Funny Tragic Crazy Magic (Tragic Magic Book 1)

by Sheena Boekweg

  My car was abandoned five stalls from the back of the parking lot. It was empty when I reached it. The rune for stay still glowed on the outside of the car door, and it was my exact color code. I know it was still viable. It was a strong rune too: I tried to open the door, but even with all my strength, it wouldn’t budge. I wiped the runelight, and it fell to the ground like glitter from a cheerleader’s Prom poster.

  Inside the car, on a post-it note stuck to the steering wheel, was a note.

  IOU one ride to school ~ J.

  FYI, none of the Grandmothers names started with a J. On a hunch, I opened my backpack. My textbooks were all there, and so was my lunch money. My notebook was gone, and in its place was another note.

  IOU one notebook and an explanation. If you can’t find me, then you’ve got no use for either. ~J.

  Now in case you haven’t guessed it by now, a Witch’s notebook is their whole life. The limit to a Rune’s magic is how much they know, so stealing someone’s notebook is akin to calling an airport and saying you are going to take over the world… oh, and you have a bomb. It’s one of those unwritten rules that you never steal another person’s notebook. That’s their legacy. That’s their power. That’s their strength.

  The jerk had stolen my car, and my notebook.

  I put my backpack on, adjusted my frilly dress, and marched into battle. I didn’t bother reapplying the rune for stay on the side of my car. Apparently, that wouldn’t stop my new enemy.

  At school, people smiled at me, and I smiled back. But my eyes floated from one rube to another, searching for some kind of oddity. I passed the school office, and saw some new kid standing in line with his elbows resting on the counter. He was so skinny I sucked in my stomach in response. In his back pocket, my folded-in-half notebook stuck out like some sort of victory flag.

  That was the jerk who had stolen my car, and was now rubbing it into my face. First off, let me tell you, he was too tall, and he had black earrings in his ears like he was some kind of punk. In fact, his hair had this sticky-up faux Mohawk quality, which I have never found attractive. His body was really hot though, I will admit that, even though he was plainly too skinny. He wore skinny jeans and bright colored Chuck Taylors. When Coach Jensen accidentally bumped into him, that jerk flipped him off.

  The other students milled about on their way to class, flowing around me as if I wasn’t even there as I spied on my new enemy. As he turned to his side and bent to reach down for his backpack, his light brown hair fell in front of his face. He stood, tucked a strand of his hair behind one ear and then finger combed the rest of it toward the ceiling. He clearly needed a haircut.

  For some reason, I couldn’t breathe for a second; it was as if my heart was in my throat.

  I sucked in my stomach, adjusted my dress, and then walked the heck away. He never glanced at me so I know he didn’t realize who I was. I knew who he was though, and that was an advantage.

  There was no way he would win.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I saw him again in second period. Mr. Beaman made him stand up in front of the class. He said his name was Joseph Penrod. Some of the morons in the back laughed at his name. He laughed twice without humor, and then glared. Mr. Beaman cleared his throat and then gestured to an open seat in the front row.

  I sat in the front row just two seats away from him because of the master plan to get my mother’s notebook back. My focus now was on a lesser operation: get my dumb seven runes back from the loser Joe.

  During the class, as Mr. Beaman droned on about European History, Joe was scouring through my notebook. I could see the glittering purple pen marks on the first page, reminding me how idiotic and selfish I was. Joe took out a black BIC pen and started doodling on the edge of my notebook. Honestly. It was enough to steal someone’s notebook, but to write on someone else’s runes - serious etiquette breach.

  I think I sighed, or growled, or muttered, or something, because Joe turned toward me. That was the first time he noticed me, I think. He seemed confused that I was glaring at him, but then I remembered that he didn’t know who I was, and that was an advantage, so I turned back to Mr. Beaman and pretended I didn’t notice him.

  He watched me throughout the rest of the class though. I could feel where he was watching. While he looked at my hands, they felt a tad hotter; when he looked at my face, I fought back a blush, and when he looked at my legs, it felt like they were sunburned.

