Page 8 of Spelling Disaster

She’s paying no attention to me.

Whether the vision was real or not, a glance at the clock at the front of the library shows me I’m officially twenty-one in five minutes.

“Happy birthday to me,” I whisper.

My head hangs heavy as I follow after Mom, the ticking getting louder and louder with each passing second.

No matter how many people I greet, or books I check out, I can’t shake the image I’ve seen from the book. Was it really a vision like I first thought? Or worse. A prophecy of what is to come?

My ears are ringing.

I’m reading too many far-fetched stories. The ringing in my ears almost seems like a warning that something is about to happen. The air thickens and I tense, an ache starting in my tightening chest.

Nothing about this day is unfolding the way I thought it would. Maybe I should have found a way to try and extend the spell to keep me in the Scottish Highlands with Seamus. At least then I’d be having fun rather than feeling like I’m one step ahead of my doom.

The ticking continues, louder than before and now it’s almost indistinguishable from the roar of my blood.

I help Mom make it through the line of avid readers, all of them stopping to wish me happy birthday before they leave for the ceremony. Or, as the last witch said,picking up something special before it’s time.

Somehow I manage a tight smile for each one of them until it’s only Mom and me alone in the library again.

She reaches beneath the desk to grab a placard and flips the light switch behind her on and off in rapid succession to let any stragglers know it’s time to get out.

I turn to her and say, “Since we’re alone, I want to talk to you about something.” My tongue feels three sizes too large and desert dry in my mouth. “Please. It’s important.”

“I’m sorry, honey, but it’s got to wait for another time. We’re heading to your ceremony.” She stops only to look around and narrow her eyes. “We’ve got to get Remi. Do you know where she is? You were supposed to go and get her.”

When? Before or after Mom wanted me to help her with the checkouts? I open my mouth to say exactly that when Remi shows up.

“I’m here, I’m here.” My sister rolls her eyes. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, okay, Mom?”

“You’re going to get lippy with me today, of all days, young lady?” Mom asks, her tone chilled in warning.

It’s the same song and dance as every other day with them. For some reason, I thought things might be different on my birthday, yet here we are with the tension thickening.

Remi flips her hair over her shoulder and cocks a hip, almost daring Mom to say something. About her, about me, about anything at all.

Mom finds something to complain about regardless of the circumstances. She finds fault with too many sunny days in a row. “All right, then. We’re all here.” Mom’s hands go to her own hips and she glances between the two of us with an expression sharp as a scalpel. “Let’s go.”

In her next breath she loops her arm through mine, practically dragging me away. The book is on the shelf somewhere behind me and yet I still hear the heartbeat in the stacks. In the foundation and the walls of the building.

When I glance over my shoulder one last time, the air in the library grows visibly foggy, and I know it isn’t my imagination. Smoke tendrils creep along the lines of the wood floor and around the tall stacks, climbing up toward the ceiling.

“Mom, there’s something wrong.” I shake my head and my ears grow warmer, like someone’s stuffed them full of cotton. “Do you see the fog? Why don’t you see it?”

“See what?” she asks.

Her voice clangs through me, at a distance even though she’s right in front of me.

The fog is more dense than regular smoke and it’s curling up the shelves with a mind of its own, thick and cloying. Reaching. Each step I take in the opposite direction has the strange ticking sounding louder, louder as the fog reaches for me.

Unbearable.

My stomach fills with heat.

A sense of wrongness invades every cell in my body and although I call out for Mom, for Remi, neither one of them hears me.

ChapterThree

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