was and how he looked.
It was an angry Sheriff Logan. His face was scrunched up in a scowl and he held his sword in one hand. The blade glistened with something wet and shiny along its sharp edges.
Blood, I realized. His sword was covered with blood. I just knew the sheriff wasn’t to be trusted.
I wanted to turn invisible. Why did the mysterious figure have to be the unsmiling sheriff with a bloody sword? I think I’d almost rather have seen a troll. At least a troll was just a big, stupid brute.
But not Sheriff Logan. The sheriff was an expert warrior. That was what the town paid him to be. Only now, he had murder in his eyes and blood on his sword.
Something darted in the fog on the other side of the street. It was small, dark, and very fast.
The sheriff stopped immediately and dropped into a crouch. His hawk eyes narrowed as he turned to face the threat. He didn’t wait long.
The dark shape sprinted from the fog toward him and I gasped. So did Jozlyn. It was the cat with the one silver ear. It meowed loudly as it scampered toward the sheriff.
“Where is your mistress, fiend?” he demanded, swinging his sword threateningly.
The cat meowed again but didn’t stop. I don’t think it was interested in what the sheriff had to say. It dashed right between his legs and headed for us.
Jozlyn pulled me closer to her and I felt her shiver. She didn’t trust the sheriff any more than I did, and she hated that cat. It had stolen Rosie, so it was her enemy.
At the last moment, the cat turned sharply and raced past us in the fog. It snarled as it went by, and its ears were pressed flat against its head.
Sheriff Logan sprinted right behind. He charged after the cat, pumping his arms and legs. “Come back, fiend!” he yelled. His long cloak flapped behind him like a flag.
If he weren’t so dangerous, I’d say he looked like a hero from one of Dad’s stories.
Jozlyn and I waited until the sheriff’s voice and the sound of his boots faded into silence. Then we finally breathed again. I hadn’t realized I could hold my breath so long.
“Let’s get out of here,” Jozlyn urged. “With the cat gone, we should be able to find Rosie easy enough. She’s probably scared and lying in the dirt somewhere all alone.”
Suddenly I felt angry. How could Jozlyn think of her doll at a time like this? Rosie was a dumb doll, not a person or a real pixie. There were more important things to worry about.
I climbed to my feet and grabbed Jozlyn’s shoulders with both of my hands. “What do you mean? We’ve got to wake Mom and Dad. Didn’t you see the sheriff’s sword? It was covered with blood!”
Instead of agreeing, Jozlyn stared at me with a blank look on her face. I knew immediately that she hadn’t seen the blood. If she had, she would be running already.
Instead she laughed and pointed to the east, toward the rising sun. “You’re such a … silly kid,” she said, chuckling.
Confused, I looked over my shoulder and down the street toward home. The fog was thinning and I could see the reddish-orange glow of the sun painted brightly across the sky. It reflected off buildings and the signs hanging about town.
The reflections looked kind of like blood. Kind of the way the sheriff’s sword had looked.
I sighed to myself, feeling stupid. How many times was I going to make dumb mistakes? Hearing the cat say, “Help me-ow.” Believing Connor’s goofy story about the troll. Seeing blood on Sheriff Logan’s sword. I was scaring myself with my overactive imagination.
What was wrong with me? I was confusing Dad’s stories with real life, but I should have known better. Trolls didn’t fish from bridges. Cats didn’t talk. I was getting things mixed up and needed to settle down.
Feeling sorry for myself, I hung my head. I should have stayed in bed.
Jozlyn punched my shoulder playfully. “Come on, little brother. Let’s find Rosie. I bet Sheriff Logan takes care of that cat.” She was trying to make me feel better, but I wasn’t going to feel better that fast.
I nodded silently. I didn’t feel much like talking.
We brushed ourselves off and headed down the street toward Mosswood Bridge. From there it wasn’t far to the festival grounds and Everleaf Woods.
As we walked, the sun continued to rise. It warmed our backs and cast long shadows in front of us. The fog thinned as we went, too. The day was turning out to be nice after all.
Now, I thought to myself, if I can quit seeing and hearing monsters all over the place, everything will be all right. I needed to remember that I wasn’t a hero and that life wasn’t always an adventure.
Jozlyn hummed a little tune while we walked and pointed out a butterfly the way Mom had done the day before. Only today, I stopped to watch it for a bit.
