Now he sounds like my dad. “No, it’s not that at all. It’s just such an innovative solution to your problem, it took awhile for it to soak in.”
He smiles. “It is amazingly clever, don’t you think? Your mother truly is a genius.”
I laugh. “Don’t say that in front of her. She’s got a big enough head already.”
He chuckles. “I cannot fault her for that. She is stunningly beautiful and a powerful witch many would envy.”
I swallow hard and put my fork down. “Not my father. He left her…and me.”
Ainsley reaches across the table and takes my hand. “I am so sorry about the divorce. Truth be told, I only met your father twice, but I could tell he didn’t deserve your mother.”
“No kidding? I have no idea why she couldn’t see that herself.”
“You know the saying, love is blind. Too often it is true. But you are here because of her love for your father.”
My eyes tear up. I never thought of their marriage as having anything to do with me. “Of course, I’m glad I am here.”
He looks deep into my eyes the way only a vampire can. “You are a beautiful young woman, Brooklyn. You are the living example of the best parts of your parents.”
When people say that it makes me want to throw up, but from Ainsley’s lips I know it is the truth. “You are going to make me cry.”
He lets go of my hand. “When your mother brought you to the exhibit at the Sutton Gallery for the first time, I knew you would grow into your beauty.”
From anyone else I would think it was a pickup line. But from Ainsley I knew it is sincere. “You are going to make me blush.”
“Now that I’ve met you again, I am glad you are moving to California.”
My brow furrows. He fills me with compliments yet he’s glad I’m leaving? “Why do you say that?”
“Because I have an exhibit coming up in Beverly Hills and I will be moving there soon as well. I am renting a home for a few months.”
A thought hits me like a freight train.
Wait a minute. Is he buttering me up because he is interested in my mother?
A grin spreads across his face. “That is for you to find out.”
2
Bestie Material
My eyes fly open as the Uber car stops in front of a beige stucco suburban tract house. The driver’s black tricked out BMW with custom chrome wheels really stands out. I rub the crick in my neck from sleeping the whole way from the airport. He smiles and holds out his hand. “Glad to see you are awake. The name’s Derrick. I’m friends with Eshe.” He places a business card in my hand. “Give me a call the next time you need a ride.”
A small electrical pulse runs through me as I take the card from his hand. He possesses formidable magic, but I can’t pin down what kind. And I’m too tired to ask. “Thanks.”
He takes my roller bag out of the truck and scoots it up the concrete pathway to the front door. I can’t believe my mom picked such a cookie cutter place to live. Knowing her, there’s a reason.
My mom opens the door looking stunning in a metallic gold caftan that matches her skin glowing in the afternoon sun. “Brook, you look terrible. Come in and rest.”
Nothing could prepare me for the visual onslaught as I staggered into the living room. The walls are covered in a jewel tone Bradbury & Bradbury wallpaper accented with gold. Huge pieces of sari fabric drape down from the corners of the room like a giant tent. My nose twitches at the familiar fragrance of sandalwood incense. Egyptian inscriptions are scrolled on wood panels that hang between the saris. My mom has been busy converting a vanilla home into a quasi-palace.
Except for a traditional grandfather clock by the bay window, a gift from an antique collector friend, the decorations make me feel like I was back in my grandmother’s home in Cairo. In fact, my mother copied her living room almost exactly, except the carved furniture obviously came from Cost Plus Imports not some amazing vendor at a bazaar in Cairo.
I flop down on a dark blue velvet sofa. “I’m beat. The movers left just before I did. I was too wired to sleep on the plane, but now I can barely keep my eyes open.”
My mother nods and rolls my bag down a long narrow hallway. “Your room is right down here. Fred is waiting for you. He’s pretty tired too. He flew in this morning.”
I follow behind her. When I enter my new bedroom, I suck in a breath. “Mom, it’s amazing.”
