Deadtime Stories: The Witching Game

Deadtime Stories: The Witching Game

by Annette Cascone, Gina Cascone
Deadtime Stories: The Witching Game

Deadtime Stories: The Witching Game

by Annette Cascone, Gina Cascone

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Overview

The Witching Game marks another creepy tale for beside the campfire or beneath the covers from "Twisted Sisters" Annette and Gina Cascone's Deadtime Stories—now a hit show on Nickelodeon!

"Bloody Mary." It was just a silly wishing game—one that Lindsey and her friends had played a hundred times before, in front of a dozen different mirrors. The game never worked. It wasn't supposed to. But when they play "Bloody Mary" in front of a strange antique mirror, the game quickly turns into a nightmare! One by one their wishes start coming true, with horrifying results. Something evil is lurking behind the looking glass… and Lindsey learns much too late that wishes don't come free—and that "Bloody Mary" is definitely not just a game!

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781429992930
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group
Publication date: 03/13/2012
Series: Deadtime Stories Series , #2
Sold by: Macmillan
Format: eBook
Pages: 192
File size: 423 KB
Age Range: 8 - 12 Years

About the Author

"Twisted Sisters" Annette and Gina Cascone have written more than twenty-eight books and two movies together. Their books include the Deadtime Stories series for middle-grade readers as well as young adult thrillers. They have also produced and written numerous treatments and books for series packagers such as Parachute Publishing, where they worked on the mega-successful Goosebumps series by R. L. Stine. They both live in Central New Jersey.


"Twisted Sisters" ANNETTE CASCONE AND GINA CASCONE have written more than twenty-eight books and two movies together. Their books include young adult thrillers, as well as the Deadtime Stories series for middle-grade readers. They have also produced and written numerous treatments and books for series packagers such as Parachute Publishing, where they worked on the mega-successful Goosebumps series by R. L. Stine. They both live in Central New Jersey.

Read an Excerpt

The Witching Game


By Annette Cascone, Gina Cascone

Tom Doherty Associates

Copyright © 2012 Annette Cascone and Gina Cascone
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-9293-0


CHAPTER 1

"Aaaaggghhhh!"

Lindsey Jordan was dead. Dead, dead, dead! And she knew it. There was no place to run and no place to hide. In fact, if Lindsey hadn't tried to escape the horror in the first place, none of this would have happened. But now the horror was running loose through the house — along with a friend. And Lindsey was no longer locked inside the safety of her own room.

"Oh, man!" Lindsey's friend Bree Daniels gasped when Lindsey finally stopped screaming. "Your mother's going to kill us if she sees this mess! We'd better clean it up. And fast."

"No way," Lindsey snarled. "We didn't make this mess, so we're not going to clean it up." She stormed out of the living room into the foyer. Then she screamed up to the horror at the top of the stairs. "Alyssa!" she yelled at the top of her lungs. "Get down here right this minute, you little beast! And bring your sticky friend with you!"

Lindsey was answered by the sound of four little feet racing across the hallway upstairs.

"Alyssa, I'm not fooling around," Lindsey hollered. "If you don't get your butt down here right now, I'm going to come up there and kick it!"

"Drop dead!" Alyssa screamed back. Then a door slammed upstairs.

"That's it," Lindsey said as she took the first step. "I've had it with that kid. I'm going to kill her."

Bree grabbed Lindsey's arm to stop her. "We don't have time to kill her. Your parents will be home any minute. And if they see that living room, they're going to blame us."

Bree had a point. After all, she and Lindsey were supposed to be in charge. Lindsey had sworn to her parents that she and Bree were mature enough to be left alone with a couple of seven-year-olds. Little did they know that it would take a SWAT team to keep those brats under control.

"Don't you remember what your mother said?" Bree went on. "Watching them does not mean just being in the house. It means watching them."

To be honest, they hadn't been doing much watching at all. In fact, Lindsey and Bree had spent the entire afternoon locked up in Lindsey's room trying to escape the little horror and her friend. Lindsey needed the peace and quiet. Bree was helping her rehearse for the play tryouts the next day at school. They got so caught up in it that they actually managed to ignore the sounds coming from downstairs: the blaring TV, the screaming and giggling, the thumps and bumps, even the crashes.

