Chapter Seven

I cut short my meeting with Mickey, as it was time to pick up Dad. I had so much more I wanted to ask her, to learn, but it had to wait. If there’s anything I’d learned about Mickey, she’s more forthcoming with information when she does things in her own time.

Dad and I prepared chicken cordon bleu, and it worked out moderately successful. Not really into cooking, I accidentally allowed the chicken to cook too long. Dad gave the chicken a workout with his mouth, attempting to tenderize the meat with his teeth. Truthfully, after my snack with Mickey, chicken kinda sickened me. Dad looked puzzled but said nothing when I bagged the chicken bones.

After dinner, I excused myself and told Dad I still had homework to complete before going to bed. A half-truth, at best. I finished my school homework in study hall, but I did have a lot of work of another sort to complete. I had a long night ahead of me.

Earlier, Mickey walked me through some “basic protection spells” and said I wasn’t ready for anything else. So I sighed complacently and listened.

“But you’re going to have to do it at midnight,” she warned.

“Mickey, it’s a school night. I can’t be up that late doing witchcraft spells.”

The inevitable hand-smack of reason caught the backside of my head. I needed to learn how to predict her attacks and know when to duck. “Wahhhh,” she whined. “Cry me a river, boo-hoo. Honestly, do you want to protect yourself and your friends or not?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, then, schoolboy, I don’t wanna’ hear no more crying about how you’re not going to get your beauty sleep. The very idea! A witch who’s complaining about a ‘school night.’ I swear! For this spell to work, you either need to do it between twelve and one p.m. or between twelve and one a.m.”

“I’ll be in school tomorrow at twelve p.m.” I sighed. “So I guess I have to do it tonight.”

“Kid, I don’t make up the rules. Just do as you’re told and quit your whining.”

So, going on eleven p.m., Dad had gone to bed, while I prepared a protection spell for our home. I didn’t really think Bellman would come after my dad, but just in case he thought it’d be fun to burn our house down or something, I wanted to be prepared.

Even though Mom left some candles in her office, there weren’t enough. Before I picked up Dad, I made a stop at the mall and bought twenty-eight twelve-inch white candles. The clerk looked questioningly at me and asked if I had a romantic evening planned. I grinned, nodded, and carried my bewitching booty the hell out of there.

I cut each candle painstakingly into twenty-four sections, leaving the wick to connect the pieces. Dividing the candles into sets of four, I wrote the days of the week backward on them until I had seven sets of four representing each day. The candle industry was going to owe me big-time.

Out in the garage, I gathered the shovel and spade. I banged my head on a low-lying shelf, muffled a curse, and hoped Dad would sleep through the ruckus. Now came the hard part.

I carried the tools, a flashlight, and my box of candles out through the backdoor as quietly as I possibly could so as not to wake Dad. Even though he knew I was learning about witchcraft, Mickey warned me the fewer loved ones knew about my witching ways would be best. She said it’d keep them out of trouble—whatever kind of trouble that may be—and the spells would be more potent for it.

Flicking on the small flashlight, I clenched it between my teeth and scurried to the far north corner of the yard. Here, I dug a seven-inch hole in the shape of a dove. After surveying my creative gardening, I didn’t think it resembled a dove too much. But surely a lack of artistic talent shouldn’t be held against me by…whoever or whatever. I placed the candle imprinted with “yadirF” inside and lit it, slowly watching it burn through one of the notches. I kneeled and cupped my hands over it several times while a slow but steadily increasing wind gust picked up around me.

Reading Mickey’s scribbling from a paper napkin, I chanted a slew of Latin words. Mickey fit the definition of “frugal” to a tee, and I made a mental note to buy her some paper or note cards. Next, I placed a gold foil-wrapped chocolate coin into the hole. Mickey told me I needed to use gold coins. I asked her where I could possibly find or afford those. She smiled, left the room, and came back with a plastic serving bowl full of the chocolate coins.

“Mickey,” I said, “this is Halloween candy.”

“Well, of course it is, dummy! But it’ll work. The only thing that matters is that it appears gold.” Apparently, the spirits didn’t look too carefully at details.

As I watched the first candle burn down, the slow lonely blast of a nearby train’s horn gave me a jolt. It grew louder and more pressing, as if saying it was coming for me—chug, chug, chug—I’m almost there. I used to think the train sounded comforting in the dead of night, knowing that somewhere life still carried on as life crawled to a temporary halt while I slept. But now, it struck me as a wild, unleashed banshee, howling in the night, a portent of doom.

