Bubble, Bubble, I'm in Trouble

A.N. Well, the plot bunnies got me again. I've watched Hocus Pocus four times in the past week, and this idea popped into my head. My main character Lacia and her friend Katie are originals, by the by. Let it be noted that this is as if the movie had never happened. The witches have been hung, but Binx wasn't turned into a cat, and the witches haven't been brought back yet. Oh, and the title is a line that the creepy bus driver uses when he meets the witches. I thought it was appropriate, at least until I come up with a better one. Anyway, I hope you like this.

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"Let's go to the Sanderson House," Katie suggested. "It'll be cool." She looked at the expression on my face and added, "What could go wrong?"

"Are you nuts?!" I asked my blonde friend incredulously. "It's Halloween, we live in Salem, the Sanderson Sisters were witches, and there's a full moon out tonight! What couldn't go wrong?"

"Oh, you're fifteen, grow up! They're just stories! C'mon, Lacia. Please?" She begged. She puffed up her bottom lip into a puppy-dog face.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine, but we're not doing anything dumb," I acquiesced.

"Yes!" Katie exclaimed as she began clapping and bouncing in her seat. "C'mon, let's go!" She grabbed my wrist and yanked me out of my chair.

"Katie, calm down! You're going to dislocate my shoulder!" I told her. She ignored me and opened the front door of her house with her unoccupied hand. She kept up the pace as she dragged me down the street full of costumed trick-or-treaters. "Katarina, slow down!" I panted as she turned the corner.

"No! It's getting late; if we slow down now, we'll be facing the witches in the dark," she joked.

"I thought you said that they didn't exist," I snapped. "And you're tearing my arm off!" She stuck her pierced tongue out at me.

"Fine," she pouted as she released my arm. "But you're no fun." Just then, we turned the last corner and the creepy, abandoned, dilapidated, house-turned-museum stood in front of us.

"Creepy, huh?" My friend teased. She strode confidently up to the front steps and began hurrying up them. I scrambled to catch up, knowing that she would do something stupid if I wasn't there to stop her.

"Great, we've seen it, let's go." Katie ignored me and threw the doors open.

"Oh, come on, Lacy, stop being such a wet blanket. Do you know where the light switch is?"

"No, and I'm not going to help you find it, either. We should go. This was a bad idea in the first place," I informed her. I could hear the blonde moving further into the building as she searched for the switch.

"Oh, here's a candle. I'll just light it and use it to find the light switch. Good thing I brought matches."

"Katie, no!" I yelped as I heard her striking the match. Sparks flew, and a second later, a glow appeared around my friend's form. Then it disappeared.

"This candle is crap! Why is it so dim?" She complained. I watched her step out of the way of the candle, and my stomach dropped.

"Katie, what candle did you light?"

"I don't know; it was dark! This one here, but it barely works."

I blanched even further as I gazed at the designs on the wax. "Katie, it doesn't work because that's the Black Flame Candle! I told you not to do anything stupid!" Just then, the sound of cracking glass filled the air, and I was showered with fragments as all of the electric lights shattered.

"Uh oh," Katie whispered. Then she took off running and left me alone in the house. As the floorboards rattled under my feet and threw me to the ground, I thought back to the end of the story my teacher had told in class this morning.

"Thackery Binx, so they say, was cursed with eternal life so that he was forced to live with the shame and guilt of his sister's death. He was frozen by the witches' magic and left hidden in the house until they were hanged. After the villagers left, he was freed, but he could never speak to or be seen by his parents again. They never knew what became of him. To this day, it is said that he guards the Sanderson House and the Black Flame Candle."

'I hope that's true, because I could really use some help here,' I thought as I crawled behind the counter and hid. The door opened, and I heard the distinctive click of boot heels on the wooden floor.

"Freedom!" I heard one of the witches cry. Cackling filled the silence, and I tried to quiet my breathing.

"And Winnie, we're still young!" Came a dreamy voice. 'That must be Sarah,' I decided. 'She always was an airhead in the stories.'

"Yes, I know that, you fool. But we will not stay young once dawn arrives. We must capture a child to achieve that," snarled the first voice. 'Winifred Sanderson. Oh boy, I'm in trouble.'

"Winnie, I smell a child," the third witch said. 'So that must be Mary. All three of the Sanderson Sisters are in the room with me. I am so dead.'

"Then sniff it out, you blundering fool! Move!" I cowered behind the dusty counter as the footsteps grew ever closer.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Sarah called in her breathy voice. The clicks stopped directly on the other side of my shelter. Then a hand with long, sharp, ragged fingernails wrapped in my red curls and wrenched me to my feet. I found myself face to face with Winifred Sanderson.

"Hello there," she greeted with a yellow, snaggle-toothed grin.

"Ooh, look how pretty she is!" Sarah cried.

"Shut up!" Winnie growled. Then she dragged me around the counter without releasing my hair and threw me into a dusty, old, wooden chair. I moved to get to my feet and run, but a pair of thick arms wrapped around me from behind.

"And where dost thou think thou art going?" Mary whispered in my ear.

"Let go of me!" I struggled, but the witch's arms were too strong.

"Can we eat her, Winnie? Please?" Sarah pleaded. "I'm hungry, and we haven't eaten in forever!"

"No! We must steal her life, or we will turn to dust at dawn! Child," she began as she turned to me.

"I have a name, you know," I grumbled. The redheaded leader grimaced at me for a second. She composed herself and gave me a sickly-sweet, insincere smile instead.

"Then pray, do enlighten us. What is your name, dear?"

"It's Lacia," I replied grudgingly.

"Ah, Lacia. What year is it? How long have we been… gone?" She inquired in the same cloying tone.

"It's 1993. You've been dead," I emphasized the word, "for three hundred years." The smirk on her face vanished.

"We must begin the potion. Mary, bring Lacia to me so that I may spell her into silence and immobility," Winnie commanded. The fat witch obeyed and hauled me around despite my resistance. As she set my beside the redhead, a male voice sliced through the air.

"Let her go!" I turned my head to see a barefoot blonde boy wearing a torn, puffy, long sleeved, white shirt with his hair pulled back into a short ponytail jumping from the loft. Mary's arms grew loose around me.

"Thackery Binx. Why must you always get in the way?" Winnie growled. She lifted her hand, and electricity crackled around her fingers. She pointed at him, and blue light flew from her fingers toward the boy. I leapt forward and into the path of the light.

It slammed into me, and pain radiated through my thin frame. I held back a howl of pain as I dropped to my knees.

"You imbecilic girl!" The witch barked. I heard the sound of glass being smashed from the direction of the boy, and I wondered if one of the witches had thrown something at him. "My book!" Winnie cried. 'Nope. He must have broken the glass case on her spell book,' I considered.

Then a pair of muscled arms folded around me from behind and tugged me to my feet. "Up you get," Thackery murmured. My knees buckled, and I began to fall again. Before I could hit the floor, he caught me. Without a second thought, he scooped me up bridal style and ran out the door.

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A.N Well, did you like it? Obviously this isn't a one-shot, because so many things need resolved. So look for another chapter soon. Tell me what's good and bad about this chapter, please! Review!