A Handful of Hexes Read online

Derrick had made this. Thatch had denied knowing anything about Derrick on multiple occasions, but I knew my friend was somewhere in this realm. If I asked Thatch again about Derrick, he would probably tell me to focus on improving my magic so it wouldn’t go haywire when I kissed Derrick again. The last thing I wanted to do was accidentally electrocute my high school sweetheart.

  Someday he and I would be reunited. Just not yet.

  One edge of the paper was ragged and torn. Had the drawing been ripped out of the book? I folded the page and pocketed it in my polka-dot cardigan. The outside of the book was unadorned except for a label made of runes.

  No one had written his or her name inside the cover. The following page was blank except for a message scribbled across the white expanse:

  Clarissa, I hope this helps you find the answers you’re looking for.

  There was no signature. The handwriting looked like Derrick’s—or what I thought I remembered his to look like—but it had been so long since we’d passed notes to each other. Perhaps I only wanted it to look like Derrick’s handwriting.

  Flickers of green and purple light danced under my fingers, momentarily resembling the runes on the cover before disappearing. The paper felt like the same high-quality material as the drawing. I flipped through the pages, finding the place the drawing had been torn from the book at the end.

  I turned back to the beginning, hoping to find more art, but there was none. Instead I found another inscription. Written in fancy calligraphy on the cover page were the words:

  The Fae Fertility Paradox

  by Alouette Loraline

  I gasped, dropping the book to the floor. How had this book gotten here? With Derrick’s art torn from it, no less? I picked it up, glancing over my shoulder to make sure Thatch wasn’t near. There was no way he was going to allow me to keep this book. He’d been trying to keep everything about my biological mother secret from me, especially the research she’d been doing.

  Thatch wasn’t anywhere in sight, thankfully. I flipped through the pages, marveling at the treasure I’d found. Each page flickered with letters made of light before fading. The only page that wasn’t blank was the first one with the title.

  I drank in the heading once again. This was my biological mother’s handwriting. I smoothed my fingers over the swirling loops of the cursive letters. Had she written this before she’d turned to the dark side? I’d never owned anything that had belonged to her before. I laughed out loud in excitement.

  If this was Derrick’s drawing and his handwriting, that meant he was the one who had left it here for me. But if that was the case, why hadn’t he handed it to me himself? Where was he? I yearned to see him again.

  “What’s that you have there?” Josie asked from behind me.

  I closed the book before she could get a look. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Josie not to tell Thatch or the principal on me, though she might slip and tell Khaba, our dean of discipline. If he knew, he would tell Jeb or Thatch, and they would take the journal away. Those were good reasons to keep it secret.

  More than that, I didn’t want Josie to think I was evil like Alouette Loraline. That’s what they said about her, anyway. Even so, I held on to the hope that maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe everyone had been mistaken. It wasn’t like I had met her and had firsthand knowledge.

  Josie’s eyes fell on the leather cover.

  “It looks like it’s an art journal.” I smiled, the lie tasting wrong on my lips. “I’ll bring it to my classroom to return it to the student later.”

  She shrugged. I didn’t like lying to my best friend, but Thatch had been specific about not telling anyone about my affinity, not even Josie. It seemed like my fairy godmother would have figured something out when she adopted me, but she didn’t know the details. The Red affinity and the Fae Fertility Paradox, another taboo topic, were connected.

  Probably one of the kids had stolen the book from the restricted section of the library. Either that, or it had come from Jeb’s collection of forbidden books. Dean Khaba had never said what had been stolen from Jeb’s bookcase earlier in the quarter during the break-in.

  Had it been this book?

  I made my way back to my classroom, forcing myself to walk slowly and not look guilty. I couldn’t allow Thatch to find out about this book.

