Hexes and Exes Read online

  Hexes and Exes

  WOMBY’S SCHOOL FOR WAYWARD WITCHES

  SARINA DORIE

  Copyright © 2018 Sarina Dorie

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1720435693

  ISBN-13: 978-1720435693

  OTHER BOOKS IN THE womby’s school for wayward witches SERIES listed in order

  Tardy Bells and Witches’ Spells

  Hex-Ed

  Witches Gone Wicked

  A Handful of Hexes

  Hexes and Exes

  Reading, Writing and Necromancy

  Budget Cuts for the Dark Arts and Crafts

  Hex and the City

  Spell It Out for Me

  Spiders Are a Witch’s Best Friend

  My Crazy Hex Girlfriend

  Hex Crimes

  All Hexed Up

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  3

  Chapter One

  5

  Chapter Two

  15

  Chapter Three

  22

  Chapter Four

  26

  Chapter Five

  31

  Chapter Six

  34

  Chapter Seven

  39

  Chapter Eight

  49

  Chapter Nine

  53

  Chapter Ten

  57

  Chapter Eleven

  69

  Chapter Twelve

  73

  Chapter Thirteen

  90

  Chapter Fourteen

  93

  Chapter Fifteen

  96

  Chapter Sixteen

  108

  Chapter Seventeen

  117

  Chapter Eighteen

  132

  Chapter Nineteen

  14`

  Chapter Twenty

  160

  Chapter Twenty-One

  163

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  173

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  183

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  189

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  193

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  196

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  204

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  207

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  218

  Excerpt

  221

  About the Author

  227

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Yes, there is a discount art supply store in Eugene, Oregon just like in the story. Not only is it like a holy land for artists and teachers, but it is called MECCA. The free room has been my salvation for several years. If you live in Oregon and want to check it out or want to make a donation, here is their contact information.

  http://www.materials-exchange.org/engage/donate/

  PROLOGUE

  Messages from Beyond

  I closed my eyes and inhaled the perfume of disappointment.

  The day had been unseasonably warm, the sun melting fingers of ice hanging from the windowsill. Warm wind rushed over me from the open window of my classroom, tossing my pink hair into my face. The air smelled of jasmine and cardamom. It tasted of fresh grass and summer.

  This was the flavor of Derrick’s magic.

  A prickle of nervous excitement ignited hope inside me as I thought about my best friend and former boyfriend. He was the one person in the world who understood me more than anyone else.

  His absence made my chest ache with longing. Every time I felt his magic, I thought it might be the moment I would be reunited with him again.

  Alone in my classroom, I opened the bottom drawer of my desk and removed the note that had flown in on a breath of wind only days before.

  Clarissa,

  I keep seeing you in my dreams. I know you’ll be the one to unite Fae and Witchkin in peace. That’s why I gave you the book after I found it in Julian Thistledown’s room. I assume he stole it from Jeb’s office, though I can’t imagine the principal knew.

  Use what you learn within the book wisely. The spell in Loraline’s diary is powerful, something your mother was able to perform. I’m confident you’ll be able to figure out how to use it as well. With it, you can resurrect the dead, create life, or break any curse. Once you learn to control your powers, you can cure me of the curse the Raven Queen placed on me.

  Your friend,

  The signature was illegible, but I knew it had to be Derrick’s.

  The book held the key to Derrick’s cure, but I’d burned it.

  The ashes still lay in a black lump at the bottom of my garbage can. My determination to do good for the world had destroyed Derrick’s cure. I vowed I would find another way to help him even if it killed me.

  CHAPTER ONE

  My First Magic Lesson

  Today was going to be the first day of my new life. I was about to have my first real magic lesson with Professor Felix Thatch. Even the idea of his snarky comments in the dark bowels of the school dungeon on a Saturday at seven a.m. couldn’t rain on my parade. I was going to learn to control my powers and channel that energy into something productive. I refused to have another accident after this.

  I would be able to help my students. I would save Derrick.

  I hugged a foil-wrapped plate of cookies to my chest as I stepped into the doorway of his office, hoping they might take the edge off Thatch’s Sir-Grouch-a-Lot mood.

  Felix Thatch stood in the corner of his office, turned toward his pet bird in her cage. He removed a strip of red meat from one of the pockets of his tweed coat and fed it to the supposed crow. Priscilla pecked at it from between the bars of the cage and gobbled it up.

  I knocked on the doorframe.

  Thatch turned toward me, eyeing my striped leggings and pink hair with a scowl. He was dressed in a three-piece suit, the expanse of fabric as gray as the shadows of his dreary office. His skin was nearly as pale as the white cravat and starched shirt. As always, Thatch’s shoulder-length hair was simultaneously windswept and immaculate. I wanted to get my hands on his magic hairbrush.

  “I made some cookies. They’re no-bakes,” I said.