They had forgotten all about the little horror and her partner in crime, Stephanie. That was a big mistake. Alyssa and Stephanie had turned the living room into a giant disaster area. Furniture was tipped over. The cushions were off the sofa and chairs. And what looked like every blanket in the house was draped across the mess to create a room-sized tent.

"This is unbelievable," Lindsey groaned as she and Bree walked back into the living room.

"It's not really that bad," Bree lied. "All we've got to do is fold up the blankets and fix up the furniture."

But they soon found out that that wasn't all they had to do.

Under the blankets, inside the tent, 128 crayons were scattered across the floor, along with every piece of every board game in the house. Stickers were stuck on everything — except the two dozen sticker books that littered the room. And in the center of it all, Alyssa's dolls were having a beach party — in a pile of sand art.

Somehow, Lindsey and Bree managed to clean the mess up. And they did it in record time. So what if the marbles from Hungry, Hungry Hippos were in the Monopoly box and Barbie's and Crystal's heads were in the trunk of the Dream Mobile? The room looked almost the way it had when Lindsey's parents left, and that was the important thing.

Bree heaved a sigh of relief as she turned off the vacuum. "I can't believe we got it all cleaned up before your parents got home."

"Yeah," Lindsey agreed. "And we've still got time to kill Alyssa." She headed into the foyer again. But before she turned to go up the stairs, she noticed something she'd missed before. The mirror on the wall across from the stairs was smeared with globs of peanut butter and jelly. "Look at this," she said to Bree in disgust. "No wonder that Stephanie kid is always so sticky."

"Do you want me to go get the glass cleaner?" Bree asked, exhausted.

"No," Lindsey answered, taking the steps two at a time. "We'll clean it up after those two little urchins are dead."

Lindsey was about to scream out to let Alyssa and her friend know what they were in for, but then she thought better of it. Why give them any warning? This would be a surprise attack.

"Shh," she whispered to Bree as they reached the top of the stairs.

They crept down the hallway toward Alyssa's room, checking to make sure that all the other rooms were still intact. They paused at Alyssa's doorway and then burst through like a couple of TV cops about to make a bust.

But the little horror was nowhere to be found.

"Where the heck did they go?" Bree said. "And what destructive thing are they doing now?"

Lindsey raced back out into the hallway in a panic. As she was trying to decide where to look first, the sound of little voices caught her attention. The sound was coming from the room across the hallway — her parents' room. She gestured for Bree to follow her.

Luckily, the bedroom was in order. But it appeared to be empty — until more chattering led Lindsey straight to her parents' bathroom door. "They're in there," she whispered to Bree, pointing at the closed door.

"What are they doing?" Bree whispered back.

Before Lindsey could even venture a guess, Alyssa herself answered the question.

"Okay, I'm going to light the candle now." Her voice drifted through the door. "Then we'll turn out the light and say the chant."

"She's got matches in there!" Bree gasped, reaching for the doorknob.

Lindsey put a hand out to stop her. "They're playing Bloody Mary," she whispered to Bree. "Let's scare the living daylights out of them."

Inside the bathroom, Alyssa was explaining the rules of the game to Stephanie. "Now we have to stare at the mirror really hard, and watch carefully for Bloody Mary. Once we say the chant, she'll appear. But only for a second. As soon as she appears, I'll make the wish. Then Bloody Mary will make it come true. Ready?"

Lindsey heard the click that told her the bathroom lights were out. There were no windows in her parents' bathroom, so Lindsey knew it was dark inside. She could just picture Alyssa and Stephanie staring through the eerie glow of candlelight into the mirror above the sink. She and Bree smiled at one another as they heard the quivering voices begin the chant:

Bloody Mary is your name.
Please appear and play this game.
For the wish we ask of you,
You must make it now come true.
Once the wish has been revealed,
Can't turn back, its fate is sealed.
In return for what you give,
We will let your spirit live.


Lindsey and Bree paused for a second, imagining the two little urchins peering into the mirror expectantly. Then the older girls let out bloodcurdling screams. Before Lindsey and Bree had even stopped screaming, Alyssa and her friend began to wail inside the bathroom. Along with their cries came fumbling and bumping sounds. The doorknob turned, but Lindsey grabbed it and held the door shut.

Alyssa and Stephanie started pounding on the door. "Help us!" they screamed. "Somebody, help us!"