Even though the night wind brought a cooling chill with it, sweat rolled off me as I moved to the east corner and repeated my candle ritual.

I stepped around to the front of the house. While digging another dirt-engraved dove, headlights turned onto the end of my street. The vehicle crept closer, and I suddenly had a bad feeling. I dropped the tools and backed up slowly toward the large oak tree in the center of the yard. The auto slowed to a near crawl before stopping in front of my house, engine still running. I snuck a peek around the huge oak trunk—more than enough width to cover my thin frame—and saw the dirty white van that had been patrolling the neighborhood pedaling cold, out-of-season treats. The tarnished bell no longer sat on its roof, but most definitely the same van.

A strong ray of light splashed from the driver’s side and scanned my yard back and forth, carefully avoiding the house windows. It crossed over the tree I hid behind twice and settled on the tools I left by my hole in progress. Sweat dripped from my brow as I held my breath. I strained for a glimpse into the driver’s compartment, but could only make out a shadowy figure behind the blinding light.

“Richard?” A voice called. “Richard, is that you?”

The van’s driver snapped off his flashlight and quietly sped away. I breathed a sigh of relief as the taillights vanished over the small incline of the street.

Suddenly, Mr. Cavanaugh stood ten feet in front of me, fully dressed and looking quite puzzled. Why he was up and about at this time of night boggled my mind; the man’s a human cat.

“Oh, hi, Mr. Cavanaugh,” I said as calmly as possible. “How are you?” I reacted as if I ran into him at the corner drugstore.

“I’m fine, Richard.” His hands tucked comfortably into his khaki pockets. “What are you doing out here this time of night?” I could’ve asked him the same thing. This guy knew more about my comings and goings than my father.

“I’m…uh…digging a mole trap.” It constantly astounded me for my recent capacity for lying on the spot. “They’re sure bad this time of year.”

“At this hour?” He pulled his hands out of his pockets and folded his arms across his chest, the international sign of an adult suspecting teen mischief.

“Well, it’s a full day of school tomorrow, so I thought I’d get it over with tonight.”

“Does your dad know you’re out here?” His beady eyes narrowed into slits.

“He’s asleep right now.” I held my finger up to my lips and whispered “Shhh” to persuade Mr. Cavanaugh to lower his voice. “But he knew I was going to do this, so I don’t think he’d mind so much.”

“Who was in that van? Was that a…little friend of yours?” The way he said “little friend” sounded creepy, to say the least. And just how old did he think I was?

“Nope, never seen him before.” I assumed it was a him. “I think he was lost and was reading address numbers.”

“Hmmm,” he said emotionlessly. “It’s probably not safe for you to be out alone this time of night, Richard. Remember what happened to that boy at your school.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember. I’m being careful. I’m almost finished.”

“Well. Okay…” He finally walked back to his yard.

“Good night, Mr. Cavanaugh,” I said quietly. He walked up onto his porch, leaned over, hands down on the railing, and continued to watch me. Okay, how much longer can he keep this up? I gave another little wave, hoping he’d take the hint he could relinquish his one-man neighborhood watch patrol for the night. Determined to outlast me, I finally gave the battle up to the nosy neighbor. I sighed, went around to the back of the house, and crept inside. I’d have to finish later.

****

Okay, with the house protection spell on hold for now and the clock registering at twelve twenty-eight, time had pretty much run out. I needed to finish the spell by one a.m., or it wouldn’t work, according to Mickey. I could start fresh tomorrow with the “Saturday” candles, but I risked a day of non-protection. Not liking the sound of that, I had to work fast.

Now I needed to make protection spells for my friends. Earlier, Mickey prepared one, patiently showing me the steps, so I could duplicate it later. She called it the ‘Bottle Spell’ and claimed it was one of the easiest and surest ways to protect my friends.

She’d dragged me back into her kitchen and instructed me to sit down at the table again. On her tiptoes, she strained to reach inside a tall cabinet. She pulled out a large rotating plastic rack full of spices and cooking condiments and plopped it down in front of me. Like an elderly game show model, she gave it a grand spin and stopped it with her finger.

“Okay, Tex, I’m gonna need frankincense, black powdered iron, sea salt, and some oakmoss. You grab those, and I’ll be right back.” She sped out of the kitchen, leaving me to gape at her amazing variety of kitchen and witch condiments. Tucked in next to the cinnamon and parsley sat the frankincense and other items she requested. I saw a little bottle marked with a piece of masking tape, entitled “Eye of Newt.” I wondered what might happen if she baked a cake and mistook the “Eye of Newt” for cinnamon. Note to self: Never eat Mickey’s baked goods.

