For some reason, the Socrates pix made Binx think about the stupid dirt-colored puppy that had shown up at her house last Thursday, along with the undead crow. She hadn’t seen it since then; had it gone back to its owner? Was it okay? Over the weekend, she’d gone to Pet Mart on an impulse and spent thirty dollars on different types of dog food—dry, canned, chicken, beef, gravy, no gravy, organic, not organic. (Actually, she’d charged it to the emergency credit card her father had given her, because wasn’t that what absentee dads were for?) She’d left the food out for the puppy, rotating the different kinds, but the bowl had remained full.
She checked her phone again. Still nothing from Ridley… and nothing from ShadowKnight, either. They’d planned to talk over the weekend, but he hadn’t answered her videochat requests; hopefully he hadn’t gotten into further trouble with his parents. She’d started analyzing his new genealogy app—the one that was supposed to help him and his Libertas group find C-Squared’s living descendants—and made a little progress on Thursday and Friday. But she’d had to take a break because of the Penelope incident. She really wanted to get back to it; killing 6-129 and stopping the president’s new bill (and the Antima, too) seemed more urgent than ever.
She also needed to get back to her coven-related assignment, to try to find witches at their school and around town. That, too, seemed more urgent than ever, but for a slightly different reason. At first they’d believed some witch might be helping them by enchanting the shadow messages. But now it looked like some witch might be after them.
That witch had already gotten Penelope.
In the mirror, Binx saw that her eyes were shiny with tears.
Okay, no crying, you idiot, she chided herself. She hastily dug through her doge backpack for her makeup bag and pulled out a tube of concealer, a bottle of eye drops, and a new lipstick she’d bought at the drugstore after seeing Penelope’s dark-lipstick tutorial. It was time for her to perform some anti-Baklora-the-Bloodless magic on her tired features and face the day.
She wished she’d had a chance to thank Penelope for the makeup tips.
The bathroom door burst open, which made Binx drop her lipstick. In the mirror, she saw Ms. O’Shea.
The history sub closed the door behind her and leaned against one of the sinks, catching her breath. “Calumnia. I saw you from way down the hall, and I ran, and… anyway, I was out of town this weekend, so I just heard about Penelope Hart. That’s awful.”
Binx picked up the lipstick. “Yeah. It sucks.”
“Principal Sparkleman said that you guys found her?”
“Yup. Did you know that she was one of us?”
“She was?”
“That’s what she told Ridley, the day before she…” Binx stopped, uncapped the lipstick, and capped it again. She felt helpless suddenly.
“I wish I’d known. I wish I could have protected her somehow,” Ms. O’Shea said quietly.
“Us too.”
“Principal Sparkleman said there was a suicide note at the scene?”
“No. I mean, yes, sort of. But she didn’t write it; someone used magic to make it look like she did.”
Ms. O’Shea covered her mouth with a shaking hand. “I can’t believe this. Why would anyone do such a thing?”
“I don’t know, but we’re all pretty freaked out. What if whoever it is comes after Greta or Div next? Or any of us?”
“Tell me everything and spare no detail,” Ms. O’Shea said. “Even the tiniest thing might be important.”
Binx explained about the handwriting-morphing and the eerie music and the energy barrier.
When she’d finished, Ms. O’Shea was quiet for a long time. “This is bad… very bad,” she said finally. “I need to get this information to my coven ASAP.”
“I just don’t get it,” Binx went on. “What was this killer-witch’s motive? And did the same witch enchant Greta’s and Div’s shadow messages? What’s the connection between the shadow messages and Penelope’s murder? And are the Antima involved at all, or are they just a bunch of idiots and posers who are doing their own thing?”
“Yes, there’s a lot we don’t know yet, obviously. But…” Ms. O’Shea paused to adjust Theia. Binx gazed at the magical glasses longingly; with her own pair, she could do so much (like search for the dirt-colored puppy across long distances). “I do have some new information about the Antima that might be helpful,” Ms. O’Shea went on.
“You do?”
“Yes. And now that I know about Penelope’s murder…” Ms. O’Shea’s expression darkened. “Do you remember how I told you and Ridley at the mall that some bigwig in town might be organizing a new local Antima faction?”
“Uh-huh.”
“My coven and I have learned that this group definitely exists. They call themselves the New Order. And we came up with a theory about who this bigwig, their leader, might be.”
“Who?”
Ms. O’Shea hesitated. “Is Penelope… was Penelope, I mean… dating a guy named Jessup? Colter Jessup?”
Binx nodded slowly. Dread pricked at her insides. Where was Ms. O’Shea going with this?
“We’re not absolutely positive—yet. But we think that the leader of New Order is someone in the Jessup family.”
22 SLEEPYHEAD
Magic cannot manifest something out of nothing. For example, it cannot find courage where there is none.
(FROM THE GOOD BOOK OF MAGIC AND MENTALISM BY CALLIXTA CROWE)
“Morgan? You awake, bud?”
Ridley stirred at the sound of her father’s voice. Sunlight streamed through the blinds, casting bright white stripes across her room, and the alarm clock on her nightstand blinked 8:40 a.m. Wasn’t it Monday? Yes, it was definitely Monday. A school day. Why was she still in bed?
And then she remembered… she’d been sick all weekend and asked to stay home. Chills, a marathon headache, fatigue. She’d even canceled her violin lesson with Mr. Jong for later, which was something she never did.
Because, Penelope. Ridley didn’t know if the events of last Friday night had
