Junior Witch

by Ingrid Seymour

  “Ugh, I would have rather stab Charlie’s hand,” Disha said. Then she turned to the side and vomited into a bush.

  “Oh, Dish,” Bridget said. “You’re contaminating the scene of the crime.”

  “Excuse me while I hurl my insides,” Disha managed before vomiting a second time.

  “Amateur,” Bridget complained.

  Through their banter, I was unable to tear my eyes off the poor guy. His face was twisted in a mask of pain. Charred lines ran down from his hairline all the way to his neck as if claws had tried to rip his skin off. His lips were pulled back, exposing clenched teeth. The hair was nothing but singed, patchy wisps. Where his eyes had been, there were only two empty sockets, writhing with fat maggots. Beyond horrible.

  The stench of death was cloying and seemed to force itself into my lungs like pointed spears. I gagged but fared better than Disha.

  “Magical death, for sure,” Bridget said, cocking her head to the side and casting some sort of wind spell to clear the stench from the air. “Dead two days max. Nice shoes,” she commented casually as if we were shopping at the mall. Her lack of emotion made me question whether my friend might be a sociopath. That might explain her perpetual wide-eyed stare and interest in the macabre. That or she was used to this sort of thing due to her parents’ line of business.

  Disha finally pulled her head out of the bush and pressed her sweater to her mouth. “Yeah, really nice shoes,” she echoed in a muffled voice.

  “Really, guys?” I said. “That’s all you can say. Nice shoes?”

  “I’m sorry. I deal with stress in strange ways. Besides, those are Berlutis, Charlie,” Disha said with some outrage. “I thought we’d been through this already.” She glanced back at the shoes. “Hmm, and not just any Bertulis, by the way. Those are well over eight-thousand dollars a pair.”

  Eight-thousand dollars?! Who in their right mind? And for those ugly things?

  They looked like a combination of tennis shoes and dress shoes, the sole made of rubber and the top constructed of something that appeared to be blue-stained, alligator skin.

  “They actually look kind of… familiar,” Disha added thoughtfully.

  “Familiar?” Bridget said, her level of interest going up several notches. “How so?”

  “During sophomore year,” Disha said, “I knew a guy who had shoes just like that. He went on and on about them, how much he’d paid, where he got them. He was a looker—not that you’d be able to tell now.”

  “God! Don’t you have any respect for the dead?” I asked, appalled. “I wonder what you two will say when I die.”

  “She was a powerful witch, though a bit neurotic?” Disha put in.

  Bridget nodded in agreement.

  “You two are impossible!” I threw my hands up in the air and walked away from the body, its sight, and its implications finally too much for me to stand. Someone had killed this man in the worst way possible. Someone who was close by.

  Disha and Bridget followed me, continuing their conversation.

  “Do you think that’s the same guy you knew, Disha?” Bridget asked.

  We assembled some distance away, standing in a circle. Bridget doused her witch light, leaving only mine for illumination.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Disha responded, shadows cutting shapes on her face. “That guy never finished the first semester. At least, not that I remember. He must have dropped out at some point.”

  Bridget huffed, growing thoughtful just as my own mind began to fill with questions and thoughts of its own.

  “The gnomes,” I said, the words spilling past my lips before I realized what I was going to say.

  “What about them?” Bridget asked.

  “Earlier,” I said, “they looked like they were up to something.”

  “You think they…” Bridget ran a finger across her throat, “killed the guy?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t think they were capable of murder, but they certainly could cause mischief like the best of them.

  “Maybe they found him but decided not to tell anyone,” I said, thinking out loud.

  “What about you?” Bridget asked, poking Disha’s arm. “What are you thinking?”

  Disha blinked and shook herself as if she’d been lost in the depths of her own mind and had been forced to climb out.

  “Well… I was just thinking about that guy,” she said.

  “The dead dude? Or the dropout dude?” Bridget asked.

  “The dropout dude,” Disha said.

  I narrowed my eyes. “What about him?”

