Cadenbury Town Does Halloween (Cadenbury Town #7)

Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

A fter dinner, leaving Ma and Pa at the manor we all head to the funfair, Cassie with us.

I’m walking behind the others as Cass is walking slowly. I stop and wait for him.

“You can go home, you know that right?” I say gently.

“I know. I want to be here, but I might slip off and see Madam Cleo at some point tonight.”

“Hopefully whatever she tells you, will cheer you up.”

“Sorry, I don’t mean to be a downer,” he says, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets.

I nudge his arm. “You’re not, but we can see you’re unhappy and it’s not all concern for Sion’s health.”

He sighs. “I’ve other stuff going on as well.”

“Talk to your brothers, or me and if we can help, we will,” I assure him.

He gives me a quick smile. “I know, thanks, Ernest.”

We join the others and stop walking as Elliot and Madam Cleo come over and join us. I leave Cassie standing by Temp and Titus and go and join Adhan.

“Evening friends,” Elliot says, smiling at us all. “I’m not expecting anything to happen tonight, but with dark magic, you never know.”

“Is there anywhere specific you want us to look after?” Sly asks.

Elliot shakes his head. “Nope, just wherever you’re drawn to. So, pick an attraction and have at it.”

Adhan looks at our group. “Pick an attraction and stay there for a bit and then change over, groups of two or more, at least two witches per group.”

I look at Ebby and Sly. “Fancy starting off together? I’ll let you pick.”

“Hall of Mirrors,” Sly quickly says, grinning at Ebby.

“You’re such a child,” Ebby replies, grinning at his husband.

“What?” Sly asks.

Ebby just shakes his head.

I look at my family. “If you get into trouble, send a help message and we’ll all come running.”

We all break up and go in different directions, I see Cassie walk over to Madam Cleo, she takes his arm and leads him away towards her tent, as we make our way to the Hall of Mirrors.

“I don’t think I’ve ever walked a Hall of Mirrors,” I say as we enter.

“Prepare to look weird,” Ebby says, grinning my way.

I jump as I see a weird version of myself right in front of me. For some reason I didn’t think there would be a mirror directly in front of the entrance. “Sheesh, that made me jump.” I say, putting a hand over my chest, making sure my heart hadn’t leapt out of me. I can feel it beating hard and fast, so I know it’s still there. Phew.

The others laugh at me.

“Yeah, yeah, carry on,” I say waving my hand around.

We walk around laughing at ourselves and pulling faces to make us laugh even more. There are some of the town’s teenagers in here with us, who are also enjoying themselves, just ahead of us.

The mirrors are fun. I look tall, short, wiggly, wide, skinny, upside down and so much more. We stand in front of them together, as couples and individually. I honestly can’t remember laughing so much. Ebby and Sly are going to be a great addition to our family.

We’ve been in here a while when we reach another mirror. “Have we not seen this mirror before?” I ask. Pretty sure this is the mirror that made me jump when we first walked in.

“Yeah, when we came in,” Ebby confirms, looking around. “The entrance should be here.”

We look, but there’s no door.

“Maybe they have this mirror in more than one location,” Adhan says.

“Maybe. Let’s have another look,” Sly suggests.

We start the walk again, but the mirrors have moved, it looks like we are now in some sort of mirror maze.

I send some magic out to see what it can find. I spot Ebby and Sly doing the same. We probably should have done that when we first walked in, but then I jumped and didn’t give it a thought.

We catch up to the teenagers.

“Are you four alright?” Adhan asks them.

They nod, smiling happily. “We’re having so much fun. First, we were captured in willow branches, with murdering scarecrows and the headless horseman. Then we got hit by rock apples, chased by vampires, captured a leprechaun and now we’re trapped in the Hall of Mirrors.”

“Seriously this Haunted Farm and fair is fantastic,” another says.

“I’m glad you’re having fun,” Adhan says, smiling at them.

“There is just one teeny tiny thing,” another says, gazing at one of the mirrors, looking a little pale.

“What?” I ask looking around. I gasp when I see the reflection.

“Because that’s not at all creepy,” Ebby says, turning to look.

The mirror shows us, all of us, standing there covered in blood as if we’ve been stabbed, shot or had our throats slit.

“Pretty sure that mirror wasn’t there on the first walk through,” one of the teenagers says.

Being closest I put my hand out to touch the mirror.

“Don’t,” Adhan says, catching my arm. “You touched the zombie and made it real. Maybe don’t touch the mirror sweetheart.”

I pull my hand back. “Yeah, let’s not do that.”

“Let’s try that way,” Ebby says, pointing in the other direction.

We walk past more mirrors, but every now and then they move position, trapping us, before moving again. The images of us getting more disturbing.

For some reason, this feels familiar. Not the disturbing mirror images, but the mirrors moving.

“Why does something about this seem familiar?” Adhan asks, echoing my thoughts.

“I thought the same thing,” I pause, and then it hits me. “Now I remember. Sal had this problem at the abandoned funfair where he found the box. Everything kept moving for him remember, that’s why he was missing for three days,” I reply.

“Three days?” one of the teenagers exclaims.

“Oh, hell no!” Ebby says, looking at Sly.

“Has your magic come back?” I ask them.

“No,” they both say when from somewhere we hear the sound of glass shattering.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say that was a bad sound,” Adhan says, moving to stand in front of the teenagers.

I hear sinister laughter getting closer and then a song.

“Row, Row, Row your boat gently down the stream, if you’re stuck inside a mirror, don’t forget to scream.”

That catches my attention.

“We’re inside a mirror,” I quickly say. How did we get trapped inside a mirror? “Ebby, Sly, throw your magic out and shatter the mirrors.”

Just as I say this, a clown carrying a red balloon comes into view.

Hell to the no. I gather my magic. “Now,” I say and blast it out. I know the witchlings and I decided never to blast anything ever again, but needs must and all that.

I see Ebby and Sly do the same, two white magic’s and Sly’s black magic shoots out and all the mirrors around us shatter. We’re suddenly standing on the grass outside the Hall of Mirrors, surrounded by our family, some of the town witches, townspeople and fair folk.

“It worked,” someone says and Ebby and Sly are suddenly hit by their brothers running up to them and hugging them.

The teenagers are swamped by their families, and we are suddenly surrounded by ours. I get a massive hug from my parents and then everyone else.

“How long were we trapped in there?” I ask generally.

“Six hours,” Ma tells me, sighing, most probably in relief.

Elliot hugs us as well. He’s grinning like a loon. “Did you have fun?”

I laugh. “Could have done without some of the things we saw, but we left before the killer clown got us.”

“Wait, you had a killer clown?” Temp asks. “We had nothing, and you get killer clowns. So not fair.”

I pat his arm. “There there maybe tomorrow night.”

Adhan goes to speak to the teenagers’ parents and I look at the gathered witches. “Thanks for your help,” I say because they had to have helped for us to be outside of the attraction.

“Maybe you can incorporate what happened into our next dark magic lessons,” one of the witches says grinning.

I laugh. “We’ll see what we can do.”

“Well, young’un, trapped inside a mirror’s a new one,” Molly says, cackling beside me.

“What can I say cuz, I like to be different.”