Hexes and Exes Read online

  Josie laughed so hard she snorted. She readjusted her black-framed glassed. “You’re so punny.”

  I ignored his remark and Josie’s lack of gaydar. “Will one of you go with me tonight?”

  “Girl, those unicorns are such haters,” Khaba said. “They’ll get one whiff of my sexuality and run.”

  “I’d go with you, but I don’t think he’s going to show up if you bring someone who isn’t a virgin,” Josie said. “I could wait in the bushes and be your lookout.”

  “After he arrives and gives me the egg, you can casually walk out and pretend to be surprised I’m in the forest meeting a unicorn and chew us both out,” I said. “He’ll probably leave the moment you show up.”

  Khaba winked at me. “This would be so fun to watch. You need to tell me all about it later.”

  Josie and I dressed for the chilly weather in layers of clothes and winter jackets. Even with a hat, gloves, and scarf I shivered. I considered using the fire spell I’d learned in Jackie Frost’s class last term, but I worried the wind might blow the flames into my face and I’d burn myself. I resisted the urge to use the flashlight app on my phone. Besides electronics being against school rules, it probably would have scared Bart off. I kept it turned off and hidden in my back pocket. It made me feel safer that I had a weapon against Fae should I need it—even if it would take a moment to boot up.

  We walked to the path nearest the greenhouses in the dark. Bart hadn’t specified which part of the woods, but I figured the path toward Lachlan Falls was good enough. Josie sat on one of the benches just outside the woods, reading a book by wand light. In the trees where it was less windy, I used my fire spell. I didn’t plan on going deep into the forest, but I still wanted light to see my surroundings.

  My feet crunched over dried twigs and brittle leaves as I entered the forest. An echo crunched behind me. I stopped, but the twigs kept breaking. I whirled. No one was there that I could see, but it was dark. The trail opened up behind me onto school grounds, exposing the purple glow of Josie’s wand from where she sat. Her presence nearby made me feel safe.

  Another twig popped.

  “Who’s there?” I said. “Bart?”

  No reply. I wondered if I should have worn white like I had the last two times I’d been in the woods and called the unicorns. Thatch had said my attire had symbolized purity and innocence. Not that I wanted to fuel Bart’s virgin obsession, but I didn’t know if he would find me if I wasn’t dressed for success.

  Wind rustled the trees, branches scraping against the bark above. The cold worked its way under my scarf like ghostly fingers. My flame sputtered out. I closed my eyes, chanting and concentrating on the words. It took a moment for the fire to return, floating just above my gloved hands.

  “Bart!” I called.

  “Yeah, I’m here. Hold your horses.”

  He trotted along the trail from up ahead. His rainbow tail and mane glowed enough that he illuminated the path. “Hello, beautiful.” He nuzzled my neck.

  I stepped aside, putting space between us. “Bart, we need to have a serious talk.”

  “That’s right. Because things are getting serious between us.”

  I held up a hand. “No, you need to listen. You can’t go into the greenhouse ever again. I got in so much trouble today because you disrupted Grandmother Bluehorse’s class—”

  “That shriveled-up prune is just jealous because she isn’t getting any.”

  “Stop right there.” Irritation swelled in me, the dam about to break. “I don’t want to hear you talking about how much sex anyone is getting or not getting. You are obsessed with sex, and I’m not going to listen to it anymore. It makes me uncomfortable, and I don’t like it. You bring it up at inappropriate times like earlier today. You hurt my student’s feelings, and then students started fighting, and I got in trouble.”

  He stared at me with wide eyes. “Oh. Sorry.” He nudged a clump of dirt with his front hoof. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”

  “You need to promise me not to come to the greenhouses again.”

  He hung his head. “Okay. Don’t be mad at me. I’m sorry.”

  It sounded like I had finally gotten through to him. I patted his neck. “You’re forgiven.”

  Someone coughed from the bushes, a hint of skepticism evident. I still saw the light of Josie’s wand through the trees, but maybe she’d left her wand there and ventured closer to keep an eye on me.

  Bart clomped forward, putting himself between me and Josie. “Who goes there?” he asked.

