Immediately, she jumped back, as if I’d hit her with a baseball bat, and let me go. She began fumbling around, clutching her face, screaming high-pitched wails like a siren. Her voice got louder and louder, until I had to cover my ears.
Others in the room did the same; I even saw guards drop their weapons as they brought their hands to their ears.
Everyone was in agony.
The witch dropped to her knees, hands scratching all over her face. Then she fell forward. Her face was bubbling so that it hardly even resembled a face anymore, just oozing red-and-purple sores, growing and bursting and spreading from where the salt water had made impact. The fizzing spreading down her neck onto her shoulders and arms and hands.
Normally this would’ve made me sick, but that witch tried to kill me.
Her head turned up to the sky like a wolf about to howl. There was one last window-shattering shriek before it ended, leaving only the reverberating echo hovering in the air.
The witch slumped to the ground.
Almost instantly, the room erupted into chaos. People ran toward me. Others ran for one another and hugged. Some gathered their skirts up in their arms and went right out the door.
The Sirena guards looked around, confused and disoriented. It appeared they’d been under her spell all along, unable to fight. Two of them rushed to the witch, or what remained of her. One of them kicked at the pile of fabric with his foot.
Something moved; the guard jumped back and held out his sword, prepared to fight. The mound of fabric wiggled more. Others noticed what was happening and froze on the spot, worried the mambabarang was about to rise again.
The movement intensified suddenly, almost like it was about to boil over, and then as quickly as it began, it stopped. The pile became very still once more, before a swarming mass of blackbeetles burst out from underneath, scattering in every direction while onlookers screamed and jumped on chairs to avoid them.
The bugs disappeared underneath the walls and fled through windows and doorways. The guard took his sword and lifted what was left of the witch’s clothes. All that remained was a pile of ashes.
36
“How did youknow water would harm the mambabarang?” Nix asked me as the healers tended to her and Lucas’s injuries.
We’d been ushered to my chambers while the guards took care of the mess downstairs. Jinky was pale, and Ayo kept fetching everyone snacks, but no one felt like eating. Elias hovered anxiously.
“It doesn’t,” Lucas chimed in. “So this seems like a good time to ask: What exactly happened back there?”
“It wasn’t plain water. When the witch wasn’t looking, I slipped my anting-anting in it so the salt would dissolve. Since it repels evil, I figured that would be a better weapon than the small stone alone.” What would’ve happened if my mother hadn’t given me the amulet?
Lucas and Nix looked at each other. “What do you mean?” Lucas asked me.
I was confused. There was no plainer way to say it. “Like I said, I put the salt stone in the water glass, and once it dissolved, I splashed it on the witch. So it would harm her even more.”
“An anting-anting.” It felt like a question, but Lucas said it as a statement.
“Yes. I got it from my mom. It was my father’s. Why? What’s the problem?”
“An anting-anting doesn’t dissolve in water,” Elias said. “It’s made of salt crystal, yes, but it’s hardened crystal, like a diamond. It doesn’t dissolve in water.”
“Maybe there was something else. Did you put anything else in the water? Recite a spell?” Lucas asked me.
I shook my head.
They stared at me.
Then Nix smiled. “I think you discovered your talent,” she said.
I doubted that. “What do you mean? I just put the anting-anting in water.” Not very exciting.
“No. The water didn’t dissolve the anting-anting,” Nix insisted. “Youdid.”
Elias put his hands up, as if to say,Stop.“What do you mean,discoveredyour talent?” he demanded.
“Nix is right,” Lucas said, nudging me with his elbow. “You made that happen, because you willed it.”
