by E Hall
“Don’t let personal matters interfere with developing your magic. JJ, you of all people, should know this,” West says sternly.
The chancellor briefly instructs me how to block my memories by creating an energetic wall around pockets in my mind: the ones that store embarrassing moments, sweet ones, sad times, and celebrations.
“You’re in charge of your mind and what flows through it. However, you also have access to the thoughts and memories of others if you know the skill using mind-windows. Unless, of course, they’re preventing you from doing so by forming a mind-wall.” He turns to JJ. “Please allow Maija access.”
He levels West with his gaze.
West arches an eyebrow. “Maija, we’re going to practice mind-windows and mind-walls. JJ is going to share a memory with you. Keep your eyes fixed on his and then move past them. You’ll feel currents of energy. Tap into them, like tugging on a thread to see which one is loose. While you’re there, become aware of the fullness of the experience. In other words, discover how he’s allowing you to see the memory and reverse engineer how you’d be able to prevent him from looking into your mind.”
JJ huffs, but our eyes lock—his eyes are the ones that I had the silly thought about getting lost in that first time we met. They’re not just gray but flecked with shades of silver...and sadness. Eyes that have seen more than most people.
I see him but not his memories.
My thoughts fill with the night we first met. I couldn’t sleep because I was up thinking about him and his eyes. I know I’m supposed to be reading his thoughts, but can’t and realize he can read mine. My cheeks burn.
His expression is a pale slate mask, not betraying any emotion or acknowledgment.
I sense that he sees into the corners of my mind—even the shadowed ones with my grandmother’s ghost and my fright in the cemetery.
The bells toll in the distance.
“That’s probably enough for tonight,” West says. He strokes his beard. Perhaps he too saw.
I slouch onto the cushions in the center of the room, feeling exhausted and exposed.
“Please practice together for an hour each night. I’ll inform Miss Mayweather that JJ has permission to go into your dorm room.”
“Boys aren’t allowed in the dorm rooms,” I protest.
“It’s better to do these things in private. Plus you’ll feel more comfortable, perhaps stronger, in a place that’s familiar to you, Maija.” West speaks with finality.
I pout a little. I don’t want JJ in my room. He looks even less pleased with the notion.
When we leave Nightingale, I reluctantly let JJ take my hand again. His palm is cold and stiff, but my cheeks refuse to turn back to their normal shade.
From across the field, Yassi returns from the library with a group of students and the chaperone from the Coven. Questions form on her lips at the sight of us hand in hand and without a chaperone.
In the entryway to Penny House, I beat her to it with an answer. “Seminal seminar.” I focus on this and save questions of my own for later by adding, “And now he and I have to study together. In my room.” I huff upstairs, ready for this night to be over.
When I glance over my shoulder, JJ exits. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he looks crestfallen.
Chapter 26
★
The only upside to life post Ghost Gate (that’s what students have taken to calling it) is the pumpkin pie. Spicy and sweet with a buttery crust and a dollop of fresh cream. Well, I’m anticipating it anyway—in the dining hall and at home for Thanksgiving—if they let us leave. When life throws homework, impossibly frustrating boys, and demons at you, keep calm and eat pie. That’s my motto anyway.
I think about pie and only pie because the rest of life post Ghost Gate only has downsides. Namely, how another week passes with no word that the OMM caught the demons and no developments on who could have broken the circle in the cemetery. Rumors of a secret society infiltrating campus and nightly lessons in my room with JJ crowd my days and nights. In the background, I have worries and doubts about the spell Bobby asked me to say, but I have no idea if he was serious nor have I seen much of him.
Yassi, Audra, Dewey, Winnie, and the others have been covertly meeting up to practice defensive magic. I listen intently and soak it up but don’t dare try. I don’t trust myself.
“It’s unlikely anyone will leave since they canceled Family Fest, which is our autumn event and they’ll probably nix the Sweetheart Dance, which is our winter fun, but if they do allow the Gold and Red Games in the spring, we should be well versed in this kind of magic,” Yassi says.
