Queens of Wings & Storms

by Angela Sanders et al.

  “I was. I was also dying. I have to learn about who I am. I couldn’t have stayed that way for much longer. Hamadryads must be free.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to leave?”

  Nature sang, a current like the birds and crickets that still somehow thrived in the urban jungle. The grass and plants called to her. Now that she understood their music she would never be alone again.

  Words jumbled in her head like tangled wires. She couldn’t unlearn the habits of a lifetime overnight, even with her newfound strength. It would take her a while to be comfortable with who she was.

  “No,” she managed to get out. “I will go with you guys to Queens. I’d like to go back to Brooklyn sometimes, not to Melinda, not yet. Maybe someday. But there are kids there I’d like to keep in touch with, if I can.” She was reminded of Desi, whose casual invitation had sparked this final blow. Desi may not ever recognize what she did for Taimi, but Taimi would never forget her role.

  He brightened and moved closer. They were feet from each other, almost within touching range. “You’ll like Queens. There’s lots to do there. It’s not Brooklyn, but we can still get into the city. We can explore Manhattan on the weekends. I’ve got friends, and I can take you to all the good places to eat.”

  She’d forgotten he had a life that he was going to go back to now. She would have to learn how to move in the real world.

  “Sure,” she said, papering a smile on her face just as she had all those years when she was hiding her feelings from Melinda. “Friends.”

  He shuffled his feet and studied the top of his sneakers. “Or…maybe we can go out sometime, get an ice cream or something. There is so much you haven’t done; I can’t even imagine.”

  She wasn’t quite sure if he was asking her out or not, but Taimi would ask the dryads later. For now, she nodded.

  “Yeah. I could do that.”

  Queens was new and the same, too. The school transfer had gone smoothly, and Taimi had a whole new set of classes to contend with. Both she and Ranger had some scrambling to do to make sure they weren’t behind in the new school.

  He fell in with his old friends but was always aware of Taimi in his proximity and begged off more often than not to spend time with her.

  For a girl who had been a tree at night until a month ago, Taimi was settling in well.

  They had been to the city several times, Taimi staring in wonder at the digital signs and neon of Times Square, her mouth a rounded O as she took in the press of people and the way the city came to life at night. He’d never considered how being limited to one part of the day would alter your experience before now.

  Lizzy told them that Melinda had tried to contact Taimi via social media, and Taimi blocked her. Ranger admired her strength—he would never tell her he hadn’t been sure of her there at the end. He valued his hide.

  It was not over. Taimi had challenges ahead of her. At the moment she was still a dual being inside her body—Taimi and the tree. She wouldn’t set down roots until she knew where she was going to be. Worst case, they would do what Melinda had done on the rooftop, but after sixteen years of being in a pot, Taimi blanched at that suggestion. She wore the piece of her mother in a leather necklace, keeping it close to her at all times.

  There was still a lot to figure out, but she was safe and that was the important thing.

  The girl in question mounted the steps of their brownstone, and he waited for her to knock.

  She was breathless when he opened the door. It would still be a while before she could feel normal, but she’d lost a great deal of fear in the last weeks. She even had a new friend in the school. He spent too much time thinking about Taimi, but he couldn’t help himself. She was a tree, with the ability to speak to plants, and he was just a shifter. She was amazing.

  “How was school?”

  “Good. Calculus is hideous but I’m getting through. It helps that I can study at night after the sun goes down.”

  So many things she’d missed out on. He and his family could never replace her lost experiences—but they could make new ones.

  “I would help but I just got by in that class.”

  “It’s fine. I just need to focus. It’s not what I’d like to do with my nights, but it’s not forever.”

  She took a deep breath and Ranger waited, heart in his mouth, for whatever she was about to say. In his experience when women were tongue-tied it wasn’t good news.

  “Ranger, let’s fly.”

  He stared at her in horror. It was midday, and as much as he coveted flying, it would expose him. He couldn’t imagine what she was thinking.

  “Oh, not now,” she said with a tinkling laugh. “When it’s safe. Will you? Let me ride on you?”

  He nodded, breathing out as though he were his dragon and it was a bit of fire.

  She laughed again. “I can’t wait for that day. Ranger…thank you.”

  His heart beat so fast that it was hammering in his ears. It was now or never. He had to say something or explode.

  “You know I like you, right?” He cursed himself. He sounded like an idiot.

  “I was hoping so,” she said. “I don’t have any experience with boys, so I don’t read the clues right. I’ve been too embarrassed to ask your aunt. I was going to ask the dryads, but I chickened out.”

  He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers, ready to back off if she protested. She sighed and put her hands on his arms.

  The kiss went on for several moments before he broke away. His heart was beating fast and his brains were scrambled, but he beamed. Taimi had kissed him back. All was right with the world.

  It took until school was out and summer had begun for them to get to their family’s Canadian retreat, but when it was safe, Ranger fulfilled his promise. Together they went into the sky, her on his back and his copper wings beating against the sun.

  In that moment, they were both free.

