Witch & Wizard Read Online Free PDF Page B

ordinary,
lawful
trials, one juror stands and reads the verdict from a sheet of paper that often shakes in his or her hand. But this was a travesty of justice. This jury simply held their fists out. We watched as the men, one by one, turned their hands thumbs-down. All of them. Unanimous.
    Of course, in ordinary trials, there are also lawyers and due process and principles such as innocent until proven guilty, and things like that. Welcome to the New World Order, I guess.
    Judge Unger banged his gavel so hard that Wisty and I jumped. “Guilty as charged!” he roared, and my breath froze in my chest.
    “You, Wisteria Allgood, are hereby determined by the New Order to be a witch! You, Whitford Allgood, are determined to be a wizard!”
    Wisty and I could only stare up at him in shock and disbelief. But he had saved his best line for last.
    “Both of which are punishable by hanging… until
dead.
”

Wisty
    HANGING UNTIL DEAD?
    This isn’t real.
    My ears started to buzz.
    This can’t be real. This doesn’t happen. This has to be a nightmare.
    My chest tightened up. The room started to go green. And fuzzy.
    And then I heard Whit’s voice. Like it was coming to me down a long tunnel. Finally, he shook my shoulder.
    “Hang in there, Wisty,” he said quietly. I blinked and focused on his face. “Love you.”
    I nodded. Whit didn’t think he was special, but his words and his touch were like a magic bullet of strength. I could breathe now. “Love you too,” I whispered. “More than I ever knew before.”
    I inhaled deeply and braced myself for what Judge Unger had to say next.
    “Unfortunately, executions are not allowed until said criminal is eighteen years of age.”
    The buzzing returned to my ears, the fuzziness to my sight.
    Whit would be eighteen in less than a month!
    I wondered why I wasn’t feeling a little
flameish
or
lightningy
right about now. I wanted to lash out at this judge so much that it hurt.
    “Therefore, both of you will be held in the state penitentiary”—he continued gravely, and then smiled—“for the time being.” He nodded at the bailiff in the courtroom and said, “Take them out of my sight.”
    The guards removed us from the cage—sort of clumsily, I might add, since Whit was thrashing like a rabid animal. “You’re making a terrible mistake!” he yelled. “This is insane! You’ll be disbarred! This isn’t legal!”
    “Shut up, wizard!” the judge screamed, and suddenly hurled his gavel at Whit.
    Whit held up his cuffed hands, and then—
    The gavel just hung there in midair for a good five seconds—maybe six inches from Whit’s face—then dropped heavily to the floor.
    The courtroom was completely silent for a moment. Then chaos took over. Angry voices howled, “Witch! Wizard! Put them to death! Execute them both!”
    And they really did mean
us,
didn’t they? Wisty and Whit. The witch and wizard.

Wisty
    THE ANGRY CHANTING and taunting of the courtroom crowd filled our ears as Whit and I were dragged and shoved down a long, narrow hallway and through throngs of perfect strangers, all thirsty for blood—
our
blood.
    Talk about a way to kill your faith in humanity.
    A few days ago, it seemed like the worst thing that could happen to me was waking up with a giant zit during school-picture day. How could life as I’d known it change so quickly and bizarrely? My brother and I had just been
sentenced to death.
    The horrid word “execution” kept bouncing around inside my head, sending me into a daze as Whit and I were shoved into another van.
    I thought of all the people I’d learned about in school who’d been executed or assassinated. I came up with almost a dozen. But they were all political or religious leaders. And I was just Wisteria Allgood. I wasn’t powerful enough to scare people. Was I? I was not a hero, a prophet, a saint, or a leader of any kind.
It made no sense.
    And then, another horrible thing. Stunning. Something that changed my mind about the