Spell For Sophia Read Online Free

patted my torso. It didn't feel as though Mam'zelle had breached my magical shield. I hugged myself. I think she passed into the light. A fresh worry hit me. What happened to Ainslie?
    My stomach whirled again. A puzzling new scene played before me. An audience sat in folding chairs, their collective gaze fixated on a teen boy and an elderly couple on a makeshift stage. Off to one side of the audience, Ainslie chased after a large book that appeared to propel forward of its own accord. She wasn't quick enough. The tome splintered, morphing into handwritten letters and faded postcards, all flying toward the stage. The air in front of the stage rippled like a protection spell. I had a bad feeling the letters and cards were about to knife through the magical ward.
    Acting on instinct, I ducked and covered my head and face with my arms. With a whoosh, the dozens of candles in the hut ignited. I rose from my crouch, encircled by flames. My stomach lurched. The room rushed upward and I shrank. I shrieked — an otherworldly, hyena-like sound. The ring of flames intensified. My skin heated. My hand flew to the skin graft on my throat. For a terrible moment I was three again, standing in the kitchen my parents had converted into a makeshift lab, and unbearable pain seared my throat and arm.
    No, no, no. I calmed my younger self. You're okay. This is now. That was then. We're not on fire. The hut isn't on fire. This is a vision or weird dream. Wake up!
    My muscles remained rigid; my feet rooted to the floorboards. A glass dome shimmered above me. Startled, distorted faces — the elderly couple from the stage —stared down at me as though I were a tiny figure trapped inside a fiery snow globe. Without thinking I yelled, "Find me!"
    The old woman's jaw dropped. The elderly man gawked, then retreated. The dome vanished, sounding like a spacecraft whisking off into the clouds. The candles extinguished as abruptly as they had flared.
    "Oya-Yansa?" With another lurch my body shot up to its full five feet, two inches. My hand flew to my speeding heart and my fingers fanned over my breastbone. Disoriented, I blinked into the darkness. The three-year-old still shaking within me wondered where we could hide.
    Merciful Mary! My heart sounded like a train click-clacking over tracks. Find me? Why hadn't I screamed, "Help! I'm trapped in a Louisiana bayou!
    I stooped and groped until my fingers closed over the matchbox. Fumbling, I removed a match and ignited it. Acrid sulfur seared the air. My hand trembled as I tilted the nearest jam jar and thrust the flame at the candlewick. On the second shaky jab the wick flared. "Ow!" I dropped the match and withdrew my hand. I sucked on my burned finger while the flame consumed the match. The jam jar warmed as I raised it. I dropped my gaze to the bed and fear bumps tingled my arms.
    Mam'zelle's body had vanished. In its place, a snake coiled among a scattering of magnolia leaves.
     

Chapter Three
     
    Please don't swarm at night. My prayer to the alligators replayed in an endless loop in my mind. I packed just in case. Mentally, the act hurled me back to foster care when each knock on the door had set the fine hairs on my forearms standing on end. Why is my caseworker here? Am I going to have to move again? At least this time I had been warned change was coming. Having my backpack and Breaux's old valise instead of a plastic garbage bag didn't make my stomach less queasy. I was still headed for the unknown.
    Please hurry, Breaux. I need your help. I'd never be able to navigate the maze of back channels on my own — day or night. And getting lost was not an option. The tide could strand me. My provisions could run out. My skin prickled just thinking about the diamondbacks and gators slithering in the water. Part of me argued, they'll be hibernating; you don't have to worry. Well, I wasn't going to bank on anything in voodoo country.
    I knew the land route, but only because there was so little of it. The