Lindsey and Bree were practically doubled over with laughter.

Finally, Lindsey let go of the doorknob and the door flew wide open, sending Alyssa and Stephanie toppling over each other onto the floor.

Lindsey had gotten her revenge. And she was feeling pretty pleased with herself.

Until she caught sight of the horrifying face in the mirror. And it wasn't Alyssa's.

CHAPTER 2

Lindsey swallowed hard as she stood staring at the image glaring back at her. It was the reflection of a woman, a beautiful woman, dressed in black. But she hadn't appeared to grant any wishes. In fact, her dark, piercing eyes seemed to threaten a fate worse than death.

Terror tore through Lindsey's heart as the image started to speak.

"What in the world is going on in here?" Mrs. Jordan's voice was as strained as the reflection of her face in the mirror. She was standing in the doorway behind Lindsey and Bree, peering over their shoulders. This was truly a surprise attack.

Lindsey spun toward her mother. "Nothing, Mom," she lied.

Alyssa and her sticky friend scrambled to hide the matches and the candle.

"Then why was I greeted by screaming and yelling the moment I walked into this house?" Mrs. Jordan asked. "And what are the four of you doing playing in my bedroom?"

Alyssa shot Lindsey a pleading look. But Lindsey ignored it. "We weren't playing in your bedroom, Mom," Lindsey answered. "Alyssa and Stephanie were playing in your bathroom. Bree and I came in to drag them out."

Mrs. Jordan glanced down at Alyssa, who was now trying to shove the candle under the bathroom rug.

Lindsey smiled smugly. She was sure that her mother was about to blow a fuse, and that all the sparks would be flying in Alyssa's direction. She was only half right.

"Give me that candle," Mrs. Jordan snapped at Alyssa first.

Alyssa quickly handed it over.

"And the matches you're hiding," her mother demanded.

Again, Alyssa obeyed.

"How many times have I told you not to play with matches?" she scolded Alyssa.

"About a million?" Alyssa answered sheepishly.

"More like two," her mother said. Then the sparks flew in Lindsey's direction. "I thought I told you to watch the two of them," she said.

"I did," Lindsey lied. "But the minute I turned my back, they snuck up here to play Bloody Mary. Huh, Bree?"

Guilt flashed across Bree's face like a billboard advertisement, but she nodded yes.

"They're liars!" Alyssa accused. "They weren't watching us at all. They spent the whole day up in Lindsey's room practicing for Lindsey's stupid play tryouts while Stephanie and I sat on the couch all by ourselves, bored out of our minds. Huh, Steph?"

Now Stephanie nodded, looking just as guilty as Bree had.

Then the four girls exchanged dirty looks, but no one dared make another accusation. It would only land them all in more trouble.

Mrs. Jordan just shook her head in frustration.

"Hey." Another voice cut through the tension. "Doesn't anyone want to see what we bought at the auction?" It was Mr. Jordan, calling from the bottom of the stairs.

Mrs. Jordan's expression immediately changed. Whatever she and Mr. Jordan had bought at the auction must have been great, because all of a sudden Mrs. Jordan was smiling.

"Do you want to go see?" Mrs. Jordan's voice was full of excitement.

All four girls nodded, grateful to be off the hook. Then they followed Mrs. Jordan into the hallway.

"Is it a puppy?" Alyssa asked hopefully.

"You don't buy a puppy at an auction, you moron," Lindsey informed her.

"How do you know?" Alyssa shot back. "Maybe it was a puppy auction."

"It wasn't a puppy auction." Mrs. Jordan put an end to the bickering. "How many times do I have to tell you, Lyss, that we are not — read my lips, not — getting a puppy," she told her daughter firmly.

"Then what is it?" Alyssa grumbled as she followed her mother to the stairs.

"It's something for Lindsey's room," Mrs. Jordan answered.

"Bars, I hope," Alyssa whispered to Stephanie.

Mrs. Jordan shot her a look, but Alyssa didn't let up.

"How come you got something for Lindsey and not for me?" she complained.

Mrs. Jordan sighed. "Because your father and I just redid your entire bedroom, remember?"

Alyssa's room was full of brand-new furniture, not to mention new curtains and a fresh coat of paint.

