by Sarina Dorie
Reading,
Writing
And
Necromancy
WOMBY’S SCHOOL FOR WAYWARD WITCHES
SARINA DORIE
Copyright © 2018 Sarina Dorie
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1722645547
ISBN-13: 978-1722645540
OTHER BOOKS IN THE womby’s school for wayward witches SERIES listed in order
Tardy Bells and Witches’ Spells
Hex-Ed
Witches Gone Wicked
A Handful of Hexes
Hexes and Exes
Reading, Writing and Necromancy
Budget Cuts for the Dark Arts and Crafts
Hex and the City
Spell It Out for Me
Spiders Are a Witch’s Best Friend
Hex Crimes
My Crazy Hex Girlfriend
Wedding Bells and Midnight Spells
All Hexed Up
Table of Contents
AUTHOR’S NOTE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
A Sneak Peak of
CHAPTER TWO
in the Womby’s School for Wayward Witches Series
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AUTHOR’S NOTE
If you are reading this far in the Womby’s School for Wayward Witches series, I’m guessing you have read the other books as well. Whether you have stuck with the series because you love the quirky characters, you want to know if Clarissa will turn into a wicked witch like her mother, or you are waiting to see what happens with Felix Thatch and Derrick, I appreciate your enthusiasm.
If you haven’t already signed up for my newsletter, I want to encourage you to do so. This helps me as an author connect to my readers, lets you know when books are being released, and gives me a way to gift you with free books and short stories.
You can find the newsletter sign-up on my website: sarinadorie.com or you can go to: https://www.subscribepage.com/q6h1q2
Happy reading!
CHAPTER ONE
The Morning After
Golden sunlight filtered in through a window, but I turned away, not wanting to leave the sanctuary of sleep. A draft of wintry air chilled my naked skin, and I pulled the covers up to my chin. I’d been dreaming of curses cured by magic, unrequited yearning finally satisfied, and true love.
A masculine arm slipped around my waist, reminding me I wasn’t alone. Derrick pulled me closer. He smoothed my hair away from my face and kissed the back of my neck.
A wave of déjà vu washed over me. Was I dreaming? This was always the nice part of the dream. It never lasted. I wanted to savor this moment, but I couldn’t. This happy dream always shifted into a nightmare. It never ended well. I blinked the cobwebs of sleep from my eyes, my apprehension growing.
“Clarissa, this is how I always imagined it would be,” Derrick murmured into my hair.
That was always the kind of thing he said in dreams before the tornado stole him away from me. That storm always mirrored what had happened in real life when our magic had exploded, causing the house to collapse and taking the life of my sister, Missy.
Something was different this time. I examined the room around me. Paintings, tubes of acrylics and oils, and assorted art supplies filled the small studio. Across from the bed, a sweater and a canvas hid most of the full-length mirror I’d hidden the night before. A painting of me rested against a trunk. It was a younger version of myself with auburn hair. Blonde highlighted the locks instead of the hot pink I sported now.
This wasn’t my childhood room. I wasn’t dreaming. This was real. Derrick was here and with me. It was all my dreams come true—my good dreams.
I sat up, clutching the blankets to my chest. I gulped in air, not realizing I’d been holding my breath. For once, everything was right.
“What’s wrong?” Derrick asked. “Are you okay?”
I took in his tousled blue hair and his five-o-clock shadow. His brow crinkled up in concern.
I threw my arms around him and hugged him. “I didn’t kill you with my magic.” I covered his face with kisses. No tornado had come this time. I had controlled my powers. I wasn’t like my biological mother.
He laughed in the same good-natured way I remembered from our teenage years. “That’s right. You cured me. Your kisses are magic, just like in fairy tales.”
I was pretty sure it was more than kisses that had cured him.
It all seemed too good to be true. I stared into the azure of his eyes, feeling like I was falling into a cloudless sky. “How is it possible I cured you unintentionally? Thatch said I had to perform an elaborate spell.”
“Why do you have to bring him up?” he groaned. “He’s such an asshole.”
“Don’t say that. Felix Thatch is my friend, and he was trying to help you. He made me collect all those things—virgin tears and unicorn poo—” And a few other more disgusting items for the spell.
I hadn’t used a dragon egg or unicorn horn to cure Derrick. The only ingredient that might count was my own virgin blood combined with my affinity. “But I didn’t need any of those things. You aren’t invisible. You remember me. And you aren’t cursed.”
Derrick reached across me and fumbled with something under the bed. “Is that why you let him tie you to a tree in the forest? For unicorn excrement?” He found a half-full bottle of cola.
I took it he didn’t know about the unicorn semen.
I nodded. “We were gathering ingredients for a potion. It was to cure you. I had to be bait to lure a unicorn.”
