Prodigy: A 13 Covens Magical World Adventure (YA)

by Cassandra

  He smiled. “Good. Our schools may have been different, but mean girls never change.” He glanced at them again and a devilish grin slid onto his face. “Watch this.” Without warning, he gave her a quick one-armed hug around the shoulders.

  It was completely big-brotherly, but at the sight of it, the ringleader slammed her book down and folded her arms.

  Both Jessica and Chad could barely contain their laughter.

  Chapter Nine

  Jessica and Chad might have amused themselves with the display they had put on in history class, but Patricia Tony, Marie Sanchez, and Debbie McCrow, most of all, were certainly not impressed.

  When the bell rang at the end of class, the three remained in their seats and watched Jessica and Chad exit the classroom together. The two of them laughed and whispered as they left.

  “Is everything okay, girls?” Ms. Mitchell asked when she saw the three of them still seated at their table.

  Debbie smiled sweetly at the teacher. “Yes, everything’s fine, Ms. Mitchell. We’re only making study plans.”

  The teacher smiled appreciatively. “How lovely. Well, I’ll leave you three to it then.” She grabbed her briefcase and smiled at them once again before she left the classroom.

  “We have to do something about this,” Debbie snarled once they were alone.

  She chewed her bottom lip and stared at the ink pen Jessica had accidentally left on her table.

  Marie and Patricia exchanged glances and both recognized the dangerous gleam in their friend’s eyes that signified that she was plotting something. How much trouble her plans would result in was cause for concern.

  Debbie locked eyes with Marie, and then with Patricia. “Don’t worry. It’ll be good. Really good.” A sly grin spread over her face. “Neither of you has plans for later this evening, do you?”

  “No, not really…” Patricia ventured.

  Marie eyed Debbie suspiciously. “Why? What do you have in mind?”

  “I want you both to come with me to my grandma’s. She’s out for the afternoon, so we’ll have the house to ourselves for a while.” The sly grin came back to her face. “I don’t know about you two, but I think Chad needs to know what he’s getting himself into by choosing her over us.”

  “And by us, you mean you,” Marie interjected with a smirk.

  Patricia drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “Are you sure you want to do something like that?” She raised an eyebrow, leaned forward, and lowered her voice. “I mean, we don’t want to get caught. What will we do if anyone finds out that we’re really the—”

  “Shh!” Debbie hissed and cut her off. “Don’t you dare even say it.”

  Patricia clamped her mouth shut.

  Of course, Debbie had known exactly what Patricia had been about to say. She had to admit, it was a valid point. The three of them had invested time to carefully orchestrate their teasing of Jessica and her grandmother to ensure that they were the ones associated throughout the school with the term ‘witch.’

  The last thing they needed was for anyone to discover that together the three of them were an actual witch coven.

  The whole idea had been to deflect attention by spreading rumors about someone else and thus far, it had worked. Jessica had been the perfect candidate, thanks to her crazy old cat-lady grandmother.

  “If we’re careful,” Debbie ventured cautiously, “things will be fine. In fact, it will help to keep attention off us even more.”

  “Is that really your goal, though?” Marie asked. “It seems to me that you don’t want all the attention off you. Instead, it seems like you merely want to scare Chad away from Jessica and direct his attention to you instead.”

  Debbie’s smile grew wider and revealed all her teeth. “Well, that will be the extra bonus. If he wants to date a witch, I’m more than willing to help him with that.” She stood and picked her books up. “Come on.”

  The girls gathered their things and Marie snatched the ink pen Jessica had left behind. They followed Debbie out of the room and walked on either side of her as they made their way to their lockers.

  Along the way, they spotted Chad and Jessica talking to a boy they didn’t recognize. Jessica looked worried, but Chad seemed to try to reassure her. Meanwhile, the other boy watched them and looked both bored and amused.

  “Now who’s that?” Patricia asked. “The other boy?”

  “It looks like another new kid,” Debbie answered.

