Free Once a Witch by Carolyn MacCullough Page B

point toward the painting on the wall.
    “Forget about this piece of paper. What if I want to find the clock in the painting?” ”Somehow, I knew you were going to say that” Gabriel sighs and leans back away from me.
    “And what if I want to go with you?” And now I'm holding my breath, too afraid of what he'll answer.
    “Whoa! Who said that I would even go in the first place?”
    “Please” I wedge my feet on the bottom stairs.
    “I know we're not supposed to tamper with time or whatever the rule is, but–”Gabriel's brows twist.
    “It's not just that,” he says in a way that makes me think he cares little about breaking rules.
    “It's dangerous. I've read enough about time to know that it's not a good idea to mess with it on the whole.”
    “What if we were really, really careful? And we did it just this once. And no one has to know, right?” Inwardly, I imagine the looks on my mother's and grandmother's and Rowena's faces when I bring home the payment that Alistair will give me after finding his clock. I could drop the money onto the table.
    What's this? Oh, just a little something that a customer gave me after I–The stairway creaks a little as if weighing in and I jump. Thankfully Gabriel doesn't seem to notice. He's too busy staring off at the painting.
    “You know,” Gabriel says thoughtfully,
    “my mom never really explained that rule to me anyway. It was one of those conversations that we had to have on the down low,and my dad came home in the middle of it and we never picked it up again.”
    “And no one's ever explained it to me, either. I mean, why would they bother?” I say, making my face as innocent as possible. Gabriel puts one finger to his chin in an overly thoughtful pose.
    “So no one's actually forbidden us to do this or explained why it would be a particularly bad idea?”
    “Nope” I shake my head sorrowfully.
    “No one.” We grin at each other, and suddenly he stands up and pulls me to my feet. Off balance, I rock close to him for a minute. Close enough to learn that he smells like clean laundry. His hands linger on my arms a second and I try to step back, but he tightens his grip.
    “Do you really want to do this?” His voice is low and all traces of his grin are gone. I nod.
    “Do you promise me that if we do this, you won't touch anything? That you will follow my lead at all times?” I would salute but he's pinning my arms to my side, so I settle for nodding again. But Gabriel looks unconvinced, so finally I say,
    “Yes, I promise.”
    “Okay” He releases me and steps back to study the painting again.
    Surreptitiously, I rub my arms. I can't help but stare at him. He looks so intense, so determined and otherworldly, that I'm having a hard time rememberingthat this is the person who used to play sock puppets with me when he was six and I was four. Then he turns, holds out his hand. I give him mine, feeling the strong close of his fingers.
    “You ready?” No! I want to say suddenly. And by the way, will it hurt? I want to ask. As if I've spoken out loud, Gabriel gives my hand a little shake.
    “We don't have to do this, you know.”
    “I want to,” I answer.
    “I really want to.” He nods, looking back at the painting. He closes his eyes, so I close mine, too. All of a sudden I have that feeling you get on a roller coaster, just at the moment when the car has inched all the way up to the highest peak of the track and is poised, waiting to plummet and hurl down, down, down.
    Then everything shifts and swirls past me and I feel as if I'm standing in the ocean, the sand beneath my feet disappearing under my heels, leaving me balanced on air. My eyes snap open. Focus, I think desperately, clinging to Gabriel, the bones of his hand solid and real. I concentrate on watching the shadows skim across the hardwood floors to pool in the corners of the foyer. A breeze is coming in from somewhere. There must be a window open and now it's making the candlelight flicker and