The Truth Spell (Werewolf High Book 1)

by Anita Oh

  Finally, I reached the Zen garden.

  Mr. Porter stood in front of the pond and the statue. This guy, seriously.

  “The truth must be revealed,” he said. His voice was completely unnatural. I probably wouldn’t have even understood him if he hadn’t just been banging on with the same thing. He was completely filled by the blue glow, so much so that it was hard to tell if there was any of him left underneath.

  “With all due respect, sir,” I said, “you’re being a dick. Now, stand aside and let me drown this walrus man.”

  I blinked and suddenly it was as if all the light in the world went out, as if I’d been blinded. I looked around wildly, trying to figure out what had happened, and realized I could see the outline of things, and then a little bit of color. I wasn’t blind. The blue light had gone out. Mr. Porter looked at me with something like terrified confusion. He blinked as if he’d just woken up, and then crumpled into a heap in the grass.

  I moved to help him up, but then I realized that there was still a shadow, an outline of his shape where he’d been standing. The blue light hadn’t gone out. It had gone dark. It was still there, just hiding. I wanted to help Mr. Porter, but I did not want to get close to that light. Tennyson Wilde had said that it was energy, the life force of the spell caster or whatever. That didn’t sound like something I wanted to mess with.

  But it didn’t seem as if I had any choice.

  The light flickered back on. It rushed at me faster than I could move. There was no avoiding it. It pressed against my skin, trying to creep into my pores. Or maybe not my pores, but my spirit or consciousness or essence or whatever – either way, it wanted all up in my business.

  And something in me wanted it too. I could feel it reaching out for the blue light, drawing toward it. The blue light would comfort me. It would protect me, take care of me. It would give me the energy to go on. It would give me peace, security, all the things I wanted but had never had. If I just accepted the light, I’d never have to worry about anything ever again. The light was awesome.

  I was almost sold, but something broke through the light. Far away, beyond the light. The howl of a wolf.

  If I gave in, if I let the light take me, everyone would die. Everyone, including me. Sam and the other wolves would eat everyone and they’d have to live with that forever. I couldn’t let that happen.

  The light wasn’t awesome. The light was a lie. The worst lie of all.

  My instinct was to push it away, to somehow force it as far from me as I could, but that wasn’t what I needed to do. I didn’t need to get into another struggle. I neither accepted it nor rejected it — I ignored it. Just for a moment. Just long enough to leap into the pond, to the professor.

  I launched myself at him, grabbing onto his head, but solid gold wasn’t so easy to move. He didn’t budge even a little. I slipped, losing my hold, and the blue light surrounded me again. I stood in the pond, knee-deep in the freezing water, completely out of ideas. It was exactly the same as when I’d tried to hold onto Sam. I wasn’t able to and I’d lost him. And now I was going to lose everything.

  Just as I was about to give up, admit defeat, I saw the strange symbols on the plaque, the Japanese writing. What had Tennyson Wilde said they meant? The lily doesn’t know lies? Something like that.

  Most of the water lilies in the pond had died as the weather grew colder, but one hardy lily still floated on the top, strong and glowing blue.

  Magic couldn’t be performed across water, I remembered reading that somewhere. But the statue had swallowed down that orb thing and it was in the middle of the pond. But the lily connected it. It floated on the surface of the water held by the roots deep below. It transmitted the magic from the source like a Wi-Fi signal.

  Not knowing what it would do, if it would help or make things worse or do anything at all, I plucked that lily.

  The blue light gathered and swirled around like a tornado, pulling up the water out of the pond and knocking me off my feet. It grew bigger and bigger until it took up the entire garden, sucking in all the rocks and trees and everything else. The first time I’d entered the Zen garden, I hadn’t made any impression as I’d walked over the pebbles raked into fine lines, but I’d definitely left a mark now.

  I hid my eyes in the crook of my arm, unable to bear the brightness of it. I’d obviously made a massive mistake and now the blue light was going to go berserk and take over the world. I clenched my hands into fists, cursing my stupidity, and crushing the lily that I still held onto. The light flashed blindingly one more time and then went out.

  I blinked my eyes open, and when I’d adjusted to the darkness, I saw the light hovering in front of me, compressed again into that orb that it had been when it first appeared.