  That was his Instinct magic. Runes and Instincts use their magic differently. See there are two branches of magic: Runes and Instincts. Runes, like me, collect our magic in our hands. When we write a rune, we pull a line of magic, kind of like a laser beam. It’s as if my fingers were pens writing with light instead of ink. Instincts’ magic runs through their entire bodies, more like a diffused flashlight than a laser. So when they look at you, you can feel some of that diffused magic on whatever they focus. I had only met two other Instincts, the Grandmothers Helena and Tiffany, but that was exactly how it felt when they stared at me as I was accepted into the Fellowship for Female Witches.

  When I realized he was an Instinct, I relaxed in my seat. Instincts have just one ability, and most Instincts can’t do runes. I had been taught that my entire life. So even though he had stolen and doodled all over my notebook, I knew he couldn’t do anything with the runes inside.

  I looked over at him, and he quickly turned his eyes back to the teacher. Mr. Beaman was asking a question about… I don’t know, something, and I raised my hand and answered. I was trying to get Joe to look back at me, but he wouldn’t.

  I looked away from Joe and ripped a corner from my homework notebook. On a lark, I wrote the words “I owed you this” with my pen. Then with the tip of my fingernail, in a rune so small it looked more like a pinprick of light, I made the rune for stay. I had used the same rune on my car door, but this one would work. Probably. I could feel his eyes on my arms trying to see what it was I was writing, but when I looked over at him he had turned away from me. I smiled and then casually tossed the sheet of paper underneath his desk.

  The bell rang. I pulled my stuff together and slid it all into my bag. Joe collected his stuff into a gray messenger bag and then stood. The rune caught underneath him, and his feet wouldn’t move when he thought they would. He fell, tripping over his own feet. Everyone in the class except me laughed at him, especially the morons in the back of the room. I wiped my fingers in the air, and the rune fell. Joe moved his feet and then reached for the note on the floor.

  I put on my backpack, walked out of the classroom and then stopped. The locker I leaned against felt cold through my cardigan as I eyed all the students filing out of class. When the flow of student ceased, I looked back into the classroom.

  Joe wasn’t in there. I felt his eyes behind me. I turned around, and he stood behind me with the biggest smile on his face.

  I guess you had to know Joe to get what I mean; he had a smile that just took over his entire face. He had this dimple next to his lips, and his eyes… some people can only smile with their mouths, but Joe could smile with ears if he wanted to. I can’t explain it. I felt my stomach muscles clench, but I smiled back.

  It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how lonely I had been without my family. I guess I’m slow on things like that. Or maybe I didn’t want to truly believe they were gone… that I was really all alone, until I wasn’t alone anymore. It was just… I wasn’t the only freak anymore. This obnoxious kid, who stole my car, and my notebook, was the most important person to me, and I hadn’t even spoken to him yet.

  “Hi,” I said finally.

  He pulled my notebook from his bag. It had a crease down the middle, and a few of the pages were dog-eared. “I believe this is yours,” he said without even a trace of an apology.

  My path to destruction had begun.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I stood there for a while, smiling like an idiot, waiting for him to apologize. When I realized he wasn’t going to, I turned away
from him and started walking down the hall toward my next class. He hurried to catch up, and secretly I was glad.

  “So… Larissa Alvarez is it?” He said my name like it was a foreign language.

  I turned and smiled at him. I didn’t mean it though, and I think he saw the scowl in my eyes. I could feel the heat from his eyes as he looked at my face.

  “You Mexican?” That was so Joe. He would always say whatever he thought, without any additional thought of how anyone else would perceive it. Not that there’s anything wrong with… I mean I was… I mean I am… Just people don’t say things like that to me. People don’t just ask another person’s nationality so...

  Okay, I’m writing myself into a hole here.

