stuff," he said. "If you're going to drive around town, can I get a lift?"
They managed to fit his red bicycle onto the back of their van. Nora took the wheel while Isabella used a spirit sight spell to try to find weak points or doors to the spirit world. After a long and frustrating drive, they had circled the entire town and found nothing of use.
"This place is as isolated from the spirit worlds as the real world," Isabella sighed. "There are no doors, no weaknesses, not even any spirits to talk to."
"Okay, then what are our other options?" Nora asked.
Isabella and Maryann looked at each other. "We can try to break the spell," Maryann said.
"How would we even begin to do that?"
"Yeah, how would you do that?" Albert echoed. "And if you did, what would happen to us? Would we disappear? Would we suddenly grow as old as we actually are?"
"He has some good questions," Isabella said. "Albert, you said your dad cast this spell, right?"
"Yeah."
"Do you think he's still got the stuff he used?"
"I don't know. I guess he would. Why?"
"Well," Isabella said, "if we can figure out what the spell was and how it worked, maybe we can figure a way out of here that won't completely break the spell since we don't know what the consequences are."
"I don't know," he replied doubtfully. "I don't want you to disappear, but I don't want to disappear either."
"We don't know unless we take a look," Maryann said brightly. "If we don't think we can figure a safe way out, we won't do it, okay?"
"I guess," he answered, still looking skeptical. He gave them directions to his house, which was a large, renovated, two-story farmhouse on a parcel of land nearly three times as big as the nearest neighbors. "Dad's busy at City Hall, so you won't be disturbed," he said, leading through the large house and up to the top floor to a staircase that terminated in a door. "The attic."
"What, really?" Nora sighed.
He shrugged. "I don't understand either." He opened the door to reveal a very narrow staircase that was somewhat boxed in by the support beams. "After you, ladies."
They walked single-file up the stairs. The door slammed shut behind them with a loud crack.
"Does it always do that?" Maryann asked, and then sneezed.
"Yes, but there's no point in fixing it, right?" he answered. "Dad always meant to get that spring fixed. It smashed my fingers real good one time."
The attic seemed to be nearly as large as the house and was surprisingly well-lit with a few flimsy but large windows. It was dusty, hot, and had a few cobwebs stuck to the rafters. It was also extremely cluttered with boxes, a trunk, a clothes rack with old clothes, a dressmaker's dummy, and broken sports equipment.
"So, where do we start?" Maryann asked Albert.
He shrugged again. "Your guess is as good as mine."
"We will get you trouble if we start going through this?"
"Eh, don't worry about it. It all resets, right? I'll go get some drinks. Be right back," he said, and disappeared down the cramped stairs. The door creaked and slammed shut behind him.
Maryann looked around. "Well, I wouldn't do any ritual magic here, but then again, people are weird. He'd certainly have enough props."
"Where do we start looking?" Leah asked.
"Oh, anywhere is good, probably. He probably would try to hide his stuff so Albert didn't get into it. So maybe there's a Book of Shadows buried at the bottom of one of these trunks or boxes."
"Can't you use a spell or something to find his stuff?"
"Leah, I've told you before, magic doesn't work like that," the redhead sighed. "Unless he's got some kind of epic artifact of power, his props are just props until he starts using magic."
"Great."
So they started digging. Nora found where the Christmas and Halloween decorations were stored. Isabella found a box of women's clothing she guessed belonged to Albert's mother. Leah found a bunch of old toys, some broken, and some not. Maryann found an old sewing machine, a family Bible, some sewing supplies that had gone a long time without being used, and some mason jars of pennies.
"This is ridiculous," Nora exclaimed. "There's nothing here but junk!"
"We don't know that for sure," Isabella said mildly. "But there is a lot of stuff to go through. We're looking for someplace that's easy to get to once you know to look there."
"Yeah, and how long have we been looking?"
The blonde checked her watch. "Over an hour. Hey, where's Albert? I thought he was just going to get us some drinks."
"Maybe his dad got home early or something," Maryann said. "I'll just go downstairs and get him and make sure everything's okay." She trotted down the narrow stairs and found she could not open the door. "Uh-oh."'
"Did you just say 'uh-oh?'" Leah asked.
