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"Kill me?" I squeaked.
That couldn't be right. Polly had given me that necklace. Polly. My friend.
"I have to admit, Lincoln and I suspected some sort of dark magic was involved you when you showed up at the beach. Snowball said you appeared out of nowhere. That's not an easy thing to do."
"Then why didn't you say something?" Lucy cried.
"We weren't sure. And in the witching world you don't go accusing other witches of dark magic unless you have some sort of evidence. You know that. It can lead to disastrous results if you do."
I remembered learning about the Salem Witch Trials growing up and thought maybe Felicity had a point.
Amelia opened a small wooden box. Inside, wrapped in a cloth tied with a sage leaf, was my necklace.
"Sage acts as sort of shield," Amelia explained. "It drains some of the power from the stone."
"Like Kryptonite?" I asked.
Amelia looked with confusion to Felicity, who shrugged. Felicity looked to Lincoln, who also shrugged.
Lucy laughed. "Yes," she told me. "It's a lot like Kryptonite." She leaned over to Felicity, who still looked confused. "I'll explain it to you later," she whispered.
"Anyway, it's very dark magic," Amelia said. "Very dark and very dangerous."
"The fact that you've been wearing it so long and are still alive proves how powerful a witch you are," Lucy said.
"So?" Lincoln asked, putting on his sheriff's face. "Who gave it to you?"
Everyone leaned in a little closer, waiting for my answer.
I licked my lips. "Polly Peacock," I croaked.
Lucy's face went white. Amelia and Lincoln turned to each other. Amelia picked something off a table and held it over her head. It looked like a round, white stone. She began to walk around me in circles, chanting something.
"Um... Amelia?" I asked.
"Sssh," Felicity, Lincoln, and Lucy said at once.
I kept my mouth shut until Amelia had finished. "I've just placed a protective charm around you. It should help to keep you safe, at least for a short while. And you won't be randomly transporting anywhere anymore. It was all we could do to stop you from disappearing on us this time."
"That's right," Lucy said. "It was actually kind of cool. One minute you were here, the next you were turning into a sort of bubble."
"I turned into a bubble?" I screeched.
"Not exactly," Lucy said. "It's just part of what the heriotza can do to a witch. You should be grateful you only transported the one time while you were wearing it."
"I am. And thank you for the protection charm," I said. "Um, what about my chest?" It was hard to resist fingering the deep red crater where the necklace had literally burned a hole in me.
"You should be all right for now. Felicity and I laid some peppermint petunia oil over you while you were unconscious. It will prevent the burn from worsening and heal you to a point. But when you're back in Sweetland Cove, I advise you to see Dr. Dunne."
"Sweetland Cove!" I suddenly cried, turning to Lucy. "Oh, my witches! We need to go. Now!"
"Why?" Felicity asked. "It's getting late. And you're still hurt. Stay here tonight. Both of you. Go back to Sweetland tomorrow."
"My aunts! They don't know what's going on. What if something happens to them? I need to warn them!"
"You stay and rest," Lincoln said. "I'll call Sheriff Knoxx and tell him what's going on. Let us handle this."
"No way," I told him, already searching the room for my purse. "I have to get back. Tonight."
"Why do citizens always think they're Columbo?" Lincoln asked, giving Felicity a knowing look. I ran back into the sitting room where I'd woken up to see if my purse was there. Lucy followed me.
"If I drive fast," she said. "I can make it back in two hours. Maybe less if I use a speed spell."
"You can't just blink us there?" I asked her.
"Blink us there? I'm a witch, not a genie."
I paused in my search just long enough to look at Lucy and ask, "Genies are real?"
"Of course they are."
The door behind us clicked shut.
"Sorry, girls," Amelia called through the thick wooden door. "We'll let you out when we know it's safe."
"Warthogs!" Lucy cried, trying to push the door open.
"They locked us in?" I asked, infuriated. You just couldn't trust anyone on this island!
Lucy and I spent the next twenty minutes trying to find another way out.
