Reading, Writing and Necromancy Page 15

  I held my tongue. Now was not the time to boast that Derrick found me attractive.

  She turned the paper over. “Where are the instructions?”

  “He didn’t give them to me.”

  “That’s probably for the best. Whatever this potion does, it isn’t meant for an unskilled Amni Plandai.” She looked me up and down.

  “Do you mean me?” I asked.

  “Duh. Aren’t you an Amni Plandai without any training?”

  I looked her straight in the eye, trying not to flinch as I lied. “I don’t know. My affinity hasn’t been tested. Or sorted.”

  She studied me thoughtfully. She didn’t bring up the time electricity had crackled under my skin, and I’d almost shot lightning out at her, but maybe she underestimated what I was capable of.

  “Everyone always implies you have some kind of fertility affinity—nymph or siren from the way Jeb went on about not allowing dating because sexual energies might release your powers.” Her gaze lingered on my small chest. “I suppose you’d be a little more to look at if you were descended from a fertility goddess. Gertrude, now she’s obvious. In any case, you aren’t a siren. Certainly not a Celestor.”

  I tried to redirect her attention back to the list. “So you can’t tell what the spell is for?”

  “Something big. It will require top-notch skill and the ability to harness an incredible amount of energy. I’m sure I could do it—whatever it is. It might take twenty Josie Kimuras to do a spell like this. Probably fifty fleabag sasquatches. A hundred of you.”

  She strode to her bookshelf, leafing through a dusty tome. She rifled through the pages. “Of course, a coven of Amni Plandai would probably use a spell like this for something paltry like saving a rainforest or healing an aging dragon’s liver.” She skimmed the book. “Unicorn horn is for healing—obviously. The dragon egg contains powerful properties against venom, plagues, and hexes. The virgin’s blood is typically restorative. It could be a fountain of youth spell.” She smoothed a hand over the flawless skin of her cheek. “Did Gertrude use this spell recently? I wouldn’t mind clearing up a few wrinkles myself.”

  “Miss Periwinkle didn’t have this list or any fancy ingredients. I think she might have used an anti-glamour spell.”

  She held out her hand. “Let me see it again.”

  I handed it over. Vega waved her wand over the paper and incanted in another language. The words of the spell floated up from the page, shifting and rearranging themselves in a complicated dance. The air tasted like cinnamon and starlight.

  She waved a hand over her books on the shelves. The volumes glowed. Words drifted out of the pages in different fonts and colors. Words in the other texts that matched my ingredient list glowed in vivid purple. Vega pushed one set of words aside and waved another away. Spells with bat dung, Tanacetum parthenium—feverfew, unicorn horn, and dragon’s egg spiraled into the air. Not all the spells contained matching words. She flicked them away.

  I understood what she was doing. It was a keyword search. She was trying to find a match for the potion. This was way better than an index or a card catalog.

  “Wow,” I said, breathlessly watching the grace and beauty of Vega’s magic.

  Her spell was amazingly beautiful. It reminded me of Miss Periwinkle’s reading chair with all the words scrolling by.

  “It’s a simple summoning charm to find a selection of text,” she said.

  The words from the books faded away like forgotten dreams upon waking.

  “It appears I don’t have this potion in any of my books.”

  “Oh,” I said. Another dead end. I thought of Thatch’s spell to examine other books remotely. “Can you look in the library? Or in Thatch’s books?”

  She sat on her bed. “I suppose I could go to the library and see if the spells in one of those books might match.” She raised an eyebrow in challenge. “But it will cost you more than this week’s duties.”

  “How much?”

  “I figure about five minutes of my time doing this is worth about one hour of your time doing a duty. We’ll see how long it takes us. I’ll help you with this spell tomorrow after school.” She stood, opened her hand, and the paper clips from the desk leapt onto her palm. “Until then, I have papers to grade.”

  Wow. I had convinced Vega to help me. As far as selling my soul to the devil went, this could have been worse. I didn’t know if anything would come of this, but I felt better I was trying to help Derrick in the only way I knew how.

