Free Gone With the Witch by Heather Blake

this performance had been only a ruse for the other contestants or Missy would undoubtedly have the lowest scores here, thanks to Dorothy’s and Ivy’s contempt for me.
    I glanced again at Natasha, expecting to find her delighted with the scene she’d just witnessed. Instead her Cheshire Cat smile had vanished. A deep flush reddened the skin on her face and she had one hand pressed to her chest. The other hand was trying to set the coffee cup on the table. It slipped out of her hand and hit the floor, sending liquid streaming under her display table.
    Her frightened gaze rose to meet mine, and she opened her mouth, but no words came out.
    â€œAre you okay?” I asked, rushing over to her. “Natasha?”
    Her eyes fluttered closed, and she crumpled to the floor, her white gown billowing around her like a cloud. Her body began jerking—it looked like a seizure. Dropping to my knees, I yelled for help and turned Natasha’s face toward me, trying to keep it steady.
    Her body stilled, but her skin was quickly turning an unhealthy shade of bright red.
    Next thing I knew, Nick was at my side. “What happened?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “A minute ago she was fine. . . .”
    He checked her pulse, then immediately started CPR. “She’s not breathing.”
    A crowd edged in around us. A worried Baz. A stony Vivienne. Glinda, Mimi. Reggie and Ivy had returned—probably to see what the hubbub was about.
    As Nick worked, it seemed to me that the room around us went deathly quiet, watching, waiting.
    I scooted back, out of his way, and joined the crowd. I slid a look at Ivy Teasdale.
    The color had drained from her already fair skinned face, and she had one hand clapped over her mouth as if holding in a scream.
    This was exactly what she’d been trying to avoid. Another “accident.”
    With one twist.
    The prime suspect in those incidents had just become a potential victim.

Chapter Six
    â€œS he was poisoned.”
    After her bold statement, Harper stuck a tortilla chip into a bowl of salsa, loaded it up, and quickly stuffed it into her mouth before even a molecule could drip from its edges onto the coffee table.
    How Harper could eat at a time like this was beyond me. Even though it had been hours since Natasha collapsed at my feet, my stomach remained twisted in knots.
    Painful, painful knots.
    We’d stuck around at the Wisp until the police cleared everyone from the building. It had been a chaotic exodus as dogs barked, cats hissed, and Cookie, a year-old Nigerian dwarf goat, broke loose from her leash and bounded off across the village green. She was still missing.
    Ve had been found, but there hadn’t been time to ask her about the photographs, and though still important, the situation paled when compared to Natasha’s death.I just hoped my aunt had some insight on the whole photo situation, or I was going to have to trek into the woods to ask the Elder. I wasn’t sure I’d actually receive an answer from her, but I could at least try. She was a big believer in letting me figure out Craft quirks myself.
    Harper had dropped Pie off at home, and then helped Mimi and me transport our menagerie to As You Wish. We were awaiting word from Nick, but so far we hadn’t heard a peep and were filling the time with speculation on what had happened to Natasha.
    Staring at my sister in awe, Mimi held a chip suspended midair between the salsa bowl and where she sat on the floor next to the coffee table in Aunt Ve’s family room. “You really think so? Poison?”
    Higgins rested on the floor next to her, his head on his paws. His dark woebegone eyes held a silent plea that the chip would miraculously fall from Mimi’s hand straight into his mouth. Enormous drool droplets hung like elastic stalactites from his lower jaw as he licked his lips in anticipation. He let out a crestfallen sigh when Mimi ate the chip in one