Xander and Mara stood in the boys’ common area, the boys having been quietly pushed down to the first-year floor. They stood in front of Jack’s room with their wands out, unsure what they were about to find. Mara put her finger to her lips and carefully stepped forward.
“Ready?” she whispered.
“Ready.”
She swirled her wand, and the door blew off its hinges. The two ran straight in with their wands pointed directly at the boy. His eyes went big and he dropped his book, putting his hands in the air and scooting back on the bed. Xander grabbed him by his neck and pinned him down on the bed. He pointed his wand at his face.
“Why did you do it? Who is your dark family leader?”
The boy started to cry, shaking his head. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Xander held the broken wand up to the kid’s face. “Is this yours? Tell the truth.”
“Yes. Yes, it’s mine.”
“We traced the magic on this! It came back to you, and it was dark!”
“I don’t remember it,” he cried. “One minute I was asleep in my bed, and the next I was standing in the rain with a broken wand. I swear it! I swear I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Mara walked up and waved her wand in front of his face. “Lies Be Shown.”
She expected the energy to turn green and blue to show he was lying, but nothing happened. Xander slowly released his grip on the boy and the two stepped back, completely dumbfounded. Mara pulled a chair up and sat down in it, waiting for Jack to sit up and calm down a bit.
“Have you ever come across dark wizards?” she asked.
“No.” He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean, ‘you don’t think so?’”
“I was an orphan, and they sent me to an orphanage in Kentucky. I met a lot of people before I was adopted. They used to force us to try to express our anger, but I don’t remember meeting any dark wizards.”
Xander’s face drained. “What are you, Jack?”
“I’m a Toombie, or at least that’s what they told me.”
Xander sat back in his chair and shook his head, looking at Mara. “I thought it was just an old wives’ tale.”
“What?” Mara asked.
“There was a rumor that the dark families were making another round of weapons, the same ones they made in the 1700s. They take small orphaned children, usually babies, and they insert a ball of dark magic into their souls. It’s small but powerful, and the light magic around it keeps it from spreading. It works as a beacon of sorts. When they turn it on, the being becomes a dark-magic zombie. They aren’t themselves anymore. They do whatever they have been programmed to do.”
Mara looked back at Jack, who was shaking. “And if there is one...”
“Then there are more,” Xander replied, flipping Jack’s hands over.
In his palm was a dark blotch like a smear of ash. Xander tapped his wand against it and watched as it changed shape, the mark of the dark families revealed. Jack looked up at them and shook his head, not believing what he was seeing. He tried to rub it off, but it was a stain from the spell that had been performed. It wouldn’t go away until the dark magic inside him was gone.
“We have to quarantine him to keep him safe for now. And to keep the others safe. But if he is a weapon, then all the orphans here at the school have automatically become unknowing suspects.”
Xander shook his head. “That’s true. As well as anyone who has been in the sights of the dark families all their lives. This can happen in the blink of an eye.”
“That means...Izzie! Poor Izzie will look like a suspect too.”
17
At last, after weeks of waiting and Ethan practicing every magical practical joke in the book, April Fool’s Day had finally arrived. If the boys thought Ethan was the only one excited about it, they were mistaken. The whole school took to the fun.
Spells were bouncing all over the place, from whirling balls that hit the victim and created a twenty-four-hour glimmer on their faces—those were intended for the boys—to magical cream pies to the face. Almost everyone enjoyed it, even the ones on the wrong side of the jokes.
The teachers, on the other hand, always wished that classes were suspended that day. Barely anything got done in class, and half of them made the whole period about jokes, knowing that if they tried to teach, they would fail. In Botanicals the year before everyone had learned how to use the root of the Oriceran Pentium plant to make others talk in a super-high voice. Just two drops in their drink and it was like they had huffed helium for an hour.
