Funny Tragic Crazy Magic (Tragic Magic Book 1)

by Sheena Boekweg

  “I can feel them,” I said. “I can feel my toes.”

  My mom Healing me gave me the MTD. For a few moments, I was scared, and grateful to be alive, but then the madness took me and turned me rogue. I couldn’t control what I was doing. I watched as someone else moved my body, said my words, used my magic. It felt as if I were drowning inside someone else’s life.

  Whole patches of time just skipped like I was flipping channels. There was fire everywhere, echoes of pain, and inhuman screaming. It was jarring, the sudden change between the chaos of real life, and the numb hollow emptiness of time lost to my memories. I felt as if I sucked my head underwater, and kept coming up for air with smoke and fire scarring the edges of my vision.

  In the middle of the street, the semi truck was cut in half, right down the middle. Smoke and embers licked the scorched edges. All that was left of the front seat was this blackened lumped shape that I prayed to God wasn’t the driver. The air was filled with the smell of burnt hair. Fire blazed up my arms, and it didn’t hurt.

  I tried to catch my breath as I looked around, but I couldn’t fill my lungs. It was like I was breathing through a straw. Police lights ricocheted across the street. Three black SUVs came to a stop behind the police cars, and MPB agents flooded out. My mom put her hands up, but they shoved her to the asphalt, and then circled me with their guns aimed at my head. A wave of madness trickled in, and every one of the MPB agents had Spencer Teriolli’s face.

  I didn’t want him to hurt me again. And I wasn’t going to let him.

  A whole patch of time was gone, and all I could remember are these flashes of reality through this wall of black. The fire and smoke followed behind me. Every time I woke up, I was running somewhere different, with smoke seeping from my skin. I didn’t understand where I was in most of the places that appeared in the flashes of cognizance, but I knew Katie’s house when I saw it. She came out to greet me. For a second, as she put her phone into her purse, it was like before I had been infected. Her body was perfection in a bright yellow summer dress. Her skin was a warm caramel from being outside so much, and her long dark blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail.

  “I was starting to get worried,” she said as she rummaged through her purse for her keys to lock up. “You never texted me back.”

  She locked the door and turned to me. Horror flashed over her perfect face, and she dropped her keys.

  “Sam,” her voice was empty, “your arms.”

  Flames danced across my forearms.

  “No,” she took a step back. Tears pooled in her eyes, and in that second, I saw the death of our relationship. Years of my life ended in that second.

  I put my hand out to her, “I’m running.” I said stupidly, “run with me.”

  I really thought she would. I thought we were enough, that our love was enough to start a life on.

  “Sam,” she said my name like she was saying goodbye. “No. I can’t.” Her long dark blonde ponytail tossed as she shook her head, as she whispered no over and over and over. The darkness seeped into my vision as my heart broke.

  “It’s the magic,” I said. “You don’t love me enough.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “If you love me, you’ll run with me.”

  “Sam…” she pleaded.

  “Maybe you never did.”

  Katie closed her eyes, and I knew. “I could kill you, you know.” My words shook us both. I wanted to deny them. I wanted to protect Katie, but my madness was coming back and destroying my ability to control my actions. I could feel it leaking through my fingertips, and that cold blackness that took patches of my life clouded into the corners of my vision. It was that second that I realized that Crazy Sam was a very bad person, and I couldn’t live his life for another second.

  I dropped the magic, but the flames on my arms threatened to come back. I fought against myself, against my insanity, against the darkness that threatened to swallow me. If I didn’t win, Crazy Sam would kill her. I knew it. Katie didn’t walk away. She could have run inside her house, but she didn’t. I think she saw what I was trying to do, and she wanted to help. She wanted to rescue me, the way she always did.

  I stood still as my body fought against me, as every insecurity stabbed at me, trying to make her pay for me not being good enough to deserve her. I screamed a red hot rage at the loss of everything. The blackness filled my vision, until all I could see was Katie’s bright blue eyes. I held onto all that blue, and Katie saved me. I wouldn’t move my body, I wouldn’t let Crazy Sam win.

  Katie stepped closer to me, and kissed me. She tasted like her tears, or maybe they were mine. I’m not sure.

  The MPB agents pulled their black SUVs into Katie’s cul-de-sac. “Run, Sam,” Katie said, pulling my arm.

  “Without you I have nowhere to run,” I said, fighting to control my mouth, and knowing those words were my goodbye.

  “Step away from the mage,” an MPB agent yelled from her car. Guns were raised and pointed at us. I could feel them on me, the lasers shaking as they lit my shirt red.

  “Go, Katie,” I said. Katie shook her head and clung to my arm. I flexed my hands and the fire burst from my fingertips. Katie took a step back. “They’ll kill you, Katie.”

  Katie took three steps backwards, and then turned and ran into her house. The MPB agents caught up with me then, and they shoved me onto the grass on Katie’s yard. Katie’s parents looked on, holding Katie back from the window. It was the same window we had stood in front of to take our prom pictures. I tried to watch her, to see her for the last time, though at the same time, I didn’t want her to see me like this. I didn’t want her to smell the magic on me.

  I felt a needle prick at the back of my neck and I blacked out, knowing Katie was safe.

  I woke up, locked in a hospital room with yellow green walls, leather straps, and needles in my arm. It smelled like formaldehyde, and bleach. There were armed MPB agents stationed at my door, and nurses and doctors that kept me under constant watch. Crazy Sam kept making appearances, and when I’d wake up I’d notice more scorch marks on the ceiling.

