The Carver's Magic

by B. L. Brooklyn

  The brunette's jaw drops and the blonde is covering her mouth, but her eyes are smiling. I fold my arms waiting for her to pay her charge and also enjoying her humbling moment. She pulls out a card and tosses it at me. I am surprised she didn't ask to check out, by the way she is looking right now, it’s clear that his words stung. They shouldn't have, I mean who cares what some stranger thinks, but apparently this chick is easily offended.

  "Hey, bartender!" Echoes from the north side of the bar, and I use that as my cue to leave.

  CHAPTER TWO

  BETH

  The bartender, in all his male bravado, finally leaves after almost sloshing my Shirley Temple in front of me.

  Jerk.

  Cory watches him walk away, and I wait impatiently for her attention.

  "Cory!" I hiss. "Stop mentally undressing the jerk." She turns around with a mixture of embarrassment and irritation. "I don't mentally undress people, Beth," she says pointedly. Cory sneaks another look at the bartender before taking a small sip from her martini.

  Liar.

  "Anyway," I begin drawing her attention, "let's first talk about why that fleabag was practically humping your leg when I walked in here." I tilt my head accusingly, even though I know she would never have instigated anything. Cory is the quiet and shy type, most of the time. But if you push her, she becomes a mountain, unmovable and hardheaded. Oh, and heaven forbid you ask her personal questions.

  Cory exhales dramatically and shakes her head, "I'm an idiot." I watch her closely because she and I both know she is closer to a genius than an idiot, so I hope she explains herself instead of leaving that statement up in the air. "The bartender heard me tell that guy my name was Cory."

  It takes a few seconds for those two little points to click. I put a spell on her driver’s license. The spell was initially made to protect her. When we were in college a dirt bag had stolen her driver’s license and credit cards from the school lab. He hasn’t been able to get near a computer since. If anyone read her driver’s license it would read Charlene Davis, but her real name is Cory Kamp.

  I try not to click my tongue in that motherly way to joke with her, she seems a little on edge, plus, joking would hardly get her to explain why that douche was sniffing her from head to toe.

  The driver’s license thing is hardly a big deal considering who I am and what I can do; plus her new driver’s license came in the mail today and I don’t plan on renewing my spell.

  Cory usually is the girl that adheres to all things moral, for the most part. Okay maybe not all things moral or even most things ethical, I mean she did blackmail me a few times when we were kids. But, she hates looking foolish.

  It’s not in her to be wrong about much, considering she is the closest person I know to being a microbiologist genius. So the driver’s license having the wrong name on it bothered her as soon as I made it.

  "He probably won't even notice," I say, hoping she lets it go.

  Cory rolls her eyes and purses her lips, clearly upset but not wanting to verbally say it. She takes a sip of her martini and her eyes fade out, giving me the ultimate cold shoulder. Great. Just great.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose.

  Usually I let her play in her head, but we were out to have a good time. And truth be known, she is the one who wants to come here every Friday night. I have no idea how she heard of this place. It’s a human bar but obviously there are wolves in here. Not the safest bar for Cory. She may be super smart but she falls short when it comes to practical matters.

  I am going to give Cory ten more seconds before I poke her in the ribs and make her talk to me.

  I take another sip of the Shirley Temple. I turn the glass around with my index finger and thumb a few times, rehearsing my weak moment to order something I knew I wasn’t ever going to drink. It was stupid to even pretend that I would drink it. I never would. I have seen drinking cause too many problems in my life and I just don't feel compelled to drink. Not ever. But of course I did it so that I didn't look childish in front of him.

  The one person on the planet that could make me feel like I was the most insignificant person in the world had to walk into this bar tonight. He makes me doubt myself with his snarky comments, and of course he did it with little to no effort.

  I can't believe he’s actually in this bar right now. I sneak a peak in his direction, hoping he won’t notice. I never thought I would see him after high school. Hell, I never wanted to see him after high school. I never wanted to have to smell his tangy scent that draws me in and makes my cognitive function blow a stupid fuse. Why! Why now and why tonight? I mean, why did I have to see how utterly amazing he still looks after all this time?

  A familiar heaviness settles on my chest. Ugh! I can't let him get to me again. Not again. He doesn't deserve it and I refuse to go down that bleak rabbit hole again. I was in hell all day every day for years until I graduated and left that small-ass town as fast as I could.

  My biological parents showed up after 18 years of absence, offered me a chance to live with them, and I took it. I wanted out of that forsaken town and they had my one-way ticket, plus they had the answer to why I was different, why I could do magic and no one else could.

  Noticing Cory was turning her glass too, I ask, "Hey, you see that guy that was just over here? The one I gave my beer to?" I look over to him, the tall, stunningly gorgeous man with bronze skin, coffee brown eyes and hair, wearing a red, black, and gray plaid button-down with a dark grey shirt underneath. He is looking away from me at the moment, but even from this angle he looks just as heart-stopping as he always did.

  Cory takes a sip of her drink, looks around the bar, then shrugs and returns her eyes to me with a blank expression. She probably doesn't remember because it's been ten years since I graduated high school and seven years for her.

