“Madison!”
I look up to see Ivy and Krista coming toward me. They both embrace me tightly. I didn’t think we were to the hugging stage of our friendship, but I’m glad we apparently are.
“We heard you found Giselle’s body,” Ivy says, taking my arm and pulling me down the hall with Krista.
I can’t help but glance over my shoulder at Giselle one last time, but the teachers are all gathered around her. I can’t see a thing.
“I was just walking down the hall, going to the stairwell and saw her,” I say. “I screamed, but what happened after that is a little...muddled.”
“We can take you to your room by the back staircase,” Krista says. “If that is where you still want to go.”
I grit my teeth. All of Giselle’s things will be there. Reminders of her. But at the same time, I don’t really have anywhere else to go, and I’m emotionally spent.
“Yeah,” I say finally. “My room.”
“I really have to apologize anyway,” Ivy says. “Jaxon pointed out that I should have asked permission before scanning your aura, and he’s right. I’m so sorry!”
“Jaxon has his own crap to apologize for,” I mutter, thinking of how he tried to kiss me. How can he criticize Ivy for not asking my consent and then do basically the same thing? “Don’t listen to him. I was surprised by what you said, but it was true. I do have a broken heart. But it is one of the reasons I came here. I’m trying to find ways to heal. Ways for something good to come out of something bad.”
“You are totally in your right to be mad at me,” Ivy said. “And I’ll never perform any magic on you without your permission again, no matter how minor I might think it is.”
The apology rings genuine, and no amount of me dismissing her words will make them go away, so I graciously accept.
Krista sidles up beside me and leans in as we walk. “So...what did Jaxon do?”
“Tried to kiss me in the library.”
Krista busts into a laugh. “That boy has no game.”
We make our way to a staircase so narrow we have to climb single file. The wood here is not the brightly polished mahogany of the rest of the woodwork in the house, but is a dull gray. There is also a layer of dust on the steps, bannister, and walls, and the ceiling is strewn with spiderwebs; thankfully there are no spiders to be seen.
Ivy leads the way up. “In case you’re interested in the history of the house,” she says, “back in the day, this was the servants’ staircase. Servants and slaves were never to use the main staircases.”
“Slaves?” I ask, immediately uneasy. “How old is the house?”
“It dates back at least to the early 1800s,” Ivy says. “But I suspect parts of it could be even older.”
“That’s really...interesting,” I settle for, running my hand over the same banister that men and women used hundreds of years ago. “I love history, actually. It was on my short list of possible majors if I got to go to college.”
“You should spend time with Mr. Hamilton, then,” Ivy says as we pass a door and the stairway twists to the next level. “He’s not really a historian, but he can point you to the best history books in the library.”
“That’s a good idea,” I say. “Thanks.”
When we reach the landing for my floor, Ivy pushes the door open. There is a surprising squeak, as though the door isn’t used much, and I suppose it isn’t. Almost everyone uses the main stairwell, so there wouldn’t be much reason to use this back one.
Except a girl dying at the usual stair passage.
The doors down the hall are all shut, but excited chatter hums from behind each one. And while I can’t make out most of what they say—air can’t carry voices through closed doors—Giselle’s name clearly stands out every so often.
When we reach my room, I turn the handle and push the door in, half expecting Giselle to yell at me for disturbing her. As if this was all just a terrible nightmare. But there is only silence when the door swings in on an empty room.
“Do you want us to come in with you?” Krista asks.
“Yes,” I say, a little too quickly. “Just for a moment?”
“Of course.” Krista rubs my arm as she goes in ahead of me.
Ivy follows next, walking to the window and raising the blind to let in the last rays of sunlight before the early evening sets in.
I exhale and step in last. Then, I have the worst thought.
I have the room to myself.
She’s dead, Madison! Don’t you remember how upset you were—still are—over Beau? But for Giselle, all you can think about is the fact that you have the room to yourself and don’t have to listen to Giselle bitch anymore about you being in her space?
