The Witchling Apprentice

by B. Kristin McMichael

  The Witchling Apprentice

  Book One

  The Skinwalker Witchling Trilogy

  By

  B. Kristin McMichael

  The Witchling Apprentice

  Book One of The Skinwalker Witchling Trilogy

  Copyright © 2016 by B. Kristin McMichael

  All rights reserved.

  March 15, 2016 Edition

  Lexia Press, LLC

  P.O. Box 982

  Worthington, OH 43085

  ISBN-10: 1-941745-00-8

  ISBN-13: 978-1-941745-00-7

  Cover design: Jessica Allain

  Editor: Kathie Middlemiss of Kat’s Eye Editing, Melissa of There for You Editing

  Proofing: Ashton M. Brammer

  This book is licensed for your personal use only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means without written permission of the author. All names, characters, and places are fiction and any resemblance to real, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  If you did not purchase this book or get it from the author, then please go to a legit website to purchase the book. It may not seem like much to you, but it means the world to the authors to have people purchase the book and stop pirating indie books. Please don’t contribute to pirating and the demise of the cheap indie book.

  Summary: Cassie thought magic would be her key to fitting in. She soon finds that magic isn’t the only thing kept hidden in her small community. There are other things that go bump in the night, and they all seem to want a piece of her.

  Table Of Contents

  Other Books By this Author

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Other Books By this Author

  The Night Human World

  The Blue Eyes Trilogy (Series One)

  o The Legend of the Blue Eyes

  o Becoming a Legend

  o Winning the Legend

  The Day Human Trilogy (Series Two)

  o The Day Human Prince

  o The Day Human King

  o The Day Human Way

  The Skinwalkers Witchling Trilogy (Series Three)

  o The Witchling Apprentice

  o The Wendigo Witchling [Summer 2016]

  The Chalcedony Chronicles

  o Carnelian

  o Chrysoprase

  o Aventurine

  o Chrysocolla

  Standalone Books

  o To Stand Beside Her

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  CHAPTER 1

  Tick … Tick … Tick …

  Cassandra Booth tried to ignore the clock as it clicked away from above the desk beside her. It was nerve-wracking enough knowing that if you wanted to take the test to be an apprentice witch you had to do it in front of at least fifty people. However, the clock reminding her it was just about to start was driving her nuts.

  Tick … Tick … Tick …

  Cassie tried to go over each step of the potion she was making in her head. She needed to concentrate and ignore the noises around her as the room began to fill up with high schoolers.

  Tick … Tick …

  The sound was lost in the now-growing sound of students talking. Unfortunately, that wasn’t any better. She glanced up at the room in front of her. Mistake. It was almost half-full of people. No one was looking directly at her, but that didn’t make it any easier. Cassie was anxious enough sitting in the lecture area alone, on display, but now there were students who would be watching and talking about her.

  Cassie kept her eyes locked on the table and all her supplies. Taking inventory was easy. Doing the actual potion and saying the spell correctly was supposed to be the hard part. No one in her high school, let alone grade, was even attempting to make the protection spell that had been assigned to her and which would move her from witchling up to the level of junior apprentice. Most people were shocked when she’d asked. It had been many years since a high school student had apprenticed, but that wasn’t going to stop Cassie. She was ready to get out of her boring classes. She was ready to join everyone in obtaining the great knowledge that came with being a full-time member of the coven. Cassie was ready to belong.

  Life hadn’t always kept Cassie an outsider. When she was younger, she had tons of friends and fit in fine. It changed as she grew, and it was even more evident now as she sat in front of the room. There was only one person smiling excitedly and encouraging her with what she was about to do. Just one person.

  Cassie smiled meekly at the stunning blonde in the front row. Whitney smiled back with her movie-star smile.

  ‘You can do it,’ she mouthed to Cassie, putting two thumbs up. At least she had the confidence Cassie was slowly losing.

  Whitney was exactly the opposite of Cassie. She was tall, blonde, willowy, and a magnet for every guy in school. Cassie was a stark contrast with her dark bob-cut brown hair, height just over five feet tall with her shoes on, and not a single date in all of her life. Whitney seemed to thrive on the attention, but not all the time. Whitney was human after all, and did like a moment alone. That was how Cassie first met her.

  The door around the back of the last math room where the junior and senior high schools connected could be propped open, and no one would notice. Cassie often snuck outside to sit alone when the day got too hectic, and only two weeks into their eighth-grade year Whitney also found the wonderfully quiet spot. They’d been going there together ever since.

  She looked back down at her supplies. It was overwhelming to stand in front of everyone. She had prepared for the test, practiced making the potion, and said the spell over a hundred times. Cassie had figured out the secret ingredient that would make it all work, but she hadn’t counted on how it would feel to be on display, and the exam hadn’t even started. It was bad with everyone lounging around, talking to their friends. It would only be worse once they were all focused on her.

  Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. Opening them to look at the latest group of students that entered, she groaned to herself. Why in the world were the jocks coming to her test? Atwood High was combined with students that were studying witchcraft and would join the local coven, and students that knew about magic but didn’t practice it. The jocks were part of the group that didn’t practice. Cassie wanted to object to the teacher that just entered, but the room went quiet at Mrs. Anton’s entry. It was too late to kick the jocks out.

  Cassie hid her scowl as she looked up at the top of the room. Her only other friend, Owen Malla, was sitting in the middle of the group of football players in the back row. Owen grinned at her and gave her a thumbs-up also. Next to him sat the school heartthrobs, Nathaniel Bay and Abe Jones, listening to their fourth friend Nic Teller talk about something. Owen went back to their conversation, laughing at whatever joke was told, even though the room was almost completely quiet otherwise. Cassie’s short burst of confidence from his thumbs-up quickly disappeared.

  Mrs. Anton stood up and addressed the class. Cassie didn’t listen as her stomach turned in circles. It wasn’t butterflies, but more like a whirl of birds, like those ones from the latest horror movie Cassie had been watching the night before. They were going to peck their way out if she had to sit much longer.

  Mrs. Anton smiled and stepped back, nodding to Cassie.

  She took a deep breath.

  Cassie tried to give her
self a pep talk. You can do this. A deep breath was all she needed.

  One last glance to the room wasn’t helpful in the least. Whoever thought it was a good idea to picture everyone in the room naked had never been in a room like this. The four hottest guys in the school were in the top row, and Whitney was in the front. Cassie didn’t want to picture any of them naked!

  With shaky hands, Cassie reached for the first vial. Luckily, the test was to make the potion, but not to tell anyone how she did it. The ‘how’ was completely up to her. Cassie grasped the vial and began to uncork the liquid. Mixing it first was the key to doing the potion right or wrong. She began to concentrate on the vial in her hand and the room around her dimmed out.

  Time passed quickly as she mixed liquids and herbs together. One after another she followed the steps she had internalized. Pulverize the plants into the right form of paste. Mix with another solution. Carefully put the first liquid with the second. Mix gently. Prepare the next plant. Mix and keep going. Repeat and keep going. One by one, each ingredient was added to the mixture. She didn’t pay attention to the room as she heated the water up. That had to be added second to last. The water heated and began to steam. Cassie removed it from the archaic Bunsen burner that she had borrowed from the chem lab. She slowly counted to ten to assure herself that it wasn’t too hot before adding it to the paste she had already made. Slowly, she mixed it together. It was almost done.

  The last ingredient was actually the most important, but she had to be discreet. The instructions to pass the test were to make the potion with only what was present at the table. Cassie could bring any herb she wanted, but everything she was using had been thoroughly searched before she began to make sure no one else had prepared the potion for her. Cassie slipped her hand down to the knife that she had left sitting out behind the coffee-mug-sized bowl she was mixing in. Sucking in her breath, she bit down on her lip as she sliced her finger on the knife, out of view of the classroom before her. It hurt as much as she had expected it would during practice, but at least at home she could curse herself for not having a better way to add her blood. Now she couldn’t let the pain show on her face. It wasn’t that Cassie thought she was breaking the rules—she was using just what was at the table—but she didn’t want to let anyone know, just in case.

  Cassie stuck her bleeding finger into the mix of herbs and heard a few people chuckle as she did so. She scrunched the warm water into the paste with her bleeding finger. She felt the sting and again had to bite her tongue to keep from giving the secret away. Cassie continued to mush the paste into a thinner liquid until the pain from the cut dulled. Once she was sure the bleeding had stopped, Cassie pulled her hand out and wiped it on the cloth next to her. Taking the mushed up potion, she poured it over a cheese cloth to take out the chunks. Cassie let out her breath when she saw that the liquid was only lightly tinged orange from her blood. No one would notice the difference. It was much better than her last practice run.

  After pouring the liquid into the vial the teacher had waiting for her, she touched a few drops to the plant next to it. The plant instantly flowered, meaning the potion had been prepared correctly. Cassie let out another sigh. It was done. Mrs. Anton didn’t approach as Cassie finished; she sat in her chair and just stared at her.

  First, Cassie glanced at Whitney, and then around the room. Not a single person was speaking, but all sat staring at her. She looked quickly at the plant again. Had she done something wrong? The single rose had opened, as had several more around it. That wasn’t exactly what was supposed to happen, but it couldn’t be bad. She was to make the protection potion. When finished correctly, it would cause the rosebud to open. What difference did it make if it opened a few extra? She’d done it. The potion was made. She had passed her exam.

  She looked to Mrs. Anton, who now had her phone out and was walking out of the room.

  Cassie wanted to ask if she passed, but Mrs. Anton was outside the door before Cassie could get a word out.

  She looked back to the room to discover everyone still had their eyes trained on her. It was bad before the test, but now all fifty eyes were staring at her like she had grown a second head. Cassie quickly found Whitney’s gaze, and even she was gawking. Whitney quickly whipped her hanging mouth into a smile to reassure her, but Cassie had seen it. Why was everyone shocked?

