Hex Hall Book One

by Rachel Hawkins

  “Yes. However, in your case, your family did not gain its powers until 1939, when your great-grandmother Alice was sixteen.”

  “I thought you had to be born a witch. Mom said that only vampires start out as human.”

  Mrs. Casnoff nodded. “Usually that is the case. However, there is always the odd human who attempts to change their fate. They find a spell book or a special incantation, some way to imbue themselves with the divine, the mystical. Very few survive the process. Your great-grandmother was one of the few.”

  Not knowing what to say, I took a long drink of my tea. It was cold, and the sugar had settled at the bottom, making it syrupy.

  “How?” I finally asked.

  Mrs. Casnoff sighed. “There, I am sadly at a loss. If Alice ever spoke in depth to anyone about her experiences, it was never recorded. I only know what I’ve picked up here and there. Apparently, she had gotten mixed up with a particularly nasty witch who was attempting to enhance her own powers through the aid of black magic, magic that has been outlawed by the Council since the seventeenth century. No one is exactly sure how Alice was involved with this woman—a Mrs. Thorne, I believe her name was—or even if she knew what the woman was. Somehow the spell that was meant for Mrs. Thorne transformed Alice instead.”

  “Wait, but you said Mrs. Thorne was using black magic for this spell, right?”

  Mrs. Casnoff nodded. “Yes. Truly terrible stuff, too. Alice was very lucky she wasn’t killed during the transformation. Mrs. Thorne was not as fortunate.”

  I suddenly felt like I’d swallowed a tray of ice cubes, but even as my stomach froze, beads of sweat broke out on my forehead.

  “So my . . . my great-grandmother was made into a witch by black magic? As in, the worst, most dangerous kind of magic ever?”

  Again, Mrs. Casnoff nodded. She was still looking at me very closely.

  “Your great-grandmother was an aberration, Sophia. I’m sorry. I know that’s a very ugly word, but there’s no way around it.”

  “How”—my voice came out as a croak, and I cleared my throat—“what happened to her?”

  Mrs. Casnoff sighed. “She was eventually found by a member of the Council in London. She’d been committed to an asylum, ranting and raving about witches and demons. The Council member brought her and your grandmother Lucy to Hecate.”

  “My grandmother?” I looked down at the photo in my hands.

  “Yes. Alice was pregnant when she was found. They waited until your grandmother was born to bring them both here.”

  She poured herself another cup of tea. I got the feeling that she didn’t really want to say anything else, but I had to ask. “So what happened then?”

  Mrs. Casnoff stirred her tea with the sort of concentration usually reserved for brain surgery. “Alice did not adjust well to her transformation,” she answered without looking at me. “After three months here at Hecate, she somehow contrived to escape. Again, no one is sure how, but Alice had some very powerful magic at her disposal. And then . . .” Mrs. Casnoff paused to take a sip of tea.

  “And then?” I repeated.

  Finally she lifted her eyes to mine. “She was murdered. L’Occhio di Dio.”

  “How did we know it was—”

  “They’re very distinctive in their disposal of us,” she replied briskly. “In any case, Lucy, who had been left behind, stayed here at Hecate so the Council could observe her.”

  “What, like a science experiment?” I didn’t mean to sound so angry, but I was beyond freaked out.

  “Alice’s power had been off the charts. She was literally the strongest Prodigium that had ever been recorded. It was vital that the Council know if that level of magic had been passed down to her daughter, who was, after all, half human.”

  “Had it?”

  “Yes. And that power was also passed to your father.” Her eyes met mine. “And to you.”

  CHAPTER 14

  After our little meeting, Mrs. Casnoff gave me the rest of the afternoon off to, as she put it, “reflect on what you’ve learned.” However, I didn’t feel like doing much reflecting. I marched straight to the third floor. In the small alcove off my hallway, there was a bank of bright red telephones that students could use. They were dusty with non-use since most of the Prodigium at Hecate didn’t need telephones to communicate with their families. Vampires could use telepathy, but it wasn’t like Jenna was calling home. The shapeshifters had some sort of pack mentality thing going on, and the faeries used the wind or a flying insect to deliver messages. I’d seen Nausicca murmuring to a dragonfly just that morning.

