Term One

by K M Charron

  “The truth remains,” Ainsley said, unable to keep silent any longer, “we don’t know what it will or won’t do or what it is or isn't capable of. We’re all guessing here,” She wrapped her arms around herself. Despite the layers she wore, the cold chilled her to the bone. It seemed unseasonably cold for Massachusetts, but it was still warmer than Maine. Winters there were miserable.

  “Can we stop with all this bloody banter and get on with something? Anything? That or I’m going back for a beer,” Jax said in a dry, bored tone.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve never lured a supernatural entity before. I don’t quite know the perfect method for tracking one yet,” Sydney snapped.

  Khourtney put her hands up. “Why don’t we go back to the party. We can split up into pairs and walk around, looking for doubles? Then we’ll at least know it’s here, masquerading as someone.”

  Finally, a reasonable suggestion. “I’m with Khourtney,” Ainsley said. “For all we know, while we’re out here plotting, that thing could be attacking another witch somewhere.”

  A piercing scream cut through the night, and they had no time to discuss it further..

  Sydney and Justin took off running first. Ainsley saw Ava, Khourtney, and Jax nod in unison before sprinting with the others. She wasn’t going to be left alone. With her heart hammering in her chest, Ainsley forced herself to bolt back to the party. She caught up to the others in no time—adrenaline working like a miracle drug. She had no clue what she'd do when they got there.

  The group darted between trees, jumped over exposed roots, and dodged jutting rocks. She tried to land carefully and not roll an ankle. She knew no one could stop to help her under the circumstances.

  The screams intensified, all too reminiscent of the night Darren’s body was discovered. Ainsley prayed this wasn’t another murder. She didn’t feel emotionally equipped to handle all of this.

  Students dashed by her, running in the opposite direction. If she were smart, she’d turn around and run with them, away from whatever had everyone in a panic. As more students passed her, she saw the path opened into a small clearing. Ainsley braced herself. Justin appeared by her side, his hand on her back, steadying her.

  A girl from Ainsley’s drama class was hanging before her, suspended in mid-air. A gasp escaped her lips, and she covered her mouth with a gloved hand.

  “Shit. Get everyone away from here,” Sydney commanded.

  Justin, Jax, and Ava began shooing people away, waving their hands over the student’s faces and mumbling. Suddenly, the students' anguish was gone. They nodded, walking off as if nothing had happened. They’d clearly all Persuaded people before. It was like second nature to them.

  She looked on in awe as they spelled the students right in front of her! It was both incredible and appallingly invasive. But it worked. The area cleared out in less than a minute, leaving the six of them alone with the floating girl. How was this happening?

  Ainsley gaped at the girl, hanging in the air as though suspended in water. Her white-blonde hair billowed around her, her eyes glassy and vacant, her mouth open in a silent scream.

  The air in Ainsley’s lungs seemed to evaporate, and she gasped for breath. Her pulse raced, pumping her blood through her ears at such speed that her hearing muffled.

  “Get her down!” Sydney commanded, looking wildly from Ava to Justin, Jax, and Khourtney, all of them slack-jawed and unmoving.

  Why wasn’t Sydney doing something? Ainsley wondered. Wasn’t she always going on about what a great and powerful witch she was?

  Sydney finally moved, pushing past Ava and Jax, her hands splayed out in front of her. She commanded something in Latin, but the girl didn’t come down. Instead, the student was flung aggressively back and forth through the air, stopping suddenly with a jerk.

  Ainsley yelped, unable to help herself. She trained her gaze on the girl, holding her breath and praying it would be over soon.

  A gurgling sound started coming from the girl’s throat.

  “What’s happening to her?” Ainsley desperately wanted someone to make the sound stop.

  Ava pointed, “She’s choking.”

  Ainsley followed Ava’s finger back to the blonde and saw white, bubbling foam sputtering from her mouth. She wanted to cover her eyes but couldn’t. She just stood there, frozen.

  The temperature seemed to drop all around them. An icy chill burrowed down into Ainsley’s body. Suddenly, the girl whipped through the air again. Back and forth. Over and over.