  Anyway, so I didn’t answer his extra blunt question. I rolled my eyes, picked up speed, and turned the corner of A Hall. The cheerleaders and football team all have their lockers in the A Hall of the school, which was so helpful of the administration to give them such an effective nickname.

  I passed Erica Fisher as she stood by her locker wearing her cheerleading outfit. Her red hair clashed with the unflattering yellow and green school colors. Go Pirates. She called out my name and then smiled at Joe when we looked over at her. We both ignored her, which I wouldn’t have done before I met Joe. Before today, I would have complimented her hair, and taken my place among the herd of sheep who almost worshiped the girl. Joe was already changing me.

  She followed behind us, hampering our ability to talk about any sort of magic at all. We just walked together in this awkward silence, about which Erica seemed far too interested.

  Erica treated me as if we should have been friends, that I should take my responsibility as a pretty girl seriously, and dumb down. But I wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t as pretty as I looked. I wore a transformation rune on my stomach to make me appear thinner, and whenever I broke out in acne, a quick rune on the back of my neck would clear it up. I do have pretty brown eyes and long eyelashes (I got those from my mom) and when I got the rune for my dark hair right, it had the perfect amount of curl right at the ends. But it was all just an illusion, and not a lasting one at that. It wasn’t something I took pride in; it was just another trick to get the Grandmothers to ignore me.

  I didn’t want to appear like the ditsy shallow girl I pretended to be (not in front of Joe anyway) so I ignored her, turned on to B hall, and walked into my English class. Joe followed me in and then stood at the front of the class by the teacher.

  I took my seat and shoved my backpack under my chair. On the left hand corner of the desk, someone had carved a curly line out of the polyurethane with a black pen. I ran my fingers over the line, and sparks scattered from my fingers. That usually doesn’t happen.

  I pulled my notebook from my bag; it folded up like a taco. I growled under my breath, held the top and the bottom of the notebook, and tried to straighten it out against the edge of the desk. I may, possibly, have a little OCD, but that is as close to having a mental illness as I am willing to admit, while living in a mental institution.

  I opened up my notebook to draw the mysterious rune. But Joe had beat me to it. Along the side of the first page, in black pen, was the same exact curled shape. At the bottom of the shape was one word. Water.

  Joe knew the rune for water. I looked up at him and he smiled at me in that patented Joe sort of way, and then he turned and left the class.

  How did an Instinct know a rune? I turned the pages of my notebook, and on nearly every page was an alteration, some cleaning up of my hours of work. Three more runes were written in his handwriting, leaving my grand total now at ten.

  If they worked.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Henry Jarbonie keeps slurping his Jell-O. It’s getting obnoxious. I swear, the worst thing about this place is the routine. Every day here is exactly the same as the day before. It’s enough to make a person crazy, which is good job security when you think about it.

  Every day from the hours of three until five, I come into the cafeteria: the one room in this bleeping place that they allow us a computer. That’s where I write this. That’s why the chapters are all so short; that’s as much as I can write in the allotted time. I actually type fast when you factor in the fact that I no longer have hands.

  My old buddy Henry with his rear end free to feel the breeze isn’t the only one who has to eat their Jell-O with a straw. I do not slurp. Somehow, I still care about things like that, while Henry is free to do whatever he wants. There must be something liberating about being truly crazy.

  The ultimate act of punishment for a Rune is to take their hands. You might remember I told you that Runes hold all their magic in their hands. Take the hands, and you take the magic. Threat annihilated.

  Now I’m a rube, just like everybody else. I couldn’t do magic if I tried, and believe me, I’ve tried.

  They save the real punishments for traitors. Rule breakers like me usually get more of a slap on the hands instead of the clean removal of the hands. I was guilty by association, I guess.

  That comes later.

  I type, in case you were wondering, with a straw in my mouth, punching each individual key. That should tell you how important this is to me. I go through about five straws in two hours.

  I think Doc Jensen is reading this. I can’t tell; he doesn’t add anything between writing sessions, but he’s smart. I’d read it if I were him.