  “Two new guys at school and they both hang out with Jessica Palmer?” Marie shook her head. “What do they see in her?”

  “They’re new. They don’t know any better,” Debbie explained. “Don’t worry. We’ll teach them soon enough.”

  Even though they still had no clue what Debbie had in mind, Patricia and Marie giggled. At their lockers, they packed their books and shrugged into their coats. They left the school and saw Jessica, Chad, and the other newcomer, together once again, now gathered around the same car.

  “Ugh.” Marie groaned as she climbed into the back seat of Debbie’s car. “Chad is way too cute and cool for a geek like her.”

  Patricia stood at the passenger’s side door and narrowed her eyes at the new kids. “I don’t know. There’s something strange about him.”

  “Yeah. He likes Jessica, for starters!”

  She shook her head. “No, that’s not it. I think… Doesn’t he look a little…old?”

  Debbie stared dreamily across the parking lot at him. “Old? I think the word you’re looking for is mature. I can already tell that he is much more mature than the rest of these boys at our school.”

  “Oh, you have it bad,” Marie teased but grinned and twisted in the back seat for a better view.

  Debbie rolled her eyes, although a visible flush came over her cheeks. “Oh, shut up.”

  “Deb, don’t freak out,” Patricia warned, “but he’s looking your way.”

  “What?” In what she hoped was a nonchalant fashion, Debbie glanced across the parking lot again. Chad still stood outside his car with the keys in his hand and staring at her with his brow lowered and his gaze intense.

  She fought back a delighted shudder. In an effort to play it cool, she tossed her hair dramatically over her shoulder before she stepped into her car. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t raise her foot high enough and tripped to topple forward and land face-first into the driver’s seat.

  Patricia groaned from the passenger’s seat. “Way to go, Deb. Real smooth.”

  “Shut up!” she snapped and practically trembled as she righted herself in the seat. She slammed the car door and didn’t dare to look in Chad’s direction again. As she cranked the car to life, she hoped it was only her imagination that she could hear laughter all throughout the parking lot.

  “It wasn’t really that bad,” Patricia assured her as they pulled up in front of Debbie’s grandma’s house. “I mean, he might not have even seen you, really. He was so far away.”

  “He looked directly at her,” Marie argued. “Everyone in the parking lot saw it.”

  Patricia sighed. “You’re not helping, Marie,” she muttered in a low voice.

  The other girl’s eyes widened. “Oh!” She laughed nervously. “I-I was only joking. Honestly, I don’t think anyone paid attention.”

  “If the two of you don’t stop talking about it,” Debbie warned, “I’ll turn you both into frogs and leave you in the science lab to be dissected. Now for the last time, shut up.”

  Patricia fell silent as she threw her backpack onto the couch and Marie sighed, her expression guilty as she twirled a lock of hair around her finger.

  “Now,” Debbie began slowly, “let’s focus on the real issue at hand.”

  “Do you mind telling us what you actually plan on doing?” Patricia asked hesitantly.

  “I’ll put a spell on Jessica, obviously.”

  “What kind of spell are we talking about?” Marie asked with a mischievous grin.

  Debbie’s expression turned contemplative
. “That, I don’t know yet. But there is a way to find out.” She beckoned for the other girls to follow her.

  They made their way quietly to the second floor of the house. Debbie stopped outside her grandmother’s bedroom door at a rope that hung from the ceiling. With a hard tug, a door revealed itself, and a ladder descended.

  “Gran keeps the spell books up here,” she explained. And with that, she climbed the ladder carefully with the other two girls following excitedly.

  Debbie flicked the lights on and Marie’s breath caught, “Wow.”

  The attic was lined with books from wall to wall. Various other trinkets and treasures were stashed in every nook and cranny. These included crystal balls, tarot cards, gemstones, bags of what appeared to be rabbit feet, and a large pot that could only be described as a witch’s cauldron.

