Witch - By Fiona Horne Page 0,58

be a full moon, too – a good night to do some magic, which I also wanted to do some research for – so Dean had lent me one of his books on herb magic.

It was getting dark, and with my heavy load I stumbled off the kerb as I went to cross the street. I hit the tar hard, and books went spilling everywhere. Sitting up slowly, I saw that my jeans were torn and blood was seeping from one of my knees. As I gathered up the books there was a white flash of lights. A large van barrelled down the street towards me. Its lights were on high beam, blinding me. I froze.

At the last second it swerved, missing me by inches.

I leapt to my feet and stood there shaking in the dark. As my eyes adjusted again, a faint gloom over the land became apparent. The crescent moon was growing as it waxed towards full. And it hit me – ‘When night becomes day’ meant when the full moon rose in the sky. The witches were warning us that on the night of the full moon, someone would die. Maybe I needed the protection amulet more than Bryce did, though, after this near miss.

The next day at school I told my coven what had happened. They were freaked out that I’d nearly got hit by a car, of course, but they were more excited by my partial decoding of the riddle.

‘Of course!’ Dean smacked his forehead. ‘The full moon affects the tide, too, which would explain “The ocean flows before it ebbs”.’

‘I wonder if it was a full moon the night the woman of Queen’s Cross died,’ Amelia said.

‘That’s easy to find out,’ said Bryce, taking out his iPhone. ‘Can anyone remember the exact date?’

‘I have it here,’ I said, pulling a photocopy of the first newspaper article we’d found from my bag.

‘The article was published on 21 July 1997, which means she probably died the day before, on the twentieth.’

Bryce tapped away on his phone for a minute before raising his head triumphantly. ‘According to the Griffith Observatory Sky Report, 20 July 1997 was a full moon!’

‘And we all know magic is cast more effectively on a full moon, which adds more weight to the idea that the objects she was found with were being used in a witchcraft ritual,’ I said.

Everyone nodded.

‘So the witches’ riddle is telling us that the woman of Queen’s Cross was a witch?’ said Amelia.

‘What about that herb, yarrow, you were telling us about this morning, Dean?’ Alyssa asked. ‘Obviously that has something to do with it. If it cures headaches then maybe they’re warning that one of us is going to get knocked on the head!’ She laughed.

The second bell sounded as we were talking, but none of us seemed to be in a rush to get to class.

‘What subjects do you guys have?’ I asked. ‘Maybe we could skip first period and go to the cafe to talk to Brenda about all of this? From what the witches said, we don’t have much time.’

‘Vania Thorn!’ Mr Barrow’s voice thundered from behind me. My stomach lurched at the now familiar, nasty tone in his voice. ‘Did I just hear you encouraging your friends to skip school?’

‘No, Mr Barrow,’ I lied. Had he been around the corner listening to us the whole time? ‘We were actually discussing a class project we’re working on together and were planning to do additional research for it,’ I said.

‘The woman of Queen’s Cross,’ Alyssa chimed in. ‘We’re solving the mystery for Friday’s elective!’

Mr Barrow’s eyes narrowed, and then suddenly he burst out laughing. It was almost more creepy than when he had been shouting at us. ‘Very well, children,’ he snorted between laughs, ‘run along now.’

We backed away from him. But then his beady eyes focused solely on me.

‘And you, Vania Thorn, come with me,’ he said, all trace of laughter gone.

The others stepped forward and stood around me as if forming a shield, but I meekly obeyed. ‘Yes, Mr Barrow.’

He turned on his heel, and after acknowledging the sympathetic looks from my coven I followed him down the hall, not sure where we were going until he turned right and stopped in front of the principal’s office.

My heart sank.

He knocked and I could hear Mrs Stinson’s faint but stern voice: ‘Enter.’

Mr Barrow opened the door and indicated with his head that I should go in ahead of him. I inched past him, doing