Once Upon a Charmed Time Read online

  I gasped and looked down at the blue liquid covering me. Everyone stopped fighting and stared right at me. My stare met with Edwin’s and somehow I knew what he was thinking. This wasn’t good.

  I had to get out of here. I was in some kind of a dazed shock, stunned at what had happened. Everyone else must have felt the same way. Right before my eyes Edwin disappeared. I mean, poof… he was gone. My mother gasped again.

  “What just happened?” I asked. “Where did he go?”

  Liam and Nicolas looked around. “That had to be some kind of powerful magic he was using.”

  I’d never been able to disappear like that, and I was the leader of the Underworld. I’d thought I’d be allowed some kind of powers like that. It could really come in handy.

  “He has to be here somewhere,” Annabelle said.

  My mother peered around the yard. “He couldn’t just disappear, could he? I mean, there’s nowhere to hide.”

  “He’s not behind that tree and we would’ve seen him run past and go back into the house,” Liam said.

  “We’ll go look around the house,” Nicolas said.

  Nicolas and Liam took off. They could look all they wanted, but I knew they wouldn’t find him. Magic was involved. Annabelle and my mother rushed over to me.

  “Are you feeling all right, dear?” My mother looked at my blue-stained shirt.

  “I feel fine. I don’t know about what was in the spell, but I’m assuming it was nothing since I’m okay.”

  My mother had a strange look on her face.

  “What? You think I’m not okay? Do I look funny? Am I turning into a toad?” I asked.

  She waved her hand. “No, no, you look normal. No stranger than unusual.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I said.

  “Well, you know those eyebrows can get a little crazy when you don’t pluck them, and then there’s your upper lip… you really don’t have one, honey.”

  She was just mentioning eyebrows as payback.

  “Would you stop, please? Now is not the time to point out all my flaws,” I snapped.

  “Okay, ladies, don’t fight. Everything seems to be fine. Maybe we should just get out of here,” Annabelle said.

  I knew that she was getting freaked out after what she had witnessed, and I didn’t blame her. This wasn’t good, but I wasn’t quite sure we could leave just yet.

  Nicolas and Liam returned to the backyard.

  “We didn’t find any sign of him anywhere and I guess he didn’t show up back here again?” Nicolas said.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head.

  I looked down at the spot where he had been standing. I examined it, putting my hand over the top of it. Nothing seemed unusual.

  “We should probably get out of here,” Liam said, looking at my stained face and clothing.

  “Yeah, maybe we should.”

  I definitely needed a shower and to get the stuff off me. It was sticky, like Kool-Aid or something. I paused, giving the area one last glance, still shocked that the guy had vanished. How had he done that? Regardless, I couldn’t stand out here contemplating what had happened to him any longer. It was time to move on.

  We headed out to the gate and around to the front of the house toward the car. I opened the car door, but it didn’t seem as if anyone wanted to sit beside me. Finally, my mother and Annabelle climbed in the backseat, but they tried to hug the doors as much as possible to keep away from me. Did they think I had cooties now? Just because I had potion on me didn’t mean anything.

  “What is wrong with you all? I feel fine. There’s nothing wrong at all and there was nothing in that bottle.”

  “Well maybe so, but why did the man want it?” Liam asked.

  He had me there. I had no idea, other than maybe he was looking for something that he’d thought we had, and as it turned out, we didn’t. I really wanted to find out exactly though. The guy wanted something. If in fact he was looking for a potion, and this wasn’t it, then maybe he would come back there again.

  “Maybe we should have stayed a while longer. What if he returns?” I asked.

  “I believe you, Hallie,” Annabelle said. “If you say you’re fine, then you’re fine. Nothing to be worried about.” Annabelle patted my arm. So she wasn’t scared to touch me now after all.

  As we headed in the direction of the hotel so that I could get a shower, I thought I spotted Dalton walking down the sidewalk.

  I pointed. “Look, it’s Dalton. Go get him.”

  Liam punched the gas and we weaved through traffic, trying to reach the man. Was he lost? Why was he out there roaming around? I tried to keep my sights on him so that we wouldn’t lose him. Unfortunately, we were stopped by a red light. I hoped he didn’t go in any of the shops. We had to turn down another street before we could cut back around.

  When the light turned green, I said, “Hurry.”

  “Halloween, he can’t go any faster. There’s a lot of traffic,” my mother said.

  Having a mother around to say things like that was not the best thing right now in this situation. I still had sight of Dalton as Liam sped down the road. He merged over into the right lane so that he could pull up beside Dalton. Just as we got to Dalton, poof, he disappeared. When Liam slammed on the brakes a few cars swerved. Tires squealed and horns honked at our unexpected stop.

  “I can’t believe what we just saw.” Nicolas said.

  “It was just like the other guy,” Annabelle said.

  “This can’t be a coincidence,” Liam said.

  “I know I’m not imagining things since everyone else saw it too,” I said.

  Something fishy was definitely going on and it just kept getting more twisted by the minute.

  “Maybe Dalton just went into a building somewhere,” my mother said.

