A bright red car was wrapped around a pine tree, steam or smoke billowing out from under the crumpled hood. At the same moment I gasped in surprise, pain shot through my forehead. When I touched the spot, my fingers came away slick with blood. Confusion clouded my mind until I wasn’t sure who I was or how I’d gotten there. Was that my car? Did I have a wreck?
I stumbled toward the car, constantly wiping rain and blood out of my eyes. I could taste its iron tang on my lips and had to keep spitting. Arriving at the car’s passenger side, I bent to peer through the shattered window in case anyone I didn’t remember had been in the car with me.
A brown paper bag sat in the passenger seat, melting away as rain gusted inside, revealing its soaked contents. A gallon of milk. A box of colorful marshmallow cereal. My favorite. I must have been having a late-night craving. But the lonely highway stretching in either direction looked like no road I was familiar with. Not the one between my house and the grocery store, that was for sure.
Shivering in my drenched clothes, I decided to climb back into the car and wait for help since it didn’t seem in danger of exploding. The bent door opened with surprising ease, and I chucked the ruined groceries into the empty driver’s seat. It looked like my airbag didn’t deploy… that explained the nasty cut on my head.
That’s when I saw myself clipped to the driver’s visor.
A new kind of chill took over my body, and I began to shake for reasons other than the bitter cold. I had never attached my own baby picture to my visor. I had never owned a car. I had never gone to get groceries one rainy night and never came home.
This was my mom’s car.
I launched myself out of the seat with such force that I tripped and went rolling across the asphalt. Groaning in pain, I peeled my eyes open.
A pair of wet gray paws stood right in front of my nose.
My eyes followed the long, hairy legs up to the broad, heaving chest, and the fanged, drooling snout. A terrified whimper left my mouth, and I pressed my cheek hard against the rough, wet road.
A male voice appeared inside my head. “I’m sorry, Kim, but you knew the rules.”
My soul-splitting screamed pitched me back into reality, and I stumbled away from the telescope, flailing my hands before my eyes as though I could ever wave away those awful images. My back slammed against the railing as I continued to shriek.
In an instant, firm hands grasped my wrists, holding them in place. “Look at me, Meena.” Castle’s voice was low and calm. “You’re here. You’re safe. Look at me.”
My rolling eyes settled on her face. Up close, her eyes were brown and soft and full of calming energy. My breathing slowed. I realized we were breathing in time. The rest of the class was deathly silent.
Death…
“What did you see?” Castle asked at last, gently rubbing her thumbs against my wrists where she held them.
“My mom…” I whimpered. “I saw how my mom really died.”
End of Episode Three
Episode Four: A Misuse of Time
Chapter 1
A hush fell across the observatory, every bit as thick and stifling as the purple cloak wrapped around my perspiring body. I reached for the clasp at my throat, desperate to be free from the weight of the fabric, but my fingers were shaking too hard to unfasten it.
“Steady, Eggplant,” Professor Castle murmured, brushing my hands aside. She gently opened the clasp and eased the cloak off my shoulders, draping it over the railing that held me up.
An audible gasp rose from the students gathered below us in the ten rows of theatre-style seating that wrapped around the telescope platform. Cloaks were to remain on at all times during class. Castle had already broken that rule herself, and now she was aiding and abetting me in the same crime. She cast a disgusted look at all the goody two-shoes, then rolled her eyes back to me.
“Better?” she asked, grasping my shoulder.
I nodded, unable to conjure my voice. Opening my mouth would only release a sob, and I was already embarrassed enough over the way I’d been screaming when I lurched away from the magical telescope and the horrific vision I’d witnessed.
No, experienced.
I saw how my mom really died.
That confession had only been meant for Professor Castle, but it was obvious the whole class had heard my whimpered words. But had it been sympathy or jealousy that stunned them into silence? Those who’d already had their turn at the telescope had reported dazzling images of celestial bodies far beyond the range of any normal lens, but no one else had glimpsed into the past.
Just me. The drifter freak.
Of course I couldn’t just see a comet blazing between the stars. I had to watch my mother’s murder.
The word coiled around my heart like a constricting snake, squeezing harder and harder until I was sure the already broken muscle would implode, leaving my stuttering lungs to deal with this revelation alone.
All my life I had believed my mother died in a car accident.
All my life I had been told my mother died in a car accident.
A match scratched against my sternum, igniting a spark of anger that quickly flared into a ball of rage. The change in my emotional state must have been plain on my face, because the concern in Castle’s eyes deepened into something more like fear. Her jaw tightened as she glanced down at the rest of her students—the normal ones.
“Class dismissed!” she ordered.
The hush reversed in an instant. It seemed everyone had an opinion on the matter, and all those opinions were flying up to the domed wooden ceiling and bouncing back down twice as loud. Mostly it was a jumbled, incoherent mess, but a few words rang out with the piercing clarity of gunshots.
“Liar.”
“Drama queen.”
“Attention whore.”
Tearing my eyes from Castle’s stoic face, I swallowed the sob jamming up my throat and searched the teeming crowd below. The insults had been spat with enough vitriol that I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see Serenity and her sycophants lurking among my fellow first-years.
