Shifter In The Swamp (Academy of Necessary Magic Book 1)

by Martha Carr

  Amanda waited and listened, but everything was quiet again.

  Someone from the School of Necessary Magic got sent here? Before the second week of school? Jeeze. She must’ve screwed up pretty badly.

  Turning slowly to face her bed, she chewed on the inside of her bottom lip. It was after midnight. She was used to waking up early. Even before everything that had happened that spring, before meeting Johnny and going to stay with him and the hounds, she’d regularly woken up before six because that was what her parents did.

  A hard lump formed in her throat, and she swallowed.

  Waking up early for a hunt in the swamp is a heck of a lot better than waking up early just to read the paper.

  The girl glanced at her alarm clock again—12:24 a.m.

  Definitely time to sleep.

  With a determined nod, she approached the side of her bed and sat.

  The second her backside touched the mattress and she looked up at the door, the energy that had kept her up this late thinking about combat training in the morning flared through her again. Only now, she’d be wide awake even longer thinking about this new student across the hall who’d gotten kicked out of magic school.

  Amanda closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, and counted to ten, her fingers absently drumming on her thighs.

  Time to chill out and go to sleep. Relax. Chill…

  Her eyes flew open, and she popped up off the bed to her feet.

  Screw it. If I’m gonna be awake, might as well see who the heck this new girl is.

  Chapter Two

  The door opened slowly and silently, and Amanda peered through the three-inch opening to check the hall. Sure enough, Principal Glasket was gone, and the new girl had retreated into her room and closed the door behind her.

  After waiting and listening for another five seconds, Amanda widened the opening enough to slip quickly through and didn’t bother closing it again. She wouldn’t be out here long.

  Best way to find out about someone is to go through their stuff. Second-best way is to listen in when they think nobody can hear.

  She’d done plenty of that before. It had been harder with her parents and Claire; they’d all had an uncanny and infuriating knack for being able to find Amanda whenever she tried to spy on them, no matter when or where or how. Perks of being a shifter in a shifter family. She’d done the same thing with Johnny too, and while he’d never picked up on her listening to him, the bounty hunter hadn’t enjoyed her going through his things.

  The thought of his scowl and bristling beard almost made her laugh, but she shoved it back down.

  Forget about Johnny right now. This is Mission New Girl.

  Fortunately, the floors hadn’t been built to creaky specifications, so she didn’t make a sound as she slowly padded barefoot across the hall toward room 233C.

  The second she reached the halfway mark, the new girl’s door opened as slowly and silently as Amanda’s had. A head of jet-black hair poked through, followed by the rest of the young witch with a smartphone clutched in both hands and her gaze fixed intently on the screen.

  Amanda froze in a half-crouch, her eyes wide and arms comically lifted at her sides in sneaky-shifter-girl fashion.

  The new girl stepped into the hall, frowned at her phone, then looked up. She gave Amanda a quick once-over and tilted her head. “What are you doing?”

  Clearing her throat, Amanda straightened and dropped her arms at her sides while shooting a glance down the empty hall. “What are you doing?”

  “Oh, I get it.” The girl shoved her phone into the back pocket of her cargo pants and smirked. “They put on some kinda hall monitor duty, right?”

  “What?”

  “Sent you up here to keep an eye on me?” The girl widened her eyes and waggled her head with thick sarcasm. “Well, go ahead. Run back to Glasket and make your report.”

  Amanda wrinkled her nose and couldn’t help a small chuckle. Good thing I have experience with grumpy jerks.

  “No one knows I’m awake. Except for you.”

  “Good for you.” The new girl swiped her black bangs away from her eyes—Amanda couldn’t tell if they were blue or gray—and shrugged. “So what are you doing?”

  “That’s my room.” Amanda stuck her thumb out toward her slightly open door.

  “And?” The girl folded her arms.

  “I heard you and Glasket come up here. I got curious.”

  “Whatever. Feel free to get un-curious.” Grumpyface gave her another once-over, then headed down the hall toward the back of the building.

