by Larisa Long
“Not that I know of,” Blist says. “Strange creatures.” He shrugs. “Anyway.” He smiles at me. “How’s your fall been, Zalia Witch Shifter?”
“Eventful.”
Winter
Chapter 1
“It’s freezing!” Xury races inside the cafeteria and brushes off the snow which has clung to her hair and jacket. “Why is it freezing outside?”
Blist opens his eyes wide as he glances out the windows to see the snow quickly accumulating. “Um … it’s winter.”
Xury rolls her eyes as she yanks off her jacket to reveal the latest school colors. Yep, even with the faehead cousins being tutored in their castle, Queen Ama still wanted them to participate. They still got to choose the colors.
This season? Wait for it … drumroll … white and … white. White skirts, white shirts, white jackets, white socks or tights or pants or whatever.
The faeries sigh as they watch Xury. With her bright red hair, she can pull off white. I have light blond hair which is almost white anyway and very fair skin. I almost disappear. I grab hold of the ancient necklace King Philock gave me a few months ago to protect me from additional curses. “This is the only thing that would show up in a snowstorm.”
“Don’t forget your shifter locket,” Blist reminds.
I grab the locket Blist gave me which always hovers over my heart. I’ve run my fingers over the outline of a jaguar so much it’s almost worn off, and in my mind I see the scroll from Fate herself that named Blist as my fated shifter soul mate. I try not to giggle too much as the faeries hover in mid air around Xury.
“But isn’t it colder than it normally is?”
“It’s 38 degrees,” Blist looks up to the right and then left. “Yep,” he nods. “38. As always during winter.”
Xury leans closer to me. “Is that a shifter thing, and do you have it?” She looks at me.
I shake my head. “No sense of direction or temp. If it’s a shifter thing, I don’t have it, but it’s always 38 in winter. Morning, noon and night. Always.”
Blist drops the rest of the packages on the tables Xury had already set up yesterday. Presents bought by her pixie fans. “Not a shifter thing.”
I look around at the empty cafeteria. Xury is the only one who demands we celebrate half birthdays, and she also demands it be only the three of us and the faeries. I guess she gets tired of her pixie entourage following her everywhere. “Streamers?”
Xury nods. “Check.”
I nod to the faeries who always want to help. I could just wave my hand, but faeries look forward to Xury’s parties.
The faeries hover as it takes about six to lift up the tiny streamers. They grab every streamer color they can find and haphazardly toss, throw, yank this way and that. Their design, which I’m sure was faerie planned, resembles angry webs made by very disorganized and angry spiders.
Xury frowns. “Huh?”
The faeries gasp.
“It’s fine,” she says quickly before looking at me with a cringe.
“Where do you want these?” Blist holds various sized bowls of what looks like colored sand. “What are they?”
Xury sighs. “Something shifters would not understand. Put them in the corner. One sized bowl in each corner, and primaries can’t be next to each other.” She thinks about it. “In fact, just follow a traditional color wheel starting with the lightest shade of pink at the left hand side of the rightest window and go clockwise. Also Feng shui rules apply. Obviously. The faeries will do the rest.”
The faeries nod. They got all of that.
I have to cover my mouth as I laugh.
Blist looks at Xury and then at me and then back at Xury.
Xury rolls her eyes and sighs. She looks at me. “Can you just zap where I want the bowls to go? The faeries will obviously do the heavy lifting since a jaguar shifter is so lacking in imagination.”
Xury returns to her work because her brain is fueled by sugar water, and she just assumes everyone else should be able to keep up.
Blist winks at me as he puts all the tiny bowls down in the middle of the room. There are dozens of them.
I glance up at the faeries who motion to me which colors go where. “Got it.”
“I don’t hear anything,” Xury says, in the middle of a sigh.
Right. She’s one of those who prefer a loud snap of the fingers to prove the spell is completed.
