I’d tried unsuccessfully to open the chest several times. Somehow, it never seemed to work.
My grandmother had made sure that I memorized the incantation to unlock the chest. We’d practiced it over and over again. I’d never actually managed to do it myself, but somehow, that didn’t seem to matter. She was certain that it was important. There was something in her book, something she’d been working on. It was supposed to be a secret, but I knew.
After one particularly rough morning of trying over and over again, I decided to give up and go eat lunch. I stopped by Kiera’s door and knocked. She opened up right away. Her hair was mussed and her wings were out. She looked half-asleep. Her familiar, a bright-eyed owl, perched on her shoulder. It seemed as though Kiera was making the most of holiday break. She wasn’t about to spend it on studying.
Nope.
Kiera was all about catching up on her beauty sleep.
“Ten seconds,” she said, and closed the door again. I laughed as I heard her murmuring spells and tossing potions around. She emerged, grinning and happy.
“Damn,” I said. She looked like a totally different person.
“It’s amazing what you can do in ten seconds,” she said, laughing.
“When you know the right spells, anything is possible,” I agreed. We headed out of the dorms and over to the cafeteria. Lunch was starting in just a few minutes and we were both totally famished. Kiera was leaving the next day to go visit her family, so it would be our last meal together until she got back.
“Have you seen Henry around?” I asked.
“Nope,” Kiera shook her head. “Not since yesterday.”
“Wonder what he’s doing for break.” I hadn’t had a chance to ask him.
“Did somebody say break?” A familiar voice said. I turned to see Henry running up behind us.
“Where’d you come from?” I looked behind him. “We were just talking about you.”
“I overslept,” he smiled, grinning. I tried not to think about how happy that grin made me feel.
Stop it, Max, I told myself. I wasn’t at Hybrid to meet boys. I was only here to learn how to use my powers. And I had. I’d been doing a great job of it, too. I’d been studying, working hard, and spending all of my free time practicing my spells. I was quickly becoming one of the better students in my Magical Wishes class and I was definitely at the top of my Herbs and Other Mysteries class.
But Henry wasn’t in those classes.
He wasn’t anywhere near them.
So I had a chance to stay focused without worrying about whether or not a certain guy liked me. I could concentrate wholly on perfectly the way I spoke and on truly understanding the rhythm of the spells. That was more important than anyone could possibly understand. Once you got the beat of the spell down, you could make it happy.
Spells were magical, but they were also music.
“Ready for your big, exciting holiday break?” I asked him as we entered the cafeteria and got in line. Kiera snapped her fingers ahead of me. Her tray hopped into her hands.
“Not at all,” Henry said. “You?” He smiled at me. He distracted me.
Stop it, Max, I repeated to myself.
I looked at the trays ahead of me. My stomach did a little somersault because he was standing so close to me. Despite my inner bragging about being able to do some spells, I still hadn’t quite mastered figuring out how to get a tray into my hand.
“Oh, look, it’s the losers,” a shrill voice said. Patricia walked by with her group of buddies. They were already causing trouble and lunch had only just started.
One of the cafeteria elves sighed.
“Someone really needs to put that girl in her place,” the elf muttered, shaking her head.
Apparently, turning me into a hamster hadn’t quite gotten the anger or frustration out of Patricia’s system. She was still just as cranky, just as fussy, and just as rude as she’d been all term. I look at the trays beside me, snapped my finger, and caught the tray that jumped into my hand.
“Woah,” Henry said. “Nice catch.”
I didn’t have time to care, though, and I certainly didn’t have time to be nervous. That’s because the second the tray was in my hand, I turned toward Patricia, who was walking by. She gave Kiera a nasty look and mouthed, “butterfly.” Kiera’s face fell once again, but this time, I was ready for Patricia.
“Hey,” I called out. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”
It was a stupid thing to say.
It was a stupid, immature, babyish thing to say.
But man, did that piss Patricia off. She whirled around and shoved her tray into the hands of her BFF, Clementine Clay.
“What did you say?” She growled, marching toward me.
“I said,” I stood up taller, facing her with a snarl. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size? Kiera has never been anything but nice to you. Didn’t she help you with your Chemistry and Cauldron homework last month? Didn’t she go out of her way to make sure you didn’t fail Magical Monsters? What about Dragon Training and Monster Hunting? If I remember correctly, she’s the one who asked the professor to give you an extension on your paper.”
“Dude,” Clementine whispered. “You were going to fail Magical Monsters? That class was so easy.”
“Shut. Up.” Patricia hissed, glaring at her friend. She turned back to me. “You don’t know what you’re walking into, Alex.”
“My name is Max,” I said. “If you can’t get it right, I can spell it out for you.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She sneered.
“Spelling?” Wait, what? “Lots of people like spelling, Patricia.” Our insulting had gotten a little out of control. We had taken it a bit too far. Now it wasn’t even making sense.
