by K M Charron
Ainsley turned and felt a hard thunk hit her in the chest. Her tray, with half a plate of sauce-soaked spaghetti, fell forward onto a white sweater. She gasped. It had all happened so fast. Her gaze moved from orange-stained boobs to a scowl, featuring a pair of narrowed green eyes and bright red hair. If looks could kill.
"What the hell! Look where you’re going!" The girl’s fists were balled, nostrils flared.
"It was an accident, Tiana. She didn’t mean it." Harper proceeded to use a handful of napkins to wipe at Tiana’s shirt.
She swatted Harper’s hand away. "Don’t touch me, freak!"
Fire burned in Ainsley’s chest at the insult. "Don’t talk to her like that! She was just trying to help."
Tiana looked Ainsley up and down, practically snarling. "And who the hell do you think you are?"
Ainsley had no idea how to answer that question. "Look, it was an accident. We were both heading to the trash. It’s not like I meant it. I’ll pay the dry-cleaning bill."
Tiana stepped nearer, close enough that they were nose to nose. "Oh, you’ll pay."
Ainsley burst out laughing. "Did you learn that at evil villain camp? Screw you! Deal with it yourself." She grabbed Harper by the arm. "Come on, we’re leaving."
Tiana’s face reddened. Ainsley couldn’t walk fast enough. Her stomach rolled the way it did when she was going full throttle on a twisting rollercoaster.
When they were past the cafeteria doors, Harper stopped her. "You didn’t tell me you were a badass."
Ainsley’s hammering heart was nowhere near slowing. “Harper, my knees are shaking so hard I can barely stay upright. I am not a badass."
"Well, I’m impressed." Harper stared at her in awe. "Not many people would stand up to Tiana."
She knew she shouldn’t ask, she didn’t really want to know. "Because?"
Harper bit her bottom lip and adjusted her glasses. "Because Tiana is scary. She’s threatened a few girls before and even beat someone up last year. I didn’t see the fight, but I heard it was bad.”
“Doesn’t anyone at the school step in? The headmistress?” There was no chance her heart would slow down now. A wave of nausea joined the mixer in her gut. She considered her safety. Would Tiana jump her or challenge her to fight?
“No one has turned her in. She’s the model student in front of admin, besides people are too afraid of her to turn her in.”
"Great. What’s that mean for me?"
Harper shook her head, her brows knitted together. "I have no idea, but I’d avoid her for the rest of the year if I were you. I know I will."
Ainsley closed her eyes and forced a deep breath.
"Perfect."
Sydney
Chapter 8
As if narrowly escaping a break-in wasn’t enough, Sydney’s night was only starting. The evening air made Sydney’s hair fuzzy. She could feel it curling up around her, almost as though it had a will of its own. She ran her fingers over it in a pathetic attempt to smooth it out. When that didn’t work, she used a touch of magic. She didn’t need her mother commenting on one more thing that was less than perfect about her.
Living in the dorms was a relief and not only because it kept her out of her mother’s house, although that was the number one perk. It also gave her some needed emotional distance from her father. Her parents only lived a fifteen-minute walk through the woods from campus. Despite it being orientation and check-in day, it was a Wednesday, which meant that her mother was expecting Sydney for dinner. She endured the family dinner night, bowing to the weekly tradition, but really she went to visit him.
She walked up the long, meandering driveway. Having magic meant having money. Old money, new money, it didn’t matter. Magic got you a lot of things.
Her parents’ house had a manicured, golf-course worthy lawns accented with ornate bushes and tidy rose gardens. The house was a mansion, there was no other word for it, but it had also become an eyesore because of the more recent extravagances. Not all witches were so wealthy, but they’d come into a lot more money when her mother became High Priestess seven years ago. It was ridiculous, and Sydney preferred not to bring her friends over anymore. It embarrassed her, especially the presence of household staff. In addition to their live-in maid, there was a personal chef and a weekly crew of groundskeepers, not to mention the rotation of nurses coming in and out for the past eight years.
