Mira strolled over to the mailbox. She reached inside and pulled out a handful of envelopes. “Someone named… Margaret Feathers?”
“Who in the hex is that?” said Aysha.
“Not sure. Seriously, how did we get here?” Div asked, brushing dirt off her white dress.
Aysha glared at Binx. “Hey! Did you guys prank us?”
“No! Did you guys prank us?” Binx shot back.
“You guys used transfero on us, didn’t you? Maybe that plus praetero?” Aysha sneered.
“No, but you guys obviously did!” Binx said hotly.
Ridley rainbow-waved. “Excuse me! I’m hungry. Is anyone else hungry?”
Mira studied her French tips. “I know a cool spell that turns rocks into food.”
“That’s weird. Let’s get some real food,” said Binx.
“Let’s go down to my grandma’s café. I think she baked scones today!” Iris piped up.
“Yeah, okay, fine. But I have to be home in an hour to walk the puppy,” said Binx, glancing at her phone again.
“Mira, you and I don’t have time for scones. We’re having dinner at the Jessups’ house, remember? Colter and Hunter invited us,” Div reminded her.
“Oh. Right!”
“How is your undercover work going?” Greta asked.
“The plan is to win Colter’s and Hunter’s trust so we can find out if one of them is the head of the New Order group. Or whether their father is involved. I guess we should consider their mom, too? Once we know that for sure, I think we’ll be a lot closer to finding out who killed Penelope,” Div said.
“Whoever did it is going to be so sorry,” Ridley murmured angrily.
“Justice will be served,” Mira said, then took out her smart key. “Who wants a ride? I can drop everyone off, then Div and I can head over to the Jessups’.”
“Can that little car fit”—Iris counted on her fingers—“seven people?”
“No worries. I have a spell for that,” Mira replied with a wink.
As the two covens drove off down Spring Street, Gofflesby jumped out of the bushes and trotted along behind them.
EPILOGUE
“Hey, Pokedragon.”
“Hey, ShadowKnight.”
Binx sat cross-legged in the Japanese meditation hut, trying to decipher ShadowKnight’s semi-pixelated face on her phone. It was late, almost midnight, and her mother was asleep inside the house. The dirt-colored puppy (which still had no name) was lying next to her with one eye open and one eye closed; it smelled like wet socks and kibble. The air was cool, and a full moon illuminated the velvety blue sky in a way that would have seemed romantic if Binx had been a romantic person (which she wasn’t).
“I’m glad I finally reached you,” she said to ShadowKnight. “Like, so much is going on here.”
“Same.”
Binx took a deep breath, wondering where she should start.
“Your genealogy app,” she said finally. “I think I’ve finally got it to work. I even got some names from it.”
“You did? Callixta Crowe’s descendants? That’s amazing… and maybe we can convince one or more of them to march with us in DC!”
“Yeah, maybe. The thing is… are you sitting down? This is pretty dark. Okay, so I went to a funeral the other day. This girl at our school, Penelope, was murdered. And she was a witch. My coven-mates and I are thinking she was killed by a member of this local Antima group called the New Order. Maybe this guy named Colter or his brother, Hunter, or someone else in their family. So we and this other coven are looking into it.” Binx paused. “What’s weird is, Penelope might be related to one of the names I got from your app.”
“What? Are you saying your friend Penelope’s a descendant?”
“Was. Yeah, maybe. So, why would the Antima kill Callixta’s descendants?”
“Maybe the Antima know about our march and our efforts to find descendants to stand with us? In any case, this may be the first Antima murder of a witch, and there’s bound to be more. I’d better share all this with my group ASAP. And we need to warn everyone on that list you got from the app, and tell them to warn their descendants, too. Kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews.”
“Good idea.”
“We’ve been brainstorming new strategies to deal with the Antima. Sounds like we need a plan, fast, so they don’t hurt any more witches.”
Binx nodded mutely.
ShadowKnight gazed at her. His eyes were sad, serious. “Listen. I’m sorry; it’s awful that Penelope was killed. Is there anything I can do?”
“Actually, yes.” Binx took a deep breath. Was she ready to do this? She was ready to do this. “Let me join your group.”
ShadowKnight blinked. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. I want to tackle this full-on. I want to use my magical powers for more than, like, changing my hair color and updating my playlist and pranking other witches. I want to be a superhero, help make our world a better place for people like us. Which means going after 6-129 and all the evil Antima scum, just like you guys are doing.”
“Great! That’s fantastic!” ShadowKnight exclaimed. “What about your coven-mates? Are they okay about this?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll figure it out, though.” Binx reached down and petted the puppy.
Tomorrow. She would solve that problem tomorrow. For right now, she just wanted to enjoy her conversation with ShadowKnight, her connection with a smart, like-minded gamer-slash-witch who was part of an awesome national community of activist witches. And enjoy staring at his cute (in an intense, brooding way) face.
Not that she was crushing on him or anything.
“I’ll get back to you about my coven. Hey, new topic… have you reached Level Twenty-Three yet?” Binx asked him.
“I’m almost there. I just have to figure out how to defeat the Ethelerean Ghoul and cross the Bridge of Never.”
“I can give you a hack.”
“Wait, you’re already at Level Twenty-Three? How?”
A sleek gray cat suddenly appeared in the frame and rubbed up against ShadowKnight’s stubbly face.
“Aww, is that your cat?”
“She’s my friend’s cat. She has like a ton of pets. She named this one Loviatar, after the daughter of the Finnish god of death.”
“Nice,” Binx
