The Witch Within

by M. Z. Andrews

  Libby held her hand out for a butterfly to land on. “I’m happy that we got to be a part of it. Thank you for including us.”

  “Yes, except now we don’t have a graduation project to present, and this has taken almost all of our time to prepare,” said Cinder with a bit of a pout on her face.

  Libby shrugged offhandedly as she stared at the black and yellow winged creature in her hands. “It was worth it.”

  “Not if we have to repeat second year. I’m not staying here another year.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Alba. “We’ll help you think of something.”

  Cinder grimaced. “You mean like you thought of before.” She puffed her arms up around her and mockingly repeated Alba’s earlier suggestion. “You can make, like, a big bonfire, and there’s smoke, and it’s on the ground, and you put it out with water. Lame.”

  Alba rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. We’ll think of something better than that. I was just thinking out loud. It’s called brainstorming.”

  As the girls talked, I kept my eyes trained on the front doors of the Broomsgarden Building. Class would let out any second, and I didn’t want to miss Jax.

  “They call it brainstorming, not mouthstorming. That means you’ve got to use your brain and not just your mouth,” said Cinder.

  “Are you kidding me? I was trying to help!”

  “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that if you don’t have anything smart to say, don’t say anything at all?”

  Sweets wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think that’s how that saying goes. It’s if you don’t have anything nice to say—”

  “I know how the saying goes,” snapped Cinder. “I was making a point.”

  “Well, maybe next time you try making a point, you should sharpen your pencil,” growled Alba.

  One of the doors burst open and two students engrossed in conversation appeared. They both had backpacks slung over their shoulders and seemed to be hustling to get out of the building as fast as they could.

  “Guys!” I hissed. “Classes are dismissed. Keep your eyes peeled for Jax.”

  “You know, maybe we shouldn’t have taken you along on that life-changing trip,” said Alba, ignoring me. “We shoulda just left you here.”

  Cinder shook her head. “You needed me. Without me, you couldn’t have done it.”

  Students poured down the stairs now. I kept my eyes trained on them, searching for Jax.

  “Bah!” spat Alba. “Don’t make me laugh! We could have totally done it without you or your sister.”

  Holly’s head lifted then. She squinted into the sun at Alba, holding a hand up to shield her eyes. “I disagree, Alba. Libby saved my life by freezing me.”

  “This is true,” agreed Reign. “We needed them. Just be gracious, Alba. Everyone pitched in and made it work. Teamwork makes the dream work.”

  “There she is!” I said, pointing at the tiny pixie of a girl. Dressed unusually for Jax, in stylish clothing, normal shoes, and nary a pointed witch’s hat in sight, my roommate was surrounded by a gaggle of witches.

  It was as if someone had pushed the mute button as our group fell silent and all eyes turned to Jax.

  After a moment or two, Holly wrinkled her nose. “Who’s she talking to?”

  Sweets’ head tipped sideways as she stared at the group, which paused at the top of the wide stone staircase to whisper in each other’s ears. “I’m pretty sure those are the popular witches.”

  “What are the popular witches doing talking to Jax?” I asked. I’d never seen Jax interact with that particular group. With her weird witchy outfits, high screechy voice, and annoying, clingy behavior, those witches had avoided Jax like the plague.

  “I have no idea,” said Holly.

  Reign shook his head in confusion. “I don’t get it. What’s wrong with Jax talking to the popular witches?”

  I shrugged. “I mean, I guess there’s nothing wrong with it. You know, technically. It’s just kind of unusual. Jax is sort of a…” The cogs in my mind turned, searching for the most politically correct word that represented Jax.

  “Free spirit,” said Sweets.

  I nodded. “There you go. Free spirit.”

  “But she can have popular friends.”

  “Sure she can,” said Alba. “She just doesn’t.”

  “Oh, look, they turned around,” I hissed. “She’s coming, she’s coming.” I stood up, ready to rush the sidewalk when she got to the bottom of the stairs.

