Witch School Dropout: A Witch Squad Cozy Mystery #7

by M. Z. Andrews

  “I meant, where do we start once we get there.”

  I stopped in front of the towering stone building – the oldest on campus. Standing in its shadow, I looked up at it with excitement building in my chest. “We start with the door,” I said, tossing my empty cup and napkin into the garbage can at the base of the stairs.

  Jax giggled as she followed me up the stairs and through the oversized wooden doors. Inside, our voices filled the spaces of the empty vestibule, but the minute the heavy doors slammed behind us, the bright sounds of the outside world were cut off, and the building’s aura put us into a forced sense of reverence.

  Standing in front of the towering glass doors to the Great Witch’s Library, I had to take a deep breath to calm my nerves. The sweater I had pulled tighter around myself earlier, was suddenly stifling. As I felt myself beginning to sweat, I pulled it off and tied it around my waist. The thought of what we were attempting was daunting, to say the least, and I had serious reservations about our skills. However, we’d found an important spell in the books on the third floor here once, and I was sure a spell of this magnitude had to be hiding in its stacks once again. All we had to do was find it.

  Alba pulled open the glass door. The suction from the door opening pulled out the thick, dusty scent of old books. Almost instantaneously, Holly let out a sneeze. “Achoo!” she sneezed in a high-pitched girly sneeze.

  “Bless you,” said Jax. She looked around at the overwhelming number of books on the bookshelves in the three-story library. “Where do we begin to look?”

  All eyes turned to the librarian’s desk. It was empty. There was a stack of books waiting to be put back on the shelf and a layer of dust on the counter. In a normal school, librarians were all over the place, just begging to be helpful in finding a book. Witch school was different. I swear you couldn’t find a librarian to save your life at witch school.

  I shrugged and put two hands on my hips while I looked around. An old-school card catalog lining one wall caught my eye. “Here,” I said, pointing towards the wooden drawer system. “We start here.”

  “Oh my god,” drawled Alba in her Jersey accent thick. “When’s the last time anyone actually used one of these dinosaurs?”

  Holly looked at the drawers curiously. “What is it?”

  “It’s a card catalog,” said Alba, pulling out drawers and shuffling through the index cards.

  Jax frowned. “What’s a card catalog?”

  “All the books in the library are listed on these cards,” explained Alba. “They put them alphabetically and then list what shelf they are on so you know where to find the book you’re looking for.”

  Holly pulled out a drawer and flipped through a couple of cards. “What’s the spell called?”

  I pulled out the drawer closest to me and read the first card. Huh, they’re organized by spell name. That’s dumb. If you don’t know the name of the spell, how are you supposed to know where to look? “I have no idea,” I said with disappointment. This was going to be harder than I thought.

  Alba raised a hand and with a smirk on her face walked down to the end of the mini, wooden drawers. She pointed back at the middle. “I got it, guys. We’re being too specific. We can’t look for specific spell names since we don’t know what we’re looking for. We’ve got to widen our net. I’ll look up unknown spells. You look up miscellaneous spells,” she said pointing at me. “Holly, you look up embodiment spells, Jax, you look for resurrection spells. Maybe one of us will get lucky,” she suggested as she began to flip through card after card in the drawer.

  As the person instructed to look in the miscellaneous category, I found card after card entitled Miscellaneous Spell for ___ - fill in the blank. Miscellaneous Spell for wart removal by AJ Green, Miscellaneous Spell for getting toads out of your vegetable garden by Amethyst Miller, Miscellaneous Spell for controlling ocean tides by Poseidon. I held that one in my hand for a split second longer than the others. Oh, isn’t this one interesting. Miscellaneous Spell for D-I-Y black shoe polish by Terrence Frost. Seriously? The list went on and on. I frowned. I was never going to find one tiny, little spell in a haystack that big.

  “This is ridiculous,” I groaned. I slammed the miscellaneous drawer shut and pulled out my phone. We were going to do this the twenty-first century way. I Googled resurrection spells. The first thing that popped up was an advertisement for Pocket Spellbook, an app for your phone. “Hey guys, does anyone have the app Pocket Spellbook on your phone?”

