Cadenbury Town Does Halloween (Cadenbury Town #7)

Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

I can’t believe how much fun I’m having cackling around this cauldron with the other witchlings, my Ma, Molly, Nora, Ebby, Sly and the boys.

We magicked up the cauldron, the fire to keep it hot, and our outfits. I’ve taken pictures of us all, because we look awesome in our Halloween witches’ outfits. Nora and Enoch look the cutest though as does little Connie. We magicked a little witch outfit for her as well and Emily is happily holding her close so she can watch us.

We use magic to give the soup a helping hand and again to peel the vegetables and cut them up before dropping them into the cauldron. Even from here, it smells amazing.

“I can’t believe I’m actually having fun doing this,” Temp says, throwing some carrots into the pot and cackling as he does.

“I think we’re all having fun,” my Ma says, stirring the pot.

Pa is stood watching us, but he keeps glancing off to the funfair.

“You can go and have fun, you know that right?” I say to him.

He nods. “I do and I’m off.”

“Where are you going, grandpa?” Nora asks him.

He beams. He loves being a grandpa. “I’m off to play in the funfair.”

“Can I come with you?” Nora asks him.

“If your brother doesn’t mind,” he replies looking at Nix.

“Nope, if you’re sure John.”

“I am.”

“Yay,” Nora says, walking over to John and taking his hand. She looks at Xander and Enoch. “You two should come as well.”

Xander looks unsure for a moment.

“I promise to keep you safe,” John says. “I’m not magical but I know how to throw a punch.”

I hear Ma gasp. “John!”

“What?” he asks, looking at her and shrugging.

Ma just shakes her head.

“I can come as well if you want,” Sly says.

Xander looks at John. “Would you mind if our brother comes as well?”

John smiles. “Not in the least, as long as Sly doesn’t mind following us around the food stalls as well as going on rides.”

“Hot donuts?” Enoch says excitedly.

“I’m sure we can do that. Let’s go quickly before Ebby becomes a killjoy,” Sly says, grabbing Xander and Enoch and pulling them away to our laughter and Ebby’s scowl.

“Healthy food tomorrow,” he calls after them.

They ignore him and rush off.

Ebby looks at me. “Sorry, Sly going with them is no reflection on your dad.”

“I know, Pa understands as well.”

People start arriving by the table and Titus and Nix start handing out bowls of soup.

“The decorations around the house are amazing,” someone says. “The way those skeletons are crawling out of the ground look so real and those ghosts.”

I turn to look, knowing what I’ll see as I did after all help decorate the place.

“Seriously, they’re alive?” I exclaim looking at the skeletons that are actually climbing out of the ground, somehow whole, well as whole as a skeleton can be, and alive and way more than were there earlier.

The ghosts that were happily flying above the house and around the grounds start dive bombing those walking towards the house.

“Yes, ghosts and skeletons. You witches are amazing,” someone says grinning at us.

“So, this is new,” Sal says, looking around.

The ghosts fly through people, and they shriek in surprise before running away or standing still laughing.

The skeletons start chasing people and if caught try and drag them somewhere, where, I have no idea. It all reminds me of some kind of children’s cartoon.

“As much fun as this is witchlings, someone might get hurt,” Molly tells us.

“Pick a ghost or skeleton and have at it,” Titus says, throwing his magic at the closest skeleton.

It falls to the ground in a pile of bones, before reforming and coming closer.

“Okay, so that didn’t work,” Sal said, stating the obvious.

“Everything so far needed to be injured before it could be destroyed,” I say and using my magic blow an arm off the same skeleton.

Ebby sends his magic out and hits the injured skeleton. It drops into a pile of bones and doesn’t get back up.

I fling my magic out and injure another, Nix hits it again and another pile of bones appears. Soon all the skeletons are piles of bones.

I look around for the ghosts, but can’t see any. Then I hear a scream from inside.

“I guess the ghosts went into the house,” Titus says, walking towards the house. Temp, Ebby, Justice and I follow, the others stay outside.

Just as we reach the front door, Adhan and Kean join us and we hear running footsteps and look round to see Sly joining us, Elliot with him.

“Well, I’ve got to say Adhan, this haunted farm is certainly keeping us on our toes. I’m so glad we came now. I can’t wait to see what happens next year,” Elliot says grinning.

“Me either,” Adhan replied.

“We have ghosts inside,” Temp tells them as he opens the front door, then jumps and yelps as the bungee jumping spiders fall down and the smoke goes off.

“Nice yelp brother mine,” Titus says grinning at him.

“You would have done the same,” Temp grumps out.

“Pretty sure I wouldn’t have,” Titus replied.

“I bet you would have, I mean Adhan did,” I happily say.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Adhan says, fake scowling at me.

At least I hope it’s fake scowling anyway. I blow him a kiss and we start walking through the different rooms.

“So, does anyone know how to stop a fake ghost?” I ask.

“Pretty sure they’re not fake anymore,” Elliot says.

“A candle in a glass jar with a screw lid and runes around the glass will capture a ghost,” Sly tells us.

“We can’t keep them captured, can we?” Justice asks just as we walk into the clothes dancing room.