Her mother insisted she knock since Sydney didn’t actually live there during the school year. Her own mother made her knock like a stranger.
The front door opened and she was startled by the rigid figure of her mother looming in the entryway.
"Hello, Mother. Surprised to see you performing servant’s work. Where’s Hilda?"
"Out of town for a few days to visit her parents.” She stepped to the side so Sydney could enter. A rush of refrigerated air hit her. Her mother liked things cold. It matched her heart.
"Wow, you actually let her go?"
Her mother didn’t acknowledge the remark. Instead, she clasped her hands in front of her and stared down her nose at Sydney. "Dinner will be ready in thirty minutes. Go see your father and I’ll meet you in the dining room afterward." She walked away before Sydney could reply.
The stairway was as long and grand as the outdoor driveway. She let her hand run the length of the mahogany banister as she counted the twenty-four steps to the second floor. Her breathing labored, and her chest tightened. This happened every time she went to her father’s room. It had been nearly a decade, yet Sydney still couldn’t manage to relax enough to stop heart palpitations from coming. Her hand froze on the doorknob, and she inhaled slowly, turning it.
She was assaulted by the familiar, horrifying beeping of her father’s life support machines and the smell of disinfectants. Hilda wasn’t even permitted inside. Syd supposed it wouldn’t be considered so loud to others, but to her, it was akin to a blaring alarm. Every beep, beep, beep, was a cruel reminder that he couldn’t survive on his own.
Tiptoeing toward the bed was an odd thing to do, but she couldn’t help herself. What if he could still hear? She didn’t want to startle him. "Hi, Daddy. It’s Sydney." She made her way over and sat in the rocking chair next to his hospital bed. Looking at him always made her knot up.
Reaching out, she took his limp, ice-cold hand and rubbed it between hers as if she could get his circulation going. The nurses moved his arms and legs and used machines to stimulate his muscles, but the atrophy was severe. "How are you today, Daddy? You look good. Got some color in your cheeks."
He didn’t. In fact, he looked ashen and lifeless, barely a man. More of a corpse being preserved.
"I blew the first test. Mother is not too happy with me. No surprise there." She made herself laugh, so she could hide the tension in her voice. She didn’t want him to worry about her. He couldn’t do anything to help her these days.
"I’m practicing a lot though, so I should be more ready for the next one. I was against Oliver. You remember, Ava’s brother. He was bragging before we started, but you should’ve seen him. He blew it worse than me. Doesn’t matter though, Máthair Bello is pissed with the whole class."
Standing, she moved closer to him and bent down until her lips were beside his ear. Keeping his hand in hers, she whispered, "Squeeze if you can hear me. Concentrate. Tell me you’re still in there."
She did this sometimes, fluttering butterflies whirling in her stomach each time. She held her breath and waited, but nothing happened. She tucked his cold hand under his blanket and kissed him on the cheek. "Maybe next time." She sang him the lullaby that he used to sing to her when she was little, and then just sat with him for a while letting her mind wander.
He was locked inside his own body. Sometimes he opened his eyes and frantically searched the room. At first, she waited for them. It signaled hope and the possibility of his recovery, of him being her father again––of protecting her. After the first few times, when she saw the panic and fear in his eyes, she realized that he was aware of wh
at had happened to him, if only for a few seconds. Sydney grew to hate those rare occasions. They were terrible enough for her to wish that he stayed peacefully asleep forever, or until they found the magic needed to release him from whatever hell was keeping him prisoner in his tattered body.
Her mother refused to take him off life support, saying there was hope that one day they would find a way to use magic to cast the illness from him. Sydney hoped it was true, but a tiny part of her wished he’d let go for good. The idea that he might be suffering, might be in agony and unable to tell anyone, was almost more than she could endure. It was a punishment worse than death if you asked her, although no one ever did.
The door opened, and she jolted in her chair, attempting to look as though she was stretching and not an anxious wreck.
Her mother stood, arms crossed in the doorway with an irritated countenance. "I said, come to the dining room in no more than thirty minutes, yet here you remain without any regard for the fact that I was waiting for you. Dinner is now cold."
