Seriously Shifted

by Tina Connolly

  Well, not entirely more like Malkin. But I did need to disguise my wand, in case any more epic witch battles decided to happen at school. The wand was plain black wood with a shiny tip, which the witch had told me was abalone. The wood felt warm in my hands, the difference between the wood and the cool shell rather striking.

  It had been my father’s, Sarmine said. I was too much like him, she said. Too kind. Too tenderhearted.

  My fingers closed on the wand. I hated to mess with my father’s wand in any way, but I couldn’t take it out at school without it being obvious. But perhaps a simple fix would make it more subtle. I searched through my desk drawer until I found a black pen cap that would fit over the abalone end. Much better.

  I tucked the wand into my backpack and turned out the light, wishing I could solve all my problems as easily as disguising the wand.

  Foremost in my mind was the fact that I had well and truly borked my date with Devon. My natural instinct was to corner him first thing tomorrow morning and apologize. It was better to be blunt about things than to let them fester.

  On the other hand, the things that had come out of my mouth so far hadn’t really helped. Maybe at this point I should try to just move forward. And never mention that demon again. Who knew he would still be causing trouble, even after being sent home?

  I banged my head on my pillow, which did nothing for the quality of my sleep or the pillow. All I needed was some actual alone time with Devon. Like, the two of us, and no way for him to escape. And then I would turn the Power spell on him until he succumbed to my will and confessed his true feelings for me.…

  More head banging. No. Bad witch.

  I rolled over and stared at the ceiling. That Power spell had been good tonight. I had held off Valda. Only for a moment—but that was long enough to see that it might be useful for standing up to the witch club. I would ask Sarmine what I had done wrong to make it fizzle out so quickly.

  That only left the problem of the love potion. Clearly, Esmerelda was going to make Henny pretty miserable this week. I didn’t think Henny had enough gumption to stand up to her. So I would, in fact, need something pretty big to counteract her getting trashed daily in art class—something like Leo the football hero falling in love with her. Now, on the one hand that wasn’t fair to Leo. On the other hand, it probably wouldn’t make him miserable to fall in love with Henny for a few days—especially if the love potion wore off as quickly as Ye Olde Spell of Power had.

  I tabled the ethics part of the love potion for my subconscious to work on and went back to the fantasy part of it. There was nothing unethical about entertaining the idea in my dreams, right? The little scene with Devon a couple hours ago could have had a much better ending. I give him the love potion, and then—

  Oh, Cam, he says. Why are we talking about demons? Let me bike you to this quiet park nearby, where we can gaze at the moon.…

  I tell him sternly that there better be more going on than moon gazing; he assures me that moon gazing is a euphemism—

  I fell asleep very quickly after that.

  * * *

  Tuesday morning I brought down my wand and fanny pack and sat down on the bar stool. “I need to make a love spell,” I announced.

  Sarmine’s face lit up. She had actually beat me down this morning, and was fully dressed. Maybe she was trying a course of self-improvement, too. I imagined Sarmine having lists like mine. They would probably start with “Get out of bed at a reasonable hour” and “Try not to be so terrible to Camellia” and quickly devolve into “Destroy those neighbors down the block who run their sprinklers all summer.”

  Sarmine set down her coffee and cracked her knuckles. “This is more like it. Love spells are one of the nicest kinds of havoc you can cause.”

  I had a pretty good guess what Sarmine meant by “nice,” especially when paired with “havoc.”

  “No, no,” I insisted. “I need to figure out an ethical love spell.”

  Sarmine snorted. “Ethical love spell?”

  “Yes.” I had woken up with the idea bright and fresh in my mind. That was the whole point of the student-mentor relationship, right? I could ask the expert.

  “This is going to need some fortification,” Sarmine said. She found the whiskey and poured a slug into her coffee.

  “Isn’t this a little early for spirits?” I said.