  Which is why I had to hide it and keep this secret to myself.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Spell-Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself

  My first task involved a way to hide the book from Thatch. He never went into my dorm room, but Vega might find it there. He was always skulking up to my room through the passage that went by my closet, so the closet was out. If only I had an invisibility cloak. Or even an invisibility hoodie like my students used to get up to mischief. Maybe Khaba had confiscated one.

  I stashed the book in my desk drawer under a stack of papers, praying Thatch wouldn’t find it while I left it unattended. Then I went to Khaba’s office. Fortunately, he was in. Through the window in the door I saw him with his feet kicked up on his desk. The light from the chandelier danced over his bald head and shimmered over the pectoral muscles revealed under his zebra-print shirt. He laughed and said something as if he were talking to someone, but I didn’t see anyone in his office. I knocked, and he waved.

  I opened the door and strode into a pink office that looked like it had been decorated by Barbie. “Is now an okay time? I have a favor to ask.”

  “I hope you’re prepared to rub my lamp.” Khaba’s voice was deep and sultry, the accent not quite African or Middle Eastern but something I couldn’t place.

  “It isn’t a magical favor,” I said quickly.

  He winked at me. “Honey, everything’s a magical favor when it comes to me.” His gaze shifted to the chair. “Are we done discussing security for tonight?”

  It took me a second to realize he wasn’t talking to me.

  “Invismo?” Khaba sighed and shook his head. “That’s the problem with an invisible man. You never know when he’s left the room.”

  Khaba had mentioned once before that we had an invisible man on staff—whom Vega implied was a pervert who watched us while we showered. I truly hoped that wasn’t the case. For one thing, I didn’t want to have to deal with another lecherous staff member. For another, I didn’t want anyone spying on me and discovering my affinity—or that I’d found a book I shouldn’t have in my possession.

  I patted the seat to be sure no one was there. Finding it vacant, I sat down.

  I knew how Khaba could be about wishes. I had to make sure I asked for something related to school business. “I need a way to hide some art supplies students keep getting into. I wondered if you had confiscated any invisibility hoodies.”

  “I sure have. I just confiscated one this morning from your best friend, Hailey Achilles.” He laughed at his joke.

  Hailey Achilles was not my best anything.

  He drummed his fingers on the desk. It was the same deep sandalwood tone as his skin. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer a spell on the supplies themselves?”

  I hesitated, scavenging my brain for a logical reason I didn’t want a spell—other than the fact that I was trying to hide my actual intentions. “Since I might change the location of where I want to hide the supplies and the exact supplies I want to hide themselves, just something I can throw across some books or wrap my most expensive colored pencils in would be ideal.”

  “Good call.” He retrieved something that looked like plastic wrap from a hot-pink file cabinet decorated with rainbow unicorn magnets. “Now, in exchange for this favor, you get the privilege of rubbing my lamp.”

  After I’d finished giving Khaba a foot massage, I would have loved to sit down and read about the Fae Fertility Paradox in the diary, but I had little enough time as it was. I retrieved the book from my classroom, wrapped it up, and placed it among the cobwebs under my bed. From there, I rushed to the courtyard where bagged sandwiches and mu
shy apples were being handed out for dinner, hurried back to my room to change into a nice dress, and got ready for the Halloween open house.

  At six, families and locals trickled into the great hall. For the first hour, parents wandered around with their students, admiring the displays. I recognized some of the community members from Lachlan Falls as they spoke with staff members. At seven, the talent show started. Because there weren’t enough chairs, I stood against the wall with the other teachers.

  I found a spot close enough to get an unobstructed view of the show. Josie elbowed her way past Thatch, who gave her a dirty look, and stood beside me.

  The school’s orchestra played a classical version of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” under Jasper Jang’s conducting. Celestors team students assembled on the dais at the front of the room. The ceiling changed to a starlit sky with a luminous moon. Out of four hundred students, the Celestor team only contained about fifty members. Star magic was a minority compared to the earthier magics.

  In one of the many books Thatch had made me read, I had learned that Celestors specialized in divination, wards and protective spells, mindreading, psychometry, telekinesis, and lucid dreaming. I thought of Celestors as the science-fiction psychics of the school.

