“I like this,” she said in a throaty tone, her eyes sliding up to meet mine. She moved her other hand from the surfboard, resting it on my thigh, and offered the bracelet back to me. “Would you help me put it on?”
I nodded, unable to speak with her touching me. The pressure of her hand was light through my thick wetsuit, but it was an intimate spot, and I felt my face growing warm.
My fingers brushed against hers as I took back the bracelet. Lowering my gaze to concentrate, I slipped it around her other wrist. I fumbled a little with the tiny clasp for several moments before I finally secured it.
She pulled back, holding her arm up to admire the way it looked with the jewelry. “Thank you,” she murmured. “I wasn’t expecting a present today. I’ve seen you before, but we haven’t been introduced yet. What’s your name?”
“Brie,” was all I could say. I didn’t want questions about my full name, anyway.
“Nice to meet you, Brie. I’m Gabriella.”
I blinked. “Really? That doesn’t sound like a mermaid name,” I blurted out.
Gabriella tilted her head to one side. “What’s a mermaid name? Are we all supposed to have clichés, like Pearl and Marina?”
I shook my head quickly. “Um, no, I guess not. Sorry, it just wasn’t what I expected. I haven’t met a lot of mermaids.”
“It’s okay. It’s a popular name in Mexico, where I was born,” she explained. That must be why she had the accent. She came closer again, folding her arms on the surfboard and resting her chin on top of her arms. “Tell me, Brie, did you just move to the area? I would’ve noticed you here before.”
“Yes. Well, I just started school. I’ve been visiting for years, though.” I took a deep breath of the salty air. “I love Santa Cruz.”
“You go to a school here? Let me guess.” She winked at me. “The witch academy.”
“How did you know?”
“You’ve been marked by a Fae.”
I looked down, but I didn’t see anything. I would have noticed if Loki had left some kind of weird mark on me.
She giggled. “I doubt you can see it, silly. The mark is on your aura, and since I know you didn’t have it last week, I’m guessing you’re new to your powers. Witches need practice to see auras.”
But any other magical creature would be able to tell I was a witch. That wasn’t mentioned in any of my classes yet.
The mention of Fae reminded me why Loki had sent me here. I needed more information about what she was doing here. Hoping I sounded casual, I asked, “You said you were born in Mexico. How long have you been in Santa Cruz?”
“Not long, maybe a few years?” She shrugged. “My family moves around a lot.”
“That must be nice.”
She pulled back. “Not really. It feels like as soon as I get comfortable somewhere, we’re leaving. It’s hard to make friends, too.”
I brushed her hand. “I’m sorry, that does sound tough. I just mean that I’ve had the opposite experience.” I sighed. “My family has lived in the same house in the same little town my whole life. Everyone knows everyone else, including all the mistakes you’ve made or embarrassing stuff your family has done. It’s stifling.”
Gabriella raised her eyebrows. “What kind of embarrassing stuff?”
“Um.” I chewed on my lower lip, trying to think of anything besides the obvious. “One of my moms is a witch, but she’s messed up some of her spells. Like the time she almost got herself and a friend killed in a ghost town.”
She nodded. “It’s a bad idea to mess around with ghosts.”
“I know that, but when my mom was a kid, she and her friends thought the ghost town was a cool place to hang out.” Not that I was doing much better, searching for mermaids at the beach. This had just as much potential to go fatally wrong.
“Things were different back then,” Gabriella said wistfully. “Fewer rules.”
I snapped my mouth shut. No need to tell her how much I knew about the changes in the rules.
“You finally got to move out of the small town, though. And you said you love it here. What’s your favorite part about Santa Cruz?”
“The ocean,” I blurted out without thinking. Ugh, that sounded like I was saying it just to flatter her. “I mean, I like coming to the beach so I can surf. My hometown is inland, hours away from the ocean. If I had the time, I would come down here every day.”
Gabriella smiled. “I love the beach, too. It’s where our two worlds meet.”