  “Do something,” Ainsley screamed. Even if she’d tried to jump toward the girl, she was too high up. Ainsley wouldn’t be able to reach her.

  “Now!” She motioned to Sydney.

  A determined look on her face, Sydney performed another spell, the girl continuing to thrash ten feet in the air. Sydney swayed, unsteady on her feet. “A little help here!” she yelled to the others.

  Justin snapped out of his shock first, and the others followed. They all raised open palms toward the girl and, in unison, muttered something incomprehensible to Ainsley.

  Dull light seemed to emanate from their fingertips, wrapping around the girl.

  Ainsley’s heartbeat quickened, her body quaking as she watched the girl lower slowly to the ground, collapsing on her side. Her eyes and mouth were closed, her body still. She looked like she was sleeping, and Ainsley hoped it was true. She prayed the girl wasn’t dead.

  Sydney

  Cassidy Jerome looked dead. Sydney rushed over, closed her eyes, and knelt next to the girl, before extending her arms across the limp body, palms down. Terror, dizziness, and nausea rose up within her as she took in the body’s most recent feelings and attempted to read the condition of Cassidy’s body. She tried to push aside the fear that her magic wouldn’t work, that her friends had actually lowered Cassidy down, that she hadn’t had any effect at all, and that she was a shitty witch with no business casting so much as a fishing line, let alone a powerful spell.

  Syd shook her head, closed her eyes, and concentrated on Cassidy. Sydney felt the girl’s life force humming inside her body, but it wasn’t normal. It had been distorted by so much magic. It wasn’t normal for middlings to carry magic inside them like this. Sure, the Wildes used spells on them sometimes, but that caused only a small vibration of magic that didn’t linger. This was different. Cassidy’s body was overrun by it.

  “I think the shifter did this. I can feel that there’s something wrong with her internally. She doesn’t feel energetically normal for a middling. There’s magical energy bouncing around all over inside of her.” Sydney ran her hands over the length of Cassidy’s body without touching her. “Middling bodies aren’t made to handle this amount of concentrated magic. She could die.”

  “Oh my God,” Ainsley moaned, pacing while her fingers rubbed her temples.

  “I don’t get it. Why would it go after a middling?” Khourtney asked.

  Sydney wished she knew for sure. “Maybe this is some sort of warning. It could’ve tried to get to a witch but was unable to. Maybe it got angry and did this to send us a message to stop looking for it.”

  “We have no idea what it’s capable of, or what it’s willing to do,” Justin said. Sydney recognized the fear in his voice.

  “Will she wake up?” Ainsley asked, almost in a whisper. “She needs to wake up. Can’t you do something?”

  Fuck, why is she always around?

  When no one answered, Ainsley asked again more loudly.

  “We don’t know!” Sydney took to her feet and began pacing.

  Jax approached Cassidy and placed his fingers gently on either side of her face. He closed his eyes and recited an advanced Black magic spell that Sydney didn’t recognize. He exhaled and drew back. His expression told her it wasn’t good news. “I think she’s in a coma.”

  “What?” Ainsley shrieked.

  His words struck Sydney with force. A coma. Visions of her father, lying in his hospital bed day after day, month after month, year after year, filled
her with an ache that dropped her to her knees.

  “Are you okay, Syd?” Jax asked.

  “Can someone get her out of here?” Sydney said, motioning to Ainsley. “I can’t think with all of her dramatics.” How long was she going to have to deal with her?

  Ainsley looked stricken, but she shut up.

  Syd tried to think. They had to get help for Cassidy, but it needed to look like something normal had happened to her. But what?

  “We can’t tell the Elders about this,” she began, “not on top of everything else.”

  “I hate to say it,” Ava said, “but we have to. They’re the only ones who can figure out what’s wrong with Cassidy and heal her.”

  Khourtney paced inside the small clearing, not looking at anyone. Her anxiety was infectious.

  “Why would the shifter go after a middling and not a witch?” Jax mused. “It can’t siphon anything from them.”

  He looked at Ainsley. “Wait, you said it knew you weren’t a witch, but also that you were different from a normal middling somehow. That means the shifter can tell who is human and who's a witch.”

