Chapter Three

A/N: Okay first off, I would like to apologize to my readers. I just read back through Chapter Two for reference and I realized that I posted it without spell checking part of it! I'm really sorry; and a special 'forgive me' to everyone from Massachusetts for the horrible spelling job I did on your state. I had no idea how to spell it (it's a long name!), and had planned on just spell checking it later…which I forgot to do. So sorry again, I know several of you probably cringed at the way I spelled it…I know I did. I was just so anxious to get the post up, since it was late. I promise to be more careful in the future. Okay:0)

Also, sorry about the lack of update…It's actually my spring break this week so I'm a little distracted. Usually my episodes are five chapters long, but this one will be six, because there is still a lot of stuff I want to cover. I hope to get that up soon…seriously. :0)


Trees whipped by on either side of the speeding car, tall and green and looming over the ditches of the highway. Their mid-sized sedan took the curves at an almost breakneck speed, Lucas grinning a little in delight at every too sharp corner. Chloe didn't notice, she stared out of her window at the passing landscape, her mind running through their situation over and over again. Salem was only a few more miles away, especially with Lucas driving the rental car the way that he was, but she didn't feel any closer to solving the mystery.

"Chloe?" Clark asked, tapping her shoulder and leaning around her seat from his position in the back. She looked at him in surprise. "We're here," he pointed out the windshield at the town in front of them. She hadn't even noticed that Lucas had parked the car in a parking lot and had already climbed out of the car and was now stretching his legs outside.

"Right," she unbuckled her belt and climbed out after Clark. They looked around the square that they found themselves in; a coffee shop, a couple of banks, what looked like a gift shop, and a Municipal Information building.

"Maybe we should start there," Lucas pointed to the Information building, already crossing the street in that direction. Clark followed obediently and Chloe behind him. They found a young girl behind the counter, gazing intently down at an issue of Cosmo, reading an article about the top 55 Sex Positions. She looked up at them with a brief smile when they entered.

"Hi," she greeted when Chloe walked up to the counter and Clark and Lucas began to collect various maps of the town and surrounding area. "Can I help you find something?"

"Actually," Chloe nodded and smiled her most friendly give-me-information-smile. "I'm trying to track down a girl I know but I'm not sure where to look."

"Okay," she pulled a phonebook out from behind the counter. "What's her name?"

"Serena Gilmore," Chloe replied quickly. The girl visibly paused in her search, turning a pair of dark eyes up at Chloe, looking more than a little uncomfortable.

"S-sorry?" she shook her head. "Who were you looking for?"

"Serena Gilmore," Chloe repeated, slower and more clearly, though she knew that the girl had heard her. Lucas and Clark looked over in interest now, making their way over to join the girls. The girl averted her eyes quickly, just long enough for them to know that she knew something. "What is it?"

"Nothing," she lied…poorly. "She doesn't live here anymore. She hasn't for a couple of years now."

"Yeah…" Lucas prompted. The girl looked petrified now, but Clark smiled encouragingly at her and her shoulders visibly relaxed.

"Look, I don't know if she's your friend or—"

"She's not," Chloe assured her.

"But you're wasting your time," the girl continued, seemingly not hearing Chloe's interjection. "No one knows where she's gone, she just disappeared…no one wants to know either. They don't like to talk about her around here."

"Did you know her?" Clark asked. She nodded.

"She was friends with my sister Clarissa," the girl raised a hand to her mouth and gnawed briefly on her thumbnail, as if trying to decide if she should continue. She dropped her hand. "They were roommates a few years ago, before she went to Boston—" the girl stopped immediately, obviously feeling that she'd said too much.

"It's okay," Clark assured her. "We know about Trent Ford." She seemed to be reassured, but then Clark just seemed to have that ability.

"Serena and Clarissa were roommates," the girl repeated. "And Clarissa used to tell me…okay, Serena had no family around, but apparently when she did they were really weird."

"What do you mean weird?" Chloe asked, knowing from personal experience that the term weird could mean a lot of things.

"They were into to doing, like, spells and stuff," she whispered.

"Spells?" Lucas repeated, unimpressed.

"They thought they were witches?" Chloe almost rolled her eyes at the idea…then again she'd seen stranger things.

