Page 10 of Bewitched By the Wicked Witch
I could almost forgive Cosmo. Almost.
"You're the only one," I muttered, but my lips twitched at the corners as I held back a grin of my own.
"Tell me everything," I said, settling at my desk. "And I mean everything. When they disappeared, where they were last seen, who they were with."
I turned to the front of my desk, where six monitors lit up across the sleek white glass. I tossed my satchel down and leaned back into my chair, letting it mold to my body. The coffee was lukewarm, but I drank it anyway. Not a curse to be found.
Paige's relief was palpable as she sank into the chair across from me. "You believe me?"
"I've seen the signs," I said grimly. "Someone's hunting us, Paige. And from the way people have been looking at me lately, I think they're planning to pin it all on the town's resident wicked witch."
I sighed and then chucked the empty cup into the waste bin. I looked over at Paige, who folded in on herself. All signs of her earlier brief happiness were gone. Her hands rubbed her denim jeans before she looked around as if she'd never been here before. It was then that the dark circles under her eyes became apparent.
"Paige, what's really going on?" I asked. "You're more worried than you're letting on."
She nodded slowly. "It's the way they disappeared. Each girl was last seen alone, late at night. Bev was walking home from her job at the bookstore. Ashlynn was coming back from the library. They weren't running away, Sage. Someone took them."
"Are all the other girls mixed species like Bev?" I asked, my eyes narrowing as the wheels in my head turned.
Paige nodded. "All of them."
That explained why Paige was friends with them. She was also of shifter descent. Rumor had it that it muddled the witch's blood and abilities, though there was very little evidence to support that claim. The shifters were a relatively new addition to our community, just about three generations back. Since then, they had intermingled and married into the witch community, becoming an important part of Old Hollows.
Still, there were those who resented their addition to the town. I knew that other paranormal towns had many different types of paranormals—fairies, sirens, banshees, vampires, demons, and giants. Not Old Hollows. It had been strictly a witch-only community for more than 300 years.
Some witch-only towns outside Old Hollows still barred other paranormals, desperate to keep their bloodlines "pure." Gran called them bigots. But those places were fading. Progressive leaders were rising, overturning segregation laws one by one.
I was proud to say that Gran had come up with the idea of introducing shifters all those years ago, back when she was the undisputed head of the town council. She had stepped down a few years back, and Reid Bishop, the Bishop family leader, had taken over.
Gran had hoped I would step into a position on the council and help to open the town to more paranormals, but the way the town viewed me and ostracized me for my magic meant it would never happen. They would never allow me on the council, and Gran couldn't lead it forever.
Town rules said only a founding family member couldlead the council. Gran held the role for over two hundred years before stepping down. They elected Reid, and within a few years, he'd undone everything she'd built for the shifter community. Shifters lost their council seats, their rights chipped away. Hope for change faded fast. Some started leaving.
Gran didn't say it, but I knew it hurt her when I wasn't everything she hoped I'd be. She never mentioned it, but the pain that I couldn't carry on her work was evident in the sadness in her gaze every time she looked at me.
Now half-shifter witches were missing, and things did not look good. But I said none of this to Paige, because Paige descended from a shifter grandfather. Her relation to us, the Blackstones, was the only thing keeping her from having to live in what they considered the shifter slums, a trailer park just outside town but still within the magical boundary.
I thought back to the rune on the wall outside Hexes and Brews, that dread churning within me once again. This symbol seemed more connected than I'd like, but try as I might, I still couldn't remember where I'd seen it before.
A memory flickered at the edge of my consciousness, papers scattered across my father's desk the week before the accident. I'd been eight, bored, wandering into his study while he was at a council meeting. Strange symbols covered the documents, circles with intersecting lines that had made my young magic recoil instinctively. When I'd asked him about them later, he'd gone pale and quickly gathered the papers away.
"Just old historical research, little star," he'd said, using his pet name for me. "Nothing for you to worry about."
But his hands had been shaking as he locked the papers in his desk drawer. And three days later, he and my mother were dead in what Gran insisted was just a terrible car accident on the mountain road.
I shook my head, but the memory wouldn't leave me alone this time. My parents had been researchers, historians fascinated by Old Hollows' past. What if those symbols weren't just historical research? What if they'd discovered something about the town's darker secrets—something that connected to these disappearances?
The thought sent ice through my veins. My parents' deaths had never sat right with me, but Gran had always shut down any questions. "Some things are better left buried, little star," she'd say whenever I brought it up.
But maybe it was time to dig up the past.
"The question is," I said, pulling up local news on my computer, "who's really behind this? And why are they targeting girls like you?"
The screen filled with search results—missing persons reports, council statements, and buried deep in the local forums, whispers about ‘cleansing’ the bloodlines and ‘returning to the old ways.’
A chill ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the underground lair's temperature. This wasn't random. This was organized, purposeful, and aimed directly at witches like Paige and me.
I studied Paige closely before speaking, my voice soft but firm. "Go to school, Paige, but be careful, and I'll pick you up today." I connected to Cosmo through our bondas she stood, her worry no less diminished as she headed toward the elevator door. Her shoulders slumped. "Can you let Cosmo out on your way?"
