“I will read this,” I said to the circle in a loud, clear voice. To Tessa, I said, “You take one of the stations.”

“I understand you want to help, young Penny, but this is much too advanced—”

“I will read this,” I repeated in a tone brooking no argument. I’d never used that tone before, and it was as surprising to me as it clearly was to Tessa. But out of the blue, confidence strengthened my resolve, straightening my spine and ringing through my body. I felt perfectly in control, something I’d seldom experienced before.

But the clock was ticking. If there really was some good vs. evil battle coming, as preposterous as it sounded, and if that Cloud of Doom around the church was part of it, I did not want to be here when things got messy. I needed to help them see this potion through, and then get out as fast as possible.

I pulled the sheet closer to my face and looked down the list of ingredients before inspecting the piles assembled near the cauldron. They were organized so each batch could go into the cauldron at the same time.

Thank you, sous chef.

The loopy scrawl, large and evenly spaced, made me immediately think it was a woman’s writing. The clusters of directions and scratched-out lines, which were then repeated lower, indicated this was a copied potion.

I want the book this was copied from.

The thought came out of nowhere, and the sense of longing attached to it was so powerful that I startled. Something deep inside of me wanted to see the source. To hold the book and feel the ancient paper beneath my fingers. I somehow knew the true intent of the instructions would be revealed in the artist’s renderings, in the crinkle of the pages. The strength of this potion would be embedded there, seeking a master to will it to life.

I was that master.

Confidence flooded me—not just in my ability to read a page and command a group of witches, but to hear the whisper of the original spell. To hear the deeper desire of the creator and turn the words into a physical presence.

Wow, Penny. Just wow.

My imagination had switched from horror-stricken to grandiose. I constantly surprised myself.

“Penny, maybe I should—”

“Here we go,” I hastened to say, not giving Tessa a chance to reclaim leadership. “Now.” I scanned the group in front of me as I opened my mind and (it sounds ridiculous, given that they were a group of strangers, but I don’t know how else to describe it) my heart. “Ladies, take your positions.”

They looked around at each other, none of them appropriately spaced or standing directly in front of their ingredients. It wasn’t even a circle. It was an egg.

Having learned from my mother’s constant manipulations that it was faster to man-handle everyone into the space I wanted them to occupy than wait for them to fall into line, I briskly visited each person, precious minutes ticking away as I did so.

“I thought you were a beginner,” Gaunt Face said as I switched her position with Tight Bun. I had no idea why I did it. Intuition was in the driver’s seat at this point.

“I am,” I said, moving to the next person. “Don’t worry, this transformation is equally shocking to me. Many terrible decisions are being made today. Let’s hope I’m done with them by the time I need to vamoose. Unless flying brooms are real?” I paused on my way back to my position, my eyebrows raised hopefully.

Judging by the looks, they now realized that I was, indeed, a novice. Oh well. I’d probably lose my balance and fall off a broom anyway.

Back in my place, I held up the paper again. “Here we go.” I read the first line: “Approach the cauldron from the east and take the wooden spoon into your dominant hand.”

The ladies all exchanged looks before turning back toward me. I sighed, because that was the simplest of the directions and they were already confused.

“Beatrice, you’re the most eastward. Step forward. Grab the spoon with your dominant hand—are you right-handed? Yes, that’s it. Dominant hand, there you go.”

Who is this woman reading these directions?

I didn’t know, but I liked her.

“Now, Gaunt Fa— I mean.” I paused, because that would’ve been a hurtful slip. “You there.” I waved my finger at Gaunt Face. “Cup the sage and bay laurel in your hands.”

She did so, and I read the next bit of instructions. Namely, how exactly, and where exactly, they should drop the ingredients into the water of the cauldron.

“Focus,” I said in a hush, doing as I’d just said. I let out a breath slowly, stilling myself in the moment. Tingles crawled across my skin and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I felt a pull in my middle. Like someone was tugging a string attached to my ribcage. The energy in the room was rising.

I smiled in delight…then my confidence wavered.

“If we’re in a circle, all working together, can I say the words for the spell, or does the person dropping the ingredients into the cauldron need to?” I asked.

“You say the words, and then we repeat them with you. As one,” Tessa said, slight irritation in her voice.

“Right. Got it.” I bent my face behind the paper to hide the heat in my cheeks.

The words of the spell sounded ancient on my tongue. Dry and crackly. My breath almost wheezed, as though I were being choked by the dust layering the original spell book.

The circle members—memories solid, all—repeated me word for word. As they did, another surge of energy rose between us, connecting us in this large thing we were doing.

I instructed Tight Bun to put in three of her ingredients, then grimaced when she let the steel bar clop into the water, splashing Beatrice. “Let’s be careful, ladies,” I chided them.

The next set of words, simplistic though they were, twisted my tongue in strange ways. “Stir once to the left, and immediately twice to the right. Feel the forces surround you. Feel the call rise within you.”