She smiles as I take in the bedroom of my dreams. The walls are painted my favorite color, aqua. Two crystal sconces form a frame on either side of the white upholstered headboard shaped like a medieval shield. Mirrored nightstands sit on either side of the bed. A glass chandelier, draped in crystals, hangs from the center of the room. Fred is standing on his perch resting on top of the desk facing a large picture window framed by a pair of aqua drapes. His black body is a perfect complement to the black bench that sits at the foot of the bed. “It’s everything I ever wanted.” I hug her tight. “Thank you.”
My mom places my roller bag by the large mirrored closet doors. “I wanted to make up for not being able to properly decorate the apartment in New York.”
“Right, that landlord was a jerk. He wouldn’t let us even hang anything on the walls.” I collapse on the plush white comforter and pull the aqua blanket over my legs. “You mind if I don’t have dinner? I’m so exhausted.”
She pulls the blanket all the way up to cover me. “Of course.” She strokes my cheek. “Get some rest.”
Fred lets out a tiny squeak realizing I’m near him. His wings flap hard and he rises high above the perch just missing the chandelier before landing on one of the pillows near my head. I’m so happy to see him I tickle his chin. “Hey boy, what do you think of your new home?”
In his deep eastern European baritone voice, he says, “It is adequate. Better, now that you are here.”
Fred is always so hard to please. Goes with the territory. I scratch him under his fur covered chin one more time as my eyes grow heavy. He wraps his wings around his body ready to sleep along with me. Most witches have cats or dogs or even rabbits as familiars, I like to be a bit different—my familiar, Fred, is a bat.
Trudging across the school courtyard made up of alternating squares of grass and concrete, I wish I could just turn around and ditch the whole semester. I’ve never had to change to a new school before. Living in Southern California already makes me feel like I’m an alien that just landed on Earth. Switching to a new high school in the middle of senior year makes the whole thing that much worse. Of course, my dad took none of that into consideration when he dumped my mom and ran off with Kimberly. I later found out she was his new secretary. How cliché can you get? Trust my dad to follow the predictable dating list after going to the dark side with my mom.
Even though my mom is one of the most powerful witches in the world, she didn’t see the divorce coming. Why would she? What man is so stupid as to cross a powerful witch? My dad of course. I bet my mom regretted her promise to never use magic against him. She should have been more like Samantha on the old TV show Bewitched and cast an ignorance spell on him. Then she could have controlled everything he did. But my mom has far more honor than my dad. He knew her word was etched in stone. And despite how amazing and strong my mother is, she is an ordinary woman at heart.
Unfortunately for her, she fell in love with the wrong guy. I guess a tiny part of me could understand it. All my friends always went on and on about how hot my dad was. They all said he could be the twin brother of the actor Chris Evans. But in the end, it was my dad’s charm that won everyone over. It was his bit of magic over women—even a powerful witch like my mom.
So, I knew better than to disappoint her by ditching school. I force my feet forward and into the building of my first class. Walking through the open door of my world history classroom, my stomach churns as everyone stares at me. Settling down in a seat near a large window, I watch as the teacher straightens his tie and marches over to close the door.
“That better be the last of the stragglers.”
This class may turn out to be more interesting than I thought. The teacher looks like he just fell out of bed after an all-night bender. He opens up the two-inch thick course book. “I hope everyone read chapter six last night because I’m handing out a pop quiz.”
A chorus of groans breaks out, but I ignore the class and pull the textbook out of my backpack. The hairs on my arm’s prickle. Someone is still staring at me—she’s one of us. I scan the pretty girl’s face trying to figure out what is her secret power, is hidden just below the surface—barely used. Before I can scope out the girl any further, the teacher strides down the aisle handing out the quiz. I swallow hard when he stops next to me. Fantastic. What a great start to my first day at a new school.
“Class, this is Brooklyn. She’ll be finishing her senior year here at Jefferson High. I want you to give her a warm welcome.”
The class claps half-heartedly while I wish I could disappear inside my desk. Why did the teacher have to single me out? Anger bubbles up inside me, and I do everything in my power to keep myself from turning him into a toad—a wart covered poisonous rhinella marina to be precise.
