Magic, Mystery & Zombies: YA starter set

by Elle Klass

  “Isandro, you are always so careful but I think there is something inside us -- magic.” Her blue eyes lit up.

  “Shh!” was my automatic response as if I had to quiet her from saying more. “That’s enough.” It wasn’t only her words and crazy talk from the moment we entered the cemetery, I felt something inside as if someone was trying to reach me from beyond the grave. Chills spiked up and down my arms.

  “What are the lovebirds doing out here? A cemetery isn’t the proper place for a date.” I heard the words before I spotted Lawrence’s face.

  Turning on my heel, he stood a few feet from us, arms folded over his chest and Arthur at his side. I hoped they hadn’t been there long and heard Clara’s silly talk or, worse, seen the leaves and bouquet that moved on their own. “We’re leaving,” I said, grabbing Clara’s hand to walk her home.

  The place was eerie enough without adding trouble to the mix. The mischievous glint in Lawrence’s eyes gave me an overwhelming urge to flee.

  The rustle of leaves and footsteps behind us told me they’d split up and were moving closer to us. “No you’re not.” Lawrence moved in front of us, Arthur I felt on my backside. Between the gravestones and trees we might be able to split up and get away.

  Clara squeezed my hand and a group of leaves rose and swept over Lawrence’s face, blinding him for a second. “Now, Isandro,” she whispered loudly as she pulled my arm, her feet swiftly hitting the ground with each step as I hurried to keep pace with her.

  The ground rumbled beneath our feet. As it rose my foot caught on a root and I tripped taking Clara with me. Losing our grip on each other to keep our faces from planting in the ground. A strong wind swept over us as we attempted to scurry to our feet. Its force knocked us down, stopping our efforts. Lawrence stood above us, his eyes in slits and ginger hair with not a strand out of place as if the wind didn’t touch him.

  Emotions, not words, shot through me and I knew he wanted me for my father’s sword. It had something he needed, not only him. Having possession of it would put him in good standing with someone. Arthur joined his side, his brown hair lying flat against his head.

  Arthur raised his hand and a dirt wall closed Clara and me in. She grabbed my hand once again. Lawrence cocked his head to the side, bones cracking as he did so. The wind gyrated above the circle of dirt, boxing us in.

  My pulse quickened as terror worked its way through my veins. Clara squeezed my hand so tight it hurt, and the gravestones behind Lawrence and Arthur wiggled then rose from the ground. Her expression was steady and I realized she was doing it -- making the gravestones move.

  I swallowed hard and concentrated on them to offer her everything I had in me. She raised her free hand and pulled it towards her. The stones hurtled forward, aimed at Lawrence and Arthur.

  Lawrence raised an arm and forced the wind circling us to blow the stones backwards. They dropped and broke in pieces above their respective graves. I gasped, unable to believe what was happening. It was a dream -- a nightmare.

  “We know what Clara can do, but what about you?” Lawrence stated, kicking the dirt in front of his foot. It carried on a breeze and landed in our faces.

  Me? I couldn’t do anything. Swells of greed and white hot anger seeded in my head but they weren’t my feelings. All I felt was confusion. I wrapped those foreign emotions and pushed them out. I didn’t want to feel them. I focused my eyes on Arthur and he fell to his knees clutching his gut.

  He raised his head, his dark eyes staring into mine. “Stop,” he seethed.

  Surprised at his words, I let the malicious emotions dissipate into the night and he rose to his feet.

  Lawrence clapped his hands. “Nice, really nice. The children of Slayers are witches themselves.”

  Witches? Is that what was happening? A battle between witches and what is a Slayer? I thought, answering my own question.

  A ball of light caught the boys from behind and they dropped to the ground. A male voice in my head said Run, go home. Normally that was something I would have questioned but not in that moment. Lawrence and Arthur incapacitated, I grabbed Clara’s hand, welcoming the buzz between us. We scrambled to our feet and sprinted. This wasn’t the moment to question the strange events of the night.

