Astrid's POV

I hear Daddy's voice. "Wake up, Astrid!"

Slowly, painfully, I come to… I'm hurting all over. I twitch my right arm. There's something wrong with my left. I struggle to my feet. What I see nearly makes me pass out again. I'm looking down at my back and at my arse! I can't see my chest at all.

"Daddy… I can see my arse…!" I say, my voice choking up.

"You live Astrid. You can never pass through the veil like I did. You will overcome any physical setback."

"What… is this what living forever means?"

"Right now, there is an evil spirit lurking in the cellar."

Daddy's right. I catch sight of the terrible doll scuttling out of the shadows. Daddy floats over to it and it hisses and scuttles back into a corner.

Sophie's voice floats down the stairs. "Astrid? What happened? I heard crashing and banging?"

"Go to her. I can linger to hold the monster at bay," urges Daddy.

"Coming, honey!" I call up the stairs. I awkwardly shuffle backwards up the staircase. My neck's not only broken, it's twisted right round, one hundred and eighty degrees. My left arm's broken and hanging limp by my side.

Sophie's staring wide-eyed. "Astrid – What…? How…? What's wrong with your neck? Did you fall and hurt yourself?"

I don't know exactly how to reassure her, when I'm looking like I do, with my head on backwards and moving around like a broken crab. I've gotta figure something out. I try to smile. "Come sit with me, Sophie."

Sophie takes my unbroken arm and leads me to the sofa. I sit down very awkwardly. She picks up the furry bear glove puppet. "Mr Furry wants to make it better. Look, he loves you." She touches the bear to my green hand. I feel warmth spread through me and something like a static shock prickle from my green fingers into the bear.

At that moment, I hear the front door and my heart sinks. Sam's back. Great. How's this gonna look?

"Hey darlings, I'm home!" Sam sees me and her blue eyes start out of her head and she staggers. She goes deathly white, like she's about to faint.

"Don't worry, Sam, I should've told you, I'm really a witch," I blurt out. Great. Now I've done it.

"Poor Astrid's got a broken neck. Help fix it," urges Sophie.

"No… wait…" I grip my head and twist it back the right way round. At that moment, I feel a crackling of energy as my bones fuse together again. Mr left arm repairs itself too.

Sam comes over to us.

"What does it all mean? W-what happened?" She's breathing hard, her boobs rising and falling. She touches my green cheek. "You're alright? You scared me sick." Her voice is trembling. She puts an arm around me.

"Listen, magic is real," I gabble. "I turned myself into a witch voluntarily, so I could get Dad back, but everything's going wrong. I'm a rubbish witch."

"Mr Furry says, 'cheer up!'" chimes Sophie, reaching across her mum and touching the bear to me again. I feel warmth spread through me again. Has my spell actually done something to the bear?

Daddy appears beside me. "You did enchant the bear, but the enchantment waxes with displays of affection. The little girl and her mother are both showing you affection now. Use this spell. You need to now…"

There's a scuttling sound and the demonic doll appears, clacking its jaws shut. Sam's blue eyes open wide again and Sophie gives a little squeal. "It's horrible."

I get an idea. Call it my witchy instincts if you like. "Let me have Mr Furry, Sophie. I think he can save us."

On my hand, the glove puppet feels warm and alive.

"Yeah, save us Mr Furry."

"You can't stop me, witch" gabbles the evil doll. "Break me apart and I'll put myself back together again, just like you. In the end, I'll destroy you all."

"I'm not going to break you…" I say. "I know that never works. I've seen the first four of the dreadful Child's Play films… the ones which still made a crazy sort of sense…" I lean forward and grab the doll with Mr Furry, the bear glove puppet. It's really weird. It's like the bear swallows the doll whole, and then falls off my hand, looking gorged. That's it then. Mr Furry ate the terrible doll. There's no trace of it left to rebuild itself. Not even a scrap of plastic that could be built into a new doll body.

Sophie cheers.