"This is Salem," the girl shrugged. "I don't know about the family really, but Serena was really into it too. Clarissa said that she had a room in the basement of the house that they lived in together…where she kept her witch things."

"Do you think that she was a witch?" Chloe asked her, noticing how nervous the girl seemed to be.

"Serena had an uncanny way of getting people to…believe things, to do things," she insisted. "This town has always had rumors of witches, but Serena was the first one that people really got scared of. When she moved to Boston everyone was glad…until we heard about what happened to that Ford guy. No one believes that he wanted to kill himself."

"Do you have any proof? Any way to convince someone that was…affected by her, that she was a witch?" Chloe asked her seriously.

"No," she shook her head. "But my sister might."

"Then we're going to need to talk to her."


Clarissa Masters peered out suspiciously through the gap in the open door, her eyes appearing just under the security chain. "What do you want?" she demanded, taking in the three strange arrivals. They looked tired and a little rumpled, like they'd been traveling, but they all had a determined air about them.

"We want to know about Serena Gilmore," the girl replied. She was clearly the ringleader of the little fiasco.

"Sorry, can't help you," Clarissa began to close the door.

"Mandy sent us!" the tallest one, the boy, called out before she could. Clarissa paused and then closed the door anyways…but only to unhook the chain. As soon as she opened the door the girl was bursting inside, obviously experienced enough at interrogation to know not to wait outside where a door could be slammed on you at any moment. The tall boy looked down at Clarissa's attire, a long t-shirt that she used as pajamas, and blushed. Clarissa rolled her eyes and strode quickly into her room, slipping on a pair of faded blue jeans. When she reappeared in the living room they were waiting expectantly.

"Well," Clarissa sighed impatiently. "What do you want to know?"

"We know that she was into…witchcraft," the girl answered, looking like it pained her to utter the word witch in an actual conversation. Where was she from anyways? "We just need some proof."

"Proof?" Clarissa repeated, flopping unceremoniously down onto the sofa.

"We need to convince someone that he's being influenced by her," the girl clarified. That made Clarissa sit up, mostly in concern; Serena could be sweet, but when she was threatened she got dangerous.

"You should probably just let it go," Clarissa advised them.

"We can't just let it go," the girl insisted, a little hotly. "She's brainwashed our friend…we have to help him."

"Knowing Serena," Clarissa smirked. "This friend of yours is probably filthy rich and incredibly good looking."

"Well," the second guy, the older one, shrugged. "He's rich."

"Lucas," the girl shushed him…they didn't get along. Or maybe they did, and there was just a little more tension than was normal. The tall boy sighed.

"We really need to stop her Clarissa," he told her sincerely, smiling a little. He was incredibly good looking. "And he won't believe us if we don't have any proof."

"So what you want me to give you a spell book? Maybe some incense? Do you think he would buy that?" Clarissa laughed.

"Why not?" the girl shrugged. Clarissa suddenly felt angry; these kids had no idea what they were playing with, they thought that magic was just a game, just a little thing to make life more fun. They had no idea what girls like Serena, girls like Clarissa, could do.

"Do you know anything about magic Blondie?" Clarissa demanded, climbing to her feet now. "If Serena can make your friend fall for her then she's not going to just let him know what she is. Even if you find proof, and show it to him, he's not going to believe it because he's under a spell. He'll say that she's just playing around at being a witch, that there's no such thing as magic, and that you're just trying to ruin his happiness."

"How do you know that?" the girl demanded.

"Because that's what she did last time," Clarissa told her coolly. "Trent Ford heard warnings from everyone around him too. Do you think that you're the first ones to try and track her down? You aren't. Everyone else just happened to run into tragic accidents along the way."

"We still have to try," the boy insisted. "Please, there's got to be something we can do to stop her." Clarissa frowned at them again. But the cute boy was looking at her with impossibly large blue eyes, and they seemed to really want…

"There might be something," Clarissa mumbled. "Follow me."


