Maybe there was something hiding in the snow.
We paused by a window and looked outside. It was still falling heavily, swirling around the building of the school. It wrapped around Hybrid Academy like a soft, white blanket. I peered out of the window, pressing my hands against the glass panes.
“They’re warm,” I said, a little surprised. I had expected the glass to be cold like the outside of the school was.
“It’s a heating spell,” Kiera waved her hand like it was nothing. “Alicia casts it every year. It’s to keep the warmth inside the school.”
I touched the glass again, noting just how very warm the window felt. Then I tried to see through the blizzard swirling around. It was difficult to see much of anything, but I had to unhappily agree with Kiera.
Something was wrong.
Something felt…off.
For just a brief moment, I thought I saw something there in the snow. A face, maybe. A body. I looked harder, closer, but just as quickly as the image appeared, it seemed to vanish.
“What is it?” I asked.
There had been no trouble at the school in weeks. No one had gotten turned into an animal. No one had gotten caught up in drama. No one had caused any problems. I hadn’t seen many, if any, of the bullies from the previous year. I still hadn’t met my roommate. At this point, I assumed it was someone who hated me. Why else would they avoid me so carefully?
But nothing bad had happened in a long time.
There had been no drama.
There was no chaos.
So why did I suddenly feel like something was about to happen at my school?
“We have to get to class,” I said quietly, but Kiera was beside me, face pressed almost to the glass.
“There’s something outside,” she said again.
“We don’t know that.”
“Can you see anything?”
“No.”
“I can’t see anything,” she said.
“Maybe it’s nothing.”
“Maybe it’s not,” she countered. Then she sighed. “Where’s Henry when you need him, anyway?”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s just got a good nose,” she shrugged. “He always seems to know what’s going on and whether there’s trouble lurking.”
I couldn’t even argue with that.
Henry was a lot of things and he had a lot of skills, but she was absolutely right: sniffing out trouble was one of his best qualities. Somehow, he managed to discover when something wasn’t right. He’d shown that so many times. Sometimes I wondered where I’d even be without Henry. I definitely wouldn’t be alive. That much was easy to see. Even as a kid, he’d kept me from wandering too far from home. He’d protected me. He’d channeled all of his energy into protecting me and keeping me safe.
“Where is he, anyway?”
“I don’t know.”
“Really?” She raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Kiera shrugged, but I couldn’t leave it well enough alone.
“What does that mean?”
Kiera looked at me for a long, hard second. She seemed like she wasn’t quite sure whether she should say what was really on her mind. Finally, she spoke.
“It’s just that you two seem really close.”
“We’re friends.”
“Are you sure there’s nothing more there?”
“So, what if there is?” I asked, blushing. I didn’t plan on dating my familiar. I wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Besides, Henry didn’t think of me that way, and I was much too busy, anyway.
“Is there?” Kiera shrieked, jumping up and down. She surprised me, and I jerked backwards, lost my balance, and landed right on my bottom. She just laughed and looked down on me. “Are you two dating?” She asked. “I just knew there was something there! Are you getting married? Is it serious?”
“Woah,” I held up a hand and managed to untangle myself from the robes that had wrapped around myself. Then I stood up. “We are not dating,” I told her.
“Aw,” Kiera looked disappointed.
“What does it matter, anyway?”
“Nothing. You’re just…good together.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“You have a good vibe.”
“I guess.”
“You each have an aura,” she told me. “And together, that aura practically shines.”
“I don’t know anything about auras.”
It was a fairy thing. Kiera talked before about how each person has their own individual aura that makes them stand out from the crowd. She could see auras and they always told her a little bit about each person she came across. I couldn’t see them, so I always just had to trust that what Kiera told me about what she saw was true and accurate. From what I could gather, the aura mostly had to do with what type of person someone was.
If someone was mean, this could show in their energy.
If someone was kind, their energy would reveal that, too.
Sometimes, though, cloaking spells and trickery meant that nobody really knew anything about a person’s aura. Even people like Kiera, who could practically read a person’s energy like it’s a language, couldn’t always get a read. This made certain wizards and creatures, like vampires, for example, even more dangerous.
But she thought that Henry and I had a nice aura together.
That made me feel…
Well, it made me feel happy, I guess. I wasn’t totally sure how I was supposed to feel, but I’d take happy. That was something I could use. It was something that made me feel incredible.
Happy.
“You don’t have to know anything to know he’s a good man.”
“I know he’s a good man.”
“Then why aren’t you dating?” She raised an eyebrow. “I’ve had like four boyfriends this year and we haven’t even had holiday break.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“It’s complicated.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“There’s something in the snow.”
She looked sharply toward the window to see what I was staring at. Now that I had latched onto it, I couldn’t look away.
“Is it a wolf?”
Her voice came out a whisper.
“There are no wild wolves here.”
“Maybe it’s a student.”
