by Tasha Black
I flew as fast as my feet would carry me, not daring to look back, darkness creeping around the edge of my vision until there was nothing left but the flat gray of the path. I was almost at the gate when another figure stepped out of the trees to block my path.
A woman, unmistakably human, but with an icy gaze that made her nearly as intimidating as the thing I was running from. She was tall and slender, with stylish dark hair. She sported a snowy pantsuit that definitely didn’t look like something a local would wear - more like she’d just stepped off the page of the kind of catalog that didn’t even get delivered to a town like Pottsboro.
I don’t know if it was just a trick of the light, but the color seemed to have drained away from the woman, leaving her like some kind of charcoal drawing, or retro movie star.
She looked at me, then lifted her hand like the world’s most overdressed crossing guard and spoke a single word that I didn’t understand, but that reminded me of one of the sea of Latin terms I’d been learning in my Anatomy and Physiology class.
I was close enough to realize she wasn’t speaking to me, but to the thing that followed.
I turned just in time to see the pile of clothing crumple to the ground, whatever had been in the coat scuttling away into the overgrowth along the edge of the path.
“I would have saved you sooner, but I had to be sure that you really were,” the woman said in a bell-clear voice.
“Be sure I really was what?” I asked, turning back to her in shock.
“Why, a witch, of course.”
2
Bella
I unlocked the door to my shitty apartment with shaking hands, blinking to clear my vision. In the cemetery, everything had gone flat and gray. The colors were only now bleeding back into the world. I chalked it up to shock. I knew it could do weird things to people, and I didn’t doubt I was feeling the effects after whatever the hell had just happened.
The woman was still with me, but she didn’t seem to be the talkative type. She told me we would “discuss matters in private,” then hadn’t spoken a word since.
The door creaked open and I cringed at the sight that greeted us.
The coin operated dryer in the basement was expensive. I normally hung up my clothes all over my one-room apartment to dry instead. So of course, every surface was draped in laundry.
I could only imagine how it must seem from the woman’s point of view. It probably looked like my place had been tossed by the FBI or something.
“I’m really sorry,” I said. “I don’t get a lot of guests.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she replied, looking pinched.
I frantically grabbed a bunch of underwear off the table and two chairs by the one window.
“This is all clean,” I promised her. “It’s just that the dryer situation here isn’t good. Go ahead and sit. Do you want some tea?”
“Uh, sure, thanks,” she said.
I could tell she didn’t really want to sit down, and I didn’t blame her. I turned around so she could wipe down the chair with a handkerchief or something if she wanted without worrying about hurting my feelings.
I ditched the clothes on my bed, which was conveniently located next to the table, then I plugged in the tea kettle on the kitchenette counter and hoped I had at least two types of tea bags to offer her.
I opened the cupboard and saw my tin still had a couple of flavors.
I grabbed two mugs, spoons and a handful of sugar packets - one of the many perks of working at a diner.
I stole a glance at my guest, who was sitting on the edge of her chair. She looked completely out of place in my shabby apartment - like a fashionable vice-president, or leader of a religious cult on a tv series or something, with that impeccable suit and her dark hair looking like she’d just had a blowout.
Maybe she is like a cult leader, a real one.
The truth of the matter was, I shouldn’t be worrying about what she thought. I might be poor and a terrible housekeeper, but she thought she was a witch. Or at least she thought I was.
My mind went back to that… thing that had been chasing me, and to the vines reaching up to encircle its feet, the fronds of the willow tangling together to hold it in place.
“Nice,” she said, her sharp voice piercing my thoughts.
She was looking at a childhood photo of Jon and me. We were both smiling, ice cream running down our chins.
“That was back in Philly,” I told her.
She nodded.
“Are you two close?”
We weren’t anymore, not really. Not like before. The familiar pain tightened around my chest and I shook my head.
“Good,” she said crisply. “You’re going to be too busy for that.”
I carried out the tea things and poured hot water into her cup.
She picked through the bags, selected a peppermint and dropped it into her mug.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I had been hoping she wouldn’t ask for milk, since I didn’t have any.
“I’m sure you have questions,” she said.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“You may call me Eve,” she said. “I’m a witch, and I’m an instructor.”
“At Pottsboro Community?” I asked, shocked that there was a prof I hadn’t seen in passing. The school wasn’t that big, and she definitely made an impression.
“At Primrose Academy, a special school in the mountains,” she said carefully. “A school for women with magic, women like you.”
“Magic?” I echoed stupidly.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m a magical combat instructor.”
I thought back to the cemetery, the way she had stopped the thing that was after me with no more than a word.
“This can’t be real,” I murmured to myself.
I had been going too long on nothing but caffeine and the occasional grilled cheese sandwich.