  “This is neat and all,” Patricia admitted, “but how are we supposed to figure out where to start? My brain feels like it’ll melt just looking at all this stuff.”

  “We don’t have to sort through any of this. I know exactly what we need,” Debbie assured her.

  Without hesitation, she crossed the attic to a large purple and gold chest in the corner and pressed a button. It popped open with a loud clang. With a triumphant grin, she withdrew a heavy leather-bound book and held it up. “This is all we need. It’s my grandma’s go-to book. She hardly ever bothers with the rest of this stuff.”

  She brought the book to the middle of the room. The girls sat and huddled around it on the floor. Anticipation almost crackled through the air like electricity as Debbie flipped the book open.

  The yellowing pages were covered in fancy cursive script. She turned to the table of contents and reading the long list, following the words with her finger.

  “Let’s see here. We have animal training…burns…concealment charms. Detection spells…echoes…enlargement…”

  “That sounds interesting,” Marie bubbled.

  “What? Enlargement?” Patricia asked.

  Marie nodded. “Yes. We can make Jessica blow up like a balloon overnight for no apparent reason.”

  Debbie tilted her head as she considered this. After a moment or two, she licked her index finger and turned to the page that contained the enlargement spell. All three girls stared at the page and read the script carefully.

  “Nah,” Debbie decided after a moment and shook her head. “That’s too silly, not to mention obvious. I think we should go for something that hits Jessica on a more personal level.”

  “How is something like this not personal?” Marie argued.

  “Because everybody would be able to see it.”

  “Exactly. Including Chad. That’s the point.”

  Debbie shook her head again. “People would simply think she ate something she was allergic to or something. I want to find a spell that will… I don’t know. That’ll make her think she’s going crazy or something.” She flipped back to the table of contents.

  Marie pointed to a spot on the page. “How about this one. Forced silence. We can make her go mute for a while.”

  “That might be a good one,” Patricia commented.

  “No. Not good enough,” insisted Debbie.

  “Okay, what about that one? An itching curse. Oh, that would be so annoying.” Marie wrinkled her nose in delight. “Let’s do it.”

  “Hmm,” grumbled Debbie.

  “Imp conjuring? What’s that?” Patricia asked and pointed the word out on the page.

  “Oh, that’s like a little flying troll or something,” Marie answered. “Little troublemakers. Someone sent one after my uncle one day. We think it was probably his ex-wife. She was always the vindictive type and was pissed when he gave his girlfriend the new car he’d initially bought for her.”

  Debbie smirked. “Now, we’re talking.” She looked up the page number, flipped quickly to the section about imps, and read the definition out loud. “Similar to goblins, imps are talented pranksters whom the mundane population only consider to be creatures of folklore and superstition. In real life, imps are descendants of rogue fairie, who have pledged their loyalty to the devil.”

  Patricia shifted nervously. “The devil? That might be a little too drastic. Maybe we should aim for something lighter.”

  “You’re the one who suggested it,” Marie argued.

  “Well, I take my suggestion back.”

  “Relax,” Debbie declared, her eyes still lowered to the book. “Imps aren’t really that evil. Not devil or demon-level evil. It says right here that they were never able to win favor with the devil because they simply cause mischief rather than actual evil. In other words, they’re annoying, but not evil.” She looked up at her friends and met each of their gazes. “I think they sound perfect.”

  “Do we really have the means to conjure an imp?” Patricia asked cautiously.

  “Duh. What do you think the book is for?”

  “How long will it take?”

  Debbie looked at the book again. “Not long if we gather the supplies now.”

  “What do we need?”

  “Candles and something that belongs to Jessica. Dammit.”

  “How are we supposed to get something that belongs to her?” Patricia asked.

  “Exactly. Hence, dammit.”

  “Hold on…I think I might have something that’ll work.” Marie stood. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Get some candles and matches while you’re at it. They’re in the kitchen drawer,” Debbie called after her.

