Junior Witch

by Ingrid Seymour

  Neck corded and face disfigured in rage, Rowan roared.

  With Rasfix on the ground, Bridget came to. I stepped back, my hands at the ready. Rowan looked deranged, not at all like someone who knew what had just happened.

  “What the hell happened?!” Bridget demanded. “The little grubber froze me. I should kill him.”

  “Um, nothing. Rowan is just too strong. You should get out of here, Bridget,” I said.

  “Just when things are getting interesting? I don’t think so.” Her hands pulsed with gathering magic.

  Rowan roared again, his fangs flashing. At this rate, he was going to alert the entire campus, homecoming game or not.

  He quaked on the spot as if a lightning bolt of energy was coursing through him. Then, as fast as he had sprung to his feet, he went still, only his chest heaving as he took in large gulps of air.

  His bloodshot eyes darted from Bridget to me. He looked lost as if he’d forgotten where he was.

  For a moment, I thought he would say something, but then he just took off, his vampiric speed making him practically invisible as he disappeared through the trees, oblivious to the cut in his chest.

  “Charlie, go after him. Do your thing. Poof!” Bridget said, gesturing with her hands as if she were crumpling a piece of paper then throwing it away.

  “No,” I said. “Let him go.” If he didn’t end up in the hands of Magical Law Enforcement because of me, at least I wouldn’t be responsible for anyone else’s death. I was done endangering other people for Rowan Underwood, no matter how much I loved him.

  Besides, who was I kidding? We would just end up making out again.

  Chapter Eleven

  FALL SEMESTER

  LATE NOVEMBER

  It took me nearly a month to figure out what I was going to do about the information I’d received from Rowan the day of the Homecoming game. I’d run an internet search on the address the gnome had dragged out of him almost immediately after leaving the forest that night and, of course, it led to a street in Quebec, Canada. It had to be the address of the subversives’ hideout, the place where we should find both the grimoire and Rowan’s villainous gang.

  Old Charlie would’ve jumped at the chance to teleport to our neighbor’s to the north, track the subversives down and dole out justice. New Charlie, Careful Charlie knew better. Macgregor Underwood had died and the rest of us had nearly followed because of Old Charlie’s rash ways.

  New Charlie couldn’t risk repeating history.

  Still, my indecision weighed on my soul like a lead vest. I knew where the grimoire was. Me. No one else had that information. Bridget thought the gnomes had failed in their interrogation, and I hadn’t corrected her impression. Our relationship was still tentative, and I didn’t want to bring it up for fear she’d run up there to impart revenge.

  I didn’t tell Disha either. She would tell me I was out of my mind for spending any brain cells ruminating over this, and I didn’t want to hear it. She was convinced that I needed to bang Sinasre to knock Rowan right out of my head, but I wasn’t interested in that.

  I also couldn’t risk revealing the information to someone in the know, like Counselor McIntosh, for fear she’d turn Magical Law Enforcement on Rowan. I may have wanted to see his gang brought to justice by the right people, but there was no way I wanted him executed for his crimes.

  It was times like these I really missed Dean McIntosh. Was anyone still searching for her now that Professor Fedorov was after the subversives? There had been no word on her whereabouts. None. Every time I asked her sister for updates, Irmagard seemed too busy “running” the school. I’d seen enough true crime stories to know that when a case went cold for this long, it did not bode well for the missing person.

  Still, I needed someone to bounce ideas off of. I couldn’t do nothing when I alone had this information.

  That’s when I thought of Bonnie.

  Rowan’s mother had already had contact with Rowan and had lied about it. She might be the only one who wouldn’t alert the authorities. If she was the type to narc on her son, she would have done it the night of the Homecoming Game. I should have thought of it right away, but maybe I didn’t because I was pretty sure Bonnie hated me and blamed me for her husband’s death.

  I played with the idea of talking to her for a while, and it had taken me until now—the day before Thanksgiving break—to drum up the courage to face her. Since the other students would be heading home for a few days, it seemed like the right time.

