Ed felt the power of more witches as two cars climbed the hill to the house, one a half mile behind the first. The Everhart twins had arrived and another witch followed. The first vehicle stopped, the engine went silent, and the ginger-haired identical Everharts joined him at thehedge.
“Oh dear,” Cia said quietly, the taste of aseeingworking on the air as they studied the frozen ward. “I had hoped Shaddock was mistaken about an emergency.”
Puffing with exertion, the children reached thehedge. “Hey, Ant Liz and Ant Cia,” EJ said, waving. Angie straightened her nightclothes and made sure her brother and the dog were wrapped in the blanket they had dragged with them, patting the basset hound and her brother equally.
Liz raked short red hair back from her face and said, “EJ. Angie, is there some reason you called a vampire instead of family?” Her tone was carefully calm, but a defensive scowl lit Angie’s face, one so like her mother’s that Edmund smiled.
“The attack isn’t witch magic,” Angie said, her tone unapologetic. “It’s animal or something else and I didn’t want you to get bit by a werewolf or something.”
“Big teefs to eat you with!” EJ said happily.
“Ah,” Liz said, still composed. “Next time, please call us too.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Angie said, but she transferred her antagonism to the vehicle parking beside theirs. “Who’s that?”
“Melodie?” Cia called in surprise as a dark-haired witch emerged from the car.
“Mama said not to talk to people I don’t know.”
“Angie,” Liz said sharply. “Manners.” But Angie’s scowl grew worse as the third witch approached.
Melodie said, “I’m sure the child has been through a lot tonight. I’m Melodie Joy Custer-Luckett from the Custer witch clan, Angie. I’m renting a room from your aunt Elizabeth while I finish a course at the university.” She added, “I was studying late and saw you rush off, Liz. I’m a paramedic. I thought I should follow.”
Angie regarded the three women, her mouth turned down. Edmund prepared himself for what she might say.
Angie’s suspicion remained but she said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miz Melodie.”
She elbowed her brother and he pulled a slobbery finger out of his mouth to say, “Pweasure meet you.” And stuck his finger back in his mouth.
“Edmund,” the little girl said, her formal tenor returning, “Ant Liz, Ant Cia, Miz Melodie, we must break the ward and save my mama and my daddy. And KitKit.”
“Breaking an Everhart ward will be difficult,” Melodie said.
Liz and Cia nodded, but Angie’s eyes narrowed at Melodie’s words. Edmund had come to trust the child’s discernment. His senses went on alert.
—
There was nothing obviously wrong with her, but Angie didn’t like the strange witch being here.
“Sissy, I havta peepee,” EJ whispered. “And I’m hungwy and cold.”
“We’ll be free soon,” Angie said, hoping she wasn’t lying. She wrapped George in the blanket too, to give EJ some heat. George promptly fell asleep, drooling on EJ’s leg.
The grown-ups discussed the “situation,” as they called it, and looked at the pictures she had sent Edmund. Ant Liz said, “Tell me what happened, Angie Baby, and very carefully, walk me through what you did to make such a strong ward.”
“I messed up,” she admitted. Angie described what had happened, emphasizing the colors of the magical working and EJ piping in with its sound—a drum beating slowly.
“You twined the magics together,” Ant Cia said, her tone worried, one hand smoothing her braid over her shoulder.
“Yes,” Angie said. “It’s what Mama and Daddy do to our magics when they bind ’em so we can’t use ’em.”
“And you can see the magics? The energies they use to bind you?” Miz Melodie asked.
“It’s why it’s so easy to get out. But this is different. Mama and Daddy and KitKit are all frozen.”
Ant Liz asked the others, “Could she have triggered a temporal disengagement?”
“Or a temporal deactivation,” Cia said.
