Salem 1993

The group reached Town Hall and from outside the two-story red brick building, they could hear the sounds of the live band that was playing for the party. There was a banner that hung above the doors announcing the 16th annual Halloween Pumpkin Ball. The upper windows glowed purple from the lights at the party.

"How wonderful," Abigail remarked. "They still have balls."

"Um, yeah," Max said, knowing this party wasn't anything like a ball she was imagining. "It's just a little different than you're imagining."

They crossed the street, seeing more adults going into the building.

"Oh, great," Max muttered as he led the group. "How are we gonna find Mom and Dad in this place?"

"I'll wait outside," said Binx as he jumped out of Abigail's arms and into the lower branches of a nearby tree. "If anything happens, shout for me."

"How will you hear us?" Max asked as he eyed the noisy building, doubting that the cat would hear them over the music.

"I won't," Binx admitted. "But it might make you feel better."

Dani held out her arms and Binx reluctantly jumped into them, after he saw the look on Abigail's face. No doubt she would climb the tree to get him out of it.

"I should be eating Peanut M right now," Dani muttered as she and Abigail walked into the building.

"Actually," said Max, "you should be in bed."

Dani only rolled her eyes. "I'm going to find Mom," she called over her shoulder, disappearing between a policewoman and a jellyfish with Abigail in tow.

The second floor of Town Hall was a huge ballroom packed with half the adults in Salem. On the stage was a band of skeletons, the singer had on a top hat and was singing Sinatra's "Witchcraft". The audience was decked out in costumes.

Abigail looked around in wonder. Three hundred years ago, All Hallows Eve was a night where everyone stayed inside, safe from the devils that came out, but now it seemed to be a holiday where everyone celebrated. She much preferred this to a night by the fireplace learning protection spells and bible verses.

Dani was trying to find her mom, though it was difficult since she wasn't sure what her parents had dressed up as. She sidestepped a man dressed as Aladdin on his flying carpet, making sure Abigail wasn't going to bump into anyone. The colonial girl was more entranced by everything around her than worried about finding Dani's mom.

Dani peered into the mouth of an alligator. "Mom?" she asked, and the reptile only shook his head before waddling off.

She turned, nearly running into a blonde woman in a red bustier, the cups modeled into two spiral cones.

"Mom?" Dani asked, aghast. She nearly dropped Binx. "What are you supposed to be?"

Abigail looked at the woman's costume, well, she assumed it was a costume and not her everyday attire, especially since Dani had sounded so shocked. It was hardly fitting. Abigail knew clothing had changed, Allison and Max's clothes alone proved that, but this was a little much for the girl out of time. She was having a hard time looking at Mrs. Dennison.

Mrs. Dennison looked flustered. "Madonna," she answered her daughter's question, gesturing to the costume. "Well, you know," she continued, self-conscious now. "Obviously, don't you think."

Dani sighed. "Come here," she said, dropping Abigail's hand and holding Binx out to her mother, hoping the cat would speak.

"What?" Mrs. Dennison asked as she crouched down to hear her daughter speak.

Dani pointed at Binx. "This cat, okay?" she started. "He can talk." Then she pointed at Abigail. "Abby was a statue. My brother is a virgin. He lit the Black Flame Candle. The witches are back from the dead and they're after us." She paused for a breath. "We need help."

After a pause, Dani's mom placed a worried hand on her cheek. "How much candy have you had, honey?"

Dani's next words tumbled out of her mouth when she realized her parents might not believe her story if she hadn't lived it she probably wouldn't believe it. "Mom, I haven't OD'd. I haven't even had a piece. They're real witches, they can fly, and they're gonna eat all the kids in Salem. They're real."

"All right," her mother said warily, smiling at the older girl with her daughter. She was glad her kids were making friends. "Let's… just… find your father." The blonde woman turned and looked at the crowd trying to find her husband.

The skeleton wrapped up the song. "Thank you, ghouls and ghoul-ettes!" he said to the dancing crowd, grinning at their applause. The band then began to play an up-tempo cover of Jay Hawkins' "I Put a Spell on You".

The Dennison family, plus Allison and Abigail gathered on the dance floor, the two extra girls watching from the sidelines.

"Guys," Mr. Dennison said impatiently, "I love you, but enough is enough. Just calm down."

Max was fuming. "But they're gonna come –"

"Don't you see how crazy this sounds?" his dad insisted.

Dani caught sight of something across the room. "Max!" she shouted. "Max! They're here!"

Max turned away from his parents, his eyes scanning the crowd for the sisters. Then he spotted them. Winifred was chewing Mary out while Sarah was kissing a mummy. Max didn't wait, he took off towards the stage, ignoring his parent's pleas to come back. Once on stage, he wrestled the microphone away from the singer.