I snap my fingers, and instantly dozens of bowls are placed correctly in each corner. The faeries start to gather one piece of colored sand at a time and spread it into an intricate pattern. I get distracted watching them until Blist walks in front of me. I melt watching him. Blist can make anything look good. Or, he looks good doing anything. I shake my head. Since the cousin created original 36 curses are lessening, I find I have more room in my head for nonsensical things.
Yesterday I counted the number of odd bricks in the classroom. Granted it was rune class, and for as much as I respect my uncle, Professor Sway, so not a rune girl. I’ve told him that, but he only grins and mutters something I don’t understand.
“Hello?” Xury throws a piece of candy at me. “Realm to Zalia.”
I jump. “I’m Zalia. Dangerous hybrid of witch and shifter. My best friend is a pixie, and I’m in love with a jaguar shifter.” I shake my head again.
Xury frowns. “You’ve been doing that a lot lately.” She glances at Blist. “Shifter thing?”
He rolls his eyes. “You know not everything odd is a shifter thing.” He looks at me quickly. “Not that it was odd.” He clears his throat. “Zalia’s fine.”
I love it when he says my name. I love it when he does anything. Wait … didn’t I say that already?
I glance up at the faeries who nod. They can read my mind. Have always been able to. Anyone’s mind?
The faeries shake their head.
“Huh.”
“What?” Blist follows my line of sight back to the faeries. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
The faeries giggle.
“We ready?”
We hear a few noises coming from the hallway.
Xury stomps her foot and marches over to the door. She opens it, says something and then slams it quickly.
Blist uses the opportunity to grab my hand. “Hello, Zalia.”
“Hey, Blist.” That’s about all I can get out while looking into his green eyes. I wonder what’s happening to me. I’ve had a crush on Blist since we were five, but I’ve never been so weird before.
We stare into each other’s eyes forever. At least I think it’s forever.
“Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine.” Blist waits another second. “Thirty.” He releases my hand and shakes his out. “Thirty seconds.” He shows me his hand. “See, didn’t catch on fire.”
“Wow. I’m almost becoming normal.”
“Don’t you dare.” He says with his most serious face before smiling. “I love my Zalia exactly as you are.”
I trip over the chair beside me.
Xury rushes by me again. “Why so clumsy?”
“Who was out there?” Blist winks at me. “More adoring fans?”
“Ha. Like the shifters don’t keep track of your every move.”
He shrugs. My best friends are the leaders of their particular groups. And luckily Curse Number 2 with all witches hating me is still in effect. Since my cousins cursed me 3 1/2 years ago, I’ve never minded that curse or Curse Number 18 that witches can’t look directly at me. Since I’ve been best friends with a pixie and a shifter, not being close to my own kind isn’t a hardship.
Ceru clears her throat. She’s one of the red headed faeries which I swear only dyed her hair to match Xury. One of her fellow faeries puts her arms across her chest and nods. Ceru spits something at me.
“Right.” The faeries always remind me. “I am close to my own kind.”
Xury drapes her arm over Blist’s shoulder. She’s not taunting me. That’s just Xury. “What’s she going on about now?”
Blist shakes his head. “More conversations with the faeries?”
“They were just reminding me that I am close to my own kind.”
“Shifters,” Blist says smiling. “My favorite kind. Aside from a certain beautiful good witch.”
Xury shakes her head. “I am glad you understand her. It’s like you have a weird unspoken language.” She looks back and forth between us. “Shifter thing?”
“Definitely,” Blist says grinning.
I sigh. The moment Curse Number 12 pixies itself, I kiss Blist and never stop.
The faeries giggle again.
“What’s that?” Blist asks.
“Nothing.” I glance around. “No more pouting pixies waiting to pounce?”
“Ha! Try saying that six times fast.”
I think about it. “No, thanks.”
Xury motions for me to do the spell.
I wave my hands, and the entire cafeteria is transformed into fall. Leaves of various oranges descend slowly from the ceiling. Tables appear full of pumpkin and pecan pies surrounded by carafes of apple cider and mugs of hot cocoa with marshmallows. Another table has bowls of tiny apples ready to be bobbed by the faeries who are already pushing each other in.
