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Spellcaster Claudia Gray 14900K 2023-08-31

"Ulanced up from her laptop, which was currently atop their dinner table and casting a greenish light on her face Her eyes ide, and her voice shook "I think you ht want to see this"

"What is it?" Nadia said as Verlaine turned the laptop around so they could see

"Okay, last year everybody who got detention had to help scan and catalog all the school annuals going back to the first one in 1892 So now there’s an online version aluh, stuff like that" With a nervous look at Mateo, she said, "I thought I’d run a search on Elizabeth If she’s a witch, maybe soht be witches, too, right?"

Nadia nodded; given the signs she’d already seen of a long history of witchcraft in Captive’s Sound, it seeh Mateo frowned and crossed his arms in front of him, he didn’t protest

Verlaine continued, "Look at the index"

She turned the screen around for them to see Elizabeth Pike was pictured in last year’s Rodh School annual And five years before that And three years before that And on and on--Nadia scrolled down to see that the list of i more than seven years, all the way to 1892

"It’s a fauess," Mateo said

"But look" Verlaine flipped the coes "Here’s froet an official picture taken, but there’s this--" A photo showed Elizabeth on the quad, drinking a soda, just one of several students caught in a randoe popped up on screen, and Nadia gaped The caption said it was "Liz Pike" standing in line for the neater fountain--but it looked exactly like Elizabeth Her hair ht have been in a little sprayed bubble and the clothes she woreout of a black-and-whiteabout her face that made her look a bit older, but the reserandmother What about it?"

Verlaine said, "And 1930"

This i behind the punch bowl in a ruffled fore at her neckline was another Elizabeth, equally identical to the one they knew--"Betsy Pike," maybe a year or so older than the one froe, a forain read "Elizabeth Pike"; the face was again unh-necked shirt on and her hair caught atop her head in a prie was obvious: The version in the earliest photo was the oldest In 1892, she was listed as a teacher, not a student--a young one, perhaps, but no teenager

For a long moment, nobody could speak Finally Nadia said, "I don’t understand"