"Cut the music!" shouted Max, he needed everyone's attention.

"Hey, man, I'm in the middle of a song," the skeletal singer complained.

"It's an emergency," Max told him still speaking into the mic. "Only for a minute." Max turned to the crowd. "Will everyone listen up, please? Your kids are in danger."

That got everyone's attention. The adults gasped, pressing closer to the stage.

"Three hundred years ago," Max continued, "the Sanderson sisters bewitched people, and now they've returned from the grave."

The people laughed.

"Why aren't they rushing to find their children?" Abigail whispered to Allison.

"Um, witches aren't really a problem anymore," Allison whispered back. "Most people don't think they're real."

"Oh," Abigail responded, though she still didn't quite understand. Even if the people didn't believe in witches, shouldn't they make sure their children were safe? If one child was alarmed enough to stand up and tell everyone this, shouldn't they listen? Perhaps things had changed even more than she thought.

"Hey, I'm serious," Max insisted. "It's not a joke. I know this sounds dumb, but they're here tonight. They're right over there." Max pointed at the sisters, all of them looking nervous at the boy's accusation.

A spotlight scanned the crowd, stopping on the sisters, making everyone gasp and step away. Abagail hoped that they believed Max now and saw the danger that their children were in.

Winifred recovered faster than her sisters. "Thank you, Max," she said loud enough for the now silent room to hear, tapping her long nails on her chin., "for that marvelous introduction."

The crowd laughed again and applauded at the creativity of it all.

"I put a spell on you," Winifred said dramatically, throwing her hands in the air. The keyboardist took this as a cue and began to play once more. "And now you're mine," Winifred had a devious smile on her face as she continued with the lyrics.

Abigail instantly covered her ears. She knew that songs could easily become spells, she'd sung lullabies laced with magic to calm her little sister and put her to sleep, now the sisters were going to spell the whole room.

Dani saw Abigail with her ears covered and shouted above the murmuring adults: "Don't listen to them!"

Max lept off the stage to help his sister as their parents dragged her towards the door. Allison and Abigail followed and Allison was trying to reason with the sibling's mother without being rude.

Winifred continued to spell the room, eventually breaking into songs, her sisters joined her as they made their way to the stage.

"Take your sister home," Mr. Dennison told his son. "It's too late for pranks." He then took his wife by the hand and led her back into the crowd.

The group didn't head down quite yet, they stood there, watching in horror, as the whole ballroom danced to the witch's song.

Someone bumped into Max making him turn to see who it was. He ducked when he saw Billy Butcherson stumbling towards them through the crowd. Dani screamed, grabbing Allison, dragging her in the opposite direction.

On stage, the sisters began to chant and the crowd repeated after them. Max began to feel lightheaded and the air smelled of fresh-baked cookies and brownies. He could see Abigail's hands start to slide off her ears and he figure out what was happening.

"It's a spell," he shouted, copying Abigail and pressing his hands to his ears. "Don't listen!"

Dani and Allison followed his example, and Abigail pressed her hands harder against her ears.

They could just make out Winifred telling the crowd to dance until they die when the band struck up the next song as they ran out of the building and down the block. They hid in an alleyway behind one of the restaurants in town. There was plenty to hide behind, with all the garbage and discarded kitchen equipment.

Max kicked an oven that was waiting to be hauled away, but the only thing he managed to do was hurt himself. He limped back to the brick wall and leaned against it. "This is really bad!" he shouted.

"Max, come on," Allison said, startled at his volume. "Calm down."

"Look," he snapped, "I want you to take Dani back to your house and don't let her out of your sight."

"Max, I'm not leaving you," protested Dani.

"Sticking together would be the best plan," Abigail offered up.

The back door of the restaurant crashed open, sending the kids diving for a hiding spot behind the trash. A chef stepped out to pick a lobster out of the fish tank. When the door swung shut behind him Binx's eyes widened.

"Uh-oh," he said, before jumping down to join the others in their hiding spot. He curled himself between Dani and Abigail, hoping they wouldn't be spotted.

Three witches strolled up, following Mary who was sniffing loudly as she walked.

"I smell…" she muttered, "Winnie, I smell… I smell…" she paused. "Scrod." Winnie gave her a look that had her withering. "It's a bottom dweller," she explained. "You know, you can eat it sometimes with lovely bread crumbs, a little margarine. Oooh – or olive oil is good." She was stuttering and rambling from her nerves. Winnie was never fun when she lost her temper.

