Can anyone here portal?
Ms. Marrow
Sorry, dear. Not me. Not after Mammoth Cave.
Arna Jean Claywell
portal? no one portals anymore
that’s old witch magic
Damn. I call Arna Jean.
She answers on the first ring. “Hey, I’m almost at my apartment. You seen my fool of a brother by chance? He was delivering mail in this chaos.”
“RJ, you shouldn’t be outside at all!” And her apartment doesn’t have a cellar. But even six years her senior, I’ve never been able to tell the Bookwitch what to do. “Can you meet me at Beulah’s house? You might get there faster. Lazlo—I think he went to see her.”
“Youthink? Are y’all trying that free-range parenting?”
“RJ!”
“Beulah isn’t even in town right now. She was taking Beauregard to visit y’all, before the storm got bad. I saw her at the shop, an hour ago, maybe? She came by to grab something sweet for Lazlo.”
Shit. If he’s not in town and he’s not at the Manor… Shit shit shit.
“Honey!”
“Yeah?” I squeak into the phone.
“I said, I think I know where your kid’s gone.”
I start the Dodge’s ignition and careen back the way I came. “I’m on the way.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
MONDAY, MAY 30 (STILL)
22 DAYS UNTIL THE SUMMER SOLSTICE
Honey’s Helpful Hint, from
Honey Frost’s Southern Cookbook for Recipes Gone Wrong:
A Warlock’s curse at three,
and the Devil’s fire at four,
but when the witchkind sing,
their hymns spell death at the door.
—“A Cautionary Rhyme for Young Warlocks”
I’m not sure where it all goes wrong.
One minute, the tornado is on the horizon, kissing the edge of the Holler.
The next, it’s shot through the town square and heading right for Knight Manor.