  Vega paused at the door. “By the way, you can start covering my dinner duty tomorrow. You’re welcome.”

  Khaba was next on my list to visit again. I stopped by at seven in the evening, but he wasn’t in his office. I went to Josie’s room and asked her if she knew where he was. She sat on her bed, knitting.

  “I think Jeb scheduled a meeting with Khaba.”

  “Was it about students going missing?” Or Derrick?

  “He didn’t say. I just hope it wasn’t about Jeb losing answer keys again.” She retrieved Thatch’s pants from her table in the corner. The seam had been repaired, either by magic or by Josie’s flawless sewing skills.

  “Thank you! They look exactly the same as when I borrowed them.”

  “No problem.” She shrugged. “It’s up to you to get this back to his room. That’s the true test.”

  I had an idea that didn’t involve getting caught by Miss Periwinkle this time. I hoped to slip them into my laundry bushel with a note that said these were Thatch’s pants, and I had gotten them by mistake. If I was lucky, the brownies would return them to his closet for me.

  I showed up at Khaba’s office after Art Club on Friday. I was supposed to meet with Vega to go to the library and research that spell, but I’d left her a note to let her know I had business with Khaba first. I hoped he would be ready to go to Lachlan Falls.

  “Any word?” I asked.

  “No.” He stood up from his desk. “And we’re going now, before someone sends me another student in need of disciplinary action.”

  “To Lachlan Falls?” I was so hopeful and excited my words came out as a shout. I lowered my voice. “To look for Derrick?”

  He nodded. “I don’t want us out after dark. The Raven Court isn’t supposed to do any snatching in the Unseen Realm, not unless someone violates a law. But their powers are strongest at night. I don’t want them to lure us into a trap.”

  I nodded, following him out like a puppy. Sooner was fine. He closed the door to his office behind us. The lock clicked into place, even without using a key. He snapped his fingers. A sign on the door appeared that said, “Out on an errand.”

  We walked out of the school and along the path to the back, toward the forest. Up ahead of us a figure stood at the edge of the forest next to the path that led to Lachlan Falls. From the flowing robes and gray hair, I suspected it was Sebastian Reade. He kept turning back over his shoulder and glancing around.

  “Look at this guy,” Khaba said. “He thinks he’s being sneaky.” He shook his head. “He would draw less attention to himself if he didn’t act so guilty.”

  My breath came out in white clouds as it met the frigid air. “What do you think he’s done?”

  “Internet café. Either he’s coming or going. ” Khaba grimaced in disgust. “If he wants to diminish his powers by going in there, fine. But if he can’t act inconspicuous, the least he could do is put on an invisibility suit so he doesn’t draw the students’ attention.”

  I wondered if Josie and I acted guilty when we went to Happy Hal’s. By the time we made it to the woods, the foreign language teacher had ducked into the trees out of sight. The air smelled of wet earth and decaying plants. Daylight peeked through the boughs of trees, but the shadows swallowed us as we traveled under thick patches of leaves.

  Khaba prodded me. “Walk faster. I want us to arrive in fifteen minutes. We’ll poke around for half an hour so we can walk back before sunset.”
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br />   “Do you think we’ll encounter any emissaries of the Raven Court in the forest?”

  “Our grounds are warded. It’s unlikely, but not impossible.”

  At four thirty in the afternoon, the sky was already darkening, with gloomy clouds covering the sun. I wished I had brought more than a sweater to wear, but Khaba’s powerwalking kept me warm.

  “Do you have a plan?” Khaba asked.

  “I just figured I would ask the proprietors of shops if they had seen a boy with blue hair.”

  Khaba smiled and rolled his eyes.

  “What?”

  “Derrick isn’t a boy. He’s a man.”

