The Vampire War

by Michelle Madow

  “You mean you don’t know?” Darius’s forehead crinkled.

  “Is this a special studies homeroom?” I asked. “And I somehow got put into one about … magic tricks?”

  “It wasn’t a trick,” said an athletic boy in the center of the room. His sandy hair fell below his ears, and he leaned back in his seat, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows. “Why use tricks when we can do the real thing?”

  I stared at him blankly and backed towards the door. He couldn’t be serious. Because magic—real magic—didn’t exist. They must be playing a joke on me. Make fun of the new kid who hadn’t grown up in a town so close to Salem.

  I wouldn’t fall for it. So I might as well play along.

  “If that was magic, then where are your wands?” I held up a pretend wand, making a swooshing motion with my wrist.

  Darius cleaned his glasses with the bottom of his sweater. “I’d assumed you’d already started your lessons at your previous school.” He frowned and placed his glasses back on. “From your reaction, I’m guessing that’s not the case. I apologize for startling you. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to say this now, so I might as well be out with it.” He took a deep breath, and said, “We’re witches. You are, too. And regarding your question, we don’t use wands because real witches don’t need them. That’s an urban legend created by humans who felt safer believing that they couldn’t be harmed if there was no wand in sight.”

  “You can’t be serious.” I laughed nervously and pulled at the sleeves of my sweater. “Even if witches did exist—which they don’t—I’m definitely not one of them.”

  The only thing “magical” that had ever happened to me was how the ligament I tore in my knee while playing tennis last month had healed right after moving here. The doctor had said it was a medical miracle.

  But that didn’t make it magic.

  “I am completely serious,” Darius said. “We’re all witches, as are you. And this is a special studies homeroom—it’s for the witches in the school. Although of course the administration doesn’t know that.” He chuckled. “They just think it’s for highly gifted students. Now, please take a seat in the chair next to Kate, and I’ll explain more.”

  I looked around the room, waiting for someone to end this joke. But the brown-haired girl who I assumed was Kate tucked her hair behind her ears and studied her hands. The athletic boy next to her watched me expectantly, and smiled when he caught me looking at him. A girl behind him glanced through her notes, and several other students shuffled in their seats.

  My sweater felt suddenly constricting, and I swallowed away the urge to bolt out of there. This was a mistake, and I had to fix it. Now.

  “I’m going to go back to the office to make sure they gave me the right schedule,” I said, pointing my thumb at the door. “They must have put me in the wrong homeroom. But have fun talking about…” I looked at the board again to remind myself what it said. “Energy colors and their meanings.”

  They were completely out of their minds.

  I hurried out of the classroom, feeling like I could breathe again once I was in the library lobby. No one else was around, and I sat in a chair to collect my thoughts. I would go back to the front office in a minute. For now, I browsed through my cell phone, wanting to see something familiar to remind myself that I wasn’t going crazy.

  Looking through my friends recent photos made me miss home even more. My eyes filled with tears at the thought of them living their lives without me. It hadn’t been a week, and they’d already stopped texting me as often as usual. I was hundreds of miles away, and they were moving on, forgetting about me.

  Not wanting anyone to see me crying, I wiped away the tears and switched my camera to front facing view to check my reflection. My eyes were slightly red, but not enough that anyone would notice. And my makeup was still intact.

  I was about to put my phone away when I noticed something strange. The small scar above my left eyebrow—the one I’d gotten in fourth grade when I’d fallen on a playground—had disappeared. I brushed my index finger against the place where the indentation had been, expecting it to be a trick of the light. But the skin was soft and smooth.

  As if the scar had never been there at all.

  I dropped my hand down to my lap. Scars didn’t disappear overnight, just like torn ligaments didn’t repair themselves in days. And Darius had sounded so convinced that what he’d been saying was true. All of the students seemed to support what he was saying, too.

  What if they actually believed what he was telling me? That magic did exist?

  The thought was entertaining, but impossible. So I clicked out of the camera, put the phone back in my bag, and stood up. I had to get out of here. Maybe once I did, I would start thinking straight again.

  “Nicole!” someone called from behind me. “Hold on a second.”

  I let out a long breath and turned around. The brown-haired girl Darius had called Kate was jogging in my direction. She was shorter than I’d originally thought, and the splattering of freckles across her nose made her look the same age as my younger sister Becca, who was in eighth grade. But that was where the similarities between Kate and Becca ended. Because Kate was relatively plain looking, except for her eyes, which were a unique shade of bright, forest green.

  “I know that sounded crazy in there,” she said once she reached me. She picked at the side of her thumbnail, and while I suspected she wanted me to tell her that it didn’t sound crazy, I couldn’t lie like that.

  “Yeah. It did.” I shifted my feet, gripping the strap of my bag. “I know this is Massachusetts and witches are a part of the history here, so if you all believe in that stuff, that’s fine. But it’s not really my sort of thing.”

  “Keep your voice down.” She scanned the area, but there was no one else in the library, so we were in the clear. “What Darius told you is real. How else would you explain what you saw in there, when he changed what was on the board?”

