Spelling Mistake (The Kitchen Witch Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

straight to the point. “Do you think this supernatural entity assistant thing killed Scott Plank?” I hoped they would rush to assure me that it hadn’t, but to my dismay, they all remained silent.
    “Let’s go into the living room where we can examine the Book of Shadows,” Ruprecht said.
    I couldn’t help thinking it was a funeral procession as we filed one by one into the adjoining room. Ruprecht laid a piece of deep purple silk over the large table that sat resplendent in the center of the room. Golden sparkles flew from the silk as it swooshed through the air, and I didn’t know whether they were real or due to some kind of magic. I put the tin on the floor against one table leg. As I pulled out the Book of Shadows and set it on the table, everybody gasped.
    “That must be Thelma’s book, the ancestral book of the Spelled family that was given to her by her husband, Wolff Spelled,” Camino said to Ruprecht. Her tone was one of wonder.
    “Yes, of course it is,” Ruprecht said absently.
    “Thelma Spelled, my great aunt?” I said. “Aunt Angelica’s mother?”
    Ruprecht and Camino nodded solemnly.
    I was perplexed. “But why would she bury it?”
    “That’s the million dollar question,” Ruprecht said. “Angelica told me about the Book of Shadows, but she never mentioned what had become of it.” He raised one eyebrow at Camino, who nodded.
    “She never mentioned it to me, either. I knew about the Spelled family’s Book of Shadows of course, but I didn’t know where it was.”
    Ruprecht carefully, almost reverently, opened the Book of Shadows. “It’s in an amazing state of preservation,” he said, “given that it’s been buried all these years. Thelma must have enclosed it in a spell of protection.” He shut the book and turned to me. “Now, Amelia, show me the spell that you read out aloud.”
    I felt defensive and more than a little guilty. “I really didn’t mean to read the spell,” I said. “I was on hold to Helen Harden, the physical therapist, and I was flipping through the book while I was waiting for her to speak again.” I noted Ruprecht’s abject look of horror at the fact that anyone would do something so impertinent as to flip through such a book. “I came across a spell to improve one’s baking,” I continued, “but it was in Latin, I think. I didn’t know what it said, but I read it aloud. That’s when the entity appeared.” I carefully opened the book. It was a thick book, so it took me a while to find the spell. “There it is.” I pointed to the heading that said, Spell to improve one’s baking .
    The others looked over my shoulder, but Ruprecht leaned so close to the book that I thought his nose would touch it. “It’s in Latin,” he proclaimed. “My Latin is a little rusty.”
    I held my breath as Ruprecht bent over the text. “Oh no!” he exclaimed after an interval.
    “What is it? Is it bad?” I rubbed my hands together with anxiety.
    “There.” Ruprecht pointed to a line beneath the Latin. “‘Beware the vox nihili .’”
    I was puzzled. “What’s a vox nihili ?”
    Ruprecht rubbed his chin. “Literally it is the voice of nothing, a typo if you will. It’s a type of spelling mistake. You know when AutoCorrect on your phone makes a mess of something, turns something into meaningless writing?” We all nodded. “It’s the same. When someone was copying this spell into the Book of Shadows, they copied a word wrongly, perhaps even simply copied a letter wrongly. Later, maybe even decades later, someone noticed the mistake, and made the note below it. Do you realize what this means, Amelia?”
    “No,” I said truthfully. I was still stuck on the fact that ancient people made typos.
    I had never seen Ruprecht look so worried. “It means that you didn’t summon an assistant to help you become a better baker.”
    I hardly dared ask the question. “Then, um, then what exactly did I summon?” I stuttered, clutching my stomach as a wave of