Witcha'be Read Free Page A

friends! Whoa, that’s deep.” She rubbed her forehead.
    “Don’t hurt yourself, Len.” Bianca smirked.
    She called her Len.
    Hic! I grabbed my chest.
    “I think you need a good scare,” Bianca muttered, edging from the bed.
    “Oh, Bianca, that doesn’t work on her,” Lenni explained. “Molly actually gets the hiccups when she’s scared—she’s frightened into them.”
    “Is that so?”
    “I have to go,” I said. An enormous hiccup followed my announcement. I ran from Lenni’s room and flew down the staircase, nearly colliding with Mrs. Flemming.
    “Molly, what’s your hurry?” she asked, catching me by the forearms.
    “I don’t feel well, Mrs. Flemming-I mean, Pam.” I pushed against her grasp. “I’m going home.”
    “Molly, you can’t go home. Your mother called. Your father surprised her with an overnight trip to Evandale. They’re driving over tonight for dinner and dancing, staying in a nice hotel, and then shopping at the weekend flea market. They’ll be home around six o’clock tomorrow evening. I told her to be on the lookout for those little charms people attach to their cell phone cases. I want some for the store.”
    Panic bulged my skull like an overinflated balloon.
    “I’ll give you some medicine. Tummy or head?” She led me to the restroom.
    “My head.” It was tough to decide which hurt worse. I followed her into the large bathroom, my gaze on the marble floor.
    “Here you go, dear.” She poured two chalky-white tablets into my hand then handed me a glass of water. “You’ll feel better in no time. Dinner’s almost ready. I’ll call the two of you down when it’s on the table.”
    “There are three of us upstairs.”
    “Who else is here?”
    “Bianca,” I said, trying to outsmart the hiccups.
    “I didn’t even notice. The girl moves like the wind. Breezes right through undetected. She’s been that way since she was a child. You know, Lenni and Bianca go way back.”
    “Yeah, Lenni told me. They met in second grade.”
    “Mrs. Donald’s class. They hit it off so quickly. Sometimes after school, I’d pick Bianca up, along with Lenni, and bring her over to play. Once, when they were only seven years old, I caught them pricking their fingers with stickpins. They squeezed drops of blood onto black construction paper and blended it with Q-tips. After I bandaged their bloody fingertips, they buried the paper in the backyard and performed a special dance on the dirt, creating a blood sister bond. Blood sisters forever, they chanted.” Mrs. Flemming shook her head. “Kids, huh?”
    The balloon in my head tightened.
    “Over there, beneath that big oak.” She pointed at a large tree through the bathroom window. “That’s where they did their precious little dance. It was so darn cute.” She smiled as if describing a child’s ballet recital. “The next day that amazing plant sprouted in the very spot their blood sister pact was buried.”
    “What kind of plant is it?”
    “That’s a mystery. It’s been seven years and no one, including my horticulture friends from the university, has found one similar. Bianca calls it the bloodberry bush, because of the blood sister ritual and the little red berries. She’s got us all calling it that now.”
    I followed her from the bathroom.
    We walked through the kitchen, past the stove where something bubbled and belched. “See you in a bit.” She stirred the steaming kettle.
    The staircase might as well have been a mountain. I paused with my hand on Lenni’s door, nerves jigging. I puffed out a breath and turned the knob.
    My gaze scanned the room. “Where is Lenni?” I hated the wobble in my voice.
    Bianca shot flames through her eye sockets.
    I pressed my lips together to keep them from trembling.
    Lenni stepped into the doorway. “Geez, Molly. You didn’t have to go all the way downstairs. There’s a bathroom up here, too, you know. And the soap smells better.” She thrust a damp hand under my nose.
    I