I’m a wicked person for thinking of myself when Giselle is dead.
“Do you want us to clear out Giselle’s things?” Krista asks as she perches on the chair at my desk.
“No,” I say. “What if they’re evidence or something?”
“Evidence?” Ivy asks. “Of what?”
Ah, that’s right. No one said anything about Giselle possibly being murdered. Those were just thoughts I had in my head. But now that I’ve brought it up...
“I was just thinking that it was strange Giselle died when she uses that staircase all the time,” I say with a shrug, like it’s no big deal. “I mean, all her shoes are heels like that.” I nod over to the closet door at the pile of dressy heeled shoes that would put Lady Gaga to shame. “She has the balance and grace of a cat. And we’re to believe she accidentally fell down the stairs?”
“You think Giselle was murdered?” Ivy nearly sits on Giselle’s bed in shock but then remembers herself and rushes over to my bed instead.
“I don’t know,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. “Maybe? Am I crazy? It just seemed...weird. There’s a protection sigil over the stairs. Shouldn’t that have kept her from falling to her death?”
“It’s actually a good luck sigil,” Krista says. “So if you trip, you’ll happen to catch yourself just right. Not the same as a protection sigil, but similar.”
“So, shouldn’t she have landed...not on her neck?” I ask.
Ivy and Krista shudder.
“I understand why you are concerned,” Ivy says. “But sometimes accidents happen.”
The hairs on my neck prickle at that. The same words that Ms. Brewster used. Of course, it’s a common enough saying. I’m just on edge. Overreacting. Right?
“Besides,” Krista says, “witches can’t kill. If someone did push Giselle, it would have to have been a human. And we would have known if there was a human about.”
“What do you mean, witches can’t kill?” I ask.
“The things you don’t know could fill a book,” Krista says.
“Probably the whole library,” I say. “But explain. Please.”
“It’s part of the blood pact the first witches made when they pledged to Hecate,” Krista says. She places one hand over her heart and holds the other up straight like she’s being sworn in to testify. ‘Obscurorum postisserat et seavirat pugillatissimus et eulogamus et obdurat usibus dicire. Stalagmax saturneram quos sonuatrix incipibus est triparcemur.’ ‘I vow to use my powers for the greater good, the honor of all, and the protection of the weak and the small. And if my powers shall ever be used for evil, may they be stricken from me, my soul forever lost, never to live again.’ Or something like that. We can’t kill, or even harm another person. You’ll take the same pledge at the end of the year.”
I nearly choke on my own tongue as I try to not blurt out what I’m thinking.
How is that possible? I killed Beau! If witches can’t kill, or even harm another human, why did Beau die?
“Could an unpledged witch hurt someone?” I ask, trying to reason my way through this.
“The pledge is more of a formality,” Ivy says. “Our powers hinge on upholding the Laws of Hecate. We are all bound to them whether we know them or not. If we betray her, she will remove our powers, and worse.”<
br />
“But that means we can harm another person, right?” I ask, flailing. Grasping for any explanation. “We have the ability, I mean. But if we do cause harm, we will be punished. It doesn’t mean we literally can’t hurt someone else, right?”
Krista shrugs. “I always thought it was literal.”
“Me too,” Ivy adds.
“Yeah, but you said if you did hurt someone, Hecate will take your powers. So wouldn’t that mean if someone didn’t care about losing their soul, they could risk it to kill someone?”
“Who would be so foolish as to even try something like that?” Ivy asks, concern etched into her forehead.
“Someone who really wanted Giselle dead,” I say, then I want to slap myself. Everyone knows that Giselle and I did not get along. Just yesterday we had to be pulled apart in a screaming match. But I didn’t hate her enough to kill her. No one would think I did...would they?
“Come on,” Ivy scoffed. “Giselle was a snob, but that’s no reason to kill her.”
