Hex-Ed: A Cozy Witch Mystery (Womby's School for Wayward Witches Book 2)

by Sarina Dorie

  My suspicions intensified when the contents shifted and stretched. It moved like something alive.

  I forced a smile. “Do you have a hall pass?”

  The teen stared at me blankly. He mumbled something and kept walking. In the silence, I heard a wet, sucking sound come from his bag. Maybe it was just a pet he wasn’t supposed to bring to school.

  Or something magical.

  I ran back to the classroom and used the directory next to the phone to call the main office. I didn’t know what I would tell them—that I had a bad feeling? That I thought someone was about to use malicious witchcraft? Already I could see my plan to intervene was doomed.

  No one answered the office phone. First period was always busy in the office. I called the campus security officer, but that went to voicemail, as did the one for the dean of discipline. I tried the counseling office next and told the secretary a modified version of what I’d seen.

  “He might have had a rifle in that bag,” I said. “And he was acting suspicious.”

  She didn’t sound impressed. “He probably had some sports equipment in there. That’s not uncommon.”

  His bag hadn’t contained any sports equipment. More than that, I’d seen—felt—a soullessness in his eyes. The lights had flickered. There had been magic present.

  I didn’t want to give anyone any reason to suspect my sanity or fire me from another internship. I didn’t like to lie, but I didn’t see any other way.

  “I heard something coming from his bag. Ticking.”

  The secretary sighed in exasperation. “I can have someone check it out when—” She was interrupted by muffled crying in the background.

  I made out the sobs of a teenage girl. “I’m pregnant, and I don’t know what to do. He said it isn’t his. I don’t want to be a teen mother!”

  The secretary’s voice grew muffled. “Calm down and take a seat. Your counselor will be with you in a moment.”

  “Excuse me,” said the secretary into the phone. “Call back in a minute. Okay, hon? I have a real emergency here.”

  I left the classroom again and rushed to the main office, wanting to find someone else who might listen to me. A man in a gray tweed suit that reminded me of a different era strode through the front doors. He froze when he saw me. My feet rooted to the floor. It was Skinnersville Public School District’s psychologist. But this school was Eugene, 4J School District. He shouldn’t have been here.

  “You,” said the school psychologist, his stormy gray eyes narrowing.

  Of all the times to run into this guy! I didn’t know his name. Hopefully he didn’t know mine. He tossed his shoulder-length hair back in a stuck-up kind of way. The flowing dark hair and sulky attitude felt out of place on a high school psychologist.

  He lifted his chin, gazing imperiously down at me. “What are you doing here?” He enunciated each word slowly, his crisp British accent cutting through the space between us and pinning me there.

  “Um, student teaching?”

  “Of course, you would be here. You’re probably the reason I was called in.” He looked me up and down, his lips curling into a sneer. “Pray, what mess do I need to clean up today?”

  “What does that mean? I’m not a bad teacher.”

  He crossed his arms.

  “You said the toads were a joke. And the bananas … the principal said—” Or had it been the psychologist who said I’d been behind that prank? I swallowed. I couldn’t remember clearly. His words that day were hazy.

  “You are a menace to the school system.” He turned toward the office. “It’s only a matter of time before you cause another freak weather condition. Go home.”

  His words hit me like a photon torpedo. Surely, he couldn’t be saying what I thought he was. He knew about the tornado? He knew I had caused it? There was so much I wanted to ask, but I needed to address the matter at hand first.

  “Wait! You’re a psychologist. I need your help. There was this student—” I spoke quickly and rushed forward before he could walk into the office. I grabbed onto his sleeve. “He wasn’t acting right.”

  He brushed me away. “Don’t touch me.”

  Now that I’d started talking, I couldn’t stop. “I tried calling the office. I told them he was acting suspicious. I heard strange noises from the guitar case. Ticking.” I lowered my voice, uncertain whether he was someone who truly would listen if he heard the truth, but I had to try. “It wasn’t ticking, it was sucking. Something was in that case, and it wasn’t shaped like a guitar. It was moving. I tried to talk to the student. I had a bad feeling, and he wasn’t acting right. The lights were flickering and—”

  “Bollocks.” His spine stiffened. “Leave. Now. This is no place for you to be.” He pointed to the door.

