by Jen Pretty
he asked.
“I’ve never been around that many vampires or
children,” I said, doing an internal check on my flame
which was almost gone. This place was pulling it away. I
wrapped the last flicker tight and smiled at Anick so he
would know I was fine.
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He nodded and led me to the kitchen where four
people were busy cooking and baking. The smell of chilli
filled the air, making my stomach growl.
“So, they have turkey or ham,” Anick said, his head in
the giant fridge. The kitchen was industrial-sized, and I
assumed that was necessary with all the kids here.
“Ham, I guess,” I said. “Thanks, Anick.”
“You can call me Nick. It’s what I go by when I'm not
on school property,” he said, slapping a sandwich on a
plate and ushering me back to the cafeteria.
He sat beside me at one of the long tables and watched
as I took a bite of the sandwich.
“Thank you,” I said awkwardly.
“You already thanked me. And you’re welcome.” He
continued to watch me though as if he was expecting
something.
“What?” I asked, wiping my mouth. The sandwich
had mustard on it, and I hoped it wasn't all over my face.
“Sorry, I’ve never eaten. It looks amazing. Does it
make you uncomfortable? Falcor gets angry when I watch
him eat.”
“Uhm, it’s just a bit weird.” No one had ever watched
me eat before.
“Sorry,” he whispered turning away.
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I wanted to tell him it was ok, but it was bizarre, so I
changed the subject. “You asked if I met Colvin, I did. It
was neat to meet another necromancer.”
“Colvin has been here since he was a baby,” Nick said.
He turned back to look at me, but his eyes carefully
avoided my mouth as I chewed a bite of sandwich.
“Wow, what happened to his parents?” I asked before
jamming the last of my sandwich into my mouth to end the
uncomfortable way Nick was trying not to watch me eat.
He shivered before he dropped his eyes to his hands
and spoke. “No one knows, he showed up on a doorstep.”
I almost choked on my sandwich, coughing with my
mouth full. Nick's head whipped up to look at me, but I
managed my food and swallowed it before any sprayed out,
then cleared my throat.
“I showed up on a doorstep. I wonder if he and I are
related.”
“Could be, although they found him in Spain.”
Well, unlikely then. It would have been nice to have a
real brother.
“Don’t be sad,” he said sounding more like a child
than the adult he was. “In necromancer studies, we learned
that you are all connected. Some supernatural relation.”
I nodded. “Niri mentioned that. Did you have a
family?” I asked.
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“Yes, but they are always busy.” He was silent a beat,
and then a smile lit his face. “Did Falcor show you the
music room?”
His excitement caught me off guard, and I shook my
head. “No, just the classrooms and then my room.”
“I knew it. He is such a grump. Come on, I’ll show
you the way,” he said standing up and pushing in his chair.
“Do you play an instrument?”
“No, I never learned.” I pushed in my chair too and
followed him out of the cafeteria.
The children must have filed into classrooms again
because the hall was quiet and empty. As we walked along,
the very last spark slipped through my fingers. It was like
it had evaporated and left me hollow again. The air
whooshed out of my lungs, and I stopped in the hall,
cradling my stomach with my arms. I bent at the waist and
tried to catch my breath.
“Selena, are you OK?” Nick’s voice was barely a
whisper as though he were far away, but I felt his hand
steadying me. My lungs strained to pull air in and out. The
hall was spinning, and I crashed to my knees. I heard voices
yelling, and then the floor flew up to meet my face, and I
lost consciousness.
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When my eyes opened, I was in the small room that
Falcor had led me too. My bed was warm and soft, and I
didn’t feel empty anymore. Fire raged under my skin
making me feel whole and alive. It pressed to escape, but I
locked it down. Greedy to hold on to it and not let go.
“I have more if you need it.”
My eyes darted to the door where Nick stood, a
worried look on his face.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“I don’t think anyone expected you to have so much
trouble here. Children don’t have this problem.”
“I know, Falcor explained to me how far behind I
am.”
Nick studied me for a while longer, biting his lip. “I
mean, even children who come here late, don’t struggle
with this.”
I rolled over to face away from him. Yup, I was the
worst magic person ever.” I wished everyone would stop
telling me that.
“It’s not meant as an insult, Selena. I just mean you’re
different. Nobody expected it. It even stumps Niri. You
should be OK without magic, but you aren’t.” He paused
for a moment. I didn’t look back at him. Just lay still.