  I laughed. “I forget he isn’t in high school anymore. I know that’s stupid. He’s older than I am.” I thought of Derrick’s twinkling cerulean eyes and easy smile. “I thought I would never see him again. Just when we’re reunited, he disappears again. He’s only been gone five days, and I miss him more than before.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll find him.” Khaba patted me on the shoulder. “Now that I have a reliable security guard who doesn’t sleep on the job, eat all my sweets, or keep the students’ cell phones, I am not allowing him to escape. Derrick is all mine. Mwah-ha-ha-ha!” He winked at me. His humor lightened the mood.

  “Not all yours,” I said. “You’re going to have to learn to share him with me.”

  “Not Vega? Doesn’t she have dibs on him?”

  I stared at him in shock. “How did you know?”

  Something rustled in the bushes, and I stiffened, on guard that it might be the Raven Queen herself. A squirrel wiggled out of the foliage.

  “She informed me.” He stroked his chin. “Wouldn’t it be amusing if we went back to the school and found him in Vega’s coffin.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.” I didn’t want to think about him in any coffin. I wanted to imagine him alive and healthy.

  We soon reached the end of the forest path. The route to the town through the meadow was clear. We stopped at Ye Green Grocery first. Khaba stocked up on candy as I asked Clarence Greenpine, the proprietor, if he had seen a man with blue hair earlier in the week.

  The old man removed his Lennon-style sunglasses and squinted at me. “As a matter of fact, a young man fitting that description did stop by and bought some chocolates. He came in asking if I knew where he could find invisibility pants. I suggested he go over to Tartan, Stripes, and More the next street over to see if they had any invisible fabrics.”

  “That’s great!” I said.

  “Can I interest you in some granola? It will cleanse your aura.” Clarence escorted me over to the granola bins. His magic was subtle, the maple flavor of the charm he used to persuade me camouflaged by the nutty smells in the bulk aisle. All his granola was majestic and tempting, even without his Jedi mind tricks. I could have resisted buying granola, I told myself. But I didn’t want to. I purchased one bag for myself and one of the special “Hempseed and More” granolas for the brownies as the obligatory thank-you gift for doing laundry.

  Khaba took longer perusing the candy aisle than my mother at a garden sale. He only bought a few pounds of candies, unlike the first time I’d shopped with him. He carried the bag under his arm. “Where to next, honey?”

  I told him. We tried Tartan, Stripes, and More. It was a shop that specialized in men’s attire. I asked the pixieish blonde girl behind the counter if she had seen a young man with blue hair, possibly asking about invisibility pants.

  “How could I forget that hottie!” she said.

  For once, Derrick’s blue hair was coming in handy. People remembered him. This was going better than I’d expected.

  Khaba perused the racks of clothes. He started flirting with a red-haired man in a kilt. By now I’d gathered Khaba had a thing for men with elf ears and red hair in addition to kilty pleasures.

  “Do you carry invisibility pants?” I asked the clerk.

  “Invisibility kilts.” She excitedly showed me a rack that appeared to be filled with empty hangers. She smoothed her hand over something, as if there was actual fabric there. “Feel the weave on this one.”

  “That’s okay. I just wanted you to tell me if he had purchased a kilt or if he said he needed pants and where he might have gone from here.”

  “He bought a kilt, but he said he wanted to get pants too. We special-ordered them for him. The pants will be in next week.”

  “Where did he go from here?”

  “I don’t know. Do you want to see our line of invisibility socks?”

  “Sorry, we can’t see them,” Khaba said, a little smirk on his face. He snagged me by the elbow and pulled me over to the corner. “The handsome young man I was just talking to told me someone he was talking to saw Derrick go into Happy Hal’s.”

  The young man lingered near a rack of tartan kilts, pretending he wasn’t listening, but he kept sneaking glances at us.

  I lowered my voice. “He just happened to know someone who saw Derrick?” It sounded sketchy, the kind of trap the Raven Court would set up.

  Khaba ignored the comment. “I’m taking you to the Internet café to do some more investigating.”

  “Okay.”

  “It isn’t ideal,” Khaba said. “Electricity weakens my powers. You’ll be going in without me.”