Blist glances at the scene and then out the window. “Remind me why it has to look like fall again?”
Xury sighs as she checks her reflection and reapplies her lipgloss. “Balance. Remember?”
“Right?” He shrugs as he looks at me.
All of our half-birthdays happen to fall on the same week in December. Actually, Xury’s birthday was originally in October, but she petitioned to have it changed because Blist and my birthdays are in June. Only a pixie can have her date of birth changed. Actually only Xury has ever done it.
Blist grabs his mug of raw beef stew as Xury grabs her tall glass of strawberry and lime flavored sugar water.
I dive into the pumpkin pie and take two mugs of hot cocoa and one mug of apple cider.
“You going to have any protein with that, Missy?” Xury asks.
I motion to her sugar water.
She shrugs. “What are you going to eat when you shift?”
I sigh. “Blist knows but won’t tell me what it’s going to be.”
“Still?” Xury slams her drink down on the table as the pixies who managed to camp overnight and hide around the cafeteria behind the drapes gasp. She glances around. “What was that?”
Blist and I shrug as the faeries put their hands over their mouths to keep from spilling the secret.
“Ant?” Xury says.
Blist almost chokes on his stew. “No, and you guessed that last month.”
Xury squeezes her face this way and that. “Coyote?”
Blist shakes his head.
“Hopefully something a jaguar wouldn’t want to kill.”
Blist frowns and then thinks about it. “No.”
“Raven?”
Blist swallows hard, and I wonder if that’s it. He coughs. “There was a bone in that.”
“Really?” I wonder if there was or if he’s just covering. I quickly look at the faeries who make themselves scarce. “Huh.”
Xury ignores me. “This is nice. To us.”
We all raise our mugs and glasses. I hold up my finger as a few of the faeries don’t have anything yet. They quickly pass out thimbles and fill up with either hot cocoa or apple cider or a bit of both. Rella nods to me when everyone’s ready. I motion to Xury.
“To us.”
“Can you believe we’re already 16 and a half?”
“Yes,” Blist says very seriously.
Xury ignores him and finishes one glass and starts on another. She looks down at her all white school uniform. “They’re right. I do look good in this.”
Blist shakes his head as he stares at her.
She looks up at him. “What? Don’t you think I can do white on white?”
He puts his hand over his heart. “The only pixie who can.”
Everywhere, I hear pixies and faeries sigh. I look down at my own outfit. “I can’t.”
“You need to add a splash of color,” Xury says.
“I’m wearing pink.”
Blist chokes. “Please tell me it’s a bra.”
Xury cringes. “Why?”
“No reason.” Blist glances around and dives back into his stew.
“My bra’s not pink,” Xury looks up at the ceiling. “I don’t think. No, my pink bras were stolen.”
“Who would steal a pink bra?” I look at Blist.
“Don’t look at me. All my pink bras are accounted for.”
“New subject.” Xury shakes her hair out. “Still think I have snow on me. So, when do the royal brooms arrive?”
“Three weeks,” I groan. Every month, King Philock makes his spawn come back to the Academy to further weaken the original 36 curses. I want the curses gone, but seeing the faehead cousins always makes me itch. I jump in my chair which makes all the faeries wake up since they were napping when their blood sugar spiked from the thimbles full of cider and cocoa. “Sorry. Is that one of the curses?”
The faeries grab their heads and curl back up next to the hot cocoa.
“Fae.”
“What?”
Xury curls her lip as she tastes one of the other drinks I conjured for her. “I do not like Kiwi and pomegranate together.”
“Noted.”
There’s a scream down the hallway which rattles the table.
Chapter 2
“What the fae is that?” Xury looks concerned but hasn’t so much as moved a hair out of place. She tries another drink.
All of a sudden, pixies from everywhere come out of hiding and surround Xury.
“Where the?” She looks at me. “Did you know they were here?”