  Our strides faster than I ever imagined, we ran through the graveyard, stopping and catching our breath in the woods outside Clara’s home. A bolt of lightning hit earth a few feet from us. There hadn’t been a cloud in the sky. My eyes glanced upwards, taking in the twinkling stars. Rain moved in quickly at times but there was no hint of a storm.

  I felt Clara take a step back. Dropping my eyes, a man, hair black as the night air around him and dark eyes, stood where the lightning had hit as if it had dropped him off.

  Chapter 5

  The night only grew stranger as Clara and I moved closer together, our feet in running stances.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” the man said as he stepped towards us. His long, cream suit jacket and slacks seemed really out of place, or more out of the wrong era. “Both of you have come of age and you’re learning what you are. You need to prepare to take your place in the battle.”

  Nerves and uncertainty crawled through Clara. I wasn’t positive how I knew, I simply did. “We have magic.” The words tumbled from her mouth as if at first she didn’t believe them until they were completely out.

  He nodded. “Light witches. Those boys are witches coming of age and into their powers too but they will use theirs to harm your kind. They are night witches.” The wind pushed the coat tails of his jacket over the sides of his legs and over his face. He pushed the hair back, revealing his dark, intense eyes.

  This was getting too silly and out of hand as I listened to his words and his offer to help us learn to use our powers. I didn’t have any powers and whatever happened at the cemetery was a fluke, the wind, maybe an unsettled ghost. Was it stranger to believe in spirits than it was in magic?

  “I need to get home,” I stated. “My parents will wonder where I am.” I matched his grim expression with one of my own.

  He held his palm up and balanced a growing light. My eyes widened as the white light doubled then tripled in size and with a swish from his other hand over the light it was gone. “I will teach you to do that. Go home now and meet me here tomorrow.”

  As I walked, the events of the night played through my brain. I couldn’t wrap my head around what I’d seen. It was all impossible. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wasn’t meeting him anywhere! I pushed the backdoor of my house open and crept through the kitchen careful not to wake my parents then, avoiding the creaky steps, went to my room.

  The next day I didn’t meet the man or witch or whatever he was. It seemed like a dream but I knew deep down it was real. Instead I waited for my parents to leave. They were attending a party and wouldn’t return for many hours. I slipped into my father’s office and with a lantern made my way into the bricked secret tunnel, coming to the end I spotted the stone that stood out further than the others.

  The tunnel was still creepy and the strange odor became more robust, and the sweet scent of my father’s cigars grew weaker until it vanished from the air completely. Everything was just as I remembered it. It wasn’t a dream. To further confirm my thoughts I pushed the stone down and heard the clack and crank as the door opened to my side.

  “You came back,” said a sweet voice -- Rabina.

  The strong odor hit my nostrils again, forcing me to consider why had I come back?. What was I doing? Was I checking to see if she was real? Maybe there was something horribly wrong with me. Breathing from my mouth to avoid the smell I held the lantern level with my head. She stepped backwards out of the light. I moved forward wanting to see again her beauty. Raven hair offsetting her pale skin and dark eyes that were windows of the soul.

  “You shouldn’t see me,” she dropped her head as I stepped closer.

  I pressed a hand beneath her chin and lifted it. “Why?” Any anxiety I felt drifted away. I was
supposed to be here.

  “My eyes are sensitive to the light.” She forced her chin down against my hand, not allowing me to see her face.

  The lantern was much brighter than the candle had been, I reasoned. “My parents are gone, come with me upstairs. We have food,” I offered. It was the very least I could do.

  She stepped backwards, pressing her back against the wall as if frightened. “I shouldn’t.”

  I brushed my free hand against one of hers, feeling the unnatural coolness of it. “It’s OK. Trust me.”

  Her head still bowed, she allowed me to take her hand. She wrapped her fingers around mine as if attempting to suck in the heat, and I guided her out of the room then into the stone corridor and into my father’s study.