The whole class talked in a tone that made the fairies of the forest break out earplugs and the animals move to the other side. Mrs. Fowler handed out blooms to the students getting ready for the day, asking them to smell them. When they did, the scent made them see small flying dinosaurs, but that only lasted about five minutes. She thought it was hilarious.
Horace, on the other hand, didn’t find anything amusing about it at all. He didn’t have any magic to fight back, and thought it unfair that they targeted him. Of course, they did. He was the non-magical groundskeeper, and they loved messing with him. Every year Horace started the day thinking he had fully prepared himself to not get caught in the mess.
He even went so far as to have Mara spell him one year for protection, but none of it ever worked. This April Fool’s he had intended to lock himself in his room and wait the day out, but he couldn’t. He had horses to tend to, grass to cut, and a barrage of things inside the house to take care of.
He grumbled his way across the yard. “Damn pixie flies! Set of a swarm of them right in my house. It’ll take me days to get them out.”
A group of students passed him and he gave them an angry stare, watching them skitter off in fear. They weren’t the kids who did it, but to Horace, they were all guilty. He used to think April Fools was bad with his human counterparts, but after he started working at the school, he dreamed of the days of whoopie cushions and trick candy. Mara watched him from the courtyard as he scared the group of kids off. Mrs. Fowler stood next to her, shaking her head.
“Poor Mr. Rigsby. He’s always the brunt of the majority of April Fool’s jokes.”
“I told him that if he just started pulling pranks back, they would leave him be. Magic jokes are all well and good, but give these kids the ol’ Saran Wrap on the toilet seat just once and they’ll think twice about doing something to him.”
Mrs. Fowler slowly turned her head and stared at Mara. “’Saran Wrap on the toilet seat?’”
Mara smiled and started to walk away. “Hey, I’ve picked up some human tricks living here on Earth.”
“That is cruel.”
Mara laughed, and Mrs. Fowler followed her back to the school. When they opened the front doors, a dragon made of light energy flew through the air and they ducked as it soared through the door. Mara waved her wand and light hit the dragon, exploding it like a firework. The kids groaned and hurried off to study hall or breakfast, bummed that she had spoiled their trick. Mara just shook her head and made her way to her office. She reached for the door handle and stopped, lifting an eyebrow, but shook her head.
“Surely they wouldn’t pull a trick on the headmistress.”
She laughed and opened the door, and a spray of water hit her in the face and confetti exploded all over her like rain. She stood there for a moment with a straight face, wiping the sparkling pieces of paper from her eyes, then leaned back and looked out the door. Mrs. Fowler and Horace were peeking around the corner and chuckling. Mara pointed her finger at them with a smirk, and they took off running. It was definitely going to be an interesting afternoon.
“Everyone is all in arms out there, and I have no idea why,” Emma said, coming back from the showers.
“It’s April Fool’s Day.” Kathleen rolled her eyes. “We have to put up with nonsense all day.”
Izzie smiled as she pulled her bookbag on. “I think it’s fun.
I think everyone should just lighten up and let it happen. When you fight it, it just gets worse.”
The girls left the room and headed down to breakfast, avoiding the bangs of magical fireworks and the swarms of magically-produced pixie flies making a flight around the stairwell before dissipating into thin air. Kathleen watched, thinking about her normal issue with bugs.
“At least whoever made those had the common sense to put an end date on them. I hear they are the worst to get out of houses. I can only imagine Ms. Berens is having an aneurysm.”
“You would be surprised.” Izzie smiled. “Ms. Berens has a mischievous side. I wouldn’t at all be shocked if we found ourselves the butt of one of her jokes.”
Kathleen groaned. “Great, now we have to worry about the headmistress too. That just brightens my day right up.”
Izzie, Aya, and Emma looked at each other and stifled giggles. They knew deep down that Kathleen liked the fun, but she just wouldn’t give up her rich-girl façade, probably the fault of her parents. Izzie shrugged, figuring that even with parents you ended up with issues. They reached the bottom of the stairs and hopped over the magical puddle someone had left there one at a time. It may have been a glamour, but your feet would still be soaking wet for hours afterward.