  After my last class, I headed to the Administration Building with my jacket tugged tight around my body. Summer had died away this week and the temps were plunging into the fifties in the evenings. I shivered, thinking about how cold it must be in Canada.

  Was I thinking of going there? No. That was ridiculous. I couldn’t run off to Canada to attack known criminals.

  But then, I had dragged out my warmest clothes, piling them on my bed with the pretext of reorganizing my closet. Maybe, subconsciously, my heart knew something my brain did not.

  The Administration Building was quiet when I got there, the time nearing the dinner hour. I knew that teachers and students alike were getting early jumps on heading home for the break, and I only hoped Bonnie hadn’t done the same.

  Luckily, her door was open and her light was on when I got to the office. For a beat, I stared at the “Dean Underwood” lettering on the opaque glass door. It had been half a year since Macgregor had died and still a pang of guilt washed over me every time I stood at this door. I wondered how Bonnie did it every day.

  Rapping my knuckles on the glass, I spied her sitting at her desk, the light of an open laptop reflecting off her perfectly made-up face.

  “Come in,” she said, glancing up. When she saw me, her expression twitched, a clear flicker of disappointment that she quickly replaced with a bright smile.

  “Charlie, what can I do for you?” She closed her laptop and clasped her hands on top of it. She was wearing a mint green sweater over a simple black dress, but her neck glittered with a stunning diamond necklace I was sure cost more than my old house.

  “Dean Underwood, I… have something I need to discuss with you. In private.” I glanced behind me at the open door.

  Her smile faded. With a flick of two fingers, the door behind me slid shut and a chair scooted back in my direction. She nodded to it, inviting me to sit. When I had tucked myself into the leather upholstery, she eyed me carefully.

  “What is it, Charlie? Trouble with the gnomes again?”

  I shook my head. “Counselor McIntosh has taken me off gnome duty. I guess she felt someone else should take over after the kitchen incident.”

  In actuality, I’d complained so much about their unclean ways and tormenting behavior that Irmagard had finally let me off the hook. Now, some poor Freshman was having to supervise them. I saw her last week across the quad. She’d been covered in what looked like honey, running away from a swarm of bees. Probably a mean spell from the likes of Gramop or Rasfix.

  “Not the gnomes. Then what?” Bonnie cocked her head to the side, pursing her red lips.

  How should I say this? Several times, I’d run over how to bring up such a touchy subject, but now that I was here, all the words seemed to float out of my head. I cleared my throat and decided to go for it.

  “I know where Rowan is. Where he’s staying. And I know he has the grimoire.”

  The color drained from Bonnie’s face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Her eyes flicked from my face to the door and back as if she were contemplating blasting me into the hall and locking the door.

  I held up my hands. “I’m not going to turn him in. I learned the information a month ago. If that was my plan, I would’ve done it already.”

  Bonnie’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t blast me. I took it for a sign she was listening. I continued.

  “He’s in—”

  She held up a hand to stop me, then placed both palms together and worked through sev
eral elaborate gestures before casting a cloaking spell around us.

  “There. You can speak freely.” She gestured to the barely visible bubble around us.

  I frowned, wondering who she worried might overhear, but continued. “He’s in Canada. Quebec. 1077 Rue Raymond Casgrain.”

  Her expression didn’t change.

  “But… you knew that already, didn’t you?” I asked.

  Slowly, she nodded. “My son and I chat from time to time.”

  “I know. I also know he was here the night you lied and said he wasn’t.”

  Her mouth twitched. “Can you blame me?”

  I shook my head. “I might have done the same thing.” I sighed and ran through everything in my head one more time before asking the question I came here to have answered. “Should I go after him?”

  She tilted her head as if considering. “To do what?”

  “I don’t know,” I blew out a breath. “Talk to him. Try to convince him to stop or at least not do any more damage or commit any more crimes. We can figure out how to exonerate him, a good Supernatural lawyer could help with. Or if anything, I could get him to return the grimoire. Maybe they would drop the charges if he plays nicely.”

