She smiled broadly. "Excellent! Now, just come with me and--"
"Wait, wait, wait," I said, holding a hand to my head. "You're telling me that you're the ghost of my great-grandmother?"
That irritated look again. "Yes."
"So what are you doing here? Why have you been following me?"
"I haven't been following you," she answered hotly. "I've been appearing to you. You weren't ready for me before, but now you are. I've worked very hard to get to you, Sophia. Now, can we please stop all this chattering and get down to business?"
I let her drag me away, mostly because I was afraid she might zap me if I didn't, but also because I was genuinely curious. How many people get pulled out of bed by their great-grandmother's ghost?
We walked away from Hecate and down the steep hill toward the greenhouse. I wondered if she was taking me there for training, but when we arrived, she veered off toward the left and pulled me into the woods.
I'd never been in the forest that surrounded Hecate, and for very good reason: it was spooky as hell. And of course it was doubly so at night. I stepped on a rock in my bare feet and winced. When something soft brushed against my cheek, I gave a little shriek.
I heard Alice murmur a few words, and suddenly a large orb of light appeared in front of us, bright enough that I had to shade my eyes. Alice muttered under her breath, and the orb jerked upward as if someone had it on a string. It floated away until it was about ten feet over our heads, casting light in all directions.
You would think that the light would make the woods less creepy, but actually it was worse. Now shadows moved across the ground, and I caught the occasional flash of animal eyes. We came across a dry creek bed, and to my surprise, Alice leaped nimbly into it. I followed, a lot less gracefully, tripping on loose soil and cursing.
If I'd thought the woods were spooky, they had nothing on the dry creek. Rocks were sharp against my bare feet, and it seemed that everywhere
I looked, there were dark hollows and exposed roots that looked like the entrails of some giant animal. In the end I just grabbed Alice's hand and kept my eyes shut until we came to an abrupt stop.
I opened my eyes and immediately wished I hadn't.
In front of me was a small wrought-iron fence flecked with rust.
Behind the fence were six gravestones. Four were slightly crooked and covered in moss, but the other two stood straight and were as white as bone.
The gravestones were unsettling enough, but it was the other thing in this tiny graveyard that had my heart in my stomach, and the metallic taste of fear in my mouth.
The statue was about eight feet high, maybe a little taller. It was an angel carved in light gray stone, its wings spread wide. They were so finely carved you could make out every feather. Likewise, the angel's robes seemed to ripple and float in a nonexistent wind. In one hand it held a sword. The hilt was carved out of the same stone as the rest of the statue, but the blade was some sort of dark glass, which shone brightly in the light from the orb. The angel's other hand was held out in front of it, palm forward, as if it were warning others to stay back. The look on its face was one of such stern authority that it would have put Mrs. Casnoff to shame.
The angel was very familiar to me, and I realized with a start that it was the same one depicted in the stainedglass window at Hecate. The angel that cast out the Prodigium.
"What . . ." I broke off and cleared my throat. "What is this place?"
Alice was gazing up at the angel with a faint smile. "A secret," she answered.
I shivered and pulled my blazer tighter around me. I wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but there was a steely look on her face that told me I probably wouldn't get an answer. Hadn't the brochure said that one of
Hecate's big rules was to never go into the woods? I'd just assumed the woods were dangerous or something.
But maybe it had been more than that.
The wind picked up, rattling the leaves and making my teeth chatter.
Why hadn't I thought to grab shoes, I wondered as I rubbed one numb foot on top of the other.
"Here," Alice said, pointing to my feet. They tickled for a moment, and as I watched, my feet were suddenly encased first in wooly white socks and then in my favorite pair of fuzzy red slippers. Slippers that, as far as I knew, were still sitting in the bottom of my closet in Vermont.
"How did you do that?"
But Alice just smiled mysteriously.
And then without warning she whipped her hand through the air.
I felt a heavy blow right in my chest that knocked me off my feet. I hit the ground with a startled, "Oomph!"
Sitting up, I glared at her. "What was that?"
"That," she said sharply, "was a ridiculously simple attack spell that you should have been able to block."
I stared at her in shock. It was one thing to get laid out by Archer in
Defense, but being attacked out of nowhere by my great-grandmother was just embarrassing.
"How could I have blocked it when I had no idea you were going to do that?" I fired back.
Alice walked over to me and offered her hand to pull me up. I didn't take it, mainly because I was pissed, but also because Alice looked like she weighed about ninety pounds, and I thought I'd probably end up pulling her down with me.
"You should have been able to sense that I was going to do that, Sophia. Someone with power as great as yours can always anticipate an attack."
"What is this?" I asked, dusting the dirt and pine needles of my now-
sore butt. "A Star Wars thing? I was supposed to 'sense a disturbance in the
Force'?"
Now it was Alice's turn to blink in confusion.
"Forget it," I mumbled. "Anyway, if you've been watching me at all over the past six weeks, you've probably picked up on the fact that I don't have any 'great power.' I'm like, the least powerful witch here. Clearly, the awesome family superpowers passed this gal by."
Alice shook her head. "No they didn't. I can feel it. Your powers are every bit as great as mine. You just don't know how to use them yet. That's why I'm here. To help you sharpen and mold them. To prepare you for the role you must play."
I looked up at her. "So you're like, my own personal Mr. Miyagi?"
"I have no idea what that means."
"Sorry, sorry. I'll try to stop with the pop culture references. What do you mean the role I must play?"
Alice looked at me like I was stupid. And in her defense, I felt pretty stupid.
"Head of the Council."
"Okay, why would I want that?" I asked with small laugh. "I know nothing about Prodigium, and I'm a crappy witch."
The wind caught my hair, blowing it into my mouth and eyes.
Through the strands covering my face, I saw Alice flick her hand toward me.
My hair swept back from my face and gathered itself into a bun on top of my head. It was so tight my eyes watered.
"Sophia," Alice said in the tone used to placate a tantrum-throwing toddler, "you only think you're crappy."
The word "crappy" sounded ridiculously classy in Alice's cut-glass accent, and I had to smile a little. I guess she saw that as a good sign, because she took my hand. Her skin was soft and ice-cold to the touch.
"Sophia," she said in a softer voice, "you're incredibly powerful.
You're just at a disadvantage because you've been raised by a human. With the right training and guidance, you could put those other girls--what do you and your half-breed friend call them? 'The Witches of Noxema'?"
"Jenna's not a half-breed," I said quickly, but she ignored me. "You could be far, far more powerful than any of them. And I can show you how."
"But why?" I asked.
She smiled in that enigmatic way again and patted my arm. Even though I knew Alice had died at eighteen, which made her just two years older than me, there was something very grandmotherly in her touch. And after a lifetime of having just Mom as family, it felt nice.