  But instead of descending the stairs, she did a strange thing. She and the group of witches she’d been talking to stopped on the top stair. They all seemed to be staring at something on the sidewalk. Following their line of sight, I saw the two girls that had emerged first, paused near a fork in the sidewalk.

  “What’s she doing?” asked Reign.

  No one said a word. We had no idea what she was doing just standing there watching those girls. And then, the two girls stopped talking. One went one way down the fork and the other went the other way. No sooner had they started walking than we clearly watched as Jax flicked fingers on both hands, and instantaneously, each of the girls took a nosedive on the cobblestone sidewalk.

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. Had I just seen that? Had Jax just used magic to trip those two girls up? My mouth gaped.

  Sweets was the first to say something. “Was I the only one that just saw Jax intentionally trip those two girls?”

  “Nope,” agreed Alba. “I saw it too. Those girls are definitely going away with bruised knees and scraped chins.”

  “That was so mean!” said Holly, now perched on the edge of the fountain like a bird. “I can’t believe she did that!”

  I felt dazed and confused. “That had to be a mistake or something. Surely Jax didn’t do that on purpose.”

  “It sure looked like she did. And obviously she already knows about getting her powers.” Reign pointed at them again. “Look, she and those girls sure are getting a good laugh out of it.”

  Sure enough, as the two girls on the sidewalk struggled to get back on their feet, Jax sported an evil smirk while the witches around her howled with laughter. It was like mean girls at their finest. I had to find out what was going on. “Come on, guys. We need to talk to Jax and find out what in the world she was thinking.”

  Before anyone else was on their feet, I was halfway across the garden. Jax and her friends had made it to the bottom of the stairs by the time I got there. “Jax!” I shouted.

  With linked arms, Jax let the popular witches flank her on either side and they walked as a unit towards the quad. She didn’t acknowledge that she’d heard me.

  “Jax!”

  By then the rest of our group had caught up to me. When Jax’s group of friends stopped walking, I knew she’d finally heard me. Jax turned around slowly. Bracing my footing on the brick sidewalk, I prepared myself for the hug I was about to get as I knew her arms would be around my neck in seconds.

  But a strange thing happened. Not only did Jax not charge me, but she wrinkled her nose and stared back at me in annoyance. “What do you want?”

  31

  My eyes swung up to meet Reign’s. What was happening?

  “Jax, we have big news to share with you,” said Reign.

  Jax lifted a corner of her lip and quirked an eyebrow. “Okay?” she sneered.

  Reign looked down at me then. He was confused too. Why was she being so snotty to us all of a sudden. Was she upset that we’d not come home the night before?

  “Jax, you’re not going to believe it,” I said, silently wishing that her new friends would make themselves scarce, so I could share the news in private.

  Jax sighed. “Make it quick. I haven’t got all day.”

  Considering everything strange that was happening, and considering the fact that it seemed as if Jax had already discovered that she was finally a witch, I had to go with the piece of information that Jax would find the next most exciting. “Jax, it’s a really long story, which w
e’ll tell you all about later, but I thought you should know that you and I are officially cousins. Real cousins. Blood-related ones.”

  Jax’s breath seemed to catch in her throat. She stopped moving and stared at me. It took her a second to snap out of whatever it was that had crossed her mind. She looked at the girls on either side of her. “Girls, I’ll meet you in the quad.” When the girls didn’t move, she glared at them angrily before barking, “Go!”

  My eyes widened. Had Jax seriously just barked at the popular girls? I watched in shock as they did as she commanded and took off, hustling towards the quad.

  Jax strode over to us and stood directly in front of me. An ugly snarl covered her face. “Do you have to say that so loud?!”

  I shook my head in confusion. “Say what so loud?”

  “That we’re related. I think I can do damage control, but are you kidding me right now? That was so embarrassing!”

  “Embarrassing?” I repeated in shock.

  “Yes! And why me? Why not Calliope?”

  “Calliope? Who’s Calliope?” asked Reign.

