Back to Spell One

by Samantha Silver

  The extra weight on the back made the front part of the broom handle rise, which led to the broom immediately soaring upwards. This was definitely a lot higher than I had ever expected to go, and a lot higher than I was comfortable with.

  “Eek,” I cried as I began to panic. The one thing Sara had told me not to do. In my fear, I leaned forward to hug the broom handle to get a better grip on it, but all that did was make the broom rise faster.

  “Never mind, I’m out of here, you have no idea how to ride one of these things,” my familiar said, leaping off the back of the broom and landing daintily on the ground, which was now at least twenty feet below.

  “Stop panicking,” Sara called out from the ground below. It was easy for her to say. She wasn’t the one climbing steadily on a broom she’d only just learned to ride that morning.

  On the other hand, I knew that if I didn’t want to end up in space, I was eventually going to have to pull back. It took every ounce of willpower in my being, but I eventually pulled myself back from the broom handle, and leveled out the broom.

  Shifting my weight backwards, as Sara had told me, I slowed the broom down considerably, until I was just barely crawling through the air. I really hoped brooms weren’t like helicopters, where if they stopped they would just drop out of the sky. But so far, everything about this ride seemed to defy physics, and I was still floating. So, I figured I was doing okay.

  “Good,” Sara called out. “Way to get a hold of it. Now, come back down.”

  I looked down at the ground, and my heart lurched in my chest. I had to be at least sixty feet high. My feet dangled underneath the broom, with nothing but air between them and the hard grass below.

  I had never been afraid of heights, but I figured this fell into a whole different category. I tried to press down on the broom handle and bring the broom back to earth, but I quickly found that my body had decided it wasn’t cooperating with me anymore. Instead, I was frozen. I couldn’t move. I was just so scared that anything I would do would lead straight to me plummeting to the earth.

  “Tina? Come on down. You can do this,” Sara called out to me. Nope. My brain definitely did not agree.

  In the distance, a black dot appeared. It was far away to start with, but as I got closer, I realized it was a dragon. My fear momentarily forgotten, I sat transfixed on my broom, watching as the dragon came closer and closer towards us. Was this Drake?

  The wings of the dragon beat with an elegance and grace that was hard to describe. It was like watching a mid-air dance, and even as he got closer and closer towards me, until I could see that he was not only black, but with a chest covered in blue and white scales, I couldn’t stop watching him. It definitely couldn’t be Drake; his scales had been red, orange, and yellow.

  “Tina? You have to come down here,” Sara said, panic rising in her voice this time. “There’s a dragon coming. Why is he here? They know they’re not allowed to shift during the day.”

  I didn’t know the rules and regulations around dragon shifting, but as he got to within a hundred feet of me, suddenly panic gripped me once more. The dragon was really coming directly at me. Was I about to be eaten?

  The answer was a lot worse. The dragon flew straight past me, and the air from his powerful wings knocked me sideways. I let out a cry as I slipped from the broom, hanging on to it with just my hands, dangling in midair.

  “Oh my God,” Sara said. “I’m coming up to get you. Hold on.”

  “There’s no time,” I shouted at her, my brain evidently deciding to work again. “I’m losing my grip.”

  It didn’t help that I had the upper body strength of a toddler. This was definitely it. This is how I was going to die.

  “Okay, I’ll use a spell,” Sara said. “I’m going to make an air bag for you to fall onto.”

  “Hurry!” I shouted just as my grip gave up and I fell from the broom, plummeting toward the ground.

  I screamed and closed my eyes as I hurtled back towards the earth, hoping desperately that Sara’s spell would work. At the very last second, I opened my eyes, determined that if this was going to be my last moment on earth I would at least see it, only to find myself looking straight into a giant pool of water.

  I just had time to hold my breath a split second before I hit the water with a splash, my body cocooned by the cold water’s embrace.

  A few seconds later, after kicking back to the surface, I wiped the water out of my eyes to find myself staring directly at an incredibly relieved looking Sara.

  “Oh thank Jupiter,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  Looking around, it turned out that Sara had turned the entire backyard into a giant pool. She stood on the edge, about a three foot wide gap between the edge of the new pool and the door to the house.

  “I’m not sure the others are going to like your choice of redecorating,” I said, and Sara let out a half hysterical laugh.

  “I tried to make an air bag. I really did, but this happened instead. I don’t know how, but this is always what happens when I try to use spells.”

  “Hey, I’m not lying dead in the middle of a patch of grass; as far as I’m concerned, your spell did what it was supposed to. Now, what on earth was a dragon doing in the middle of the sky, and why didn’t you warn me that could happen?”

  Sara shook her head. “I have no idea. We need to report this to the head of the shifters. They’re not supposed to shift during the day. They have to do it at night, when there is very little risk of any interfering broom traffic. For exactly reasons like this.”

  I climbed out of the makeshift pool and found Mr. Meowgi running back into the house. Evidently, his martial arts skills didn’t extend to falling victim to a few drops of water on his fur.

  “Sure, but I might go inside and get dried off first.”