  “There’s one thing I remember about him.” Disha frowned, looking troubled.

  “What?” Bridget and I asked in unison.

  She met my gaze, her eyes full of concern. “He was a Looper, just like Anama.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  SPRING SEMESTER

  EARLY FEBRUARY

  “Get back. Everyone should return to their dorms. Nothing to see here.” Professor Middleton’s witch light illuminated the grassy area between the Academy buildings and dark woods while her free hand shooed students back from where they’d come.

  Disha, Bridget, and I stood off to the side, viewing the gathering crowds as they milled about and whispered rumors between bowed heads. We’d watched as the staff had run up, alerted by the freshman girls who’d first discovered the body. We’d seen the influx of sleepy students gather on the lawn beside the trees. Some had dared venture into the forest before being expelled by a teacher’s ward.

  Watching Cruise Knightley float out, arms and legs flailing, had made my night. He’d had it in for Rowan last year, working hard to get him expelled through a petition and some pretty terrible pranks. When he crashed headfirst into a topiary, I nearly split my pants with laughter. At least someone was getting what they deserved tonight.

  We’d answered Professor Fedorov and Professor Middleton’s questions after they’d examined the body, but we didn’t have much more to add than the girls who’d summoned them. Professor Fedorov, in particular, seemed focused on exactly what we’d been doing in the woods when the body had been found. His steely gaze left me wondering what he thought we’d been up to.

  Did he think we had something to do with it? Obviously, we were not powerful enough to do something like that to a person.

  But who was?

  While the staff secured the area, Bridget, Disha and I wandered to a stone bench and sat down. Exhaustion had started to creep in since it was well past one AM. I stifled a yawn and tried to get my sluggish brain to think.

  The night hadn’t gone at all as I’d expected and now my mind spun, working on overdrive as I tried to mesh this new information with what we’d previously learned.

  What we knew was someone was dead. The person might be a Looper, someone who could control time and space, someone like Anama, but whether that mattered or not, I didn’t know. Maybe he’d traveled himself into a volcano or something. But then, what was he doing back here? I didn’t understand enough about Loopers and what they could and could not do to put two and two together. Plus, we didn’t actually know if he was the same guy Disha had met last year.

  Shit. I was no further along in solving this puzzle than I was an hour ago. Actually, it’d just gotten more complicated.

  My mind wandered back to when we’d first spotted the gnomes. They could sense when something was wrong as we’d witnessed when the grimoire was stolen. It made me wonder, had they seen who’d killed the man in the Berluti shoes?

  “So what about the gnomes? I keep thinking about them,” I told the girls.

  “The gnomes?” Bridget said with a yawn. “They went into the shrub. They were naked.”

  “What if they saw who did it?” I asked.

  Bridget shrugged. Disha, who was currently drinking something from a tiny vial, snapped toward me. She talked in the clipped manner of someone who had just mainlined caffeine. “Yes, gnomes. We should track them down. Let’s go.”

  She popped up
and was about to take off when I grabbed her arm. “What was that?”

  “What was what?” she asked, her head snapping around like a toddler on speed.

  “What did you just take?” I grabbed for the vial in her fist. She fought me for a bit until I pried it out of her fingers. “What was this?”

  “Alertness tincture. I just perfected it. Feels wonderful. Now, let’s go.” She tried to run off again.

  “Alertness tincture? Jesus, Disha. Is it even safe?”

  She shrugged. “We’ll see. Got it from a book. I feel great. Just great. Now, can we move?” She bounced from foot to foot.

  “No,” I said, annoyed. “You’re in no shape. Plus, no more vigilante stuff, remember? Let’s maybe tell a teacher what’s going on. That would be a novel idea.” I nodded towards Professor Middleton off in the distance.

  “Fine,” Disha agreed. “But fast. I need to move. Does anyone want to run?” Her eyes popped as wide as Bridget’s usually did.

  “No running. And can you turn down the alertness? You’re kind of a lot right now.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “And, no, I can’t. It’ll wear off in an hour. Just deal with it. Now, let’s go!”

