Last Witch Standing (Mountain Witch Saga) Read Free Page A

Dan, you can play one game with your sister.”
Patricia Edwards covered the remaining macaroni with tin foil.
    “Mousetrap! I have a new idea I want to try.” Katie stood
up and moved towards the closet that contained the family’s board games.
    “Great. Katie gets to make a new creation.”
    “Now, remember you were four once,” his mother reminded
him.
    “Four and a half,” Katie corrected.
    “Four and a half,” Patricia repeated.
    “Okay. Just one game, and she can’t move the pieces until
it’s her turn.”
    “I don’t!” Katie protested.
    Dan had to grab a stool from the kitchen to reach the game,
which was on the top shelf of the closet, lodged firmly under Battleship and Candyland . He wiggle it sideways to loosen it, before pulling it out
with one hand and using the other to prevent the top games from sliding off.
Finally, he had it and brought it to the coffee table. Katie opened the box and
started setting it up while he closed the closet and returned the stool to the
kitchen.
    An hour later, Dan was behind four mice. Almost every time
the cage lowered it was on one of his mice; rarely did it land on one of
Katie’s. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were cheating some way, Katie.”
    “I’m not cheating. Just winning.” Katie grinned. “We can
play Which Witch if you want.”
    “No way! You slaughter me on it.”
    The scent of popcorn drifted in from the kitchen. “Mom’s
making popcorn,” Katie said.
    “Good.” Dan didn’t look up. He was concentrating on the
board. Only one of his mice remained.
    A few minutes later, Patricia Edwards entered the living
room carrying a large yellow Tupperware bowl filled with popcorn. The butter
and popcorn smell was too inviting to ignore and Dan looked up from the board.
    He dipped his hand into the steaming popcorn. A moment
later, he lost his last mouse and with it the game.
    “ Which Witch ,” Katie said.
    “Okay,” Dan answered. May as well lose another game while
he ate popcorn—

Chapter 5
     
    Houston,
Apollo 11 . . . I've got the world in my window.
    - Astronaut
Michael Collins
     
    May 1, 1972
    Earth
     
    “Oh, my goodness!” Katie scooted closer to the television
set.
    “That’s really Mars?” Dan asked.
    “Must be,” Keith Edwards answered from the couch. Beside
him his wife leaned forward in her seat.
    “I never thought I’d see something like this in my
lifetime. First the Moon and now Mars.” Patricia stared at the pictures from
the Mars probe, Mariner 9. The black and white picture on the screen was the
central caldera of the Martian volcano Olympus Mons.
    “We’re gonna go there,” Katie announced.
    “No, dear. I don’t think we are. Not for a long while,” her
mother said.
    “I’m going there!” Katie turned to her parents. “Me!”
    “Well, that settles that. Bring me back a few rocks, would
you, please, Katie.” Her father smiled down on her and held his hands out. She
walked to the couch and sat beside him. He put his arm around her and they
continued watching.
    “Well, no canals, no green men. Too bad,” Patricia said.
    “It looks a lot like the moon.” Dan sat on his haunches by
the side of the television opposite Katie.
    “Let’s go flying,” Dan said when the news segment ended and
the screen turned to a picture of a tank with soldiers, rifles at the ready,
following behind, entering a city, while the television anchor gave commentary
on the state of the war in Vietnam.
    Katie jumped up. “Let’s go.”
    “Ok, kids, but be back for supper,” their mother said.
    Dan loaded his toolbox and Katie grabbed the plane. They
had a routine going now. He could carry more stuff in his box if she carried
the model. He trusted her with it. Heck, she flew it better than he did now. It
had become as much her project as his.
    “Let’s take the thermometer off this time.” Dan gestured
towards the baby thermometer they had taped to the fuselage at Katie’s
suggestion. She had read somewhere