I picked up the book, closed it, and locked X inside nice and tight with a spell.
Nancy stared at me, wide-eyed.
“I think you just turned my young adult series into horror,” she said.
“Oops. Sorry! I can fix it.”
“Don’t apologize,” she said. “I liked it!”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Well, I suppose we can’t end a Nancy Drew book without a Nancy Drew ending, can we? Time to skip ahead and tie everything up with a neat little bow.
Six months have now passed and everything is back to normal.
That was a lie. Everything is still very weird. But I am writing this case file in April, six months after the end of my adventure, so I do have a little perspective now.
To begin with, I still haven’t told Carson Drew that he’s my father. The spell Dr. Fanshawe put on him remains intact. But I visit often. He treats me like a daughter and doesn’t mind at all that I call him Dad. In fact, I can tell he likes it.
Nancy visits me in the real world under the guise of Penny Nichols, apprentice Book Witch. With the umbrella my mother gave her, she can slip easily and safely between her books and our world for day trips. Although I’d love to live with her and our father in River Heights, we have to keep our visits short enough that we don’t inadvertently rewrite over six hundred Nancy Drew books. But whenever we’re together, she tells me stories about my mother, which I think Mom would’ve liked. Mom was a Book Witch, after all. She would’ve been honored to be a story.
As for Dr. Fanshawe…a day after the end of this adventure, the Ink and Paper Coven met in the Words, Words, Words stockroom.Dr.Fanshawe was stripped of her leadership position and sentenced to ten years of the very worst sort of grunt work—removing price stickers from used books.
I don’t feel sorry for her. Yes, she was just doing her job, and yes she did have to clean up the mess my mother had made of the Nancy Drew series. But she knew the whole time that I was half-fictional and kept it a secret from me. It’s only fair she smell like Goo Gone for the rest of her natural life.
Professor Dodsworth threw his umbrella into the running for her position but came up one vote short. With the tiebreaker vote cast by “Penny,” Pops became the new Coven leader. To Penny’s surprise and delight, his first act was to instate Penny as a full-fledged Book Witch. His second act was to allow a little wiggle room into the Black and Whites. I’m happy to report that Pen and Ink Book Witches are now allowed to befriend—and fall in love with—fictional characters as long as it doesn’t affect any existing books, which left open a very useful loophole. A loophole I took advantage of the very next day…
—
I knocked onMedda Baker’s door, and when she opened it, she gasped with delight.
“Rainy! Who is that?”
I held a small black cat out to her.
“I don’t know,” I said as she took the cat into her arms. “I haven’t named her. That’s your job.”
Medda cradled the cat to her shoulder. “Rainy, you’re so sweet, but I can’t take in another cat. I…I might not be here next year. I…I’ve been having some health scares.”
“I know,” I said. “But Pops and I promise we’ll help out. And if, for any reason, something happens to you, I’ll take her back. Koshka wouldn’t mind a friend.”
Medda kissed the flat spot between the cat’s ears, the landing pad for kisses. “Thank you, Rainy. I’ll name her Agatha.”
“Don’t thank me yet. That cat isn’t a gift. She’s a bribe.”
Medda’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“You said you were retired from writing,” I said. “Would you mindun-retiring?”
She pursed her lips and glared at me. “You want me to finish that Duke of Chicago book Tom Hightower left behind.”
“If you don’t mind,” I said with a painful grin.
“If I say no?”
“I’m taking Agatha back.”
Her mouth fell open.”You wouldn’t!”