“Can I meet you here again?”
“I’d like that.” Gabriella took my hand and squeezed it. “Any time you say your little summoning spell by the water, I’ll hear you. The only thing is you have to promise not to tell anyone about me.” She frowned, gazing at me with a serious expression. “This has to be a secret.”
I paused, thinking about how I could phrase my promise so I would make her happy but give myself enough wiggle room to report back to Loki. Any oath was binding to a magic user, and I had to be careful about what I said now that I had powers of my own.
Finally, I said, “I won’t tell any humans that I saw a mermaid.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Not just humans.”
Oh, great, she caught that. I swallowed, searching rapidly for a solution. “I won’t tell anyone about you,” I said, repeating her own phrasing, but I put a slight emphasis on the last word. That would allow me to talk about mermaids in Santa Cruz in general, just not her specifically. I wanted to keep the details about my interactions with Gabriella private, anyway. Loki didn’t need to know about things like how my whole body was tingling right now while she held my hand.
Gabriella smiled again and let go of my hand. “Thank you.” She let go of my board and swam backwards, with her head above the surface to maintain eye contact. “I have to go now, but I look forward to seeing you again, Brie.”
“Me, too.” I waved.
She lifted her hand in a wave, then put two fingers up in a peace sign. It was like a special signal between us.
I returned the gesture and watched as she dove under the water. It would take hours before my heart rate slowed down. Being around her made me excited, nervous, happy, and confused all at the same time. Man, I was falling hard.
At least I could work out my energy by surfing. I paddled my board back to where the waves were curling toward the shore and prepared to catch the next one. Other people had come onto the beach by now, and a few joined me in the water. I let myself get lost in the rhythm of the movements, but I kept picturing Gabriella long after she was gone.
I couldn’t wait until the next time I saw her.
When I came back to campus, I still had a big, dumb grin on my face. I felt like I was walking on a cloud.
After cleaning up and putting away my board, I met Damian in the dining hall for lunch.
“You’re in a good mood,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “I think this is the first time I’ve seen you smile all week. Did something happen at the beach?”
I shrugged. “Just had a fun time surfing. I had the place to myself for the first hour.”
He snorted. “I know you don’t get that worked up over surfing, no matter how good it was.” He leaned closer. “C’mon, you can tell me. Did you see a hottie in a bikini or something?”
“It’s too cold for bikinis,” I pointed out.
“It’s too cold to swim in a bikini,” he corrected. “But there’s always a girl who just wants to lay down and work on her tan.” He glanced around the dining hall at the other tables. “Girls like Samantha?”
I frowned. “My roommate slept in, so no, she wasn’t at the beach. Besides, it was windy, so there wasn’t anyone sunbathing.”
Damian sighed and slumped back in his chair. “Fine, don’t tell me. I don’t want to ruin your good mood.” He took a bite of his pasta salad, then spoke with his mouth full of noodles. “It’s about time we went clubbing downtown. Are you free tonight?”
“We’re too young to go clubbing, and before you ask, I am not
buying a fake ID.” I pointed to the school’s magitek tracker bracelet. “The teachers would know where we went.”
“Not too young for The Catalyst,” Damian said with a twinkle in his eye. He pulled out his phone and showed me a concert schedule. “See, some of their shows are sixteen and up. You gotta wear a special wristband so you can’t buy alcohol, but you can get in tonight.”
I squinted at the website. Someone had designed it with gray text on a black background, which made it hard to read, but he was right that it was labeled a 16+ event. “That’s cool, I guess.” The picture of the band meant nothing to me. “Do you know the band who is performing? Are they any good?”
“Who knows?” Damian said with a shrug. “It says they’re a California Roots-Rock-Reggae band, whatever that means. But the important thing is we can put on something more interesting than these plaid uniforms and go shake our tails.”