  Amanda tried to hold it back, but the bubbling questions flooded up out of her as they usually did. “You came from the School of Necessary Magic, right?”

  She took two quick steps forward and stopped when the new girl turned halfway around to frown at her. “That’s none of your business.”

  “Well, it’s not like you were exactly quiet about it.” Amanda shrugged and couldn’t help a small smile. “What’d you do?”

  “Look…whoever you are.” The girl pointed at the end of the hall. “I’m kind of about to go do some stuff, so maybe save the questions for someone who feels like talking.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Folding her arms, Amanda watched the girl walk off and waited until just before she reached the corner of the narrow hallway that formed a T-intersection in the back. “I guess you know how to turn off the alarm wards, right?”

  The new girl froze, her back stiffening beneath the black zip-up hoodie. “Wards?”

  “Yep. They go up around the dorms after Lights Out. Come back down in the morning. Not as bad as being shocked by a cattle prod, but most people don’t know what that’s like.”

  “I’ll think I’ll take my chances.”

  “Sure. The last girl I saw trying to sneak out at night hit the ground and didn’t get up until noon the next day. I mean, unless you’re trying to do some stuff in the supply closet back there. I’m pretty sure that’s clean.”

  With a heavy sigh, the new girl turned and rolled her eyes until her gaze landed on the short, wiry, brown-haired girl standing in the middle of the hallway. “Fine. What do you want?”

  A grin broke out on Amanda’s face. “I wanna know what got you kicked out of that other school in…Virginia, right?”

  Slowly, the girl’s frustrated scowl melted away into a small smirk. “You came out of your room in the middle of the night to ask me what kind of delinquent I am?”

  “Actually, I figured I’d listen through your door for a while.” Amanda shrugged. “You’d be surprised how many people talk to themselves when they think they’re alone. It’s a lot.”

  The new girl snorted. “You’re weirdly honest.”

  “Yeah, I get that a lot. So hey, while we’re standing here…”

  The smirk widened into a smile. “I blew up the power generator. Plus the backup generator. And probably killed whatever those creepy plants were that needed all that UV light twenty-four-seven.”

  Amanda barked out a laugh, then clapped a hand over her mouth. “Why would you wanna blow up the power generator?”

  “I mean, I wasn’t trying to. It happened to be right next to this secret room one of the teachers thought he could keep me out of by putting a reinforced door over it. Honestly, he had it coming.”

  “Did you…get in?”

  The new girl wrinkled her nose and glanced at the ceiling. “Almost.”

  “Then they sent you here.”

  “Yeah. Third strike and everything.” The girl tossed her bangs out of her eyes. “I didn’t think they’d go through with it. Didn’t think those potions would make such a huge explosion, either. What are you in for?”

  Amanda narrowed her eyes. Jeeze, she makes it sound like we’re locked up in a jail cell together.

  “I came here ’cause I want to be here.”

  The girl rolled her eyes again and scoffed. “Oh, come on. Nobody wants to be here. You get shipped with everyone else, or what?”

  “No. I me
an, I started the first day when the other kids showed up for the Opening Ceremony.”

  “Cute. So what’d you do?”

  “I…said, ‘Yes, I want to go to the Academy.’ Then I packed up and moved into my room.” Amanda chuckled. “Shouldn’t be that hard to believe.”

  “You’re playing the game. I get it.” The other girl leaned back against the wall and huffed out a wry laugh. “You don’t have to keep sugar-coating it. I bet your story’s not that different from anyone else’s here. You screwed up one too many times, and your parents said they were fed up, they were shipping you off to the Academy in the freakin’ swamp, and you’d go to school here to learn your lesson.”

  Amanda swallowed. Awesome. First conversation ever, and we’re talking about parents.

  “That’s not what happened. I came here by choice.”

  “Yeah, I bet.” The girl leaned forward and glanced up and down the hallway before lowering her voice. “You realize this place is pretty much Juvie for magicals, right? Trust me. If I had somewhere else to go, I’d run away from this dump as fast as I could.”

