Reading, Writing and Necromancy

by Sarina Dorie

  “Indeed. Your spell used most of your magic. Derrick draining you used up all remaining magic. When you stopped breathing and your heart ceased beating, your affinity was gone. It took my magic and affinity to bring you back to life.” He looked to Periwinkle. “I didn’t use necromancy. Just healing.”

  “I didn’t say you did.” Her tone was cloying.

  “But I still have some magic, right?” I asked. Hadn’t I been the one to draw out my mom’s magic and Maddy’s? Or was it all Imani’s presence that did it? “In a few months, I’ll be back to normal, and I can go back to learning how to ride a broom and use cleaning spells and magic to defend myself. . . .” My voice petered out into a squeak. Panic squeezed my throat like a vice, making it difficult to breathe.

  He didn’t meet my eye. He swiped his wand over the blue stains on his clothes. “Perhaps.” Murky blue water splattered to the floor.

  “So I might not ever recover?” How could I live without magic? Now that I’d had a taste for it, I couldn’t go back to the Morty Realm and be ordinary. I was Witchkin. Thatch knew how much I had always wanted this. And he’d kept me in the dark yet again. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

  He stood. “I didn’t want you to get it in your head to do something you would regret.”

  “Like what? What can I possibly do without magic?” Did he think I’d go to the Raven Queen and trade my soul for magic?

  Thatch stuck his nose up in the air. “I can’t say. Your impulsive nature often eludes reason. You’ve already proven yourself incapable of following instructions.”

  I didn’t know if he meant my inability to stay away from Derrick, despite his previous warnings, or in general. He’d be right by both accounts. My anger deflated. “How long will it take to know if I can do magic?”

  He retrieved the broom in the corner and swept up the blue puddles. He must have been using a spell because it worked surprisingly well. “It takes years to recover from being drained.”

  “One rarely recovers from being drained, period.” Periwinkle’s façade of enthusiasm faded as she studied him. “Except for you, darling. It took you record time to recover after Alouette Loraline drained you. Months.”

  “I will remind you, I was not drained to the point of death. That does make a difference.” He pushed the blue water into a corner. Slowly it shrank, leaving remnants of blue paint crusted on the floor. “Furthermore, it was nearly a year before hints of my powers came back. I was weak for years.”

  Periwinkle raised an imperious eyebrow. He looked away. He was lying, and from her reaction, I could see she wanted to call him on his bluff. Maybe she wouldn’t here in front of me, but she would later. Did that mean he had taken some other measure to recover that he didn’t want me to know about? I wondered what else he’d lied to me about.

  “Come along, Gertrude. Shall we be on our way?” Thatch extended a hand to her in a gentlemanly gesture.

  She eyed my crotch, brow furrowed. Since she was a siren, I knew she could be sex-obsessed, but that was a little much. Her gaze flickered back to him, and she took his hand.

  She smoothed out her black skirt and straightened the tiny animal skull set into her cameo at the nape of her lace collar. Somehow she’d managed to repel blue puddles from her ivory shirt. She eyed my lap again, so I finally looked down. Something poked out away from my crotch.

  “Is that. . . ?” She cleared her throat. “Is that a wand in your skirt, Miss Lawrence?”

  “No, I’m just happy to see you!” I said. I never got tired of that one.

  No one laughed except for me. If only Khaba had been there to appreciate my corny humor. Sorrow tugged at my heart when I thought of my friend, now gone. It was bad enough Derrick had turned evil, but Khaba too? In the same day, no less.

  I dug under the waistband of my skirt. My wand had somehow slid between my underwear and my striped leggings. I flourished my wand, pleased I had found it.

  Thatch snatched it out of my hand. “You have done quite enough with that for the day. You won’t be needing a wand for a while.” He tucked it into the breast pocket of his vest.

  He wouldn’t even let me keep my wand? Fingers of gloom crept over me. There were no bright rays of hope on my horizon. How was I going to protect myself from the Raven Queen in the long run if I didn’t recharge my magical batteries ASAP?