  She grabbed my arm and hustled me over to Professor Middleton. Bridget groaned as she hefted her tired body off the bench. I almost told her to try some of Disha’s alertness tincture, but then worried what a coked-up version of Bridget might be like. All I could picture was an angry, red tornado with wide eyes, like a female Tasmanian devil. Not good.

  “Professor Middleton,” Disha said, waving. “Hi, over here. We need to tell you something. The gnomes were out. They went into a bush. They might be involved. You should check on it.”

  Disha’s words poured over Professor Middleton like a torrent and, when they were finished, our teacher looked stunned and confused. She wore a flowing kimono-style robe, head kerchief, and slippers. Dark circles sat deep under her brown eyes. Professor Middleton was not ancient like the regent or Professor Hitchcock-Watson, but she had to be in her fifties. Obviously, she’d been dragged out of bed by cries of murder and was doing her best to hold everything together.

  “What is this now?” she asked, her expression wrinkling with annoyance. “Gnomes?”

  Disha started to answer, but I held a hand up to stop her. “Hi. Sorry about Disha. Can I explain?”

  The professor gave a curt nod. “Make it quick. Then you should return to your dorms where it’s safe.”

  “Thanks. You see, when we were walking out here, we saw a group of gnomes hurrying into the shrubbery. They seemed agitated. We think they might have seen something and should maybe be questioned.”

  “Shrubbery.” Disha laughed, jittery. Bridget rolled her eyes.

  The professor shook her head, unpersuaded. “Gnomes are always agitated. Did you see what they did to our kitchens?”

  “Yes, but… they seem to know things,” I offered. “When there’s trouble.”

  “Charlie, I appreciate your help. Magical Law Enforcement is on its way. I’ll pass your tip along. Now, please, go to your dorms so we can ensure your safety.”

  “But, but…” Disha began.

  “Thank you, professor,” I said, pulling Disha away. “We’ll go back.”

  Professor Middleton gave me a nod and then turned to admonish a group of students who had just shown up.

  “What the hell, Charlie, are you just going to give up like that? You can’t. There’s too much at stake. Think of Sinasre.” Disha jiggled my arms as she pleaded her case.

  Bridget situated herself in my line of sight, folding her arms across her chest as if to agree with Disha.

  I checked to make sure Professor Middleton was out of hearing range before answering. “No, we’re not going to give up, but we’re not going to be stupid, either. We’re going to finish what we came here to do in the first place.”

  I gestured to the girls to let them know I was up to something and led the way, headed towards our dorm. As soon as we were out of sight, we snuck around the maze until we were back to the tree line that surrounded the Academy.

  “We need to find the gnomes,” I whispered, hoping no teachers were close enough to hear us.

  Disha looked puzzled, but Bridget held up a finger to tell us to give her a minute. As we watched, she did an elaborate sort of dance, hopping on one foot while chanting something that sounded very much like a New Zealander wedding haka. Magic curled around her.

  She stomped and shouted, making me realize we would be screwed if a teacher saw us. What kind of spell was this anyway?

  “Bridget,” I whispered.

  She paid me no mind, flashing her tongue and pounding her chest.

  “Bridget, we’re going to get caught.”

  She threw her hands up in the air and huffed loudly. At first, I thought she was angry, but then she blended the movement into more dancing.

  I glanced at Disha, but she seemed to be having some adverse effects from her alertness tincture. She yawned and leaned against a tree, head drooping.

  Great. Both my friends were insane.

  I was about to give up the whole thing when three very naked gnomes popped out of the bushes and ran at us, tiny arms waving. I recognized two of them: Gramop and Rasfix.

  “Stop!” they yelled, putting their hands over their ears. “Please.”

  Bridget froze in mid-gesture, her arms out like a hula dancer. “Oh, good. You’re here.”

  The three naked gnomes gave her dirty looks as they took their hands from their ears and turned to disappear back into the deep forest.

  “Wait,” I said, holding out my hand. “We need to ask you something.”