“That is so messed up.” Derrick took a swig from the soda and offered it to me. “Have you ever considered there wasn’t a spell? He might have been giving you busywork because he’s trying to distract you.”
“I’m pretty sure he had a spell in mind.” I wasn’t typically a cola drinker for breakfast, but Derrick didn’t have running water in his room or much else. I took a few tentative sips.
“Think about it. If I hadn’t been there to stop those chimeras, they would have eaten you,” he said. “That jerk just left you there.”
“He said he’d put up wards to protect me. But I wouldn’t feel the fear needed to lure the chimeras, which would call the unicorns, if I didn’t believe I was in actual danger.”
“Clarissa, there weren’t any wards.” Derrick frowned. “That’s why I intervened.”
Derrick had always been a bit of a kidder. I wanted to believe his words were a joke, but he was so serious. It had been Derrick who had rescued me, not Thatch?
It had been Derrick I’d kissed in the darkness that night in the woods, not Thatch. Thatch had put me in actual danger—and lied about it afterward? A spark of anger flared in me. “As Josie would say, what a bag of dicks.”
Derrick fell back laughing.
I could have gotten killed gathering ingredients to save Derrick. I had no doubt Thatch was collecting all those ingredients for a reason. It just happened I didn’t know what that reason was. I no longer felt certain of Thatch’s intentions. Some of those ingredients had been listed in the spell at the back of Alouette Loraline’s journal. It was possible Thatch might have decided to try to solve the Fae Fertility Paradox with the spell I hadn’t finished decoding in the book.
He’d chided me for trying to investigate something so dangerous, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he intended to do the same thing.
“Uh-oh,” Derrick said, kissing the crinkle in my brow. “I know that look.”
“What look?”
“The one you make before you get yourself in a heap of trouble.” Derrick squeezed me to him.
I wanted to stay snuggled in his arms and talk to him about my suspicions, but my bladder was full, and I was thirsty for more than carbonated corn syrup.
“Do you have a restroom nearby?” I asked.
He jabbed a thumb toward the door. “I usually use the bushes around the back. Of course, I’m also usually invisible when I use them. Otherwise, the nearest indoor restroom is down the tunnel of spiderwebs toward the great hall.”
My stomach grumbled. “I should go get something to eat and drink.”
“What time is it?” he asked.
I poked him in the side. “I don’t know. Someone confiscated my cell phone.”
“Sorry about that. It’s part of my job. Thatch wanted me to keep an eye on you and make sure you didn’t do anything that got you kicked out of the school. He was adamant about me confiscating your phone. I turned it in to Mr. Khaba—but don’t worry. I didn’t say the cell was yours. He thought it was a student’s.” He stared off into the distance, brow furrowing.
“Now that you’re my boyfriend, can’t you just steal it back for me?”
“Boyfriend?” He blinked in surprise.
From his wide eyes, my confidence faltered. “I mean—well—we were dating before, when we were in high school. And now we’ve slept together so … um… .”
“We went on one date when we were in high school and kissed twice since then.” His lips twitched into an amused smirk. “Do you assume you’re dating everyone you sleep with?”
“Yes.” Not that my magic made it easy to sleep with men. “I mean, no. I don’t have a lot of experience with dating, and I don’t know the right lingo. I haven’t ever… .” I swallowed. Nervous anxiety churned inside me.
His grin widened, and he kissed my nose. “I know. I’m your first. I was just teasing you.” His smile turned shy. “But I hope you’ll want to be my girlfriend.”
I squeezed his hand, relieved he felt the same way. “Yes. I want you to be my boyfriend. I’ve wanted that since we were in high school.”
“Good.” He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. He pulled me closer, peeking under the blankets and waggling his eyebrows. “Maybe we should make up for some of that lost time we weren’t together?”
I shook my head. “Don’t even think about it. I need to eat and shower and powder my nose.” I wiggled toward the edge of the bed.
He poked me in the side. “I have a feeling that isn’t what you’re going to be powdering.”
I hesitated at the edge of the bed, a spike of anxiety shooting through me at the idea of exposing myself. Last night had been the first time he’d seen me naked—the only time anyone had seen me completely naked. I’d felt comfortable and confident—or at least not awkward like I was now.
“I, um, would you… ?” Words suddenly eluded me. I motioned for him to turn, like I was fifteen again and tongue-tied. Now I was twenty-two and tongue-tied. I worried he would think I was a prude or immature or weird.
Derrick winked at me and turned away. “Anything for you.”
That was it. No complaints or teasing. He knew me that well. Derrick was the perfect gentleman I’d remembered. I collected my bra and underwear from the floor and hurriedly dressed.