  “Which means the shifter did this to Cassidy on purpose,” Ava added. “This wasn’t an accidental attack from the shifter thinking Cassidy was possibly a witch.”

  “How do you all know this was the shifter and not,” Ainsley stopped, catching her words before they were out. She gazed around cautiously and said, “How do you know it wasn’t a witch that did this?”

  Sydney barked out a laugh. “Because we all take an oath, idiot. No Wilde would attack a middling unprovoked like this, and we certainly don’t use magic in front of them.” She crossed her arms before adding, “You’re the rare exception, thanks to Justin,” in her snarkiest tone. “Besides, all the other apprentices are inside the dorms right now. We're the only witches out.”

  Khourtney remained at Cassidy’s side. “Besides, no apprentice knows this kind of magic.” She smoothed the hair off Cassidy’s face. Turning to the group, she stated, “We need to get her help. Now. Before it’s too late."

  Justin dug his phone out of his jacket pocket.

  “What are you doing?” Sydney demanded.

  He didn’t meet her gaze. “Calling campus security. We need to get her to the infirmary before she gets hypothermia—or worse.”

  Sydney didn’t know if this was a good idea, but she couldn’t think of anything else. They couldn’t just leave Cassidy here. Not when a hundred Ashcroft students saw her dangling in mid-air. “Okay, fine. But how are we going to explain what everyone just saw? They watched her levitating like she was in the fucking Exorcist! It’s not like we can Persuade all of them.” She tried to calm down since the more worked up she became, the harder it was for her to think rationally.

  “The Elders are already going to find out,” Ava said. “There were too many witnesses. This is going to get back to Headmistress Chambers and then to your mom, Syd. We can’t hide this.”

  “Well, I’m not calling my mother. This will be just one more thing for her to blame me for. Justin, can you call your Aunt Piper or Uncle Radley?” she asked.

  They were rational and nurturing. If anyone could keep a cool head and know what to do, it would be them. And they weren’t fans of her mother. Although they’d never said it outright and risked retaliation, Justin had confided the fact to her once.

  Justin nodded, stepped away, and made the call.

  Ainsley took her phone out and was about to dial. “We still need to get someone over here to take Cassidy to the infirmary.”

  “And tell them what?” Sydney snapped. “We need a story first, that’s why Justin is calling his aunt and uncle.”

  “She could be dying,” Ainsley insisted. “We don’t know what’s wrong with her or what’s happening inside her body. I can’t sit here and just watch her die. I’m calling.”

  With a quick flick of her wrist, Sydney sent a wave of magic to Ainsley’s cell and launched it across the clearing. The middling’s eyes went wide with shock. “I said, wait,” Syd demanded through gritted teeth.

  Ainsley didn’t speak, a refreshing change from dropping her usual two cents in. She had no stake in this; she had no reason even to be here.

  Justin walked back, pocketing his phone. It was the first time Sydney noticed how pale and tired he looked. His normally glowing skin was dull, his blond hair washing his complexion out further. His eyes had lost their mischievous sparkle. She’d been so busy being hurt and angry with him that she hadn’t noticed how much this was affecting him too.

  “I spoke with Aunt Piper,” he said. “They’re on their way. She told me to call campus security. Tell them we found her like this, and that we suspect she tripped and fell. Suggest she had too much to drink.”

  “What about all the witnesses to Cassidy’s little party trick?” Jax asked.

  “My aunt and uncle said they’re taking care of it.” Justin gave Syd a knowing look, and she relaxed a little.

  Ainsley shook her head in apparent disbelief. “What does that mean? They’re going to Persuade everyone to forget again, the way all of Ashcroft was brainwashed to forget that Darren was murdered?”

  “I told you we couldn’t trust her,” Sydney said, allowing a satisfied I-was-right tone to surface.

  “You can trust me, but you can’t just expect me to stand by while you play with people’s minds. That’s not okay,” Ainsley said firmly.

