The Book of Spells (Private 0.50)

“What’s unnatural is a sixteen-year-old girl falling to her death in the middle of the night in the woods because of a stick of sulfur,” Eliza replied, glancing up from the list of instructions for the spell.

“I can’t be a part of this,” Alice said, shaking her head. “I have to go.”

Then she turned on her heels and raced up the stairs, her tiny feet making scrambling sounds until the door had slammed behind her. The sound echoed down the stairs, and Eliza shivered, feeling suddenly closed in, closed off, buried alive.

“And so we are down to two,” Theresa said wryly.

Eliza took a deep breath and tried to ignore the foreboding feeling that swirled through her.

“Three,” she corrected, glancing at Catherine.

She looked so peaceful now that she was inside and out of the mud. The branch that had fallen on her had left not a scratch on her face. From the right angle, she looked as if she was merely sleeping peacefully—as long as one didn’t get a glimpse of the awful wound on the back of her head.

“Right. Three,” Theresa replied. She pointed to the list of ingredients needed for the spell. “We’re going to need some time to gather these things. The spell can be done anywhere up to forty-eight hours after the subject’s death. We need to move fast.”

“But we have classes tomorrow,” Eliza said, pacing away from the pedestal and toward the wall. “How are we going to explain Catherine’s absence?”

Theresa bit her lip. Eliza had never seen her look so uncertain, and suddenly she felt an odd connection to Theresa. They were in this together now. Together—for Catherine.

“We could tell them she received an urgent message from her parents. That a coach came in the middle of the night to take her home.”

Eliza leaned one hand against the cold clay wall and nearly froze. She pushed herself away again, pacing the periphery of the room to try to warm herself from the inside.

“It won’t work. All messages have to go through Miss Almay.”

She thought of the Spell of Silence. “Is there anything in that book we can use? Something that will make them think they see her, even though she’s not there?”

Theresa shook her head and flipped a few pages, frustrated. “Nothing. And believe me, I know. I read through the entire thing earlier tonight, remember?”

“I do,” Eliza said, her heart twisting in agony. Tonight she had been sitting just there on the right side of the room with Catherine. If she concentrated hard enough, she could see her friend bent over the book across her lap, studying for an exam she would never take.

“Wait a minute,” Eliza said, a rush of realization running through her. “What if we made up a spell on our own?”

“Can we do that?” Theresa asked.

“Why not? We can word it like the Spell of Silence, but make it so that none of the adults miss her.” She walked over to the book and flipped to the beginning, where the more basic spells were written. “Wherever we go, wherever we might, let us walk in silence as the night,” she read, contemplating the words.

Eliza stared at the wall, rhymes floating through her mind. Perhaps something about keeping adults in the dark? Or making them forget Catherine ever existed? But then how would they explain who she was when she came back? Unless they made the spell last for only forty-eight hours . . .

“What about something like . . . ‘Wherever we go, wherever we breathe, let others see Catherine where she might usually be’?” Theresa said, walking around to the front of the pedestal.

Eliza blinked. “Theresa, that’s amazing. We should write it down,” she said, picking up the pen on the pedestal. “In case it works and we need it again.”

Theresa flipped to the center of the book, where the spells ended and the blank pages began. Eliza handed over the pen.

“Here, you should do it,” she said. “It’s your spell.”

“All right,” Theresa said, the pen hovering over the blank page. “But what shall I call it?”

Eliza’s brow knit. “How about the Presence in Mind Spell?”

Theresa nodded. “I like that.”

She wrote the title across the top of the page in large letters, then scrawled the words beneath, separating the lines as if the spell was a stanza of poetry. Finally she placed the pen down and, much to Eliza’s surprise, took Eliza’s hand. “Come. We’ll say it together.”

“No. Wait,” Eliza said, gazing down at the body of their fallen friend. “We should hold Catherine’s hands too.”

Theresa shuddered. “You can’t be serious.”