Witch & Wizard Read Online Free PDF Page A

you okay? What happened to you?” I blurted out. My heart was pounding like a bass drum.
    “We’ll get to all that. I promise. The question is, are
you
okay? Is Wisty?”
    “Sure—you know me, Celia, I can roll with it. And Wisty is tough as nails. She’s
smoking,
actually.” I chuckled weakly at my own joke. “I guess we’re a little weirded out, though.”
    Celia smiled again, and I just about couldn’t stand it. I’d had no idea how much I’d missed that incredible grin of hers until right now. And she was prettier than ever—if that was even possible. Smooth skin, long dark curls, the brightest blue eyes that always told me the truth, even if I didn’t want to hear it.
    “You look great, Whit—for somebody who’s been kidnapped, beaten up, and jailed illegally.” Now a half smile.
    “Forget about me. I want to hear everything about you. Celia,
what
is going on? Where did you go?”
    She winced, then her head slowly moved from side to side, and tears rolled from her eyes. “That’s a tough question. And I know I just got here, Whit, but I really have to go now. I just had to make sure you were okay. And Whit—it’s hard to believe
I’m
saying this to
you,
of all people—you really have to hang tough. You and Wisteria. Otherwise you’ll both be dead.”
    Then Celia was gone—I was wide awake—and I’d been warned about what to do next.
    Hang tough.

Wisty
    I USED TO THINK detention was kinda fun. A badge of honor, almost. Man, how quickly things can change.
    This was the real thing.
    My old life, and the days of recklessly skipping class, felt like a million worlds away now. I missed it, and our house, and especially our mom and dad, so badly that I felt like I was going to lose it.
    I stared at the ceiling and daydreamed, remembering… How Mom used to lie in bed with Whit and me when we were really little, and she’d laugh and laugh, and tell us that she was teaching us how to love laughter, because it was one of the very best things in life, maybe the best.
    And…
    How Dad always said he had to be our father, not our friend—and that there was an important distinction between the two—but somehow he ended up being our best friend anyway.
    And…
    How we went on all of those great family trips to art museums such as the Betelheim and the Britney. And then those potentially corny family camping trips, one every season—no matter how cold or rainy it was—and we learned how to survive in the world, but more than that, to love what was out there, just waiting to be discovered.
    Like this great oak tree that was in our yard—the one that Whit and I learned to climb almost as soon as we could walk… and
fall
.
    And then… there were two guards at my door.
    With handcuffs.
    And leg shackles.
    “For me?” I beamed at the two creeps. “Aw, you shouldn’t have.”
    Amazingly, neither of them thought that was the least bit funny.
    “Come on, witch!” one guard snapped. “It’s your day in court. Now you get to meet The One Who Judges… and you’re definitely not going to like him.”
    “Of course,” said the other guard, “that’s only fair—he’s definitely not going to like you either.”
    The guards thought
that
was hysterical.

Whit
    SUNLIGHT—the first we’d seen in what seemed like ages—came streaming through thirty-feet-high windows in the courtroom, almost blinding us. I squinted and tried to shield my eyes, only to whack my forehead with my handcuffs.
Klutz much?
    I had thought by now I’d be hard to shock, but I couldn’t believe the scene in front of me.
    A mammoth portrait of The One Who Is The One hung at the center of the room, like he was a conquering general or the emperor. There was a huge metal cage in front of the judge’s desk—yes, a cage, like for shark diving. One guard held the door open, and the other one pushed us into it.
    Into a
cage.
    In a courtroom.
    “I’m almost getting used to looking through bars,” Wisty said, sounding resigned. Not