“Niri is speeding up your training, so we can get out
of here sooner and get to work.” I heard the door click
45
shut before his words sunk in. Work? What the hell was I
training for? I thought it was so I could use magic safely.
Nick had already left though, so I closed my eyes and tried
to go back to sleep. Fire circled inside me, smoothing away
the strange mix of emotions.
A sense of foreboding rang just underneath the
calming influence of the flames, but I shoved it away for
the moment.
46
CHAPTER FIVE
The next time I woke in the dorm room, it was dark
out the window. The moon hung in the sky, giving just
enough light to cast shadows in my room. The desk and
chair were dark lumps in the dark, but the floor at the end
of the bed was illuminated, displaying my suitcase, still
zipped shut.
I pushed back the covers and slid off the bed. The
suitcase was heavy, but I managed to wrestle it up onto the
bed and unzip it, spilling the contents out. My hands dug
through the clothes and shoes to find the one thing I held
dear. It was an old photograph of Dorothy and me when I
was a baby. The first photo of me in existence, as far as I
knew. My stark white hair blazed in the faded old photo,
and her face was lit up like a candle in the night. She was
radiant. I traced a finger across her cheek, wishing I could
47
see her. My cell phone disappeared somewhere between
being magically whisked away from her house and waking
up in that bed in the medical ward.
I took a change of clothes into the bathroom and had
a quick shower. I hadn’t thought to br
ing shampoo, but I
felt cleaner when I stepped out and dried off. The clean
clothes were wrinkled but smelled ok.
Dressed, I grabbed the room key someone had left on
the desk and walked out the door, locking it behind me. I
wandered for a while. The silence was deafening in the
halls, making me walk on quiet feet so I didn’t disturb it. I
hoped to find a phone, but there weren’t any in the empty
cafeteria or the medical ward. It was eerie, like an
apocalypse. I turned to go down a hall I hadn’t been down
before when the scuff of a foot behind me made me spin
and gasp.
“Selena?”
“Oh, hey, Colvin,” I said breathing a sigh of relief.
“Why are you awake?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, squatting down in front of him.
“Why are you awake?”
He smiled, and for all the money in the world, I
wouldn't have looked away. His happiness filled me, and I
realized that was the connection. It wasn’t like an
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acquaintance. It was a magical connection. His joy was
mine.
“I got up because you were up.”
It took a minute for his words to sink in, then I
straightened and shook my head. “I’m sorry, I was just
looking for a phone, so I could call the lady who raised
me.”
Colvin bit his lip. “Phones don't work here. You have
to leave school property to use them, and we aren’t allowed
off school property.”
I wanted to tell him I was a grownup and I could do
whatever I wanted, but his face looked sad, so I pushed
that down. “That's OK, why don't you go back to bed and
I will too. I can ask Niri about it in the morning.”
He nodded then turned and shuffled back down the
hall.
Instead of going back to bed, I wandered the rest of
the way down the hall. At the end, I turned left and found
a darkened room with coloured lights flashing from a TV.
There was no sound until I walked through the doorway,
then the sound of voices and talking and the tv blaring
filled the room. Someone laughed, but it was cut off
abruptly as I moved further into the room and the people
noticed me.
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My hands burned as the fire under my skin jumped
and spun. I clenched my fists, locking it down tight as I
scanned the room filled with vampires. They were all ages,
but every one of them was staring at me.
“Hi,” I said.
“Selena. Hey, what are you doing here?” Nick asked
from where he sat at a table playing cards with two other
vampires.
“Uhm, I was looking for a phone, but then Colvin
said—”
“Colvin is up? Crap,” one of the adult vampires said
before hustling past me and out of the room.
“I told him to go back to bed,” I said over my
shoulder, but the vampire had left.
I looked back, and Nick was standing right in front of
me. “You were looking for a phone?” he asked.
“Yeah, but Colvin said they don't work here.”
“He’s right. The magic outside the building interferes
with reception, but there is a phone in Niri’s office we can
use. Come on, I’ll show you the way.”
He took my hand, causing my magic the leap. A bit
spilled out before I captured it and locked it down, but I
heard his breath catch like he had felt the magic. He walked
me out of the room and into the silent hall.
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“How come I can’t hear anything in that room when
I’m not in it?” I asked.
“Niri casts spells to keep the noise from leaving each
room. That's why it's so quiet in the halls. Sometimes
things get loud in the classrooms if the kids are practicing
magic.” He still hadn’t let go of my hand when he stopped
me in front of a door. “Here we are.”