  Chapter 19

  “I can’t believe you just jumped onto my broom like that,” I said to my familiar, who sat on the bed while I towel dried my hair after changing into something dry.

  “How was I supposed to know you had no idea how to ride a broom?”

  “Wasn’t it obvious?”

  “I thought you were just getting started, and I didn’t want to miss anything. So, I jumped on. No one told me that I was getting a witch who didn’t know how to be a witch.”

  “Yeah, well, now you know,” I grumbled as I ran a brush through my hair, pulling at a couple of knots that had formed during the course of my adventure.

  “Can I at least come with you to see the shifters?” Mr. Meowgi asked.

  “Fine, but you have to behave.”

  “Hey, I’m not the one who just fell sixty feet off a broom today.”

  I shot my cat a look.

  “Fine, fine,” he replied. “I promise to behave.”

  Sara and I dressed in black - well, dressed in one of Randy’s magical outfits, which changed color based on the occasion. We had decided that we would go straight from shifter headquarters to the funeral.

  “I can come to the funeral as well. I’m already dressed for it,” Mr. Meowgi bragged, and I shot him a sly look out of the corner of my eye.

  “Again, only if you behave.”

  “Of course. I will be the picture of obedience.”

  I highly doubted that, but despite all the red flags decided that my familiar could come along after all. He seemed very excited about meeting the shifters.

  I didn’t really know where I expected the shifters to be headquartered. Anything from a mansion to a cave would have seemed appropriate to me, so when Sara and I made our way to a large, Gothic building that reminded me more of a medieval church than a group headquarters, I wasn’t entirely surprised.

  Sara knocked on the large wooden doors, which opened almost immediately to reveal a young shifter, probably about my age, with a long nose and round eyes. I frowned slightly; I didn’t know what kind of shifter he could be.

  “Hello, what brings two witches to the shifters lair?”

  “We n
eed to speak with Mr. Lupo,” Sara replied. “It’s important.”

  “I decide if something is important enough to speak to Mr. Lupo about,” the man replied, standing tall and doing his best to look important.

  “I assure you, this is a very private matter. And I can also assure you that Mr. Lupo will not be happy if you turn us away when we need to tell him something that pertains to the safety of his shifters.”

  Apparently, the way to fight posturing with shifters was more posturing. Sara’s approach worked, and after a moment, the young shifter opened the door for us.

  “You had better not be lying to me,” he growled, and it came to me then. Wolf. This guy had to be a wolf shifter.

  I tried not to look around in awe as we passed into the main part of the shifters’ lair. It really did look like a church, but without any pews, and funnily enough it reminded me a little bit of the coven headquarters. For all of this separation, the different paranormals here really did have a lot in common.

  The walls were lined with portraits and photos of former shifters, and I spotted one who bore a very familiar resemblance to Drake. I made a mental note to ask him about it the next time I saw him.

  The young wolf shifter led us to the center of the building, where the altar would have been if this had been a church. Instead, a wall had been built, all the way up the at least thirty feet to the ceiling. A dark cherry door gilded with gold led into this space, and the wolf knocked before entering, motioning for Sara and me to follow.

  To Mr. Meowgi’s credit, he walked next to me in silence, for once.

  “Two witches to see you, sir. They won’t state their business, but claim it’s important.”

  “Well, then by all means, show them in,” I heard a voice reply from the other side of the door. The young wolf shifter stepped aside to let us through to speak to the head of the shifters, and as soon as he did my breath caught in my throat.

  I had expected the leader of such a pack to be an older shifter, someone who had been around for a while and had long since established his dominance.

  Instead, I found myself staring into the eyes of one of the most gorgeous men I’d ever seen. His long, blond hair flowed to his shoulders, and his eyes were a light brown color that shone in the light. The simple polo shirt he wore showed off his tanned skin and muscular physique, and I knew instinctively that this man was a lion shifter.

  “Oh my goodness, this is a living God among cats,” Mr. Meowgi said, obviously impressed. I couldn’t say I disagreed.

  “Witches, welcome. What can I do for you?” he asked, motioning for us to sit on a couple of comfortable-looking chairs in the middle of the room. He had a desk, but rather than sit on it, he spread himself out on a large couch against the wall, draping his arm over the back of it and looking casually over at us.

  Definitely not what I had expected.

  “Hi, Mr. Lupo,” Sara started.

  “Please, call me Jackson.”

  “Er, um, yes.” It was obvious she was nervous. “We came here today because we needed to tell you about an incident in our yard this morning.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, you see, Tina here, she’s a new witch in town.”

  “Ah, so this is our new arrival. Welcome,” he said to me, sending a blush shooting straight up my face. Great. Now I probably looked like a tomato, on top of a drowned rat.

  “Thanks,” I stammered, like a freaking six year old. Just because this guy was basically an Adonis didn’t mean I had to panic every time he even looked at me.

