Free Putting on the Witch by Joyce and Jim Lavene

I’ve heard old stories from my grandmother, but I didn’t believe it was true.”
    Abdon held out his hands for quiet as the shouting demands for calling the witchfinder increased.
    Dorothy looked curiously at me. Like Elsie and probably every other older witch in the room, I’d heard the old tales and put them down to mythology. Many of the younger witches would have no idea what they were talking about. From the stories I’d heard as a child, it had been hundreds of years since the witchfinder was called.
    The witchfinder was one of the oldest legends—at least I’d always thought of it as such—a witch’s bogeyman.
If you’re not good, the witchfinder will come for you
. He was supposed to be one of the original members of the Spanish Inquisition who went above and beyond his calling to bring witches to trial and finally to flame in the early 1500s. They said he was responsible for the deaths of a thousand witches. He had a knack, almost magical, for finding his prey, and he took great pleasure in getting them to confess and killing them in ghoulish ways.
    When it was over, it was said that a powerful spell was cast upon him to make him the slave of the witches he’d wronged for all time. The witches could call upon him to serve them in anything they might need. His body was said to be hidden somewhere and reanimated—when they called.
    It occurred to me that Makaleigh, and maybe Abdon, had helped make the decision to punish the witchfinder by thismeans. What spell had they used that was powerful enough to trap the man forever?
    â€œWhat exactly is that?” Dorothy had never heard the old stories that Elsie, Olivia and I had grown up with.
    Brian took her hand and explained in muted tones, bringing all our nightmares into real life. “I’ve never seen the witchfinder. He hasn’t been called in hundreds of years,” he whispered. “But a council member hasn’t been murdered in that long either. Anything is possible now.”
    Even the molecules in the air around us seemed different. The passing of an ancient, powerful witch like Makaleigh was no trifling matter. I couldn’t imagine how it was possible for someone to have killed her. I thought she’d be above that kind of thing. I thought all the members of the council would be better protected.
    I fingered my amulet, feeling the power of the sea trapped inside it. While there was still a great deal of magic in it, it wasn’t as strong here as it was in Wilmington. It had to be that we weren’t near a large body of water. With the river and the sea in proximity, water witches like myself were strongest. Makaleigh was a water witch too.
    â€œWhere are we, Brian?” I asked him softly as the other witches in the room were still expressing their outrage over Makaleigh’s death.
    â€œWe’re still in our world, but slightly set apart in reality,” he explained. “It’s a powerful spell set by the Fuller family a thousand years ago. I’ve never had anything to do with it, but that’s why no one can just get here and they had to send the cars. Leave it to the Fullers to go overboard in paranoia.”
    â€œThat explains the loss of water energy that I feel around us.”
    â€œI feel the same about the earth energy,” Dorothy said. “I noticed it right away. How can we not be on the earth?”
    â€œDid I also mention the dampening spell that protects the castle from magic assaults against it?” Brian grimaced.“That’s right, ladies. My ancestors tried to think of everything. All the witches here are operating on half power.”
    â€œWhich made Makaleigh’s death possible.” Elsie sneezed and looked around at us. “What? It’s what happened. I hate she’s gone too, but someone carefully set this up.”

CHAPTER 9

    My brain began going over Makaleigh’s death as probably few witches here would. How