began sprinting in that direction. As they ran, Binx’s security alert grew more frenzied. Iris covered her ears again.
They soon reached the pickup truck. Just beyond it was an unfinished house—the stucco and wood frame one, the one from the vision.
“Gofflesby!” Greta shouted, arcing her wandlight in a wide sweep.
All of a sudden, soft music