  Josie didn’t answer. I shoved my hands into my coat pockets, trying to keep them warm. “So . . . um. . . .” I didn’t know how to broach the subject of the dragon egg without sounding like I wanted to grab the egg and ditch him. I didn’t want to use him. I still didn’t like that I’d used him before. “So how are the Singing Stallions?”

  “Fine.” He sniffed the air. His ears twitched. “So anyway, how about I take you on an evening ride? I stashed the secret you-know-what someplace safe.”

  I had experienced enough of Bart’s mischief to know better. “I’m not going anywhere. You said you’d bring it. I’ll wait here if you have to go fetch it.”

  “Don’t be like that, Clarissa. I’ll behave.”

  “I’m going to wait here while you get the dragon egg.”

  He sighed dejectedly. “It isn’t very far; it’s just in the bushes over there.” He tossed his head in the direction he’d come.

  I made no move to follow. He trotted back along the trail, nudging the bush with his nose.

  “Bring it here,” I said.

  He stomped on the bush with a hoof. I cringed, imagining all the ways he was about to break that dragon egg.

  “You have hands.” Bart lifted his head. “You could help me out.”

  I jogged down the path, my flame spell extinguishing itself as I concentrated on motor coordination. Bart exuded just enough light to see by. I kneeled in the bushes, feeling around without any luck. I removed my gloves. Twigs and dead leaves poked me.

  “Please tell me there isn’t any poison ivy in these woods,” I said.

  “There isn’t, but there’s poison oak.” He jerked his head up, turning his head from side to side as he eyed the trees.

  He sniffed the air. “Did one of your students follow you? Someone who isn’t a virgin?”

  When I glanced over my shoulder, I couldn’t see the light of Josie’s wand. I didn’t hear her follow, nor see any indication she’d tiptoed after me, but she might have been using magic to see or muffle the sound.

  I pointed to the foliage. “Can you shine your horn over here?”

  Bart dropped his head while I patted a cluster of ferns. “Here’s a little something I wrote to help pass the time.” He clomped his hooves to make a beat and sang “Billie Jean” with as much skill as a professional singer.

  “You didn’t write that. Michael Jackson did.”

  “He sang it, but I wrote the lyrics. Do you truly think a human could come up with such an artistic masterpiece on his own?”

  He was full of horseshit. I thought I heard someone laughing behind us. I wondered why Josie didn’t just reveal herself. Maybe she was going to wait until after he gave me the egg so Bart didn’t change his mind.

  This was taking longer than I had anticipated. Impatiently, I fumbled around in the bushes. My fingers closed around something round and smooth about the size of a basketball. It was lighter than what I would have expected from a dragon egg. Carefully I scooped it up. Crusted with dirt and plastered with dead leaves I discovered it was a basketball. I tossed it aside.

  “Did you actually bring me an egg, or was this a ploy to spend time with me?”

  He coughed. “Um . . . both?” He snuffled at the ground like a dog until he found another mound of ferns. “Okay, for real this time. I think this is where I left it.”

  I crouched at that mound of shadows.

  “Wanna hear another one of my songs?” Bart moved on t
o Sting’s “Desert Rose.” I was glad he’d chosen that rather than “Every Breath You Take.”

  I kneeled and padded through the frills of green lace. “How do you know so much music? You’re kind of isolated out here in the forest.”

  “Unicorns are never isolated. We travel to other space and times through our secret portals. Sometimes other dimensions. My favorite is the one with MTV.”

  “That’s this dimension.”

  “Oh, I guess we’ve been hanging out here for a while then.”

  My fingers encountered a smooth surface. The shape was oval and the size of two fists pressed together. Reverently, I held up a golden egg. It glittered by the light of Bart’s horn. My coat pocket was just big enough for me to slip it inside.

  “Thank you. This is going to help my friend.” I patted Bart’s neck, feeling like he’d earned a reward.

  Bart snorted. “Your friend, the poacher, you mean. He’s probably going to use it for some dark and forbidden curse.”