“You know what I don’t like? You.” She stepped closer. “You think you can come in here and just cause trouble. You’re causing a ruckus and I don’t like it.”
“No,” I shook my head. “You don’t like anyone challenging the status quo. Look around you, Patricia. Look at the people you see. Literally every single one of us wants the same thing: to succeed. We all want to learn. We’re all here because we want to know magic. We want to change the world.”
“Not me,” she said. “I don’t care about the world.”
“Well, you should at least care about the people around you, Patricia. You should at least care about Clementine, and Jeremiah, and Raymond, and all of the other magic users you meet at this school because one day, some of them are going to be stronger than you and one day, you might need their help. Think about that.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said softly. For a brief second, I thought Patricia looked almost remorseful. For just a moment, I thought she was going to change her ways. Could it really be that simple? Could using your words and your heart actually be enough to change the world? Maybe Patricia’s problem wasn’t that she was mean, but that she was misunderstood. We were all just doing our best here. Life at Hybrid was kind of fantastic, but that doesn’t mean it was simple or easy.
“I’m not wrong,” I told her. “We can make the world a better place, Patricia. It doesn’t have to be like this.” She looked down and I realized that she was crying, tearing up. That was it. Apparently, my grandmother was right. Apparently, words really do hold more power than we’re willing to give them credit for.
But then Patricia looked up and I realize that she wasn’t crying at all.
She was laughing.
“Oh, you stupid girl,” she shook her head, pulled out her wand, and yelled the hamster-morphing spell I had come to dread so much. I still didn’t have a wand. I still couldn’t utter a counter-spell. I was, however, holding my magically-protected lunch tray, and I lifted it up before her spell could hit me in the stomach. Patricia’s spell bounced off of the tray and hits her own belly full-force.
She dropped to the ground: a hamster.
Clementine squealed and Jeremiah looked like he
was going to be sick, which was strange for a guy who had no problem turning Raymond Dash into a pig. Raymond looked slightly satisfied as he grinned and shook his head. Then he moved off toward a table, whistling a little tune as he did.
A few teachers rushed over and to see what I had done. Miss Wilson looked from Patricia to me and back again. She shook her head in disappointment, but I wasn’t the one who uttered the spell. All I did was block it. Mr. Brax seemed to think the entire situation was amusing. A few other teachers murmured comments that I couldn’t quite hear.
And then the room went silent.
At Hybrid Academy, that’s never really a good thing.
Alicia Gregory marched into the room: dominating, strong, collected. She made her way through the crowd and over to the center of the drama. She stood before me and Hamster Patricia, staring.
“What happened here, Maxine?” She asked sharply. I swallowed hard. This woman knew my aunt. Whether my aunt could be trusted or not was yet to be discovered. Maybe I was overreacting and my aunt finding me on that terrible day really was just a coincidence. Maybe it really was just a fluke that she happened to walk into my life on that day.
But like it or not, I had no option but to be honest with the headmistress. Everyone saw what happened. If I tried to lie, I would instantly be sold out. Nobody likes to be a snitch, but I guessed there were at least a handful of people here who would be more than happy to be honest with Alicia Gregory, including the cafeteria elves. Come to think of it, was that…snickering? I looked over and saw two of them smiling and giving me thumbs-up signs.
So apparently, not everyone was a fan of Patricia.
Good to know.
I turned back to the headmistress. She was waiting patiently, but even patient people have a limit as to how long they’ll let something like this go.
“Patricia was making fun of the fairies,” I said finally.
“She’s always doing that,” one of the fairies hollered from the crowd.
“Yeah!” Said another.
Headmistress Gregory held up her hands and motioned for the fairies to calm themselves down. She was waiting for me to tell her my story, my version. I assumed that later, she’d have Hamster Patty turned back into a real girl and get the other side of the tale. No doubt, that story would be littered with falsehoods and made-up stories about what a terrible villain I was. In Patricia’s story, I’d probably be the bad guy, the bully. In her story, I’d be the aggressor. This was my only real chance to give my side of things. I wasn’t about to waste it.
“I called her out on it.”
“Max has called her out before!”
“Yeah, that’s when Patricia turned her into a hamster the last time!”
“I told her she didn’t need to pick on the fairies,” I told the headmistress.
“Is that right?” The headmistress raised an eyebrow.
“Yes.”
“And why did you tell her that? You’re a shifter, aren’t you? What business do you have with fairies?”
“No business at all,” I said. “Except that we all go here. We’re all students here. We share a common goal.”
“And what goal is that?” The headmistress seems genuinely interested in what I have to say. In fact, everyone gathered around me was paying very close attention.
“We all want to use magic as well as possible,” I finally said. “We all want to be our best selves. We can’t do that when we’re tearing each other down.”
“Interesting,” she said. Then she looked down at the hamster and rolled her eyes. Alicia Gregory bent down, scooped the hamster into her hands, and looked at it. “You really did deserve this, you know,” she grumbled. She shook her head and looked at me. Then she crooked a finger.
