Witcha Gonna Do? (Witchington #1)(70)
Birdie closes her eyes, going into that witchy trance I’ve seen my mom fall into a million times as she gives over her full concentration to cooking up a spell in our kitchen cauldron.
“Maleficas omnium veterum ac novorum magicas appellamus ad ac novorum magicas appellamus ad libertatem.”
My whole body is humming as the scents of honey, butter, and cinnamon sugar fill the air, making the lounge car smell like a fresh-baked sweet bun. The power is filling me up, lifting me, making my hair float around my head as if gravity doesn’t exist, and knocking my glasses cockeyed—something I hadn’t realized until this moment always seems to happen to me when magic is brewing around me.
I might hate him, but Gil is right—I am a spellbinder.
The power has been in me all along, waiting to come out, and this is the most perfect opportunity to unleash it all.
I take Birdie’s hand, completing the circle. It’s like touching a live wire, and I can barely hold on. My hand starts to slip, but Birdie holds tight, giving me the extra oomph needed to settle all of the buzzing inside me and finish what we magical misfits have started.
“Maleficas omnium veterum,” we say as one, the air around us sparkling with magic, “ac novorum magicas appellamus ad ac novorum magicas appellamus ad libertatem.”
The lights in the lounge car go from regular strength to sun-level brightness to peak supernova before thunder cracks loud enough to make me wonder if I’m about to be struck by lightning, and then all the bulbs shatter, sending tiny shards of glass everywhere half a second before the freedom spell explodes, breaking Erik’s containment hex in half as he stares slack-jawed.
Great, right?
Well, yeah, except for one small thing. You see, with great power comes great, unexpected consequences (example: me freezing my entire family)—in this case, the power of the magical blast makes the train jump the tracks and hurls it into the air.
Sheer panic rips through everyone and we scream, waking up Vance half a second before his chair goes airborne. Then we’re all in the air, with what seems like miles between our feet and the floor. Before any of us have a chance to even yell out again in terror, though, the train goes from flying to floating and then to a soft landing next to the tracks.
Beyond the sound of my blood rushing through my ears, the inside of the dark train car is absolutely silent—until I hear her voice.
“Brace yourself, Svensen,” Izzy Sherwood yells from outside the train, all of the mom-voice scariness in her tone dialed up to infinity. “If even a single red hair on my daughter’s head has been harmed, you are in for a world of absolutely devastating pain and misery.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Tilda . . .
Birdie, Eli, and I rush toward the door. I’m running so fast out of the train that I nearly face-plant on the gangway in my haste to make sure I’m not imagining it all. My heart’s in my throat, and I’m seconds away from crying when I spot my parents standing shoulder to shoulder looking prepped and ready to face off with whoever emerges from the derailed train. My sisters are all standing with their backs to my parents watching the orchards as if they expect someone more powerful than Erik to come rushing forward.
“Mom! Dad!” I freeze to the spot, my fist pressed to my belly as I dig my nails into my palm, trying to convince myself that since I feel the pain but am not waking up that this isn’t a dream.
It’s not just my parents and my sisters here though. Griselda is here. My aunts and uncles, my second, third, and fourth cousins, Grandma Louise, and even Barkley, my rooster nemesis, are all gathered in the clearing by the train. I want to wrap my arms around each and every one of them at once. I want to scream and holler and thank the fates for all of them, but I can’t. Emotion blocks my throat and for the first time in my life, I can’t even begin to figure out where to start.
“But how?” Birdie asks from behind me, saying the words running through my head that I can’t get out.
“A very handsome professor-looking type,” Grandma Louise says, doing what she considers her most suggestive eyebrow wiggle. “You should hold on to that one, Matilda Grace.”
Yeah, that isn’t going to happen—partly because he’s already gone and partly because I might be feeling a wee (a lot) bit murderous about the fact that he abandoned my friends and I at the absolute worst possible moment, after promising me how many times that he got me? A billion and one.
My sisters rush me, their arms wrapping around me, hugging me as Barkley does his weird cock of the walk thing in a circle around us as if daring anyone to try to take a shot. As if anyone would, looking at this crew. It’s not just the pure number of Sherwoods that should make Erik quake in his several-thousand-dollar bespoke tux, it’s the fact that they broke open the armory. Every member of my family is there. They are armed with wands, ritual double-edged knives, white-handled bolines with hooked blades, long-tailed whips, and spears. Grandma Louise has her travel cauldron, engraved with her address in case she accidentally forgets it—which with her, happens more often than you’d think. Barkley even has deadly sharp metal armor over his spurs.
The show of support has me close to tears. “You came to save us?”
“No,” my mom says, steel in her voice.
My sisters part like they’re in a synchronized dance from the 1800s and my mom walks down the aisle, looking as regal and scary as always.