  “A projector?” I shrugged. “Or maybe the board is a TV screen?”

  “There’s no projector.” She held my gaze. “And the board isn’t a television screen, even though that would be cool.”

  “Then I don’t know.” I glanced at the doors. “But magic wouldn’t be on my list of explanations. No offense or anything.”

  “None taken,” she said in complete seriousness. “But you were put in our homeroom for a reason. You’re one of us. Think about it … do strange things ever happen to you or people around you? Things that have no logical explanation?”

  I opened my mouth, ready to say no, but closed it. After all, two miraculous healings in a few days definitely counted as strange, although I wouldn’t go so far as to call it magic.

  But wasn’t that the definition of a miracle—something that happened without any logical explanation, caused by something bigger than us? Something magical?

  “It has.” Kate smiled, bouncing on her toes. “Hasn’t it?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged, not wanting to tell her the specifics. It sounded crazy enough in my head—how would it sound when spoken out loud? “But I guess I’ll go back with you for now. Only because the secretary said she won’t adjust my schedule until the end of the day, anyway.”

  She smiled and led the way back to the classroom. Everyone stared at me again when we entered, and I didn’t meet anyone’s eyes as I took the empty chair next to her.

  Darius nodded at us and waited for everyone to settle down. Once situated, I finally glanced around at the other students. The boy Darius had called Chris smiled at me, a girl with platinum hair filed her nails under the table, and the girl next to her looked like she was about to fall asleep. They were all typical high school students waiting for class to end.

  But my eyes stopped at the end of the row on a guy with dark shaggy hair. His designer jeans and black leather jacket made him look like he’d come straight from a modeling shoot, and the casual way he leaned back in his chair exuded confidence and a care
free attitude. Then his gaze met mine, and goosebumps rose over my skin. His eyes were a startling shade of burnt brown, and they were soft, but calculating. Like he was trying to figure me out.

  Kate rested an elbow on the table and leaned closer to me. “Don’t even think about it,” she whispered, and I yanked my gaze away from his, my cheeks flushing at the realization that I’d been caught staring at him. “That’s Blake Carter. He’s been dating Danielle Emerson since last year. She’s the one to his left.”

  Not wanting to stare again, I glanced at Danielle from the corner of my eye. Her chestnut hair was supermodel thick, her ocean blue eyes were so bright that I wondered if they were colored contacts, and her black v-neck shirt dropped as low as possible without being overly inappropriate for school.

  Of course Blake had a girlfriend, and she was beautiful. I never stood a chance.

  “As I said earlier, we’re going to review the energy colors and what they mean,” Darius said, interrupting my thoughts. “But before we begin, who can explain to Nicole how we use energy?”

  I sunk down in my seat, hating that the attention had been brought back to me. Luckily, the athletic boy next to Kate who’d said the thing earlier about magic not being a trick raised his hand.

  “Chris,” Darius called on him. “Go ahead.”

  Chris pushed his hair off his forehead and faced me. His t-shirt featured an angry storm cloud holding a lighting bolt like a baseball bat, with “Trenton Thunder” written below it. It was goofy, and not a sports team that I’d ever heard of. But his boyish grin and rounded cheeks made him attractive in a cute way. Not in the same “stop what you’re doing because I’m walking in your direction” way as Blake, but he definitely would have gotten attention from the girls at my old school.

  “There’s energy everywhere.” Chris moved his hands in a giant arc above his head to demonstrate. “Humans know that energy exists—they’ve harnessed it for electronics. The difference between us and humans is that we have the power to tap into energy and use it ourselves, and humans don’t.” He smiled at me, as if I was supposed to understand what he meant. “Make sense?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “It’s easier if you relate it to something familiar,” he said, speaking faster. “What happens to the handle of a metal spoon when you leave it in boiling water?”

  “It gets hot?” I said it as a question. This was stuff people learned in fifth grade science—not high school homeroom.

  “And what happens when it’s plastic?”

  “It doesn’t get hot,” I said slowly. “It stays room temperature.”

  “Exactly.” He grinned at me like I’d just solved an astrophysics mathematical equation. “Humans are like plastic. Even if they’re immersed in energy, they can’t conduct it. Witches are like metal. We have the ability to absorb energy and control it as we want.”

  “So, how do we take in this energy?” I asked, since I might as well humor him.

  “Through our hands.” Chris turned his palms up, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He looked like a meditating Buddha. Students snickered, and Chris re-opened his eyes, pushed his sleeves up, and sat back in his chair.

  “O-o-kay.” I elongated the word, smiling and laughing along with everyone else.

  Darius cleared his throat, and everyone calmed down. “We can conduct energy from the Universe into our bodies,” he said, his voice full of authority. Chills passed through me, and even though I still didn’t believe any of this, I sat back to listen. “Once we’ve harnessed it, we can use it as we like. Think of energy like light. It contains different colors, each relating to an aspect of life. I’ve written them on the board. The most basic exercise we learn in this class is to sense this energy and absorb it. Just open your mind, envision the color you’re focusing on, and picture it entering your body through your palms.”

