Page 62 of School Spirits
“You’llfix this, you mean,” I muttered.
Normally, that would’ve gotten me a sharp “Isolde!” and a remark about talking back. But to my surprise, this time, Mom just crossed the kitchen and laid her palm against my cheek. “You’ve done great here. You’ve proven yourself, and I am proud of you. But it’s time to walk away now.”
The last time Mom had touched my face I’d been ten years old and she’d thought I had a fever. That must’ve been why I just nodded and said, “Okay.”
Mom dropped her hand with a little smile. “Good.”
Turning to Maya, she lifted a canvas bag off the table. “I’ll call from the road.”
“Bring her home, Ash,” Maya said, stirring her concoction.
“I’m going to try,” Mom replied, and with one last look at me, she was gone.
As soon as the front door closed, Maya opened a cabinet and began pulling out a couple of bowls. “You want some?” she asked, gesturing to the stove.
“Um…no. I’ve got something to do.”
Before she could offer me anything else—eye of newt tea, bird’s feet stew—I took off to the guest room.
Once the door was shut behind me I marched over to Torin’s mirror, smacking the frame as hard as I could. He stumbled, falling against the bed. “What in the world are you doing?”
“Don’t.” I pointed at him. “I wanted to figure out what to do about Romy on my own. I trusted you.”
“And I was only trying to help,” he insisted. “You could’ve been hurt, and for what? A trio of ungrateful children? They turned on you, didn’t they.” It wasn’t a question.
His words stung, but I tried not to let it show. “They didn’t turn on me. They had every reason to suspect I was a freak because hey, news flash, Iama freak. It doesn’t make them ungrateful. It makes them…smart.”
Torin frowned. “Isolde—”
I reached out and covered his mirror, suddenly tired and sadder than I’d thought possible.
After trudging up the stairs I spent the rest of the afternoon putting my few belongings back in the duffel bag, and watching the last few episodes ofIvy Springs, season three. But somehow, even Everton and Leslie finally getting together (and riding off in a hot air balloon, which may have been even weirder than the episode where Leslie dreamed she and Everton were on theTitanic) still couldn’t cheer me up. Once it was dark, I decided to go down to the kitchen and talk to Maya. Hopefully, she was done cooking.
She was humming when I walked in and puttering with the sad little basil plant Mom had bought at Walmart. It had been sitting, pathetic and abandoned, on our windowsill for a while.
“No bird’s feet, I’m guessing?” Maya asked as I walked in.
“Fresh out,” I told her. Now that the kitchen no longer smelled like Evil Magic, I thought I might try to cook some dinner. Maybe carbs would cheer me up whereIvySpringshad failed. As I pulled out a box of macaroni and cheese, Maya gave a cheerful smile.
“No matter,” she said, heading for the fruit bowl in the middle of the table. I’d just done the grocery shopping a few days ago, so there were several apples and a couple of bananas in there. My pasta forgotten, I watched as Maya picked up two apples and one banana and laid them on either side of the basil plant. Muttering something under her breath, she held on to the little pot of basil, and the leaves began to turn green and bright. But as they did, the apples and banana shriveled, going brown.
Once the basil was as perky as it could possibly be, Maya reached up and took off one of the several silver hoops in her ears. “That’s…bizarre,” I said at last.
“Hedge magic!” she trilled with a little shrug.
I scowled. Real magic, hedge magic, all of it apparently led to the same place: with everything crappy and awful. But it wasn’t just that. Something was bothering me. It made sense that Romy was the one summoning ghosts, whether she’d meant to or not, but there was still this little niggling doubt in the back of my mind. Romy was a terrible liar, but she’d looked genuinely confused and hurt in her bedroom today. And there hadn’t been any guilt in her face when I’d shown her the heart charm, just puzzlement.
“Maya,” I said as she continued to cluck over the plant, “let’s say you have a hedge witch summoning ghosts, and the one she’s summoned is all big and scary and dangerous.”
Maya turned back to me, her eyes sad. “Honey, most of the time, you can just get a witch to send the ghost back herself.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, I sat the box of pasta on the counter. “That’s what I’d been thinking—”
“But,” Maya interrupted. “This is not a normal case. The ghost is too powerful. By this point, the only way to stop that ghost is to sever the connection with the witch who did the summoning. Hedge witch, ‘real’ witch, it doesn’t matter. Stop the witch, you stop the ghost.”
I tore open the box of macaroni even though I was far from hungry anymore. “And by stop, you mean…”
“Kill, yes.” She touched one of the charms around her neck. “It’s unfortunate, but that’s the way of it.”