  “No. Thatch is collecting a bunch of ingredients to cure my friend’s curse.” Too late, I realized I shouldn’t have told him. Thatch didn’t want me telling people about Derrick, but it wasn’t like I’d brought up that it was the Raven Queen who had cursed him.

  “How much is that donkule face going to charge to cure the curse?”

  “Nothing.” I started down the path toward the school. Or at least where I thought the school was. The shadows of the trees were darker than before, and I didn’t see Josie’s light.

  Bart tossed back his rainbow mane. “Are you sure he isn’t going to expect a little quid-pro-quo action? People like him don’t do something nice for nothing. You watch out.”

  “Not everything is about sex.”

  He whinnied and flicked his tail at me. “I didn’t say he was going to ask for a sexual favor, but he’ll want something. Just you wait.”

  The moon and stars hid behind the clouds. Bart wasn’t glowing as brightly. Leaves brushed my face, and I swatted branches away.

  “Clarissa!” Josie called from up ahead. “Clarissa! Where are you?”

  “I’m here,” I called. I picked up the pace.

  She ran to me on the path just outside the forest, ignoring Bart. “I was so worried about you! Where did you go?”

  She was such a good actress!

  Bart turned his nose up at her.

  “Careful,” I said as she hugged me. “I have an egg in my pocket.”

  “You scared me so much. I was ready to get Khaba.” She rounded on Bart. “You’re a very bad unicorn. I thought you’d stolen her away.”

  He snorted and turned his back on her. He flicked his tail in her direction. “We should do this again, Clarissa.” He winked and sauntered into the forest.

  Josie dragged me out of the forest, ranting at me for scaring her.

  I kept laughing. “Good one. Did you use an invisibility spell to follow us?”

  “I didn’t follow you! I’m being serious.”

  “But I heard you behind us. I heard you laugh when Bart said he wrote ‘Billie Jean.’”

  “That wasn’t me. You were taking too long, so I went into the woods to find you. I was afraid you’d been abducted.” She hugged me again, her lacy lavender witch hat falling off as she did so.

  A weight settled in my gut like a large lump of ice. If Josie hadn’t been following me, I wondered who had.

  It wasn’t that late, only eight o’clock. Students still wandered hallways illuminated by candlelit sconces. After I showed Josie the egg in her room, I went down to the dungeon to hand it over to Thatch, but he wasn’t in.

  On the way up from the dungeon, a cold wind whistled through the cracks in the walls, sounding like a ghost. My hair brushed against my face. A stair behind me creaked. I slipped my hand into my back pocket and turned on my cell phone. When I used the cell phone app and shined it in the stairwell, nothing seemed out of place.

  Then I heard the breathing, so close someone could have been right behind me. I whirled, but no one was there. I ran up the stairs. In my clumsiness, I tripped and banged my knees. I moved about as gracefully through the dark as a hippopotamus.

  I made it back to my room, panting. Vega was nowhere in sight. I turned off the phone and set it on the nightstand. Any moment now Vega would be back from wherever she was, and I would feel safe.

  Or as close to safe as one could be in Vega’s presence.

  I unbuttoned my coat and plopped onto my bed. My legs were tired from all the crouching I’d done, and my knees ached from banging them on the stairs when I’d tripped. I inspected my hands for poison oak. Not that I knew how long it would take to react.

  I reached for my phone. It was gone from the nightstand. I whirled. It levitated toward the corner of the room.

  My heart thundering, I leapt toward my phone, crashing into a solid mass. I stumbled, my arms flailing and smacking something. It felt like a person, but no one was there. My phone skittered to the ground. I dove for it. This was my only true weapon against ghosts and Fae.

  I snatched it up. Something plucked it out of my hand.

  A man’s deep voice said, “Excuse me, I need to confiscate this.” He sounded young and American, not at all like what I’d imagined a ghost would sound like. In my nightmares, Julian’s voice as a ghost had been reedy like the wind, insubstantial—but unequivocally evil-sounding. This voice sounded real.

  My phone floated toward the door.

  “No!” I scrambled to my feet. “I need my phone.”

  “That’s what they all say.”

  My phone bobbed in the air away from me. No way was I letting it get away this time. I dove for the phone, colliding with an invisible mass again. I bounced and landed on my behind.

