And, yet, there was something off about Georgia. As I studied her further, I realized her hands were trembling as she fidgeted with her book bag and her words were coming out a little too fast. Dark circles hung under her eyes like she hadn’t slept in a while. I wondered if she’d been pulling all-nighters to study for the exam or if she was on some drugs to enhance her performance.
“I bet he’s testing us on telekinesis,” Georgia whispered.
“Hmm?”
“Well, I’ve been inside the museum and there are lots of artifacts. Lots of things to levitate. I’ve been practicing.” She leaned toward me. “Professor Answorth kind of tipped me off.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Well, he didn’t say it in so many words, but he told me after class one day, when I asked him what to study, that I should go back and look at chapter seven in the textbook,” she said, eyes big. They were slightly bloodshot, adding to my suspicions.
Chapter seven of the textbook? I’d done the assigned readings, but that chapter was assigned over a month ago. I couldn’t remember what it had covered any more than I could remember what I’d had for breakfast the first Monday of November.
“Oh,” was all I could muster as my stomach churned. Telekinesis was not my strong suit by a country mile. It required too much finesse. I was going to straight up fail this exam.
My thoughts were whisked away as the class began to shuffle forward. Answorth had appeared and lead us in. Georgia, Disha and I fell into step behind the crowd.
A quick scan for Rowan let me know he hadn’t snuck in the back. He was indeed not here and missing the final exam. That would not bode well for his grades. Maybe something was wrong. I thought about the blue veins under his skin and how… unwell they made him seem sometimes.
My eyes were drawn forward as we entered the building. The ivy on the outside wall rippled like verdant scales as if waving us in. Then, inside, an apparition became visible on the entrance’s domed ceiling. A floating head that spoke to us Wizard of Oz style.
“Greeeetings, witches and warlocks. Young and old. Supernatural and human. We welcome you to the American Magical Historical Society and Gift Shop,” the chipper floating head boomed. “Please enjoy our magical oddities, artifacts, and historical wonders, but be warned. There are items here that can stop your heart, split your spleen, and turn you into a newt. So please, keep your hands and other appendages to yourself at all times.”
Magical artifacts. I wondered, in passing, if this was where the last stolen item came from.
The head talked a bit more about the rules, wished us well and then poofed into a cloud of sparkly purple smoke.
“Well, that was something,” I whispered.
Beside me, Georgia giggled a little hysterically. Yeah, she was definitely on something. Poor girl. This exam must’ve meant a lot to her. I wondered vaguely if it should’ve meant more to me, but there had been so much else going on.
Professor Answorth clapped his hands and waved us forward, deeper into the museum.
“Onward to your examination,” he instructed in his British accent.
The halls we passed had so many wonders my eyes and brain could not process them all. I spied large golden goblets, mummified animals, and something that appeared to be a giant purple squid sculpture. There were hallways glittering with jewelry and galleries of artwork. I wanted to wander through everything, but the class kept flowing forward. I definitely had to come back.
Answorth led us into the area that was part of the “drunk architect” section. Oil paintings hung crookedly, matching the slanted angles of doorways and lamps, and giving me that off-kilter feeling again.
Beside me, Georgia put a hand to her head, appearing anxious or ill. I wondered if she suffered from performance anxiety. The pterodactyls in my stomach were proof that I had my fair share of anxieties myself.
We passed a door labeled “Restricted Access.” A guy dressed in a dark suit stood next to the door, looking sullen. He stared straight ahead as if we weren’t there. He looked like someone who would be packing heat, or maybe he didn’t need to because he could shoot death rays from his pinky toes.
What kind of dark magic lurked behind those doors? Probably the items that could split your spleen. Or worse.
We slipped into a smaller room at the end of the hall. At least here, the decor was hung properly so I didn’t feel as though the floor was tilting. It was a smaller gallery room, with many framed portraits labeled with gold plates. There were sculpted busts on pedestals and one life-sized statue of a man riding a snarling manticore in the room’s center.
Professor Answorth climbed up on a stone bench and waited as we clustered around.
“Ladies and gentleman, today is your final exam. I will give you ten minutes to look over your notes before beginning. Study wisely, as this task will make up twenty percent of your final grade.”
Digging in my bookbag, I glanced back to where Georgia had been standing, intent on asking her for some telekinesis advice, but she wasn’t where I’d last seen her. Scanning the room, I realized she wasn’t there. Did she realize that if she wasn’t back in ten minutes, she would fail the exam she’d studied so hard for?
I went back to examining my notes, trying to cram the entirety of chapter seven inside my stressed out mind. It wasn’t working. I was too damn nervous.
I scanned the room again. Georgia wasn’t back. Had she gotten ill? She had looked terrible. What if she’d gone to the bathroom and passed out or worse. If she was sick, someone should check on her and let Professor Answorth know she wasn’t just skipping.
“Disha, I’ll be back in a second,” I said, setting my bag down.
Her eyes darted up to me. “You can’t leave now. It’s the final exam.”
“I just have to check on something. We still have five minutes.”
Her round stare let me know I was being crazy, but I didn’t have time to explain.
