The Witch Within

by M. Z. Andrews

  The four of us exchanged glances.

  “This can’t be good,” said Alba.

  I rubbed my bumpy arms again, and when I felt my teeth began to chatter, I realized it hadn’t been a cold breeze I’d been feeling after all. “No. Definitely not good.”

  8

  I sat in the gym, sandwiched between Libby and Alba, with Cinder sitting in the row behind us, all of us quietly watching the rest of the witches file in. Their deafening chatter echoed off the walls and made the auditorium feel fuller than it was. Starting to feel more than slightly claustrophobic, I couldn’t help but wonder what in the world was going on.

  And then, much to all of our surprise, in marched the whiz kids! They came pouring in from the rarely used back entrance. My mind reeled. Since I’d been to campus, none of our assemblies had ever included the men from the Paranormal Institute for Wizards next door. In fact, besides occasionally sharing the common quad area, or seeing an occasional boy visiting the girls’ dorm lobby in the evenings, I couldn’t think of a single time I’d seen the whiz kids on our side of the campus! The looks on their faces told me that they were just as confused as we were.

  And then I saw Hugh. He was one of the last men to enter. I hadn’t seen him since we’d broken up. And despite it being my choice to end the relationship, I still felt that familiar butterfly feeling in the pit of my stomach when I saw him. His eyes scanned the crowd. I knew he was looking for me. It took him about ten seconds to spot me. He gave a little tip of his cowboy hat when we finally locked eyes.

  I sighed. Oh man, he’s hot. I gave him a little wave as he followed the men up into the far side of the bleachers. Our eyes only parted when he took his seat.

  I rubbed my arms. My chills were stronger now. Something very, very bad was about to be announced. I just knew it.

  By the time that Holly appeared at the bottom of the bleachers, the place was packed. Literally wall-to-wall witches and wizards. From the floor, she looked up to find us in our normal spot. I stuck my hand up and gave a wave through the crowd. She climbed up to squeeze in between me and Libby and leaned over to me. “Did you see the whiz kids are here?”

  “Yeah, I saw them.”

  “I’ve never seen them on our side of campus before. What’s all this about?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Have you heard from Jax at all today?”

  Holly pulled her phone out of her back pocket and looked down at it. “Nope. No texts. Why?”

  “I don’t know. It just seems unlike Jax not to shoot one of us a text to see how things are going. You know?”

  Holly lifted a shoulder. “Oh. She’s probably just sleeping.”

  “Maybe.” I tried rubbing the bumps off my arms again, but then a thought hit me, and it was as if the blood had iced up in my veins. “Oh my God, you don’t think something happened to Jax, do you?”

  Holly’s eyes widened. “I hope not.” She flipped her phone over. “I’ll text her.”

  When the room suddenly quieted down, I looked down at the gymnasium floor. Brittany Hobbs had just entered.

  “This is weird,” I whispered. “Where’s Sorceress Stone?”

  Alba leaned over to me. “You getting any kind of vibe, Red?”

  I showed her my arm. “For sure. This isn’t good at all.” My heart beat wildly in my chest as I stared at Holly’s phone.

  Alba’s head dipped. “Ah man, this sucks! We don’t have time to be dealing with another mystery right now.” She turned her attention back to Brittany on the floor in front of us.

  I didn’t tell her my fears, or that Sorceress Stone’s absence made me really worried about Jax. I swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and then closed my eyes and tried to count to ten.

  When I’d gotten to eight, Holly elbowed me, showing me her phone. She’d shot off a simple “r u ok?” to Jax.

  Jax had texted back. “Yeah, still in bed. Tummy hurts.”

  The unease that had settled into the pit of my stomach dissipated almost immediately. I smiled at Holly. “Oh, thank God.” I slumped forward in relief as Brittany tapped the microphone.

  Her usually healthy complexion now appeared pallid, as if all the blood had drained from her face. Even her usually perky blond hair looked limp and colorless. “Settle down, students. Please, settle down.”

  As the voices died down completely, I noticed Brittany pull a tissue from her sleeve and dot her eyes. It was obvious she was fighting to keep it together. I knew it. Something really big had happened.