  “I don’t see how that was possible,” I said. “You saw with your own eyes. Did everyone see him disappear?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Yeah, I saw it,” Liam said.

  “Me too,” Nicolas said.

  “Me three,” Annabelle said.

  I looked at my mother.

  “Yes, of course I saw it too, but I want to have an explanation. Because I just can’t believe what I saw.”

  We immediately found a place to park the car and jumped out. We had to go look for Dalton. He couldn’t have just disappeared as well. What kind of magic was going on around here? This was bigger than I had anticipated.

  “Where do you think he went?” my mother asked as we rushed out of the car and onto the sidewalk.

  “Well, I guess if I knew that, Mom, I would know where to find him.”

  “You know what I mean, snippy pants,” she said.

  I wasn’t sensing any kind of magic. I thought I would have picked up on the scent of the residual magic. There was nothing there, so how could he have disappeared if it wasn’t magic? There was an alleyway just up ahead so we rushed toward that, hoping that maybe he had just gotten out of our sight quicker than we’d realized.

  Once we got to the alleyway there was no one in sight. We rushed down the alleyway to get to the other end, but I really didn’t think that he had moved that fast. I was losing hope that we would find him. Another false lead that would go nowhere. I tried to keep a positive attitude though, because positive attracted positive or some such thing as that. Once we reached the end we stopped and looked to the left and the right. He was nowhere in sight. I did sense something now though. There was some kind of magic around.

  I glanced over to my right and noticed a mysterious man looking at us. It wasn’t Edwin, but he had the same expression on his face. All of a sudden magic hit all of us and we fell to the ground. I wasn’t expecting to be hit with something so powerful. It had blindsided us. We managed to scramble up from the ground.

  “Wow, what was that?” my mother asked.

  “I don’t know, but it was powerful. I think it came from that man who was watching us.”

  He was gone now though, b
ut there was something else terribly wrong.

  “Where’s Annabelle?” I asked.

  She had been beside me right before the magic hit, but now she was nowhere in sight. I was panicking already. What had happened to her? I scrambled around on the sidewalk looking in the buildings, but there was no sign of her. She wouldn’t just take off on her own like that unless she got completely freaked out by the magic spell and took off running.

  “Maybe we should go back to the car. Maybe she went there,” my mother said.

  “That’s a good idea,” Nicolas said.

  ”I’ll stay here and look for her while you all go back to the car and see if she went there,” Liam said.

  “I’m sure she went back to the car. Everything will be fine, Halloween,” my mother said.

  Positive thoughts, I reminded myself. Positive thoughts.

  When we reached the other side of the alleyway, back onto the sidewalk, and down to the car I became disappointed. She wasn’t there either. Now it was time for me to officially freak out. Where could she be? I pulled out my cell phone and dialed her number, but it went straight to the voicemail. I looked in the windows of the shops surrounding us, but there was no sign of her there. When we went back to the alleyway Liam had walked to the side as well.

  “I can’t find her,” he said.

  “Okay, what do we do now?” I said.

  Why was I asking everyone else what to do? I was the leader of the Underworld. I should make decisions, but did I have to make a decision on everything? Sometimes people needed help, and this was one of those situations. I was finding it hard to keep it together.

  I knew that Annabelle wouldn’t just leave like that. Especially right after we had been hit by magic. That couldn’t be a coincidence. I knew that man we’d seen had had something to do with it, and he’d probably somehow taken Annabelle. Did this have something to do with the disappearance of Dalton as well? And how that other man had vanished right before our eyes seemed really similar. I was upset and angry at the same time, thinking that they had taken her. I was going to find out who did this and they would regret it.

  “I have to call the police,” my mother said.

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right. We need to have someone to help find her.”

  Though I wouldn’t stop looking on my own. My mother pulled out her phone and dialed 911. I decided not to call Detective Manning.

  “I think we should check some of the shops around here while we wait for the police to arrive,” I said.

  “That’s a good idea. Why don’t Annette and Liam go on the other side and we’ll look at the shops right here?”

  That sounded like an okay plan, but I was worried that one of us would disappear like Annabelle. What if we all disappeared one by one? That was a scary thought.

  We stuck to the stores right there immediately around us so we could see when the police pulled up. We had been talking to the shop owner when I saw the car pull up. We rushed outside to meet the officer.

  “You say someone’s missing? Is this a child?” he asked.

  “No, she’s in her thirties.”

  “Thirty-something,” my mother added.

  He eyed us up and down. “And how long has she been missing?”

  “Well, about five minutes.”

  The expression on his face changed. “We can’t do anything about that. She may just not want to be with you anymore.”

  “No, she wouldn’t leave. We’re not from around here,” I said.

  “Yeah, I can tell,” he said.

  “Oh, that was rude,” my mother whispered.

  “If she’s gone for forty-eight hours you could have a relative contact us.”

  Annabelle didn’t have any relatives. We were her family. That was why I had to find her.

  “There’s been some other strange things going on too,” I said.

  “Like what?” he asked.