  As for witches and warlocks, there were supposedly a bunch of different spells you could use to talk to people—everything from making your words appear in writing on a wall, to making a cat channel your voice. But I didn’t know any of those spells, and even if I had, they were only useful for communicating to other witches. Since Mom was human, human communication it was.

  I picked up the phone, grimacing at the gritty feel of it in my sweaty hand.

  A few seconds later, Mom picked up.

  “My dad is the head of the Council,” I said before she could even finish her hello.

  I heard her sigh. “Oh, Sophie, I wanted to tell you.”

  “But you didn’t,” I said, and I was surprised to feel my throat constricting.

  “Soph . . .”

  “You didn’t tell me anything.” My eyes stung and my voice sounded thick. “You didn’t tell me who my dad was, you didn’t tell me that I’m apparently the most powerful witch, you know, ever. You didn’t tell me that Dad is the one who . . . who sentenced me to go here.”

  “He didn’t have a choice,” Mom said, her voice tired. “If his daughter were exempt from punishment, how would that have made him look to other Prodigium?”

  I wiped my cheek with the heel of my hand. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t want him to look bad,” I said.

  “Honey, let me call your dad, and we can get this—”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that people want to kill me?”

  Mom gasped a little. “Who told you that?” she demanded, and now she sounded even angrier than I was.

  “Mrs. Casnoff,” I answered. Right after she’d dropped the bomb about my powers, Mrs. Casnoff had told me one of the reasons that my dad had sent me to Hecate—to keep me safe.

  “You can’t blame him,” she had said. “L’Occhio di Dio killed Lucy as well, in 1974, and your father has had numerous attempts made on his life. For the first fifteen years of your life, your father was able to keep your existence a secret. But now . . . It was only a matter of time before L’Occhio di Dio discovered your existence, and you would have been defenseless in the regular world.”

  “What . . . what about those Irish people?” I’d croaked.

  Mrs. Casnoff’s eyes had slid away from mine. “The Brannicks are not a concern at this time,” was all she had said. I knew she was lying, but I’d been too shell-shocked to call her on it.

  “Is it true?” I asked Mom now. “Did Dad put me here because I’m in danger?”

  “I want you to put Mrs. Casnoff on the phone right now,” Mom said, not answering my question. There was a lot of anger in her voice, but there was fear too.

  “Is it true?” I repeated.

  When she didn’t answer, I shouted, “Is it true?”

  A door somewhere in the hall opened, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Taylor sticking her head out of her room. When she saw me, she just shook her head slightly and closed her door.

  “Soph,” Mom was saying, “look, we’ll . . . we’ll talk about this when you’re home for winter break, okay? This is not something I want to get into over the phone.”

  “So it is true,” I said, crying.

  There was such a long silence on the other end that I wondered if she’d hung up. Then she gave a long sigh and said, “We can talk about this later.”

  I slammed down the receiver. The phone made a jangly sound of protest.

&nbs
p; I slid down the wall to the floor and drew my knees in so I could rest my head on them.

  For a long time I stayed that way, breathing slowly in and out, trying to stop the steady flow of tears. There was a little part of me that felt weirdly guilty, like I should be super pumped about being a kick-ass witch or something. But I wasn’t. I felt more than happy to leave the glowing skin and floating hair and smiting to Elodie and those girls. I could just run a little tea shop or something, where I could sell books about astrology and chakras. That would be fun. I could maybe wear a floaty purple muu—

  I lifted my head and cut off my mental rant. That weird goose-bump feeling was back.

  I looked up and saw the girl from the lake standing at the end of the hall. Up close I could see that she was about my age. She was frowning at me, and I noticed that her green dress was flapping around her calves as though a wind were blowing.