  Words tumbled out as all the plans that swirled around my head fell out of my mouth. It felt so good to tell someone, to spill all the secret thoughts that had been haunting me for a month.

  Yet, the look on Bonnie’s face washed away all that good feeling in one fell swoop. She stood up abruptly, gripping the desk with hard fingers.

  “No, you shouldn’t go after him. In fact, you should forget everything you think you know about Rowan. There are things in play here, Charlie, things that you don’t understand, just as there were things in play when you and your foolish friend rushed off with Rowan and attacked Mink.”

  “I was trying to help.”

  She cut me off with a wave of her hand. All nicety was gone now. Her white teeth flashed and her eyes blazed as she said this last part.

  “Leave the grimoire alone. Don’t go after it. It needs to stay where it is.”

  “What are you saying?”

  I stood up, but before I could ask more questions, Bonnie wove her hands in a spell. I expected her to take down the cloaking bubble, but instead, the back of my skull tingled, and suddenly, a headache burned through my brain. I gripped my head, too shocked to push out a defensive spell in time.

  I fell to my knees, the pain lancing through my head as Bonnie wove her fingers and muttered a new spell through her perfect white teeth.

  “Why?” I managed before falling onto the office floor.

  Then my brain went blank.

  I awoke in the dark.

  Groggily, I glanced around, spying my bedroom. My alarm clock glowed with red numbers that told me it was past two AM.

  God, how had I gotten here? The last thing I remembered was Potions class. Then walking across campus. Then…

  What?

  Nothing.

  I stretched in bed, sighing. Classes had been really hard. I must’ve come back to the dorm already half asleep and passed out in bed. Though, why didn’t I remember doing that?

  Weird.

  I rolled over, glancing at my curtained window. Had I drunk anything funky at lunch? Coffee from the cafeteria had always been safe and Disha had had some, too.

  Suddenly, a pulse from my cuffs lit up the room. They throbbed against my skin and then a wave of nausea rolled through me. Pain shot through my head like a bolt of lightning.

  And then the memories were back.

  Rowan in his vampire costume on Homecoming night. Rowan on the forest floor giving an address to the gnomes. Bonnie twisting spells like black magic, standing over me as I cried out in pain.

  She’d wiped my memory of our conversation and everything I knew about Rowan.

  She’d used an illegal spell and tried to steal my memory, but it seemed my cuffs had protected me.

  Anger built up like storm clouds in my vision. How dare she?

  Then I knew for certain she was on the wrong side, and if she told me to leave the grimoire alone, that was the last thing I should do. Whatever they were going to do with that book couldn’t be good for the Academy, and I couldn’t allow that.

  Besides, who was I kidding? I wasn’t the kind of person to leave well-enough alone. I’d been trying, but the need to act and do the right thing was too intense. I had to do something. I just had to be more careful than Old Charlie.

  I stood up, pulling out a warm sweater and fleece-lined leggings. I needed to brush up on my French, too, because tomorrow I was going to get that damn book back.

  Chapter Twelve

  FALL SEMESTER

  LATE NOVEMBER

  “Quebec? Do you know how cold it is there?” Disha batted her big brown eyes incredulously.

  “Yeah, I do. We can dress warm and I worked on a strong heating spell because I knew you would bitch.” I pushed a small amount of energy through my cuffs as I formed a glowing ball in my palm. Heat immediately began to emanate from it.

  Disha rolled her eyes, unimpressed.

  Bridget, however, leaned in closer, her lime green eyes locking into me as anger invaded her features. “You mean, you’ve known where they are this whole time?”

  I cringed at her tone. “I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d insist on running off to kick some ass or whatever.” I’d already explained about Homecoming night and how, when Bridget was incapacitated, Rowan had spilled the goods.