  “There was another man too.” I looked at Nicolas. He shook his head. He was right. This would sound too crazy. I couldn’t say I’d seen people disappear right before my eyes. He would think we were all intoxicated and lock us up.

  So I just said, “Never mind. We’ll call you if we can’t find her again.”

  He nodded and then got back into his car and drove off. I completely felt defeated, but I wasn’t going to give into that negative attitude. I had to remain positive for Annabelle because like I’d said, we were her only family. I had let her down by letting her be kidnapped by these crazy paranormal people. She wasn’t even paranormal. They were just trying to get back at me. I knew it.

  “Now what do we do?” my mother asked.

  “We have to do a spell to lead us in the direction of Annabelle. We can’t do it right here on the sidewalk,” Liam said.

  “No, probably not. Hey, how about the alleyway? No one was going back there,” I said.

  “Good idea,” Nicolas said.

  We headed for the alleyway. We stopped in the middle and got in a circle, holding hands. To get started I called to the elements. “Element of air, I call to you for help. Element of fire, I call to you for help. Element of water, I call to you for help. Element of earth, I call to you for help.”

  “Do you really think this will help?” My mother asked.

  It has in the past. My mother didn’t use the elements as much for her magic, although lately I had convinced her do try it more often. She had a natural talent and didn’t need it as much as me. I had always needed all the help I could get. Now was no different. I pressed on with the spell. The others watched as if they were waiting for something spectacular to happen. I recited the words carefully and waved my arms in the air.

  They started to recite the words with me. With any hope the spell would lead us to Annabelle. When we stopped the spell I opened my eyes and looked around. I felt it.

  “I think I sense the magic.”

  There was a trail of it. At least that was what I thought.

  “Well then, what are we waiting for?” my mother said.

  We started down the alleyway in the direction where we had been earlier. Someone had done magic in this alleyway before us. Now the spell was allowing me to pick up on that. When we got to the end of the alleyway I sensed it going to the right. That was where I’d seen the man standing. We turned to the right and headed down the sidewalk. We went past the area where he had been standing. The magic kept going. I kept sensing it so we just kept on. I hoped it was leading us straight to Annabelle.

  If this didn’t lead me to her I would be extremely disappointed and upset. What good was a trail of magic if it didn’t lead you to the source? There was always the possibility of negative trickery going on, so maybe they were leading us to the wrong spot. There was no way to be sure. I just had to take my chances, but I was willing to do that if that meant we would find Annabelle. I wasn’t sure how long this trail was going to go on, but it had to stop somewhere.

  “Maybe we should go back and get the car,” Liam said.

  “You could go back and get it and we’ll wait here so that we don’t lose the trail,” I said.

  Chapter 20

  After a few minutes of anticipation Liam drove the car around to us and we rushed in.

  “Are you still sensing the magic trail?” my mother asked.

  “I still have a good feel of it. We should continue straight down this road.”

  My mother released a deep breath. “I’m so relieved that your magic finally works.”

  We drove down the road a bit and then I said, “Make a left here.”

  “You’re going have to give me more warning than that,” Liam said as he made a quick turn, cutting off a car.

  They honked their horn at us.

  “Sorry.” I waved at the car as it drove past.

  We made a couple more turns. Things started to look familiar.

  “Is anyone else getting the impression of where we’re going?” I asked.

  “I have no idea,” my mother said.

  �
�What about you, Liam and Nicolas? Do you think that we’re going back to the house where we found Dalton?”

  “I don’t know what to think for sure, but I’m getting that feeling,” Nicolas said.

  Lately my intuitions had been right.

  “Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?” my mother asked.

  “I’ll know for sure soon,” I said. “And then I’ll explain.”

  I was trying to keep the positive attitude going, but I had that nagging feeling in the back of my mind. My stomach twisted into an even tighter knot.

  “This is the same path that we took before,” I said.

  We turned onto the correct street.

  “Exactly what I thought. This is really scary,” I said. “It’s taking us right back to the same house.”

  “What’s that?” my mother asked.

  “This is the house where we found Dalton. Where we were locked in the basement.”

  “Oh, dear,” my mother said. “Do you think they have Annabelle in the basement?”

  “I hope not, but if they do I’m getting her out,” I said.

  Liam pulled the car up in front of the house and put it into park. He turned the ignition. “So what’s our plan?”

  I tapped my fingers against the side of the car door. “We’ll just have to rush in there.”

  “What if the door is locked?” Nicolas asked.

  “You guys can break it down?”

  “There’s no guarantee of that. What if they’re using strong magic?” Nicolas asked.

  It looked as if I might have to call Victoria. I didn’t want to involve other witches, but it looked like we might need some backup.

  “Maybe we should call the police,” my mother said.

  “Well, they weren’t much help, so I doubt they will want to help us now. We need more evidence that she’s really missing first.”

  Calling Detective Manning might be necessary, although Nicolas and Liam wouldn’t like it.

  “You do have a point,” my mother said around a sigh.

  We opened the car doors and got out, peering up at the house from our position on the sidewalk.

  Just as before it looked as if no one was in the house. We walked up the sidewalk the same as before. The only thing different was my mother was with us this time.