  Before I could open my mouth to ask her who she was, she turned abruptly on her heels and walked off. I listened for her shoes on the wooden steps, but there was no sound.

  Now the goose bumps weren’t just on my neck, but everywhere. It probably seems weird to go to a school populated by monsters and still be afraid of ghosts, but this whole thing was getting ridiculous. This was the third time that I’d seen this girl, and every time she seemed to be studying me. But why?

  I slowly stood up and walked down the hall.

  I paused before rounding the corner, afraid she might be standing there, waiting for me.

  What’s she going to do, Sophie? I thought. Yell “Boo”? Walk through you? She’s a ghost, for God’s sake.

  But I was still holding my breath as I hurried around the corner.

  And ran into something very solid.

  I tried to scream, but it came out more of a breathy “Urrrgh!”

  Hands reached out to steady me. “Whoa,” Jenna said with a little laugh.

  “Oh. Hi,” I said, out of breath from the collision, and overcome with relief.

  “Are you okay?” She studied my face with a look of concern.

  “It’s been a long day.”

  She smiled a little. “I’m sure. I heard about what happened with the Vandy.”

  I groaned. What with the family secrets and assassins and ghosts, I’d forgotten all about my more imminent danger.

  “It’s my own fault. I never should have listened to Elodie.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have,” Jenna said, twirling her pink streak. “Is it true you have cellar duty for the rest of the semester?”

  “Yeah. What is that, by the way?”

  “It’s awful,” she replied flatly. “The Council stores all its reject magical artifacts here, and they’re all just jumbled up in the cellar. People who get cellar duty have to try to catalogue all that junk.”

  “Try?”

  “Well, it’s all crap, but it’s magic crap, so it moves around. Cataloguing it is pointless because it doesn’t stay in the same place.”

  “Great,” I muttered.

  “Careful, Sophie. The Leech is looking kind of hungry.”

  I looked over Jenna’s shoulder and saw Chaston standing at the end of the hall. I’d never seen her without Elodie and Anna, and the effect was a little jarring.

  Chaston sneered at us, but it looked more like an impression of Elodie than a genuine expression.

  “Shut up, Chaston,” I said irritably.

  “Witch: It’s what’s for dinner,” she said with a nasty laugh before disappearing into her room.

  Next to me, Jenna looked even paler than normal. It could have been a trick of the light, but for just a second I thought her eyes flashed red.

  “The Leech,” she murmured. “That’s new.”

  “Hey,” I said, giving her a little shake. “Don’t let them get to you. Especially not that one. She’s not worth it.”

  Jenna nodded. “You’re right,” she said, but she was still looking at Chaston’s door. “So, you coming to Classifications of Shapeshifters?”

  I shook my head. “Casnoff gave me the day off,” I said.

  Thankfully, Jenna didn’t ask why. “Cool. See you at dinner, then.”

  After Jenna left, I thought about going to my room to read or lie down, but instead I went downstairs and into the library. Like the rest of the house, the room now looked a lot less shabby to me. The chairs looked less like fungi ready to swallow me, and much comfier.

  I only had to scan the shelves for a little while before I found what I was looking for.

  The book was black, with a cracked spine. There was no title, but a large golden eye was stamped on the front.

  I sat down in one of the chairs and pulled my legs underneath me, opening to the middle of the book. There were several glossy pages of pictures, most of them reproductions of paintings, although there were a few grainy photographs of a crumbling castle in Italy that was supposed to be the headquarters of L’Occhio di Dio. I flipped through the pages, stopping when I came to the same picture I’d seen in Mom’s book. It was as horrible as I remembered: the witch on her back, her eyes wild with fright, and the dark-haired man crouched over her holding a silver knife. The Eye tattooed over his heart.

  I turned away from the pictures to skim the text.