Darting out of the room, I scanned the hall for the bathrooms we’d passed on the way in. They were near the front entrance. I could make it if I ran.
Taking off at a jog down the hallway, I prayed Georgia was just washing her hands or something. I really didn’t have much ti—
I skidded to a stop, my heart pounding. I couldn’t be seeing what I thought I was seeing.
On a second glance, indeed I was.
The doors to the “Restricted Access” section were wide open, and standing in the middle of the room amidst cases of rare and powerful-looking artifacts, was Georgia in the act of stealing one.
Chapter Seventeen
FALL SEMESTER
MID DECEMBER
How the hell did she get into the restricted section? Where’s the guard? My eyes darted around and quickly spotted him. He was knocked out on the floor, half of his body hidden behind a large planter.
A scream caught in my throat. I should have been calling for help, but I found myself walking closer to take a better look at the guard.
“S-sir,” I stammered in a broken tone.
Was he dead? Had Georgia killed him? No, it couldn’t be. She seemed so nice.
When I made it far enough to see his face, my veins ran cold. He was unrecognizable, his skin dried and cracked as if a giant tick had suck the life out of him and no amount of water could ever rehydrate him back to life.
The scream that had been lodged in my throat finally escaped. It echoed through the large space, magnified. Footsteps hurried in my direction from the testing area. Help was coming, but, suddenly, I couldn’t tear my eyes from the room before me. The place was filled with dozens of pedestals housing cased-in objects. Many magical artifacts hung from the walls while the largest ones sat on the floor—suits of armor, shrunken heads, swords, ancient pistols, sculptures. There was even a large wardrobe in one corner that made me think of Narnia.
Georgia stood inside the room, her hands resting on the glass case that protected one of the artifacts. Her eyes were glazed, her stance robotic. She
looked like a zombie.
Professor Answorth kind of tipped me off, she had said.
It was an odd thing for me to remember at the moment, but for some reason, the words echoed a few more times inside my head, making me wonder why he would have shown such preferential treatment. Why give her a hint?
A... suggestion?
But wasn’t that a mentalist’s specialty? Suggestions. Which begged the question: what other ideas could he have planted in her mind?
I lowered my gaze, trying to see inside the case. Something golden rested at its bottom, but I couldn’t tell what.
I took a step into the room. Georgia didn’t even glance up, too entranced by whatever spell she was casting.
“Ms. Rivera!” A voice called from behind me. “What are you doing?”
My head swiveling slowly, I glanced over my shoulder. Answorth and my classmates were standing on the other side of the doorway, regarding me with shocked expressions. Vincent, the top student in the class, pointed at the dead guard.
“She… she killed him,” he said.
What?! Did he mean me? From their angle, they couldn’t see Georgia, so I must have appeared as guilty as if I held a bloody knife.
Oddly, that didn’t seem to matter. Instead of feeling fear or worry, all I felt was deep curiosity about Georgia and the item. Something didn’t feel right inside my head, but it didn’t seem to matter—not when the tug of the case demanded my every thought.
What was inside? I had to know.
I stepped closer to Georgia. Her hands were planted flat on the sides of the case as her lips moved silently. She didn’t matter either, though. My gaze fell on the artifact.
“Ms. Rivera!” Answorth exclaimed, his voice edging closer. He paused. “Everyone stay back.” After a beat, he addressed me again, “Mr. Rivera, please, come out of there. It’s not safe.”
“Charlie, do as he says.” This from Disha who sounded scared enough to use my real name.
They had no reason to be scared. The item in the case would fix everything. A warm feeling spread in my chest.
“Georgia?!” Answorth gasped behind me. “No, get your hands off that case.”
But it was too late.
The case cracked, the glass making a sound like someone crunching ice between their teeth. Fissures crawled up the case’s sides like upside-down lightning bolts.
“We can even break items with telekinesis,” Professor Answorth had said one day in class. “All you have to do is make them vibrate fast enough.”
The case imploded. Glass rained down on the floor with the sound of a thousand diamonds scattering across the tile. Georgia merely blinked at the object she’d released.
An alarm blared, and a metal door fell from the ceiling, slamming Georgia and me in with a score of weird, magical relics.
The thud of the metal door should have sent us squealing in fear, but we both just stood there, staring at the golden glow of the item Georgia had liberated. It rested on a black, velvety surface, growing more radiant by the second.
It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
As if tugged by a leash tied to my heart, I lurched forward to get a better look. At first, I couldn’t decide what the item was. It appeared to be two large wedding bands stuck together.
“What is it?” I murmured to no one in particular.
I frowned and cocked my head to one side for a better angle, then realized the rings weren’t stuck together. They were separate, and they weren’t rings. They were more like... wide bracelets.
Georgia lifted a hand to pick one up.
“I wouldn’t touch that,” I said—not because I was worried for her safety, but because I didn’t want her nasty fingers on them.
They were mine.
She ignored me. I tried to slap her hand away, but she moved fast for a zombie and got a hold of it. Clenching her fist around it, she lifted it up in triumph. Her eyes glinted under its light as she brought it down and started slipping it on her other hand.
“No!” I exclaimed, something inside me cringing at the idea of Georgia wearing the bracelet. My bracelet.