But of course they weren’t. They didn’t need to be. Serenity’s low opinion of me was a virus spreading rapidly through the student body. If the class dismissed, news of my hysterical outburst would reach Braden and Dasharath within minutes, and with who knew how many untrue embellishments.
My eyes flew back to Castle. “I’m fine,” I rasped. “You don’t have to do that.”
She grunted and cupped one hand around the side of her mouth. “Everybody who isn’t Eggplant, out! Now!”
“It’s Meena,” I muttered, shrugging my shoulder out from under her hand.
“It’s not mean,” she snapped. “I might as well dismiss all of them from the course. They’re hopeless.”
“No,” I huffed. “My name is Meena. Not Eggplant.”
Her eyes raked over my purple cloak, and a smirk flickered on her lips. “No, it’s definitely Eggplant.”
Groaning, I planted the heels of my hands against my eye sockets, rubbing away the sting of unshed tears. I rubbed until oddly shaped floaters appeared on the dark canvas of my eyelids. When I finally dropped my hands and opened my eyes, the observatory was empty. Even Leia and Oliver had gone.
Professor Castle whipped her wand from the brass-studded holster slung low on her left hip, and with a quick series of swishes, new floor planks appeared, sealing over the opening to the stairwell. Unease prickled my neck.
Was that really necessary?
“Now,” Castle said, sliding the wand back into its holster. “Tell me everything.”
“Everything?” I repeated, stalling for time. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Castle personally—I hadn’t known her long enough to make that call—it was that I didn’t trust any of the professors at Broken Wand Academy. Not fully.
Castle tilted her head and folded her arms, slouching back against the giant telescope she called Scry Baby. “I can’t help you if I can’t believe you.”
Castle covered her mouth and massaged the hollows of her angular cheeks. Her dark brows knit together, and she seemed to be choosing her next words carefully.
Good. I didn’t like being called a liar.
Crossing my arms, I pushed off the railing and stood as tall as my slight frame would allow. Our eyes locked. Finally, Castle pushed her fingers into her short, choppy hair.
“I believe your reaction, Egg—Meena. But visions can be subjective. Our species’ biggest flaw is our tendency to see meaningful patterns in random occurrences.”
“This wasn’t random.” I dug my fingers into my arms, fighting to keep my temper in check. She may have only been a few years older than me, but Castle was still a professor capable of punishing me for disrespect. “This was my mother’s car accident. Except it wasn’t.”
Castle frowned at Scry Baby’s eyepiece as though it had malfunctioned. “Explain.”
With a heavy sigh, I sank back against the railing. “I mean, it wasn’t an accident. That’s what I’ve always been told, but…” I trailed off. A memory tugged on the corner of my mind. Something my grandmother’s spirit had said when she gave me my wand. Except it wasn’t just my wand, was it? No, she had called it “our family’s ancestral wand.” That’s what I had chucked so thoughtlessly into the forest last night. A wand my grandmother had used. A wand my mother had used.
How had I missed that implication? It wasn’t even an implication, really. My grandmother had basically straight-up told me that my mother had also been a witch, but somehow that fact had sailed right over my head. I never should have been so shocked when creepy Professor Phorm revealed she had been his student. And I definitely shouldn’t have ran to Braden’s room and blubbered all over his bare chest—
I shoved that mortifying memory away, making space for something else my grandmother had told me: “I tried to teach you our secrets, but he couldn’t bear to be reminded of her. And who could blame him, after what happened to your mother?”
It had seemed strange to me at the time, but I was in such a state of shock and confusion I guess it had gotten lost in the ensuing shuffle. And what a shuffle it had been! First, Dasharath appeared, and the ill-advised kissing began, and then there was the ugly business of disposing of Phorm’s henchman’s body…
But why hadn’t my grandmother just told me the whole truth when she finally had the chance? The wand was cool and all, but it really seemed like I might have been better served by knowing why a talking wolf wanted my mother dead.
“Eggplant?” Castle prompted gently. “You still with me?”
Blinking my moist eyes, I nodded. “Yeah… sorry…”
“S’okay. This is a lot.” Her eyes probed mine. “But you were saying?”
I swallowed. “Um…”
“About the accident?” She frowned. “Or, about it not being an accident?”
“Right,” I whispered. “She didn’t even die in the car. She got out. She was on—”
My voice broke off as the full horror of what I’d experienced bore down on me. My mom had died on a cold, wet road. Alone and afraid. And, judging from the menace in that wolf’s voice, probably in pain. There had been nothing quick about it. She hadn’t simply fallen asleep at the wheel and woken up in... whatever comes next for witches.
The long-awaited sob ripped from my lungs. My knees buckled, and I slid to my butt on the platform. I hugged my legs to my chest and buried my face in my elbows, raking my fingers up and down the back of my head. All I could see was my own toddler face grinning back at me—at her—from the photo clipped to the visor, my favorite brand of cereal getting soaked in the passenger seat…
That was another detail that had always been carefully removed from the story I’d been told. She wouldn’t have been on the road at all that night if she hadn’t been doing something for me. She would have stayed home. Warm. Dry. Alive. She’d lost her life to bring me a snack, and I could barely even remember her face.
