The Enchanted Writes Book One by Odette C. Bell Read Free Book Online Page A

fire, a symbol started
to appear at her feet, and then a great rush of crackling ice shot
around it and up towards the witch.
    The witch screamed again, and the ice
slammed right into her, those two hands plastering to her side from
the force.
    Henrietta still couldn't see the creature,
but she was catching glimpses of it, beyond the hands to its torso,
to the ends of its unkempt, scraggly black hair. It felt so
nightmarish seeing it in pieces like this, as crackles of her
spells lit up the creature in spurts.
    It was wearing rags, a simple skirt and top,
but they were burnt and dirty. It had the hollowest eyes,
dark-rimmed circles underneath them, the pupils wide, the irises
pale. It was thin, ghostly thin; she could see the bones in its
arms and legs, and its cheeks were high, its neck long and
gaunt.
    So this was a witch. Apart from the long
fingernails, she could have passed for a human being, a sick,
horrific-looking human being, but a person nonetheless.
    Henrietta stood there, but once again Brick
leaned into her. “Do not stop, Witch Hunter; you must keep
fighting.”
    So she did.
    This time she wrote the word wall. It formed
before her mind, somewhat like the ice spell had. The second she
wrote it, magical blue crackling outlines of bricks shot from a
symbol under her feet and appeared before her. As they did, as they
formed a solid wall, the witch screamed and shot fireballs from her
hands.
    It was a frantic thing to watch. Horrible
too and terrifying, and it made Henrietta shiver. Fire began to
crack up along the witch's skin, as if she was made of stone that
was breaking under heavy weight. The witch hurled her hands
forward, as if they had been yanked by heavy ropes, and the
fireball collected off her skin and shot towards Henrietta.
    It didn't reach either her or Brick; it
slammed into the wall.
    “Excellent,” Brick admitted through a quick,
snapping breath.
    Write any spell that comes to mind,
Henrietta thought to herself. Her fingers tightened around her
wand.
    Wind.
    She wrote the word before her, her wrist
twisting.
    A new symbol appeared at her feet, and it
was accompanied by a quick burst of air that caught the ends of her
jacket and skirt. Soon a vicious wind whipped around the circle and
then shot forward at her magical wall. It pushed into the bricks
and they flung forward, right at the witch.
    The bricks fell against the creature, and as
they did, a roaring magical wind slammed into her too. The witch
brought up her arms, tried to protect her face, and let out a
ferocious cry.
    “Don't—” Brick began.
    “Stop,” Henrietta finished off his sentence.
That was what he was going to say.
    It also gave her an idea.
    Freeze.
    She wrote the word, and the most curious of
symbols appeared at her feet. Something that was not wind, that was
not fire, that wasn't even visible, rushed up from the symbol and
spread through the room around her.
    The bricks stopped tumbling and the wind
stopped roaring, the tails of her jacket and skirt stopped brushing
against her legs too. In fact, everything stopped. From the dust
filtering through the air, to the horrific cry of the witch.
    Everything froze.
    Even Brick did. The only thing capable of
movement was her.
    She had to replace this spell with something
more useful.
    She had to figure out some way to end
this.
    She didn't want to write end. Who knew what
would happen. If writing the word freeze had made everything
freeze, end could destroy the entire world.
    So Henrietta thought, and she thought
blindingly fast.
    Float.
    She wrote the word, but as she did, she kind
of hoped that the spell would take effect on her and not the witch.
It was a fleeting thought, but as it appeared in her mind, it made
Henrietta change the direction of her writing; rather than write
towards the witch, she brought her hand back and wrote the word on
her own chest.
    It worked. A new symbol appeared at her
feet, this one a vibrant turquoise color that reminded her of
tropical waters. She