  I set the lantern on the table and lowered the amount of light, not flipping any light switches as we went. Her head didn’t move above her chest. In the dim light I spotted points on the sides of her head raised through her straight hair. She appeared different than she had the other night in the darkness when she was more than willing to allow me to see her face. What had changed?

  In the kitchen I left her at the table and grabbed a plate I’d made for her from dinner, placing it on the table before her. I expected she’d quickly devour it, instead she stared at it.

  “Eat, you need real food.”

  She grazed over the broccoli with a nail tip. Her fingers long and slender, almost claw-like stepped to the steak. Without picking up a utensil she grabbed the steak whole and brought it to her mouth.

  “I hope it’s not too rare,” I said with uncertainty. My parents both liked it that way so that’s how Mom cooked it.

  She stuffed the end of the steak into her mouth. Her hair moved up and down as she chewed. One bite led to another. She didn’t say another word until she’d devoured every bite. “Thank you.” She licked the red juice from her fingers, savoring the richness.

  I pushed a strand of her straight dark hair towards her ear. It appeared much thinner in the dim light of the kitchen then it had in the dark tunnel room. She tilted her head away from my finger as I tucked the strand behind her ear.

  Her pointed ear. I sucked in a breath from shock then countered with a fake cough to avoid making her nervous. She’d said she had a disease. The pointed ears no doubt had to be part of that. People had rounded ears.

  She quickly pushed the strand from behind her ear so it fell against her cheek once again. More curious than ever, I attempted to raise her chin. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to see you.”

  She swallowed hard and I felt her cringe with tension as I guided her chin upright. I almost jumped out of my chair, aghast, when her dark eyes, absent of white, met mine. She was the same girl I’d seen the other night, only then I saw what I wanted to see. Now I saw how she truly looked. I quelled my alarm.

  As if reading my thoughts, she said, “My disease, my allergy to light, allows me only to live in the dark. My ears and eyes are designed to allow me extra-sensitive hearing and vision.”

  Yes, pupils enlarged to allow in more light when needed and shrunk in bright light to allow in less. The shape of her ears must work similarly to allow her to hear better. I’d never heard of such a disease. A wave of sadness clutched my innards and I wanted to do everything I could for her. It wasn’t right that she live in the rank underground and slept on a dirt floor instead of living inside a house.

  The sadness only grew stronger and I knew it was hers mingled with my own feelings. “Stay in my room. My parents won’t know. My closet is large and the sun won’t harm you.” I almost didn’t believe the words coming from my mouth. Of course my parents would know. How could I hide a person? Even though the house was large, my mom knew every inch.

  “Thank you, but I can’t do that. We would surely get caught. My home is underground and I need to return.” Her words so profound, as if she’d thought the scenario before, or maybe she was reading my mind.

  Chapter 6

  We walked and, for the first time, I noted her clothing. I guessed I was so taken aback with her beauty the first time we met and her true appearance this time that I hadn’t set eyes on the rest of her. The lacy collar of the nightgown rested just below her neckline and full sleeves covered her arms. White showed in splotches around the dirt.

  “Wait here,” I said by the foot of the stairs.

  She stopped, her head down, face staring at the grooves in the wood floor. I scurried up the stairs, considering whether I should bring her something to wear of mine or my mother’s. Not willing to take the chance my mom would miss it, I opted for my room. In the back of my closet were clothes that no longer fit me, but she was smaller. Grabbing a shirt and pants, I scrambled back down the stairs.

  Rabina wasn’t where I left her. “Rabina,” I called as I searched for her. Remembering she first contacted me through my head. I closed my eyes and listened, repeating her name in my head.

  “Isandro,” she responded.

  Where are you? I thought.

  “Right beside you,” she answered, her chilly hand touching mine.

  I popped my eyes open and folded my hand around hers. “Where did you go?”

  Her head moved in the direction of my father’s open study. Her eyes completely black, it was hard to tell if that’s what they were seeing, although her words confirmed it. “Home.”

