Prom Fright
The Merlin Academy for Delinquent Paranormals
Madison Stone
For Joel, who will never read this but who will still cheer me on.
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Acknowledgments
Introduction
To keep up to date with new releases, please sign up for Madison’s newsletter at madisonstonebooks.com.
1
I adjusted the strap of the heavy rubber apron around my neck and ensured my face mask was secured before I turned the immersion blender on. Mom fidgeted at the other end of the table, mixing sparkly mica powder with a little bit of oil and stirring them thoroughly. I picked up the container of lye water and slowly poured it down the shaft of the blender, careful to make sure I didn’t spill a drop.
My entire body was covered up like I was in a quarantine zone, but lye was nothing to mess with. A single drop of it on my skin, and I would be in pain for hours.
Soapmaking was a lost art, but one we cherished on my parent’s farm. We were two hours outside of Austin in a small town with a lot of trees and a few wineries scattered around. There was a tiny high school, an ice cream shop teens piled into every Friday, a decrepit movie theatre with seats I was too scared to sit in, and a mom and pop grocery store called Harold’s.
The store carried our soaps, but the owner of it was a miserly old coot and screwed Mom on the profits on a near-weekly basis. I’d just recently convinced her to go digital, so we set up an Etsy shop. The orders came in almost immediately, which was the reason I was now manning the soap station. Mom had been up most of the night making our most famous fragrance - blackberry vanilla, and she was barely functional today.
I was supposed to be in school today, but we had so many orders that we wouldn’t be able to fill them if she didn’t have an extra set of hands.
It didn’t matter much anyway. School wasn’t challenging for me here, and I was two weeks ahead on assignments. The school let me work through extra assignments. If they didn’t, I was bound to get into trouble. I’d lived here my entire life so they knew how much I loved shenanigans.
A busy Harmony was a good Harmony. Thus the reason I was up at 7 a.m. making several batches of one of Mom’s custom fragrances - Whiskey Vanilla. This stuff smelled so good I wanted to eat it. I contented myself with just stealing it off the shelves when the curing time was over. Four weeks was a long time to wait for a bar of soap, but it was also part of the beauty of it.
Once the lye water and the oil mixture began to emulsify, I turned off the blender and tapped it a couple of times to release the air bubbles. Mom handed over a small container of titanium dioxide and I dumped it in and turned on the blender again. The soap mixture slowly turned a creamy white. Mom poured in the fragrance oil and I pressed the slow speed button multiple times to slowly mix the fragrance in. When it was finished, I poured out half of the soap for Mom to color and I took off the face mask.
Sweat clung to my hairline as I watched Mom color her half of the soap a gorgeous deep red. A lock of dark hair fell over one eye as she concentrated. We looked nothing alike. She was tall and willowy, and I was short and curvy. Her hair was almost black and mine was a pale blonde. Or it was supposed to be. I colored my hair depending on my mood, but today it was a bright unicorn pink. My father hated it. My mom said I should add glitter and pretend I was in the cast of My Little Pony. She had high cheekbones and bright blue eyes. My face was a little more round and my eyes changed depending on what color I wore. Mom always said I had changeling’s eyes. One day they’d be blue and the next they’d look purple. She suggested I wear glasses if I didn’t like the questioning glances I was getting. When I got into high school, it no longer mattered. People just thought it was my personality to be weird.
I’d gotten super into cosplay, so from one day to the next, I’d look like a completely different person. It freaked my father out, especially the first time when he’d come home and thought Sandra Bullock was sitting on his couch. Mom walked in after hearing the commotion and had given me a long, silent look. Her eyes were sad almost until she finally said, “Harmony, maybe cool it with the makeup around the house. Your Dad has a huge crush on Sandy and this could have gotten real weird.”
“Connie!” Dad barked.
Mom had tossed the kitchen towel at him and laughed before she’d turned around and went back to cooking dinner.
Dad gave her a fond look before turning his attention back to me. “Seriously. How did you do it?”
“Do what?” I questioned.
He hesitated, a strange look on his face. “You looked like her.” Dad shook his head. “It was … uncanny.”
A prickly feeling stole over me as his words registered. Ever since then, I began to notice that all I had to do was think about the person I wanted to be and I could channel it. It sounded nuts, I know, but it was happening to me. I had a deft hand with makeup and the ability to mimic looks anyway, but this felt like something different.
Something that couldn’t be explained. Mom wasn’t bothered by it, but she wasn’t a person who believed in the woo woo. Life was the farm. Good soap, home-cooked dinners, and the love of a humble man (my dad). Anything other than that was “tomfoolery” according to her. But my dad … he was another story and sometimes the look in his eyes haunted me.
Dad knew something and whatever it was, he wasn’t telling me.
I finished pouring the soap into the prepared mold and quickly used a wooden skewer stick to draw a swirl design on the top of it. When I finished, I stripped off the protective clothing, planted a kiss on Mom’s cheek, and headed back to the main house. There was a costume party tonight and my best friend had dared me to dress up as Wonder Woman.