“It took me most of the week to recover from the last time we were ‘shaking our tails,’” I pointed out, but I smiled. It did sound like fun, and I welcomed any excuse to get out of the school. “Also, the show starts at nine. Don’t forget about the curfew.”
“I already talked to my RA,” he said smoothly. “If we are in good standing, we can get permission to go to a pre-approved location which includes The Catalyst.”
I raised my eyebrows. It was good to know that some rules weren’t as strict as they seemed. “Okay, let’s do it.”
“That’s the spirit.” He threw his arm around my shoulders. “Then we have all day tomorrow to relax and watch chick flicks, or whatever you think we should do.”
I grinned. Damian was addicted to chick flicks. I had more fun watching his reactions to the movies. Even though they were predictable and cheesy, he still yelled at the characters about their dumb choices like they could hear him. The best time of the year was the holiday season, when the Hallmark Channel released a ton of Christmas movies, but that was more than a month away.
“Sounds like a plan.”
9
On Monday morning, even though we’d barely been introduced to our new classes, the juniors got pulled out of our regular schedule to attend a school assembly. We were called to Lecture Hall One by the assistant dean. Damian and I took our usual position in the back.
The assistant dean was a Japanese-American man with short black hair and round glasses. He wore a business suit instead of a witch’s robes, and he wrote his name in English large enough to cover one blackboard. “Akio Yamasato,” he said aloud, pronouncing each syllable distinctly. “Before you ask, yes, Akio is my given name. If I was in Japan, I would write it family-name first, as is the tradition in that culture. But since I was born in America, I’m used to this order. I am the assistant dean, but I prefer if you call me Professor Yamasato.”
Then his familiar waddled out from behind the desk. It was cute, but it looked like a raccoon-dog hybrid. Yamasato smiled and patted its head. “And this is Shoukichi. He’s a tanuki.”
A tanuki! It was a wild Japanese animal. Most witches found it easier to keep a common house pet, like cats or lizards. Big or wild animals, like Professor McGowan’s cougar or the flight coach’s falcon, were much harder to take care of. The hardest and rarest were magical creatures like another professor who had a phoenix. Since your familiar stayed with you for life, you were stuck with the burden. Even witches who lost their magic, like my Granny Rose, still had their familiar companions. We couldn’t choose our animals yet, but was this lecture the first part of preparing us for the responsibility?
Yamasato waved his hand, and the blackboard above him suddenly had writing appear: Magikin Relations. So it wasn’t about familiars at all. I turned to a fresh sheet of paper in my notebook and wrote it at the top of the page.
“Magikin Relations,” the professor repeated. “This is an important part of your responsibilities as a new witch, so I like to make sure everyone understands the fundamentals. You will hear more about this in your classes throughout the year, and you can even specialize in this area of study if you return for your second degree.” He paused. “If you haven’t guessed already, that’s my department.”
A few students laughed like he’d made a joke. I rolled my eyes. I liked to be on the teachers’ good side, but that was taking it a bit far. In my experience, most teachers didn’t like a brown-noser who tried too hard to please them.
Professor Yamasato ignored the forced laughs. “Now, most of you probably have magikin neighbors or know someone in your town, since they are integrated into most areas of the country. You may also have magikin teachers here at the academy. We are an equal-opportunity employer, so anyone who is qualified to teach a subject can be hired. Being a witch is only required in the witchcraft departments.” He held up a finger. “But now that you have magic of your own, you have become part of the magical community. It’s more important for you to understand how to interact with all kinds of magikin.”
Samantha raised her hand primly in the front row. When the professor nodded at her, she said, “Aren’t they just people? I mean, shouldn’t we treat them with respect like anyone else? My father taught me to follow the Golden Rule with everyone. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”
Like we didn’t know the stupid quote.
“That’s a good point,” the professor said. “But not everyone likes to be treated the same. You need to know about cultural differences.” He pointed to the lower blackboard. “The simple act of putting someone’s name in a certain order can vary. Japanese people also take their shoes off when they come indoors and many other customs that would seem strange to the average American. Imagine how different the customs are for a magical race. Take a Japanese magikin. What does a kitsune do when they enter their den if they’re in their fox form and not wearing shoes?”