Winnie sniffed at her sister's ramblings before leaving the alley, but Sarah stepped towards the trash cans, her eyes searched for the source of some feeling she couldn't quite place.

"Sarah," Winifred called in her shrill voice, though she didn't wait for her blonde sister. "Sarah!"

The blonde turned, leaving the alleyway to follow her sisters. Still, she felt like they'd missed something in the alley, but Winnie knew best so she followed her sister.

The kids slowly crept out of their hiding spot, cautious in case the sisters were still there, hiding. Allison tried to inch past the oven when its door fell open and blocked her way. The noise of it falling open made Abigail jump, worried the sisters might have heard it, but no one came running. Allison reached for the handle to close it, but stopped and turned to Max. She grinned, saying: "I have an idea."

It didn't take long for the group to reach the school. Abigail marveled at the size of it. The school in Salem three hundred years ago was no more than a single room, this was amazing. She trailed behind the other three kids, peeking into classrooms and windows to see what the school was like.

"Hurry up, Abby," Dani called from down the hall. Abigail turned and realized how far she was behind her friends and scurried down the hall to catch up.

"We need a CD player and any CD," Allison addressed Max. Her plan was to lure the witches to the kiln in the art room and then turn it on with them inside.

When they all entered the library Abigail was even more amazed. She'd never seen so many books in her life.

"This is amazing," she whispered, looking around.

"It's not that great," Dani commented. "The town library is bigger, and the one at my old school was bigger too."

"Dani, there are more books in this room than I ever thought I'd see in a lifetime," Abigail said. "The most books I'd seen before tonight were my father's books in his library at home, and those were just medical books for him to read."

"Oh," Dani responded. She'd almost forgotten that Abigail was three hundred years old, and how strange this must be for her. "Well, maybe, if you stick around, you can borrow some books from the library."

Abigail smiled at the little girl. "Thanks, Dani, that would be nice."

Thackery was perched on a nearby shelf watching the two girls talk about books. Part of him hoped that Abigail would stick around, it would be nice to have someone who understood him, he was still the same boy from three hundred years ago, but there was also a part of him that didn't want her around. It was much easier being mad at her when she wasn't there, and if she stayed she would age and die like everyone else and he wasn't sure he wanted to watch that, again, or be left alone again.

"Found a French CD!" Max called from one end of the library.

"I got a CD player!" Allison responded from the librarian's office.

With on quick stop in the gym locker rooms, they had everything they needed for their plan. It didn't take too much longer to get everything ready for when the witches showed up.

The sisters had been making their way through the town, looking for the little brats that had stolen Winifred's book, when they smelled it. The smell of children was so strong that even Winifred, who had a horrible sense of smell, could smell it.

They made their way inside, closing the door quietly behind themselves when the whole building seemed to be filled with a horrible howling. "Welcome to high school hell," a voice called from nowhere and everywhere it seemed. "I'm your host, Boris Karloff Jr." There was a thunderclap followed by evil laughter.

The sisters searched the hall, trying to find the source of the voice, in hopes of avoiding it, but they couldn't find anyone in any of the rooms.

"It's time to meet our three contestants," the disembodied voice boomed. "Sarah, Mary, and Winifred Sanderson. Read any good spell books lately?"

Down the hall, the sisters spotted Thackery Binx flitting through an open door. He hissed at them before taking off.

Winifred started after him when she heard a female voice say, "Hello, welcome to the library. Bonjour, bienvenue a la bibliothéque."

The sisters paused, looking at each other, before shuffling into the room to find the woman. They found themselves in a wing filled with odd carvings on pedestals.

"I would like a book," the woman said. "Je voudrais un livre." The voice was coming from a small room with metal walls. They slipped into the room, which smelled of burnt clay and children, only to see a black box with a red blinking light sitting upon one of the shelves. The woman repeated her request for a book, but her voice came from in the black box.

"I think she's trapped inside," Mary guessed, sounding sorry for the poor woman in the box.

Winifred's eyes fell to the floor, which was covered in clothes, all of similar colors and styles. Sleeveless shirts, socks, shorts all scattered about.

"It's a trap," the ginger witch cried, but before she could even turn around, the heavy door behind them slammed shut. Before Abigail's face appeared in the small window, Winifred knew she and her sisters were toast.

From outside, Abigail watched the sisters panic. Winifred reached for Sarah, who was the most panicked of the trio. She heard the click of Allison turning the machine on. Abigail watched as the sisters began to sweat, Winifred was muttering but they were all panicking. And Abigail watched as they caught fire and heard Winifred yell "Wretches!" just before they all burst into flames.

A/N: Only three chapters left! I'm so glad that so many people have been enjoying this story. I hope you'll like how it ends as well.