  “It’s a little early for discussions of ethics and morality, I’ll tell you,” Sarmine said. “I don’t see how anyone can be expected to work out how nice to be to a measly human when it’s not even time for brunch.”

  “Now look,” I said. “Henny is miserable, because Esmerelda is busy squashing her self-esteem into soup and it’s only Tuesday. However, there’s a guy she has a crush on. Also she mightblackmailme.” That last bit came out in a mumble and Sarmine pounced on it.

  “She what?”

  “She saw me using unicorn hair sanitizer on Jenah.”

  “And you let her believe what she saw? Really, Camellia, you could have done any number of things. Erased her memory. Erased her believability. Defenestrated her.”

  “Well, I didn’t,” I said crossly, “partly because if I want to win the bet she needs to be happy on Friday, and throwing her out the window is more likely to leave her miserable about her full-body cast.”

  “The hospital would give her Percocet,” Sarmine pointed out.

  I ignored this. “Anyway, she wants a love spell, but I’m not going to do a real love spell without the explicit permission of the victim, which obviously I’m unlikely to get. But then I had a brilliant plan, which was to ask you.” Sheer buttering up. “I thought, maybe you would know of something I could give her instead. That would satisfy her and not compromise my ethics.”

  Sarmine snorted. “You will never get anywhere if you keep trying to please everyone, Camellia.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  She waved a hand at me. “Yes, I know the spell you want. I’ve used it a hundred times.” She eyed me. “I mean, for other people.” She thumbed through the college journal until she found it. “A Lovelie Spell to Open You to Possibilities. Again, not my spelling.”

  “Like love possibilities?”

  “If you are a teenager, then mostly yes,” she said dryly. “In general you will … be aware of other potentials floating in the air.”

  This sounded awfully woo-woo for Sarmine, but I’d take it.

  “Awesome,” I said. “So then if there was a possibility that this boy could like Henny, then he would be open to the idea and would notice her when she came up to talk to him.”

  “That’s the idea,” said Sarmine.

  “Any catches?” I said. “How come you used this and not a classic love potion? I mean, if you’re not so concerned about ethics.”

  “Because, Camellia, where would be the fun in that?”

  She had a good point.

  “Besides,” she said. “A classic love spell is problematic to apply. Because you want the crush to fall in love with the person paying you good money to work this spell, and not with you, the witch.”

  “I thought you weren’t so big into people finding out we were witches.”

  “I have a love-hate relationship with fame,” said Sarmine.

  “Mm. And people paying you?”

  “Obviously, Camellia, even witches have student loans. I worked my way through college via love spells.”

  I started to say that that sounded a little naughty, but the look in her eyes dared me to make a joke. Some things you didn’t joke about to Sarmine Scarabouche. “So, uh, did you work a spell for anyone who asked?” I said. “Because that seems a little like, the person didn’t get a chance to say if they wanted that. It’s a little … uh … not right.”

  Sarmine looked uncomfortable. “I usually researched the potential match ahead of time,” she said. “If I decided they weren’t a good pair they got the Open to Possibilities potion and a speech about how you can’t force people to fall in love against their wi
ll.”

  “And if they were a good match?”

  She spread her arms. “Then all they needed was the Open to Possibilities potion,” she said. “And the speech about how it won’t work if you don’t go up and actually talk to them.”

  “You are secretly a softie, Sarmine.”

  “I am not,” she said indignantly. “The strong love potion is tricky to administer correctly. The last thing I wanted was a bunch of moony-eyed frat boys following me around.”

  The look in her eyes dared me to call her a softie again. I refrained.

  “Okay, then show me the Possibilities potion.”

  She passed me the book.

  The spell was handwritten in Sarmine’s journal in reverse lettering.

  “Ugh, why are witches so … witchy?” I said. There was a little mirror by the front door and I held the book up to it, reading through the spell. “I can’t even work through the problem until I transcribe it.”