  Jax’s brow furrowed as she looked up at my brother. “Duh? Your other cousin. The one that was standing right next to me? Jeez, what’s up with you today? Did you both take a double dose of idiot pills or something?”

  Alba cracked a smile. “A double dose of idiot pills.” She wagged her finger. “Good one. Mind if steal that?”

  Jax looked Alba up and down disdainfully. “I’m sorry, are you actually speaking to me?” She shook her head. “This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”

  I didn’t have time to think about Jax’s dis on Alba. I was too confused about this sudden new revelation that we had another cousin. “Okay, so you’re telling me that you have a sister now?”

  “Sister? Are you kidding me? Eww. Why would I want a sister? Why would you call her my sister?”

  “Then how is Calliope your cousin?” asked Holly.

  “Duh, she’s Aunt BethAnn’s daughter. Are you guys for real?” Jax shook her head. “I don’t even know why I’m indulging this ridiculous conversation. Listen. The Stones and the Smiths don’t talk. So unless you’ve got some real news, I’m outta here.” Jax began to walk away, swinging her purse over her shoulder like the conversation was over.

  “Wait!” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  Jax turned around and looked down at my hand. “Don’t touch me. Eww. Now I have to go take a shower and burn this dress. Thanks.”

  “That’s a little rude, don’t you think?” chided Sweets.

  “I’m sorry, who are you?”

  Sweets looked stunned, like she’d just gotten her finger snapped in a mousetrap. Her eyes began to water as she pointed at herself. “I-I’m Sweets. Are you telling me you don’t remember me, Jaxie?”

  “Jaxie? Seriously? What am I, five?” She looked at me then. “And quit calling me Jax. No one has called me Jax since elementary school. I don’t want that nickname catching on here.”

  Reign made a face. “Well, then, what are we supposed to call you?”

  “How about you don’t call me? That would be the easiest.”

  “But if we’re family—”

  Jax held up a hand. “I’ll stop you right there. We might share some DNA, but we are most certainly not family.”

  “Not family?” I said in shock. “Why would you say that? Your mom and my”—I had to take a huge gulp before muttering the horribly flavored next word—“my dad are siblings.”

  Jax shook her head. “So? Your dad is also the black sheep of the family. He’s dead to me, just like he’s dead to my grandmother.”

  “Black sheep? Merrick is the black sheep?” said Reign. “Since when?”

  Jax stifled a laugh. “Duh, since he went to live with his father.”

  “Wait, Merrick went to live with Samson Smith?!” I bellowed.

  “As if you didn’t know that? He’s your father.”

  “When did he go to live with Samson?” asked Reign.

  “I don’t know, it was obviously sometime after what happened between the two families.” Jax looked like she was getting more and more annoyed by the second.

  My chest felt constricted, like I couldn’t catch enough air in my lungs to take a deep breath. Despite that, I managed to whisper, “What happened between the two families?”

  Jax shook her head. “Look, I’ve had enough of these childish games. I have to meet my friends before our next class. Don’t talk to me anymore. Got it? Just pretend we aren’t related.”

  “Jax,” hollered Reign as she walked away. “What happened between the two families?”

  “You should know! Now leave me alone!”

  I felt completely bewildered by our meeting with Jax, and now my heart lay firmly ensconced in the pit of my stomach, making me nauseous. The throbbing in the back of my head intensified as my nausea rocked me. I felt unsteady on my feet. This was terrible. What had we done?

  “Let’s get her to a seat before she passes out again,” I heard Sweets say.

  I felt Reign’s arms scoop me up, felt the bumpy ride of him carrying me, and then I felt the hard, scratchy surface of the fountain’s stone ring underneath me once again. The colors of the garden all blended together into a blur, kind of like we were back in the blurry-lighted tunnel.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Reign whispered in my ear. “We’ll figure this all out, Mercy.”

  But the tears were already falling. “How is it ever going to be okay, Reign? We did all of that for Jax. And now Jax isn’t even Jax anymore. She’s this mean and nasty person now. She doesn’t appreciate the fact that we got her the powers that we thought she deserved. And now Merrick’s my father, and my mother’s a zombie and everything’s a disaster!”

