Bright Is Her Sight_An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure

by Judith Berens

  Mara hung up and looked at Xander, who was reaching for the door. “I’ll put magical sensors on all the doors that will allow us to review who comes in and out. If there is another attack and they try to get away, we will be able to see them.”

  “Good thinking.” Mara nodded. “This is getting worse by the second. Call me if anything changes.”

  The nurse nodded, and Mara headed back to her office. Once inside she leaned against the door for a moment, shutting her eyes. She was shocked by the turn of events unfolding before them. She raced to the bookshelf and pulled down the box, opening it and peering inside. All of the orbs were still glowing, although the black spots were starting to spread. At least she knew all three of them were still alive, and she had to make sure that it stayed that way.

  She put the box back up on the shelf and listened to Horace speak to the students.

  “Attention, all students. Classes have been canceled for the rest of the afternoon. We ask that all students stay on the school grounds, and within the school if possible. Teachers and managers, please assist with an orderly exit of classrooms, and take a headcount now and before curfew. If you see anything suspicious or out of the ordinary, report it to the headmistress immediately.”

  Mara knew the culprit was lurking through the halls planning his or her next target, and she couldn’t let that happen. Too much had occurred already, with wizards in town and dark magic roiling in the sky. An attack on the school was the last straw. Something was brewing—Mara could feel it, and it left a very bad taste in her mouth.

  The boys sat in their common room, and some of the older ones joined them. They had lit a fire in the fireplace to combat the cool spring day, and they sat around talking about what had happened. Most of them had seen it, but none of them had understood what was going on. Ethan pressed his back against the couch and looked from face to face. All were fearful.

  “I heard that someone in this school did it,” one of the students said. “It could be anyone here, we don’t know. They need to find the person in order to help the kid.”

  “Then why are we just sitting around?” someone asked. “We should be helping them find that person.”

  “Staging a massive witch hunt isn’t going to do the kid or us any good,” the dorm manager replied. “It’ll only cause chaos, and we don’t need chaos right now. We don’t need to start pointing fingers at each other out of fear. We have some of the best teachers and hunters at this school, and they will figure out who this person is. For now, we chill and do something to keep our minds off of things.”

  “Anybody up for a board game or some Oriceran poker?” one of the guys asked.

  Several of the kids nodded, getting up and walking over to the game table in the corner of the room. Ethan stayed put, watching the light of the flames bounce off of the walls. The boy from the night before sat in the corner, his knees to his chest.

  He still had no memory of what had happened that night, just coming to in the rain, his burnt wand on the ground. He had called his dad the next morning and asked him to send him a new one, telling him he had been sleepwalking.

  He was scared. They all were, having no idea what was lurking deep inside someone very close to them. He couldn’t even begin to think he had somehow been involved. He assumed it had been a freak event, something to do with what he’d eaten last night.

  Meanwhile, another boy laid helpless in the infirmary, tossing back and forth, having yet another fit. In his mind, the boy was trapped in a violent storm of lightning and thunder. He screamed, but no one could hear him. He was trapped deep in his own mind with dark magic all around him, no clue who did it or why he was there.

  The nurse listened to him mumbling, still unable to make out what he was saying. She ran her hands over him, quieting the fits and allowing his body to rest, not knowing it had no effect on his mind. The spell was digging deeper and deeper into the child’s soul, and with every movement, every scream, he lost more control. The clouds overhead continued to swarm, pouring rain over the grounds.

  Izzie ran her hand over Marigold’s body, humming a song she didn’t remember ever learning. It calmed the horse, since she was scared by the storms raging overhead. Alison sat on the floor of the barn with the cat in her lap, rubbing her hand over her long soft fur. She could still hear the scream from the hallway echoing through her mind. It sent chills all over her body, making her think back to the night her mother had died.

