“Then it would be Grier witch,” Krista says, looking at me. “The air coven elder.”
“Ms. Boucher?” I say. “It can’t be. She’s so nice. So helpful. So sweet. So—” For the second time, I want to curse how dumb I am. “Oh my goddess. The flowery scent. The oil on Giselle’s shoes. I know where I smelled it before!”
“Where?” they all ask.
“When Ms. Boucher was giving a demonstration outside, she was showing us how to create smells out of thin air, like coffee...and flowers. Ms. Boucher created that scent on the wind.”
The room then fills with a strong wind. We look over and see that the window and door are closed, so the wind is not coming from any natural source.
“Madison?” Ivy says. “Are you doing that?"
The door to Giselle’s closet creaks as it slowly opens. All four of us stare at it and gulp.
“Nope,” I say as the door opens fully and I can see the image of Giselle staring back at me—and she’s smiling.
“Do any of you see her?” I ask even though I know their answer.
“See who?” Jaxon asks.
“Giselle is here,” I say. “And it looks like this time we’ve got it right.”
We rush up to Ms. Boucher’s office, but I really hope I’m wrong. I can’t imagine Ms. Boucher being the person who killed Giselle. The very idea makes me sick. But Giselle knows the truth. She just couldn’t tell me herself. I had to figure it out myself. All this time, I suspected the wrong person. And yet...how? How can it possibly be Ms. Boucher?
When we get to her office, I use my air power to unlock the door. As soon as we enter, I don’t even need to use my powers to smell the flowery scent. It’s that strong.
“Okay, so she clearly likes the scent,” I say. “But we still need to find the oil as proof.”
We rummage through her drawers and boxes and shelves. On her desk, there is an old and faded picture of Ms. Boucher in a kimono with a Japanese man, and they are standing under a cherry blossom tree.
“Cherry blossoms,” I say. “That’s the scent.”
I turn the picture so the others can see it.
“Ms. Boucher is older than you would think,” Ivy says as she goes back to a shelf. “That’s her first husband. They met during World War II. She was serving as a nurse in Okinawa.”
I shake my head and put the picture back as I explore her desk. There are cherry blossom scented candles and incense and pressed cherry blossoms in a frame. When I open the drawer, I find a bottle of cherry blossom scented body oil.
“I found it!” I say, holding up the bottle triumphantly. I open the bottle and rub a little of the oil on my fingers. The texture is the same as the oil on Giselle’s shoes. “This is definitely it.”
“What do we do now?” Krista asks. “Do we find Ms. Boucher?”
“We should go to Ms. Brewster,” Ivy says.
“You aren’t going anywhere.”
We all turn to the door. Ms. Boucher is standing there.
My ears burn instantly, and a fire stirs in my stomach. I think I might be sick. My whole body trembles, and for a moment, I’m out of control, almost as if I’m outside of myself.
“Ms. Boucher!” I exclaim, my vision tunneling on her. “How could you?” I hold up the bottle. “You killed Giselle! Why?”
“She was too close to finding out the truth,” Ms. Boucher says, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. “A truth no one can ever know.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask. “The runes? Something about the statues? What could she have possibly learned that would be worth killing over?”
“Like I would tell you,” Ms. Boucher says, and she calls forth a gust of wind so strong that it wraps around all of us like chains. The chains grow tighter, and I know she’s going to strangle us.
“What are you doing?” I ask as I start to struggle for breath. “You went to such extremes to prevent us from finding out who killed Giselle. You can’t get away with killing four more people.”
“We’ll see,” Ms. Boucher says, and the wind grows tighter and seems to be pulling out of our lungs.
There’s no water or plants in the room, so Ivy and Jaxon are helpless. I see Krista’s hands sparking, but as my vision starts to dim, I realize there isn’t enough oxygen in the room for her to set a fire. I’m the only one with any hope of fighting back.