  THE END

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  Magic and Mayhem Academy

  By: Adrienne Blake

  Chapter 1

  A Silver Aura

  “Tempus suspensus!”

  At my daughter Pike’s command, a jet of green light shot across the room hitting our tuxedo cat, MacGuffin, square on the nose. There was just enough time for him to look amazed before he froze like a statue on the living room windowsill.

  “Look, Mom, I did it!” Pike squee’d, doing a tiny victory dance with her feet on the sofa.

  “Yes, well done, but I hope they taught you the counter spell,” I said. “And if you’re gonna sit like that, take your shoes off!”

  “Sure, though it doesn’t last long, anyway. Tempus mobilius!”

  Without a pause, Pike reeled off the counter curse while kicking off her flip-flops. MacGuffin’s eyes came back into focus. Through our connection, I realized my familiar experienced something akin to kitty déjà vu. He gazed up at me, as if to say, whatever, then licked his paw before strolling off. Lucky for us, my cat was well used to my daughter practicing her spells on him and didn’t mind one bit. So long as she wasn’t transformed into something not feline. Then he might poop in her shoe.

  I held my wand up to the light. A little more wand cream, I thought, and rubbed it in with a lint-free cloth I kept specifically for the purpose.

  “You can over polish a wand if you’re not too careful,” Pike said matter-of-factly.

  “Says who, smarty pants?”

  “Mr. Wells.”

  “Oh, does he?” Hmm. I was a tad reluctant to take wand-care advice from Pike’s school principal. Especially one who put love potions on the Academy c
urriculum and had also stood me up for a dinner date––twice. “I’ll have you know I’ve been polishing this wand since my mother bought it for me, and it works just fine. Not everything they tell you in school is accurate.”

  “Why send me there, then?”

  Sometimes my daughter’s mouth was too smart for her own good.

  “As my mother told me, I’m telling you. It’s important you take good care of it. Your wand is your focus, and a shoddy wand will produce shoddy results. If you want to be a great witch, you will mark my words and keep yours nice and shiny.”

  “I’m not saying don’t clean it, Mom. I just polished mine, didn’t I? All I’m saying is, don’t put so much cream on it. Mr. Wells says an over-polished wand is just as bad as a dirty one. The cream can mute the spell.”

  “Well, what does he know about it? You know what they say.”

  “No?”

  “Those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach.” I added a little more cream to my wand and began buffing it furiously.

  Pike shot me one of her superior looks, the kind that annoyed me more than anything, because she looked just like her late father when she did it, and like him, she was usually right.

  “Anyway,” I continued. “Isn’t it time you met Crystal? Don’t let me keep you if there’s some place you need to be.”

  Instead of getting up to leave as I expected, Pike nestled deeper into the sofa and brought her knees in tight to her body. She pulled her brown hair back into a loose pony and toyed with her edge of her socks. “There’s no need. I canceled.”

  I didn’t need any witch super intuition to tell me something was up. “Oh?” I slipped the cleaning materials back into their leather box and glanced at my daughter sideways. “Why did you do that?”

  “Because.” She reached for her cell phone on the table beside the sofa and started typing.

  “‘Because’ isn’t an answer.”

  Pike ignored me and just tap-tapped away.

  Only last week, on Pike’s fourteenth birthday, one month after the Annual Witch Academy Spelling Bee contest, the pair of them had been solid. I knew I would get nowhere. She was just like her father, bless his dearly departed soul.

  Ah, well, I couldn’t spend all day second-guessing, so I grabbed my wand and headed out into the garden. We were earth witches, and my plants needed me even if my daughter didn’t.

  Ours wasn’t an especially large garden. Oliver had started it, but it was my passion to keep it going. There was a naturally occurring rock altar near the rear of the yard. It was a huge hulk of a stone, covered in moss, and on long summer evenings, I could spend hours sitting by it, contemplating the earth and the universe and remembering our happy times together.

  In front of that was a small table with an assortment of stones laid out on a thin plate cut from a tree trunk. I’d left my tool bucket on the table. Many witches just used magic to garden these days, but I liked to get my hands dirty, unless, that was, I was dealing with some annoyingly stubborn root or prickly plant.

  Right now, my garden was filled with the heavenly scent of aromatics like rosemary, basil, mint, and chamomile, and though I typically liked to harvest by moonlight, today was too beautiful a day not to be out enjoying it.

  “I don’t suppose you could spare me a little of that calendula?” a friendly voice said. “We’re having salad tonight and mine is looking none too healthy, I think.”

  By report, Björn Van Asker was a warlock, and had just arrived in the neighborhood. He was six-feet-two inches of solid Norse muscle, boasted a strong Norwegian accent and had devilish blue eyes that could strip you naked before you could tighten your cardigan. At least, that’s how I liked to think of him. So far, he’d been nothing but kind, unobtrusive, and neighborly. And right now, he was staring at me over the one low patch of hedge I had in the garden. Funny. His golden-tinted aura was definitely warlock, but there was a little silver mixed in. I couldn’t quite make out what that meant.

  “Sure,” I said, trying to sound sexy and muffing it. “Um, how much do you need?”

