Mystics 3-Book Collection by Kim Richardson

smelled the ocean,
and then wet earth and hay. She strained to keep her eyes shut—she
didn’t dare open them, for fear of being sick.
    And then as fast as it had started, it
stopped. Her feet touched solid ground again. Her heart beat widely
in her ears. Did someone call her name?
    She opened her eyes. The world around her
was spinning. She recognized Tristan’s face. His lips were moving,
but she couldn’t hear him. Her ears rung as though an explosion had
gone off inside her head. Her surroundings spun faster and faster.
Her stomach twisted—she was going to be sick. She couldn’t be sick
in front of Tristan. She turned around quickly, took a few steps,
and puked.
    As she was hunched over, a pair of black
shiny boots appeared next to her.
    “Here, rinse your mouth with this,” said
Agent Vargas. “And don’t worry, everyone’s sick the first time,
even the best of agents—even me.”
    He was smiling and holding out a bottle of
water. She was horrified that everyone had seen her be sick, but
she felt much better. A cold sweat trickled down her back, and she
gladly rinsed her mouth.
    They stood in an open field. The low moon
cast gray light over everything, and a cool breeze refreshed her.
Tall power lines like giant metal T’s were arranged neatly in a
single row that spread out for miles on either side of a great
valley and melted into the darkness. She could hear pops and zaps
in the distance as a sequence of miniature blue lightning bolts
from the top of one of the power lines illuminated the night sky.
Then they stopped, and the sky was absolutely dark.
    A lopsided old barn stood open under the
shadows of the power lines. Its doors lay on the ground in rotten
wood planks. Half the roof had caved in. All the windows were
smashed, except for one, which glinted in the moonlight. Zoey
recognized the glass as the reflective surface of the anchor point.
They had just mirror-ported through the old barn’s window. She felt
amazed and lucky to be part of something so extraordinary. Normal
kids didn’t travel the world using mirrors. She smiled. This beat
any fancy airplane ride. This was awesome .
    “Take this,” said Agent Vargas. He took the
empty water bottle from Zoey and gave her a large canister
instead.
    Zoey took the canister. It looked like a
large hairspray can. The label read, Skedaddle Anti-Fairy Spray,
your # 1 repellent .
    She chuckled as she shook the canister.
“Seriously? We’re going to spray this on fairies? Actual fairies?” She shook the can again. “Does this stuff
actually work?”
    Agent Vargas looked up towards the power
lines. “Of course it works! It’s the best fairy repellent there is.
You’re going to need it.”
    “No way.” Zoey started laughing and only
stopped when she realized that he wasn’t kidding. She looked
around. Everyone else had canisters in their hands, too.
    Stuart smiled at her confusion, and she did
her best to ignore him. Even though she had no idea what was
going on, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of thinking
that he knew more than she did. Whatever the canisters were used
for, she would use them just like the others. She kept her mouth
shut and waited.
    Agent Vargas had seen her confusion as well.
“Fairies are hostile mystics, Zoey. They sneak across into our
world illegally and plague us with mischief—nothing worse than
fairies, if you ask me. Nasty creatures.”
    “What do they do that’s so terrible? Aren’t
fairies small and cute with colorful wings?” Zoey tried to imagine
evil fairies, but she couldn’t imagine beautiful creatures with
butterfly wings being evil. In all the stories she’d read, fairies
were good . Every girl wanted a fairy, even her.
    Agent Vargas looked up towards the power
lines. “Have you ever experienced a black out? A power outage when
nothing electric works?”
    Zoey remembered when they lost power at the
orphanage. It was always a treat. They would light up candles and
read spooky stories to