Page 77 of The Magic We Made

“Not if they cast a glamour spell.” I’m already striding toward the front door.

“Awhat?” Troy wails.

“A spell that changes how they’re perceived by others. A glamour would hide them and their campsite.”

“Excuse me.” Frankie has followed us into the front hallway, with her sister and Dina close behind. “Can we all just take a breath?”

“Yeah, I don’t know where you think you’re going.” Angie is glaring at her husband. For once she and her sister seem to agree on something. “You can’t just go after a bunch of witches by yourselves.”

“Why not?” Troy has pulled his jacket from Mrs. Giovanni’s coatrack and is shrugging his arms into it.

“Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s nighttime already. How are you going to find them in the dark?”

“Easy.” Troy’s jaw is set determinedly. “It’s gotten cold out. They’ll have built a campfire to stay warm—”

“The glamour will hide it,” Dina warns. She’s texting furiously. “Unless the fire gets out of hand. I’ll contact Jessica and Esther. They can help me cast a binding spell—”

“Oh my God, you can’t just go busting in on a cult!” Frankie cries. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that can be? Let the police do it.”

“And us.” Troy has pulled on his Department of Fish and Wildlife cap. “I’ll call the boys right now. They can meet us there withJackie and her guys.” He pauses for a moment. “Maybe they’ll finally let us use the swift water rescue boats...”

Angie is looking horrified. “Are you even listening to Dina? Those girls arewitches.And from the sound of it, not the good kind.”

“Yeah, and they’re trespassing onmynature preserve,” Troy says. “What are you so worried they’re going to do to me anyway, pelt me with eye of newt and toadstools?”

“That’s the least they’ll do to you if they have the witch’s bone.” Dina is standing by the front door, her cell phone casting her face in a ghostly glow. She glances up from the screen, her gaze troubled. “It says here that over a thousand years ago the primordial mother goddess, Gaia, blessed Satan’s Seat—which was then used as a sacred altar by people native to this part of Connecticut—but accidentally left behind her witch’s bone. Paranormal investigators as well as many in the witch community believe that it is the ancient magic from this bone that has manifested so many paranormal occurrences in West Harbor, and made it the spiritual destination for witches that it is today.”

Frankie and her siblings look confused—and no wonder. Whoever heard of a witch’s bone?

Except for me. I have. Though I wish I hadn’t.

“What the hell is a witch’s bone?” Troy demands.

“‘She who is in possession of the witch’s bone,’” Dina continues to read out loud from her phone, “‘holds virtually unlimited power. Formed from the bone of a black cat, this ancient talisman grants its possessor with uncanny gifts and abilities, including invisibility, shapeshifting, controlling the weather, and flying.’”

Dina’s voice begins to tremble as she goes on, “‘Should a witch’sbone fall into the hands of her enemy, and that enemy makes a sacrifice of human blood, she will become endowed with all of the witch’s powers, and thus be able to destroy her... as well as any others who attempt to stand in her way.’”

Shit.

Emma

Something is happening. I don’t understand what, exactly.

Haley told us all along that finding the bone was key. “Anyone who holds the witch’s bone,” she kept saying, “holds the witch’s power.”

So now that she has Gaia’s witch’s bone, Haley can control Gaia—and the whole world, basically.

So why does Haley care so much that Trina had a phone?

“It doesn’t make any sense,” I whisper to Bella as we pile leaves and branches beneath the Seat.

Haley wants to have the biggest bonfire of the year, for which I’m grateful since the temperature has dropped, like, twenty degrees, and I didn’t bring any winter or fall clothes with me.

But all of the wood is still wet from the rain the other day, so I don’t know how well this fire is going to turn out.

“Even if Trinadidreveal our location to someone, Haley could just use the bone to keep us invisible, right?” I shake my head. “So I don’t get what the big deal is.”

“I don’t either.” Bella is busy scraping together another armload of sodden leaves for kindling. “But I’m not about to ask. I don’t want to end up like Trina.”