  “Oh, about five- or six-hundred grams.”

  “Err, how much is that in cups?”

  “About two cups, I think, give or take.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Björn seemed to have been gardening himself. His bulging biceps were black with muck and sweat, and his hair looked damp from exertion. Damn, he looked good all messed up like that. I wondered if he ate pie.

  I knelt down in my herb patch, feeling especially grungy in my cut-down denims and khaki top. I mean, who puts on lippy and eyeliner to pull their weeds? I would have to remember for next time.

  Four or five tugs later, I had all the clumps of calendula he’d need, plus a bit extra––just because.

  “How is your Bo?” I asked, handing the herbs over and conscious of the small amount of dirt I’d caught under my nails. Bo was Björn’s youngest son and was just a little older than my Pike.

  “He is good, I think, thank you. And your daughter, Pike? She is well, ja?”

  “She’s fourteen,” I said, as if that explained everything, which it clearly did because Björn treated me to a very nice set of thirty-two Viking pearly whites.

  “Ja, I can imagine. All hormones and boys. Just like my Bo, well, girls for him.” He raised a rather long mahogany wand and gave it a little flourish. “I would spell it out of him if I could, but I guess, it is not too bad, no? They will grow out of it soon enough, I think.”

  “I suppose,” I said, thinking an advanced age spell might not be such a bad idea. If it wasn’t illegal––not to mention immoral. But it was an amusing thought.

  Björn waved the bundle of calendula at me. “Well, thank you for this, Ta-ma-ra.” He was still having trouble with my name. Oh, well. “I will return the favor someday.”

  “No need,” I said. “Anything I can do to help.” For the love of midnight––boy, did I sound lame.

  Björn nodded, and looking a little amused, headed back to his house with his green loot. My eyes remained glued to his aura, and maybe a few other moving parts. The silver tint to it was intriguing. I’d never seen such a butterfly-wing marking on an aura before, and it had me wondering what it meant.

  The warlock closed the door to his kitchen, and realizing I was staring like a crazy stalker, I turned and got back down into the dirt, like the good earth witch I was.

  I smiled. What did it matter what it meant? There were worse things in the world than having a beefy Viking warlock lodging next door.

  I grabbed my weeding fork and began tugging at some dandelions. As I popped the roots and flowers into my bucket, my thoughts were lost in sweaty biceps and a pair of devilishly blue eyes. I glanced at the big mossy rock and thought of Oliver. Oh, don’t you dare judge me, I grinned.

  Chapter 1

  A Permission Slip

  “Mom, if you rub them any harder, you’ll wear through the glass! Didn’t you do them last week already?”

  “What? Oh.” I stopped cleaning the windowpane and took a step back, cloth in one hand, Windex in the other. Perhaps I had been going a little gung-ho. “Yes, I suppose.”

  “Something’s upset you, I can tell.”

  Hmmm. Pike was too smart for her own good. “It’s nothing, really.”

  “So, what is it?”

  I dropped my cleaning things on the kitchen counter and opened the refrigerator door. “I’m having a glass of milk. You want one?”

  “Nah, I’m good. Well, are you gonna tell me or not?”

  It crossed my mind that this was a classic case of the kettle calling the cauldron black. I had half a mind to say as much, but then I thought, no. I was supposed to be the grownup here. Maybe if I confided in her, she would open up to me? She used to tell me everything after all.

  “Well, if you must know.” I grabbed a tall glass from a cabinet beside the fridge and poured myself a long one. “I’m a little bit anxious about Friday night.”

  “What? Oh. The PTA
meeting. Why would you be anxious about that? I’m a straight-A student. None of my teachers will give you a bad report, you know that already.”

  “Yes, well….” Ever since Pike had waved her first wand, I had attended the annual Paranormal Teacher’s Association meeting willingly. I’d even taken cupcakes, because I was that mom. But this year was different.

  “It’s not your teachers I’m worried about.”

  “Wha…? Oh.” The penny dropped at last. It took her long enough. Pike snatched the glass from my hand and gulped some of my milk before handing it back to me with a grin. “So, that’s why you’ve been scrubbing everything within an inch of its life lately? Because of Mr. Wells?”

  “Yes, of course because of Mr. Wells. He’s gonna be there, and it will be embarrassing for us both to meet again.”

  “I don’t see why you’re making such a big deal of it. He had to cancel a couple of times because of work, that’s all. It’s hardly the end of the world. Just reschedule it.”

  Oh, to be so young and innocent again. “Just reschedule? Just like that?”

  “Sure, why not?” Pike said.

  I snorted and hid in the safety of my milk glass. It had been quite a while since I’d viewed the world as quite so black and white.

  I sipped the remainder of my milk and pondered this. “People who really want to be with you don’t keep canceling.”

  “Mom, he had a legitimate excuse––both times.”

  “Yeah, right. Reversing a stink hex and running a detention are hardly life and death situations. It’s not like he’s the only teacher there, he could have asked someone else to cover for him if he really wanted to.”

  Pike rolled her eyes, and though I knew my daughter thought I was being unreasonable, I just didn’t think so.