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bone.”
    It took Charles a moment to absorb this statement.
    â€œBut—bones are white. That thing’s the wrong color.”
    â€œIdiot. It’s hundreds of years old. Your bones aren’t going to look so great in six hundred years either.”
    This struck Charles as exquisitely funny and hebegan to laugh, Alys and Claudia joining in. They laughed until they were exhausted, the tension of the last few minutes dissolving.
    â€œOh, Janie, you’re so funny,” said Claudia, and Janie flushed. No one had ever said such a thing to her before.
    It was Alys who turned serious first. “We’ve got all the ingredients,” she said, “and with Charles’s money I can buy the equipment. Tomorrow afternoon we’ll get ready. And tomorrow night, at moonrise, we’ll make it.”

Chapter 8
THE MAKING OF THE AMULET
    No one was exactly sure when the moon would rise on Wednesday, so they all hurried that afternoon. Alys frantically hand-stitched four bags out of green silk bought at a fabric store. At four-thirty she placed the finished bags in her backpack, along with a small hammer, a needle and thread, a pair of scissors, and an X-Acto knife. She then added the belt which Claudia had braided and a pair of blue bedroom slippers purchased from the five-and-dime. It had been cheaper to buy slippers than to dye regular shoes blue.
    She, Charles, and Claudia were halfway out the door when she remembered the virgin garments.
    â€œDrat! I’ve got virgin underwear and virgin socks,” she shouted to the others a few minutes later frombehind her bedroom door, “and I suppose I can fit into the pink slacks Aunt Phyllis gave me last Christmas. But I’m darned if I can find a virgin shirt.”
    â€œI’ve got that T-shirt I bought in San Francisco,” Charles offered. “The one Dad said I’m not allowed to wear on the street.”
    â€œIs it virgin? Did you try it on?”
    â€œNever got the chance.”
    â€œWell, throw it in to me, then,” said Alys. A moment later she gave a snort, and when she emerged she was wearing her jacket buttoned up to her chin. Charles took one look at her pants and began to laugh.
    â€œSo why do you think I’ve never worn them before? Come on, we’re keeping Janie waiting.”
    At the old house Janie had the mortar and pestle on the kitchen table along with the gold crucible and the bottles.
    â€œI’ve got everything ready,” she said. “I’ll read the ingredients to you. Those are awful pants.”
    â€œThank you,” said Alys. “Start reading.”
    As Janie unfolded the spell Alys removed her jacketand wound the braided red cord about her waist. She kicked off her shoes and put on the slippers. Then, clad in fuzzy blue bedroom slippers with pom-poms on the toes, pink pants a size too small, red belt, and Charles’s black T-shirt with the indecent slogan, she took up the mortar and pestle.
    In went the deadly nightshade, the wild elephant’s ear, the bladderwort, and the stinking smut. Blobs of mercury slid over the powdered herbs as Alys poured quicksilver from the bottle. The minerals she pounded with the hammer before grinding them into the consistency of coarse sand. Then she dropped in a pinch of falcons teeth, a handful of glittering sunfish scales, the flyclub, and a single phoenix feather snipped into pieces with the scissors. Finally, with a brief pause for ceremony, she pounded and ground the shard of human bone.
    â€œStir widdershins,” said Janie, as she poured the mixture into the crucible. “Counterclockwise.”
    Alys stirred carefully, and presently the contents of the bowl resolved themselves into a multicolored mixture, mainly greenish brown because of the herbs,but with the brilliant glints of minerals through and through.
    â€œNow for the blood and spit,” she said, and reached into her backpack.
    â€œWhat,” said Charles,