  I finally woke up for real-- sane, my magic and madness under control. I kept waiting for the madness to come back as the MPB grilled me about who the mage was that healed me. They told me that she got away because of my “outburst” before they could get any information on her or why she was in the mage restricted section of our town.

  I didn’t say anything about how she was my mom. I didn’t say much of anything. I didn’t trust myself enough to move my lips.

  Eventually, after the needles and the straps were replaced by glass windows and padded walls, and long after I proved I wasn’t a threat to myself or others, a representative from Chebeague Academy showed up at the hospital. He was short and bald, and he reminded me of a smiling mouse. Those high ranked in the MPB gave him a berth though, as if they feared or respected him, or maybe it was just the respect they had for the school.

  Chebeague is this school for rich kids whose parents want their children trained in magic for like… economic reasons. It was kind of like rehab, and a boarding school rolled into one. They used to help kids with drug addictions and attitude problems, but in the last ten years, the school switched to treating mostly kids infected with the MTD. I knew Chebeague meant “separate place” in Abnaki, but I had been pronouncing it wrong. Sha-beeg, I told myself, trying to train myself to pronounce it correctly.

  Like any good mage watcher, I too knew all about every school or training program the government forced the newly infected to attend. Chebeague was the best, and also the most expensive, I just never thought I’d have to go there.

  My step-dad signed the necessary forms, gave me a tear drenched hug, and then let me go.

  I still can’t believe he just let me go.

  They loaded me into a chartered plane like I was a prisoner. A guard sat on either side of me, and they wouldn’t talk to me. The only person who tried to talk to me was Dr. Child, the represe
ntative from Chebeague. In his suit he looked so much like a mouse with his slightly red nose, and what hair he had left was a white blond. He kept asking me questions, offering me food, telling me stories. I just clamped my fingers around the armrest, and fought to keep control of my sanity.

  After we landed, we lost the guards, and it was just me and that strange man in a sleek Siviata. They are nice cars, with all the techmage bells and whistles. Dr. Child barely had to touch the steering wheel, so he was free to try to break the ice that had crusted over my heart.

  Better ice, than fire.

  It was a long drive in this strange man’s car, and I didn’t have much to say to him. I just looked out the windows and watched the cities and the trees race pass. I wondered, every time I saw someone, if they could tell I was a freak. If they could sense I was different, or if they could still see Crazy Sam hiding behind the black in my eyes.

  After traveling several miles without seeing another car, or any form of civilization, we reached a large iron gate with the word Chebeague twisted in the metal. A guard with a gun loaded with tranquilizers looked up at me as we drove in, and then he returned to his magazine.

  I took a deep breath, but it didn’t help. Jitters shook my hands, and my anxiety gave me goose bumps that laced up the back of my neck. What if everyone hated me the way I hated myself?

  “Don’t worry,” the man driving said. He put his hand on my forearm and smiled. I could feel calmness ooze out of his fingertips and nestle into my heart.

  The magic helped. It was kind of amazing, this magic that didn’t hurt anyone. I forgot that magic didn’t always hurt people.

  “Thank you, Dr. Child,” I said to the mage locked inside the car with me. My voice shook me. I sounded so normal, so much like me, like I always sounded. My whole life had changed, but it was still my life.

  Dr. Child parked the car, and an armed woman escorted Dr. Child and I through the woods to this small windowless cinderblock building that had been painted to look like a gazebo from the outside.

  “Dr. Felix will be your therapist, so this is where I get off the ride. Welcome to Chebeague, Mr. Ryan,” Dr. Child said with a mouse-like smile.

  Dr. Felix. I recognized that name, and it filled me with dread. Everyone on the internet called Dr. Felix the master mage tamer. She was this therapist with a reputation for excellence, and viciousness. She wasn’t one to hesitate to kill a rogue mage, or drug one into oblivion.

  The anxiety was back, because Crazy Sam was as rogue as it got, but Dr. Child walked away from the Gazebo without another healing look my way. The armed guard motioned with her gun for me to enter the only door into the Gazebo, so I dutifully followed her instructions. I glanced around, and far to the left, I saw another identical Gazebo. I swallowed.

  Inside, a woman in a gray suit sat in the only chair with her back to me. The great therapist, Dr. Felix. Super. I had had enough therapists and doctors poking my psyche and my body with needles. She held up this notebook I’m writing in now, and then the master mage tamer turned and smiled.

  Dr. Felix… yeah, so she’s my mom.

  Who knew, right?

  Check it out on Goodreads and make sure you buy your copy on October 11th!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sheena Boekweg is a staff member at Flash Fiction Online. She has received an Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future Contest, and The New Era Magazine accepted her work for publication. Look for her next novel, Alchemy, on October 11, 2013.

  Sheena is a mom of three living in Utah.

  To read more about Sheena and her writing, check out:

  BoekwegBooks.com

  Facebook.com/SheenaBoekwegYaAuthor

  goodreads.com/author/show/7031661.Sheena_Boekweg

  theprosers.blogspot.com

  Please review my book on Amazon

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  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

  First off all, I need to thank my Proser buddies, especially MaryAnn, my first Beta reader, and Susan, my last. You helped me in more ways than I can possibly express.

  I owe a ton to my friend and editor Kendra Lusty. Since fifth grade when we created Horseamaniacs you’ve been a blessing in my life. Thank you a million more times.

  To siblings, Children’s Television, my friends who listened, and my husband who believed in me and made dinners and did laundry so I could write, and to everyone who read all the way to these words, THANK YOU!