When the girls passed through the doors of the cafeteria all of them stopped for a moment, feeling the rush of some sort of magical force. They shook it off, figuring it was one of the tricks dissipating. Izzie hung her book bag on the back of her chair, and they all sat down. Kathleen looked at Ethan, who was sitting back with a smirk on his face, just watching everyone.
She raised an eyebrow. “What are you so smug about? You always find some way to get under my skin, but I secretly enjoy it.”
She shut her mouth and looked at the other girls, unsure why she had just said that. “What I mean is...uh...”
Ethan just chuckled and folded his hands in his lap. “Yes? Please go on.”
“I better not. You’ll just find enjoyment in it because you secretly have a crush on me.”
She covered her mouth and looked down at her plate, pancakes trying to form but the fruit she was thinking of fighting back. “I want pancakes, dammit, but if I don’t eat fruit, I’ll have a whale of an ass like Mrs. Fowler.”
Everyone at the table laughed and Kathleen stopped, putting her fork down on the table. It was like she couldn’t help but say exactly what she was thinking. Emma let the chocolate chip muffin appear on her plate and smiled.
“I don’t care anymore. I have tried to be popular, but I just want to be me.”
She looked at the others and back down at her plate. Izzie narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth, but found she had a bit more restraint than that. Peter arrived with Luke and sat down at the table with a smile.
“Whew, things are crazy out there. I just wanted to hose them all down and lock them up in the cellars downstairs. I mean, no one would miss those assholes, I certainly wouldn’t, no matter how nice I try to be. Before I came back I tried a spell to make my muscles bigger, just so I could intimidate someone and possibly impress Emma.”
Eyes shifted around the table, and Ethan put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “You might want to stop talking.”
Peter grimaced and lifted his shoulders, glancing at Emma and shoving a bite of pancakes into his mouth. They all sat there silently for several minutes, no one wanting to say a word. Alison could sense everyone’s energies, and there was a mixture of embarrassment and anger through the whole cafeteria. She, on the other hand, didn’t have the urge to tell it like it was. Finally, Kathleen lost it. She couldn’t sit there silent anymore.
“I know this was you, Ethan. You have been plotting and planning for weeks. What is it, a truth spell?”
Ethan stayed quiet, still beaming even though he didn’t want anyone to know. The teachers were running through the cafeteria, half holding their lips shut, half trying to find the counteracting spell. There were several boys on the verge of fighting and several girls in tears, and the rest were both entertained and nervous.
One of the teachers sighed. “This is terrible. Just terrible.”
Elias walked up and put his hands on his hips. “I rather like it. A bit of honesty is damn refreshing, and I have to say, your new haircut is divine, I wish men wore their hair like that.”
He nodded, the teacher unsure whether to take that as a compliment. “Right, then... Let’s just keep working.”
Ethan covered his mouth, trying to hide a laugh. Kathleen glared across the table at him, her arms crossed. She was irritated, but at the same time, she couldn’t be that mad about it.
“I have to admit, Ethan, I’m impressed. Stop acting like you had nothing to do with this. It’s obvious you aren’t afflicted by it, which is even more impressive. I wouldn’t be able to pull something like that off. Then again, I vastly over exaggerate my powers...ugh.”
“I think we should do this once a month,” Peter said through a full mouth. “Then people can get things off their chest, like how I can’t understand how Kath.—”
“That’s enough.” Ethan sighed, shoving a piece of bacon from his plate into Peter’s mouth. “Who knew you would be the worst out of everyone? Then again, you do always try to be the nice guy.”
“See, it is working on Ethan,” Aya replied.
“No,” Kathleen grumbled. “He’s just using the excuse to say whatever he wants.”
Ethan smirked at her and watched the students walking around with their hands over their mouths.
“Seriously, Ethan, tell us how you did it.”