  Thatch didn’t offer me a hand. I clambered to my feet. Every part of my body ached, my head worst of all.

  Desperately, I grasped for the slimmest sliver of optimism.

  “How did you recover so quickly?” I asked. “Did you steal magic from someone?” From my mother?

  He looked to me sharply. “No, of course not. Why would you even think such a thing? Do you truly think so little of me?”

  “Well, it isn’t like you volunteer to tell me anything. I have to keep guessing.”

  He walked over to my sketchbook and examined the drawing of Derrick. He tore it from the pad.

  I rushed forward. “Hey, leave that alone. That’s mine!”

  “It isn’t going to help you get over him.” He folded it and placed it in his breast pocket. He made a face at the next drawing of the school I had sketched in pencil and looked to my canvas on the floor. “Please say you aren’t going to paint that for the auction. No one wants to look at that rendition.”

  Did he have to shred every possibility of happiness in my life? I snatched up my book and closed it before he found more drawings of Derrick or anything else he could make snarky comments about.

  “Thank you for your assistance healing me today,” I said through clenched teeth, trying not to be ungrateful. “Is there anything else we need to discuss?”

  He drummed his long fingers against his chin, thinking. “I advise you not to mention your lack of magic to the students or staff. Enough people already wish to kill you. There’s no reason to tempt them further.”

  I stared at him in shock. “Who wants to kill me? Besides the Raven Queen? Or do you mean Derrick?” Or did he mean all the teachers who now hated me?

  “We’re done.” Thatch offered Periwinkle his arm.

  He headed toward the back stairwell that held my closet on the floor below and eventually led down to the dungeon where he lived and taught.

  Periwinkle patted his arm affectionately. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you angry before. Do you always get like this around her?”

  I could only hope her presence during one of our more vexing conversations might mean she wouldn’t later accuse me of trying to seduce him like she was wont to do.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He touched his wand to the locked door, and it swung open.

  She adjusted her witch hat as she stepped into the closet. “Does she always get you so . . . fired up? Passionate? I’d like to see you get that angry about me sometime.”

  I rolled my eyes. I bet she would. The rumble of his voice was too low to understand.

  “All that shouting makes me rather. . . .” She giggled.

  His voice slipped into his carefully controlled monotone. “I was afraid you might say that, kitten.”

  “Maybe if I’m a naughty girl later, you’ll yell at me and . . . spank me.”

  I barfed in my mouth listening to the two evil lovebirds. I walked to the closet to close it, but not before I caught the tail end of their disgusting conversation.

  “It was the wand and Miss Lawrence’s lewd innuendo, wasn’t it?” he asked. “That’s what’s got you hot and bothered?”

  She laughed from the shadows. I slammed the door closed and leaned against the wall, eyeing the gloom of my classroom.

  No magic. No spells. No flying on brooms. Was I even a witch anymore? How was I going to survive the rest of the year against Fae—or students—without magic?

  Go to Sarina Dorie’s website to learn more about the next book in the series, including where it is available:

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sarina Dorie has sold over 150 short stories to markets like Analog, Daily Science Fiction, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card’s IGMS, Cosmos, and Abyss and Apex. Her stories and published novels have won humor and Romance Writer of America awards. Her steampunk romance series, The Memory Thief and her collections, Fairies, Robots and Unicorns—Oh My! and Ghosts, Werewolves and Zombies—Oh My! are available on Amazon, along with a dozen other novels she has written.

  A few of her favorite things include: gluten-free brownies (not necessarily glutton-free), Star Trek, steampunk aesthetics, fairies, Severus Snape, Captain Jack Sparrow, and Mr. Darcy.

  By day, Sarina is a public school art teacher, artist, belly dance performer and instructor, copy editor, fashion designer, event organizer, and probably a few other things. By night, she writes. As you might imagine, this leaves little time for sleep.