“I was when I went to bed last night,” Ashley replied, her voice beginning to tremble again. “But when I got up this morning I was like—this!”
“I see,” Hexe said sympathetically, handing her back her learner’s permit. “Please step into my office, Miss Lattimer.”
Now that I was fully aware of the situation, it wasn’t hard to see the teenaged girl trapped within the body of the grown woman standing before me. As she entered Hexe’s office she stared in openmouthed amazement at the taxidermied crocodile hanging suspended from the ceiling. Hexe took one of his scrying stones from his rolltop desk and passed it over her body like it was a magnifying glass.
“It’s as I suspected—you’ve been inflicted with progeria,a supernatural form of accelerated aging.”
“Am I going to keep getting older?” she asked nervously.
“No,” he assured her. “It doesn’t appear to be an ongoing curse. Do you have any idea why anyone would have done something like this to you?”
Ashley nodded, an unhappy look on her face. “I go to this fancy prep school called Pridehurst. My parents aren’t rich or anything like that—I got in on an academic scholarship. I really like it there, and I’ve made a lot of friends. Then last week I found out I’m on the Homecoming Queen ballot.”
“I get it,” I said knowingly. “So someone decided to cut down on the competition by turning you from prom queen to chaperone. Sounds like a really lovely school.”
“Not everyone at Pridehurst is like that,” Ashley insisted. “But the ones that are like that are really rich, and they’re very mean.”
“They’d have to be rich; progeria is a pricey curse,” Hexe said in a serious voice. “It’s considered a petit mal infliction—straddling the line between Greater and Lesser curses.”
“Can you help me, Mr. Hexe?” Ashley asked plaintively.
“Yes, but I need the permission of one of your parents to go forward,” he explained. “Despite your current physical condition, you’re still legally underage.”
“Please don’t make me call my mom and dad!” Ashley pleaded, sounding very much like the sixteen-year-old she truly was. “I don’t want them knowing about this! I snuck out of the house before they could see me this morning. If they find out what happened, they’ll yank me out of Pridehurst and sue the school! I really like it there—I don’t want the school and the rest of the student body to get a bad name, because it’s not really their fault.”
“I understand your position, Ashley. Truly, I do. And it’s commendable that you don’t want to drag anyone else into this. But, like I said, progeria curses are pricey. That also holds true for lifting them. It’s going to cost a thousand dollars to reverse the spell cast over you.”
“I’ve got my own money!” she exclaimed, frantically scrambling inside her purse. “I’ve been babysitting to save up for an iPad. I’ve got almost five hundred dollars—I’m good for the rest. My neighbor, Mrs. Moretti, has twins. . . .” She pulled out an envelope filled with five, ten, and twenty dollar bills and handed it to him.
“Very well,” Hexe sighed. “I’ll do it. But only because I’m going to be in the market for a babysitter pretty soon.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr. Hexe! And you, too, Mrs. Hexe.”
I opened my mouth to correct her, then shrugged my shoulders. What the hell. I was having his baby—might as well get used to it.
Hexe walked over to one of the glass-fronted barrister cases that lined the walls of his office and removed what looked like an old-fashioned windup alarm clock, save that it was made of brass and the face was set with Kymeran numerals. He spoke an incantation in his native tongue under his breath while winding the clock with his right hand, then handed it to Ashley.
“Miss Lattimer, I need you to sit on that sofa over there,” he said, pointing to the fainting couch, “and hold this clock in your hands while pointing its face away from you. Is that understood?”
Ashley nodded her head and took her place on the couch, tightly clutching the magic clock as if it might leap from her hands and go running out the door. Although she looked like a woman in her early thirties, her face was as open as that of the young girl she really was.
Hexe raised his silver-clad hand over his head and began to chant in a loud voice. As he did so, the Gauntlet of Nydd became bathed in witchfire, the spiritual luminescence all Kymerans possess. The phosphorescent glow grew in intensity until, with an earsplitting crackle, a jagged finger of supernatural energy shot from his palm like the spark from a Tesla coil and struck the face of the clock. Ashley flinched and gave voice to a mouse-sized squeal but, to her credit, she did not let go.
As I watched in amazement, the hands on the clock began to turn backward, and Ashley’s adult features began to soften and grow younger. Then, all of a sudden, there was a weird noise, as if the gears of some great, invisible machine had been thrown into reverse, causing the entire room to vibrate, as the color of the witchfire shrouding Hexe’s hand changed from bluish white to purple-black. At the same time, the hands on the clock began turning forward, and I gasped in horror as Ashley’s reclaimed youth melted away and her brilliant red hair rapidly faded as traceries of white sprouted from her temples.
Hexe shouted something in Kymeran and grabbed his upraised right hand by the wrist with his left, abruptly forcing it against his side, severing the feed to the magic clock. His face was drawn and pale, and his golden eyes shone with barely controlled panic as he stared at his handiwork. Instead of reversing the progeria, his spell had aged Ashley twenty years further. Crows feet and laugh lines—evidence of a life yet to be lived—marked the corner of her eyes and mouth, and her throat and cleavage both had sagging skin.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice sounding huskier than before. She let go of the clock and reached up to touch her face, only to freeze upon seeing the wrinkled skin and bulging veins on the backs of her hands. “Oh my God—what did you do?”
“I’m dreadfully sorry, Ashley,” Hexe said. “Whoever cast the progeria spell over you protected it with a stinger—a magical booby trap. That means anyone who tries to reverse it will, instead, age you even further. I had no way of knowing the stinger was there until it was too late.”
“What can we do?” Ashley asked, her voice wavering on the verge of tears.
“There’s nothing I can do,” Hexe replied solemnly. “However, most progeria spells will reverse themselves after a month or two.”
“But what about Homecoming? I can’t show up looking like my Aunt Lorraine! Please, can’t you try something else to fix this?”
“I’m not willing to take that risk, no matter how much I’m paid,” Hexe replied. “I could accidentally kill you, Ashley. Here, take your money,” he said, handing back the stack of bills. “I’ve done nothing to deserve it.”
My heart went out to Ashley as the poor girl began to weep in despair. High school is bad enough already without adding menopause on top of it. I slipped an arm about her shoulders as she sobbed, doing my best to comfort her. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out—isn’t that right, honey?” I said, overloudly.
“Of course! I just need time to consult my spell books. Leave your contact information with Tate, and the moment I find the proper counterspell, I’ll remove the curse free of charge—it’s the least I can do, given the, um, circumstances.”