  Everyone shook their heads.

  “Never heard of it,” said Alba.

  “It says – ‘Finds all spells in the blink of an eye.’”

  Alba stopped what she was doing and sidled up next to me so she could look over my shoulder. “Sounds promising.”

  I clicked the button on my phone. “It’s downloading.” Pushing my dark-rimmed glasses further up my nose, I glanced back at her. Her face was practically lying on my shoulder watching the progress on my phone. When she didn’t move, I looked at her again, this time with furrowed eyebrows. I swept the air with one hand as if to shoo her backwards. “Hello – personal bubble?”

  She smiled and took a step back. “Sorry.”

  While we waited for the app to download, Jax pulled out a chair and sat down at the table next to the card catalog. “Guys, what are we going to do if Sweets decides to drop out of school?”

  I sat down on top of the table next to Jax as I stared at my phone. The app download was at twenty-five percent complete. “Jax, you just need to let Sweets figure it all out.”

  Jax let her head drop in her hands. “I know, I know. I will. I’m just saying if she decides to drop out. What are we going to do?”

  Alba shrugged indifferently. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Shorty. I was living life just fine before Sweets Porter came along.”

  Jax frowned at her. “Well that’s rude.”

  Holly sat down on the other side of my dangling legs. “She’s not trying to be rude, Jax. She’s just saying that we all had lives before we met each other. We’ll be okay.”

  “But what about Sweets? She needs us!”

  “Give Sweets some credit, Jax. She’s a grown woman, for crying out loud. If she’s leaving college to go run a bakery, I think she can make do without us.”

  Jax stuck out her bottom lip temperamentally as she always did. She wasn’t about to drop it. “Sweets is our five. We can’t be four. Witches come in fives.”

  Alba laughed. “Hate to break it to you, Shorty, but you’re not a witch. We’re already four. If she leaves the squad, we’ll be three witches and an elf.”

  Jax crossed her arms across her chest. “You just wait. My eighteenth birthday is next month, and then we’ll see who’s an elf!” she whined. “Witch or no witch, Sweets is one of my best friends. I’m going to be miserable if she leaves us.”

  “Look Shorty. You’re getting carried away. Even if she leaves school, which I personally think makes sense in her situation, but that’s beside the point. If Sweets leaves school, she’s still going to be in Aspen Falls. It’s not like she’s going to fall off the planet or something.”

  “Do you think she can stay living here though?” asked Jax. Her eyes shone with hopefulness.

  “In the dorms?” I asked with a laugh.

  Jax nodded expectantly.

  “There’s no way, your mother is going to let Sweets stay here if she doesn’t go to school at the Institute,” I said in a huff. Who would want to anyway? I was already starting to think about asking Mom and Reign if I could move into Habernackle’s at the end of the school year. I was over Sorceress Stone’s antics. I hated being treated like a child. I just hadn’t mentioned it to Jax yet. She would have a major freak out sesh if I told her we weren’t going to be roommates again in the fall. So, I bit my lip. I’d save that little nugget for another time and place. Like the day before school started in the fall.

  “And besides, why would she want to stay in the dorms if she didn’t hav
e to?” asked Holly, as if the thought left a bad taste in her mouth.

  Bingo.

  “To be closer to us!” said Jax. “How are we supposed to have our Grey’s Anatomy popcorn parties on Thursday nights? Or our Monday night Bachelor or Bachelorette ice-cream parties?”

  I shrugged. “Easy. We still have the parties, and we invite Sweets to come over. It’s as simple as that. Like Alba said. She’s not falling off the planet.”

  “But where will she live?” asked Jax.

  “She’ll have to find an apartment or a house to rent or something. She’ll figure it out,” I assured her. “Don’t worry about Sweets. She’s a very bright girl. She’ll make the right decision. I just don’t want to hear you pressuring her to stay.”

  Jax wound her face up into a frown. “Then you can’t pressure her to quit either,” she admonished.

  “Fine. We’ll all stay out of it. This is Sweets’ decision to make,” I agreed.

  Jax smiled. “Good.” Satisfaction and relief were visible on her face. “I think she’ll make the right decision.”