  “You claim to have learned about the scientific method and all that nonsense at school,” she said. “This is your chance to shine.” She took another sip of whiskey-enhanced coffee. It must be putting her in a jovial mood, because she said, “Tell you what, if you work the spell out before school, I’ll let you have the proper ingredients from my own stores.”

  This sounded pretty good, because I had no idea how I was going to track down “tears of the lake dryad” if that was one of the ingredients that was actually used. “It’s a deal,” I said.

  I took the mirror off the wall and sat down on the couch to transcribe the spell. Wulfie bounded over with a tennis ball and I absently threw it for him as I studied the thermometers. They didn’t look too different than I was expecting. Esmerelda’s bubble was all the way down on the bottom. Poor Henny must still be upset. Malkin’s was a little bit down—perhaps she had Caden? Although Caden had been pretty stoked about his new car and his date with Reese last night, so …

  “By the way, I worked the Power spell yesterday,” I said as I transcribed.

  “Well done,” said the witch. That was a significant amount of praise from her.

  “But it fizzled out quickly. Do you know why?” I walked her through what I had figured out with the spell and what I had done to work it. I did not tell her that I had been momentarily enraged at the thought she was tricking me. As long as it seemed like she was playing by the rules, I would try to believe that she was worthy of trust.

  Sarmine pulled yesterday’s spellbook off her shelf and followed along. “Hmm,” she said at last. “When you mixed the dragon tear in, did you get the herbs and hair fully coated?”

  “It was dark?” I hazarded.

  “So, you’re probably not getting your full potential out of the ingredients. You would do much better to combine everything in a nonreactive bowl, and heat it with a touch of unicorn sanitizer to bring out the essence of the ingredients.”

  “Unicorn sanitizer is unicorn hair steeped in vodka,” I pointed out. “Wouldn’t the unicorn hair or the vodka change things?”

  “Only for the better,” said the witch.

  “Also the book said to breathe the mixture in. I have a feeling that snorting vodka is painful.”

  The witch waved this aside. “I’d drink it. Just burn the vodka off with a match if you’re concerned about that.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “How come that’s not in the original spell?”

  She raised her eyebrows at me.

  “Right,” I said. “Witches are paranoid and never share all the information with each other, and it is a supreme honor that you are teaching me this.” I paused. “I mean, actually, it kind of is. Thank you.”

  A suspicious look crossed her face. That made two of us. But all she said was, “You’re welcome.”

  * * *

  A half hour later I had the spell worked out and ready to go.

  “All right,” I said at last. “The recipe is one tablespoonful of syrup, one drop pomegranate juice, one finely ground rose petal, and one drop pixie dew. What does it mean by just, ‘syrup’?”

  “I have used maple syrup, corn syrup, and molasses, all to good effect and all with slight variations in results,” said the witch. “But for the most romance-oriented version, you want local honey.” She placed the items on the bar. There were about three tablespoons of honey left in the honey bear, so I decided to use that as a storage and transport container. That meant I would need to increase the other ingredients by three. So three drops pomegranate juice, three rose petals, and three drops pixie dew.

  It crossed my mind that my subconscious was trying to make sure I had an extra dose to give Devon, but I told my subconscious to take a hike. There was nothing suspicious about just happening to have three doses made up and ready to go. Who knew what might happen this week?

  “And the pixie dew?” I said.

  “Is gathered at a full moon by gently scraping the backs of the pixies,” Sarmine said, rolling her eyes. “No pixies were harmed in the making of this love potion.”

  “Good.” Pixies looked like little frogs to humans, with wings that only witches could see. So pixie dew was basically magical frog sweat, but pixie dew sounded a lot nicer. Witches also drink a fermented sparkling pixie juice for magical occasions and I won’t tell you what that’s really made of. Sometimes it’s best not to know.

  I added everything into the bear and stirred it with a long swizzle stick. The pixie dew had lent it a slight anise scent. I started to lick the honey off my fingers and then stopped myself, shuddering. Bad habit for a witch. I washed my hands, then tucked the honey bear into a side pocket of my backpack so it would stay upright.