  “You don’t know anyone murdered Darren. He could’ve been in the middle of a stupid prank that went wrong. God, you think you’ve got all the answers, but you know nothing.” Sydney stormed toward her, having had enough. “So, what do you want us to do then, Ainsley?” Syd jabbed her finger into her shoulder. “Should we let a hundred plus students be terrified about something they can’t explain and can’t defend themselves against? We can’t exactly say, ‘Oh, it’s just magic, no need to worry.’ Think for once, will you?”

  Khourtney picked up Ainsley’s phone and brought it over to her, inserting herself between the two warring factions. She put a gentle arm around Ainsley. “Isn’t it better to have everyone believe the party was great and go on with their lives?”

  The righteous indignation seemed to disappear on Ainsley’s face, and she rested her head for a brief moment on Khourtney’s shoulder. “I guess so.”

  This was too much. Sydney wasn’t going to sit by and watch as all her friends fell for Ainsley’s bullshit.

  “If we can’t trust you, and we can’t Persuade you, then we have a problem. Maybe I should do something about it,” Sydney snapped. She’d love nothing more than to be rid of Ainsley. She was beginning to consider the ways she could make that happen.

  “You can trust us,” Justin said, staring in the middling’s eyes. “I promise that Cassidy will be taken care of. My aunt and uncle will figure out what’s wrong with her—and if they can’t, they’ll find an Elder who can. Everything is going to be okay.”

  Ainsley nodded at him, but it didn’t convince Sydney. She could’ve screamed with the way he pandered to her.

  Syd clapped her hands together. She needed everyone to refocus their attention on her. “Can we discuss what’s important here? Justin is staying to wait for his aunt and uncle. Ava, call security and tell them that we were walking back to campus and found Cassidy unconscious. You can stay with Justin to wait for them. Jax and Khourtney, get her,” Sydney dipped her head dismissively at Ainsley, “back to campus. No one can know about her. This way, none of you are alone.”

  “What about you?” Ava asked, a hand on her hip and a petulant pout on her lips.

  “I have to do damage control with my mother, unless any of you would like that honor.” No one uttered a word. “That’s what I thought.”

  Sydney knew better than to contact her mother, so she’d waited all night for her mother to summon her. Surely her mother had heard about Cassidy by now. Why wasn’t she demanding to know what had happened? Her mother was the hardest person to figure out. Sydney knew she
should stop trying, but the innate urge to connect with her mother on some level was too strong.

  She’d finally fallen asleep around four a.m., only to jolt awake a few hours later with enough adrenaline to stop a middling’s heart. Sweat soaked her pillow, hair matting against her face and neck. Ava, who was still dead asleep in bed, didn’t stir.

  Light peeked through the curtains from outside. Sydney checked the time.

  8:19 am.

  She saw she had a pair of texts from Justin, so she knew her cell was working fine. It didn’t make sense—after everything that had happened with Langston and Jake, and now Cassidy, her mother hadn’t confronted her. She had to be freaking out. So why hadn’t she called Sydney out for all this? She never missed an opportunity to rub Syd’s nose in anything minor, let alone a mess of this magnitude. Wasn’t this the ammunition her mother needed to send her screw-up of a daughter away once and for all?

  It was as though her mother could read her mind—Syd hadn’t felt the invasion inside her head, but it was a possibility—because her window swung open and one of her mother’s ravens flew inside, landing on the edge of her bed.

  Fuck.

  It called to her, loud and piercing.

  Ava finally opened her eyes. “What the hell?” she yelped, seeing the bird not five feet from her head.

  “My mother.”

  “Can’t she just text you?” Ava grabbed her pillow and pulled it over her face.

  The raven squawked again. “Fine,” Syd spat as she put her arm out. The bird landed on her wrist and stared into Sydney’s eyes. Immediately, Syd saw her mother’s dark violet eyes and blood-red scowl inside her mind. Her mother had a cold calmness that made Syd queasy. “Get to the library. Ten minutes. Do not make me wait.” The image evaporated inside her head in an instant.

  Now that the long-awaited summons was here, Syd longed for a reprieve, but she bolted up, spelled herself clean and dressed, and rushed out of her dorm room.