  I set the plate of cookies on his desk between a leather-bound book and a stack of essays, careful to avoid a crystal ball and quill. As I did so, I bumped into the rusty metal chair on my side of the desk. My striped leggings caught on one of the bolts sticking out from the side and snagged. It made me loathe his fear-energy torture chair even more. I scooted back.

  I was going to have to sit in the chair today, to relive my fears and see if I could control my magical affinity. I’d been making progress before Julian Thistledown’s attack. There was no reason to believe I wouldn’t be able to continue to make progress despite what my ex-boyfriend had tried to do to me.

  No reason, except I now had new fears to master.

  Thatch removed his wand from his sleeve and waved it over the plate. The air above the cookies glowed with purple light. I’d seen my friend Josie use this spell before.

  I crossed my arms. “I didn’t poison them.”

  The crisp British monotone of his voice greeted me with the usual level of enthusiasm. “That’s what they all say.”

  Satisfied with his test, he removed the foil. He wrinkled his nose at the lumpy brown blobs on the plate. “Those look like piles of unicorn manure.”

  The insult stung. So much for cookies being the path to salvation.

  I laughed, attempting to make light of his comment. “Fortunately, they don’t taste like manure. It’s my fairy godmother’s recipe, and you liked Mom’s cooking, so I figured you’d enjoy these.” Thatch’s genial relationship with my adoptive mother was nothing compared to his complex relationship
with my biological mother, Alouette Loraline, wickedest witch in the Unseen Realm. Partly that was because Mom had made him baked goods, and partially because she hadn’t tortured him to near death like Alouette Loraline.

  If anyone had a reason to dislike me—and resent having to teach me—it was him. Our professional relationship had gotten off to a rocky start at the beginning of the year. Now that Thatch knew me, I was certain I’d broken through his resolve to hate me. I believed we could be friends eventually.

  Someday I would make all the other teachers see I wasn’t a wicked witch like Alouette Loraline who would kill people and try to take over the world.

  At least, I hoped I wouldn’t.

  His scowl returned. “Surely you made a mistake somewhere.”

  I fidgeted with the fabric of my black skirt. “No, they’re supposed to look like this. Really.”

  He loomed over his desk, formidable as ever. The only sound in the room was the rustle of the bird in her cage. She watched me with a black unblinking eye. Thatch might have trusted his bird because she was his sister, but I still wasn’t convinced the raven wasn’t actually in cahoots with the Raven Court, the Fae who had previously tried to kidnap me.

  Thatch continued to scowl at the plate. The turd-balls of chocolate, oatmeal, and peanut butter were delicious—if he would only try them.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to judge appearances,” I said.

  His dark eyebrow arched higher. “Some apples don’t fall far from the tree.”

  “I’m not Loraline.”

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  The other teachers whispered I looked like her. I didn’t wear a pointed witch hat, have midnight hair, or possess a clear, creamy complexion; I was freckled and dyed my hair—pink at the moment—but the face on the painting of her in the upstairs stairwell was a mirror image of my own. It was going to be hard to undo other Witchkins’ preconceived notions, but I wasn’t going to be like her—I wasn’t going to torture and murder people.

  I suspected it wouldn’t help if they knew I’d killed Julian Thistledown. On purpose.

  Thatch picked up a cookie, smelled it, and then set it down on the plate again. He plopped himself into his seat. “I hope you don’t think you can bribe me with cookies, especially inferior ones at that. It isn’t going to make me go any easier on you.”

  This wasn’t going at all as I’d planned. “The cookies aren’t bribery. They’re a thank-you present. You know, for teaching me.”

  He looked away. “Ah, a thank-you. You do know how these things work in the Unseen Realm. If you thank a Fae—or a half Fae—you owe him a boon. Or if a Fae thanks you—”

  “Shush. I’m paying you in cookies.” I gestured at the plate. “Just try one.”

  He didn’t move.

  “Never mind.” I reached for the plate. “I’ll share my cookies with Josie and Khaba.”

  He smacked my hand with his wand. “Leave them.”

  He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

  “Sit,” he said.

  I swallowed and glanced at the metal chair. The last time I had sat there, snakes that were supposedly figments of my imagination had wound around me and bound me to the chair. Reluctantly, I sat. The chill of the metal seeped through my tights and skirt and into my legs. Cold leeched into my back despite the T-shirt and sweater I wore.

  “Remove your sweater.”

  I hesitated. He probably had a reason for asking me to do so that had nothing to do with him being the controlling dungeon master trying to get a young woman to remove her clothes in his office. The problem was that part of me wanted this attractive, off-limits professor to ask me to take my clothes off because he was interested in me. Realistically, I knew he would never be able to look at me that way after his history with my mother.

  Guilt raked my insides every time I had these sexy Thatch thoughts. I still longed for Derrick, even if I didn’t know if I would ever see him again.

  Thatch sighed, misunderstanding my inner conflict. His tone was patronizing, as though he were talking to a small child. “The more of you that is in direct contact with the metal, the more likely you will reach a meditative state. That means more of you will be connected with the magic.”