"So use a spell it warm again. It’s not a big deal."
Her eyes moved from her mother’s pout. She turned to say goodbye to her father and gasped when she saw his eyes gawking widely. The skin on his forehead buckled, and he began blinking frantically. Sydney grabbed his hand and leaned in to stroke his cheek. "It’s okay, Daddy, it’s just me. You’re okay."
"He can’t hear you, Sydney." Her mother took a few steps into the room.
"You don’t know that!" She sat on the edge of his bed. "I’m here," she called out to him, but he drifted back into unconsciousness.
“I've told you, it’s best not to keep your hopes up, dear. Your father may not come back to us."
Sydney stood abruptly and stomped a foot onto the hardwood floor. "How can you say that? You just saw him open his eyes!"
Her mother tilted her chin up, hands clasped behind her back. "The doctors have explained that it's simply a reflex. You know this. I’ve told you countless times. Do you just not listen?” Each word was punctuated as though Sydney was hard of hearing.
She stalked toward her mother from her spot at his side. "I refuse to believe that. He’s still in there, somewhere. Why does it seem like you don’t want him to come back to us?"
"I deal in facts, not daydreams, wishes, or baseless hope, and right now he’s incapable of––"
Sydney glared at her mother, fists clenched, and stormed past her. She stopped for a moment, turned, and said, "I won’t be staying for dinner. I’ve lost my appetite."
She ran down the stairs, two at a time, with equal parts fury and fear of her mother’s wrath propelling her. It wasn’t often that Sydney stood up to her, and part of her regretted it already. She would pay for this.
She always did.
Ainsley
Chapter 9
Harper was right, the uniform sucked. The skirt felt like carefully tailored burlap, the shirt too tight under the arms. The blazer was so stiff it felt like she’d left the hanger inside by accident.
Her first official day had come, but it was off to a rocky start. She’d overslept and woke up only when Harper yanked the comforter off of her. There was barely enough time for a cappuccino and chocolate croissant, devoured on the run. Worse, she couldn’t remember where her first class was held. She replayed her tour with Harper in her head, but all her classrooms blurred into one.
At least she’d found her locker. It was a small victory, but she’d take the win.
Rummaging in her pocket, she searched for the tiny scrap of paper she’d scrawled her lock code on. Fishing it out, she saw that she couldn’t understand her own handwriting.
She hefted her bag onto her shoulder, grabbed the cold metal lock, and gave it a go with the numbers she vaguely remembered. Eighteen, thirty-three, seven. Nothing. She wound the knob past zero to reset it and tried again. Still no luck. The heat in her face let her know that her tendency to blush like a tomato had begun.
Stepping back, she released the lock, inhaled, and touched it gingerly, as if trying to calm a skittish calf. It was the moment of truth. People were starting to stare. Is this who she’d be here, the ditzy new girl who couldn’t even open her own locker? She gripped it harder. Please open.
"Need some help with that?"
Ainsley froze. She dreaded being rescued. Turning, she found a tall, cute blond guy with a curious smile, wearing the uniform blazer like a runway model.
Ainsley wished her locker had opened so she could crawl inside. Speak, dammit! What was wrong with her? She forced a thin-lipped smile, before muttering, “Thanks, I’m fine."
He laughed. "You sure you don’t want some help?" He gestured toward the lock.
Ainsley managed a nod before taking a step back so he could see it for himself. "You can try, but there’s something wrong with it."
"What’s your combo?" he asked.
Realizing the scrap of paper was now a wadded ball in her sweaty palm, she unclenched it, smoothing it out, and handing it to him. "It’s a little hard to read."
He stared at her, smiled, and graciously took the moist paper. He smoothly dialed the three numbers, but it didn’t budge.
"That’s weird. And you’re sure you have the right combination?"
"Excuse me,” an exasperated voice behind them said. Ainsley felt a jolt to her abdomen as a petite blonde elbowed her way past them. She spun Ainsley’s lock—forward, back, forward—and opened the door.