  I felt the spell lift like a weight. I hadn’t realized how oppressive it had been, sitting heavily in the air, but now it was as if a fresh breeze was blowing through, clearing away any trace of magic. I felt as if I could breathe again.

  I’d done it. I’d totally defeated evil.

  I was the actual best.

  Chapter 20

  Things went back to normal surprisingly fast. The exceptions being that Mr. Corbett had been replaced by a fly-in, and I was now able to order food in the dining hall. Both were big ticks in the plus column for me, in all honesty.

  I sat with Fatima, Milo and Hannah, waiting for the house meeting to start. They still seemed a little shaky, but then so did everyone. Hannah in particular still looked pale and wasn’t as lively as she had been before the spell. I hoped she hadn’t been permanently affected by it somehow.

  Mr. Porter entered the room and everyone fell quiet. He’d been acting like normal, but he never once met my eye or spoke to me, not in the meeting and not in class earlier that day, so I knew he remembered. I knew he hadn’t been in control of himself, but I couldn’t completely trust him either. That stuff he’d said about wolves and sheep, about the end justifying the means and the truth in art, that had all sounded like him talking, not the magic. Though, it wasn’t reassuring to think that there was someone else out there who had been behind it all either. Mostly, I didn’t want to think about it.

  Everyone was acting as if nothing had happened, but I noticed that people who had been sitting together at the first meeting wouldn’t even look at each other now, whereas others were inseparable. The spell had left its scars on us all. People were wary, protective of themselves and those they cared about, and I could understand why.

  When we headed out for dinner, Sam was waiting for me by the fountain. Like Hannah, he was pale and shaken too.

  “You’ll be okay?” Hannah asked, lingering by my side.

  I nodded, and the three of them walked up the steps to the courtyard, Milo looking back curiously.

  I sat beside Sam at the edge of the fountain, and for the longest time he didn’t speak. Up close, he looked even worse, shadows under his eyes, and a tremble to his hands.

  “Are you okay?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  He shrugged and didn’t look at me. “Tennyson said he’s putting the briefcase of money toward restoring the Zen garden.”

  I huffed a laugh. The garden had been completely wrecked and was closed off to students.

  “Jerk,” I said, then we fell back into awkward silence. Things had never been awkward between the two of us before and it made me sad to think this was how it was going to be from now on. “If you feel weird because you tried to eat me, don’t worry. I know you were under a spell.”

  He stared down at his hands, picking at a fingernail. “That’s only part of it.”

  While he worked up to whatever it was he wanted to say, I felt around in my bag and pulled out the orb. I hadn’t wanted to just leave it where anyone could find it, but I didn’t want to keep it either.

  “Here,” I said. “Give that to Tennyson Wilde or whatever. Maybe he can have it analyzed and find out who cast the spell.”

  Sam nodded and took the orb from me. “He thinks whoever
cast the spell is dangerous, really dangerous. He thinks they’ll try something else.”

  I shrugged. “Seems likely. Lucky for you guys you have an awesome defeater of evil on campus.” I hooked a thumb toward myself. Seriously though, I could’ve been given a few more kudos, if I wasn’t going to get the cash.

  Sam turned the orb over in his hands. A few of the specks sparked at his touched, but otherwise it looked harmless, just like a pretty ball of light.

  “He thinks it’s suspicious that you weren’t affected the same way everyone else was.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I don’t care what he thinks. But you can tell him what I think about him if you like.”

  “I’m pretty sure he knows you think he’s a jerk,” Sam said, a smile playing at his lips. Then it vanished as if it had never been. “But he saved your life. Saved you from me.”

  “You weren’t in control of your actions,” I said, putting my hand out to cover his, to hide the orb. “It’s not as if you wanted to hurt me.”

  Sam shook his head. “No, but it’s not as if it’s the first time I tried to either. Lucy, I shouldn’t be around you, not until I can be trusted.”

  “I trust you,” I told him. “More than anyone.”

