Witch - By Fiona Horne Page 0,18

. . people will give us a hard time if we talk openly about our magic. We have to swear to secrecy.’ I looked at Brenda.

‘I ain’t saying nothing!’ She smiled and walked back behind the counter.

I stretched out my hands. ‘Let’s make a pact,’ I said.

Bryce immediately took my hand. I trembled and prayed that he didn’t notice. Alyssa took my other hand, then Dean and Amelia closed the circle.

It felt appropriate to say something, but I wasn’t sure what. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, hoping to summon up something profound. Magic is the art of creating change with will. As I remembered those words from the book, suddenly the right words just poured out of me.

‘For the good of all and with harm to none, I now declare the magic’s begun,’ I said.

I looked around and saw that everyone’s eyes were closed. I could feel my hands tingling. The energy grew stronger and stronger, moving through me, coming and going – like a stream of light was being whisked around us by a giant egg beater. I could hear buzzing in my ears.

Alyssa gasped. ‘Can you feel that?’

The twins’ fiery red hair was floating up and away from their shoulders. They started laughing.

‘Awesome,’ Bryce said.

The slightly nervous look on Dean’s face had transformed into a big smile. ‘Wow!’ he exclaimed.

‘Vania, your eyes have changed colour,’ Bryce said, looking at me with a shocked expression.

‘What?’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’

‘They’re brown.’

‘No way,’ I said, dropping everyone’s hands and running over to the mirror above the cash register.

They were plain green, same as always.

‘That’s not funny,’ I said. ‘They’re green like they always are.’

‘Actually, they did change,’ Brenda said, coming to stand by me. ‘You just broke the spell when you got distracted. And if that’s what you kids can do on your first meeting, I can’t wait to see what you get up to next.’

That night when my mother and I were washing up after dinner I noticed that the pot of herbs she had on the windowsill were growing like crazy. Normally I would look at the pot and wonder why Mum bothered to have it there at all. Usually there was a sad little plant struggling to stay alive. But now the rosemary was cascading over the sides, almost like an alien life form.

Mum had seen what I was looking at. ‘That rosemary just started growing all of a sudden,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘I seem to have suddenly developed a green thumb! ’ She laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

I thought of the fertility cookies I’d bought her for her birthday. After what I’d just experienced in the cafe, I had no doubt they were truly magical. I went to the pantry and there was the box. I took a peek inside. All the flower-shaped cookies were gone. Yes, the magic had definitely begun. Now it was time to put it to use.

It was Thursday afternoon, the day after our meeting, and we were in our group elective class. The group elective course was actually pretty cool, especially because it meant that the coven could hang out together and get graded for it. This semester the elective choices were ‘Solve a Mystery’ or ‘Survive a Disaster’. We were all drawn to the mystery topic; we just had to choose one. We already had a mystery to solve, of course – working out what Mr Barrow was up to – but I didn’t think we’d get any marks for solving that one.

‘What about the woman of Queen’s Cross?’ Bryce asked.

‘Sounds interesting. Who is she?’ I asked him.

‘Well, according to this article from the Summerland Star, she died fifteen years ago in a house-fire on Queen’s Cross Road. No one has ever been able to solve the mystery of who she was or how the fire started.’

‘Ooh, you could use your ghost-communicating skills with this one, Bryce,’ Amelia said.

‘You know, I think we could cream this mystery with some magic,’ said Dean enthusiastically.

We scanned the article. The photocopy was smudged and some words were hard to read, but the overall gist was that this woman hadn’t been in Summerland very long and was living alone when she’d died. No relatives could be contacted upon her death, and no one came to claim the body. The newspaper report said there were ‘mysterious circumstances’ but didn’t elaborate.

‘You don’t have to be psychic to know that we need to find some more of the original newspaper reports to