  A group of a dozen dancers lined up on the stage. The teenagers all wore purple and yellow, the Celestor team colors. The girls’ tutus sparkled with glitter—or magic—making them resemble the cosmos that fueled their affinity. Hidden in the group of fidgeting high school students stood Imani Washington. As far as I knew, she was the only other Red besides Thatch and me.

  Only, Imani didn’t know what she was.

  A tall boy next to Imani leaned down to whisper something in her ear. Her dark skin flushed pink and she smiled. From the way she kept glancing at him, it was obvious she had a crush on him.

  I leaned toward Josie, smiling. “This is so exciting. I know four of those students on the stage.”

  She winked. “You’re about to be wowed.”

  I wondered if Imani danced because she was good at it, or because she had been relegated to this task since she had come into her affinity late and hadn’t yet mastered the ability to do actual magic. I supposed I would find out.

  Classical music started up. The students held hands and closed their eyes. The dancers’ right feet swished from side to side in a slow shuffle, and then their left made circles. As they did so, the students levitated up to the dome-shaped ceiling, growing smaller and more starlike as the great hall dimmed. Celestor magic washed over me, befuddling my senses. I tasted starlight and smelled the sweet fragrance of music.

  The dancers twirled and glowed, shining in the cosmos above. They spread into a representation of planets circling the sun and shifted into the formation of constellations I vaguely recognized. Comets chased stars, and planets were born. I forgot I was seeing an illusion of students choreographed in a dance. It felt like I had been sucked into a show at the planetarium. I stared in awe.

  One of the stars grew brighter than the rest, her light more feminine and graceful. There was no logical way I should have known which dancer was Imani, but somehow I did. Her light twinkled pink and then red. The other eleven stars remained white.

  I suspected the change in color was a bad sign, considering how teachers and students alike had reacted in shock earlier in the term when the affinity-testing fire had briefly turned red.

  Imani circled around another star, the two of them burning brighter. The pace of their dance no longer matched the music. Their orbit was too fast and frenzied.

  Thatch had previously hidden Imani’s Red affinity by making it look white during the affinity-fire test. If he was trying to disguise what she was now, he was doing a craptacular job.

  The magic in the great hall swelled so thick I felt as though I could swim in it. The music stopped. In the sudden quiet, I was aware of my breath, the sound shallow and ragged.

  A man’s voice muttered, “Merlin’s balls.” That British accent sounded like Thatch.

  The stars swarmed in a frantic dance, so high above us they resembled fireflies more than students. At any moment they looked as though they might collide.

  Imani’s light shifted from red to orange to yellow. Warm colors transitioned to cool colors. For a moment, I thought this might be an improvement. Maybe Thatch was helping her. Unexpectedly, her light flickered in short vibrant bursts. It was like the first day when she’d walked through the sorting fire and it had become a strobe rainbow.

  People murmured and shifted but it was too dark to see what was happening anywhere except above us. Coach Kutchi shouted out a spell. A quieter voice, Thatch perhaps, chanted along with her. It became harder to hear who was muttering magic incantations with the new voices talking over them. Somewhere nearby a girl cried out in fear.

  The students descended from the ceiling, still as bright as miniature suns, but their bodies were visible and their shapes clearer.

  The lights from the chandeliers and sconces flickered to life.

  Imani and the boy who had whispered to her earlier spiraled in a dance above everyone, their bodies frozen like statues. Imani stood on tiptoe, locked in a pirouette, her leg lifted, while the young man leaned forward in a graceful bow, his fingertips grazing her arm as he circled around her. Terror played across their faces. Now that the group of dancers had settled onto the dais, it was obvious the rainbows of doom came from one of them.

  Poor kid. Imani already had enough problems. She didn’t need people to treat her like she was a freak.