Crap. I was saddened at the sudden realization that I must have dropped my dinner box back in the cemetery. It seemed like an odd time to be worrying about food, but I had big plans that included me, that sandwich, and a stack of Chem flashcards. And now I was probably going to have to settle for dry cereal, which was a very poor substitute for one of Daniel’s grilled cheeses.
“The vines and the weeping willow back there,” Eve went on, snapping my thoughts away from food. For now. “You did that, Bella.”
“No,” I said, even though I knew it was a lie.
“And this isn’t the first time,” she said quietly.
My mind snapped back like a rubber band to that night, falling out the window, my hair lifting up around my face, the pavement rocketing toward me, and then the sensation of a scratchy embrace as the leaves and branches of the little boxwood bush between the building and the sidewalk broke my fall.
I overheard one of the EMTs telling the other that it shouldn’t have been possible for that scraggly little shrub to stop me from becoming sidewalk pizza.
I glanced down at the scar on my forearm from where the surgeons put in the pin.
“It’s coming back to you.” Eve noted. “You’ll meet others like you at Primrose Academy. People who understand what it’s like to be special.”
“What would I even do there?” I asked, still too shocked to really take in all that she was saying.
“You would learn to control your magic, for starters,” she replied. “You would strengthen it, and find ways to use it for Good.”
“That all sounds nice, but I can’t afford a special school,” I said. “I can’t even really afford the school I’m going to now, and it might be the least special place I’ve ever seen.”
It wasn’t an exaggeration. The squat, brick buildings of Pottsboro Community College were so unremarkable that it was hard to picture them at all once they were out of your sight.
“It’s free,” Eve said.
“How?” I asked.
“It’s free for you,” she corrected herself. “Don’t worry about how. Admissions are bas
ed on your gift, not your finances.”
Free.
The idea of not having to work so hard to make ends meet was almost too much to get my mind around. I didn’t know how to react.
“I- I have a job, a life,” I managed.
“I can see that,” she replied, giving my apartment a dubious scan.
“I have a plan,” I said.
And the plan was to help Jon, whatever it took.
Crummy apartment and exhausting job aside, this education was the only way I was going to help my brother, the only path to build back the life we had before.
“So make a new plan,” she said, and winked.
Her eyes, which had seemed slate gray at first, were actually a startling blue, in sharp contrast with her raven hair. She somehow looked both older and younger than I had thought before.
“What would I even do there?” I asked again, hoping for a more precise answer. I wasn’t going anywhere, but if I did have a touch of magic, maybe there was something I could learn from her now, something that wouldn’t require walking away.
“You have a gift with plants, so we’d start there,” Eve said with a shrug. “It’s always easiest to nurture strengths first.”
“What else?” I asked.
“There’s combat, transmutation, healing, divination—” she listed.
“Healing?”
I hoped my voice didn’t sound as high-pitched and desperate as I felt. Could there be more than one path to helping my brother after all?
“If you’re good enough,” she said, nodding. “Healing magic takes real talent. But the most gifted witches can hold back Death itself.”
3
Luke
I am a monster.
The voice in the back of my mind screams it, but I don’t care.
Each blade of grass is cold and crisp between my paw pads and the ground seems to spring up to meet my massive body with each leap.
I catch the scent of my prey.
The thrum of its heartbeat pounds like it’s running for its life.
That throbbing heart is dead right. I’m coming for it, and there is no escape. I can already taste the tang of blood, pumping down my throat, feel the exquisite wrench of its limbs beneath me as I drink in its life force to feed my own, juices running down my chin.
The forest reveals itself with the hush of every leaf in the wind, and the scent released by each tiny paw that touches the drenched earth.
My eyesight is weaker in this form.
Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s just that my other senses kick up so much that I don’t care about vision anymore.
I want to touch, to taste. I want to hear the music of the forest and drink in the heady fragrance of fear that follows wherever I go.
The other creatures are innocent. Their terror is intoxicating to a monster like me.
My prey is tiring now, I can feel it beginning to slow.
I can sympathize with how it must feel to be toyed with and chased until its chest aches and it forgets anything but the sound of my paws beating the ground behind it, always closer, but never pouncing.
I take no pleasure from this, not really. I’ve been doing it so long there is no challenge.
Hunger, hunt, chase, tire, kill.
We’ve reached the clearing by the pond. This is as good a place as any.
Soft light dapples my fur and I leap, jaws wide, paws splayed.
I sink my teeth into soft fur and softer flesh and the rabbit crumples under my weight, blood already pumping down my throat as I hold down those convulsing limbs.
The velvet of its blood coats my insides, lights me up, receptors flashing. It’s almost like happiness.
But a tiny piece of my soul stays in the dark.
When the prey goes limp and weightless, I lose interest and lift my nose to the winds.
Something is coming.
The wind changes slightly, carrying something new.
Not something.
Someone.