  Bridget didn’t seem too pleased that I’d kept it a secret. She stared me down for a while before seeming to let it go. “Glad you’ve come to your senses. And good news is I already know a translation spell. Here.”

  She waved her fingers, muttering in what sounded like ancient Greek and blasted us with magic. My ears tingled, then felt as if they were stretching. When my hands drifted up, they found ears as large and flappy as Dopey’s from the Seven Dwarfs.

  “Bridget!” I tugged at my gigantic ears. “No!”

  Disha did the same, shrieking. “What did you do? Fix it right now!”

  Bridget’s eyes grew nearly as large as our ears as she stared at what she had done. “Sorry! I thought I’d worked that kink out. Let me see…” She lifted her hands to enchant us again.

  “No!” Disha and I said at the same time. We didn’t want our heads blowing up next.

  After a few minutes, Disha managed to shrink our ears down to normal size. With that out of the way, we went over the plan. Using my cuffs, we would access the Never Owl Atlanta portal and teleport to one I’d found in Quebec. It was less powerful than the one at the Academy, but still capable of getting us where we needed to go. Once we were safely through, we would sneak over to the subversives’ hideout and do some reconnaissance.

  When we saw what we were up against, we would make a plan to steal back the grimoire.

  “But, no vigilante attacks,” I said, staring right at Bridget. “This is a simple mission—get in, get out. No fighting if we can help it. We don’t want a repeat of last year.”

  Disha held up her hands. “You have no complaints from me. One tangle with a time demon is plenty. Are you sure Rowan won’t remember he told that gnome his address?”

  “No, Rasfix said he wouldn’t remember anything he spoke while under that spell.”

  “What about Rowan?” Bridget asked pointedly. She might not remember hearing Rowan’s address, but, judging from the smirk on her face, she remembered my make-out session with him all too well.

  I shook my head. “Bringing back the grimoire is the goal. I can keep my head and stay away from Rowan.”

  Bridget arched an orange eyebrow as if to say, Yeah, right.

  I ignored her. “The driver will be here at seven PM. We’ll tell anyone who asks that we’re going to meet Disha’s parents in Atlanta for an early Thanksgiving dinner.”

  Disha frowned. “Good thing no one here knows Mama and Baba well. They’d never believe that my parents w
ould leave New York to come to Atlanta for dinner.” She said Atlanta like it was the last place her parents would be caught dead.

  I’d never met Disha’s parents, but, from what she told me, they sounded like major snobs. No wonder she sometimes came off as a spoiled rich girl.

  It didn’t matter. We had important tasks to focus on. For example, putting on the matching parkas and hats that Bridget had waiting for just an occasion. They happened to be lime green because… well, Bridget, so we magicked them black as she protested. Luckily, the weather had turned a bit cold, so we didn’t look completely out of place waiting on the curb for our ride.

  The driver arrived on time and drove us for half an hour to the rougher end of Atlanta. Nerves bundled in my stomach like sailor’s knots as we pulled up to the crumbling building that used to be my home.

  The driver stared out the window at the impoverished neighborhood and graffitied walls. Nothing had changed since last year. Trash still clung to the gutters and spray-painted gang tags still adorned the old, rotting warehouses. There was a sense of foreboding in the air and the possibility of danger around every corner. Unsavory characters that were nearly as dangerous as werewolves called these dark alleys home.

  The driver glanced over his shoulder. “Are you girls sure this is the right address?”

  “Yes, it’s fine,” I said, quickly, passing him a five-dollar tip as I shoved the girls out of the car door.

  The concerned driver watched after us as we piled onto the sidewalk, his eyes bugging as if he thought we were crazy. I gave him a happy wave to show we were fine, then grabbed the girls and tugged them along the busted sidewalk.

  As soon as we were out of the driver’s line of sight, I threw the cloaking spell around us.

  Disha sniffed the garbage-laden air with a wrinkled nose. “Still smells like a dumpster.”

  I shrugged, glancing around for my Never Owl painting. “It’s nice to know some things don’t change, right?”