  So Doctor Jensen, this is a work of fiction. Remember that. I am a hard working girl who has hope for her future and has a goal. Remember, Disney Channel Movie?

  They won’t let me out. After what they think I did, I don’t blame them.

  I’m done for today.

  CHAPTER SIX

  So I guess I should mention that my English teacher was new: Ms. P. That was what we all called her. It took me about three days to realize she was Joe’s mom. I liked her and not just as a teacher. I used to hang out at their house all the time, and she filled the void I have--had--for a mom. She liked me, too. She thought I was a good influence on her son, and I guess that was true for a while; his grades, at least, did improve.

  Instincts are like that, though. See, Runes often end up becoming Deans at Ivy League Universities, or Generals, or Presidents. Instincts often end up homeless. I think it’s because they don’t have to work to get anything, so they rely on their magic so much they don’t bother learning any life skills.

  I’d still rather be an Instinct, though.

  Sorry.

  I didn’t see Joe for the rest of the day. I was almost back to my shallow self when the final bell rang, and I walked out to my car. Joe sat on the hood of my car. My notebook rested on his knees, as he wrote on it with that detestable BIC pen. I don’t know how or when he got my notebook again. Joe was like that; he could steal anything from anywhere… at least that was what he claimed.

  I clutched my pale pink cardigan closer to my chest and walked out to meet him. By the time I got to my car, my shoes were dead to me. I opened the back door, threw my backpack and my shoes inside, and then plopped next to him on the hood of my car. My feet left sweat prints on the green bumper.

  Next to Joe was a blue notebook. It wasn’t one of those good ones, with the papers stuck tight with a black leather cover, and a pocket at the back, like my notebook. I bet his cost about 32 cents new. I opened it up and saw a few runes written in. I saw that he’d copied mine, and that he only had the three runes before today. That made me feel a lot better.

  “How do you make them work?” he asked. His eyes followed other students as they left the school.

  I held my left hand up, my palm facing me, and I traced the rune for stay along the entire width of my palm. Yellow light trailed behind my finger. Joe watched my hand as if he was trying to figure out how it worked. I smiled. It felt good, finally showing someone what I could do.

  I had beautiful hands. They were one of the few things I liked about myself. One of the few things I didn’t change with my magic. I had long fingers, which mad
e up for me always chewing my nails when I was nervous. I remember that morning I had painted my nails this shimmery pink color called oyster shell.

  What a random thing to remember.

  I blew on my hand and then shook it. The runelight fell in a shower of glitter.

  “That’s a rune,” I said quietly. I reached for his hand and drew a simple triangle rune for silence, and then I drew the same rune on my own hand. The rune made the air feel stagnant beside us. We could still hear the rubes talking outside the bubble of silence, and feel the wind as it blew through our hair. Yet, it sounded as if every noise around us filtered through plastic wrap.

  Someone was watching me. The back of my neck felt itchy like a day old sunburn. I turned around and looked behind me. There were cars and rubes in constant motion, none of them focused in my direction. I told myself it was nothing. I hadn’t ever done this rune in front of people, and maybe it always felt like that. I didn’t know any better.

  I turned back to Joe.

  “Now no one can hear us.” I lifted my hand; a speck of the light from the rune was missing. “With every word I say the rune fades.”

  We watched together as the edge of the line of runelight dimmed.

  “That’s because it is a working rune. It moves, takes energy to perform it. There are also, well, I call them statue runes, cause they just set and stay still. Like my favorite, stay, which you met in second period.”

  Joe rolled his eyes, but I could tell he was paying close attention; he seemed almost hungry for the information, if that makes sense.

  “There are other statue runes, protection is one. That’s the strongest rune I know. It’s one of the few runes that can exist after the person who casts it dies.” I swallowed and looked away from him. My mom’s protection rune still stood above the front door of my house, glowing in my mom’s color code of cool blue.