  A half-hour later, the girls stood in a circle with their arms linked. On the floor in the middle of the circle was the ink pen Marie had swiped after Jessica had left it behind. Around them, candlelight flickered in the drafty attic. The scent of burning wax enveloped them.

  They’d each read the spell several times and memorized the words so they wouldn’t have to consult the book.

  “Ready?” Debbie asked.

  The other girls nodded.

  “Okay, on the count of three,” she instructed. “One… Two… Three…”

  On cue, all three girls closed their eyes, tightened their grasps on each other’s hands, and recited the spell. “On this day, we summon the spirits of devilish trouble. Please come forward and step into our secret witches’ circle. It is an imp that we seek to carry out our task. To the house of Jessica Palmers, of you, we kindly ask.”

  A cold breeze blew around them and one by one, they each cracked their eyes open.

  The candles surrounding them flickered furiously and threatened to leave them in complete darkness. Suddenly, everything grew eerily quiet and still.

  “What’s happening?” Patricia asked.

  “Did it work?” Marie ventured.

  As if to answer their question, they heard a loud thump. The three girls jumped and screamed together. Inadvertently, they released each other’s hands.

  “Oh no! We broke the circle.” Debbie panicked.

  They rejoined hands hastily and could easily have cracked each other’s knuckles from squeezing each other so tightly.

  After another thump, something began to shimmer in the middle of their circle, directly above Jessica’s ink pen.

  “Uhm…guys? do you see this?” Patricia asked.

  “Yes…” whispered Debbie and Marie at the same time.

  “Okay. Just checking.”

  Marie looked at Debbie. “So—is that supposed to happen?”

  “I-I don’t know.”

  The girls fell silent. They were amazed to see that the shimmer began to take on a shape.

  It floated higher into the air until it was at eye level with them. Right before their eyes, it sprouted arms and legs. The blob at its middle formed slowly into a potbelly covered with gray-tinted skin. It began to grow a small, grotesque head around beetle-black eyes.

  Its head split lengthwise and spread into an ugly openmouthed grin that showcased a row of tiny sharp teeth. Claws sprouted from its hands and feet, and two little black horns adorned the top of its head.


  When it seemed to be fully formed, there was a sickening rip of skin. A pair of translucent fluttering wings popped out of its back.

  Swear words left the mouths of all three girls at exactly the same time.

  The imp laughed, a high-pitched screeching sound.

  The creature spun on the spot and seemed to dance, breaking into several moves before it looked at each of them in turn and made an unmistakable bow.

  “Uhm… Well, that’s a good sign,” Debbie insisted as she stared at the creature. “That means you serve us, right?”

  Its grin widened, and it nodded its ugly little head.

  Suddenly, as if unable to resist any longer, the imp launched into flight and careened all around the attic—high, low, upside down, and in circles. Marie laughed nervously, and Patricia stared at it in awe.

  The little creature practically bounced off the walls.

  “Hyper, isn’t he?” Marie observed.

  “It has a job to do, though.” Patricia fixed her gaze on Debbie. “And it’s probably best that it gets to it before your grandmother gets home and realizes what we’ve done, right?”

  Debbie swore again and sobered instantly. In all the excitement, she’d almost forgotten that her grandmother actually would be home in a little while—which meant they needed to send the imp on its way, clean up the attic, and place everything exactly as they’d found it. Her grandma had a very keen eye.

  There was no way she wanted to explain why she had conjured up an imp without the old lady’s permission.

  Their new addition still rocketed haphazardly around the attic. Debbie cleared her throat and called, “Hey, excuse me! Can you, um…go do what you’re supposed to do?”

  At the sound of her voice, the imp came to a halt near the top of one of her grandmother’s bookshelves. It gave her a rough salute. In the blink of an eye, it swooped back to where the girls stood, grabbed Jessica’s ink pen from the middle of the circle, and disappeared.

  “Oh…my…God,” Marie exclaimed. “I cannot believe that actually worked.”