Alyssa rolled her eyes as Lindsey smiled.

"So what is it, Mom?" Lindsey asked.

"You'll see," her mother answered, starting down the steps.

In the foyer, Mr. Jordan was cutting the twine off a huge package wrapped in brown paper. It stood at least six feet tall.

Lindsey couldn't begin to guess what it was. But she was dying to see. "Hi, Daddy," she called to her father as she bolted down the last few steps.

"Hey, guys." Mr. Jordan greeted them all. "I see everyone's still alive?" He raised his eyebrow at Mrs. Jordan.

Mrs. Jordan smiled back at him. "Barely," she said. Then she moved toward the package and started tearing off the brown paper like a little kid ripping into a birthday present. "Wait until you see this, Linds." Her voice promised something great.

Lindsey's excitement was growing — until the last piece of wrapping came off. Instead of oohing and aahing the way her mother wanted her to, Lindsey took a step back as if she were frightened.

Under the paper stood the most hideous thing Lindsey had ever seen. It was a floor mirror with a huge, dark wood frame. Snakelike carvings wrapped up the sides, leading to the head of what looked like a demon. The bottom looked like dragon's claws clutching ornately carved balls.

"So what do you think?" Mrs. Jordan wanted everyone to love it the way she obviously did.

"I don't know." Lindsey was trying to be tactful, but she gave Bree a look that said she hated it.

"It's old and dirty," Alyssa's sticky friend whispered loud enough for everyone to hear.

"And ugly," Alyssa added even louder. "It's perfect for Lindsey."

Mrs. Jordan's lips turned down. "For your information, young lady, this is a valuable antique. This mirror is more than a hundred years old."

"So what's that supposed to mean?" Alyssa was not impressed.

"That it's old, dirty, and ugly — and really expensive." Mr. Jordan winked at Alyssa.

"Oh, come on." Mrs. Jordan nudged him with her elbow. "It was a steal. Nobody else even bid on it."

"I hate to tell you this, Mom," Lindsey said, shaking her head, "but I can see why." Lindsey did not share her mother's enthusiasm for antiques. In fact, they gave her the creeps. To Lindsey, an antique was something that belonged to someone long dead.

"You're just being silly," Mrs. Jordan insisted. "This mirror is a spectacular work of art. Look at the detail."

Lindsey tried to seem interested as her mother pointed out all the finely carved details. But her mind wandered from one creepy thought to the next.

Somebody dead owned this thing! Lindsey cringed. And maybe someday when I'm long dead, some other mother will buy this mirror for her daughter because it's a valuable antique. Then my reflection will be frozen behind that glass with all its other dead owners.

"You see how beautiful it is?" Her mother interrupted her thoughts.

Lindsey shook her head no. But her mother refused to give up.

"You'll see," she assured her. "Once it's all cleaned up and in your room, you're going to love it."

"Yeah," Lindsey whispered aloud. "To death."

CHAPTER 3

The next morning, when Lindsey stood in front of the antique mirror, she was amazed.

The mirror itself still gave her the creeps, but the reflection inside it was perfect. Lindsey was amazed at how good she looked. She was amazed that the first outfit she put on was really the one she would wear. She was amazed that her hair came out just right for a change. Most of all, she was amazed that it all happened on a day when it was so important for her to look good.

She stared straight ahead into the strange, tinted glass, smiling at her reflection and peering deep into her dark brown eyes until she was almost in a trance.

A knock on the door broke the spell.

Lindsey turned away from the mirror as her mother came into the room. She couldn't help feeling a little embarrassed by her sudden vanity.

"I can't believe you're up and dressed already," Mrs. Jordan said, looking quite surprised.

"The auditions for the school play are today," Lindsey reminded her mother. "I wanted to be sure I looked just right."

"Well, I think you look perfect," Mrs. Jordan said.

"Thanks, Mom," Lindsey replied, turning to glance at herself in the mirror once again.

"Since you're all ready to go, you have plenty of time to eat a decent breakfast this morning," Mrs. Jordan said. "What would you like?"

"Can I have French toast?" Lindsey asked.

"Sure," her mother answered quickly, without pointing out how much extra work that was for her.


(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Witching Game by Annette Cascone, Gina Cascone. Copyright © 2012 Annette Cascone and Gina Cascone. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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