I lunged forward, throwing my arms around Georgia’s waist and knocking her off balance. We toppled to the floor, me landing on top of her. She recovered immediately and, after pushing me off, she elbowed me in the jaw.
I tumbled to the side, hands flying to my face as I cried out. Still reeling from the pain, I watched her stand and—in one swift motion—slip the bracelet onto her wrist.
She smiled, her face twisting maniacally. But the elation didn’t last. It fell from her expression almost as soon as it materialized and morphed into a grimace of agony.
Right where she stood, Georgia’s body began to shake. Her arms flailed. Her head whipped back and forth. Her teeth rattled.
I stood, my hands extended in her direction. “Georgia,” I whispered.
She seemed to quake as if an electric current were travelling through her. Light burst from her mouth in a silent scream. Then she went still and, for an instant, teetered on her own two legs before collapsing.
As she hit the floor, the bracelet slipped off her wrist—widening to pass over her hand—then rolled away, coming to a stop right in front of me.
I stared at it, Georgia completely forgotten.
The bracelet beckoned me, shapes dancing in its golden, polished surface. My trembling fingers reached for it, while a desperate voice in the back of my mind told me not to do it. I ignored it and picked it up.
It was cool and smooth to the touch. I turned it this way and that, admiringly. There were no designs on it, no encrusted jewels, not a mark of any kind. But it was beautiful, and it was mine.
I put it on, easily slipping my hand through it as it widened for me. Once in place, it tightened securely and comfortably around my wrist. Warmth spread through my body as something inside me seemed to swell.
My gaze fell on Georgia, then on the bracelet at my wrist.
Oh, no. What the hell have I done?
Panic exploded in my chest just as I convulsed once and promptly fell to my knees. I expected light to burst through my mouth like celestial puke, but instead, it came from the pedestal where the other bracelet waited.
Trembling, I stood up and walked to it with slow steps. The second bracelet beckoned me just as the first one had. I obeyed, some powerful force overpowering my will, and slipped it onto my other wrist.
It occurred to me that I could die like Georgia, but for all the world, I felt amazing because my magic—which had always felt like a giant jumble of nonsense inside of me—quickly was falling into place.
Chapter Eighteen
FALL SEMESTER
MID DECEMBER
They wouldn’t come off.
Dean McIntosh, Dr. Henderson, Professor Answorth, and even Nurse Taishi had tried, and they had all failed.
The cuffs had made themselves comfortable on my wrists. Permanent, like a bad case of herpes.
Aradia’s Cuffs, that’s what they were called. They had killed Georgia, and everyone was worried they would kill me next, but I felt fine. Great, really.
Better yet, I was sure they were my item, the thing I needed to center and focus my magic. Several times already, I’d used Disha’s spell to make everyone sound like an Ewok to my ears, then turned them back to normal without a glitch. I’d practiced it a lot before, and I’d never been that consistent. Now, it felt like that tangled ball of yarn that had been my magic had come unraveled, and its beginning and end were clearly at my reach.
From what I could gather, the cuffs had belonged to an Italian witch, who was supposedly the daughter of the goddess Diana and Lucifer. That should have been enough to scare the crap out of me, but, if the name Diana was supposed to mean divine, then the cuffs were as good as they were bad, just like everything and everyone—Dean McIntosh’s words, which I agreed with but for one point. Only Rowan was pure darkness, no good in that one.
I was in Dean McIntosh’s office, a larg
e space with tall mahogany bookshelves on three of its walls, wood floors sectioned off by three Persian rugs, a fireplace, marble busts of old dudes on pedestals, and a desk almost as big as a queen-size bed—a far cry from her sister’s office and way less fun. Maybe the dean needed a ferret to liven things up.
I was sitting on a chair while Dean McIntosh, Dr. Henderson, Professor Answorth, and Nurse Taishi fussed over me as if I were ill.
In the back of my mind, I was dimly aware that, despite the fact one of my classmates had died, I was more worried about keeping the murderous cuffs than actually mourning her loss. Something was messed up with that, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel the deep sense of loss that should accompany a senseless death. All I wanted was to try all the spells I’d been practicing, and I couldn’t do it while sequestered in this office. Clearly, the cuffs and their magic was messing with my head.
“You are wasting your time,” Macgregor Underwood said from the window where he’d been standing, surreptitiously watching everyone’s attempt to take the cuffs off my wrists while he pretended to stare at the lawn.
They all peered in his direction.
He turned and faced us, his hands clasped behind his back, perfectly coiffed hair shining in the overhead lights. “The cuffs chose her. They won’t come off until she’s dead. Or we find a clever spell.”
I held my breath. Was he trying to scare me? Was it a threat or something? Maybe he was planning my murder in order to place the cuffs back under a glass case.
“The last witch who wore them did so for over thirty-five years,” he said. “Since the Academy acquired them, anyone who has touched them has died. That is why they were in the restricted area. That is why they killed Georgia. The only reason this girl is not dead as well is because, for some ungodly reason, Aradia chose her.”
Dean McIntosh dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “That is just legend, Macgregor. It’s not been officially documented.”
Supernatural Academy: Freshman Witch Page 14