  “Ladies, I need to make an announcement. We’ve had a situation present itself just a few minutes ago, and due to unforeseen circumstances, classes have been canceled for the rest of the week.”

  The auditorium broke out into stunned gasps.

  “But graduation is this weekend!” shouted someone from the crowd.

  Brittany nodded. “Yes, details are still being worked out. As far as I know, graduation presentations and the ceremony will proceed as planned.”

  “What about finals for the first-year students?” asked another voice from the crowd.

  “As of right now, those are being postponed until the Monday immediately after graduation.”

  Gasps filled the room.

  “You mean we have to come back after graduation?!” cried someone, stating exactly what I’d been thinking.

  “But I have plane tickets for Monday,” shouted another.

  “I do too,” whispered Holly.

  “Yeah, me too,” agreed Alba loudly.

  “Yes, I know, it’s an inconvenience, but I have no choice.”

  “What about the wizards’ school?” asked a deep voice from the crowd.

  “Because Sorcerer Stone has recently gone out of town, it goes for the wizards’ school as well. And that’s all I can say. I’m so sorry,” mumbled Brittany before skittering out of the room as if demons were hot on her tail.

  “What in the world got into her?” breathed Holly.

  I shook my head and glanced sideways at Alba. “I have no idea, but we need to find out what’s going on.”

  “Oh yeah. For sure.”

  Cinder leaned down and whispered in my ear, “We’re coming with you.”

  “Fine, we’ll all go,” I said. “Come on.”

  Standing in front of Brittany’s desk, Alba looked down at Sorceress Stone’s right-hand woman. “Brittany, come on, you’ve gotta tell us what’s going on.”

  Brittany shook her head. “I’m sorry, girls. I can’t say anything.”

  “Well, there has to be more to the story,” said Alba.

  “There has to be!” I agreed. I looked around. “Where’s Sorceress Stone?”

  Alba started towards her office.

  “She’s not in there,” said Brittany.

  “Well, where is she?”

  Doe-eyed, Brittany dotted at the corners of her eyes with a wadded-up tissue. “I-I can’t tell you.”

  Alba tipped her head sideways. I could tell she was getting heated. “Well, you’re gonna have to. We’re not leaving until you do. I have plane tickets to fly out on Monday after graduation. They’re nonrefundable, and I’m not sticking around to take finals when I’m supposed to be on my way home.”

  “I’m really sorry, girls. I don’t have any answers for you right now.”

  “Yeah, Brittany, we get that you don’t have any answers,” seethed Alba.

  I held a hand out to stop her from losing her temper. “That’s why we wanna talk to Sorceress Stone. We’ll take our issues up with her. Now please, can’t you just tell us where she is?”

  “No, I can’t.” Brittany’s face looked pained.

  “Something big happened. We already know it.”

  “Fine,” said Cinder, pulling back her shoulders and looking down at Brittany. “If you won’t tell us where Sorceress Stone is, then where are the members of the Great Witches Council? We’ll air our grievances with them.”

  Brittany’s eyes widened. “The Great Witches Council?”

&nbs
p; “Yes,” said Libby.

  Brittany looked around nervously. “Umm.”

  We all stared at her as she thought about that request.

  “Well, I’m not sure that I should tell you that either.”

  “Just tell us, Brittany,” I said. Our patience was wearing thin. “You know we’ll find out with or without you.”

  “Tell us and then we’ll leave you alone,” said Cinder.

  Brittany looked around like she was worried someone might hear her spill the beans. “Okay, but you can’t tell them I told you.”

  “Fine. We won’t tell,” assured Alba. “Just tell us where they are.”

  “They’re sequestered in the teachers’ lounge.” Brittany looked relieved to have finally let out the secret.

  “Teachers’ lounge?” said Alba. “Anyone know we had a teachers’ lounge on campus?”

  Libby and Cinder nodded. “It’s on the second floor of the Canterbury Building. We know where to go,” said Libby.

  Cinder waved us out the door. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “Thank you, Brittany,” chirped Holly as the five of us took off.