  His new friend continued to walk with us to the Internet café. Khaba escorted me to the front door. He peeked inside, though he wouldn’t enter. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes to ask questions. Do not use electricity and weaken your powers. Understand?”

  I sighed dejectedly.

  Khaba’s friend smiled at him and leaned closer to whisper something in his ear.

  Khaba winked at the man. His expression became stern again when he looked at me. “Twenty minutes. That’s it. Don’t make me wait. It’s important we get back before dark.”

  “I got it.”

  “I’ll just be … um … .” He smiled at his new friend again.

  I grabbed Khaba’s sleeve. “Are you sure this is a good idea? That guy might lure you off and… .” I thought of Khaba’s earlier warnings about the Raven Court.

  “And have his way with me. I know.” He laughed.

  Khaba would have been a better chaperone if he wasn’t always finding some hottie to rub his lamp.

  The upstairs section of Happy Hal’s contained a few adult patrons I recognized from earlier expeditions into Lachlan Falls, but many of the people sitting around tables were my students. Teenagers turned away and averted gazes. A table of boys slunk down, trying to hide behind their meals. As if I cared that they frequented the café.

  I strode over to the counter.

  Hal sat on a barstool, his vibrant orange hair poking out from underneath his chef’s hat. “What’ll it be, lass?” Before I could even answer, he waved me closer. “You want to use the private room so students don’t see you?”

  “No, I just have a few questions for you. Has a young man about twenty-five years old with blue hair been in here in the last week?”

  He shrugged. “I see lots of lads with various shades of hair come in here, but I don’t remember who I’ve seen, if you catch my meaning.” He raised an eyebrow.

  “He’s a friend of mine. He went missing. I’m not trying to bust him for using the Internet. I just want to know if you saw him in the last five days.”

  He shook his head.

  I didn’t know if that meant he didn’t know or he wouldn’t say. “If you don’t mind, I’m just going to ask around.”

  The way his bushy red eyebrows drew together I could tell he did mind. Before he could answer, I left the counter and maneuvered around the room. I started with the three adults. Two ate dinner together, a couple with butterfly wings attached to their backs. Neither of them had seen Derrick. The shaggy buffalo-like creature eating a shepherd’s pie in the corner grunted and shook his head when I questioned him. I moved on to the students. After five minutes, I ventured downstairs and questioned the st
udents down there. The room was packed.

  Electricity tingled under my skin as I stood among the rows of computers. The air felt charged, like lightning about to strike during a storm. I breathed in the sparks of magic. Being around electricity made me stronger. I didn’t know how Hal got electricity, much less an Internet connection, but somehow he had. Maybe a Red had helped him.

  Even after questioning the downstairs patrons, I was only ten minutes into my allotted time. I considered Khaba with all his rules. He was okay with people breaking the rules so long as it wasn’t obvious. So long as he didn’t know. It was torture leaving the computer lab, but I forced myself to do so.

  I peered out the door. Khaba was nowhere in sight. I still had ten minutes. On a whim, I decided I would use the private room and call my fairy godmother to see if she had seen Derrick or had suggestions for me.

  I returned to Hal and whispered, “Can I purchase ten minutes of Internet? In the private room?”

  He smirked. “I was waiting to see how long before you asked.”

  I paid, and he showed me to the private room. I could only get to it through the kitchen. I still had to go down a flight of stairs. There were two booths. Both were empty. I had expected to see Sebastian Reade, but he might have already left. I logged on to Skype and called my fairy godmother.

  “Hello, sweetie! How are you?” my adoptive mom asked.

  “Fine, but just so you know, I only have eight minutes before the computer turns off.”

  “Are you in an Internet café in the Unseen Realm? Those are such seedy places. You never know what kind of unsavory characters you might find. You be careful, young lady.” Her voice crackled with static. It was going to be one of those Skype sessions.

  “Mom, do you remember Derrick?”

  The silence was filled with buzzing that sounded like a demon language.