Chloe stuck really close to Clark while they followed Clarissa down a set of stone steps into what appeared to be a cellar. The scent of wet dirt and mold hit her nostrils immediately and her lungs felt a little heavier when she breathed in the earthy air...she had a most unwelcome flashback to being burried alive in a field... Clarissa led them deeper into the cellar and waved her hand absently towards an overhead chandelier; the candles on the chandelier flickered to life, casting an orange glow around the small room. Chloe felt herself gasp not only at the magical display but at the room in general as soon as the light grew bright enough for them to see. Along the dirt walls there were dilapidated looking old shelves, stocked to the brim with ingredients that looked like something Professor Snape would collect. Chloe suppressed a shudder at a jar of eyeballs, floating in what was probably formaldehyde, and forced herself to pay attention to what Clarissa was doing.

Clark, Chloe and Lucas stood as close together as they could without looking like wimps, and watched expectantly while Clarissa grabbed a shovel that was leaning against one of the dirt walls. She tossed the shovel at Clark, who caught it by the handle and stared back at her in confusion. "Dig there," she pointed at an even patch of soil in one corner. "There's a trunk. It's got everything that Serena left behind when she took off. That's the best proof that you're going to find."

Clarissa waited until Clark nodded that he understood and then she left, sweeping up the stairs quickly and causing the lights to flicker as she passed. Chloe swallowed shakily and hurried over to help Clark dig the trunk out. Lucas wandered around looking at the various ingredients along the walls. "Wonder where the cauldron is?" he muttered.

Clark rolled his eyes and began to dig, moving quickly and building up a pile of dirt against the wall. Chloe bit on her lip while she waited. "Don't touch anything Lucas," she warned.

"Don't be a baby," Lucas peered curiously at a shrunken, mummified looking hand.

"You don't know what this stuff can do," Chloe insisted. Lucas snorted and reached two fingers out to prod the hand. Chloe watched while the mummified hand grabbed tightly onto his fingers…Lucas shrieked and batted the hand away. Chloe rolled her eyes but chose not to comment and Lucas decided that it would be better to stand with her and wait for Clark, averting his gaze so she couldn't see him blush.

"Found something," Clark exclaimed, knocking the end of the shovel against something in the ground, making a clunking noise. He dropped the shovel and both he and Chloe crouched down and began to clear the remaining dirt away with their hands, revealing a tin and wooden box. Clark pried it out of it's grave and kicked the dirt pile back into the hole, filling it as best as he could.

"I wonder why she buried it?" Chloe asked, wiping away the last of the dirt.

"Maybe its buried treasure," Lucas suggested dryly.

"Maybe it's dangerous," Clark shot him a look. The trunk was about three feet wide and two feet deep, and there was an old lock on the front that was rusted to the point of being ruined.

"We can't open that in here," Chloe told them. "Let's get out of here and see what we've got."

"I'll carry it," Clark volunteered, picking up the trunk and holding it by the handles on the ends. Lucas led the way out and Clark followed, Chloe brought up the rear. She paused at the top of the steps and looked back down on the room; irregular shadows from the candles flickered across the walls, changing shapes and reaching across the floor like long black fingers. She shuddered and hurried back out into the daylight.


Chloe buckled herself into her seat beside Clark and leaned her head back against the headrest with a sigh. She closed her eyes tightly, and even though she couldn't see him, she knew that Clark was shifting around uncomfortably beside her. For a guy that seemed to be immune to physical harm he sure was terrified of planes; even if the thing did crash he probably would walk away without even a hair out of place.

"Would you take a pill or something Kent," Lucas snapped from his seat across the aisle. "You're bugging me."

Clark replied something back, which Chloe ignored. She forced her eyes open and glared at them. "Would both of you please be quiet?" she ground out. Clark immediately shut his mouth and Lucas glared back at her. "I'm tired and I don't feel like listening to you two fight…so don't even start."

"No need to get pissy just because we have to wait for the trunk," Lucas rolled his eyes and relaxed against his seat. "It's not like it's our fault we couldn't bring it on the plane."

"It's not that," she lied. Truth was she was nervous about the trunk arriving in Smallville safely. They hadn't been able to take the trunk onto the plane (it didn't help that they didn't know the contents of it), and had been forced to have it FedEx-ed to the penthouse. She'd paid more for overnight delivery, so it would arrive the next day, but she was still concerned.

"It'll be fine Chloe," Clark assured her, patting her hand with his own larger one. Chloe sighed and nodded, trying to believe him. Clark squeezed her hand in his, and when he didn't let go of it she found herself beginning to believe him.