I’d been working on the dress for weeks and had been practicing my makeup for days in anticipation of the event. There was a $500 prize for the best costume and I planned to win it. I’d been socking every single penny away for college. I had ten grand in the bank. Enough for a year of college. At 16, I still had some time to save, but it was difficult to make money.
I flipped through my closet, my fingers lingering over some of the more elaborate costumes I’d done. I could sell them if I wanted to. Someone would have to be the same size as me, but I was around a size 6. Not uncommon.
I pulled out the archer costume I’d worn for Halloween last year and rested my fingers on the buttery leather of the pants. The material had come from a jacket I’d bought at a second-hand store. I mixed it with another soft stretchy material and the pants fit like a glove. I’d fashioned a vest out of an old corset and arm guards out of extra scraps of the leather jacket.
It was one of my favorites. I sighed as I went back to the closet and pulled out the Wonder Woman outfit. I wasn’t used to showing quite so much skin, but this was for a worthy cause.
I dressed quickly and attached the lariat to the golden buckle at my hips. A quick look in the mirror made me snort with laughter. It was an awesome costume, but it was so out of my normal wheelhouse that it made me squirm with discomfort. I was more of a Harry Potter geek - heavy robes, fully clothed, cool makeup kind of costumer.
Definitely not this.
But it was a dare and I was someone who could rarely pass one of those up. Once I’d gotten all the accessories on, I headed over to my vanity.
Pink messy hair down past my shoulders greeted me. My face was wan without makeup, but my purple-blue eyes glowed in my pale skin. There would be a lot of work required to transform me into the Amazon queen. Sighing, I pulled out the makeup bag under the vanity and got to work.
The Howler was located right in the heart of Austin. I’d never been there before and was only here tonight because my friend told me about the costume contest. I stepped out of the cab and pressed a twenty into the driver’s outstretched palm.
Christa Parks leaned against the brick exterior of the bar. Her face lit up as soon as she saw me. I raised my hand in a wave but frowned as I got closer to the place and realized it was 21 and up.
“How are we going to get in there?” I hissed as soon as she was in hearing distance.
She pulled two cards out of her front pocket. Grinning, she handed me one. “Fake IDs. Good ones, too.”
I took the card and looked at it. My first name was there, but my last name had been changed to Smith. “Clever,” I said as I tucked it into my leather bra.
Christa put hers in the small crossbody purse at her waist. She’d come dressed up as Princess Leia, complete with the hair buns and white robe. I perused her, frowned, and got a little closer to her. Rummaging in the tiny pack at my side, I pulled out my eyeliner and lipliner.
“You mind?” I asked.
Christa rolled her eyes. “Please. You’re perfection with an eye pencil.” She pushed her face forward. “Paint me like one of your French women.”
I snorted but uncapped the pencils and carefully sculpted her eyes and lips, holding Princess Leia’s face in my mind. When I stepped back, I blinked.
Christa’s face swam underneath my work, but for all intents and purposes, Carrie Fisher stood there staring at me.
“What?” Christa demanded.
I swallowed hard and slapped a smile on my face. “Nothing,” I said as I pulled a wet wipe out of my purse. “Just a smudge,” I croaked as I carefully removed some of the makeup.
A few seconds later, my friend looked more like herself again, though with a definite Carrie Fisher vibe. She linked arms with me and we walked into the club. The bouncer barely looked at our IDs before we sailed through the door.
The noise assaulted my senses right away. Bass pumped through the speakers and rattled the walls. Bodies pressed against each other, each dressed in costume. There were angels and devils, superheroes and villains, monsters and at least four other Wonder Women there.
Christa nudged me and leaned in. “Yours is the best.”
I looked down at my attire and thought maybe she was right. We pushed through the crowd and headed to the bar. I had a midnight curfew so I wasn’t going to do anything to blow it, and that meant underage drinking. I’d fought for weeks to get Mom to agree to let me stay out this late, but when she realized how hard I was working on my costume and the prize money, she’d finally relented.
Christa ordered something with gin and pushed a water my way. “I can’t believe you aren’t drinking,” she said, her tone judgmental but light.
“I’m going to go to Harvard and become president,” I said, my voice light. “Can’t risk anything that messes that up.”
One of her eyebrows rose. “Does that include sneaking into a club underage with a fake ID?”
I shrugged and sipped my water. “When the reward is greater than the risk, I choose to make my own rules.” Sliding a glance her way, I narrowed my eyes. “And if we get busted, we don’t know each other, got it?”
Christa held her hands up “Total strangers,” she agreed. She stirred her drink and then took a sip, a faint look of disgust curling her lip as she did.
I rolled my eyes and looked away. A lot of kids my age drank, but I didn’t get it. So far I hadn’t found a single thing that tasted good. To me, that was what mattered. Why in the world would I drink something disgusting? Plus, I’d seen the way people behaved when they were under the influence. I didn’t like being out of control. This body was a temple, and I did my best to treat it that way.