  Dark magic had entered her life many times, but she had really thought it was over with. The school on a lock-down, though, and a kid was fighting for his life, and that sickening feeling sank into her stomach. She could feel the dark magic pulling at her, a lump in her chest pulsating like a heartbeat. She couldn’t track it, however. Not yet. She was so weak, so tired, but she hadn’t been able to meditate without hearing the scream.

  Alison wasn’t the only one struggling with the dark magic that was so close. Izzie was feeling almost suffocated by it. It tugged at her, trying to get to the light while the light pushed back, creating a storm inside of her. She couldn’t sleep or think straight, and whenever she tried to close her eyes she saw was a dark fog creeping toward her to swallow her whole.

  “Do you think anyone else in the school can sense this like we can?” Izzie asked, feeding Marigold a carrot.

  Alison shrugged. “If there are two of us there have to be more, even if they are teachers. I can’t imagine we are the only ones.”

  “It sucks.” Izzie sighed. “I feel like my body is pulling me back and forth, trying to rip me apart at the seams.’

  “I totally get it,” Alison agreed. “I feel like someone set a thousand-pound boulder on my chest. It will be okay, though. They will figure this out. I just hate the feeling it gives me.”

  “What are you girls doing out here this late?” Horace asked as he walked into the barn. “There’s a curfew, and for good reasons.”

  “We couldn’t sleep.” Izzie shrugged. “And I knew Marigold would be afraid of the storm.”

  “The Headmistress knows you’re out here. She sent me to get you.”

  “Are we in trouble?”

  “No, and she wants to keep it that way. There is someone somewhere on these grounds who put a spell on a kid, and the last thing you need is to be out here alone.”

  “The animals shouldn’t be alone either,” Alison replied. “Mrs. Tabby and Marigold are mommies-to-be.”

  “Mrs. Tab—” Horace looked at the cat in Alison’s lap, who was lying on her back and displaying the big bulge in her stomach. “Huh…all these years I thought she was a boy. Or maybe the daddy looks the same.”

  “I think he hit it and quit it.” Izzie laughed. “We haven’t ever seen him around.”

  “Men.” Alison shook her head, a smirk on her face.

  “All right, man-haters, come on. They will be okay. You can come check on them before class tomorrow.”

  “If we have class,” Izzie replied, standing up and dusting the hay off her pants.

  “They are working through the night to figure this out. We don’t know when it will be, but we can’t put everything on hold forever. You still need to get an education.”

  The cat jumped out of Alison’s lap, and Izzie pulled Alison to her feet. She wiped her hands across her butt to dust it off and reached for her raincoat. Izzie handed it over and the two bundled up, pulling their hoods up and heading for the barn doors. Horace pulled the hood of his dark green rain jacket up and flipped off the lights.

  “Good night, Marigold and Mrs. Tabby,” he called.

  Izzie held Alison’s hand as they waited for Horace to shut the barn doors. Thunder boomed overhead, shaking Alison from head to toes. Izzie gripped her hand tighter and the two girls walked closely together, Horace leading them back to the house. Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the ground for just a moment before going dark again. She couldn’t remember ever being that frightened of the place she called home.

  15

 
The dining hall, now sporting light and sunny décor to reflect the new season, was packed with students eating, talking, and generally being near one another. It was strange for them to sit in a room full of their peers, knowing that someone in there had put a very strong spell on someone they all knew to be one of the kindest people at the school. There were some who still weren’t satisfied to sit around and do nothing, but they had no idea where to start—especially with the limited information they were getting from the teachers. The rest of them, though, were just glad to be okay. They kept their nerves on hold, just waiting for everything to go back to normal.

  Max Regency, the channeling and energy teacher, was in a good mood. He tried to see the best in every situation, and having only one student fall to the spell and looking at all the fresh faces around him made him thankful for another day. He whistled as he walked across the platform where the teachers sat, twirling his pencil in his hand. He looked at the ceiling, frowning at the boring white paint and fancy crown moldings. Even the giant chandelier in the center of the room wasn’t exciting anymore. He figured the students needed something shiny. Something that would calm their nerves.