He paused, looking around the room expectantly, but no one said anything. He smiled. “That’s what I thought. The answer is, they wipe their paws.” His smile faded, and he looked as us sternly. “You will have higher expectations to get it right because you have magic. Humans will trust you less if they know you are a witch, but so will magikin. You have to walk a delicate balance between the human and magical communities.”
I raised my hand. “Is it true that magikin can tell that we’re witches by reading our auras?”
Professor Yamasato nodded. “Yes, very good. Any magical ability will affect your aura, but you all have a specific mark on you created by your Fae patron. You’ll learn how to read auras if you advance in your studies—a specialty of the Fire element. This brings me to my first point.”
He lifted a remote and switched on a projector. One of the empty blackboards suddenly turned white to reflect the image—a wall of text. Nice effect, except the display wasn’t any more exciting than a Power Point presentation. All that magical ability and he was going to fall back on some stupid slides? Even his familiar looked bored. The tanuki had curled up under a chair and fallen asleep.
“Guidelines for Interacting with Magikin,” it said across the top. In a slightly smaller text, the slide continued, “1. Remember that they know you’re a witch.”
Professor Yamasato turned and read aloud from the screen. “Things weren’t always so strained between witches and magikin,” he added. “But they distrust us now for the same reasons that humans do—the Witchgate tragedy, twenty years ago.”
Oh, no. I thought I had more time before this came up. I tried to sink lower in my chair, hiding my face behind my notebook.
“You’ll hear about the Witchgate incident in more detail in your history classes,” the professor went on lightly. “This is just a reminder that those events affected magikin as well as humans. While they gained more freedom because of it, they have reason to fear witches. If we are irresponsible with our magic, we could cause trouble like that again. Next time, witchcraft might be banned for good.”
The huge room amplified every whisper of the surrounding students. They complained about the stupid rule
s, repeated rumors about what had happened, and some even made fun of the Witchgate incident.
A girl sitting in the row in front of us turned around and craned her neck to look up. “Hey, don’t you guys live in the town where it happened?”
I froze. Here it came.
“Yeah, but that was before we were even born,” Damian said, coming to my rescue.
“Oh, right.” The girl turned back, seemingly satisfied.
I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” I whispered to him.
Damian flashed me a thumbs-up.
Professor Yamasato went through the rest of his slides. Most of it was obvious, like don’t use magic on anyone without their permission and don’t ask nosy questions about their lifestyle. I wrote it down, but my mind wandered.
Then I glanced at my paper and realized I’d been doodling mermaids in the margins. Most of them were simple, just outlines of tails and stuff, but I had one good profile sketch of Gabriella’s face. What if someone saw it and got the wrong idea?
I started frantically scribbling over it all to black it out.
Damian saw me and snatched the notebook away. “Hey, I told you to stop destroying your art, even if you don’t like it.” He looked at the half-ruined doodles. “Haha, cute. Is this a protest for not getting Water like you wanted?”
“Yes.” I held out my hand. “Can I have it back? It’s kind of embarrassing.”
“Why? It’s not like you drew anything explicit.” Damian smirked but handed it back.
Then he opened his notebook, where he hadn’t bothered to take any notes, and drew a cartoonish mermaid with huge, exaggerated breasts.
I rolled my eyes and tried to swat his hand. “Stop, that’s ridiculous. How could someone even swim with those?”
“Wait, I gotta add the best part.” Damian pulled out a red pen and copied Samantha’s hairstyle. He held it up so I could see his caricature side-by-side with the back of my roommate’s head. “Look, it’s your dream girl! Bitchy and hot on top, fishy and cold on bottom.”
The Reluctant Witch: Year One (Santa Cruz Witch Academy Book 1) Page 8