CHAPTER 4

With that, she rose to her feet and went back into the kitchen. While she pulled things out of cabinets and drawers, I leaned closer to Mom. “A locator spell? For Finn?”

“Hush, Izzy.” She said it calmly, but her shoulders were stiff, and she was bouncing one foot up and down.

“She’s a witch?” I hissed. “You went to a witch looking for Finn and you never told me?”

“It was none of your business.” Mom’s voice was sharper now, her hands digging into her thighs, and I jerked my head back like she had slapped me. To be honest, I kind of felt like she had.

Then Mom sighed and leaned closer to me, her voice softer as she said, “Iz.”

I shook my head, biting off anything else I wanted to ask about Finn. Instead, I said, “I couldn’t feel her. Maya. And I can always sense witches.”

“I’m a hedge witch,” Maya said, coming back into the living room holding a folder overflowing with paper despite all the rubber bands wrapped around it. “Which is why your mother is insulting me greatly by using me to gather this sort of stuff.” She waved the folder a little, and few Post-it notes fell out.

“What’s in there?” I asked, and Maya sighed, pulling the rubber bands off the folder.

“Articles, weird things that popped up on the Internet… Basically, I keep an eye out for any news story that seems to involve the supernatural.”

I turned to Mom. “This is how you find cases?”

Mom had never looked sheepish in her life, I was willing to bet, but something really close to that expression crossed her face now. “Not always. But sometimes it makes sense to…outsource.”

I knew Mom had friends who helped her out on cases from time to time. There was the guy who got her the boat when she had to find those killer mermaids, and we always seemed to have plenty of money that came from some mysterious source. But a middle-aged lady in the middle of nowhere collecting articles about possible supernatural happenings? That seemed kind of…lame.

As Maya sat down in front of the coffee table, I pulled the sleeves of my shirt over my hands and asked, “What’s a hedge witch?”

Clearing all the feet away, Maya opened the folder. “The kind of witches you’re used to are born that way. What is that stupid word they have for themselves?”

“Prodigium,” Mom and I answered in unison.

“Right, well, Prodigium come into their powers at what, twelve? Thirteen? And they can just do magic. No wands, no spell books necessary unless they’re trying to do the super-dark crap. Point is, it’s an inborn ability.” Maya began paging through the papers. Some were newspaper articles with big garish headlines. I spotted one that blared, SEA MONSTER SPOTTED AT NEW ENGLAND RESORT!

“Now, it strikes me that this is incredibly unfair,” Maya continued. A pair of glasses dangled from a beaded chain around her neck, and she picked them up, balancing them on the end of her nose as she continued to scan the papers. An article that seemed to be about crop circles drifted to the carpet.

“Why should some people be born gods while the rest of us poor mortals have to struggle through the mud of humanity, trying—”

“Enough, Maya.” Mom turned to me. “A hedge witch is someone who can do magic, but they’ve learned it from books. And their abilities are severely limited compared to natural witches.”

“I resent the term hedge witch,” Maya said with a haughty lift of her shoulders. “What I do is every bit as natural as what fancy Latin witches can do. If anything, hedge magic is more elegant.”

I glanced at the little pile of feet on the carpet and bit back a sarcastic comment.

“Ah,” Maya said at last, pulling out a large piece of paper. “Here’s the one I was looking for. Caught my eye because it happened so close by.”

She handed it to Mom, and I leaned so that I could read it over her shoulder. It was a photocopy of a newspaper piece. There was a grainy photo of stretcher being pulled out of a large brick building, police tape everywhere. The caption read, STILL NO LEADS IN ATTACK ON POPULAR TEACHER.

“What happened?” I tapped the picture.

“Was just a few months ago,” Maya said. “I remember it because that town in Mississippi was close enough to here that it made the local news. The science teacher was found nearly dead from a blow to the head.”

“Okay, well, that seems awful but not necessarily supernatural,” I said, but Mom shook her head. Pointing to a section of the article, she said, “Read this part. ‘Police are particularly baffled as David Snyder was found in a room locked from the inside.’ No witnesses, no fingerprints. And he swears he was alone in the room.”

I read all of that, but I still didn’t get it. “It’s creepy, but it still isn’t all that Brannick-y.”

Mom looked up at me, the corners of her mouth turning down. “Unless it’s a haunting.”

Digging my fingers into the couch cushions, I tried very hard not to roll my eyes. “Mom, come on. A ghost case?”

As far as Supernatural Threats went, ghosts were way down there at the bottom of the list. For the most part, they just floated around and creeped people out, and they were ridiculously easy to banish.

But Mom actually smiled. “This sounds perfect, Iz. Exactly the kind of case you could tackle by yourself, get your confidence back—”

Now I couldn’t keep the petulance out of my voice. “Mom, ghosts jobs are nothing. They’re…they’re like Brannick training wheels.”

“Tell that to Mr. Snyder,” Maya muttered, and Mom nodded.

“If this is a haunting, it’s a potentially dangerous one. We owe it to the students of”—she squinted at the paper—“Mary Evans High to keep them safe.”

Flipping my braid over my shoulder, I sank deeper into the couch. “I know, but—” I sat up straight. “Wait, this happened at a high school?”

Mom had always gone out of her way to avoid jobs that happened at schools. She’d never said why, but I’d guessed it had to do with me and Finn and Mom not wanting us to get any ideas about a “regular life.” That’s why we’d always been homeschooled, although I doubt many kids had to write an essay on The Hammer of Witches as their midterm. And sure, a few years ago, I’d kind of…not longed for it, exactly, but I’d thought high school had a certain exotic appeal. But that was when I was just a kid.

Whatever was on that piece of newspaper suddenly became very interesting to Mom, and dread began to settle in my stomach. “Mom, is this…am I going to have to go to this high school?”

Mom didn’t look up. “It would be the best way for you to do the necessary reconnaissance work. And it might be good for you.” Her mouth tightened into a firm line, and I knew that whatever came out of her mouth next, it would be a command, not a request. “This is the case for us right now, Isolde. The case we need.”

When Mom used that voice, there was no arguing. It was the same tone she used to get me to put in an extra hour on the training field.

The same tone she used the day she’d said we were done looking for Finley.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound sullen. But…high school. Regular high school, with…with… Yeah, I had no idea what that would actually entail, other than a vague notion of school dances and lockers. And while our cabin in the woods may not be much, it was home.

“The town is only about fifty miles from here,” Maya offered. “I could ride with y’all, show you around.” She narrowed her eyes at Mom. “And I’m assuming you have ways of finding a place once you get there.”

“I’ll make some calls,” Mom said tersely.

“We won’t need a place,” I insisted, rising to my feet. “Places are for jobs that are more than chasing down Casper.”

Mom began gathering the pieces of paper. A few caught her eye, and she folded them carefully, putting them in the pocket of her jacket. “Enough, Iz.”

She stood up and said to Maya, “We’ll need to go home, get a few things first. We’ll drive down next week.”

I frowned at that. We had a car, but it was not the most reliable thing, and as much as I loathed Itineris travel, it was a lot faster.

While Mom and Maya made plans, I sat back on the couch, the newspaper article in my hand. I knew I should have been more concerned about the guy being pulled out on a stretcher, but my gaze kept going again and again to the big brick building behind him. Mary Evans High.

A shiver went through me, and I was pretty sure it had nothing to do with any ghost.