  “Okay, got it. Fear magic. It’s just that it’s so cold in here. Would you be willing to turn up the thermostat?”

  “No. You need to learn to ignore the sensations of your body. You can turn pain into energy. Do the same with the cold.”

  Grudgingly, I removed my sweater. I draped it over my lap. The armrests of the chair were about as warm as icicles. I shivered against the back of the chair, my T-shirt not enough to protect me.

  It occurred to me how I could fit in this chair, whereas most chairs were too large for me. My feet touched the ground, and my back rested against the cool metal. That meant it had been made for someone small, a child perhaps. The idea of that was even more creepy, knowing what it did.

  “Close your eyes and relax your muscles.” He walked me through the visualization.

  I transformed my discomfort into energy that spiraled around in a red ball of glowing light in my belly. The cold left me as I sank deeper into myself. Slowly my focus changed, and I became aware of my body once again.

  A tickle against my neck drew my attention. I fought the urge to open my eyes. Something small and light snaked over my arms and coiled down around my wrists. The movement was slight at first, but the pressure increased as it tightened. It didn’t feel the same as the serpents that had bound me before. These felt more like ropes, but they smelled more like my fairy godmother’s garden.

  I winced as the ropes bit into my flesh.

  It was all an illusion, I told myself. The chair was just drawing out my weaknesses to challenge my affinity, my magical power source. More pricks of pain poked against my arms. The air smelled of roses and spring. Slender coils wound around my ankles, drawing my legs closer to the legs of the chair. I knew what my weakness was and didn’t look forward to facing this fear.

  “Relax your muscles,” Thatch said.

  Right, because being bound to a chair was so relaxing.

  Sharp stabs of pain dug into my calves. I pushed the sensation out of my skin and ignored it. I could control pain. Pain was an illusion.

  The darkness faded into light, and I became aware of the room, though I was certain my eyes were still closed. It wasn’t snakes or ropes that held me, but plants. Thorny vines clawed at my skin. White roses blossomed before my eyes. Droplets of blood clung like dew against the white petals.

  The cookies I’d eaten for breakfast sank like bricks in my stomach. Thatch sat on the other side of his desk, eyes closed, muttering something under his breath as he waved his wand in the air. Behind him stood a shadow.

  It was hard to make my eyes focus on the man-shaped form behind him. He was little more than a translucent shadow, vague and blurred. I saw the figure better out of the corner of my eye, like the painting of Loraline in the hallway. He leaned closer to Thatch, whispering something in his ear. Thatch chanted. Light from his wand drifted into the man, making him stronger, greener, more whole.

  My heart pounded. Was Julian’s spirit controlling Thatch? Influencing him to give him magic and power? Or was his ghost conspiring with my teacher?

  The shadow solidified, green moss and lichen hanging off his body. His face was made of rotting wood. Ferns and grass sprouted from his hair. He unbent his curled spine, looming higher than Thatch at his full height. A centipede crawled out of his decaying mouth. He was as monstrous as the last time I’d seen him.

  I knew where this was going.

  Julian Thistledown’s voice came out as a raspy hiss, the sound of wood scraping against wood in a windstorm. “Miss me?”

  I screamed and tried to tear free of the chair, but I couldn’t. The vines tightened around my limbs. The thorns of the roses gouged into my flesh. My muscles shook with fatigue.

  Julian stepped forward, leisurely,
drawing out each step. I screamed and continued to struggle.

  “You didn’t truly think you could kill me, did you?” The rotting skin of his face stretched into a hideous grin.

  He stroked my cheek with a hand made from the gnarled roots of trees. “This time there’s no escaping me.”

  “You’re dead. You’re a figment of my imagination. Go away.” He couldn’t be back. This wasn’t real. It was part of the fear magic my subconscious manifested in the chair, I told myself.

  I tried to take slow yoga breaths, but fear squeezed my chest like a vice, and I only managed shallow pants.

  “Miss Lawrence,” Thatch said. “Control your affinity. You are dangerously close to harming yourself with your magic.”

  “Help me. Please, don’t let him do this to me again.” Sobs bubbled out of me, making my words unintelligible.

  “Focus,” Thatch said. “Face your fears and conquer them.”

  Julian’s rough wooden fingers scraped against my face. Thorns dragged against my flesh, simultaneously biting and sensual. I hated how he had used magic to control me—my own magic.

  I tried to focus on my affinity, to soothe the red ball of energy roiling in my core. I needed to ignore my fears, to push away physical sensations.

  “Go ahead. Conquer your fears,” Julian whispered against my ear, his breath rancid and warm. “It won’t make any difference. I already have you.” His lips inched toward mine.

  I shook my head and leaned my face away from him.

  “No matter what you do or what you learn, no matter how strong you are, I will always have an advantage over you.” Julian grazed his lips against my neck. “I know your weakness. Even in death, I can make you want me.”