  “But—”

  He muttered something low under his breath that I couldn’t understand. He waved his hand in the air as though he were drawing something. My vision grew foggy. The air tasted funny, like sharp spices. Something about the moment reminded me of Derrick showing me magic, but the moment passed, and I found myself focusing instead on his insistence that I leave.

  There was no way I was walking out on my internship. I’d be blacklisted at another school. Plus, what reason did I have to leave? I wanted someone to listen to me, not tell me to go. All these thoughts marinated in my brain as one foot moved in front of the other, yet a moment later I realized I wasn’t in the school any longer.

  Cold rain sprinkled down on me, and I shivered without the sweater I’d come to work with. I stood a block from the school, on the sidewalk outside the chain-link fence, not even in the parking lot where my car was. I’d walked past it. I didn’t have my purse. I didn’t have my medicine.

  A wave of dizziness washed over me as I thought about going back. My heel caught in something sticky on the sidewalk the moment I tried to turn toward the school. Something exploded behind me, and I fell onto the pavement. I rolled over to find blue flames rising from the school. Lightning flickered and flashed, but it didn’t come from the sky. It looked like it came from the gym.

  A car on the street slammed on its brakes.

  One of the adjoining buildings cracked open and giant purple tentacles whipped out. Students ran out of the school screaming. My breath caught in my throat. My new medication was supposed to prevent “hallucinations.” Not that I thought this was one, but it certainly looked like one.

  I hadn’t felt like I needed my medication that day. Nothing had aroused me. Surely this weirdness didn’t come from me. It came from that kid.

  The driver of the car climbed out and stood on the sidewalk, watching alongside me. “Do you see this?” I asked.

  The old man’s voice came out in a wheezy rasp. “Hell yeah! What are those? Tentacles?”

  Someone else out there saw what I saw! It would have been exhilarating if I hadn’t been so scared.

  We both stared in horror at the lightning and the writhing purple arms. The black silhouette of a bird circled in the sky. Another bird swooped in. Soon ravens filled the sky, swarming above the school like vultures. There was something about that sight that gave me déjà vu. I remembered seeing a murder of crows at Oregon Country Fair when I’d gone there with my family as a kid. An image of a woman in an extravagant bird costume, her teeth filed into points, flashed in front of my eyes. I didn’t know if I was seeing my past or future.

  A police siren started up somewhere in the distance. Were people hurt? What was happening? I tried to push myself up, but my shoes remained glued to the pavement. I wiggled out of my shoes and drew my knees up to my chest.

  The birds circled tighter, blocking out the light from the sky. The man beside me fell to his knees, clutching at the fence. His cell phone dropped to the pavement, cracking.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  His breath came out in gasps. His face turned red. “My granddaughter,” he said, pointing at the school. “I need to—”

  He
grabbed at his chest, making a face. He looked like he was having a heart attack. It had to be stress. He knew someone inside. I hoped everyone was safe.

  “Are you all right? Remember to breathe,” I said. “What’s your name?”

  “Archie.” He tried to say more, but the rest of his words came out unintelligible.

  He grabbed at the fence and missed. He swayed and started to slump toward me, but I caught him before he could fall and crack his head open. I placed my hands on his chest, one in front and one in back. I didn’t know what I was doing—I just knew this was right. The man’s heart lurched under my hands, the beat irregular.

  The world around me faded into silence. I felt the contractions of his heart, the weakness of his muscles, and the electrical signals not making it from his brain to his body. This wasn’t a heart attack; it was cardiac arrest. I took in a deep breath and exhaled. My palms burned and electricity shot out my arms. Pain seared through me. I screamed. The man’s back arched, and he shuddered.