I gather as much air as I can between my hands, but I can’t raise my arms to aim at Ms. Boucher. I can only aim at the floor. So that is what I do. I use every last bit of energy I have and shoot a burst of air at the floor. The impact creates an explosion strong enough to blow the four of us out the window, temporarily beyond Ms. Boucher’s reach. The air chains disintegrate as we crash onto the lawn and roll free.
Krista gets to her feet first, and her hands turn to flames, which she shoots at Ms. Boucher. Ms. Boucher flicks them away like flies and then tries to blow all of us off our feet.
Only I remain standing.
Ms. Boucher uses currents of air to float out of her office and across the lawn toward me. “Did you really think you could succeed? You only got as far as you did because I allowed it. But now, the game is at an end.”
“This isn’t a game,” I say as I push her back. “You killed Giselle.”
“She was cruel to you,” Ms. Boucher says, floating closer again. “I thought you would have thanked me.”
“Don’t you dare try to pin this on me,” I say, my anger growing. The wind whips around me, protecting me from her advances. The clouds above darken, covering the sun. “You are a murderer! I’m nothing like you!”
“That’s enough,” Ms. Boucher says. “I’m tiring of this.”
She lands and uses all her energy to blast freezing cold air at me. I cross my arms in front of me and block her. I dig my feet into the ground and barely move an inch.
“Get back!” I scream as I push the icy wind back at her. Her eyes go wide as she stumbles and falls back.
“That’s not possible!” she says.
She climbs back to her feet and tries to trap me inside a ball of air, one I can feel getting smaller and smaller, tightening around me, losing oxygen. I push back, trying to make the ball bigger, but I’m growing weaker. I am about to give up when the ball bursts into flames. I call forth a breeze of my own to protect me from the fire, but as quickly as it appeared, it vanishes.
“Stop her!” Krista yells.
I look up and see that Ms. Boucher is running across the lawn.
“Jaxon!” I say, and tree roots shoot from the ground, entangling Ms. Boucher’s feet. We all run toward her, but somehow she is able to free herself from the roots and she takes flight.
“This isn’t over!” she calls back to us.
I grunt with frustration as I gather wind around me, willing it to propel me into the air.
“Madison!” Ivy says. “Stop! You’ll get hurt!”
“She’s getting away!” I say, and I can feel my feet leave the ground. I look down and see that I’m hovering just off the ground. I look back up in the direction Ms. Boucher went and propel myself forward. I continue to rise, gaining momentum.
I have no idea how high off of the ground I am when I am overcome with exhaustion and feel myself barreling back toward the earth.
I hear a scream, but I don’t know if it’s mine or someone else’s. I then hit the ground. No, I hit...something else, then roll across the lawn. I cough and catch my breath and look up. Jaxon is lying on his back next to me.
“Did...did you catch me? You idiot!” I say.
“You’re welcome,” he says between breaths.
“I could have killed you!” I say.
“You don’t weigh that much,” he says, but then he groans when Ivy drops by his side to check him for injuries.
Krista helps me roll over. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I say. “But she got away. Ms. Boucher escaped.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Krista s
ays as she sits me up. “You flew!”
“I fell, you mean,” I say.
“No!” Ivy says. “You flew! You lifted off the ground by your own power. That’s amazing! Only extremely powerful air witches can fly. There are plenty of air elders and legacies who can’t fly.”
“Really?” I say. “But...I thought I was weak. Not even worth teaching...” I look at my hands and think about how just a moment before, I was floating above the ground.
I flew.
“What is the meaning of this?” Ms. Brewster demands as she runs across the lawn toward us, the other teachers and a bunch of students following her. “What am I hearing about a fight. And you flying, Ms. Whittaker?”
I push myself to my feet and then help Jaxon up.
“Ms. Brewster, you aren’t going to believe the story I have to tell you.”
Chapter 28
I look out the window at the students running around on the lawn, enjoying the warm spring day. I crack my knuckles and rub my fingers together.
I flew.