Its colorful wings were tiny and delicate, like paper pressed so thin that you could almost see through it. I could hardly believe that something that was once a fuzzy caterpillar could sprout wings and learn to fly.
It was really pretty amazing if you thought about it. Maybe it was a kind of magic.
I smiled and caught up with Jozlyn. I was starting to feel better. The sun was shining and the fog had disappeared. I even spotted an odd blue and orange spider, and pointed it out to her.
Of course, that was right when everything went wrong. That was right before Cleogha returned.
11: HOP ALONG, FLOP ALONG
A shadow passed in front of the sun just as we reached the festival gate. We turned around in alarm. The unpleasant memories of the frightening shape on the bridge and the strange scene between the sheriff and the silver-eared cat were too fresh in our minds for us not to be a little jittery.
Jozlyn was first to notice that the shadow had been a passing cloud. “Bwawk-bwawk,” she said like a chicken, flapping her elbows with her hands on her hips. “Did the puffy white cloud scare you?”
I was about to say, Not as much as you wearing my clothes, but the words stuck in my throat. There was something else in the sky besides clouds.
A tiny dark splotch zipped back and forth like a fly. It looked to be right over the center of town.
I watched but didn’t panic. I was too worried about making a fool of myself again. The thing in the sky definitely wasn’t a troll or a talking cat, and I thought it best to wait to say anything until I knew for sure what it was.
Jozlyn noticed me staring and turned to look again herself. She immediately pointed at the splotch and asked, “What is it?”
“Shhh!” I hissed quietly. I was concentrating on the splotch. I still didn’t know what it was, but I knew one thing.
It was getting bigger.
I had a bad feeling. The splotch couldn’t be a bird because birds didn’t zip back and forth that way. It had to be a witch on her broom.
“Let’s find a place to hide—fast,” I urged. I was genuinely afraid now. Bigger meant that the splotch was getting closer. “It’s coming this way.”
“There!” Jozlyn exclaimed, pointing at a big willow tree with long drooping branches. The branches dangled all the way to the ground and were thick with leaves.
“Perfect,” I said. “Let’s go.” Jozlyn was already running, but I paused to take one more look at the splotch. It was much bigger now.
“Josh, hurry up! It’s going to see you.”
My sister was behind the willow’s branches. Only her head peeked through the leaves. I ran. I had a pretty good idea of what the splotch was, and hiding was exactly the thing to do.
I didn’t bother to slow down when I reached the tree. I barged right through its branches with my arms out straight like I was diving into water. Leaves slapped my face and vines snagged my clothes. I tripped and crashed into the trunk with a thud.
Panting and feeling a little dizzy, I rolled over to face Jozlyn. Little scrapes and cuts covered my face and hands. Even the scratch on my nose from the cat was tingling again.
“I think it’s the witch,” I panted fearfully. “I think it’s Cleogha on her broom.”
&n
bsp; Jozlyn squinted at me then stuck her head back through the wall of leaves. She made a little squeak and then popped her head back inside right away. Her face was pale.
“You’re right. It sure looks like her.” Her bottom lip quivered as if she was about to cry. “What are we going to do, Josh? Cleogha hates us.”
Right then, I don’t think I would have felt better next to anyone else. As my sister, Jozlyn had decided that if the witch hated me, then she hated Jozlyn, too. Jozlyn and I were a team.
I wanted to thank her but couldn’t think of anything good to say. All that came out of my mouth was, “We’ll be safe here. She can’t see us.”
I hoped I was right.
Jozlyn was about to say something more when the witch let out her terrible cackle from right overhead.
“Eh-he-he-he-heh!” Some of the leaves around us rustled as if blown by the wind.
“Hide while you can, little ones,” said the witch in her raspy voice. “It won’t be long now.”
We had to do something. The tree felt like a cage. The witch had us trapped.
On our hands and knees, we scuttled to the far side of the willow and paused at the edge to take a deep breath.
“Jozlyn, we’re not far from the woods. If we can make it into the trees, the witch won’t be able to spot us.”
It was our only hope. I hated the idea of going into Everleaf Woods, but I hated it less than the idea of the witch catching us.
The witch cackled again. “Come out, come out! You won’t like what I’ll do if you make me come in there.”
Jozlyn swallowed and her face took on that serious look that it had when she’d