"That was magic," says Sam. A frown line has appeared between her brows.

"Yeah. I wanna be really good at magic, so that I can do useful things. Like cure sick people. But I'm a raw rookie and I've made mistakes."

"Of course, dear. You are young and inexperienced." Sam appears to be considering me. "How did you become a witch? Please tell me everything."

So, I tell her.

"Amazing. I never even dreamed of such a thing. The world is such a strange place." Sam sounds awed.

"But my spell to get Daddy back went wrong," I hasten to add. "I didn't know exactly what I was doing."

"That was ambitious, to try necromancy straight away," Sam agrees. "But don't be hard on yourself. You have made magic happen in a very short space of time. With patience and discipline, a witch could work towards great things. Like curing sick people. You must take me to see this mirror girl who turned you into a witch. She has to turn me as well."

I'm aghast. "Wait, what?" Shouldn't I try to talk her out of it? Or make sure she gets what it actually means? "Look at me. I have this green skin. And it looks like I can't die. I'm just thinking how scary that is."

"You wanna be a witch, Mummy?" asks Sophie.

"I must do whatever it takes to make you well again," says Sam sadly.

If Sam wants to turn to witchcraft to save Sophie, I can't really argue. I just hope she'll make a better witch than me, so she can actually succeed.

00O00

Lottie's POV

(Set earlier that day, while she's at school)

I've made a real effort with my makeup this morning, but now I dunno… do rouge and red lipstick look garish on a bright green face? I'm getting even more startled stares than before and all this muttering:

"Can you believe she was the prettiest girl in the school?"

"What's she done to herself?"

Roy comes up to me grinning. "Don't worry about them muttering." He points his thumb at a group of muttering girls. "I think you're still pretty cute, in a weird sort of way."

Ack… At least he means well.

"Gee, thanks," I say, forcing a smile.

"So? Did you make the sea slug brew?"

I've made my sensitivity spell with the sea slug urine and magic words. The spells are in two little capsules. "Yeah. They should make the one we love more sensitive to the fact that we love them. Help them see the option they have without us needing to say it." We get a cup of water by the water cooler. "Alright, after three…" On the count of three we swallow the capsules.

"I don't feel any different," grumbles Roy.

"You're not meant to. Erica should be more sensitive to the fact you love her, though. The spell lasts one day."

I'm nervously excited about English class. Naturally I get whispers and sniggers when we're waiting outside the door:

"She-hulk's tried to get herself dolled up…"

"Shrek might be interested…"

I try to tune it out.

Class goes ahead, and Jason does look at me quite a lot. At one point he seems to stammer and then he looks right at me, like he's startled. Can he sense I love him?

After class, he leaves in a hurry and I run after him, ignoring the sniggers and giggles.

"Jason… please…" I lay a green hand on his arm.

"Sorry, Lottie, I can't talk…" he like, runs away from me down the corridor. He's never, ever been so rude before. He can sense something he couldn't sense before. He can sense that I love him and now he wants to run away, like I'm a storybook witch!

I stand there, tears in my eyes. Roy walks up to me. "Hey, Roy," I say mechanically.

"Erica said she'd have to be crackers to go out with me," says Roy, dejected. "She sensed that I wanted to go out with her without my having to say it."

"She's a mean girl. It's better if you don't go out with her," I point out. "Now you know she's no good for you."

"You're so smart," he says, in an awed voice. So easily impressed!

It's better that I don't burden Roy with the fact that my heart's been broken. I want to run and find Astrid right away, but on second thoughts, I might as well go to drama first.

In drama, Ms Duchess the teacher drops a bombshell that I was sort of expecting.

"Lottie," she trills, "this is a slightly delicate matter…"

"Let me guess," I say in a dull voice, "I'm not gorgeous anymore, so I can't play the role of Princess in the play."

"Sorry, but Princess can play Princess," chirps Ms Duchess, twitching about in her anxious, birdlike way.

"I'm disappointed, but not surprised," I say. I guess Princess is the prettiest girl in our class now. Plus, she's actually called Princess.