She and Audra banter back and forth about last year’s games. I’m hardly listening, wrapped up in my thoughts about the fights routinely breaking out on campus.
I’d wanted Bree to hang around our dorm room more often, but now I’m grateful she makes herself scarce. Although there aren’t any recent quarrels—though that could be because a couple of Coven Constabulary are posted throughout campus—, JJ and I are like ferelians and night howls—a magical way of saying like cats and dogs. He thinks I’m not trying hard enough (I didn’t know blocking someone from my memories was going to be a required skill). I think he’s too stubborn, rude, and jerky.
One night when the moon is a sliver in the corner of my window, after I try (and fail) to block him from a dream I had about my vision during the Hallows Eve party, a wave of fatigue comes over me. My breath comes in short gasps as though I’ve been running. I ask, “How long do we have to do this?”
His eyes seize mine. “Forever.” His voice is low. His features sharp. His eyes are bright in their own gray way. We’re facing each other and he takes a step closer to me. We’re less than a foot apart.
“It’s your turn,” he says.
I look away, afraid of what I may or may not see if I glimpse his thoughts. Nonetheless, I bark a laugh when I belatedly realize something absurd. “Did you, JJ Thorne, just tell a joke?” I guffaw. “I think you just made a joke.” My laughter takes on a hysterical quality. Did West fail to caution me of the side effects of having someone probe my brain?
“Forever? Did you say we’ll have to do this forever?”
He doesn’t smile or chuckle or disagree.
My laughter dies between us. Maybe he’s not kidding. I pace in front of him, undeterred. I won’t let him get the best of me. I fold my arms across my chest and when I reach the window, an idea sparks. “Go ahead. Have another look.” I stalk back toward him, resuming our face-off.
He closes the space further.
I lift my chin defiantly. Oh, I’ll show him.
He gazes into my eyes, beyond my thoughts, and into the past.
I let him see a montage of me slipping on a banana peel (yes, actually), the time I found Filbert (my cat) wearing lipstick (not kidding), and when Chelsea and I were at a sushi restaurant and an old lady started singing karaoke to a heavy metal song (she was good, head-banging, air guitar, and all).
He doesn’t crack a smile. Instead, he says, “You’re learning to control your memories. That’s a start.”
“Oh yes, this is only just a start, JJ Thorne. Forever?” I laugh, throwing more funny memories at him, daring him to at least chuckle if the plan is to do this forever or even another minute. I’m done with the grave seriousness. I want to crack that stony exterior and see him smile. Ha!
He doesn’t waver. Doesn’t flinch, not even when all of my friends back home ambushed me with a tickle attack on National Tickle Day.
The only thing that breaks his grim expression is when he sees my memory of blowing out all my candles, making my birthday wish to fall in love this year. Oops. Didn’t mean for him to see that.
He steps toward the door. His eyes are everywhere but on me.
No way. I wasn’t done with him.
I quickly slip between him and the door.
He looks down at me. And looks and looks as though he’s fathoming the stars.
“You don’t g
et to leave until you at least smile or answer my questions.”
“Questions plural?”
We’re a breath apart and it’s like he’s stolen all the air in the room.
I almost detect amusement this time.
“How about one?” he suggests. The way his accent curls over the words makes each one uttered a temptation all its own.
I draw a deep breath—which one? Countless unanswered questions float between us. The one closest to the top in the long list of questions I have for JJ Thorne bursts from my lips. “Why’d you do it? Why’d you rescue me from the demons?”
His eyes hold mine. I see the hint of freckles from summers long passed on his nose. Silver filament sparks in his eyes. Up close, his lips are—I swallow hard.
“Why did I save you from the demons?” he repeats. “I had to.” His voice lacks warmth, but I shouldn’t have expected anything more.
He whirls and leaves.
I listen as his footfalls fade and only exhale when the wooden front door to the dorm slams closed.