  I was ready to play Cupid.

  * * *

  The plan was to meet Henny and Leo at lunchtime. According to Henny, Leo had been in the computer lab every day for two straight weeks, so fingers crossed he wouldn’t break that streak today. Maybe I could slip the honey into his soda or something. I discussed this with Jenah at our locker before school and she looked dubious.

  “I don’t think he drinks soda,” she said. “He’s one of those superhealthy athlete types.”

  “Hmm,” I said. The hall clanged with lockers opening and closing, with the rise and fall of voices.

  “But maybe you could ask him to take it,” Jenah said. “Pretend it’s for an experiment. Give some to Henny, too. I mean, she’s already in love with him, so that won’t hurt anything, will it?”

  “No.”

  “And then what?” Jenah said. “You stand back and run? Make sure they don’t look at you as you hightail it from the room, or you’d have both Leo and Henny mooning over you?”

  “Ugh, no,” I said. “This is not one of those love potions. I decided that was wrong.”

  “Darn,” said Jenah. “I mean, good, that sounds ethical and all that. Just, the other way sounded kind of fun.” She turned to shut the locker and that’s when I noticed the brace on her wrist.

  “What happened to you?”

  “Eh, I was outside raking leaves before my grandparents come on Thursday,” she said. “And—”

  “And did a strange, sudden wind bowl you over?” I said.

  She wrinkled her nose. “No, I tripped over my own rake.”

  “First the lasagna” I countered, “and then the rake. Are you sure it was an accident?”

  “Well, I don’t know everything magic can do,” Jenah pointed out. She turned away, leading us to algebra. “But I can tell you one thing. If some stupid witch thinks she can make me feel miserable just by banging me up, she’s got another think coming.”

  I squeezed her arm—gently. “Your positive attitude will destroy them,” I promised. But inside I was worried. It was only Tuesday. I didn’t want to see Jenah—even a cheerful, positive Jenah—in a full-body cast.

  * * *

  In algebra, Devon smiled politely at me and made noncommittal answers to my questions about band practice. In French, I found I didn’t know the conjugation for craindre quite as well as
I had thought. In English, the witches were still driving Macbeth nuts.

  Finally it was lunchtime. My heart revved up as I approached the computer lab. I was about to be a witch for real.

  But what kind of a witch?

  Henny was in the lab, sketching on her tablet, trying not to look suspicious. Frankly, she was failing at that last part, since she looked up immediately when I came in, then waved, then realized she shouldn’t wave, then dramatically shushed me with a finger, then turned back to her tablet.

  Maybe Sarmine was right that I should make her lose her memory. She certainly didn’t seem like someone who could keep a secret.

  I studied the room. It was quiet except for the hum of the computer fans. The teacher was hunched over his own screen, earbuds in, playing some computer game and eating a sandwich. Henny was near the front. And then there were three boys, none of whom I knew.

  I raised my eyebrows at Henny. She pointed, very unsubtly, at a boy sitting in the far corner of the room, hunting and pecking on one of the school laptops.

  Leo.

  I took a deep breath and went slowly to the back corner, rehearsing what I was going to say. I was doing a project on allergies for biology. Did he have any? Good, try this. Did he not? Good, he could be my control. Too bad it wasn’t actually allergy season, but it was the best plan I had.

  Leo had dark hair and olive-brown skin, like he might have some Middle Eastern ancestry. He was broad-shouldered and extremely fit and he looked a whole lot more like he should be hanging out with some jocks crunching aluminum cans between his fingers than studying in the computer lab for two weeks straight.

  Can’t put it off any longer. Gonna do this.

  I plopped down in the chair next to him. He jumped a half inch, swiveling his laptop away from me. I had never made a football player nervous before and it made me feel flush with confidence, even if it was probably only due to the contents of the laptop and not anything to do with me. “Hi,” I said in a low voice. “I’m Cam.” The teacher glanced up, then went back to his game.