“Besides,” Krista says, “the blood pact teaches that if someone uses their powers for evil, the powers will be stripped from them immediately. They’d become mundane. We’d notice if someone around here was suddenly a mundane.”
I start to pace. What she was saying didn’t add up. After Beau died, I didn’t lose my powers. If anything, they became stronger than ever. Why? Could it be because I haven’t taken the pledge? Or because I didn’t even know about it? Krista and Ivy might say otherwise, but my experience is a fact. I wish I could tell them just to point out they must have it wrong and get their help in getting it right.
I chew the inside of my cheek. I need a handbook or something anyway. This is the first I’m hearing about a pledge.
“You’re just freaking out since you found Giselle, and you’re worried what people will think,” Ivy says. “That would be enough to upset anyone.”
She stands and opens her arms to me. I shake my head, and she lowers her arms. I need space right now. She gives me a wan smile to show she doesn’t take the rejection personally.
“And…” she hedges, “with that heart wound, it would be more concerning if you weren’t taking this so hard.”
I look at her, trying to discern what exactly she knows. How much of my wound did she see?
“I’m serious about being able to help you with that stuff,” Krista says. “Potions, crystals, rituals. We can give you the works. You’ll feel better than ever.”
I smile at Krista. It would be nice if witchcraft could really ‘heal what ails ya,’ as they say, like some...well, magic elixir.
I have to stop thinking of all this as fantasy and accept that it’s real. Even though I have always known that magic and witchcraft exists, so much of it is new to me that I still can’t seem to accept certain parts of it.
And making my pain disappear isn’t something I’m ready to accept. I still need the pain. The reminder of what brought me here. Even if the memory of Beau hurts, it’s better than not remembering him at all.
I shake my head. “Thanks,” I say. “But I’m okay, really. It’s just the shock. I think I need to rest.”
“That’s probably our cue to leave,” Ivy says, heading to the door.
Krista jumps up and follows behind. “If you do need anything, just text.”
I say thanks half a dozen more times as I usher them out of the room and shut the door.
Once they are gone, I lock the door behind them, even though locks wouldn’t do much good with so much magic flowing about. Somehow, though, it makes me feel safe anyway, like when I lived at home.
I sink onto my bed and stare at Giselle’s side of the room.
“Are you here?” I ask softly.
I don’t know anything about spirits or communicating with them, but it seems appropriate to ask...just in case. When nothing happens, I let out a sigh and lean back on the bed. A small thunk sends me jumping from the bed again. When I calm down enough to look around the room, I see that one of Giselle’s shoes has tumbled down from the pile and onto the floor.
“Could have at least cleaned your shit up before dying,” I mumble. Which I immediately follow up with, “Sorry! That was so, so rude. I’m sorry. Really!”
My breath dies in my throat as the door to Giselle’s closet slowly swings open. There is a full-length mirror on the inside of the door. It stops when I can see myself reflected in it.
“O...kay…” I whimper, thankful that I don’t see Giselle’s ghost behind me. I glance at the closed window. “It’s just the wind. The non-existent wind coming through the closed window.”
When I look back, the door of the closet is closed.
“Shit!”
I run to the door out to the hall and try to pull it open, but forget I locked it. I fumble with the lock, but it’s stuck.
Winds fill the room. I look over my shoulder. Blinds flap and the drawers to the desks open and close.
“I’m sorry!” I cry. “I didn’t want you to die!”
Suddenly, the lock comes free, and the door swings open. I fall into the hallway, landing hard on my knees. The wind and noises stop. Several people standing in the hall stare at me.
“Weirdo,” one of the girls mutters, and everyone breaks out into a laugh as they go back to whatever they were doing before.
I stand and straighten my hair, wiping the tears of terror from my face. I try to walk down the hall with as much dignity as I can muster as I go to the library to find a book on poltergeists.
Chapter 11
“It might not seem like much,” Ms. Boucher says as the still air turns into a warm breeze across the lawn, rustling the grass, “but sometimes being able to control your powers to do something gentle, targeted, focused, can be more difficult than creating a blustering storm.”
