Summer Sun's Arc

Chapter 6 of 15

Summer Sun watched Matilda's footprints fill with snow. A snort was not enough. The witch would come back with something worse, and Angela and Tracie and half the meadow creatures would pay for it. Summer Sun turned to Angela. "I'm done trying to cheer her up," she said. "We stop her instead." Angela stared. "Stop her how?" Summer Sun pointed at the abandoned iron pot, its green sludge frozen to the rim. "She can't brew without ingredients. And she can't brew without a place to brew." Tracie nodded slow. "Someone who knows old magic could tell us what she needs most." Angela's antennae twitched. "Granny Weatherby. She lives past the frozen brook. She kept the last witch out of these fields for forty years." They found the old woman in a sunlit barn, wrapped in a wool cardigan, her silver hair pinned up. Bees drowsed on the rafters despite the cold. Summer Sun explained the pot, the snow, the spells on Angela. Granny Weatherby listened and did not interrupt. When Summer Sun finished, the old woman set down her cup. "Matilda's big potion needs a raven feather," she said. "A cracked one, from a bird she's hunted three months. Without it, she can't finish. Take that, and her plans stall." "Where is it?" Summer Sun asked. Granny Weatherby smiled. "In her cottage. On a hook by the door. She keeps her rage imp chained beside it." Angela shivered. Tracie pulled her vest tight. Summer Sun thought of the little red creature snarling on its leash, all teeth and hot breath. "We go now," Summer Sun said. "Before she gets back." They crossed the woods in the falling snow. Matilda's cottage sat crooked among brambles, the door ajar. The imp was chained to a post inside, straining and hissing. Summer Sun stepped past it, close to the wall, her back to the wood. The dark feather hung on an iron hook, its edges split with fine cracks. She lifted it down. The imp lunged. The chain snapped taut an inch from her sleeve. Angela grabbed her arm and pulled her out the door. They ran until the cottage was out of sight. Summer Sun tucked the feather into her jacket and led them back to the warm barn. Granny Weatherby took the feather, wrapped it in linen, and dropped it into a jar of honey. "She won't find it here," the old woman said. "And she can't brew the control potion without it. Your creatures stay their own." Angela let out a long breath. Tracie sat down on a hay bale. Summer Sun looked out at the snow still falling on the fields. The thermometer was still stuck. The weather was still wrong. And Matilda would come home to an empty hook and a laughing memory, and she would come for them next. But her big spell was dead. That much was done.