I looked around and then pointed to myself.
“Me?” I said. “You want me to come with you? Why?” I blurted out.
Was I seriously going to be in trouble? I thought I’d explained myself clearly. I hadn’t cast a spell. I certainly shouldn’t have been the one punished, but Headmistress Gregory just smiled.
“Maxine, my darling, I’m appreciative of what you did here today. You solved a problem with words and not violence. The only violence that happened today was not because of you. You managed to resolve a situation that, to be quite honest, has been festering for some time now.”
“So why am I in trouble?” I whispered quietly.
The headmistress laughed.
“You’re not in trouble,” she said. “But I do think you have earned yourself a wand. Let’s go get it, shall we?”
Chapter 12
The wand was a hundred different shades of purple and maybe three different shades of blue. Together, the colors wound around it in a beautiful haze of wonderful rainbows. I could stare at it for hours, but I was afraid it would damage my eyes somehow. Instead, I tried not to look at it unless I was going to use it.
I’d had it for nearly a month. A month and I’d been able to do every spell I’d tried.
Except for two.
I still hadn’t gotten the treasure chest open, and I still hadn’t been able to shift.
Both were things I kept trying on a daily basis. I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t shift. Even my professors seemed stumped. I didn’t want to think there was something wrong with me or that being warded for such a long time had somehow hurt me, but it was hard not to let my mind go there.
Had being protected by magic for 10 years impacted my own ability to do magic?
Sometimes when I closed my eyes, I could see it: my wolf. Each time I tried, I felt closer and closer, but trying was exhausting. I couldn’t try more than once or twice each hour or I’d end up completely exhausted. Kiera explained that magical fatigue was a thing and it was one of the reasons there weren’t more powerful witches and warlocks in the world. Even the best and bravest could become tired. They could grow weary. They could feel exhaustion creeping over them like a shadow.
Each day, I went to classes, practiced magic with my peers, and worked to perfect the rhythm of my words. Each spell sounded lovely, beautiful. With practice, I knew I’d be able to shift eventually. I no longer doubted myself. Standing up to Patricia had changed me somehow. It was while talking to her that I had realized no one here could really hurt me. I wasn’t running from anything anymore. I was running toward something.
Logically, I should still have been afraid. I should have felt scared and worried. The vampires who claimed my grandmother were likely still roaming. At least, some of them were. Aunt Erin had told me she’d taken care of the ones who came back to the house, but that didn’t mean anything. There were others. There were more vampires who could be connected, who could be part of the plot to take my grandmother.
Those vampires may not have come back to the house.
They might be otherwise occupied trying to get information from my grandmother.
I hated not knowing what happened to her or where she is, but I fought my frustration by focusing on the one thing I could do: finding answers. That meant working over the spell as much as possible. It meant practicing again and again and again until I would finally be able to open the chest and read the book.
Closing my eyes, I waved my wand and whispered the words I knew so well.
They were more than just words.
They were a promise.
I whispered the words from my heart, from my soul. I pulled from the very depths of my heart and I tried with everything I had to open the chest.
I waved the wand.
I whispered.
I hoped.
I chanted.
Nothing.
I sat down at my desk and stared at the treasure chest in front of me. Boo hopped up on the desk and looked at me curiously.
“You’re back today, are you?” I asked, looking at him sideways. He’d been gone for nearly a week this last time. “I’m beginning to think you have a secret family somewhere. Do you have another witch you spend time with?” I didn’t like the idea,
but I wasn’t about to get jealous over a cat.
Instead, I turned away and looked at the treasure chest.
Stared at it.
Thought at it.
“Okay,” I said. “I can do this.”
There had to be a way.
If there wasn’t, my grandmother never would have forced me to learn the chant. She never would have urged me to remember the secret words. We had practiced them over and over again until I could say them flawlessly. If they weren’t for me to utter, then why would she give them to me?
I closed my eyes again.
I can do this.
I focused on breathing in and out, in and out. Boo rubbed against my arm, calming me, and I reached for him. He climbed into my lap and I hugged him close. I didn’t try waving the wand this time. I didn’t force myself to try to speak. Instead, I squeezed my eyes shut and I thought of Mémère. I thought of the woman who had saved me. I thought of the grandmother who had given up everything to protect me.
And then I sang.
A word to the wise
A whisper to the North
A key for secrets lost
A mystery the box may hold
But never will it burst.
This time, something felt different. I could feel the words deep in my heart. I could sense them. I could play with them. This time, when I said the words, I said them with my very being.
I meant them.
There was no way to explain how it felt except that when I opened my eyes, something was happening. Boo pressed his body against me, scared, and I held him tightly. Together, we watched as a blue mist covered the chest and this time, I heard the distinct sound of the box unlocking.
“I did it,” I whispered.
“No,” said a voice from behind me. “We did it.”
I turned around, dropping Boo in the process. He mewed and started to run away, but the woman shot a spell at him from her wand and he hit the floor.
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