“You gonna lock me up, sheriff?” Aunt Pearl stood defiantly in front of Tyler, arms crossed.
“Nope,” Tyler chuckled. “Nothing to worry about. You’re a terrible escape artist.”
“Help me find Brayden and Gail, Aunt Pearl,” I pleaded. “Tell me what to do.”
“I don’t know, Cen. What’s in it for me?” Aunt Pearl tapped her foot as she waited for an answer.
I didn’t bite.
I was tired of going in circles with Aunt Pearl and never getting anywhere. With or without her help, I would get Brayden and Gail back. I ran to the hall table and motioned for Mom and Aunt Amber to follow. There was no time to waste.
“Ready, Cen?” Aunt Amber handed me a scrap of paper. “I wrote it out for you. All you have to do is visualize them while you recite the words.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and recited the reversal spell, imagining Brayden and Gail at the doorway as they had been earlier. The required concentration coupled with the almost instant hangover effects of too much Christmas cheer had given me a splitting headache. If I could somehow get it to work, I promised myself I would never cast another spell. They were incredibly hard to undo and nothing but trouble. I simply wasn’t cut out to be a witch.
Aunt Pearl swore under her breath. “You can call off the dogs, sheriff. Just be glad I decided to cooperate so you won’t get fired.”
Tyler shrugged. He spoke softly into his cell phone before slipping it back into his shirt pocket. His eyes scanned the front lawn as he pointed excitedly to a spot near the Santa sleigh lawn decorations. “Hey, what’s that? Something just moved.”
“It’s Brayden and Gail!” Mom clasped her hands together. “Cen, you did it! You got them back.”
I followed Tyler’s gaze to the Santa sleigh lawn decoration. Sure enough, Brayden and Gail were there. They were surrounded by a giant glass globe that also enclosed the sleigh. I couldn’t believe how large the globe was. But there was no time to gloat.
Gail cowered near Santa’s sleigh while Brayden pounded on the glass several feet away.
“Well, they’re back on the lawn at least. I still have to get them out of the globe.” I sighed.
They waved their arms and clawed at an invisible glass barrier as they mouthed words we couldn’t hear. Just like me earlier, they were trapped inside the magical glass globe that surrounded the lawn decorations. So close, but yet, so far away.
On the bright side, at least the snow globe’s return meant that we could see them. And that meant a much better chance of actually breaking them free from their glass prison.
It dawned on me that Aunt Pearl had never been trapped in my glass globe in the first place. If she had, Earl couldn’t have rescued her. The glass globe that imprisoned Brayden and Gail remained intact, and one spell meant one glass globe.
Why Aunt Pearl had pretended to be caught up in my spell? I had no idea why. What I did know was that my spell hadn’t saved Aunt Pearl after all. Also, my powers were only strong enough to bring the globe back into view. They weren’t enough to extract Brayden and Gail from it.
I felt hopeless. If I hadn’t actually saved Aunt Pearl, how on earth could I rescue Brayden and Gail?