Derrick remained facing the window. “While you’re out, do you think you could bring me something to eat and some clothes?” He gestured to the pair of underwear on the floor and a coat hanging over the foot of his bed. “Believe it or not, these are all the clothes I’ve got. An invisible man with a heat-conducting spell doesn’t need much else. It might look a little weird if I walk around naked now that people can see me.”
I laughed so hard my bladder almost burst. “Breakfast in bed it is.” I jammed one foot into a striped legging, trying not to lose my balance.
Derrick ran a hand through his blue hair. “I wonder what Mr. Khaba is going to say about this turn of events. He’s not going to be able to employ me as an invisible security guard if I’m not invisible.”
“I guess you’ll become a visible security guard.”
“Maybe. Funny thing about that… . I was cursed and went to Thatch for help—or maybe he came to me. My memory is a little hazy still. I don’t remember being invisible before asking for Thatch’s help.”
“Do you know where my shirt is?” I asked.
He turned, but with his hand covering his eyes. I laughed at his goofy attempt to pretend he wasn’t looking at me half undressed.
He peeked through his fingers as he scanned the room. “I got the job here because the school happened to have a vacancy for a security guard. They were specifically looking for an invisible man. And I was invisible. Thatch recommended me for the job and told Khaba I would be a perfect fit. It’s a little too coincidental now that I think about it.”
I spotted my pink blouse in the bed behind him. I tugged it out from under his leg and pulled it on over my head. “What are you saying? Thatch cursed you, not the Raven Queen?” I said it half jokingly, but as soon as the words came out, my mouth went dry.
“I remember the Raven Queen. Sort of.” He shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. “She used pain magic to torture me. She drained me. Not completely, but enough that I was in so much pain I wished I was dead. Thatch was there in her castle. He watched her, and she invited him to… .” He traced his fingers across a scar on his arm. “Everything about him is foggy.”
I climbed back into bed and hugged him. “It’s okay. It’s over now. You’re safe at the school. She can’t get you here.”
“Maybe.” He grabbed me by the shoulders, fear in his eyes. “Clarissa, you’ve got to be careful around Thatch. I don’t remember what he did to me, but it wasn’t all happy rainbows and yippity-skippity rescuing. He still works for her. And she wants you.”
CHAPTER TWO
The Roommate from Hell
Avoiding the most frequented routes, it took me forever to navigate to the avocado-green hallway built in the seventies before ducking into an older brick hallway and up a cobwebbed stairwell to the dormitory wing with its white plaster walls. Muscles I hadn’t even known I possessed ached in my hips and pelvis from the previous night’s extracurricular activities. I walked slowly, my progress to the women’s dorms hindered by my sore muscles.
After making a quick stop in the women’s restroom, I headed to my dorm. I unlocked my room and nearly collided with Vega Bloodmire, my evil roommate. Being a Sunday, she must have decided it was Gothic-casual day. Instead of one of her flapper dresses or a business suit with a pencil skirt, she wore an all-black day dress befitting the twenties era. The ensemble was complete with her short bob haircu
t and a sparkly headband.
Vega looked me up and down, her blood-red lips curling into a sneer.
I stumbled away from her. “Good morning,” I said.
She reached out with a long, slender arm, snatched me up by the front of my shirt, and yanked me into the room. I tripped over the Art Nouveau rug near the door. The ornate patterns of flowers formed a giant skull. I stubbed my toe on the coffin sticking out from under her bed and plopped onto her pristine bedspread. The homicidal Downton Abbey vibe to our room was her doing, not mine.
The cuckoo clock on the wall between our beds showed it was only ten after seven. I had plenty of time to get dressed and go to the great hall for breakfast.
She slammed the door and turned to me.
I scooted off her bed. “What was that for?”
“You never came to bed last night.” She advanced on me. “Where were you?”
I edged around her bed toward mine. “None of your business.”
“It is my business.” Her dark eyes gleamed with danger.
I backed past her wardrobe, toward mine. When I neared the plant hanging from the ceiling, the Venus flytrap’s jaws snapped at me.
I ducked away. “Since when do you care?” I would not allow Vega to intimidate me. Even if she was taller than me. And could do magic. And was majorly creepy.
“Since Thatch tasked me with keeping an eye on you,” she said.
“You aren’t my babysitter anymore.”
I opened the doors to my wardrobe to pick out a dress, but the wardrobe closed itself again. I turned back to her. Vega held her wand. A cloud of faint blue light with yellow sparkles faded from it.
She lifted her chin. “Thatch expects me to know where you are from ten p.m. to six a.m. If I keep you from leaving your bed and wandering around the school during the middle of the night, Thatch promised I’ll get the tower next year instead of Josie Kimura.”
Ah, so that was her motivation. Not caring about my safety, of course.
“Where. Were. You?” She leaned in close, nostrils flaring. I had no doubt she could smell my fear.