  I do have somewhere to go. And I still wanna be here. Amanda studied the other girl’s haughty smirk. This is all just an act.

  “How long were you at the School of Necessary Magic?”

  The girl shrugged. “A year. Plus a week, technically.”

  “Well, that’s something, at least. Most of the other kids here stopped going to school after, like, first or second grade.”

  “Ya think?”

  “So…are you from Virginia, or went there for a year and a week?” When she got no reply, Amanda shrugged. “I grew up in New York. Up north. It was weird to come down here to the Everglades at first. Swamps and everything. Bet it’s pretty different than Virginia, too. Or wherever you live—”

  “Look.” The girl nodded at her with a grimace, then turned toward the open door of 233C. “Nice chat and everything, but you’re trying too hard. I didn’t come here to make friends, so… Maybe take it down a notch.”

  “Uh-huh.” Amanda tried to copy the girl’s scowl, but a tiny smile broke through.

  “Yeah, you can quit staring at me too. I’m gonna go pass out.”

  “My name’s Amanda.”

  The girl had grabbed the doorknob and held the door halfway open as she frowned into the hall. A flicker of amusement—or maybe gratitude—flashed across her face, and she sighed. “Summer.”

  She doesn’t look very summery.

  “Cool.” Amanda let herself smile a little more. “Hey, if you need any help figuring out where you’re going tomorrow, like for classes and stuff, I can show you around. This place kinda seems like a maze at first.”

  “I’m good.” Then the door shut not-so-quietly and left Amanda standing in the middle of the hallway, smiling like a goof at the closed door of 233C.

  She waited another minute, listening to Summer root through her things and climb onto the slightly squeaky mattress in her twin-sized bed.

  Sure, now that she knows I was trying to listen, she’s not gonna talk to herself.

  With a small chuckle, Amanda spun and headed back to her room. She slipped inside, pulled the door shut again with a soft click, then crossed the room to her bed and flopped down on her back.

  Summer, huh? I bet she and Johnny would hate each other.

  That made her laugh, and she whipped the sheets and comforter up over her legs before snuggling down and dropping her head onto the pillow.

  She’s trying to be tough. It would suck to get kicked out and sent here without a choice. Wonder if she knows how to hunt.

  Amanda tossed in her bed for another hour, way too excited for the morning and unable to fall asleep. Because of Combat Training, obviously. Also because she wasn’t the only kid here anymore who hadn’t been coaxed out of the tunnels under LA and shipped out here by a team of bounty hunters.

  Chapter Three

  The blaring magical alarm echoing across the Academy’s entire campus and seeping in through the walls made Amanda groan. The amplified wake-up call included a different song every morning—probably so they wouldn’t get used to it and sleep right through. Today, the obnoxiously upbeat tune of Roar by Katy Perry weaseled its way into her head and finally made her sit up with a frustrated grunt.

  Who picks these stupid songs?

  She jerked the covers off herself and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her shoulders slumped, and she hunched over to rub her cheeks.

  Four hours of sleep is definitely not enough. That’s what I get for being excited.

  The song played all the way through to the end, and when it finished, Amanda’s shifter hearing picked up the scattered groans and dragging footsteps of the other girls in the dorm getting out of bed to start their day.

  She shuffled across the room toward her dresser and wearily pulled open the drawers to pick her clothes. Her eyelids drooped as she reached blindly inside to feel around for a pair of shorts and a tank top, and she let out a massive yawn.

  I should’ve stayed in bed instead of trying to meet the new girl and thinking about Combat Training—

  A gasp escaped her, and her eyes flew open to stare at the dresser. “That’s right! Yes!”

  Grinning now, the shifter girl jerked off her pajamas and hopped around the room as she shoved her limbs into her clothes.

  Yes, yes, yes! Combat Training! I hope they let us use knives in the first week. Probably not. Oh man, Petrov’s gonna crap himself when he sees my throwing aim.

