Page 31 of The Accidental Witch

What the hell was going on?

Then, like the days when TVs went staticky when the station signed off for the night, a patch of air became fuzzy, then an image appeared in front of her.

Squinting, Robbie looked closer as a woman with ringlets of platinum blonde hair spilling over her shoulders blipped in and out, as though someone kept trying to tune the channel.

Oddly, Robbie wasn’t afraid. At least this vision—or whatever it was—wouldn’t haunt her dreams the way that skeleton had.

“Who are you?” she asked, getting a better glimpse as the woman faded in and out. She held a hat in her hands, a witch’s hat, with a long, tattered tail of tulle and black lace around the band, topped with a dried yellow daisy. Her porcelain skin glowed as her image crackled and snapped, her willowy body wavering, flickering.

Robbie held her breath as the woman opened her crimson mouth and held out a hand, her face stricken with pain—and then she screamed, so loud it made her eardrums shake.

“Ruuuun!” she bellowed, high-pitched and keening, pointing her finger over Robbie’s shoulder. “Ruuuunnn, Robbie!”

As in now?

“Ruuuunnnn!” she howled as she began to melt.

Eyes wide, her heart in her throat, Robbie tried to stop her from fading away, reaching her hands out. “Wait!” she criedout, her voice hoarse from the heat and the sand in her mouth. “How do you know who I am? Who are you? What am I running from?”

The final time, she opened her mouth and hurled the words at Robbie so hard it almost felt as if they’d slapped her in the face. Pointing her finger over Robbie’s shoulder, she bellowed, “Get out! Ruuuunnn!”

Her form lingered but another moment before she was gone, and then the screech of…something…something that couldn’t be of this world, rang out in the dark. The ground beneath her feet vibrated, the heat of this unknown place growing hotter by the second.

So Robbie ran. She ran as fast as she knew how to run, even if she’d always been the first one to tap out in Mrs. Warkowski’s fifth-grade gym class when they ran laps.

Sweat poured down her face, pooling between her breasts as she ran into the abyss, still unable to see anything. The origin-unknown, disembodied voice screamed behind her, roaring, the sound of feet crashing against the ground, sending up dust and leaving her coughing and sputtering.

Robbie pumped her legs as hard and as fast as she ever had, tearing forward into the dark until her legs felt as though they weren’t even a part of her body anymore.

Gasping for breath, her chest heaving, her hair dripping with sweat, Robbie lost her footing, stumbling over a mound of sand, falling to the ground.

The sand grabbed at her as she rolled down what felt like a huge hill, twisting and turning until she became so dizzy, she gagged.

Unable to stop herself, all she could think to do was wrap her hands around her knees, pulling them up to her chest as she barreled forward.

The screams from whatever chased her, coming from something she still couldn’t see, were closer and closer until it was breathing down her neck, it’s hot exhales raspy and angry.

It was then she, too, finally screamed, a harsh sound tearing from her throat, a hand reaching behind her to push this monster away…when she realized her mitt was missing.

But Robbie slapped at the fiery breath anyway, the heavy gasps sending spikes of heat along her spine. Now would probably be the time to summon a spell, but in her terror—her complete, all-encompassing terror—she didn’t even know what spell would help.

As her mind raced, her left hand took over, bending at the wrist, her fingers coming together and snapping apart. Almost as if she didn’t have control of it anymore, as though it belonged to someone else entirely.

Fire shot from her digits like talons, clawing at the invisible beast as it rode her back. Utter revulsion welled in her throat as her fingers raked over its scaly flesh, tearing at it until it hollered in god-awful pain.

Without warning, words shot from her mouth—words she’d never heard before in all the lessons Greer had given her.

“Leave this world, leave me be! Away to whence you came, away now, set me freeee!” As the words flew from her mouth, in a voice she didn’t recognize as her own, she felt something nudge her belly, sliding under her.

“Hold onto me, Robbiieee! Hold tight!”

Hervé!

Without thought, she latched onto his handle, wrapping her legs around it and clinging. Scrunching her eyes shut, much the way she did when she was on a plane taking off, she gripped Hervé’s handle, her stomach bottoming out as they shot off into the dark with a speed so fierce, her cheeks flapped and stretched.

A small peek told her everything around her had evaporated, the black night swallowing them whole as Hervé burst forward so fast, it felt like they’d been shot through a cannon. She fought a scream, hunching down on the handle until her back screamed, keeping her eyes closed tight.

Hervé came to a screeching halt, sliding to the ground and drifting sideways in the cold snow like he was sliding into home base.

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