  The Canterbury Building wasn’t far away, so it took us only a couple minutes to make our way from Brittany’s office to the second floor. On the way, Libby and Cinder explained that they’d had to meet a teacher there during their first year, so they knew exactly where we were going. They led us up the stairs to a wooden door at the end of the long hallway of classrooms.

  Standing in front of the teachers’ lounge, Alba and Holly flanked me on either side with the twins right behind us. My limbs were heavy with dread and my goose bumps at an all-time high as I lifted my arm to knock on the door. The energy surrounding us felt intense. Like a thick, heavy blanket had covered us all. It didn’t feel good. It felt dark. Almost sinister. I wondered if the rest of the girls felt it too as we waited for the door to open.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the door finally popped open and Poppy Ellabee stuck her head out. “Oh!” she said, looking surprised to see a group of students looking back at her. “I’m sorry, I thought you were going to be Ms. Hobbs.”

  “Hello, Sorceress Ellabee,” I began. “We’re looking for Sorceress Stone. Have you seen her?”

  Poppy Ellabee’s brows knitted together in surprise. “Why, yes, dear. She’s in here. I’m afraid you can’t see her right now, though.”

  Alba shoved me sideways so she could stand face-to-face with Poppy. “Listen, we just got told by the secretary that classes are canceled for the week and we all have to come back for finals on Monday. I have plane tickets back to Jersey for Monday. We weren’t given a reason. No explanation. Just a sorry, change of plans, I hope you bought travel protection.”

  Poppy looked at us kindly, though her face looked pale. “Yes, I know you’re probably frustrated…”

  “Frustrated? I don’t think you could classify what I’m feeling right now as frustration. I’d rank it a little higher on the anger scale. Pissed off might be a better way to put it.”

  I elbowed Alba in the ribs. Swearing at a member of the Great Witches Council wasn’t going to get us what we wanted.

  “Yes, I’m very sorry about your inconvenience.”

  “At the very least we deserve an explanation and the right to be able to speak to Sorceress Stone. I wanna air out my grievances about this.”

  Poppy gave us a tight smile. “Unfortunately there’s been an issue that we can’t disclose, and it has put a wrench into plans for the final week of school. Now, I can assure you that…”

  Alba tipped her head sideways as she stared at Poppy. “Something happened to Stone,” she whispered under her breath.

  “Excuse me?”

  Alba looked at me then. “Red. Something happened to Stone. Your Spidey senses still telling you something?”

  My teeth continued to chatter. “Definitely.”

  Alba looked closely at Poppy again. Alba had spent the last year studying mind reading. I wondered if she wasn’t picking up some of Poppy’s thoughts.

  Poppy shifted uncomfortably in her brown leather loafers.

  This time, Alba nodded her head as the words came out more firmly. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. “Something happened to Stone. What happened to her?”

  Poppy’s hand went to the collar of her shirt. “Well, I…”

  Alba didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she pushed her way past Poppy into the teachers’ lounge.

  “Stop! You can’t go in there—”

  But Poppy Ellabee’s plea fell on deaf ears as the girls and I followed Alba into the lounge. There was a small kitchen to our right and a sofa beneath the window in front of us. In the center of the room was a long conference table which the rest of the members of the Great Witches Council were hovering over. The second they saw us, they rushed towards us.

  “They can’t be in here,” shouted one of them.

  I wasn’t sure which, because the second she moved away from the table, I was able to see what they were standing over, and my breath caught in my throat.

  Sorceress Stone lay unconscious on the table. Her face was paler than usual and her arms were crossed across her chest.

  My eyes widened and my heart dropped into my stomach. She looked… dead. “No!” I breathed. It couldn’t be! Not Jax’s mom!

  “Oh my God,” whispered Holly, covering her gaping mouth with her hand.

  Alba took one look at Sorceress Stone, and then she looked up at the faces of the Council scattered around the room. “Is she dead?”

  One of the women, the one who’d been introduced as Gemma Overbrook, the founder of the Overbrook School of Witchcraft, stepped forward. “You girls can’t be in here.” She glanced over at Poppy Ellabee. “Poppy, why did you let these girls in?”