  “You shouldn’t.” He pulled his hand away from me and put the orb in his coat pocket. “There are things you don’t know. Things you need to know.” He wrapped his arms around himself, huddling away from me. “That night. The night I died. The night I was taken.” He took a deep breath and turned toward the garden, his head away from me. “It was the first night I turned. I knew nothing about it, nothing about lycanthropy. You know that. My family was so normal. I’d never shifted before, and I didn’t know what was happening. It was like a dream. A dream in a red haze. The Wildes say it doesn’t happen like that, but that’s what I remember. I woke up, but the dream had been real. Everyone was dead. My whole family. I killed them, Lucy. My parents, my sisters. I don’t remember doing it, but their blood… their blood was everywhere.”

  I remembered.

  Sam stared down at his open hands. “It was on my hands. So much blood.” He took a deep breath and held it in for a long moment before exhaling. “There was a man, he came to the house. A stranger. He said he was from a place that helped people like me, helped keep us under control. He said he’d been alerted to my change and I had to go with him, so that I didn’t hurt anyone else. I was so confused. So scared. And I could hear you. I heard your heart beating, heard you coming closer. I was so scared I’d hurt you like I hurt my family.”

  I took him by the hand and he gripped onto it, nearly crushing my fingers, but I didn’t care. He hung his head, hunching into himself. There were so many things about his story that didn’t make sense. His family’s bodies had been gone by the time I got there. There had been the shadow man and the scream. None of Sam’s story fit with what I knew to be true. But it wasn’t the right time to question him. I shifted closer to him and squeezed his hand.

  “You’ve never hurt me,” I told him. “You wouldn’t. You’ve had so many chances and you never did.”

  His fingers ran over my arm, where he’d scratched me. There wasn’t even a mark there now.

  “That isn’t true,” he said. “I can’t trust myself with you. I’m not right. You saw the monster that I am, neither one thing nor the other. I need to be fixed, to become complete.”

  He pulled away from me and looked into my face. His eyes were so sad, the flecks of gold in them dulled. He was so beautiful, it made my heart ache. I let my eyes fall closed so that I didn’t have to look at him.

  Softly, so softly that I wasn’t sure if I imagined it, I felt his lips brush over mine. I didn’t move for the longest moment.

  “I heard what you said,” he whispered. “That night. It’s the same for me. You know it is. But we can’t. It’s impossible.”

  I kept my eyes closed, not wanting to watch as he left me again.

  I stayed by the fountain as the daylight faded. Sam had finally told me the truth, and yet I felt as if I knew even less than before.

  But I had to learn. I had to learn everything I could about this strange new world that I’d entered, so that I’d be ready when the next thing hit us. I had to be ready to protect the people that I cared about.

  Lucy’s story continues in Werewolf High #2: The Tiny Curse, available Feb 14 – click here to preorder

  Join the Werewolf High mailing list for freebies and special offers here

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my sisters.

  Thanks to Eliza Dee from Clio Editing for your amazing work.

  Deranged Doctor Designs, my cover is awesome. Kim, you were so patient with me. Thank you so much.

  Hannah, Liam and Morgan, thank you for letting me steal your names. I hope your fictional counterparts can live up to the real thing.

  Sandy and Laurie, thank you for all your help, support and advice.

  Arashi, thank you for sending me your song when I needed it the most.

  Self, thanks for not giving up, even when you really wanted a nap.

  About the Author

  Anita likes dogs, naps, food, and Japanese idol group Arashi. Everything else can be improved when combined with these four things.

  After several years in the warm, comforting cocoon of fandom, Anita has decided to see what’s up with this real world she’s heard about. Judgment is reserved until more information can be gathered.

  Anita lives with a grumpy beagle who bosses her around terribly, and won’t even snuggle.

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  Werewolf High #2: The Tiny Curse

  Things get more complicated for Lucy when she’s expected to keep the secret that Sam and the others are werewolves. Other students are jealous of her getting closer to the most elite kids in the class and more and more she’s the victim of bullying, until she loses even the few friends she’s made.

  It’s almost a relief when she’s hit by a curse that shrinks her to only two inches tall – she can’t be bullied if she can’t be found! But being tiny comes with its own problems and she’s soon forced to turn to Sam and the other werewolves for help. She can’t live in Tennyson Wilde’s sock drawer forever, she needs to find the culprit and break the curse!

  Werewolf High #2: The Tiny Curse is out Feb 14 – click here to preorder