He pushed the door open and flicked on a light,
displaying a typical office. A large desk occupied most of
the space. Folders, stacked in tall piles, covered most of the
desk's surface.
Nick let go of my hand, and my magic tried to cling to
him like gum on my shoe. It pulled and then snapped back
as I clamped it down. He picked up a telephone receiver.
It was ancient and had a twisted cord attaching it to the
base. I smiled and took the receiver from him, then dialled
the number I would always know by heart.
“Hello?” a groggy voice muttered from the other end.
“Hey, Dorothy,” I said, tears springing to my eyes. I
bit my lip and took a deep breath. I didn’t need Nick
thinking I was an emotional wreck on top of being unable
to handle my magic.
“Oh, Selena. I’m so glad you called. I’ve been worried
sick about you,” she said, already sounding more awake.
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“I’m fine,” I said, wiping my eyes on my sleeve, so the
sneaky tears didn’t have time to run down my face.
“That’s good,” she sighed. “You left so fast. I know
it's for the best, but I was so worried.”
I looked up at Nick who was inspecting the books on
a bookshelf, decided I didn’t care if he heard and asked her
the question that had been eating at me since I woke up.
“Why didn’t you send me here when I was a child?”
She didn’t reply for so long, I thought maybe she had
hung up. I was about to ask her if she was still there when
she answered.
“I wanted you to have a chance at a normal life. I
couldn’t imagine you doing the things they do. You were
so quiet and fragile. You weren’t hard like them. I’m sorry,
Selena.”
“You couldn’t imagine me doing what things?” I
asked.
Nick spun to look at me, a worried look on his face.
“You know, solving murders and looking at dead
bodies every night,” she replied.
My mouth went dry, and I dropped the phone. I had
never seen a dead body. I only raised people who were old
and had died of old age because the one time I raised the
wraith of a murdered person, she screamed and wailed. Her
pain was so raw, I hid in my room for three days and cried.
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It was as if the woman was my family and I watched her
die in pain and torment.
I shook my head when Nick took a step towards me.
He took another step, and I ran past him and out of the
room. I raced down the hall, looking for any door I could
find.
“Selena, wait,” Nick called from behind me. “It’s not
so bad.”
I slammed into the first door I found that led outside.
Magic assaulted my senses, but I kept running. I pressed
on as long as I could, trying to make it off school grounds.
I didn’t know how far I had to go, but I just prayed I made
it before the magic overwhelmed me.
My steps grew heavy as I ran into the forest that
surrounded the school. Magic still slithered into me like I
was a sponge in the ocean. I t
ried to push it away, but it
just piled on until I was staggering under the weight.
“Let it go, Selena. You can’t carry that much.” Nick’s
voice rang through the night. Under the canopy of trees,
with the moon blocked out, it was completely black. I
couldn’t see and had to slow down, or I would stagger into
a tree. My hands in front of me, I kept moving forward.
“Selena!” I heard Niri’s voice now. It echoed Nick’s,
but I had to keep moving. I could get away and then find
a new city to live in. I would be safe enough.
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“Oof.” Someone grabbed me from behind — arms
wrapped around me. I felt the world tip sideways and
closed my eyes, but I was determined not to lose
consciousness. I had to stay awake and get away from this
place and the person holding me. I struggled, but my arms
and legs felt bloated. They flailed in slow motion, not
impacting anything until the arms released me and I
dropped to the ground.
My eyes flashed open, and by the light of the moon, I
could see I was in a graveyard. Magic poured out of me
towards the graves, and I took a deep breath, then another,
until my lungs were working properly again. I collapsed and
let my cheek rest on the dewy grass. If I had my knife, I
would have raised a wraith to feel the rush, but at least I
didn’t feel like I would explode. I opened my eyes and
gazed at the blue magic as it slid over the grass under the
moonlight; it wandered between the graves, hoping to
entice me to raise someone from the cemetery.
I looked behind me to see who had brought me here
and it was Falcor, his face in a harsh scowl.
“I was sleeping,” he said by way of greeting.
“I have to go,” I replied, trying to push my feet to rise.
He scoffed and watched as I struggled. My legs were
jello and wouldn’t hold me, but I got into a sitting position.
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My magic had spread around the entire graveyard. Blue
glitter coated every inch like a birthday party gone wild.
Niri appeared beside Falcor, a frown on his face until
he noticed the magic spread around the area, then his jaw
dropped open, and his eyes got wide.
“I have to go,” I said again, but I knew I still couldn’t
rise from the ground.
“What happened?” Niri asked, still gazing at the light