Ivy wasn’t exaggerating. According to Ms. Brewster, it is very rare for an air witch to develop her powers sufficiently enough to leave the ground. Ms. Boucher isn’t the most powerful air witch, but she dedicated her life to flying, so she’s very good at it. Yes, she’d seemed unable to accept that I had flown.
Honestly, I couldn’t believe it either. After all, I shouldn’t be very good at anything, much less the most difficult of tasks. Ms. Brewster said that I was so weak, I shouldn’t even bother with attending La Voisin. So what did this mean?
I pull my duffel bag out from under the bed and toss my few possessions into it.
Help them, I hear Giselle say.
“I don’t know if I can,” I reply without looking up from my task. “Everyone is watching me. Ms. Boucher killed you to keep whatever you were working on a secret. It must be a big deal. If people see me following in your footsteps...I don’t want to end up like you.”
I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I whirl around. The door to Giselle’s closet is open, and I can see her in the mirror.
“Please, Madison, help them,” she says, and before I can protest, she turns and walks away into a bright white light.
“Wait!” I say, but she doesn’t stop. “How? Giselle!”
I cuss when I realize that she’s gone—like, for real this time. She’s crossed over to wherever dead witches go. Finding her killer must have brought her some measure of peace.
It wasn’t enough, though. She still tasked me with helping “them,” even though I don’t know who they are or how to help them. Not to mention Ms. Boucher got away, and who knew if she might come back for me and my friends.
Ms. Brewster said that she would alert all witch-kind and let them know to keep an eye out for her. But I have a feeling she wasn’t working alone. I don’t have any evidence to support my belief, but whatever Giselle was working on, it didn’t have anything to do with Ms. Boucher directly.
Ms. Stewart still believes that Giselle was working on dark magic. Whatever it was, it seems to be some sort of hidden or forbidden knowledge. Something that Ms. Boucher was willing to kill to keep secret. I doubt she’s the only person with such radical ideas. And if she is, she won’t give up so easily. She’ll be back.
There’s a knock at my door. “Madison?” Ivy asks as she and Krista enter the room. “How’s it going?”
Krista eyes my bag. “Are you leaving?”
"I don’t know.” I spread my hands. “I need to figure some things out. I’m going to go see my mom."
“But you said that Ms. Brewster won’t let you come back if you do,” Ivy says.
“We’ll see. If I do come back, is she really going to reject the only air student who can fly?”
“That would look pretty bad,” Krista admits. “But still, is this the best time to leave? What about finals? What about the potion for the Soul of Loss?”
I had completely forgotten about the crazy potion contest.
“Is the orchid ready?” I ask.
“Jaxon said it is,” Ivy says. “He’s keeping it cool so it won’t bloom and fade before we are ready.”
“Well,” I say with a sigh, “maybe you should find someone else who can conjure up the fourth ingredient. I have no ideas, and I haven’t had time to even narrow it down. I’m sorry. I just need to get out of here and see my mom.”
I walk over to the mirror and call up my mom. I see her lying in a hospital bed, reading a book. I have to wonder at that. She doesn’t look as bad as she has in the past when she’s had a relapse.
“We will wait for you,” Krista says. “We aren’t going to find a new partner. We don’t want the position with Ms. Brewster. Either you will come back with the answer or you won’t. It’s up to you.”
I turn to them with tears in my eyes and hug them tight. “Thanks,” I say. “Tell Jaxon bye for me.”
“We will,” they say.
I turn back to the mirror and step through it, right into my mom’s bathroom at the hospital.
“Madison!” Mama says when she sees me, not even marking the place in her book as she pushes it aside. She holds up her arms to me, and I rush over.
“Hi, Mama,” I say.
“Oh, baby girl,” she says, squeezing me, “I’ve missed you so much! Tell me everything.”
I pull away and scoff a laugh. No way I’m going to tell her I just solved a murder. Or that I flew. Or that I left without taking my finals and might not be able to go back.
“I’m good,” I say. “I was just worried about you.”