The air crackled. The pull on my ribs increased until it felt like something gushed out of the bottom of my ribcage and filled my center. I continued reciting the instructions, some of the words not making sense, as though a bad translation, some of them increasing the fervor of the room. Static electricity surged, sizzling up my spine. I watched those around me, their focus complete, their eyes sparkling with purpose.

All the while, the tick-tock of a clock sounded in my mind. There was no doubt now. My third eye was telling me to run.

I continued with the spell as fast as I dared, making sure to watch the women to be certain they followed the instructions to the letter. I couldn’t leave now, not when it was halfway finished. Something in me needed to see this through to the end. To maybe know for sure if I had what it took to inch my way into this life.

My heart sped up with each passing moment. Nearing the end, I increased the pitch of my voice. The strength of it.

“Drink,” I commanded the circle, raising my hands above my head. “Drink!”

The energy pulsed around me; power surged within me. I closed my eyes, getting caught up in the epic feel of it. Pulled and pushed a dozen different ways without physically moving an inch.

I heard slurping, everyone having at it. But while I was tempted to join in, my natural sense of caution invaded the moment. Logic was right on its heels.

“Wait. What is it we’re drinking?” I let my eyes drift open, fighting against the power and energy still ripping at me. “The instructions never said what the potion actually did—”

My words caught in my throat. Beatrice held the spoon to Gaunt Face’s lips. Another woman in a sack of a dress waited next to them, looking down at the cauldron with a greedy expression. The rest of the coven stood rigid in their places, staring vaguely with placid expressions, their bodies frozen in place.

Something…is…amiss.

That was probably the understatement of the year, made clear after Sack Dress found her place in the circle of Stepfords. As one, the women turned their heads slowly until their glazed-over eyes looked my way. They blinked, perfectly in sync. Waiting.

A translucent weave of colors, textures, and patterns drifted up from the cauldron. Tendrils twisted and bent, spilling over the sides. Whatever it was didn’t dampen the lip of the pot. No sheen spoke of wetness. It slid down the black metal like slow-moving water. Above the cauldron, more of it drifted into the air, unfurling like smoke.

Beatrice, as strangely still as a statue, held that spoon out to me.

The potion’s colorful textures, a fascinating blend of the ingredients that had gone into the pot, became solider and licked at the edge of the spoon before climbing up the handle like vines. Tendrils latched on to Beatrice’s arm, sliding up toward her face.

“You should shake that off, probably,” I said in a wispy voice with a heaviness in the pit of my stomach. Whatever spell I’d spoken to life was not the peaceful, fun-loving kind. Its intent was darker. More violent.

I sure wished I’d felt that before I’d taken part in all of this.

“No one better ever tell my mother about this. Her I told you sos are the absolute worst,” I muttered, willing my foot to step backward. To bring me out of the circle.

“You are bound to us,” the group said as one, their voices deep and coarse.

Fear flashed through my gut. I heard a tinkling of metal.

The door on the side of the room opened a crack and a face appeared, expression wary. His gaze slid over the group as I struggled to move backward.

“Help,” I said through clenched teeth, terror springing up. I could lift my foot, but it would only go forward. It would only carry me toward the potion that I had helped create. “Help,” I said again, louder this time.

His bushy eyebrows lowered over his eyes. “Ain’t no help for you now. About time, too. The fireworks are supposed to kick off any minute.”

“You are bound to us,” the group said together, their grating voices sending a shiver through my body.

The man at the door yanked his head back and shut the door.

He knew what this potion was supposed to do. And he was afraid of it.

“This is bad,” I said as a trickle of sweat dribbled down my cheek. Darkness throbbed in my middle. Blackness surrounded us, different than the Cloud of Doom outside the church, but no less potent.

I’d unknowingly added to the problem. And my time was running out.

The women blinked again, the motion even creepier because it was timed so perfectly, and my mouth dropped open. Their eyes were all white. Not rolling-into-the-back-of-their head white, either. Inhumanly white.

The potion was changing them, all right. Morphing them into something evil.

I had to get out of there.

Shouts erupted from the room next door. A loud, clear voice made it through to me. “Feel that, boys? Here she comes!”

I didn’t know who she was, and I wasn’t about to hang around and find out.

“You are bound to—”

“I heard you, I heard you.” I folded the paper quickly and stuffed it into my jeans pocket with my phone.

My phone!

The hope was dashed almost immediately. Who would I call and what would I say? I’m stuck in an invisible circle at a witchcraft retreat gone wrong, and a magical battle of some sort is about to kick off, so please put on your jetpack and hurry out here since any form of security is miles away?

Fat chance. They’d tell me to lay off the drugs.

“What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?” I asked as the fear started to rise.

A sizzling sound filtered in from somewhere outside of the church, like an egg frying on hot asphalt. More shouts from the other room. My ears popped with a pressure change. The energy buzzing within the room was supercharged.

A new force had sprung up. Outside somewhere, but aimed at the church. It occurred to me then that the intent of the potion was the opposite of the coven’s intent in brewing it.

“I’m cracking up,” I muttered, unsure of how I knew these things, or if they were even true.

One thing I did know: if I didn’t do something quickly, I’d lose myself to the magic that was taking possession of the others in the circle.