Castle slumped down cross-legged, facing me. She didn’t speak or try to touch me like others might have done. She just waited quietly for the violent wave of grief to subside.
After a few minutes, when my wracked body had burned through all of its energy reserves and the sloppy, wet sobbing had dried to a dull, hoarse moaning, the young professor laid her hand on my shoulder once more.
“Are you trying to say that someone intentionally caused your mother to have a wreck?” she asked gently.
I lifted my head and peeked between my forearms. “Maybe? I… I’m not sure about that part. I just know…” My eyes squeezed shut and my jaw seemed to lock.
Castle rubbed my arm. “Take your time.”
I pulled my lower lip between my teeth and chewed until I tasted blood. The wolf’s voice echoed in my head: “I’m sorry, Kim. But you knew the rules.”
What rules? And what did it mean that she could hear him speak? The other talking wolf—the one I’d met in the woods just last night, the one who’d told me to call her Rhea—had said we could only communicate because of the blood pact she and my mother had accidentally made when they were little girls. Was the wolf who murdered my mother the reason Rhea had looked so sad when she said I could only talk to other wolves from her bloodline? Were they related?
I laughed at myself and shook my head. Of course they were related. How many wolf-people could there be?
“Uh…” Castle grunted. “Something funny now?”
Still chuckling, I unfurled my arms from around my head and sat up straight, leaning against the lower bar of the railing. “I’m just an idiot. Don’t worry about it.”
Castle made a face. “Yeah. Can’t do that. Gotta worry. First-year visions don’t generally involve murder. The magic likes to start you off slow. So, if you really saw—”
“I did.”
“Then there must be a reason the magic wanted you to know.”
My mouth dropped a little. “The magic wanted… the magic is sentient?”
Castle rubbed the back of her head, further mussing up her hair. Her leather jacket creaked where her elbow bent. “No. And yes. Argh, it’s complicated.”
I thought of my wand being absorbed back into the magic because it thought I was rejecting it. Clutching Castle’s nearest arm, I begged, “Please explain. I’m not from… I wasn’t raised with magic. I feel so behind all the time.”
Castle nodded, casting her eyes toward the domed ceiling. “There is no single magical force working toward its own purpose. But every family has its own magic, and the magic holds the family’s memories, so… in a way, yes, your magic can want things.”
“Or have its feelings hurt?” I mumbled.
Her eyes narrowed and she cocked her head. “Yes. What do you know—”
“So my family magic wants me to know what really happened to my mom.” I dug my fingers into my throbbing temples. “Why didn’t my grandmother just tell me?”
Castle shrugged. “I don’t know anything about your family dynamics, but—wait, when did your mom pass?”
“I was three,” I said quietly, hugging my knees.
“And no one ever told you about magic?” she asked in a too-even tone that told me she was trying hard not to judge.
I shook my head. “I knew my grandmother… dabbled. But I didn’t know it was real. My dad forbade her from telling me about it. I guess… maybe what happened to my mom is why?”
Castle nodded slowly. “Sounds plausible. He was all human?”
The way she said it made me shudder. I didn’t like to think of myself as non-human. We were just people with extra powers, right? But I knew what she meant so I answered, “Yes.”
She sucked in her cheeks with a deep breath. “Like I said, I don’t know your family, but I’m guessing—and this is just a guess—that your dad thought he could protect you by hiding the truth from you. And your grandma went along with it because if you turned ei
ghteen and didn’t inherit any magic—”
“Is that possible?”
“With a human father? Yeah. And that would suck, wouldn’t it? Knowing about magic and then getting stood up by it? I can see why she didn’t press the issue.”
Frowning, I rested my chin in the cradle between my knees. Castle maybe had a good point, but I still deserved to know what’d really happened to my mother. They had no right to hide it from me. Not at this age.
My father had to have known this might happen.
Anger heated my face, clouding my vision. I needed to speak to him. Tonight.
“Easy now.” Castle gripped my shoulder. “You don’t want to lose control. Breathe.”
Closing my eyes, I took a long, shuddering breath and let it out slowly. My anger didn’t dissipate, but it did shrink back to a manageable size. For now.
“You were saying about the magic?” I pressed. “At least it wants to be honest with me.”
Castle offered me a sad smile. “Your mom wants to be honest with you. That’s my guess. You’ve come of age, and now she can find ways to communicate. Magically speaking.”
My heart stopped. I stared at Castle, but I was seeing right through her, back to the clearing where I’d hugged my grandmother’s surprisingly corporeal ghost.
Would I… could my mother… why hadn’t she come to me?
“Hey. Earth to Eggplant.” Castle jostled my shoulder after several long moments—maybe even minutes—had passed.
I shook my head, blinking away my questions. “Yeah. Sorry. This is a lot.”
“I get it.” The young professor’s face turned grave as she glanced toward the massive telescope. “Now, I need you to tell me exactly what you saw in there.”
Chapter 2
“A shifter?” Professor Castle’s eyebrows shot up and then quickly pulled together over her nose as her lips curled in disbelief. “You saw a shifter at the scene of your mother’s death?”
Broken Wand Academy Page 30