She felt the blood drain from her face. If Ainsley hadn’t been embarrassed enough, now she was mortified.
“This your locker, Kendal?" the flummoxed guy asked.
“Duh, Justin.” She grabbed a few books before slamming it shut and turned on her heel, whipping her hair around and stomping off.
"We had the wrong locker," he said, laughing. Ainsley could tell he was trying to save her from further humiliation, but it was too late. "It’s no big deal. Let me see your schedule. Your locker info should be on there."
Heat radiated through Ainsley’s cheeks. She reached into the outside pocket of her bag and pulled out the sheet, also crumpled, not unlike her life. She practically pushed it into Justin’s chest.
He unfolded it and gave a low chuckle. "There’s the problem. You have locker 373, and we were trying to break into this one." He patted the one to the left. "Shall we try this again?”
She was amazed that he was able to interpret her chicken scratch.
He spun the dial, the lock clicked, and with one quick pull, the door opened.
“Thanks." She hefted her bag into the dark metal space, and pulled out a few of the textbooks she wouldn't need today. “I’m pathetically turned around here, not to mention having issues with simple locker maneuvers.”
"No worries. I’m Justin by the way." He held out his hand.
"I know," heat reached her cheeks, "she said your name." She did her best to act cool. She forced her hand forward, picturing his disgusted expression when he felt his palm slip off hers from the sweat. "Nice to meet you."
He kept her hand in his. "And you are?"
His smile was too charming making her really want to wriggle into that damn locker. She could make herself fit. She’d never felt comfortable around cute guys. And lately, she was more used to being invisible, or the recipient of curious glances for being that girl whose dad jumped off the roof.
“Oh, right, I’m Ainsley.” She pulled her hand away and quickly wiped it on her skirt.
Justin’s face changed to a look of confusion.
"No, I’m sorry, I mean I’m not wiping off your handshake. My hands are sweaty and—,” she threw her hand over her mouth to stem the flow of babble.
A laugh escaped him. Did he think her inelegance was endearing, or was he laughing at her?
"No problem. I’ve got to get to class. You gonna be okay?"
She nodded, unwilling to trust her ability to be articulate.
Justin waved, and she watched him disappear into the moving bodies down the corridor.
Ainsley followed the voice and noticed a tall, black-haired girl with a disbelieving expression, leaning against a locker.
"Excuse me?" Ainsley asked although she should’ve kept her mouth shut. Had she learned nothing from her unfortunate Tiana moment?
"It’s what––your first day––and you’re already flirting with one of the hottest guys here?" The dark-haired girl shook her head and made a clicking sound with her tongue. "You must really think you’re something special." She crossed her arms.
What was it about her that was rubbing these girls wrong? Something inside her wouldn’t let her walk away. "And you are?" Ainsley asked.
"Someone you don’t want to get on the wrong side of, but it’s too late for that." The girl spat her disgusting wad of chewing gum at Ainsley’s feet, causing her to stumble back.
Before she could react, the girl was gone, leaving a handful of random strangers staring at her. She grabbed her textbooks, slammed her locker, and bolted—the dreadful feeling of trailing eyes behind her.
She was grateful for Harper’s height the moment she spotted her head bobbing above the unremitting cluster of burgundy, gray, and white-clad bodies in the hall. Weaving in and out of students, Ainsley made it to her. "Thank God you’re here."
"You look freaked. What happened? Oh my God, you didn’t run into Tiana again, did you?"
"No, instead I had a run-in with a very unpleasant girl who also seems to already hate me. Is there something about me? Some pheromone I’m releasing that makes these girls loathe me on sight?"
While she hadn’t been top-tier popular back in Augusta, she’d had friends at school. Well, before her dad had died, she’d had friends. And no one had ever directly bullied her.
Harper put an arm around her shoulder. "Oh, Ainsley, I’m sorry. I warned you. There are some really awful people here—spoiled, rich, and bored. Just try and ignore them."
"Easy for you to say,” she mumbled.