  "Remember? The guy from high school who was mauled by a bear?" I wait for Cory to nod that she remembers, but again she shrugs and I fear I’m losing her to whatever is going on in her head. "He was in a coma for almost a month," I add quietly, hoping those stupid wolf ears can't hear me from the other side of the bar.

  My sister takes another slow sip of that nasty dirty martini and shakes her head absently.

  "Are you serious?" I ask indignantly. How could she not remember that? She has to be lying. Or maybe she doesn't care. I mean she has a photographic memory for heaven’s sake. So the odds are good she remembers. And I am not going to let her lack of interest in my story stop me from rehashing it with her.

  "His name is Dar. He was in my grade. His younger brother had gone missing a few weeks after school started that year." I can't really explain why Dar always stood out to me in high school. Of course other girls thought he was gorgeous with his strong, silent brooding, but for me it was so much more. During high school I didn't shut up about this guy for four years. Every day was another great day because I saw him, albeit from a distance.

  I was obsessed.

  It was absolutely disgusting. Ogling and pretending that Dar would one day notice me, that kind of pursuit was beneath me.

  That silly girl I used to be no longer exists; not since I found out that my last name, Carver, had nothing to do with my biological father's last name and everything to do with my bloodline being a multiple-magical bloodline.

  I never got a straight answer from my adopted parents as to why their last name was Kamp and mine was Carver, even though I was their adopted daughter. It wasn't until my biological parents found me the night of my high school graduation that I understood why I still had the name Carver instead of Kamp. Carver was a title, not a surname.

  A Carver, by their definition, had to have at least three magical bloodlines. And because magical blood doesn't mix well, we were some kind of anomaly.

  They also gave me the Cliff's notes version of the supernatural world and the different species inhabiting the world. My parents explained that being a Carver was something to be proud of because
it means we are more powerful because we are able to tap into all the good stuff from all the bloodlines.

  The night of my graduation, my biological parents took me from my family, without so much as a goodbye. One moment I was watching Dar talking to a group of girls and felt almost out of control, when poof, my parents pop in next to me, introduce themselves and ask me if I will give them a second chance. That night I was in a house made of red brick and lots of stucco on the other side of the country.

  I was far too brash that night and I shouldn't have left like that, but I was angry and stupid. I know that some adopted kids always yearn for the love of their biological parents, or at the very least want to meet them.

  I was just like that.

  I learned quickly that mine were jerks. They told me their sob story about how they were forced to give me up or the Magical Council would punish them. And then they gave me a history lesson that went a lot like this: when the Magical Council found out about Carvers, they went bat-shit crazy and tried to kill us all off because the Carvers then, like the Carvers now, can’t be controlled by a pureblood, we are universally more powerful. A first-generation Carver with only three bloodlines would easily win a fight against the strongest pure-blood. Well that’s their story anyway.

  The council decreed that all Carver children were to be raised by humans for the first 18 years, in hopes that we wouldn't learn how to use our powers. Well the council messed up with me because, little do they know, I had used my powers before I started kindergarten. Their hopes to curb my abilities had failed long ago.

  Then our little family reunion took a turn down the crazy street. My biological parents taught me the laws that affected Carvers. The Magical Council may not have been able to overpower us but they continued to make laws for us. The laws were so strenuous that if I was caught doing magic in front of a human, I could be sentenced to death.

  As if I didn't know that being caught doing magic was bad. I grew up with humans! I knew how they reacted to those who were different and I was not dumb enough to get caught. But my biological parents added insult to injury by putting their fine touches to the rules. For example, I was no longer allowed to contact Cory or any humans, and not that I had any intentions of talking to purebloods, but I was forbidden to talk to them as well. For all their so-called parental guidelines, they had no idea what it was like to take care of a kid, let alone a teenager like me. If they did, they would know that I didn't take orders very well, or at all.

  My biological parents informed me that the growing numbers of Carvers had set in motion some kind of war. The Carvers have been secretly rallying together so that we, I mean they, can stand as one powerful force against the Magic Council that has been making their lives hell.

  Or at least that's what my parents told me the council did.

  Then, after listening to all that war babble, I thought we might actually get to the part where we might get to know one another and start being a family. Oh wow, was I delusional.

  My biological parents shipped me off a few weeks later to a place that Carvers gather to learn magic from one another. I secretly called it “The Carver Camp.” I went to their stupid camp against my better judgment. I didn’t speak to the other Carvers after meeting a guy who had an ego the size of Texas.

  According to his ramblings, his adopted family gave him a hard time for being different. He didn't go into specifics, and I didn't ask, although he did make it clear he spent all his free time trying to make them miserable. But he wasn't like me, he seemed to only be able to control wind or the air. I made sure to keep my powers to myself. I still was not in a habit of showing others my abilities, regardless of their magical background.