“Why would they shift in the snow? I don’t think Alicia Gregory would be okay with students shifting off on their own. Certainly not in the great outdoors.”
“Then who is it?”
Whatever was wandering through the snow didn’t notice us. Not at first. It was some sort of creature. Maybe it was a lion or a tiger. I couldn’t really tell. All I could see were its eyes, and they were bright and piercing. The creature looked angry or scared.
I wasn’t sure.
“I think it’s a lion,” Kiera whispered.
“Definitely looks more like a panther.”
“What are we doing?” A voice said. We both looked over to see Henry staring down at us. His head was cocked to the side, curious.
“We see something,” I told him.
“It’s out there, in the blizzard,” Kiera added.
Henry stepped forward and pressed his hands against the warm glass window. He peered into the snow for a minute.
“It’s a wolf,” he seemed surprised.
“Why is there a wolf in the blizzard?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he shook his head. “But it’s looking at us now, and it doesn’t seem happy.”
Chapter 9
I wasn’t sure what to do when we saw the wild snow wolf. A lot of different scenarios ran through my head. We could go out and approach it. We could fight it. We could try to cast a spell on it. We could demand that it shift back into its human form, presuming it was a human. We could report it to the teachers.
In the end, though, we didn’t have to do anything because a bunch of students came down the
hallway and saw us standing at the window.
“Hey,” yelled a girl named Clementine. Last year, she and Patricia were practically best friends. “Look!”
“It’s a wolf,” another witch said.
“Wow, look at it,” said still another.
As if the group of students staring out the window was too much to bear, the wolf turned and ran off into the snowstorm. Perhaps it would never be seen again. Maybe we’d find out later who it was.
In any case, the excitement was over, so everyone dispersed and hurried off to their classes.
“Uh oh,” Kiera said, looking around. “We’re going to be late.”
“Come on,” I grabbed her hand and waved goodbye to Henry. I’d catch up with him later. Kiera and I and took off running down the hall. There was no running allowed at the school, but somehow, I figured that this time, it would be okay. Surely the school would cut us some slack. There was a snowstorm, after all. Nobody should have to be on time when there was unpredictable weather outside.
Besides, Professor Elkridge wasn’t exactly known for being forgiving when students wandered in late to his classes. He expected students to arrive on time, which was fair, but not always possible.
Sometimes life got in the way.
Still, we managed to slide into our seats in Potions and Shifting just seconds before the bell rang. Kiera and I exchanged relieved looks. We’d both transferred into the class after orientation: me for obvious reason, and her because she thought the course sounded interesting. We’d spent the semester so far listening, taking notes, and trying to understand the things he was lecturing about, but the class was harder than it sounded.
“What’s the most important thing to remember about potions?” He asked, looking up at the class.
A few hands shot up.
Mr. Elkridge considered his options, then pointed at Jeremiah in the front row.
“They’re not permanent,” Jeremiah said.
“True,” Mr. Elkridge said. “Most of the time, potions are only semi-permanent. What effect does this have on the use of magic?”
I raised my hand. He looked at me but called on Kiera instead.
“It means that generally-speaking, potions are utilized as a supplement to more serious magic,” she said. “Potions can help stabilize spells.”
“Absolutely. I could turn someone into a, well, let’s just say a small rodent.”
Everyone laughed.
I looked around the room and was surprised to see that every single student was chuckling. Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing, but I remembered being turned into a hamster. I had felt helpless and weak. It had bothered me how easily the rest of the world seemed to move around, but I had been small and tiny with no way to return to my normal body. I had been completely dependent on the people around me for everything.
I had required the assistance of teachers to help cure me, to put me back in human form. I had needed help when it came to everything. There was literally nothing I could do on my own as a hamster. Granted, I’d been picked up right away, but without help? I couldn’t have gotten water, food, or anything at all.
I could have died if it had happened in a remote area.
It didn’t give me the idea that being turned into a hamster was a good idea.
“But,” Mr. Elkridge continued. “Using a potion could enhance the spell.”
“How?” Asked a student.
“Well, there are several ways. For example, when we had students turning each other into creatures all willy-nilly last year, as far as I know, the aggressors simply used their wands and a few carefully-chosen magic words.”
“That’s right,” the student agreed. Casper Elkridge was a newer teacher. He hadn’t taught at Hybrid last year. Maybe he had attended as a student himself, but I wasn’t sure.
“Well, if a spell such as that were to be combined with a potion, it could not only be much more controlled, but much more powerful. A potion can guide the magic. For example, if I was going to turn someone into, let’s say, a small mouse, simply issuing the spell would be enough to make that person a mouse indefinitely. A potion, however, could add an extra element of strength and duration. A combined potion could ensure they turned into a larger mouse or a mouse with two noses or a mouse who couldn’t squeak.”
“Sounds like potions tend to be used in a mean way,” I pointed out.
