“Choir. Huh. Maybe? I’ll think about it, okay?”
Two mugs of Earl Grey tea and several blueberry muffins later, Greta and Iris (who’d switched out the SpongeBob and sweats ensemble for jeans and a red-and-gray flannel shirt) headed outside with their backpacks and started up Sycamore Street. The air smelled morning-fresh, and the sky above downtown Sorrow Point was a pale gray-blue. As they passed Poe’s Market, they saw the little black cat on the bench; they stopped to sit and say hello, since there was plenty of time before homeroom.
The black cat meowed for attention, and Greta stroked its ears. It climbed onto her lap and settled there. “Calumnia. So, I wanted to tell you what Div told us last night. About what happened to her before we got there.”
So not case closed.
“Div said that before she was attacked, she was checking out this thing on the wall—she called it a ‘murder board.’ But by the time we found her, the board was gone.”
Iris sat up excitedly. “A murder board? Is that like the one in Witchworld where Level Twenty-Five and up players can keep track of the enemies they need to catch in order to level-jump?”
Greta looked confused. “I’m not sure. Div thought that maybe the Jessups, or one of the Jessups anyway, was collecting information on some witch-hunter so they could hunt him down. It doesn’t make sense, though, because witch-hunters don’t exist anymore. And even if they did, why would the Antima want to hunt a witch-hunter? They’re on the same side.”
“Witch-hunter?” Iris didn’t like the sound of those two words together.
“Callixta wrote about them in her book,” Greta went on. “They hunted and killed witches during the Great Purge. They’re really evil.”
“Were really evil, right?” Iris corrected her.
“Yes. Were. Oh, and one more thing. Div thinks that Colter’s little sister Cassie is a witch.”
“What?”
“Div said she has no idea if Cassie knows she’s a witch. In any case, it’s not good news that she lives in a house full of witch haters.”
“No, it’s not good news. It’s bad, terrible, scary news. We need to help her!”
“Definitely. We should tell Ms. O’Shea about her, too… plus everything else. Hopefully she’ll be back in school today.”
“Is she sick?”
“I’m not sure. She wasn’t there yesterday, though.”
Iris plucked at the sleeve of her flannel shirt; it felt itchy suddenly. Should she go home and change? But then she’d probably be late for school. But if she didn’t, she would itch all day and be distracted and not be able to pay attention in class. But if she did double back, she’d have to explain to Greta why, which would be embarrassing.
Greta seemed easy to talk to, though. And understanding. And wise. Which made Iris wonder… should she tell her about her morningmare? But what if it didn’t mean anything? What if it was just a psychedelic mash-up of recent events, random memories, Iris’s personal fears, and the stuff she’d gleaned from Gofflesby during their mind-melding (or whatever) session? She didn’t want to freak Greta out with scary fiction about her and her familiar.
Iris was really curious about one particular dream detail, though.
“Have you ever heard this saying, ‘Witches do not belong here’? It was in this dream I had last night or this morning or whatever.”
“It sounds a bit like our shadow messages. Hang on.” Greta did a quick search on her phone. “Here. Okay. That’s weird. So we were just talking about witch hunters, right?”
“Actually, I was trying to avoid talking about them, but technically, yeah.”
Greta scrolled down. “This article says that during the Great Purge, there was a witch hunter named Maximus Hobbes. He lived all over the West Coast. He was personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of witches. It says that he”—she inhaled sharply—“that he put witches in cages and burned them alive.”
Iris gulped and scratched furiously at her wrists.
“The article says that Hobbes and his assistants, followers, whatever you want to call them, they used to chant that phrase when they went on their witch-hunting sprees. Witches do not belong here.”
“That’s really, really super-terrifying.”
“I know. I can’t even…” Greta stopped, shook her head, and began composing a text. “I’m sending this article to Binx. Maybe she could do more research about that phrase.”
“But it was just my dream. It’s not, you know, like a clue to Penelope’s death or anything.”
“It could be, though. In witchcraft, dreams are very powerful things. They can be messages, prophecies. Plus, you seem to be really intuitive.”
“Thanks.”
The itching had subsided somewhat. Iris took off her glasses, wiped strawberry jam off the lenses, and put them back on. Was Greta right? Could her dream be a message or a prophecy?
If so, shouldn’t she warn Greta that she might be in danger?
“Yeah, so… Gofflesby was in my dream, too,” Iris said tentatively.
The black cat stirred on Greta’s lap.
“You mean he was in the same dream where you heard that phrase about witches?” Greta asked, confused.
“Yes. And Ridley was in it, too. Gofflesby told me a bunch of stuff about a queen, except he was speaking in French. Does Gofflesby understand French? Sorry, dumb question. Anyhoo, then the queen actually showed up—this was the middle of this enchanted forest—and she was carrying you, but then you turned into Penelope, and the queen buried you, I mean Penelope, and all these flowers started to bloom.”
Worry flashed in Greta’s eyes. “What do you mean she was carrying me? Was I… dead? Is that why I turned into Penelope?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
“It’s okay. I’m not freaked out, I’m just…” Greta stroked the black cat. “That’s a lie, I am a little freaked out. Almost everything about the past week freaks me out.”
“Me too.” Except meeting you, Iris thought. And Binx and Ridley, too.
“Hey, are you going to Penelope’s funeral later?