  “Take these,” I pushed my clothes towards her chest. It was the gentleman thing to do, something my parents had always taught me.

  She took them without a word and we walked through the corridor to her dark, dank lair.

  When we returned to her sour-odored room I caught a slight whiff of another smell. It was metallic in nature like... my hand smelled the other night when I sucked my scratch -- blood. It smelled of blood.

  “Thank you,” she said and I felt the sincerity in her words as if no one had ever been so kind.

  It was no sooner that I returned to my room then my parents came home. I curled on my side away from the door in case they checked on me. My mind sorting through the things I hadn’t understood the past couple days -- magic and a girl with a disease to sunlight that allowed her amplified senses.

  I’d nearly forgotten my parents’ argument over my twelfth birthday. The focus whether I was ready or not, my mother holding steadfast that I wasn’t. Was this magic world what they were arguing about? I rolled the idea around in my head and considered telling them the recent events, then decided against it. Papa would be upset about my sneaking out and I’d probably get a lashing. Mom would agree that I had disobeyed. I kept my mouth shut.

  On Monday when we returned to school, Lawrence and Arthur dished out dirty glares, overcome with hate for me and Clara. It wasn’t their disgruntled faces that told me how they felt, but a sensation. The night they attacked us in the woods I pushed their strong emotions out of me and Arthur had doubled over in pain. Had I actually done that?

  The question plagued me, but also scared me. It wasn’t in my vocabulary of the world to believe that was even possible. It didn’t stop me, though, from avoiding Clara. Her blue eyes sad when I’d see her and turn the other direction, always walking away from her. As much as I evaded her, I was the opposite with Rabina. Every chance afforded to me I snuck into the brick corridor and to her underground room.

  I never acclimated to the odor. As much as I tried, it was disturbing. Nevertheless, I couldn’t leave her down there with no companionship. I shook my hands and dropped the metal jacks watching as they scattered against the ground. She bounced the ball and scooped up a jack. Her reflexes were quicker than mine. Maybe something to do with her disease.

  “Tell me about the world above?” she asked.

  She asked that question every time I saw her. I took my turn bouncing the ball and scooping up jacks. “It’s beautiful. There are green trees and plants and flowers. The sky is blue; when there’s no clouds the sun warms my skin. Not far from here is the bay. It leads to the ocean and its sandy shores.”

 
She smiled. “I remember a little, like the birds in the air and the scent of flowers in bloom.”

  “What happened to your parents?” I’d never asked the question and hoped it didn’t make me seem insensitive, but I couldn’t help wondering. It seemed they must have abandoned her when the effects of her disease started to show.

  She nodded her head and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.” She paused, my emotions reading hers. She couldn’t lie to me if she tried. “All I remember is waking up here, dawn’s light streaming above me then the Earth shook, sealing the hole and my fate.”

  She’d never revealed that much and there was a hint of something absent and ambiguous in her words but I didn’t feel it in her soul. I’d never exposed my “gift” to her. I’d come to think of it that way. My extra sense that allowed me to understand and feel what others felt. I didn’t want her to feel vulnerable, although maybe that was one-sided since I knew of her extreme senses due to her illness.

  “I’d like to take you above at night so you can breathe the fresh air and see the beauty of the foliage,” I offered, fully expecting her to shut me down.

  Instead, she raised her head. “I would like that.”

  “Tomorrow then.” I smiled and bounced the ball, scooping up a handful of jacks from the solid dirt floor.

  She returned my smile and for a brief moment I saw color in her eyes. A royal blue. But the moment was so quick it was probably nothing more than my imagination.

  The following night, while my parents were sound asleep, I made my usual trip to see Rabina. My heart beat quickened as tonight I would take her above ground. If my parents caught me I’d be in more trouble than I’d ever faced, but the lashings I might receive didn’t outweigh my concern for her. I couldn’t place my finger on why I cared so much for her. Maybe it was that she lived below ground, maybe it was that she had no family, or maybe it was that I was falling for this odd-looking girl with a strange disease.