  I desperately wanted to do something for her. Anything. But I didn’t know how to use magic. I didn’t know how to protect her from her affinity or save her from the people who might figure out what she was and use her.

  I shoved my way closer to the dais. I couldn’t see Thatch with all the tall people now standing and blocking my view of where I’d seen him previously. Celestor performers fled off the stage. People sitting in the rows closest also leapt back, as did the musicians off to the side. The cries of people drowned out the buzzing notes of spell work. People jostled against me in their hurry to get away. It took me another few seconds to get close enough to the stage to see why.

  The flashes of rainbow turned into beams of light shooting out from Imani and her dance partner in short bursts, the dashes reminding me of TIE fighters’ laser fire from Star Wars, complete with pew-pew-pew sound effects. Someone screamed.

  I prayed no one had been shot with some kind of magical laser beam.

  The nearest staff and some of the other adults rushed forward, waving their wands in the air. They made a grid of glowing lines that separated the stage from the audience. I shouldered my way through the crowd, hoping I wasn’t about to get in over my head again.

  Thatch, Coach Kutchi, and Professor Bluehorse remained on the other side of the shield, still trying to stop the dancers. Imani and her partner slowed enough in their spiral around each other that Thatch was able to snag the boy’s arm. He yanked the teen out of the orbit he made around Imani and threw him off stage.

  Imani remained on the dais, pirouetting on one foot, the other extended into the air. The expression on her face reflected her anguish. Now that there was only one student on the stage, it became more obvious the rainbows came from her. It wasn’t so different from my Oregon Country Fair experience the summer before when the rainbows shot out from under my skirt. She was spared a magically glowing vagina at least.

  While I’d been at the fair, no one had known that a Red affinity could create rainbows, so I could only hope no one figured out what Imani was from that either.

  A ball of white light shot out of Thatch’s wand, exploding against Imani. The rainbows immediately stopped. She collapsed to her knees, crying and hugging herself. There was only one thing that stopped the sensual pleasure of my magic, and that was pain. I hoped he hadn’t hurt her.

  From the way she was bawling, it was hard to tell if her tears were from in
jury or fear. I plowed into people like a miniature bulldozer as I shoved my way to the stage. The shield of magic separating the crowd from Imani was now gone.

  The principal stepped onto the dais, his staff raised. Thatch crouched on the stage beside Imani. People scrambled every which way. Parents rushed forward, trying to reach their children who had been part of the show. A blue light flashed from Jeb’s wand. The roar of the crowd instantly silenced, as if they had been put on mute.

  Jeb’s voice boomed across the silence of the round hall. “I reckon you ain’t never seen a show quite like that before.”

  A few nervous laughs broke the silence. A mob of teachers and students blocked the stairs up to the dais. I worked my way around them.

  Jeb leaned against his staff. “It wouldn’t be All Hallows’ Eve without some big ol’ scary surprises. As they say, this is the night when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest. We gotta put up with a few spooky shows of magic now and again.”

  I caught a glimpse of Imani running off the stage. Thatch stood and turned toward me. His eyes locked on me, and he nodded at the door where she had exited. It was uncanny how he picked me out of a crowd so easily. Probably he made a point of knowing where I was at all times, considering my track record.

  Jeb continued talking to the crowd, soothing them with a few jokes and probably some kind of calming magic. His Celestor power must have been mind control because people started to seat themselves again.

  Imani had left through one of the arches to the left of the stage. I elbowed my way over to that exit. Once I was out in the hall, I ran toward the end, eyeing tapestries and closed doors.

  “Imani!” I called.

  The corridor was empty of parents. I passed a twist in the ancient hall that transitioned into a turn-of-the-century brick hallway. Halfway down, I spotted a teenager with green skin and black hair threaded with vines and leaves running toward the girls’ restroom. I was pretty sure the girl’s name was Grogda, but Imani called her Greenie.

  I chased after Imani’s friend, finding her inside the restroom a moment later. She stood outside the stall in the corner.