I chew my lip and look up at the window to my room. I can see the blinds swaying slightly even though the window is closed, as is the door, unless someone snuck in while I was out. But I don’t think anyone would do that.
Giselle’s death is only a few days into the past, and I’ve barely slept a wink. By the time I got back to the library to ask Mr. Hamilton about poltergeists, my courage had fled and I realized how crazy I would look if I said I thought Giselle was haunting me. Even worse, if people believed that Giselle was tormenting me from beyond the grave, they could think I had something to do with her death.
Instead, I cleared my throat and asked for books about Native American magic and spiritualism. He said he was busy at the moment but would put together a suggested reading list for me and to come back in a couple of days.
Giselle’s ghost hadn’t done anything so dramatic as the windstorm that first time, but I could sense she—or something—was there. Just out of my peripheral vision. Barely beyond my touch. A shadow that was there a moment ago. Even now, I could swear I smell the same sickly sweet scent that permeated my nose when I found Giselle at the bottom of the stairs.
“Isn’t that pleasant?” Ms. Boucher asks with a sigh, drawing my attention.
I look at her, her eyes closed, as though lost in a memory. I glance back at my room and nearly scream when I see a figure standing in the window.
“Madison?” Ms. Boucher asks.
I look at her, and then back to the window. The figure is gone.
"Huh?” I say. “I’m sorry, can you repeat the question?”
“Are there any special scents that come to mind?” she asks. “Scent is the strongest of the five senses related to memory. If you concentrate, you can conjure up the same scent on the breeze.”
One of the boys with a New York Jets baseball cap on raises his hand, but doesn’t wait to be called on. “That would come in handy on the subway in July.”
Everyone chuckles.
“Aromatherapy can be useful in many situations,” Ms. Boucher says. “Scents can be calming, invigorating, healing.”
“My dad would grind coffee beans every morning,” one young lady named Elsa says, her voice a bit wistful. �
�Well, I suppose he still does. But I’ve missed waking up to the smell.”
“Hold on to that memory,” Ms. Boucher says. “Breathe in the scent deeply, as if you were in the kitchen with your dad right now, grinding coffee beans.”
Elsa does, and a little tear drips down her cheek.
“Now, breathe out, slowly,” Ms. Boucher says. She steps behind Elsa, taking both of her wrists in her hands. “Imagine the scent seeping right out through your fingers and into the air.”
As Elsa’s fingers wiggle, the fresh spring air suddenly smells like I just walked into a Starbucks.
“No way!” New York boy says, and I know he smells it, too.
Elsa opens her eyes and looks at her fingers in astonishment.
Ms. Boucher smiles. “Now you can wake up to the scent of home every day.”
“Thank you so much!” Elsa says, and the smell dissipates.
I hold up my finger. “Excuse me?”
Ms. Boucher nods.
“Could that have just been the power of suggestion? I mean, we have all smelled coffee before. So maybe we were all just imagining the same thing?”
Elsa frowns at me, but I shrug. A lot of things in the world once thought of as “magic” were just things in nature or science people didn’t understand yet.
“That is a very good question,” Ms. Boucher says.
This is not the first time I appreciate her manner of teaching. She’s always open to questions, challenges. New viewpoints.
“The power of suggestion is real, and can even be an effective tool in a witch’s repertoire,” she says. “So why don’t we perform a little test.”
She closes her eyes and wiggles her fingers. Instantly, I smell lemons. I open my mouth to say so when someone else says it first. The other students nod.
“Good,” Ms. Boucher says.
Then she does it again.
“I need chocolate,” the student next to me says, and we all laugh.
Ms. Boucher levels her gaze at me, her eyebrow cocked.
“Yes,” I admit. “I smelled them before the other people said what they were. That is pretty cool.”
Curse of Stone (Academy of the Damned Book 1) Page 10