  I looked down at my phone. The app was finally loaded. I clicked through the first two screens.

  “Is it what we need?” asked Alba impatiently, standing behind me again.

  I flicked my long red braid back over my shoulder and looked up at her. “It’s like a search engine for spells. What should I search for?”

  “Try resurrection spells,” she suggested.

  I typed resurrection spells in the search engine and was surprised to see a list of spells. I scrolled through the list and stopped at the spell called Ritual of Resurrection by D.E. Cooper.”

  “Ritual of Resurrection,” I said aloud to the group. “Sounds like what we’re looking for?”

  “Does it actually give the spell?” asked Holly.

  I briefly skimmed the information on the app. “No,” I said with disappointment. “It’s just the name, author, and a brief synopsis. Basically, this says it’s used to restore a soul to human form. Bam. Exactly what we need. Mr. Bailey in human form.” I pointed to the card catalog. “Alba, can you search the card catalog by author?”

  “Yeah, of course. You said Cooper?” she asked, moving towards the wooden drawers quickly.

  “Yeah, D.E.”

  She nodded and pulled out a drawer marked with the letter C. “Cooper. Geez. Lots of Coopers. Here we go, D.E. She’s written a bunch of spellbooks. One of her books is called Spells for the Spirits. It’s on the third floor!”

  I leapt off the table and onto my feet. “That’s gotta be the one. That’s where they keep all the really difficult and dangerous spells. We need the third-floor key,” I said.

  Jax squealed excitedly. The last time we’d gone searching for the key, we’d found it inside a hollowed-out book on a top shelf. Jax had only found it accidentally when Alba knocked over the ladder with her foot.

  “Beam me up, Scotty,” said Jax to Alba, clapping her heels together, arching her back, and throwing her arms up over her head in her best gymnasts pose.

  Alba took a step back and prepared to levitate Jax. I stepped forward and stopped her. “Mind if I try?”

  Alba looked at me in surprise. “You up to it?”

  I nodded. “I think so. I’ve been working my way up to bigger things. Jax is pretty tiny. I should be able to lift her.”

  Jax looked at me apprehensively. “No offense, Mercy, but have you practiced on a real, live person before?”

  My head bobbled on my shoulders. “Well, no, but I think I can do it.”

  Jax frowned. “I’m not sure that I want to be your guinea pig.”

  I let my arms fall to my sides in frustration. “Seriously Jax? You don’t trust me? I’m your cousin.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s not that I don’t trust you…”

  “Then what?”

  “Okay, fine. I don’t trust you,” she said, crossing her arms across her chest in a huff. “You’re a medium, Mercy. Not David Blain.”

  “Does David Blain even do levitation?” asked Holly.

  Alba chuckled. “That guy’s a hack. He gets like two inches off the ground. He can’t do this,” she said and lifted Holly three feet off the ground by simply raising her finger.

  Holly squealed and flailed about. “Put me down, Alba!”

  I rolled my eyes. What a show-off. “We get it, Alba. You’re amazing. Everyone else sucks. Point taken, but mind if I try?”

  Alba rolled her hand forward. “Nothin’ stoppin’ ya, Red.”

  Holly glared at her roommate. “Mind putting me down first?”

  Alba lowered Holly to the ground.

  “Thank you!” she said, dusting herself off as if Alba had just ruined her outfit.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I had to concentrate. Lifting a person would be the heaviest object I ever tried lifting. Jax was probably right. Maybe I shouldn’t be using a person as my guinea pig, but if I didn’t try, I’d never know.

  The girls all stared at me nervously. I could tell they were each afraid I was going to pick them to levitate. With my eyes closed, I slowly raised my arm, pointing my finger at Alba. I could feel the energy moving through my body as I gathered strength from the inanimate objects around me. As I learned in my kinetic energy class, everything around me had potential energy. I just had to use my abilities to gather the energy and transfer it. Essentially, I was just using my body as a vessel. It wasn’t that hard once you figured out how to do it, but a person really had to train to make it as effortless as Alba. But then again she’d been doing it her whole life. I’d only just begun.

  I felt the power of the inanimate objects around me growing and surging through my body. When I thought I had enough energy built up, I unleashed it on Alba, raising her into the air.