  He rubbed his hands together and pulled out his wand, bending his knees a couple of times. He swirled the wand around his head and sent a spray of magic into the rafters. The magic spread over the ceiling like a blanket, sprinkling down a bit and swirling into bright moving colors. The Aurora Borealis now rippled over the ceiling, with stars sparkling in between waves. He smiled and watched it for a few moments, thinking back to his time up north, when he been able to see the Northern Lights on more than one occasion. They reminded him of the yearly solar flares on Oriceran, when everyone got together and made camps and bonfires under the waves of purples, blues, and golds.

  Annabelle Grant walked up beside him, looking at his work. She smiled and put her hands on her hips, biting her lip. “That’s pretty.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Grant. I have always loved the Northern Lights. I thought it would have a nice calming effect on the kids.”

  “It’s the wrong season, though.”

  “Meh.” He shrugged. “It makes for a nice background. Besides, what is magic for? If we had the real Northern Lights, we wouldn’t create them with wands. In my opinion, it’s the perfect time for a little shimmer of light in the sky.”

  “You’re right.” She smiled warmly. “Especially with all the darkness that has been going around this school. Do they have any word on the boy?”

  “I visited him earlier. He is still moving between fits and calm, and he is still unconscious. They’ve hooked him up to an IV to get fluids into him, but it hasn’t helped his color. He’s almost gray. It’s very eerie. I have been going through some of my books looking for anything like this, but to be honest, there isn’t a thing that matches. This is a very old spell, and we would be lucky to even find it in the dark families’ library.”

  “Is that an option?”

  Max looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “No, that is not an option.”

  “Well, I hope that we figure out who it is sooner rather than later. I would hate for it to happen to anyone else, and I know they are hoping to bring the boy back out of it.”

  “That they are, but for now we are in charge of keeping the students’ morale up, so let’s try as hard as we can to do that. The last thing they need is to see their teachers—their leaders—afraid of whatever this is. They need us to lead them with strength and courage.”

  “Very well said.” She smiled. “It’s a little harder to do, but I think we are all holding it together pretty well.”

  “Yes, we are.”

  Across the cafeteria, Alison, Izzie, Kathleen, Aya, Emma, Luke, Peter, and Ethan sat around their table, picking at the food on their plates. Kathleen was texting with her parents, trying to keep them calm. Several key people had been notified of the event in case their help was needed. Since both her parents were influential and talented, they had been given the information as well.

  “God.” Kathleen rolled her eyes. “They are driving me nuts. Yes, I’m fine. No, I’m not in a coma. Yes, I have been going to my room at curfew.”

  Izzie smiled. “I think it’s nice that they care. Don’t take that for granted. I’m telling you, it’s a cool thing.

  Kathleen glanced at Izzie and at Alison, remembering that neither of them had parents. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think. I shouldn’t have said something like that.”

  Izzie patted her hand. “It’s all right. It happens.”

  Ethan popped a piece of popcorn in his mouth and rolled his head on his shoulders. “This is the worst. I hate it when the adults keep things from us. It’s not like we are all fresh out of the womb. Some of the kids here are three times as old as normal children, and we’ve seen and been through a lot. We can take the news, whatever it is.”

  Emma nodded. “That’s true.”

  “Yeah, but not everyone can, and those are the people they are protecting. They don’t want us any more scared than we already are. And they don’t want to fan the flames of this new group of kids trying to be home detectives.”

  Alison turned in her chair and watched the energies mixing around the room. Tanner was at a table across from her, eating his food and talking to the others. She could see the dark swirl inside him, and it was the perfect way for her to pick him out of a crowd. He looked around and saw her looking at him, so he got up, slung his bag over his shoulder, and headed out of the cafeteria without a word. Alison rested her chin on the back of the chair and watched him until his energy was out of sight.