  “Yeah, well, no one ever got anywhere by crying about it,” snapped Alba.

  “Alba, can’t you be a little bit more compassionate about this?” asked Sweets.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” said Alba. “I feel bad for everyone involved. This whole thing sucks. And I feel partially responsible. We went through everything so fast that we didn’t stop to take into consideration that reversing the curse meant that it reversed the whole curse. Not just the curse on Sorceress Stone, but also the curse on Merrick and the Black Witch.”

  Reign nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably something that should have been considered.”

  “That’s definitely a rookie mistake,” said Cinder, nodding.

  Alba’s head reared back. “A rookie mistake? I didn’t hear any warnings coming out of your mouth.”

  “I didn’t know what all the curse entailed,” said Cinder. “If I’d have known that there was more to it, I would have brought that up. But I assumed you’d done your due diligence.” She shrugged. “But this is something you’ll learn in your second year. Like I said, a rookie mistake. Soon you’ll learn more about the ethical and moral considerations about performing witchcraft.”

  “This isn’t about ethics or morals, Hot Stuff. This is about reversing a curse that plagued an entire family for decades!”

  Cinder shrugged. “It’s all interrelated.”

  “Can we not argue right now?” said Reign, his tone somber. “I’ve got a splitting headache, and all this hollering is making it worse.”

  “I just don’t understand,” I said quietly. “How did reversing the curse change Jax into… into someone completely different?”

  Libby sat down next to me. “Mercy, admittedly I don’t know Jax as well as the rest of you, but from an outsider’s perspective, it’s pretty obvious.”

  “It is?”

  She put her arm around my shoulder. “The old Jax, the one we knew and loved, grew up all those years around other witches. Her aunt and uncle, her mother, her mother’s students. But she could never be one of them. Because of that, I think it humbled her.”

  Alba nodded. “That makes a lot of sense. She grew up as an outcast in that family. They sent her off to boarding school, and her mothe
r has never treated her right. So when we changed history and the curse didn’t happen, Jax probably grew up as a full-blooded witch with all of her powers. And it would be my guess that she grew up in the Stone family, no longer as an outcast. Her powers made her cocky.”

  “I liked the old Jax better. The real Jax. Not JaclynRose,” I said staunchly.

  Reign grimaced. “I think we all liked the old Jax, sis. Now, I know this sucks, but we’ve been through worse in our lives. We’ll get through this.”

  “Worse? I don’t think I’ve been through anything worse than this,” I muttered.

  “Okay, well, I have been through much worse, and I can assure you, if I got through all of that, we can get through this together.”

  I wiped my face with the sleeve of my hoodie, sniffed back my runny nose, and stood up. “I need to see Gran, and I need to see my grandfather,” I announced. “I need to know that all of this happened for a reason. I need to see my grandfather’s face and know that at the very least, my mother grew up with her father. Maybe then I’ll see that this was all worth it.”

  Reign stood up next to me, slinging his arm around my shoulder. “Say no more. Let’s go meet our grandfather for the second time in our lives.”

  “Hey, Mom, it’s Mercy,” I said into my phone as Sweets drove us away from the Institute.

  “Mercy! I can’t believe you left without checking in with me. You hit your head so hard. I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

  I sighed. I hadn’t called to talk about that. “Yeah, I know, Mom. I’m sorry. We were in a hurry.”

  “In a hurry for what?”

  “Class,” I lied. “Hey, Mom. I just need to know something. Tell me your dad is still alive.”

  “What?” she breathed into the phone.

  “Please, just tell me that Grandpa Clark is alive and he’s okay.”

  “Mercy!” She kind of sounded panicked now. “What happened?! Was he in an accident or something?”

  “So he is alive?”

  “I don’t know why he wouldn’t be. I hadn’t heard anything. What’s going on? You’re scaring me.”