  Formed in 1129, the society began in France as an offshoot of the Knights Templar. Originally a group of holy knights charged with ridding the world of demons, the group soon relocated to Italy, where they took on the official title, L’Occhio di Dio—The Eye of God. The group soon became well known for their brutal acts against all manner of Prodigium, but they were also known to attack any human who aided Prodigium. Over time they morphed from holy warriors into something more akin to a terrorist organization. Highly secretive, L’Occhio di Dio is an elite group of assassins with only one goal—the total destruction of all Prodigium.

  “Well, that’s nice,” I murmured to myself.

  I flipped through more pages. The rest of the book seemed to be a history of the group’s leaders and their most notable Prodigium victims. I scanned the list of names, but I didn’t see Alice Barrow on there. Maybe Mrs. Casnoff had been wrong and she wasn’t that big a deal after all.

  I was about to put the book back on the shelf when a black-and-white illustration caught my eye and sent chills through me. It showed a witch lying on a bed, her head lolling to the side, her eyes blank. There were two somber men in black standing behind her, looking down at the body. Their shirts were opened just enough so that I could see the tattoos over their hearts. One was holding a long thin stick with a pointed end, almost like an ice pick. The other man held a jar of suspicious-looking black liquid. I glanced down at the caption under the picture.

  Although the removal of the heart is the most common means of execution employed by The Eye, the group has been known to drain the blood of Prodigium. Whether this is done to implicate vampires or some other reason is not known.

  I shivered as I stared at that blank-eyed witch. There weren’t any holes in her neck, like they’d found on Holly, but the men had clearly drained her blood somehow.

  But that was impossible. We were on an island, and there were more protection spells around this place than I could count. Surely there was no way a member of The Eye could get in undetected.

  I flipped back through the book, looking for any chapters about The Eye getting past protective spells, but everything I read said that The Eye didn’t use magic, just brute force.

  Later, after I’d snuck the book up to my room, I showed the picture to Jenna.

  I thought she’d be interested, but instead she barely looked at it before turning away and climbing into her bed. “L’Occhio di Dio doesn’t kill like that,” she said as she turned out the lights. “They’re never secretive, or anything. They want people to know it was them.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  She just lay there, and I thought she wasn’t going to answer me.

  Then, out of the darkness, she said, “Because I’ve seen t
hem.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Two days later I started cellar duty.

  I should say upfront that I have never been in a cellar in my life. In fact, I can see no reason why anyone should ever go into a cellar unless there is wine involved.

  This cellar seemed particularly unwelcoming. For one thing, the floor was just hard-packed dirt, which . . . ew. The air was cool despite the heat outside, and it smelled musty and damp. Add to that the high ceiling with its bare lightbulbs, the one tiny window that looked out on the compost pile behind the school, and the endless shelves of dusty junk, and I suddenly understood why a full semester of cellar duty sucked so bad. Not only that, but the Vandy had decided to be especially evil and give it to us three nights a week, right after dinner. So while everyone else was hanging out in their room, or working on one of Lord Byron’s epic essays, Archer and I would be cataloguing a bunch of crap the Council thought was too important to throw away but not important enough to store at Council headquarters in London.

  Jenna had tried to cheer me up that morning, saying, “At least you have it with a hot guy.”

  “Archer isn’t hot anymore,” I’d fired back. “He tried to kill me, and his girlfriend is Satan.”

  But I have to admit that as we stood beside each other on the cellar steps and listened to the Vandy ramble on about what we were supposed to do down there, I couldn’t help but sneak sideways glances at him and notice that, homicidal tendencies and evil girlfriends aside, he was still hot. As usual, his tie was loose and his shirtsleeves were rolled up. He was watching the Vandy with this bored, vaguely amused look, arms crossed over his chest.

  That pose did most excellent things for his chest and arms. How unfair was it that Elodie of all people got that as a boyfriend? I mean, where is the justice when—

  “Miss Mercer!” the Vandy barked, and I jumped high enough to nearly lose my balance.

  I clutched the banister next to me, and Archer caught my other elbow.

  Then he winked, and I immediately turned my attention back to the Vandy like she was the most fascinating person I’d ever seen.