Moments later, Yassi fills the entrance to my room. “Did you know that as your socium you can talk to me about anything: classes, homework, boys…”
I throw my hands into the air. “He’s insufferable. He drives me nuts. He’s—”
“Mhmm,” she says, folding her arms in front of her chest.
“How can he just blow around, have free will to go outside unattended while the rest of us have to be escorted by chaperones from the Coven Constabulary, and see into my memories!” I bluster.
“You guys are the opposite. You’re sweet, funny, spunky. He’s—”
“Moody, mysterious, and mean.”
Yassi clicks her tongue. “I was going to say complicated.”
“What do you suppose his magic is?” I ask rhetorically. “Making me crazy or—”
“Something like that,” Yassi says with a sigh.
“West said I have to practice with him every night. I prefer arithmetic with Bobby.” Riptivik’s golden boy fills my thoughts, but a gloomy figure with magnetic gray eyes is there too...and I can’t stop thinking about him.
He’s in my mind and he’s in my dreams—that night, I dream that we’re in the orchard but then keep walking past the trees to the pumpkin patch. The knotted vines crawl along the ground, coming closer. I call out to warn him and try to run away, but my voice is muted. The vines creep closer and closer with each step I take. One wraps around my ankle. I shout and shout and JJ rushes to me, bringing me back to the orchard and safety.
I gaze into his dreamy gray eyes and instead of a glare and anger, I see warmth and want. He inclines his head. I lean in.
The dream dissolves. I wake up, out of breath. Pale dawn light filters through the window. I lay there, tangled up in the sheets, and trying to make sense of what happened.
Does it mean anything that I wish it were true?
Chapter 27
★
Back home, it’s Thanksgiving Day. With an ache in my chest and a hole in my heart roughly the size of a plate filled with stuffing, turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy I miss my family and friends terribly...and food.
After my classes but before dusk, I wander to the woods on the edge of campus. I assume the boundary wall and magical enchantments keeping us in won’t let me stray too far, but I need to be alone. Quiet. I have to admit I’m shellshocked, dizzy from all the changes in my life...and my complicated and confusing feelings for JJ.
I spot a path amidst the evergreen trees stretching proudly skyward. As I walk through the forest, I slowly ground myself in the earthen, pine scent of a place that’s been around for a long time, yet constantly renewing with each season. I feel connected and alive.
A house made of wood and stone, blanketed with moss comes into view. A brook babbles nearby. Colorful leaves carpet the forest floor and the air is fresh, reminding me of JJ. I could do without that thought.
A doormat welcomes me with the message Home is where you hang your broom.
I laugh and forget all about that cool, brooding guy.
Then the door opens and West fills the entry, slamming me right back to the last time I saw him...with JJ. “Hello, Maija. Care for some chamomile tea?”
I hesitate and then step inside, leaving my bag on a bench by the door. As before, the house is a combination of rustic and elegant. There are a lot of wooden, stone, and natural elements, but also gauzy fabrics and dashes of magic everywhere: the throw pillows fluff themselves, a watering can sprinkles water over herbs growing on the windowsill, and dishes shuffle themselves back into place on the shelves.
And JJ sits at the kitchen table. His top hat is beside him, his hair is stylishly messy, and a scowl lifts onto his lips when I enter.
West puts a kettle on to boil over a fire. “I take it you have questions, Maija.”
Yeah. What is JJ doing here? Instead, I say, “Now that you mention it, I do.”
JJ has already seen countless memories so I throw caution to the wind and start at the beginning. I tell the chancellor about growing up not knowing about my magic, the visit from Dina, who turned into a djinn, and then going to the Iron Tower.
West’s expression sharpens. “That’s worrisome.”
Then I tell him about the vision I had at the party before the Hallows Eve ritual. “I’m not like Yassi with her abilities, but can people travel into other people’s dreams?” I subtly eye JJ.
West nods. “Yes, there are fae dreamweavers. It’s a rare kind of magic, though it is a talent distantly related to the kind of sight many nymphs can have. I don’t think that’s at play here.”
“Do dreams actually have meaning?” I sense JJ’s gaze land on me.