  The Carvers hated humans just as much as the purebloods. I never really had a problem with humans. My adopted family was normal according to what I saw growing up. My adopted parents loved each other even though they still argued every now and then. They wanted us to do well in school and have successful futures, which is why they pushed us to get good grades. If we did poorly, our chores doubled. We were normal kids. We did dishes, cleaned our rooms on Saturday mornings, went camping in the summers, and snuck out to go to bonfires and house parties in high school. All typical human stuff and I loved it.

  I grew up with two sisters: Cory and Karen. Karen was the natural daughter of my adopted parents, and Cory was adopted three years after me when she was an infant. We were the three sisters who didn't look anything alike.

  Thankfully, my adopted parents didn't shun me when they noticed I was different. They didn't let me get away with being different, either. I still had to do my fair share of chores. And if they found out I used my magic to do my chores, I would have to do everyone else's, too. Using magic was draining. One time I had to clean the whole house myself. After using my magic, I was so exhausted I slept for the rest of the weekend, unable to do anything else. Let's just say I learned my lesson.

  My sisters were like any others I suspected, they were incredibly annoying, hysterically funny and amazingly loyal, especially Cory. That was my understanding of what a family should be like. It's what I based my perceptions on. And my biological parents didn't meet those standards. They didn’t love each other and they didn't look at me like my adopted parents did- with affection and understanding dribbled with very high expectations. Something about the way my biological parents talked to me just rubbed me the wrong way. I really didn’t like being talked down to just because I had no knowledge of the magical bloodlines.

  My biological parents told me I was a fourth-generation Carver, which meant I had a mixture of every magical creature in my blood. The way my biological parents talked about the different generation Carvers, it was clear that they had been breeding to achieve a specific kind of offspring.

  Both of my biological parents talked about the purebloods as if they were scum, weak and arrogant. I was raised to not be prejudice against others. I mean, technically I was the different one growing up and no one in my family judged me, so why would I judge others just because they were different. No, I judged others depending on who they were and what my gut said about them.

  Needless to say, my parents expected me to be like them. Join their fight against the purebloods and such. In fact they would talk to each other about the man they said I would one day be matched – as in, creepy arranged marriage.

  After that, I just wanted to go home. I wanted to forget about the madness that I had seen and heard. I wanted as far away from my parents as possible. I preferred to be around humans, specifically my sister Cory. I had never meant to leave her. That was my one big regret.

  But now all that Carver war mumbo-jumbo is behind me. Just like Dar. All of those feelings are behind me.

  "I don't remember him," Cory shook her head, bringing me back to reality.

  I almost berated myself. I shouldn't be pushing this topic. He doesn't matter to me anymore. I shouldn't care if she knew who he is. Obviously, he still has no idea who I am, which only pisses me off more. So I should drop the subject.

  Instead of dropping the subject I heard myself say, "I used to sneak out of the house and go to the hospital to see him." I continue to turn the glass clockwise. I really should drop the topic.

  Her eyes twinkled, "Oh yeah." Then she smacks her thigh and points at me like she remembered. "You paid me twenty bucks so that I wouldn't rat you out to Mom."

  I shake my head at her, "Extortionist."

  I open my mouth, about to tell her more, but I stupidly sneak a look at Dar. His back is facing me so I can't see him, and it annoys me even though it shouldn't. I shouldn't care.

  I don't care.

  Cory waits for a follow up comment. I don't have one. Actually at this point I am starting to feel like being alone. Tonight would be a good night to go to Pike's Peak.

  I watch Cory sneak another look at the bartender. I want to roll my eyes, but I don't. The only reason why we come in here is because she likes him, but of course sh
e won't admit it. She never will. Cory has an aversion to sharing personal feelings.

  I sneak another quick look at Dar. He is staring at me.

  Of course he would turn around when I don't want him to!

  I fix his glare, letting him know I am not intimidated. I lift my chin and then give him my back, "Finish your drink, Cory. I'm bored and I still have work to do when I get home."

  Not technically a lie. But originally I had not planned to look over my work until tomorrow.

  She looks at me with a whiny face, but she knows better than to argue. I am her ride home.

  The bartender walks by, and I lift up my hand to stop him, "We're outta here." He looks us over and lingers a few seconds to glance at Cory. Then he nods and brings back our receipt and my card.

  Cory slowly finishes her martini. Not sure if she is being slow on purpose, but now is not the time to mess with me. I can start to feel my blood tingling. Not good.

  I am ready to spring this joint.

  I refuse to let myself look in his direction one more time. Why did fate hate me so much?

  Screw him and his beer drinking cooties.

  Sneaking to go see him while he was in the hospital was the stupidest thing I ever did. It was also the only time I ever talked to him. Well, technically, I used my magic to talk to him telepathically because he was in a coma, but still. It was the boldest thing I had ever done.

  I never told him my name even though he asked me several times. I don't know why I didn't tell him, but when I first said hello in his mind he freaked out a little. He asked me a lot of questions that I didn't understand, something about his moon or the moon. I still have no idea what he was talking about.

  On the second trip to the hospital he told me about the bear attack. At first I thought he was joking when he said the bear transformed into a witch. But after he described what she did with a blunted curved knife, I believed him.