When a knock sounded on the penthouse door at noon the next day Chloe almost knocked Clark over in her desire to get to the door. Clark braced himself against the hallway wall in shock and watched while she jabbered a mile a minute to the delivery guy, signing an electronic gizmo and accepting the huge box from him. "No one else finds out about this," she told him, slipping him a bill in a denomination large enough to make him nod and wink her way before he disappeared again.

Chloe bolted the door behind him, looking out into the peephole at the hallway in paranoia. "She's getting as bad as Lex," Lucas muttered, hurrying over to take the large box from her. They opened it in the living room (ignoring the stark white rug that covered the wood floor), using the pair of bolt cutters that they'd kept handy since they'd arrived.

"Okay Drusilla," Chloe muttered, shaking the remnants of the lock away. "Let's see what you're hiding." The hinges creaked and flakes of rust fell onto the carpet when she pushed the lid open. They all looked eagerly into the trunk, eyes widening at what they found. When the dust –both literal and metaphoric—settled, even Lucas was looking worried.


Chloe was pretty sure that she could hear some kind of personalized soundtrack running through her head. Not Clark's ridiculous Mission Impossible theme, of course, but something a little grittier. It was hard to avoid, she'd seen so many movies, and in the movies there was always a cool song playing in the background when the good guys (that was her, Clark, and Lucas) were about to confront the bad guys (that would be Serena) and save the damsel (who…would be Lex). Of course the good guy trio was down to two at the moment, because Clark was at the farm hiding the trunk in what he assured them was a secure location, and Chloe and Lucas were the only two striding purposefully through the halls of the mansion. Clark would join them in a minute, but for now it was just the two of them. She figured that Lucas could still be her sidekick…and she'd have to play superhero until Clark got back (because the guy just had a knack for the heroics).

Walden had told them that Anna –or Serena, or whatever—was in her dressing room. Chloe chocked back a retort about her needing a dressing room and led Lucas there, almost too excited to think straight. They pushed the doors open and listened to them thump against the walls with a satisfied bang. Anna/Serena/She-devil looked up at them in surprise from where she was sitting on a Queen Anne bench, reading what looked like one of the first editions from Lex's study. "Chloe," she greeted, a sickly smile spreading across her face as quickly as the look of surprise had. "And Lucas…you're back early. Good trip?"

"Shut up," Chloe told her, shutting the doors behind them. They had decided that they didn't want Lex to know the awful truth until they got her to confess…in case he 'decided' that he didn't care that she was a witch. He was funny like that sometimes.

"What?" she asked with her best injured-puppy expression.

"She said shut up," Lucas drawled, walking swiftly over to the closet in the room and pulling the doors open.

"What are you doing?" Anna demanded, jumping to her feet and stomping over to him. She grabbed his shoulder but he shook her off easily.

"Just looking for the cauldron," he ripped the assortment of clothes off of the hangers and walked deeper into the closet, looking around the floor and shelves for any evidence.

"Do you use one of those?" Chloe asked her. "Because we didn't find one in Salem, and we thought maybe you brought it with you."

Anna looked a little panicked. "What?" she laughed shakily. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh you know," Chloe waved her hand dismissively and set about searching the rest of the room. "A cauldron…witches use them to mix up potions and stuff. Of course my faithful following of the Harry Potter books could be wrong."

"Witches?" Anna repeated dumbly, her eyes flicking to the door briefly.

"Yes, witches," Chloe gave up all pretenses of friendliness now, and Lucas stopped searching. "Or whatever it is you like to call yourselves…Serena."

They'd been expecting a bit more of a defense from her, and were a little disappointed by the outcome. Serena's face hardened visibly, and her eyes glinted yellow briefly. "I should have know that you two would figure it out," Serena growled, her voice not nearly as pleasant as the tinkling girlish wisp that she's taken to using. "All of the information that I had on you two seems to have been wrong."

"Information?" Lucas repeated…they hadn't expected that.

"Yes, you know," Serena practically snarled. "That thing you little reporters love to find. I thought that you were trying to control that nosiness of yours Chloe."

"What can I say?" Chloe shrugged. "Sometimes I just can't help myself." She meant it.