A couple of the ghosts are actually dancing with the clothes. One is dancing with a shirt, the other a pair of jeans. The others are just flying around the room.

“This has got to be the weirdest thing I have ever seen,” Temp says.

“Same,” Elliot says laughing.

Justice looks at one of the ghosts and flicks his hand out. “Be gone.”

Surprisingly the ghost vanishes.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting that to work,” Justice says confused.

Suddenly the ghost reappears looking angry and tinged with red.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say it didn’t,” I say.

The ghosts don’t stay still. The angry ghost is flying through the closest wall. Two others fly towards us, as the others scatter.

Sly flings his magic out and the ghosts suddenly stop, as if they’ve been frozen in mid-air. “Not sure how long they will stay frozen,” he says.

Ebby sends his magic out and it hits both ghosts; they shatter and then vanish.

We wait a moment, but they don’t reappear.

“So that worked then. Let’s find the others and zap them,” I say as we leave the room, with the clothes still flying about.

We walk through the house and stop six more, but the angry red one is leading us on a merry chase. We follow the screams and yelps and finally reach the attic room, this room is massive, it runs the whole length and width of the house, but has a half wall, splitting it in two.

This attic was one of Callum's creations. One side has creepy-looking mannequins, the other is filled with dolls. Large, small, old, new, all creepy and all alive.

The dolls are currently sat on the floor having a tea party. That is until we walk in and they all turn and look at us, standing up, all at the same time. Literally all at the same time.

“Because this isn’t creepy or anything,” Ebby says.

“Please tell me Chucky isn’t in here,” Elliot says, looking around.

“Callum did this room,” I tell them. Not moving forward. Dolls always freak me out, but especially these ones.

“Please tell me there are no puppies in here,” Titus asks.

“There wasn’t,” I said. Please don’t let there be any flying toxic killer puppies in here.

“This is the stuff of nightmares,” Ebby says.

The angry ghost is flying around the room with an evil grin on its face. It dive-bombs the dolls and each doll it touches, a knife appears in its hand.

“Oh hell no,” Titus says, sending his magic out and trying to hit the ghost.

The dolls start breaking off into groups and heading towards us.

We all start throwing magic out, but they still keep coming towards us.

Sly sends his magic out trying to hit the ghost, but this ghost is fast.

I leave the dolls to the others and focus on helping Sly.

I have an idea, not sure if it will work, but I create a small whirlwind around the ghost, hoping it will hold it in one place. No one is more surprised than me when it actually seems to trap it. I hold my hand out, keeping the whirlwind in place and the ghost trapped.

“Let’s see if this works,” Sly said, freezing the ghost and the wind.

A doll runs towards us not letting the frozen ghost or wind stop it. It shatters when the doll’s knife hits it.

“Well, that worked,” I say.

I throw my magic at the advancing doll, blowing an arm off.

Sly hits it with his magic and the doll falls down on the floor and doesn’t get up.

I turn to look at the others, just as Justice stops the last doll.

I see Sly send his magic out and look at the others. They look a little battle-scarred, with slashes to their witches’ outfits.

“Any injuries?” I ask.

“Nope, they just slashed our cloaks,” Titus says.

“And suddenly I’m glad we dressed up tonight,” Temp says.

“There is no more dark magic in the house,” Sly tells us.

“Thanks,” Adhan says, looking around and shaking his head. “Good luck not having nightmares about killer dolls tonight.”

“I can’t wait to see how the dark witches get past our protection and see what they do to my fair,” Elliot says grinning.

“That was amazing. Creepy but super amazeballs,” a visitor says. “We’re so coming back next year.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Kean replies, grinning at them.

“This is so going on the website.” Temp happily says.

We fix the dolls, making sure they are of the non-killing doll variety, and leave the house to re-join the others who are still standing around the cauldron, but I notice that Molly isn’t there.

“Molly has gone to chat with Madam Cleo,” Sal tells us. “She can’t understand why these things keep happening when the town is protected.”

“That is the question, isn’t it?” Adhan says.

“Tomorrow evening we’ll all come to the fair,” Justice says.

“And I made sure there was no more dark magic in the house,” Sly tells the others.

“Do you recognise the dark magic?” Justice asks him.

Sly shakes his head. “No, I’ve not had contact with my family or other dark witch families since meeting Ebby. But the magic isn’t family magic,” he pauses for a moment. “My father keeps emailing me, asking me to come to a family gathering. I can go if you want me to. I’m the true witch of the family and can protect myself if needed.”

Ebby grabs his hand and doesn’t look happy but doesn’t say anything.

Adhan shakes his head. “No, whomever it is will make themselves known in time, they always do.”

Sly nods. “Well, the offers there.”

“You would think the dark witches would have given up by now, wouldn’t you,” Temp says. “I mean it’s not as if they have won any encounter we’ve had with them.”

“Well, no one said dark witches were very bright,” Nix says.

Ebby bursts out laughing.

“I wasn’t including you in that, only the dark witches trying to kill us,” Nix quickly says looking at Sal.

Sly grins. “I knew what you meant.”