  I rotated my hand to look at my palm. It looked normal—not like it was about to open up and absorb energy from the Universe.

  “We’re going to do a meditation session,” Darius continued. “Everyone should pick a color from the board and picture it as energy entering your palms. Keep it simple and absorb the energy—don’t push it back out into the Universe. This exercise is for practice and self-improvement.” He looked at me, a hint of challenge in his eyes. “Now, please pick a color and begin.”

  I looked around the room to see what others were doing. Most people already had their eyes closed, the muscles in their faces calm and relaxed. They were really getting into this. As if they truly believed it.

  If I didn’t at least look like I was trying, I would stand out—again. So I might as well go along with it and pretend.

  I re-examined the board and skimmed through the “meanings” of the colors. Red caught my attention first. It apparently increased confidence, courage, and love, along with attraction and desire. The prospect made me glance at Blake, who sat still with his eyes closed, his lips set in a line of concentration.

  But he was out of my league and he had a girlfriend. I shouldn’t waste my time hoping for anything to happen between us.

  Instead, I read through the other colors and settled on green. It supposedly brought growth, success, and luck, along with helping a person open their mind, become more aware of options, and choose a good path. Those were all things I needed right now.

  I opened my palms towards the ceiling and closed my eyes. Once comfortable, I steadied my breathing and tried clearing my mind.

  Then there was the question of how to “channel” a color. Picturing it seemed like a good start, so I imagined myself pulling green out of the air, the color glowing with life. A soft hum filled my ears as it expanded and pushed against me, like waves crashing over my skin. The palms of my hands tingled, and the energy flowed through my body, joining with my blood as it pumped through my veins. It streamed up my arms, moved down to my stomach, and poured down to my toes. Green glowed behind my eyelids, and I kept gathering it and gathering it until it grew so much that it had nowhere else to go.

  Then it pushed its way out of my palms with such force that it must have lit up the entire room.

  Elementals: Chapter Three

  The bell rang, and my eyes snapped open, the classroom coming into focus. I looked around, taking in the scuffed tiled floor, the chalkboard covered with writing, the white plaster walls, and the lack of windows. Everything looked normal. Unchanged. There was no proof that anything I’d just felt had been more than a figment of my imagination.

  But that energy flowing through my body had been so real. I tightened my hands into fists and opened them back up, but only a soft tingle remained. Then it disappeared completely.

  Kate stood up, dropped her backpack on her chair, and studied me. “I’m guessing from the look on your face that it worked,” she said.

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged and picked up my bag. “I’m not sure what was supposed to happen.” I met her eyes and managed a small smile, since it wasn’t exactly a lie.

  But the energy I’d felt around me was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Which meant my imagination was running out of control. Because there was no proof that I’d done anything. What I’d “experienced” had existed only in my head. Right?

  Kate glanced at her watch. “What class do you have first?”

  I pulled out my schedule. “Honors Biology.” I scrunched my nose at the prospect. “They put me in all honors classes, and I have no idea why. I was in regular classes at my old school.”

  “I’ve got Honors Bio, too,” she said. “Come on. I’ll explain the whole honors thing on the way there.”

  I followed Kate down the hallway, although I kept bumping into people, since my mind was spinning after what had happened in homeroom. I’d felt something during that meditation session. Maybe it was the energy that Darius was talking about. And if this energy stuff was the reason behind the miraculous recovery of my torn tendon and the healed scar …

  I pushed the thoug
ht away. There had to be another explanation. One that made sense.

  Kate edged closer to the wall to give me space to walk next to her. “So, about the honors classes,” she said, lowering her voice. “You saw what was written on the board. Each color has a different meaning. Once we learn how to harness energy properly, we can use the different colors to help us … do things.”

  “What kind of things?” I asked.

  “Let’s take yellow—my personal favorite—as an example,” she said. “Yellow increases focus and helps us remember information. If you channel yellow energy before studying for a test, it won’t take as long to review everything, and you’ll remember more. It’ll make your memory almost photographic. Pretty cool, right?”

  “It does sound useful,” I agreed. “Although I’m still not buying all this colors and energy stuff.”

  “Give it time.” Kate smiled, as if she knew something I didn’t, and stopped in front of a classroom door. “We’re here. Want to sit with me?” She led the way to a table in the front, and I followed, even though front and center wasn’t my thing. “I’ll help you with the basics after school,” she offered. “You got the hang of channeling energy pretty quickly, so it shouldn’t be hard. Sometimes it takes the freshmen months to gather enough energy to feel anything significant. It was obvious from where I was sitting that you did it on your first try. That was pretty impressive.”

  “I’m not sure I actually did anything, but sure, I’ll study with you after school,” I said. Even though this energy stuff sounded crazy, it was nice of Kate to reach out. I didn’t want to miss the chance to make my first friend here. “I could definitely use help getting caught up with my classes.”

  “Great.” Kate beamed. “I’m sure you’ll pick it up quickly.”

  More students piled in, a few of them people I recognized from homeroom. Then, just as I’d started to think it was stupid to hope he would also be in this class, Blake strolled inside, with Danielle trailing close behind.