  “Arg!” a man’s voice said. From the thud, it sounded like he had fallen as well. My phone skidded across the floor. I rolled for it and snatched it up. One moment it was in my hands, the next it felt like he’d crawled over me to snatch it away.

  I twisted out from under a knee and jammed my elbow back as hard as I could. It made contact, and he grunted. He dropped the phone.

  I grabbed it and shoved it down my shirt and into my bra with one hand and pushed myself up to my knees with the other. The ghost grabbed onto my coat and yanked me to the floor.

  In the struggle, I fell onto my back. I swung out, my fist thumping into a solid surface that sounded like a chest. I tried to rise, but he pushed me down and flattened himself against me. I struggled to free myself, but it was hard to fight someone you couldn’t see.

  In a few seconds he had my arms pinned to my sides. My breathing was labored, and so was his. His hot breath blew against my forehead. He smelled like Old Spice and laundry detergent, which was majorly weird that Mr. Ghost smelled like something so normal and human. Maybe he wasn’t a ghost at all.

  “Let go of me!” I said.

  It was about then I noticed my affinity inside me churning wildly. Energy pushed around in my core, pressing uncomfortably against my diaphragm and my organs. It had to be all the touching. If he kept this up, I would probably shoot out electricity. I didn’t know if that would be a bad thing.

  He pulled back enough to lift the majority of his weight off of me, but he still kept me pinned down. “Give me the electronic device.”

  “No.” I stared above me, through him. All I could see were the cobwebs on the ceiling.

  “Where did you hide it?” he asked.

  I pressed my lips into a line. He held my wrists in place with one hand. With the other, he fumbled in my coat pockets. He drew his hand out quickly. Yellow slime coated a transparent hand.

  “Ew. What is that?” he asked.

  “Oh no! You broke it!” He’d destroyed the dragon egg. Thatch needed that to cure Derrick. How was I supposed to save Derrick? Tears filled my eyes.

  He wiped his hand against my coat. He rummaged through my other pocket more carefully. His hand must have still been sticky because the shape of a lint-covered hand came
out. He wiped that against my coat too.

  “Tell me where it is, or I’ll use a spell to make you confess all your secrets,” he said.

  This wasn’t fair. I wasn’t going to be able to afford a new iPhone. I’d just replaced the battery. But I didn’t want anyone to know about my other secrets. The more people out there who knew my affinity, the greater the risk that I would be used again.

  He poked my nose. “Where is it?”

  “Somewhere safe.”

  He waited in silence. I swallowed.

  “You’ve got to be pulling my leg.” He shifted and tugged enough of my coat back to expose my pants. “It’s in your underwear, isn’t it?”

  I squirmed and managed to knee him in the leg. “No! Let me get it. It’s not in my pants, it’s in my bra.”

  He grunted. “Fine. Just calm down.” He sighed in exasperation. “Look, I’m not trying to be a perv. I have a job to do. You retrieve the phone, and then you’ll hand it to me.” He released one of my wrists.

  I lowered my arm. I considered giving him my phone. Fighting someone I couldn’t see was a losing battle. At the same time . . . there had to be a reason this phone was important. This . . . ghost . . . had to want it more than simply to make me miserable. Without my phone I was vulnerable to Fae. The only other weapon I had was my affinity, and that would risk exposing what I was.

  “Why are you stealing my phone?” I asked.

  “Confiscate, not steal. It’s part of my job to keep you safe.”

  Part of the job? “Wait, you’re Invismo? The invisible man?” He worked for Khaba. “I’m a teacher, not a student. Why are you doing this to me? Other teachers have phones.”

  Secretly.

  “Not my concern. I’ve been given specific orders. Hand it over.”

  Red energy pulsed inside me, making it difficult to concentrate. If he was a staff member, and he wasn’t trying to kill me, I probably shouldn’t electrocute him with lightning. I fought to calm the affinity inside me.

  Khaba had said the invisible man was his best security guard yet, but he’d been wrong. He’d invaded my privacy. He must have been the one spying on me tonight. Vega was probably right about him peeping on us in the shower!