Free The Hex Breaker's Eyes by Shaun Tennant Page A

complains all the time that Mason beats
him up. I bet that bullying stopped when Mason was busy with a
girlfriend. I bet he only started beating Matty up again after Dina
ripped his heart out.”
    I nod. “And if
a weirdo like Matty blames Dina for his brother beating him up,
then Matty might hex Dina out of spite.”
    “Exactly. I can
tell he’s got the candles, and his bookshelves seem to be full of
old occult books. I bet he could pull of this hex easily. I think
Matty Charles is our witch.” Marlene seems pretty proud of her
detective skills, and I have to agree, she’s come up with a pretty
good suspect.
    “But why hex
Dina, why not hex Mason?” I wonder.
    “Maybe he’s
afraid to,” she says. “I don’t have an older brother but I bet if a
gigantic guy like Mason beat you up on a daily basis that could get
pretty intimidating.” She’s quiet for a second, before her head
snaps up and she looks at me again.
    “Wait, did you
say Wayne has the black feathers?”
     
     
10

Thursday,
November 15
     
    The big student
council debate (which isn’t really a debate; it’s just each of the
four people running taking turns giving speeches) is going to be
held in fifth period today. That gives us time during lunch to
track down Matty and see if the little nerd will give us some
answers.
    The last time
we wanted some information out of Matty, Tam and I were enough to
intimidate him into talking. This time, we’re looking for a
confession, so all four of us—myself, Tam, Ryan, and Marlene—are
all going to corner Matty and press him for answers about his black
candles.
    We converge on
Matty’s corner of the caf’, all four of us looking serious and
intimidating. Matty is playing his card game with the same friend
as the last time we came to speak to him.
    “Hey Matt, can
we talk to you a minute?” asks Ryan.
    “Who are you?”
he responds.
    “How about you
get out in the hallway and talk to us or I get really loud and
embarrass you?” threatens Tam. “Did you say you’re coming out of
the closet?” she says, her voice getting louder.
    Matty looks
baffled, but he caves to her demand and walks with us to a quiet
section of the hallway, leaving his friend behind.
    “What do you
want?” he asks, looking at me. “Are you, like, stalkers now?”
    I can’t really
think of something to say. Should I just tell the kid I can see
hexes? That doesn’t sound completely insane, does it?
    “I have a
question for you,” says Tam. Thank God for Tam, she’s always happy
to play the role of bad cop. “Why do you have the black
candles?”
    “What?”
    “On your
Facebook, you seem to light black candles all the time.”
    “You’re on my
Facebook?” Matty asks. “I’m not your friend.”
    “Check your
privacy settings. But I wanna know why you have the candles.”
    Matty’s
squirming, trying not to answer.
    “Is it
something to do with your brother? Maybe something that helps you
cope whenever Mason lays a beating on you?” She’s really grilling
him now.
    “What? How did
you know? What do you want?” he’s looking at me like I’m going to
save him.
    “Tell me why
you did it,” I say. “Just explain yourself.”
    “Mason comes
home after school and picks on me. So sometimes I light my candles
and, you know…”
    I try to sound
nice, like I’m playing ‘good cop.’ “I don’t know. Tell me.”
    “Sometimes I
get so angry and there’s nothing I can do about it, since if I ever
fight back he just destroys me.”
    “What did you
get the candles for?” I ask.
    “Oh, come on…”
he’s fidgeting. His hands are pulling at his shirt. He’s visibly
uncomfortable talking about this.
    Marlene blurts
her way into the conversation. “Where are you keeping the
talisman?”
    “The what?” his
voice breaks and the words come out as a high-pitched croak.
    “The talisman.
We know about the hex you cast.” Marlene blurts it out and now we
all seem crazy.
    “Hex? What? You
know that game I play is