The guys in the class crowd round Princess admiringly. Ms Duchess points at her. "She has golden hair like yours, her face is almost as shapely - she doesn't have the sprinkling of freckles that gave you your old air of innocence, but…" Ms Duchess doesn't need to point out that I've gone green, so don't fit most people's idea of perfect beauty anymore. That can't be why Jason was alarmed. He didn't care that I'd gone green. What was it then? It must be because he's the teacher and no one knows I'm a witch, so they'd think there's a power imbalance in his favour. Well it's time for me to really use my power.

At home, Astrid has to go babysitting, but I don't feel like telling her about things with Jason anymore. I'm gonna mix a love spell. I should've done that to begin with. Astrid would have a problem with it, I know.

I read the spell book carefully and brew the potion in a big pudding bowl. I've gotta put my hair, blood, sweat and tears in it. I cut off a lock of me hair, and fill another bowl of boiling water so I can put a towel over my head and let the steam make me sweat. Looking in the mirror, my green face is covered with a sheen of sweat and I let a few drops drip into the potion. Then I chuck in the hair and think how sad I feel about today, with Jason running away from me and me losing the part in the play to Princess. I sniff, and two tears fall into the brew. This next part's a little icky, but it's not too hard. It's my period, so I can add a bit of my blood without cutting myself.

The potion shimmers and turns a brilliant green. It's sort of between a gas and a liquid. I pour it into a perfume bottle, like the book says. I just have to spray a little on Jason, and he should love me.

I hear the door go. Astrid's back. "Hey, sis. How's Sophie?" I see her face. Something's really wrong. "What happened?"

She tells me. God, it's so awful. That sweet little girl has leukemia! And what happened with the evil ghost possessing a doll, that's just so creepy. The evil doll came because of Astrid's blunders with necromancy. Like when that wamphyre appeared. And then Astrid says she fell down the stairs and broke her neck.

I give a start. "WHAT!" I grab her by the shoulders and check her neck and feel her forehead. Her neck's not broken. I frown. "Why are you trying to wind me up?" That's not like her. She never teases anyone.

"I'm not," she says wearily. "Remember the Witches' Council said we live forever? It looks like we literally can't die. My neck did heal, but it hurt. And even though she knows this, Sam wants to be a witch too. She wants to try and save Sophie by magic."

"I say good luck to her."

Astrid frowns and brushes her long red hair away from her green face. "I really hope she can save her. If it works, she'll live on forever. Long after Sophie's dies of old age. In the end, she'll have no one to hang around with except us … and maybe the Witches' Council. We have to be helpful."

I nod. "I'll support her."

00O00

Next day at school, I have my scent bottle with the glowing green spell in it. I sweep down the corridors, looking for Jason. I see Corey, the gym coach. Corey's kind of cute, with a crooked nose and designer stubble.

"Mr Feldman, may I please ask where Mr Risk is?"

"He's not here today. Can't think why."

A group of guys come rushing down the corridor. Corey yells at them. "Have I or have I not told you to stop mucking about in the corridors. Gimme fifty!"

He's making them do fifty press-ups. Harsh.

One of them doesn't seem to hear and rushes past the coach and barges right into me, knocking me over. I drop the scent bottle and a green cloud rises into the air. Oh no!

The guys all sniff as the cloud envelops them and spread down the corridor. Then they look at me.

Corey gazes at me with misty eyes. "Lottie, you are the greatest girl at this school."

Ralph, head of the football team pushes past the other boys. "Yeah, why'd those harpies on the cheerleading squad kick you off? You're a green goddess. You look…" he sniffs "…and smell… so wonderful." Oh no, the potion had my sweat and blood in it. They're all crowding round me, gazing at me like I'm the most wonderful thing they've ever seen. Then they drop to their knees.

"I love you."

"I love you more."

"You're like a goddess."

"Have all my mint candies."

They're all enchanted to love me! What am I gonna do?