  She jammed her feet into her favorite pair of sneakers—the ones Lisa had loaned her in the Manhattan hotel and had never bothered to ask for their return. Then she snatched up her mostly empty forest-green backpack, slung it over her shoulders, and quickly tied her long brown hair back into a messy ponytail.

  This is gonna be awesome.

  She made her bed in under two minutes, then flew through her door and practically skipped into the hall. The other girls in the dorm looked up at her with groggy expressions. Some of them laughed and shook their heads at her wide-eyed excitement. Three, she noticed—Candace Jones and her two yes-brats, Emma and Megan—looked the shifter girl up and down with sneers of mock-disgust before rolling their eyes and heading down the hall toward the stairwell.

  Amanda stared after them for a moment, then smirked. They have no idea what I can really do.

  After a glance at Summer’s door—which was closed and didn’t open—and another to scan the faces of the other girls heading down the hall, she shrugged and made her way through the zombie-like teenagers to the stairs. Breakfast was waiting for them out beside the kitchens, and although they had until 7:00 a.m. to make their way down there before the kitchen pixies cleaned up and closed down for the morning, Amanda had learned the hard way that the best stuff went first and quickly—and she was always hungry.

  By the time she burst through the front doors of the long, narrow building of the girl’s dorm, the first orange and yellow glow of sunrise filtered through the oaks and mangroves studding the campus. Crickets and cicadas still buzzed heavily in the swamp, birds sang at each other in every direction, and the constant wet plop of frogs darting into the water punctuated it all. The air was still cool enough this early in the morning to make Amanda feel energized all over again.

  She raced down the outside of the dorm toward the large stone building of the kitchens and the pavilion behind it on the northwest side filled with picnic tables and a covered salad bar. There was only salad in it at lunch, but in the morning, the serving pans were filled to the brim with ice and held pitchers of orange juice, cranberry juice, ice water, and milk.

  Amanda eyed the pitcher of milk and wrinkled her nose as she got in line at the breakfast buffet table. Not her thing, but some of the other kids seemed to like it.

  “Every morning.”

  “What?” She turned to find Jackson Pris standing behind her with his arms folded, scowling at the salad bar turned refreshment stand, and shaking his head.


  “With the milk. I don’t get it. I can’t think of anything that grosses me out half as much as that stuff.”

  “To each their own, right?”

  “Yeah, but they’re not taking that far enough.” He tossed his shaggy, sun-streaked brown hair out of his eyes. “Should be ‘to each their own young, and let’s stop taking this crap away from baby cows.’”

  Amanda barked out a laugh and stepped toward the table as next in line. Fortunately, there were only two other kids in front of her. “You don’t have to drink it, you know.”

  “No. I have to watch Corey slobber it down like he can’t survive without it.” Jackson nodded toward the first picnic table under the pavilion, where they both had a clear view of the ridiculously large, half-Kilomea Corey guzzling down the rest of one clear plastic glass of milk. The kid’s belch echoed across the yard. He wiped the milk mustache off his entire mouth with a forearm, then grabbed his second glass and drained it five seconds.

  “Huh.”

  “Don’t try to tell me that stuff ‘builds strong bones.’”

  She smirked at Jackson and finally reached the table to pick up a plate and get down to business piling it high. “Seems to be working for him, though.”

  The thirteen-year-old wizard standing behind her snorted. “Have you ever wondered why no one wants to sit next to him? It’s ’cause he drinks so much milk.”

  “I thought it’s ’cause he always tells everyone to get lost.”

  Jackson grabbed a plate and shook his head. “It’s disgusting.”

  Amanda tried to hide a smile as she moved down the buffet table and scooped up large spoonfuls of the best scrambled eggs in the world, sausage links and bacon, fruit salad, yogurt, toast already dripping with melted butter, and a cinnamon roll bigger than her fist—just to start.

  “Dude.” Jackson shot her plate a sidelong glance. “Are you really gonna eat all that?”

  “Are you kidding?” She jammed a piece of bacon into her mouth, then stuck two more on her plate to take its place. “This is round one.”