Ethan rolled his eyes and sat up, leaning in at a whisper. “It wasn’t easy, and I have to admit I didn’t do it on my own.”
“Someone helped you?” Izzie gasped. “This could get you suspended.”
“It’s April Fool’s Day. No one will suspend us.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. Who helped you with it?”
“I had some help...from him.” Ethan pointed across the room at Tanner, who was sitting with his hand over his mouth, hiding a laugh.
Everyone glared at him, and Izzie whispered into Alison’s ear. She combed the room for his energy, finding it in the upperclassmen area of the cafeteria. His energy was swimming with pride and laughter all at the same time. She should have known; she’d sensed the mischief in him before. She shook her head, sensing the energies at the table. As irritated as Kathleen seemed, her energy told another story. She was actually enjoying it, and there were even streams of envy swirling. Alison thought that was interesting since she never seemed to envy anyone.
“Well, since it’s happening, I might as well say it. I’m not as big a bitch as everyone thinks. I just do it to stay at a safe distance. I’m actually jealous of how tight-knit everyone here is.”
“We all think the same of you, Kathleen,” Emma replied. “You keep us on our toes, make us rethink things, and even teach us how to be patient. Sometimes it takes some patience to deal with you.”
They smiled at each other. Emma realized that on the outside Kathleen was proud, secure, and never had an issue with herself, but on the inside, she was just as insecure as everyone else. She was a normal teenager, fears and all, and Emma hadn’t given her credit for that. Izzie took a deep breath and grabbed her plate.
“Well, I don’t want to explode from the mouth like everyone else, so I’m going to take my breakfast outside.”
“Aw.” Ethan pouted. “Spoilsport.”
Izzie smirked and asked Alison, “You want to go too?”
“Yes, please. All this honesty is getting a little out of hand.”
The stood up and the others followed, figuring they needed to get the spell out of their system before class anyway. As Izzie and Alison headed out of the lunch room, Tanner ran up, putting his hand on Alison’s. She read the energy and put her head down when she realized who it was.
“Don’t go yet. I have something to tell you.”
“And that is?”
“I wante
d to kiss you goodnight, but I’ve heard stories about your dad. I have to admit I chickened out. It wasn’t my proudest moment.”
“Are you saying that because you have to with the spell?”
“Does it matter?” He squeezed her hand. “It’s the truth. Almost better if it was from the spell so you’d know I wasn’t just saying it.”
Alison smirked and squeezed back, happy to at least know he was interested in her. The thought of her guardian blocking her love life at school was irritating, to say the least, but there was nothing she could do to change that. Brownstone was protective, and so be it. At least she had someone in her life who wanted the best for her. It was more than she could say for her real father, who had probably wanted her dead too.
“Maybe we can...” Tanner stopped, hunching his shoulders and grimacing.
“Ethan! Ethan, you get over here right this instant. I can see on your sniveling little face that you are the one who did this. Of course, I don’t know how. You’re talented but not that talented. Sorry, scratch that. It was rude.” The teacher waved her wand at him and Ethan grimaced, trying to make a getaway.
Alison giggled and squeezed Tanner’s hand. He said, “I better go. It won’t be long until they figure out that I had something to do with this, too. Can we catch up later? I don’t want to go another couple of months without talking to you.”
“Of course, we can. Now go, before the professor gives you a piece of her mind.”
Tanner laughed and kissed the back of Alison’s hand before sneaking back to his seat.
Izzie smiled. “See? I knew he really liked you.”
“I suppose he did.” Alison grinned, patting Izzie’s hand. “Come on. It might get ugly in here.”
They headed out to the courtyard and snagged one of the last picnic tables. There were a ton of other students who had either heard of the spell and chosen to eat outside or made their way out after a not-so-pleasantly-honest breakfast with their friends. Across the courtyard people were talking about the spell, hailing Ethan the King of April Fools. No one as yet had any clue Tanner had been in on it too.
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