She bustled back in with a cardboard box marked “tools” and dropped it in front of me. She pulled out a black bowl, possibly made of clay, and what looked to be a pharmacist’s tool. “My mortar and pestle,” she explained. I accepted this matter-of-factly and marveled at how my life had changed so much within the last two days when I took this for granted. “Pour those ingredients in there and stir,” she ordered. Hell’s Kitchen?

She rummaged through her magical bag of tricks and pulled out some old parchment paper, black thread, and a white candle. She grabbed a black ballpoint pen from a small stand and whirled on her heels, snagging an empty root beer bottle out of her recycling bin. “You know how hard it is to get soda in a real bottle anymore, kid?” She moved fast, a whirling dervish of blue hair and floral patterns.

“Now, cut that parchment into four equal strips.” Ninja-style, she threw a pair of scissors at me and they landed with a dangerous sounding whack on the table. I had no idea where she pulled the scissors from.

“What next, Mickey?” I spread the four strips in front of me evenly.

“What’s the name of that goddamn bully at your school?” On fire and in command, she moved like how Red must’ve in his glory days on the basketball court. But we now played on her field, and she owned it.

“Write the following on one of the pieces of paper with that pen,” she demanded. “‘I neutralize the power of Bob Bellman to do Tex McKenna any harm. I ask that this be correct and for the good of all. So mote it be!’”

I did so unquestioningly.

“Now, roll it up, tie it with that black thread, and stick it in the bottle.” Feverishly, she paced back and forth, hands folded behind her back, staring at the ceiling as if dictating a letter to me, her secretary. “Put the dry ingredients in there with it.”

“Um…do you have a funnel?”

“For cryin’ out loud!” She grabbed one out of a kitchen drawer. No matter how cluttered her house may be, Mickey knew where every little utensil hid. She tossed the funnel at me. I fumbled my way through getting the ingredients into the bottle.

Mickey walked up behind me and yanked a long hair out of the back of my head. “Ouch! Seriously! What is it with you and injuries to my head?”

“Oh, shut up, cry baby.” She handed me the single hair. “You’ve got plenty to spare. This is the final ingredient. Won’t work without hair from you and your friends. Now put it in the bottle.”

She then instructed me to seal it with wax from a burning candle while rotating it counterclockwise. “Now, here’s the most important part. You need to get a hair from each of your friends and do just as I did…and of course, I don’t need to tell you to put their names on the other three parchment pieces instead of yours, right?” She looked at me, disapprovingly. “You kids today need everything spelled out for you.”

“Um, I can remember to do that.”

“Next, you’re gonna have to get it to them somehow.” She closed her eyes, lost in thought. “It’s best not to tell them yet…for their own safety. But mostly, if they don’t believe in witchcraft, the spells may not be potent at all. So, what they don’t know, won’t hurt ’em.”

“Well, how am I going to do that? ‘Hey, guys, here’s a bottle of weird crap. Don’t ask questions, and never leave home without it.’ They’ll think I’m a drug dealer or something.”

“It’s best if you can put it under their pillows, so they always sleep on it,” she said, ignoring me. “But I’ve found that folks usually find a lump in their bed. How about if you sneak it into their backpacks? Or their lockers? If you do the lockers, it’ll probably only offer school protection, though…”

“I think I can manage that.”

“But remember, if they open the bottle…the spell will be broken.” She wagged her finger at me. “Okay, kid, that’s enough for today. Remember to call first next time. Were you born in a barn?”

“No, Mickey.”

“And, kid, this time…don’t forget to bring the mashed ’taters, too. Whoever heard of having chicken without the ’taters?”

****

Once I saw Mr. Cavanaugh had finally gone to bed, I went outside and finished the first night of the house protection spell. Witchcraft is hard, monotonous work. I needed to do this ritual once every night of the week and then repeat it one week each month. When’s a witch supposed to sleep?

Inside, I made a beeline to my mom’s office and searched through her closet. I found Mom’s mortar and pestle, which I guess belonged to me now. Part of my legacy passed down from generation to generation. More interesting than a gold watch.

I took the three beer bottles Mickey had begrudgingly given me—she could’ve gotten five cents each on their return—and prepared the spells for my friends. I opened the little plastic baggies full of the ingredients Mickey had “loaned” me and stirred them in the mortar, now only missing a hair from each of my friends.

I needed to be (witch) crafty tomorrow in obtaining those hairs. But it had to be done, no matter what. If this truly would be successful in rendering Bellman powerless against us, I’m all in for the long haul.

I only wished I’d been one day earlier.