peculiar. It was like the beginning of a bad joke. A corpse, a witch, and a
fox walked into a bar…
(Actually, it was more like a corpse and two witches, and one of those
witches happened to be trapped in the form of a small, chubby red fox. Sera
wasn’t sure if that would improve the joke or not.)
Sera, who was fifteen years old and frankly out of her depth, hesitated
beside her great-aunt’s body. Was she really going to cast a spell with
nothing but Clemmie’s word to go on? Clemmie, who had turned up out of
the blue a few weeks ago and had yet to offer any real answers about who
she really was or how she’d ended up trapped in fox form? She was the
very opposite of trustworthy, but Sera was going to have to trust her today
or she would lose Great-Auntie Jasmine for good.
The upshot was that Sera had plenty of power and not enough
knowledge, while Clemmie had plenty of knowledge and not enough
power. That was all that mattered right now. And anyway, if Clemmie was
lying to her, what difference would it make? Jasmine was dead. A failed
resurrection spell couldn’t exactly make her any deader.
The azure skies wheeled above, still objectionably cheerful. Sera
couldn’t believe that it had only been a few minutes since Clemmie had
found her in the kitchen, said “There’s a situation you have to deal with
outside, but just so you know, I hate tears and hysterics,” and led her out to
where Jasmine had dropped dead in the garden. Sera remembered little of
what had happened after that, though her raw eyes informed her that there
had indeed been plenty of tears and probably one or two hysterics.
Sera did remember that she’d stood up to go find a phone. The sensible
thing to do, she’d reasoned, was to dial 999 and let a grown-up take charge.
Then Clemmie had tutted, stopping her in her tracks. “How tiresome. I
expected Jasmine to have more sense and better manners than to die in the
garden. On a warm day like this, she’ll get icky very quickly. We’ll have to
work fast.”
“What are you talking about?”
Whereupon Clemmie had revealed she knew how to resurrect the dead.
As a collector of rare, powerful spells of dubious legality and even more