“I’m sorry about that,” she says. “How did you even know I was here? I told them not to contact you at school if anything happened. I didn’t want you to worry. They were supposed to contact Ms. Hernandez.”
“Ms. Brewster, the headmistress of La Voisin, she told me,” I say.
“Well, I suppose I should know better than to try to keep anything from a bunch of witches,” she says.
I have to chuckle at that. It’s amazing the secrets people have been able to keep at that school.
“So...what happened?” I ask her. “I heard you were in a treatment center.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know what happened. I had gone to bed. You know how it is. I always get so tired when I’m trying to clean up. I woke up feeling dizzy. Nauseous. I threw up and was shaking. I was so cold. It was like I was going through withdraws, but I’d already been through that when I was first admitted a couple of weeks ago, so I didn’t know what was going on. Bad food or something. They called an ambulance, and I ended up here. I know they said I overdosed, but, honey, that’s just not true.”
“Oh, Mama,” I say, shaking my head. “Don’t lie—”
“I’m not!” she insists. “Where would I get them? I haven’t had any contact with anyone since I was checked in. I went on a bender after you left, it’s true. I was so distraught. You are the most important thing in the world to me, and I’d failed you. Pushed you right out of the house and into the waiting arms of the very people I most wanted to keep you from. So, yes, I went on a bender. But a few days later, I called Ms. Hernandez and asked her to take me to a facility for help. I’ve done everything they’ve asked. The center director even came and drilled me, trying to figure out where I got the drugs, but we couldn’t figure it out.”
“She must have some idea,” I say, pulling up a chair and sitting down. As much as I hate to be a fool, I can’t help but believe her.
“She doesn’t know, and she’s very upset about that,” Mama says. “If there is some way drugs are getting into the facility, she needs to know so that she can cut it off. But she’s found no evidence of drugs in the facility. No needles, no cell phones, no broken windows. Look.” She holds out her arms. “No track marks. They claim there were drugs in my system, but they don’t know how it got there. They checked everywhere. My toes, my legs. Nothing.”
I put my hand to my mouth and think on what this means. If Mama didn’t
take drugs, how did they get into her system? And why? Why would anyone try to drug someone trying to get clean?
“Did anything strange happen while you were at the facility?” I ask. “Any strange people or events?”
“There was a thunderstorm that night,” Mama says. “Came up out of nowhere. But I fell asleep to the sound of raindrops. Everything else about the facility has been rather pleasant.”
“Mama,” I say, taking her hand, “I don’t know what happened, but it isn’t right. I don’t think I can go back to La Voisin. I need to stay with you. You need my help.”
“No, honey,” Mama says. “I need to take care of myself. And you need training. Never should have tried to keep you from La Voisin. That was wrong. You are powerful, and you need help.”
“What did you say?” I ask. “You think I’m powerful?”
“Of course, honey,” she says. “You always were. I mean, I suppose all witches are powerful compared to me. But I’ve seen what you can do when you think I’m not looking. And the way you protected Julieta during the storm? That’s impressive even for someone who has been to school.”
If only she knew how right she was. I sigh and sit back, trying to debate what to tell her. I am powerful. Much more powerful than I should be.
Am I just strong? Or is there something about myself that I don’t know? Well, I suppose I won’t find the answer sitting at home in Turkey Hollow.
I lean in and give Mama a hug. “Thanks,” I say. “You’re right. I do need to go back to the school. I was just so worried about you.”
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll take care of myself. I’ll be released later today, and the facility said they would take me back since they couldn’t find any evidence of wrongdoing on my account.”
“That’s good,” I say. “But if you need anything, you call me, okay? We need to support each other, not keep secrets.”
“I think that’s a good idea.” She pulls me in and kisses my cheek. “You better go before someone sees you. I’m not supposed to have visitors, even here.”
I nod and go back to the bathroom to use the mirror to return to school. Man, I’m going to look like a dope when the girls see me again.
Curse of Stone (Academy of the Damned Book 1) Page 25