"Do something magical," I told Lucy, annoyed that with her witchy powers she couldn't even open a locked door.
"I've tried," she snapped. "Amelia must've placed some sort of enchantment over it."
I sighed and flopped onto the couch.
"Where's your phone?" I asked, kicking myself for not getting one yet.
"In my purse," Lucy sighed. "Out there." She pointed toward the door just as we heard a click. Felicity's head poked into the room.
"Felicity, you cannot keep us here!" I hammered at her.
"Sssh!" she said, holding a finger to her lips. I stopped talking. "My mother's in the next room. Lincoln's down at the station."
"You're letting us out?" Lucy asked.
"I know what it's like to be in this kind of... sticky situation. Sometimes the only person you can trust to be Columbo is yourself." She opened the door for us. Lucy and I ran from the room before she could change her mind.
"Thanks," we told her. Lucy grabbed her purse. Felicity had mine ready for me. We took it and got out of there.
"Just be careful," Felicity warned us as Lucy kicked the car into gear.
"Autoairium," Felicity said and the car suddenly doubled its speed.
"Oh, my roses," I said, closing my eyes.
My stomach rolled in on itself like we'd just hit the first drop of a rollercoaster. When I opened my eyes again, the evening sky was whizzing by us at warp speed.
"Do you wanna call your aunts?" Lucy asked as if nothing abnormal was going on. I had no idea how she could steer the car going so fast. I didn't want to think about it. "My phone's in my purse."
"Thanks," I said and carefully searched Lucy's purse until I came across a midnight blue phone case with little twinkling stars. I blinked and looked again. The stars were actually twinkling.
The logo at the top read: WITCH MOBILE.
I turned it over and was happy to see that aside from the twinkling stars, everything else about the phone looked normal. I dialed Mystic's number, hoping my aunts were still there doing inventory.
They answered after three rings.
"Aunt Eleanor?"
"Ava? Where in the witching world are you? Do you know your Aunt Trixie and I have been worried sick? Your father's escaped from jail."
"I know," I told her. "Sheriff Maxwell told me."
I could almost hear Eleanor frown.
Trixie began whispering near the receiver. "Is that her? Tell her to get back here. I need her to explain the difference between Jelly Bellies and Jelly Beans."
I couldn't help laughing despite the situation.
"Why are you in Mistmoor Point?" Eleanor asked. "You didn't have another blackout, did you?" Her voice was layered with worry.
"No. Well... yeah. But I was already in Mistmoor when it happened. That's why I'm calling. I found out what's been causing them."
I took a deep breath. I had a feeling this wasn't going to go over well.
"Heriotza," I said.
"Herio..."
I gave Aunt Eleanor a full minute to process this.
"Where," Eleanor asked, her voice tight and dripping with anger, "did you get heriotza? And why didn't you tell us?"
"From Polly Peacock. And I didn't tell you because I didn't know what it was. She had it in her store. She... she told me it was a good luck charm."
Another round of silence and a second later Eleanor began to shout.
"Of all the unwitchly acts! What a... a toad bottom! A measle blossom! A dim-witch!"
I could hear Trixie in the background begging to know what was going on.
"Don't you worry about this for one second," Eleanor howled. "Your Aunt Trixie and I are on this."
"Wait, what do you mean?" I asked.
I wasn't even sure whether Eleanor heard me. Her voice was cracking with rage.
"Trixie and I are going over there right now to talk to that little warthog. And her mother, too! I know that The Alchemic Stone deals with the darker elements from time to time, but I always thought they did so safely. Anastasia should never have allowed anything so dark as heriotza in her store."
I heard Trixie gasp and screech into the phone. "Heriotza?!"
"No, Aunt Eleanor, I didn't mean for you to go over there. I only wanted to warn you."
"Well, it's us who'll be doing the warning. To Polly Peacock and that moleskin of a mother!" Eleanor hung up on me.
"Oh no," I said, looking at Lucy. "What have I done?"
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