Саманта Сильвер: A Grizzly Discovery

Suddenly, it came to me. “Oh my God, I did the wrong spell!”

“Yeah, I kind of figured that.”

“I’m so sorry, Sophie,” I told her. “I honestly didn’t mean to. Ponderoa, ” I tried again. “Ok, that one should work.”

“Nuh-uh. There’s absolutely no way I’m walking back into that door first. I’m pretty sure my nose is broken, by the way. If you’ve permanently scarred me for life I know who the next person to show up murdered in Willow Bay is going to be.”

“Ok, I guess that’s fair,” I said, pointing to myself and repeating the spell. I didn’t feel any different. “I’m going in now. If it works, then follow me in.”

“I hope you bash your nose straight into the door,” Sophie replied. Just in case, I put my arms out in front of me, but it wasn’t necessary. I slipped straight through the wood like it wasn’t even there.

“The spell worked, you can come through,” I told Sophie as I pointed at myself and said “ Videroa.” I suddenly re-appeared, then felt a worrying sensation in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t see Sophie anymore, but she could definitely see me. “Please don’t kill me,” I begged, putting my arms up in front of my face. I’d seen Sophie punch someone in the face before; she had a good arm on her. But a minute passed, and there was still no sign of her.

“Sophie?” I said, looking around the room.

“I’ve decided I’m going to stay like this,” Sophie said. “I’m going to haunt you now. I’m basically a ghost, since you can’t see me and I can walk through walls.”

“Ok, stop it,” I said, trying to tell where the voice came from. “Let me make you visible again.”

“Fine, but only because I think I might bleed to death soon,” Sophie said. “I’m in front of the door.”

I pointed to the door and cast the reversing spell at Sophie. She suddenly appeared in front of me, and I gasped when I saw her. The bridge of her nose was black, but more noticeable was the steady stream of blood pouring from her nose.

“Oh my God, Sophie, get into the bathroom!” I ordered. She made her way in there and I grabbed one of the white towels off the rack and held it to her nose. “How on earth did this get so bad?” I asked.

“I walked into a door because someone who’s supposed to be my best friend told me to and I trusted her.”

“I honestly thought I had the right spell,” I said. “I just accidentally said ‘o’ instead of ‘e’.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not the one who has to suffer for your forgetfulness. I take it back; we should have invited Charlotte to come with us. At least she remembers her spells properly.” Charlotte was a way better witch than me. And I wasn’t just saying that because thanks to me Sophie’s face was bruised and bloodied. Charlotte studied witchcraft like everything else, and with that amazing brain of hers, she had mastered spells I didn’t even know existed.

“Hey, I haven’t had to use that spell in like, at least five years. You can’t blame me for screwing up one syllable.”

“Seeing as I’ve lost at least half my total blood volume, I think I can blame you for whatever I want.”

“You haven’t lost half your blood, just, like, probably one-tenth or so.”

“Great, now you sound like your sister, but without the actual ability to do magic correctly the first time around.”

A few minutes later we managed to staunch most of the bleeding, although we’d completely ruined one of the hotel’s towels. I threw it into the bathtub, making a mental note to grab it before we left.

“Ok, let’s get into things,” I said, ignoring the scowl Sophie shot in my direction. We went back into the main part of the hotel room; Jeremy Wallace had evidently just paid for a studio. There was a double bed at one end, a small desk next to a cabinet that held a mini-fridge and a few amenities, with a TV on top. His suitcase lay open on the floor, clothes scattered haphazardly around it. Jeremy Wallace was obviously not the kind of guy to use the closet.

“Shouldn’t we like, not be touching things in here?” Sophie asked as I made my way toward the suitcase.

“Why not? It’s not like it’s really a crime scene anymore, the police already announced that they don’t think it’s a murder. I wouldn’t even be surprised if that seal comes off the door before tomorrow.”

“So what you’re saying is if we’d waited twenty-four hours I wouldn’t have an upcoming trip to the hospital to get my face X-rayed?”

“You can’t get an X-ray for a broken nose,” I replied. “Since technically it’s cartilage and not bone.”

“I’m going to pay you back for this. One day. I promise.”

“I said I was sorry!”

Sophie gave me a dark look as I began to look through the pile of clothes. There was nothing interesting there, mainly athletic gear—it seemed Jeremy Wallace spent almost all of his disposable income at Under Armour—and I started to feel like maybe we weren’t going to find any clues about where Wallace had gone at three in the morning the night before he was killed. After all, it wasn’t like Willow Bay had any twenty-four hour gyms for him to frequent.

Sophie was looking through the closets, under the bed, in the fridge, anywhere else that might give us some kind of clue. After less than five minutes, she let out a sigh.

“If I have to look like someone punched me in the face for a few weeks and we don’t even get anything out of this search, I’m going to be pissed ,” she said.

“Yeah, this guy was basically the definition of a light traveler,” I said, getting a bit exasperated myself. I sat back on my haunches and looked around the room. Apart from the small suitcase, it seemed practically empty. Then, suddenly, I saw with the last of the sunlight streaming in through the window that one of the floorboards near Sophie was a bit separated from the others.

“Hey, what’s that?” I asked, motioning for her to move over as I got up.

“What?” Sophie asked, peering over to where I mentioned. “Oooh,” she continued as she noticed the floorboard as well. I pressed on it a few times and quickly found that it was actually a bit loose. With a bit of help from Sophie we managed to pry it up. I reached in and grabbed a cell phone, one of those cheap ones you can buy anywhere for around $20.

“Weird,” Sophie said. “Wasn’t there a phone found with him when he was killed?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “That one was a nice phone though, one of those new Samsungs and not the ones that spontaneously explode, either. This one’s a burner.”

“You watch way too many bad cop shows on TV,” Sophie replied.

“I do not!”

“We don’t even know if it belongs to Wallace. Maybe it was some other person who stayed here who hid it here, and they just forgot it when they left.”

“Fine,” I replied, flipping the phone open to have a look. Suddenly, something began to scrape against the door lock. Someone was coming into the hotel room. This was not good.

8

“Bathroom,” I mouthed silently to Sophie, who nodded. I grabbed the phone and slipped it in the pocket of the hoodie I was wearing, then followed Sophie into the bathroom, closing the door silently behind us. Just as I did so I heard a click of the lock; whoever was coming in was in. Sophie climbed into the bathtub, and I followed after her.

“ Nonvideroa,” I whispered, pointing to Sophie. A second later I repeated the spell with myself. We were now invisible, but anyone could still feel us if they touched where they were. I hoped whoever was here was just going to ignore the bathroom completely.

The sound traveled through the closed bathroom door pretty easily, and I took Sophie’s hand as we listened to the conversation happening in the main part of the hotel room.