Mr. Elkridge considered me.
“You could say that,” he said. “But can’t potions also be used for good?”
“You can use them to heal people,” one student said.
“And to fix wounds.”
“Those are both excellent points,” said Mr. Elkridge. “But, Maxine, you’re also right. Potions can be used for many bad things. They can be used to hurt people. They can be used to harm others. Working with potions isn’t something that just anyone can do.”
He walked back and forth in front of the class for a moment. He looked from the cauldron at the front of the room to a row of potions and finally, back at the students. We all stared at him expectantly.
“So, what should we do?” He asked. “How can we make sure that potions are used for good and not for evil?”
“We can’t do anything,” Kiera shrugged. “People will do what they want to do.”
“Perhaps,” he said. “Maxine, do you have any thoughts on the subject?”
He looked at me like he cared. Mr. Elkridge seemed like he really wanted to know my opinion and to be honest, I really wanted to share it with him. I wanted to talk with him about how magic really should be used for good.
“I think that Kiera is partly right,” I said.
She looked over at me, surprised, perhaps, that I didn’t wholly agree with her on this point.
“I think that people are wild in their hearts. When it comes down to it, everyone has to make their own choices about how they’re going to live, but I also think that education can make a big difference in how people view, use, and engage with magic.”
He looked at me for a long moment, and finally, Mr. Elkridge nodded.
“Very interesting observation, Maxine,” he said. He turned and picked up a potion. “Today, we’re going to talk about rose potion. Who can tell me what this potion is used for?”
A boy named Ryan raised his hand.
“It’s used for healing,” he said.
“And what about in shifters?” Asked Mr. Elkridge. “Is it safe for shifters to use this potion?”
Ryan nodded.
“Absolutely. Shifters can’t use every potion they come across, but rose potion is decidedly safe for shifters of all shapes and species.”
“What can shifters use this for?”
Ryan thought for a moment. I watched him, curious to see the answer.
“They can use it to heal from internal injuries,” he said finally.
“Anything else?”
“Burns.”
“And?”
“Illnesses.”
“And how can a shifter use this medication?”
“They can apply it topically.”
“Or?”
“Ingest it,” Ryan said, sitting back with a smile. I’d smile, too, if I gave such solid answers in class. I looked at Ryan with surprise. He’d always been such a quiet student. I had no idea he actually knew so much about potions and shifting.
That had been something that surprised me about this class. I’d joined it because I thought that perhaps there was something that I could learn about my parents’ secret mission. I kind of thought that maybe this class would hold answers about what they’d been searching for. I mean, maybe Mr. Elkridge isn’t who he says he is.
Maybe he knows something the rest of us don’t.
He’s a new teacher, and I’m very suspicious of new people. I know that I shouldn’t be. After all, it was just last year that I was a new person at the school, too. But I’d been betrayed by a teacher, someone I thought I could trust, so now I felt very cautious when considering what teachers did or
didn’t know.
Not everyone was who they said they were.
Not even magical teachers.
“Very good,” Mr. Elkridge said. “As you can see, there are many uses for this particular potion. How can it be acquired?”
“You can buy it,” Kiera shrugged.
The class laughed, but Mr. Elkridge nodded.
“Absolutely, Kiera. This is a potion you can easily purchase at most wizarding supply stores. There aren’t many, but there are a few, and they all carry this. How else?”
“You can make it,” I said.
“How?”
I thought back to the chapter of our textbook I’d read the night before. Man, my memory kind of sucked these days. I was trying to become a better student and get better at studying, but sometimes it seemed impossible.
“Gather roses,” I said. “And press them. Dry them. Once they’re completely dry, crush the petals and mix the power with lemon oil and vanilla.”
“And then?”
“You also need milk thistle,” I said.
“Perfect,” Mr. Elkridge smiled at me, and when he did, it made me think that maybe I’d misjudged him. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.
Maybe he was just a normal guy, trying to do his best.
Maybe.
Chapter 10
Maddison trudged up to the little cabin. It sat in the midst of the Dragon Mountains. The cabin overlooked so much of the area: the rivers, the houses, the jungles. It even overlooked Hybrid Academy, and Maddison was completely sure that’s where she would find her granddaughter.
It had taken her longer than it should have to get from the vampires’ home to the mountains. She’d driven, she’d walked, she’d hitchhiked, and she’d even done odd-jobs for people to gather the magical items she had needed to make herself cloaking spells and to complete the magic she needed to arrive safely.
Now she was close to her granddaughter, but she wasn’t out of trouble or out of danger.
Not just yet.
She stared at the cabin for a long time. It was small and ordinary-looking. She’d been lucky to find it. Well, luck didn’t really have anything to do with it. The place reeked of magic, and Maddison might be old, but she wasn’t naïve. She wasn’t one of those grandmothers who sat around baking cookies and waiting to die.
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