I might have a change of heart when I got older, but right now I ate a lot of vegetables and drank a lot of water. People made fun of me, but I had no acne and energy to burn. Mom encouraged good farm living and it was one of the few times I agreed with her.
The bass was so loud it rattled my teeth. I looked over at the stage. A banner loudly proclaimed the contest was happening tonight. They’d broken down the costumes into several categories.
Sexiest
Most creative
Most authentic
Best overall
I wouldn’t win for the sexiest, not that it was a goal, but I hoped to win best overall. My gaze slid across the crowd and stopped as I felt someone’s eyes on me. At the other bar, all the way across the room sat a man. I squinted. No. A boy.
My heart began to pound. He couldn’t be more than eighteen. A lock of dark, wavy hair curled enticingly over one eye. Our gazes locked and a fine sheen of sweat formed on my back. There was something about him. Something I couldn’t put my finger on. The urge to run overwhelmed me.
But I needed that money.
Squaring my shoulders, I forced myself to look away. I turned my back to him, but I knew he was still looking at me. I whispered to Christa that I had to use the restroom and disappeared into the crowd.
As soon as I was out of range of his piercing eyes, I inhaled a gasp of air. His gaze felt like a spell on me. I couldn’t think and could barely breathe. My hand fluttered against my chest as I tried to get my bearing. Afraid to turn back to look, I slipped into the restroom and leaned against the wall.
No one had ever affected me like that. He was too far away for me to see his eyes, but they pierced me all the same. It was like he was looking right at me with a gaze so intense I could still feel it crawling over my skin.
A toilet flushed, knocking me out of my reverie. I washed my hands and waited for the girl to leave. She gave me a once-over, her eyes widening as she took in my Wonder Woman get up. Her costume was uninspired, but she looked nice enough. A sheet covered her from shoulders to the top of her knee and Boo was written across her chest. She was the least scary ghost I’d ever seen in my life.
“Nice costume,” she said as she washed her hands.
“Thanks.” I dried off my hands and tried not to make eye contact.
“You really look like that Gal Gadot actress.”
I smiled. “It’s all makeup technique,” I said, even as the words felt like a lie. I had a gift. Something … unexplainable. How in the world I made Christa the spitting image of Carrie Fisher was going to bother me for a while, but standing there thinking about it, I realized it had been going on for far longer than that. I knew without a shred of doubt that it wasn’t just makeup application techniques. It was something else.
Inside of me.
The girl nodded at me and disappeared outside. I turned back to my reflection in the mirror and frowned. Was it magic?
My lips twisted to the side at the ridiculousness of it. There was no such thing as magic.
Standing there, though, looking at the reflection facing me that didn't look much like me, I had to wonder.
If magic was real, would it manifest in someone who made soap on a farm with her mom to bring in extra money on the side?
Hardly.
I scoffed at myself, washed my hands, and exited the restroom. The boy's piercing look still played at the back of my mind, but I chose to ignore it. Maybe he had a thing for Wonder Woman.
The bass beat against my skull, and I knew I'd wake up with a headache in the morning. This was Christa's sort of place. Not mine.
I preferred coffee shops and bluesy music with a lot of guitar and soul searching, not this body pressing thump of what was passing for music these days.
I found my friend flirting with a cute boy dressed up as a fox. My gaze slid over his clever mask and down to the red, bushy tail attached to the back of his pants.
"Hey," I said, cro
ssing my arms. I leaned against one of the many small round tables scattered around the club. Christa, her eyes bright with drink and the thrill of the hunt, grinned. "Hey! Meet Josh," she said.
I offered a half-hearted wave and Christa rolled her eyes. "What do you think of her costume?" she asked Josh.
"It's great," he said. "Though I prefer the original Wonder Woman."
Of course, he did. "I forgot my invisible jet this evening. It's just me and Uber tonight," I quipped.
His blank stare told me he a) didn't read comic books and b) only liked Wonder Woman for the skimpy costumes. A soft sigh escaped me and I turned back to my friend.
"What time does the contest start?" I asked. I pulled my phone from the small leather pack at my waist. It wasn't even ten p.m. yet and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and go to sleep.
"10:30." Christa reached over and tugged on Josh's shirt.
I was definitely the third wheel here. With a sigh, I told her I'd see her later and headed back over to the bar to get a refill on my water.
Living dangerously, that was me.
I waved my glass at the bartender as I sidled up to the mahogany bar. There was an empty stool so I grabbed it and sat down. Looking around, I couldn't find the boy who'd been staring at me. An odd feeling of loss hit me, but I shoved it down. One thing I didn't want to do was pick up a strange boy at a bar. I was already using a fake ID here. Getting involved with a boy like that just screamed trouble.
The bartender put a new glass in front of me and I picked it up to take a sip. Just as the cool water hit my throat, a smooth, honeyed voice came from my side.
"Drinking the hard stuff, I see."
Prom Fright Page 1
