street I stopped and turned around. He wasn’t following me. I took a deep breath. I felt worn out and sad. Maybe I had him all wrong.
There was one more person I needed to ask: Brenda. She would know what to do.
It took me half an hour to walk to the Purple Raven, and it was after nine p.m. by the time I arrived. The cafe was closed, but thankfully as I peered in the window I could see Brenda counting money at one of the tables. I knocked.
Minutes later I was sipping on a mug of hot chocolate and feeling a lot calmer. The money had been replaced on the table by Brenda’s tarot cards, and she was shuffling them slowly.
‘Let’s see if we can get a little clarity with these,’ she said.
She cut the deck into three piles. ‘Choose one.’
I pointed to the middle pile.
She moved the others to the side and started to turn over the cards of my chosen pile, one at a time, until five cards formed the shape of a cross.
Brenda looked up at me with her good eye while the glass one stayed fixed on the spread. ‘You have the Justice card at the centre, surrounded by the Nine of Swords, the Page of Coins and the Magician. And here at the bottom . . .’ she picked up the card carefully and presented it to me, ‘. . . you have Death.’
I shuddered at the grisly scene on the death card. It was a skeleton in a black hooded cape holding a giant scythe.
‘What does it all mean?’ I asked.
‘These cards mean you are correct in your assumptions. So your school teacher, Mr Barrow, probably does know something about the death of the woman.’
‘So he did kill her!’
Brenda held up her hand. ‘Wait, I didn’t say that. The cards are merely guides; there are no absolutes.’
‘What should I do?’
‘You should go to the police.’
‘I already have. I asked my father. He didn’t believe me, and he’s the police chief. Can’t we do a spell on Mr Barrow and force a confession out of him?’
‘Absolutely not!’ Brenda said sternly. ‘It would break the primary law of spell-casting, as you know. You can’t interfere with another’s free will.’
‘But this is for justice!’ I wailed.
‘Vania, no. And don’t take this into your own hands – it will only backfire.’
I slammed my mug down and stood up. The angry feeling was starting to churn deep in my stomach like a big black snake uncoiling.
‘What’s the point of being able to do spells if you’re never allowed to use them?’
‘Vania, please calm down!’ Brenda said in a firm voice.
‘No, I won’t calm down! If no one is going to help me, I’m going to do this myself!’
I stormed out of the cafe, back into the night. The snake was now writhing wildly inside me, and I knew what I had to do.
There was a lighter tinge to the sky tonight: a huge full moon floated in the sky. It was yellow like spoiled butter and looked ominous.
‘Perfect. Time to do some serious magic,’ I muttered under my breath.
Fourteen
I climbed through my bedroom window. Once inside I could hear my father on the phone. He was talking to another policeman about finding me. He’d probably called my friends, too. I needed to officially come home to stop them looking for me; then I could get what I needed and sneak out again. I slid back out through the window, and moments later I was knocking on the front door.
My mother opened it. ‘Vania, I was so worried! Your father was about to go in to work!’
‘I’m sorry, Mum, I know I overreacted. I went over to Bryce’s place.’
‘We called his parents. They said you weren’t there.’
‘I asked him not to tell them.’
My father appeared and promptly clipped me over the ear with his palm. I put my hand to my throbbing head.
‘You’re grounded, missy.’
The snake in my stomach twisted in fury, and I wanted to strike out and hit him right back, but I knew I had to play it smarter than that. ‘I’m sorry for running off, Dad.’
‘Get to your room.’
I slunk past both of them.
In my room, I got into bed and turned out the light. A few minutes later my mother appeared, silhouetted in the doorway.
‘Vania, we need to talk, but it’s too late now. Try to have a good sleep. Things will be clearer in the morning, I promise.’
‘Okay, Mum,’ I said in as