  They stopped, exchanged a glance and turned back our way. Gramop, the one with a gray beard down to his dirty belly button, addressed me as if he were speaking for all of them. “It’s about the dead man. We know who killed him.”

  “You do?” Bridget and I asked in unison.

  “Yes,” Rasfix said, glancing up at us with his turquoise eyes. “We stole him and put him there, so someone would find it.”

  “Shh,” Gramop thwacked Rasfix in the back of the head and rolled his eyes.

  “Wait, what?” I asked.

  Gramop ignored me. “We will tell you who killed him as long as you promise never to reveal where you got your information.”

  “Leave us out of it,” the third gnome, a little guy with a fat paunch belly and beady eyes, added. He had sticks in his hair and mud on his feet. They all did. It was clear they had been hiding deep within the forest. They seemed afraid. But what or who were they afraid of? And where had they gathered the courage to steal and stage a body?

  “Fine,” I agreed. “Who killed the man?”

  All three exchanged a look. Then the big one answered. “Regent Nyquist.”

  The words spilled over me like a cup of icy water. I knew he was bad. I knew it!

  “Damn,” Bridget said.

  “Are you sure?” a tired Disha asked. “Nyquist? Our Nyquist?”

  All three nodded. “That is all we can say.”

  “Wait,” I said, but it was too late. In a pop and a poof of foul smelling smoke, all three gnomes were gone.

  “They’re nuts,” Disha said, dropping against her tree again. “It couldn’t have been him. Why would he do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but someone else probably does.”

  Realizing what I meant, Bridget reached for Disha’s bag that held up the knife with far too much glee on her face. “I get to use this?” She pulled the blade out, letting it gleam in the moonlight.

  “Yes,” I said, “we contact Rowan. But, can you not look so goddamned happy to torture me, please?”

  I held my hand, wincing against the pain. Bridget cleaned the knife on the grass, then held it up to the moonlight to make sure it was clean. We didn’t want blood around while summoning a vampire.

  I stared out across the dark lake, the moonlight illuminating the peaking waves as they l
apped into the shoreline. We’d needed privacy, a place to summon Rowan without notice, but this lake held one of my worst memories in its cold, watery arms.

  Tempest. The hurricane. The dank warehouse. Dean Underwood. Sebastian Mink. His death at Rowan’s hands.

  I closed my eyes against the onslaught of horrible images that floated up like a bloated body.

  God, what was I doing out here in the middle of the night? There had to be another way. The wind stirred around us, shaking the tree boughs. I tugged my jacket closer around my body as the smell of lake water flooded my senses, making me almost gag with nausea drudged up along with bad memories.

  Instead of giving in to nightmares, I focused on my wound and the pain it offered.

  “Crap, Bridget. You really went to town,” I hissed, staring at my gored palm as an incessant throb shot all the way up my arm. If Rowan was anywhere nearby, he’d have to feel it. That same lingering question occupied my agony-clogged mind: would he come? He had last time, but things between us were considerably worse now.

  And how did I feel about seeing him again? Honestly, I didn’t know. And the pain was taking all of my attention. Damn, it was bad. I winced and stared at the offending hand bleeding into the grass.

  “Can you stop the blood?” I asked Bridget. “Disha normally does it but…”

  I glanced at my sleeping friend. The alertness tincture had worn off hard. She snored as she lay splayed out on the grass.

  Nothing about tonight was going as we’d planned.

  “What now?” Bridget asked, swirling her hand over my blood. We watched it disappear for a moment, then I answered.

  “We wait.”

  “How long do we have to wait?” Bridget said, staring into the three-quarters moon.

  “Not long,” a male voice said behind us.

  We both whirled, our defensive magic lighting up the night in reds and blues.

  Rowan held his hands up in defense. “It’s me. You called, so let’s not blast my head off just yet. Unless... that was the plan.” He seemed to consider the possibility for an instant, then relaxed. Noticing Disha splayed on the ground, he grew concerned and asked, “Is she all right?”