"The door's stuck. Or something." She started to bang on it loudly. "Hey! Hey, Albert, the door's jammed! Albert! Can you hear me?" After several minutes and no effect, she stopped yelling and walked back up the stairs.
The others had all stopped in their tasks.
"He's gone, isn't he?" Nora snapped. "Or he's not listening."
"Um, yeah, it looks like it," Maryann said sadly.
"Why? Why would he lock us in his attic?" Leah asked.
Isabella frowned. "I'm guessing he didn't want us to try to break the spell but he didn't want to refuse to help outright, so he locked us up here. In the morning, we'll be gone and everything will be the same as it was."
Leah cursed in Spanish.
"I suppose it doesn't matter if we're locked in here," Nora said sullenly. "I mean, if we can't get out of this town, it doesn't matter where we are in it, does it? The only way out is the bridge, and that's totally flooded out."
"The bridge," Isabella repeated. "Oh, the bridge! I've been so stupid!"
"What?" the others cried.
"Find anything you can that looks historical. There may be another way out of this town. And just rip it apart. If Albert left us up here, I don't think he or his father are going to be back any time soon."
The band members tossed the entire attic. The mayor did seem to have a great interest in local history and in one of the less dusty trunks they uncovered a series of scrapbooks with yellowed newspaper articles. Slowly, achingly slowly so as not to damage the fragile paper, they combed through the articles.
"Okay, we might have a way out," she said as the sun set. "The old bridge was unsafe, but it wasn't torn down. See, it was made a historical marker," she said, pointing at an article.
"So what?" Nora said crossly.
"So it's still there and it's also higher over the river than the modern bridge. Hopefully it won't be flooded out. And I think I know how to get to it, if we can get out of this attic."
"Well, why didn't you say so before we wasted all this time?"
"It wasn't a waste," Isabella snapped, uncharacteristically ruffled. "It's no good breaking our legs jumping out of the window and falling thirty feet if there's no place to go. But there is a place to go, so let's find a way down. Did anyone find any rope or anything to make a ladder out of?"
"There's lots of junk," Maryann replied. "But nothing that easy."
"Then we'll make it up as we go."
"Alright! When we're rich and famous and someone makes a biopic of our band, this will be the part with the awesome montage," Leah said. "We should totally write the music for that."
"Only if we get out," Nora said dryly. "What happens if Albert or his dad come back try to stop us?"
"Then let's block the door from our side," Isabella answered.
They set to work trying to rig an escape from the attic. In the end, they made a rope of a few old clothes, some Christmas tree lights, and fishing line. They shoved an old mattress out a window.
"That isn't going to keep us from breaking our legs," Nora said, looking down at it.
"Better than nothing," Isabella
said.
"Maybe."
They tied off their makeshift rope and stared at each other.
"I don't know if it's best to go first, or worst," Leah said.
"I'll go first," Isabella sighed.
"First you tell us how to get to that bridge in case you knock yourself out, or worse," Nora said.
Isabella drew out a map and handed it to Nora. Then she carefully headed down the rope. She made it safely and darted away to get the van in case they either needed a fast getaway or a first aid kit.
"Nora, are you going to be okay?" Maryann asked. "We're pretty high up."
"Yeah, I know that. Believe me I know that," she snapped. Then she took a breath to calm down. "But there's really no other way, is there? So I'll go next, okay, because I know you two still have to get down." She took a few more breaths and finally climbed out the window. She was the slowest by far but finally made it to the ground. Maryann clambered down fairly quickly, and Leah half-fell the last ten feet to land heavily on the mattress.
"I think I cut my hand on a light bulb," she said, referring to the strings of Christmas lights.
"We'll patch you up in the van. Isabella, I hope you're right, and you can find this thing," Nora said. It was completely dark now.
"I'll find it," she said grimly, and they drove off. Bridgetown wasn't very big to begin with and it wasn't long before they were out of the range of street lights. But finally the headlights illuminated a quaint wooden covered bridge. "Better take a quick look." They got flashlights and hopped out of the van.
"I'm no expert, but this doesn't look safe at all," Maryann said, noting the rotting wood and collapsed boards. "It's really narrow too. Will the van even fit?" The river raged