  A moment later he was coughing and clinging to the fence again. His flannel jacket was charred. My arms ached. Red blisters had formed on my palms. The shrill drone of sirens rose in my ears. A firetruck, two ambulances, and four police cars sped into the school parking lot.

  Someone shook me by the shoulder. Another car had pulled over. The woman’s face was pale. “You okay?” she asked.

  I nodded to the old man. “He needs medical attention.”

  But he was alive. I hadn’t killed him. I hadn’t killed anyone this time. This was the first time I’d ever made magic happen on purpose.

  Real magic.

  The woman waved a hand at the smoke fuming from the school gym. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” I said quickly.

  “How did the school catch on fire?” she asked.

  “A gas leak?” That sounded logical.

  On the plus side, they couldn’t blame me for this one. I hadn’t even been on the school grounds when the proverbial shit had hit the fan.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Men in Black

  I waited at the nurses’ station at Riverbend Hospital, a bouquet of flowers from my mom’s garden in my bandaged hands. In the act of playing the Good Samaritan, I’d burned my palms. The doctor at the urgent care had said they reminded him of electrical burns.

  “I’m here to see Archie Gunderson,” I said. “Can you tell me what room he’s in?”

  The nurse ran her finger down a chart that listed patients’ rooms, searching for the name. I’d worried about the old man and his health when he’d been carted off by an ambulance after the supposed “gas leak.” I wanted to make sure he was all right. Perhaps more than that, I wanted to talk to him about what we’d both seen. For the first time since my days of practicing magic with Derrick, I had someone I could talk to about the unexplained.

  The phone rang at the nurse’s desk.

  “Just one moment,” she said to me.

  I gazed down the hallway at the pastel paintings on the white walls. Gray doors lined the corridor. Halfway down the hallway, a figure in an old-fashioned gray suit exited from a room. He stood out against the pastels around him, gliding gracefully away. I recognized his tall stature and shoulder-length black hair, even from behind. It was the school district psychologist.

  I had a feeling I knew what room he had come from. I rushed down the hallway, waving the flowers at him. “Hey!” I said.

  He didn’t turn to look. He strode away. I powerwalked after him.

  “Miss?” the nurse called after me.

  The psychologist’s stride was twice the length of my own. Two doctors stood outside a room, engrossed in conversation. I didn’t want to run and draw attention to myself. The psychologist rounded a corner. I rushed after him, trying not to jostle the bouquet worse than I’d already done. I made it around the corner a few seconds after he did.

  The hall was empty.

  I kicked at the wall in frustration and turned back.

  “Miss?” the nurse said, waving to me from halfway down the hall. “Your friend is in room thirty-two.”

  She escorted me to the room. I’d left a trail of pink petals in my wake. As I’d suspected, Archie Gunderson was in the room the psychologist had exited. I hesitated outside the door, fearing the worst. I chided myself. I had no reason to believe the school district psychologist would do anything bad to anyone. He was rude and snotty, but he wasn’t a murderer.

  Archie Gunderson sat in a bed, an oxygen tube inserted into his nose. His eyes flickered from the television and widened when he saw me.

  “Hi,” I said. “Remember me?”

  He muted the television. “You’re that nice young lady who helped me into the ambulance this morning. Come in.”

  I sighed in relief. He knew who I was.

  I placed the bouquet on the table next to the bed. “I brought you some flowers. I wanted to see how you were.”

  “Aren’t you a sweetie! I bet your boyfriend thanks his stars that he snagged such a great gal.”

  “Heh, my boyfriend,” I said, wishing that were true. Only normal people who didn’t blow things up were allowed such indulgences. “How is your granddaughter? That’s why you were at the school, wasn’t it?”

  “She has a mild concussion, but other than that, she’s fine. She was in the courtyard when the explosion happened.” He smiled cheerily. “I think she went downstairs to another hospital wing to visit one of her friends with more serious injuries, some girl who was closer to the gym where the gas leak happened.”

  “The gas leak,” I repeated. Dread settled in my gut. “Is that what we saw?”