The girl with the secret powers gives me a knowing smile as she looks up from doodling something on her notepad. By the sympathetic smile on her face, she looks like she must have been through a similar situation.
I turn my attention to the quiz and let out a sigh of relief when I see its multiple choice. My fine-tuned witch senses are pretty good at guessing the perfect answers on tests. I’ve never had to study for school since I gained my powers at the age of ten. In two minutes flat, I fill in the blanks on the quiz and switch to scrolling through my Instagram feed with my phone tucked safely under the desk. Thirty agonizing minutes later, the teacher gathers up the quizzes and walks back to the front of the classroom.
In a sloppy hand, he scribbles our next assignment on the whiteboard. “I know many of you have been complaining about how dry the curriculum has been lately, so I’ve decided to give you an extra credit assignment. I’d like you to pick three of the movies I have listed up on the board and write a report on how they demonstrate their importance in world history.”
Glad I joined the class halfway through. What a total snoozefest it must have been if the teacher himself admits the class was boring. With the divorce and big move to the opposite coast, I haven’t had a chance to see any movies in ages. I’ll have to fake my way through the assignment like usual.
I stare at the whiteboard and dream of the bell ringing so I can scarf down my lunch. All I had time for this morning was an apple. My eyes flutter shut as the teacher goes over the pros and cons of reading reviews before seeing the films. Personally, I never look at reviews. A friend might rave about some film, so on their recommendation I’d watch the movie. Not one to be easily impressed, I usually thought it sucked and wondered if the person who wrote the glowing review was a friend of the director or the screenwriter.
The lunch bell rings, and I leap out of my chair and race out the door wishing I could fly back home without being noticed. I move through the crowded hallway wishing I’d brought the map of the campus they sent in the information packet about Jefferson High School. The campus is the size of a small college. My school in Brooklyn was only composed of two brick ivy-covered buildings from the turn of the century.
Starving, I wrestle open my lunchbox and pull out a sandwich bag full of peanut butter stuffed celery sticks and down one as I wander through the campus. It seems what I heard about LA people being unfriendly is true. Not one person stops to help me even though I’m obviously lost.
I turn a corner around a huge glass building and voila, an enormous concrete courtyard surrounded by trees spreads out in front of me. Wood benches are placed strategically under magnolia trees, and I head straight for the one where the girl with the secret powers is sitting. “Mind if I join you?”
She tosses her backpack on the ground to give me some room on the bench. “Sure. My lunch buddy is a no-show.”
I give her my friendliest smile. “Guess that’s good news for me.”
We both laugh. Sill starving, I dig into my backpack and pull out my vintage metal lunchbox shaped like a treasure chest. I notice the girl’s hazel eyes light up. That’s a promising sign. She thinks my vintage, early sixties lunch box is cool. I did too when I found it after searching forever on eBay. Casting a spell for one would have been way easier, but my mom made me promise not to waste my magic on frivolous things.
Flipping down the little gold clasps on the box, I pull out sandwich bags brimming with veggies and cut-up fruit. The girl eyes my lunch but says nothing. Maybe she’s not a vegan fan. She gives me a nervous grin and puts down her half-eaten protein bar. Then she reaches out her hand, grabs an apple out of her backpack, and takes a bite.
I nibble on another celery stick stuffed with peanut butter. Taking out my mini bottle of Perrier out of the lunchbox, I wash the lingering peanut butter down. Might as well get the conversation going. “You’re in my World History class, right?”
She nods, surprised I remember her. “Yeah. We’ll be suffering through the class together.”
I laugh thankful she has a sense of humor. “I knew we’d be friends the moment I saw you.”
Her eyes grow wide. “Really? Why?”
“You have this interesting aura about you. You’re different from the rest of the people I’ve met at this school.”
The wood planks creak as she shifts forward on the bench. She lets out a nervous laugh. “I’m just an average high school student. Nothing special about me.”
I twirl a baby carrot between my fingers knowing she’s lying. And not just about her powers. “That’s not what I heard.”