  I heard her swearing as I tossed her about in the air. She wasn’t used to being the one who got levitated. She was used to doing the levitations.

  “What the hell, Red. What’s with the bumpy ride. Haven’t you learned to control it yet?”

  Her words made me lose concentration for a split second and all of a sudden I realized I hadn’t summoned enough energy to keep her afloat. My heart stopped beating for a moment as I panicked and the hold I had on her was suddenly let loose. My eyes flicked open. Alba was on a crash collision course towards the ground.

  “Alba!” I hollered.

  10

  Alba thrust her arms down to her sides as she fell. Bright green lights sparked from her palms towards the floor. The energy surge caught her mid-fall, and she hovered in the air for a second before she carefully lowered herself to the ground.

  With her feet safely on the ground, she spun around to face me. Her brown eyes sizzled with “Alba”tude. “What the hell, Red?!”

  My stomach, which had gone topsy-turvy and sideways at the sight of her near fall, constricted as she faced me. My breath caught in my throat. I made a face, pulling the sides of my mouth back and widening my eyes. “Oh, wow,” I said slowly. “So sorry about that Alba. I didn’t mean to…”

  “You could have killed me!” she barked. Alba made a show of dusting herself off, checking the condition of her arms and legs, making sure nothing got broken, even though she knew perfectly well that nothing had. She was just trying to rattle my chain a little bit. I knew it. I could tell by her overly dramatic expression. She wasn’t upset. She was just pretending to be upset.

  Jax giggled. She could see that Alba was playing too.

  “Hey, every great telekinetic practitioner had to start somewhere. Even you, right?”

  Alba mumbled something under her breath that I couldn’t understand and then looked at Jax. “You ready, Shorty? I’ll fly you up to get the third-floor key,” she said, glaring at me.

  Jax nodded and resumed the same position she’d been in earlier – arms up, back arched. With her eyes closed, she smiled. “I’m ready!”

  Alba flew Jax up to the unassuming book on the top shelf. Jax grabbed the book we’d found the key
in last time, and Alba lowered her to the ground.

  “Tertius Solem,” read Jax.

  I had no idea what the English translation was, but I hoped the book still contained the skeleton key that unlocked the wrought-iron gate at the bottom of the stairs to the third floor.

  Jax opened the book, and sure enough, nestled in the hollowed-out interior was the skeleton key we needed. She pulled the key from its hiding place, and the four of us rushed to the accordion style gate. Jax stopped short of putting the key in the lock. She turned and gave it to Alba. “Here. Maybe you should do it.”

  Alba laughed as she took the key. “You scared, Shorty? We’ve been up there before.”

  Jax shrugged. “I know. But technically, I’m still not a witch. I wasn’t sure if I should be doing it.”

  The lock opened with a loud clank, and then the sound of Alba pushing the gate back rumbled through the quiet corridors. Once the gate was open, a cool gust of air blew past us making the hair on my arms stand up straight. I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering.

  “Brr,” said Jax, holding her arms as well. “Feels like the third floor didn’t get the memo that it’s springtime now.”

  Alba glanced at me. “Ready?”

  Why the third floor intimidated us, I wasn’t sure. Something about it had black magic written all over it. Yellow caution lights flashed before my eyes. Pushing those feelings aside, I swallowed hard and nodded at Alba. “Let’s do it.”

  We started up the wide spiral staircase tentatively, but by the first bend, we’d gotten braver and picked up more speed. When we neared the top, we slowed down. Last time Alba had barreled ahead and gone flying through the third-floor resident ghost-librarian’s body.

  At the top of the stairs, Jax hid behind me, and Holly hid behind Alba. Unconsciously, Alba and I came together until we were shoulder to shoulder. As a unit, the four of us inched forward. “Clara?” I called out nervously.

  We heard a book snap shut on the other side of the room followed by a cool gust of air again. And then just like that, Clara Mason stood in front of us. Her white hair was still bound back in the strict bun at the top of her head. She wore the same green shift dress with the drop waist, white cuffs, and white collar. She looked exactly as she had the last time we’d seen her.