I nod and watch Blist as he tiptoes towards the door. He puts his ear to the door and listens. Then he jumps back and rushes back towards me.
“What is it?”
Blist puts his finger over his lips. “Shh. I have no idea. I didn’t hear anything.”
Xury rolls her eyes as the pixies tighten the circle around her. “Can you give me some breathing room?”
The pixies immediately step back a few inches and wait for further instructions.
Xury finishes another glass. “Maybe it was one of the clocks. Maybe one of the professors forgot they set an alarm.”
I shrug and go back to my pie. I love pie. And chocolate. “Chocolate pie,” I screech causing everyone to jump.
“Sorry, but I forgot the chocolate pie.”
“Next time,” Blist says, grinning.
Just then, the door flies open, and a woman runs into the middle of the room and screams. She’s dressed in a dark cloak and has wild hair and eyes. She looks this way and that as if looking for an escape.
She doesn’t stop screaming. It’s deafening, and I cast a shield spell around Blist, Xury, the pixies, the faeries and myself. Otherwise, our ear drums would have abandoned us altogether. She must scream or shriek for a good two minutes without pausing. Then, she stops, takes a deep breath and opens her mouth to unleash again.
Before she can rescreech, Professor Sway and Professor Kreyl arrive. She’s my new potions teacher since the previous one is still being held hostage by his last experiment.
Professor Sway puts his hand out to stop us from approaching the woman. Not that we would have.
Blist leans close to me. “A banshee.”
I look up at the faeries who stare at me with wide eyes as they shake. I put my hand over my mouth. We’ve heard of banshees and talked of them, but few of us have ever even seen one. Many thought they were legend or myth.
The banshee opens her mouth again and shrieks so loud many of the glasses shatter. The faeries disappear, and the pixies grab Xury trying to drag her up and out of the room.
“It’s alright,” Professor Kreyl says. She has the most soothing voice. She approaches the banshee. “It’s alright. No one will hurt you.”
“Witch,” the banshee spits.
“I am,” Professor Kreyl puts her hands out to show the banshee she isn’t hiding anything. “I am a good witch.”
“Not a warlock?” The banshee asks.
Professor Kreyl shakes her head. “Not a warlock. You’re safe here.”
The banshee looks at Xury and Blist quickly. “Pixie. Shifter.” She takes extra long when she looks at me. It’s like she’s studying me. “Hybrid.” Then she passes out.
I know this isn’t all about me, but if the banshee was going to say, hybrid, at least she could have said what kind of shifter I was going to be. I know. Not the time.
Professor Kreyl checks the banshee. “She’s okay. Just exhausted.” She glances at Professor Sway.
He looks at us. “Sorry to cut your celebration short, but I think it best if you return back to your dorms.”
“Don’t worry about the cleanup,” Professor Kreyl says to me. “I’ll take care of it.”
She looked directly at me. Interesting. “There’s still a few pixies hiding behind the curtains.”
Xury stomps her foot. “Really?”
“I know,” Professor Kreyl says, smiling at me. It wasn’t a creepy, I know your secret and will destroy you as soon as I get the time. It was more a kind, sucks to be you, smile. Those I can respect.
I follow Blist and Xury and the pixies out of the cafeteria.
Xury stops suddenly. “Forgot my coat.”
Several of the pixies run into each other trying to go back.
“Wait.” I snap my fingers, and the coat is back on Xury, zipped up and ready to go.
She smiles. “Thanks, Z. Even got that wicked spot out. Did I ever say I love having a witch for a best friend?”
The pixies sigh and look glum.
Xury notices. “I’ve known her since I was five. She’s my best friend. Deal or go home.”
The pixies immediately nod and smile at me.
“You could be a general.”
Xury laughs but then stops. “General Xury.” She stands up straight and salutes. “I like that.”
Blist blows out a breath. “Please try not to increase her ego larger than it already is. We might have to blow open the roof next year.”
Xury gasps followed by the other pixies. “Bye.” She waves as the pixies follow her to the stairs back to the second floor that has all things pixie.