  “That’s what the news said it was.” He nodded to the television. The broadcast was muted, but I recognized the footage of the school, the flames being doused by firetrucks. I’d seen the clip several times already. Lightning had been absent as well as anything else abnormal.

  “Do you remember the, um, tentacles?” I felt silly saying it out loud.

  He stared at me, brow furrowed. “Say that again, hon? Tents?”

  “Coming out of the roof? You said you saw it too.” I asked, but I knew it was a lost cause.

  He gestured wildly with his hands. “Yeah, great big flames.”

  “What about the birds? Did you see them too?”

  “Oh, yeah. The news said the fire must have disturbed their ecosystem.”

  Right. Because a hundred birds always built birds’ nests together on school gymnasiums.

  I should have come straight to the hospital after my appointment and skipped lunch and making a bouquet. “That man who was in here right before I came in… .Do you know who he was? Do you know his name?”

  “What man?”

  “The school district psychologist. The man in gray.” It was hard not to think of Will Smith in Men in Black erasing people’s memories after they had seen things they weren’t meant to see.

  “I didn’t see any man,” Archie said.

  Of course he hadn’t.

  Out in the hall, I called Skinnersville School District and asked for the name of the district psychologist. Her name was Leanne Martin. Janice Watts worked as psychologist for 4J School District. No one in human resources for either district had heard of a tall British psychologist with black hair.

  I was left with more questions than answers.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Got Amulet?

  On Saturday I worked as a roaming vender at the Saturday Market, carrying a sandwich board sign that advertised I drew caricatures and made balloon animals. I walked on the sidewalk, past a line of outdoor stalls decorated with tie-dye, rainbow flags, and handcrafted goods. Inside one tent, a massage therapist rubbed the shoulders of one of the vendors who sold crystals. The aroma of herbal soaps and pies mingled with the scent of sun warming the trees that shaded the park blocks.

  Between the bluegrass band playing by the food court and the buzz of shoppers, the sound
s almost drowned Mrs. Peters berating her son at his booth of glass art farther down the aisle.

  “Why can’t you just make a nice vase like other artists? Why does everything have to be bongs with you?” the old woman ranted.

  Lance Peters, the glass artist, yelled over his mother. “Ma, pipes are what sells. Get off my case.”

  “You’re selling out. You’re prostituting your art. I didn’t pay for your art school tuition for this.”

  As much as my mom drove me crazy, I was pretty lucky I didn’t have Mrs. Peters for a mother.

  “Ma! You’re driving customers away. This is bad for business,” Lance shouted. “Go take your dog for a walk.”

  “My feet are tired, and I need to sit. I’m not going anywhere.”

  I found a shady spot under a tree where I couldn’t hear Lance and his mother arguing. I felt bad for everyone down that aisle of tents. As a new vendor at the Saturday Market, I couldn’t get a spot for a tent, so they’d given me a “wandering vendor” permit. I hadn’t realized how fortunate I was not to be stuck in the same place all day.

  The weather was warm, even in the shade. I made a balloon animal and attached it to my sandwich board sign to demonstrate what I could do. A few people stopped to look at the sign, but I didn’t have any takers. I removed three oranges from my bag and juggled them to pass the time.

  It was mindless work. Keeping my bandaged hands busy allowed me to think.

  Gas leaks didn’t have blue lightning and tentacles. I knew there was more to this world than met the eye. There was more to me than met the eye. I couldn’t make magic happen at will. I couldn’t just think of sexy men in kilts and shoot powers out my hands. I had tried. So far, I’d been an accidental witch.

  Until I’d helped Archie anyway. There hadn’t been any “cost” or sacrifice. My brain felt clear, less foggy than usual. I was certain it was my mom who had been afraid magic had a cost. When I’d been a teenager, she had found the neighbor’s dog, dead with his entrails arranged in the shape of a pentagram. It had been the work of witches, she’d said. Magic needed a sacrifice. To this day, I wondered if Missy had been behind the incident.