She bites her lower lip. “Has someone been spreading rumors about me?”
I decide to let her off the hook—for now. “Yes, I heard through the gossip mill you’re named after a TV actress who hocks a popular skincare line.” I can’t tell her the real reason I know her name is because I can see her name written on a label inside her backpack thanks to my x-ray vision spell.
“Yes, it’s true.” She lets out a huge sigh. “I’m named after Jennifer Aniston. My mom is a diehard Friends fan. I’ll never live down the day I did my social studies report on name origins.”
I smile and eye the highlights in her medium brown hair. Maybe a compliment will disarm her. Pointing to her highlights I say, “Are those a homage to your namesake?”
“I wish,” she says, twirling a few blonde strands around her finger. “Just trying to make my boring mop a bit more exciting.”
I give her a thumbs-up. “Mission accomplished. I think your hair looks awesome.”
“Thanks. I was beginning to wonder if I made a mistake. You’re the first person who’s noticed.”
I decide to step up my compliment game. “Maybe it’s because the highlights look so natural. Like you spent the summer at the beach.”
Jen seems genuinely stunned by such a compliment. She scans my face and then focuses on my gold ankh necklace. “That’s such a pretty pendant.”
Interesting, she feels obliged to return the compliment. I like that she noticed one of my favorite things, my ankh pendant. Most people don’t because it’s small, only about an inch and a half long. It’s also not very flashy, although the ruby stone accenting the top of the ankh loop does sparkle when the sun hits it just right. I touch the pendant with my finger and smile. “My grandmother gave it to me when I visited her in Cairo.”
She seems excited by the news. “What a great way to remember her.”
Jen is very perceptive. Could that be one of her powers? “Yes. She’s so far away. We don’t get to visit her as much as I’d like. My mom thinks it’s too dangerous.”
Her eyes narrow. “Is that where you lived before you moved to California?”
My turn to sigh. “I wish. Nope, we lived in New York.”
She gives me a shy smile reali
zing my name should have made it obvious where I lived. “I think your name is super cool, by the way. Not everyone has something in common with a famous bridge.”
The memory of my father’s visit with his new wife hits me hard. The pain still lingers. I shove the bags of veggies aside and stare down at the lunchbox. “I thought so too when I was little. Dad proposed to my mom there. Plus, it’s such a beautiful landmark. At sunset, the color of the stone arches matches my skin.” I stroke my bare arm as if that could wash the pain of having a jerk as a dad away. “But it brings me nothing but sadness now.”
There is true concern in her eyes. “I’m sorry. Did your parents break up?”
I should change the subject, but instead I nod. “Yes. But that’s not the worst part.”
We sit in silence. Jennifer seems afraid to ask me any more questions. I might as well finish the sad story. Sucking in a breath, I look up at her. “My dad remarried. Guess where he proposed?”
“The Brooklyn Bridge.”
“Yep.”
Jen sighs. “I’m sorry. Your dad was a jerk to propose to two women at the same place.”
I flash on the text Kimberly sent to me last night. “It gets worse. My stepmother has decided to call me by my middle name, Samantha.”
Her nose crinkles. “That’s weird. Why would she do that?”
“My best guess is because my name reminds her she isn’t the only love in my dad’s life.
A look of concern crosses Jennifer’s face. I can tell she understands my bitterness. She reaches out to console me, but I pull my hand away—too late. The smell of electricity fills the air as I graze her hand. A spark leaps off Jennifer’s finger and hits the edge of the bench.
She clutches the tip of her finger, obviously in pain. “Brooklyn, what the H just happened?
I can’t tell her it’s my mark of protection. Something that is normally reserved for the closest of my friends. Which only confirms there is something special about her. Instead, I smile and say, “Wow, the static electricity sure is out of control today.”
How to Snag a Shifter-The Book of Brooklyn Book One: A Young Adult Paranormal Romance Witch Series (The Book of Brooklyn Witch Series 1) Page 2