  The bell rang, and Cassie realized that she had spent the entire class making the potion. Students were all roused from their staring and began to stand to leave the room. A few continued to peek back at her as they left. Cassie caught Owen grinning as he followed his friends. He snuck a look back at her and gave her another thumbs-up. At least he didn’t look shocked by all of it.

  The room emptied, and Cassie wasn’t sure what to do. Her potion was done, but the teacher had left. Was that how it was supposed to be? By opening more than one flower, maybe that meant she did it wrong. Whitney hurried over to Cassie.

  “Did I pass?” Cassie asked her. She hoped her best friend knew more than she did because Cassie was now completely confused. For some reason, she’d had the idea that everyone would clap, and Mrs. Anton would congratulate her on her potion.

  “Pass?” Whitney asked in reply, shocked at Cassie’s words.

  “Miss Booth,” Mrs. Anton said as she came back into the room, “I would like to hold onto that for you. Your induction will be in two weeks, and we wouldn’t want to lose the proof that you did this before then. I’ll keep it locked in my room for you.”

  Mrs. Anton didn’t wait for an answer but took the vial that held Cassie’s potion and briskly walked out of the room.

  “Induction?” Cassie was shocked. “I passed.” It was a statement but still sounded like a question.

  “If we were playing baseball, you didn’t just hit the ball, you’d have hit a homerun,” Whitney added, throwing her arm around a shocked Cassie’s shoulder and ushering her out of the classroom. “That was so awesome.”

  Cassie was still numb. She had practiced and knew what she was doing, but she hadn’t expected that it would actually work and be what they wanted it to be. The stars must have aligned. She had tried her hardest, and it was finally paying off.

  “Did you see her face? She wasn’t expecting that at all from you,” Whitney continued to talk.

  Cassie let out a nervous giggle. She really had nothing to be nervous about, but she was still wondering about Mrs. Anton’s reaction. Cassie was used to sometimes seeing her classmates in awe when she could do something they didn’t expect, but she wasn’t used to a teacher just walking away. It had to mean something.

  “How long did you have to practice?” Whitney asked, pulling Cassie with her down the crowded hallway.

  Whitney was nowhere near doing any sort of witch exam. She didn’t put any time into studying, and really didn’t seem to care if she were stuck at witchling status forever. Cassie cared because she wanted freedom from her life, which was currently controlled by her uncle. He was far too restrictive. This was her way out.

  Once they made it official, Cassie wouldn’t have to attend afternoon classes at school and instead would get to choose a mentor to work under in the community. For three hours a day, Cassie would be out from under her uncle’s smothering control. There was an alternative to the test, but she refused to listen to Whitney’s logic. Uncle John wouldn’t get a say in anything Cassie did when she turned eighteen, but that was too far away. Two years were too long to wait.

  Whitney threaded her arm through Cassie’s and pulled her down the hallway when Cassie didn’t answer. It didn’t matter to Whitney; she was used to it with her best friend.

  “Don’t look now, but I think the entire football team is impressed with you,” Whitney whispered as they walked by a group of guys.

  Cassie snuck a glance anyway. Wasn’t the phrase ‘don’t look now’ code for ‘sneak a look’?

  Owen was beaming at her when she passed. She expected that. He was excited for her before she took the test. It was actually at
his suggestion that she decided to take it early. Most of the students took it at the end of their senior year, but he figured she could do it now.

  As Cassie returned her gaze to the floor while Whitney pulled her along, she caught the eye of the player next to Owen. Owen’s best friend and football receiver extraordinaire was staring at her. His crystal-clear blue eyes sparkled and a sly grin formed on his lips when he noticed her looking.

  Cassie couldn’t help the redness that burned in her cheeks. She’d had a crush on Nate for forever—even before he changed his nickname to Than, which he did because it sounded cooler and made him fit into the cool crowd.

  Whitney bumped Cassie’s shoulder.

  “Don’t look now, but I think Than is looking at you,” she whispered to Cassie.

  Cassie didn’t need to check it out again. She had already seen, and she hated that her heart was beating faster. It didn’t make a difference if he saw her now or not. He was completely out of her league. Nate was one of the popular people, and Cassie was far from it. It didn’t matter to her anyway, as she had Whitney and Owen as real friends. Besides, her uncle would never allow her to do something as normal as dating, even if she had finally caught Nate’s eye. Life didn’t work that way for Cassie.

  As long as she remembered, Cassie had felt like an outsider to the town. Passing her exam was the first step to being included in everything, whether Uncle John wanted her to be included or not. She was ready to join the world around her.

  Cassie slowly walked through the empty halls of Atwood High. Good thing Saturdays were always quiet. Looking around, she found that there was just something different about the hallways when they weren’t filled with students. She kind of preferred it that way. Cassie passed her own locker and didn’t stop to read the note that was still sticking out of the air vent at the top. It had to be from Whitney. And Cassie didn’t want to have to explain to her the fact that she had basically gone over her uncle’s head to do the exam the day before. She had hinted that she wasn’t planning to tell Uncle John, but Whitney still thought she had to get permission. Whitney, while a great friend, still just didn’t understand what Cassie’s life was like at all.