  Emma, Aya, and Kathleen watched the scene, glancing at Izzie and then Alison. “What happened?”

  Alison shrugged, turning back around and picking a piece of pepperoni off her pizza. “Apparently my guardian is better known than I thought.”

  “Of course he is.” Kathleen snorted. “Your guardian is James Brownstone. You didn’t see that coming?”

  “I guess I really didn’t think about it.”

  “Hey, hey,” Ethan called. “Watch this.”

  He floated one of Aya’s papers into the air and hovered it over the table. He swished his wand and the paper burst into flames, burning quickly into a pile of ash. Aya put her hands to her cheeks and shook her head.

  “That was my outline for the next research paper. That took me days to get done.”

  “Fear not,” Ethan replied, pushing up his sleeves.

  He waved the wand over the pitcher of water in the center of the table. The waves of white light sank into the water, and it began to bubble wildly. He reached in and slowly pulled out a piece of paper, the same one he had just set on fire and watched burn to ash. The paper wasn’t even wet, and there wasn’t a single smear of ink on the page. He handed it to Aya and she looked at it closely, narrowing her eyes and then looking up at Ethan. She reared back and slapped him on the back of the head.

  “Don’t ever do that again.”

  Ethan frowned. “Hey, that was a badass trick, and it would have been a great joke.”

  “I don’t know.” Emma giggled. “People around here are protective of their work. You are liable to get a smack in the face for something like that. You won’t even have a chance to pull it out of the bubbles.”

  “Man, people have no sense of humor. It’s frustrating. My boys back home on the street would have loved to have seen something like that. We pulled jokes on each other all the time.”

  “I’m sorry we aren’t as cool as your street boyzzz.” Kathleen grimaced.

  “Me too, Kathleen. Me too.”

  Peter laughed and grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bucket on the table, leaning back and throwing it kernel by kernel into the air to be caught in his mouth. Every piece but one missed, falling into Emma’s lap and onto the floor. Emma laughed and threw it back at him. She was trying to finish an assignment.

  Alison just sat there trying to keep herself from being upset. She really liked Tanner, but apparently, he didn’t feel the sa
me.

  Alison sighed and hung up. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, and she looked up when she recognized Aya’s energy. She smiled and took the girl’s hand.

  “Whatcha doin?” Alison asked.

  “I just came back to the room to relax, and you were on the phone. I wanted to make sure you were good.”

  “Yeah,” she replied, blowing out a deep breath and lying back on the bed.

  Aya climbed up on the bed with her and laid back. “Your dad sounds really protective.”

  “Yeah, except he’s not my dad.” Alison laughed. “He’s my guardian, and he is very protective. My first boyfriend lasted all of two days until he found out about Brownstone.”

  “Oh, James Brownstone?”

  “You know of him too?”

  “Who doesn’t?” Aya chuckled. “And now I get it. It sucks, and I’m sorry.”

  Alison shrugged. “It’s just the way the cookie crumbles, I suppose. Are your parents like that?”

  “They were when I first started dating my boyfriend, but we’ve been together so long now that they’ve finally loosened up. They figured he was in it for the long haul, and they kind of let us do our own thing to a certain extent. I mean, it’s not like they let him sleep over or anything, but they don’t sit between us anymore when we watch a movie.”

  “I can imagine Brownstone doing that, passing a bucket of hot wings back and forth and judging the guy on how many he ate.”

  Both girls laughed, and Aya turned her head to look at Alison. “What about your real dad and mom, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Well, you know my mom’s dead, and it’s my dad’s fault.”

  “What? How? Like a car accident, or did he kill her?”

  “He might as well have killed her with his own hands. That might have been less of a kick in the balls, but only by a decimal point. It’s a long story. Just know he is a bad guy, and will never be in my life again. That being said, if I imagine him as a normal father the way he was when I was little, I could see him being protective, but not scary-dad protective. More like ground me for life so I can’t see boys protective.”