“That’s always up to the dreamer. They can mean something if you want them to. Yet sometimes they can be misinterpreted. Same as visions.”
“You mean, visions aren’t always right?” I ask, surprised and relieved in equal measure. I don’t want to be a danger to my friends.
“Nymphs like Yassi can see thoughts in real-time or memories imprinted in time. Seers, in the traditional sense, can portend prophecies but can certainly be wrong. Sometimes dreams are just dreams and not dramas. Visions can be the mind working something through and not have greater meaning. And of course, choices shift the direction of the future all the time.”
The scene of students fleeing for their lives rushes back. I shiver.
“We must work on your blocking abilities. Take out your wand,” West orders.
I hesitantly pull out my wand, wanting to warn him, but I am afraid if he knows, I’ll fail seminal seminar because I’m an incapable witch.
“Please send the teacups to the sink. We need some space for this,” West says.
I cringe, worried I might do it wrong but say the spell. The teacups rattle in their saucers. A newspaper sitting nearby rises and falls, and the pages of numerous books flutter. I focus on the teacup but then JJ’s hat bursts into flame.
West quickly extinguishes it.
My cheeks burn hotter than the hat as ash flutters to the table. Everything moves painfully slow as JJ’s eyes fall on me with accusation.
“I didn’t do it on purpose.”
West takes my broken, wooden wand and inspects it closely. Then he grasps my chin and turns my head from side to side, looking behind each of my ears. All the while, he makes a “Mhmm” sound. Finally, he tests my forehead like my mother used to when I wasn’t feeling well. He looks deeply into my eyes while in my head I chant please don’t tell me I’m a useless wish witch, a hopeless case.
Finally, he speaks. “Witches like you can’t have wooden wands. Where’d you get it?”
“Ms. Storch.” I tell him about what happened in her office and how she shifted into a dragon.
West’s nostrils flare and gets to his feet. “We’ll fix this. JJ, you can come too.”
He leads us from the cottage and along a path away from campus. Eventually, we reach a cluster of rocks as big a two-story bui
lding. There’s a mark in the stone that shimmers with magic and West traces it before pressing his palm to it and grabbing my arm.
JJ clasps my hand and it’s as cold and familiar as ever. Somehow it fits perfectly around mine, but before I can think about it further, there’s a suctioning feeling like a vacuum. Then we’re on the other side of the rock formation. At least I think so.
West holds his finger to his lips and whispers, “Rune of passage. Our little secret. There are a few perks that come with being me.”
An enclave of wooden buildings are built into the stonewalls of a mountain on one side of a wide cobblestone lane. Shops and buildings edge a ravine on the other side.
My jaw drops. “Are we officially off campus?”
JJ’s shoulders relax.
Hope wells inside.
Chapter 28
★
“Welcome to Tippleton,” West says.
We pass shops with sweets (a caramel-covered apple looks especially delicious), woolens (I sure could use a new sweater), and eventually stop in front of a small store that’s only slightly wider than its door frame with a hand-painted sign above that simply says Joiner.
West enters first. We follow into the dimly lit store lined with shelves displaying unusual pieces of wood, precious stones, and other, less identifiable objects.
“Welcome, Winslow,” says a jolly voice, belonging to a slender man.
They exchange pleasantries.
“Are these students from Riptivik Academy?” His white hair is a bit wild, standing on end and his tufty eyebrows stick straight up, giving the impression that he’s perpetually surprised. Either that or all the energy he works with, joining the magic of magicals to their wands, went to his head, literally.
“Riptivik Reform—for now,” West corrects.
“Shame.” The wand joiner hangs his head.
“Like I said, for now,” the chancellor repeats. “We need a wand for a new student. Maija.” He gestures to me.
The joiner looks me over and then does the same series of inspections, including behind my ears that West did in the cottage. The joiner says, “Well, we should get underway then. Stone for sure. I haven’t made a wand for this kind of witch in quite some time.” He disappears to rummage in the back. I look around at the various items in the cubbies until he summons me over.