  “I couldn’t stop them! They just pushed right past me,” she mumbled.

  Gemma’s arm lifted and her finger flicked towards the door. “You have to leave.”

  But we weren’t leaving. Especially not now. Not until we found out if Sorceress Stone was okay.

  “Tell us! Is she dead?” asked Cinder.

  “Leave!” Gemma’s voice was more commanding.

  Alba lifted her chin spitefully. “No. We’re not leaving until we know what’s going on here. Sorceress Stone is our headmistress. We have a right to know what’s going on!”

  “They’re going to tell the whole school if we let them go,” said Elodie Goodwitch, wringing her hands in front of her. “You know that, right? We might as well just fill them in. Otherwise they’ll think we’ve got something to hide.” Elodie looked up at us then. “We’ll tell them in exchange for their silence, of course.”

  “For our silence?” I breathed. “Do you really think we’d keep whatever’s going on here to ourselves?!” Obviously she didn’t know us! We weren’t about to just let this rest. This was Jax’s mother! We had to find out what was going on!

  The woman in the army fatigues, Daphne Fletcher, stepped forward. She gestured towards the sofa that sat beneath a row of window ledges filled with plants. “Girls, have a seat.” When we didn’t move, she lifted her brows. “Please?”

  The five of us, unsure of what else to do, took seats as requested.

  Daphne looked back at the rest of the women, and when one of them gave her a nod, she began. “I really hate to have you find out this way, but in answer to your question—yes. Sorceress Stone is dead.”

  Sorceress Stone dead. I almost couldn’t comprehend the words. I couldn’t believe it! Jax! She was going to lose it! To lose her mother?! I knew they didn’t have a great relationship, but still, it was her mother. She’d quite literally lose it!

  “Poor Jax,” whispered Holly as tears sprang into her eyes.

  Libby and Cinder both held hands to their mouths as I noticed them exchange wide, surprised eyes.

  “What happened to her?” Only Alba seemed capable of reining in her emotions. In that moment, I was thankful for her ability to separate emot
ion from business. We didn’t have time to be emotional right now. What we needed was to be strong for Jax and to find out what happened and what we could do about it!

  Daphne gave another look over her shoulder at the women huddled behind her. “Unfortunately, we aren’t really sure.”

  “Well, you’re gonna have to try and figure it out,” said Alba. Her fuse was short now, and rightfully so.

  “We were having a discussion about just that, before you burst in uninvited,” snapped Gemma Overbrook.

  “Gemma,” said Daphne quietly. “Please. Let me talk to these girls. Maybe you should sit down too. We’ve all had an incredibly stressful day and I know tensions are at an all-time high right now.”

  The tension I’d felt in the hallway was twice as strong in the lounge. When Gemma turned her back to Daphne, I realized what I’d sensed was the tension between the members of the Council. It made me wonder if their discussion prior to our arrival had really been more of an argument.

  Daphne looked at us again. Her eyes looked to be genuinely filled with concern. “I’ll tell you what we know. Sorceress Stone was here with us—we were discussing the judging requirements of the graduation project and the specific things she wanted us to watch out for. Everything was fine. Then all of a sudden, it was as if someone snapped their fingers and the next thing we all knew, she was dead on the table. Just like this.”

  I made a face. “You’re saying she went from being alive and talking to being dead on the table?”

  Daphne nodded. “In the blink of an eye.”

  “Not possible,” said Libby, shaking her head.

  “Yes,” agreed Daphne. “Not possible out in the nonparanormal world.”

  Cinder cocked her head sideways. “But here it is?”

  Daphne nodded. “Of course. Any witch powerful enough could have made time stand still in order to kill Sorceress Stone.”

  Holly’s fingernails hung from her bottom lip. “So you’re saying another witch did this to her?”

  Daphne swallowed hard and looked at the women in the room. “Yes. There’s no other explanation. But not just any witch, I’m afraid. No one else knew we were here. We believe that one of the witches in this very room did this to her. It had to have been one of us.”