A new hunger sweeps over me, unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
The tantalizing scent moves closer to the forest. So close, I can practically taste it.
In the back of my mind, my other self is finally silent.
He senses it too. He shares my hunger.
It will be sated, I promise him.
And soon.
4
Bella
I had never been in a horse-drawn carriage before. Though what we were riding in honestly seemed more like a cart.
We bumped our way up a treacherous mountainside, as the sun dipped below the horizon, bathing us in twilight and taking the winding road from picturesque to terrifying.
My pathetic solitary suitcase banged around in the back of the cart while I sat beside Eve, white-knuckled and unable to believe what I had just done.
I had just walked away from everything - employment, school, and an apartment of my own, such as it was, to accompany a witch I’d met less than twenty-four hours ago to a so-called school for magic.
“Everything alright?” Eve asked. “If you have to be sick, say something. Don’t get it in the carriage.”
She looked amazing, just as good as yesterday, better, really. Today’s pantsuit was the silvery grey of a summer sky before a rainstorm. Not one hair was out of place.
I was pretty sure all my hairs were out of place, plastered against the nervous sweat on my face and neck. I wore my favorite jeans and one of Jon’s old marching band t-shirts from high school for good luck. The sweater I had put on was too thin and the cold wind chilling my sweat made me feel almost feverish.
I shook my head. I wasn’t going to throw up, at least not yet. I hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday at lunch. After dropping my dinner in the chase, I never got around to grabbing anything else. For once, my mind had been moving too fast for my stomach to keep up.
It occurred to me that the styrofoam box in the cemetery was practically the only evidence I’d ever been in Pottsboro at all.
“Good,” she said crisply. “It won’t be much longer.”
I nodded again, then turned to the mountainside to avoid conversation.
Mist danced between the trees that were brave or foolish enough to cling to the steep cliffs. The air tasted thin, though I was sure we couldn’t have climbed high enough for all that.
The horse snorted, his breath pluming in the air. It was a big draft horse, dapple gray and verging on elderly.
The driver was even more elderly and gray. Eve had introduced him as Silas Brake, the Primrose Academy groundskeeper.
Above us, the sky roiled with clouds. My mind went to every horror story I’d ever read. What would happen if we were still out here, plodding up the hill when darkness came? Would there be wolves, or murderers, or worse in the trees, waiting for us?
I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself.
I was being ridiculous. I was just scared because all of this was so new, that was all. There was no way a professional woman in a gorgeous pantsuit would drag me up a mountain to get murdered.
My mind went back to the creature and the vines. It was real. It had to be. And it was going to give me exactly the power I needed.
For Jon.
I closed my eyes and pictured his face - smiling eyes, one dimple on his right cheek, dark hair falling over his forehead - just like he was, before a series of mistakes and luckless turns put us where we were now.
I’ll find a way to make you smile again.
The cart bumped again, and I opened my eyes to see we were turning a final corner.
The trees opened up before us, revealing a wide-open lawn.
A stone path led to the front door. The walkway was interrupted at the halfway mark by a marble fountain full of angry looking mermaid statues, surrounding a horse that appeared to be rearing up out of the water. Whether it was supposed to be standing in chest-deep water or being birthed out of the sea was impossible to say.
Near the base, in the shadow of the overhangin
g stone, someone had hastily painted a raven taking flight. It would have been almost impossible to see from any other angle than the one I had. Beneath the bird were the words, HE IS COMING.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Eve said pleasantly, as if she already knew the answer.
I wasn’t sure if she meant the creepy fountain or the granite expanse of the school itself.
Primrose Academy was massive, stretching across the whole meadow, the east and west wings plunging into the forest on each side. It was easily four stories tall, with interconnecting slate roofs that seemed almost ethereal in the light of the newly risen full moon.
Odd little porches and porticoes extended out over nothing at intervals, as if the school were a giant host and they were its symbiotic hangers-on, perched at odd angles to keep an eye on the trees and sky.
“It’s huge,” I murmured, hearing how stupid it sounded the second the words left my mouth.
“You’ll learn your way around soon enough,” Eve said with a perfunctory smile.
The cart followed the driveway around and stopped at last by the open porch.
“Thank you, Silas,” Eve said, hopping down briskly with my battered suitcase like Katherine Hepburn in one of the black and white movies I used to watch when I visited my grandparents.
I followed her down, far less gracefully, stumbling after her on shaky legs.
“That ride really did a number on you,” she remarked.
“I can carry it,” I said, glancing at the suitcase.
She shrugged and handed it over. “This is your last chance to change your mind.”
The school loomed over me, casting us both in its shadow. But I wasn’t going to be cowed. This was where I was going to learn to help my brother.
“I’m ready,” I said gamely, and we headed up the wide front steps together.
5
Bella
The massive front doors opened into a sweeping center hall without so much as a creak.