"Well you were just supposed to be a sweet little sister presence," Serena continued. "My research failed to bring up the fact that you're a lovesick little puppy who would do anything to keep Lex all to yourself."

"What—"

"And you," she spun on Lucas next, making both Lucas and Chloe take a step backwards. "You were supposed to be practically non-existent! A pain in the ass that he wrote a check for once a month to keep out of his life. But you can't stand to have someone else get a piece of the Luthor pie either, can you?"

Lucas didn't say anything; neither did Chloe, most likely because they were both distracted by the freaky feeling that was coming over the room. She associated it with the feeling of static electricity –the air felt a little different than normal, and the hair on her arms was tingling, beginning to stand on end. Lucas could feel it too, she could tell just by looking at him.

"Do you think that you're the first one's to ever figure it out?" Serena seethed. Her eyes began to glow again, this time a creepy shade of gray, almost black. "Clever little Chloe and her boy wonder sidekick…you think you're so smart don't you?" She looked at them each in turn. "We'll see how smart you are when I have you shipped off to a Swiss boarding school, and you cut off and left to deal with the messes you make all on your own."

"Lex would never do that," Chloe shook her head, amazed at the woman's presumptuousness. "It'll never happen, because once we tell him what we've found out, you'll be out of here faster than you can say Voldemort. You stupid bit—"


Clark hurried down the hallway in the direction of Lex's study, hoping to find Chloe and Lucas in there. He knocked and pushed the door open, but finding the room empty, retreated back to the hallway with a frown. He needed to find them fast, but he couldn't risk super-speeding around the mansion with all of those Luthors out and about…

Clark looked both ways down the hallway quickly; making sure that no one was looking. He activated his x-ray vision and began to scan the mansion…smirking when he spotted three skeletons together in a room on the second level. He hurried down the hall and up the staircase, wondering why he let Chloe talk him into meeting them later. She had just been so insistent that he hide the trunk in a place where no one would find it…

He reached the top of the stairs and turned right, in the direction of the rooms that used to belong to Helen…he supposed they now belonged to Anna, or whatever they were calling her now. Clark couldn't hear any yelling from the hallway, and taking that as a good sign, he didn't bother to activate his super-hearing. He knocked awkwardly on the door; what did you do in a situation like this one. Hello? Can you let me in? I'm here to expose you and your manipulative ways…you witch. He had a feeling that there was really no prescribed etiquette for a situation like this.

Anna opened the door and gave him a beaming grin. "Is Chloe in there?" Clark asked her, glaring slightly at the woman that he knew was brainwashing Lex.

"Clark," Chloe greeted from behind Anna. She sounded…happy. Clark stepped into the room and blinked in shock at the picture before him. Chloe and Lucas were both dressed in what had to be their outfits for the wedding. Clark frowned.

"What's going on?" he demanded.

Chloe giggled and spun around in a small circle, showing off her gown. "Do you like it Clark?" she asked. He did, but that wasn't the point.

"It's nice," Clark said slowly, shooting her a look that he hoped she would understand. "Too bad you won't get to wear it."

"Don't be ridiculous," she laughed. Lucas sat down on the large plush bed and Anna took a tentative seat beside him. Clark frowned when Lucas didn't move away.

"What's going on?" Clark demanded again. Chloe looked back at him in confusion, as did Lucas. Anna was beginning to look a little suspicious…

"We're trying on our outfits for the wedding," Lucas rolled his eyes. "Jeez Sherlock."

"The tailors just finished them," Anna nodded, shooting him another suspicious look.

"The wedding…" Clark trailed off, eyebrows raised, silently begging Chloe to drop the act and get on with the inquisition. Why were they just hanging out with Anna anyways?

"Yeah, the wedding," Chloe told him slowly. She laughed and gestured to Anna. "You know, this weekend…Lucas and I are in the wedding party. Anna and Lex are getting married…what's wrong with you?"

Clark blinked back at her, not really finding this joke funny. He gave her a moment to loose her composure, break out laughing and tell him that she'd been just trying to mess with him. But Chloe didn't laugh; she just frowned and looked over at him in concern, wondering why he didn't seem to remember. Lucas looked confused too…

And then it hit him. 'Oh god.'

TBC…