  “I was teaching her how to ride a broom this morning in our yard. Unfortunately, Tina panicked a little bit and got stuck at a significant height. This would have been fine, as I could have gone up to get her, except that a dragon appeared and flew close to her, the wind from its wings blowing her off the broom. I managed to turn our backyard into a pool, which broke her fall, but obviously the fact that this incident happened at all is pretty serious. We came straight here.”

  Jackson’s demeanor went straight from casual to serious. He stood up and made his way behind his desk, where he opened a notepad and grabbed a pen. “You’re completely right,” he said. “That’s absolutely unacceptable. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Tina, I apologize on behalf of the shifter community. This never should have happened to you, and I’m so glad to hear you’re alright.”

  “No problem,” I squeaked.

  “Now, can you tell me anything about the dragon that flew near you?”

  “Um, it was mainly black, but the scales on its chest were kind of blue and white, and they glimmered in the sun,” I said. “And it was big. That’s all I can tell you, sorry.”

  “No, that’s helpful,” Jackson nodded. “I’m reasonably certain I know who was behind this. I will make sure he is punished, as flying during the day is completely unacceptable, and flying near the new witch in town even less so.”

  “I suspect he was trying to scare Tina,” Sara offered up, and Jackson nodded.

  “I think that is likely.”

  “What?” I said, my mouth drying up. I had thought the dragon did it by accident. This was on purpose?

  “A lot of the shifters think you killed Philip,” Sara said. “We’ve been trying to keep you away from anyone who believes it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the dragon was just trying to send you a message.”

  “I agree with Sara. He probably didn’t realize that you were such an amateur on the broom and didn’t expect you to fall off completely. Not that it excuses his behavior, not in the least. But I suspect that was the intent: to scare you.”

  “Great,” I said, staring down at the ground. Not only was I totally new to this world, but there were already people here trying to drive me out of it. Tears threatened to sting my eyes, and I blinked hard.

  “Hey,” Sara said softly, putting a hand on my arm. “It’s ok. Not everyone thinks like those idiots, most people here know that you’re not the murderer.”

  “Exactly,” Jackson added with a firm nod. “I promise you that most of the shifter community believes in your innocence. After all, what possible reason could a newcomer here have to commit murder straight away? I will make sure that the dragon shifter who did this to you is punished. I will speak with Chief Enforcer King about this and make sure that it never happens again.”

  “Thanks,” I said, giving Jackson a small smile. It was nice of him to say that, and I was glad that he at least didn’t think I’d killed Philip.

  “Now this is a leader,” Mr. Meowgi nodded from his spot at my feet. “You should pay attention to Mr. Lupo here. He obviously knows how to lead a pack.”

  I smiled at Mr. Meowgi, who was obviously super impressed by the lion shifter. I supposed for a small domestic shorthaired cat like him, the big lion must have been super impressive.

  Sara stood up, and I followed her cue. “Thanks, Jackson.”

  “Not a problem, witches. Thank you for coming to me with this, I appreciate it. I cannot keep my people in line if I don’t know there is an issue, and I promise you, this will be dealt with appropriately.”

  Sara and I left, and were immediately led back outside by the young wolf shifter.

  As soon as we stepped outside, Sara turned to me and smiled. “See? That wasn’t so bad, was it? Also, Mr. Lion Shifter in there totally has a thing for you.”

  “What? No way, that’s ridiculous,” I said, the blush creeping back up my face.

  “No, he does. I mean, it’s not like you’re going to be the love of his life or anything: being a shifter, he’s going to have to marry another lion shiftress, lest he be kicked out of his pack. But, still. I think he likes you.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I muttered. “You guys really do have a lot of rules about intermingling between different paranormal species, hey?”

  “Well, the shifters are a lot more serious about it than most, but that’s also in part because they’re a lot more insular than most paranormal species. I mean sure, we have the
coven and all, but even I can admit that the shifter pack is much closer than all of us witches. I mean, I don’t even know some of the younger coven witches. And genetically, if a shifter has a baby with a non-shifter, the non-shifter’s powers are the ones which the baby receives, generally. There’s only one exception: if a wizard has a baby with a shiftress, the baby will be a shifter, since the witch gene is passed through the mother.”

  “Still, it seems really insular.”

  “Yeah, it is. But don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

  Would I? It was one thing to like hanging out with your own group of people, but everything here seemed so unnecessarily regimented.

  “Anyway, we have to get going to the funeral, it’s almost eleven.”

  Chapter 20

  To be honest, I had actually naturally expected the funeral to take place in some sort of magical church. After all, this was where funerals took place.

  That’s why, when Sara led me to a large, open garden, I was a little bit surprised.

  “Is this where it’s happening?” I asked.

  Sara nodded. “This is the coven gardens, where every important ceremony that involves witches or wizards takes place.”

  I had to admit, it was absolutely gorgeous. Large, manicured lawns spread out as far as the eye could see, with meandering paths making their way through the space. Large trees offered plenty of shade from the summer sun, and a small river snaked through the center of the space, leading to a large lake in the middle of the park. Magical fountains spurted water as they moved around the lake, enchanted. This was definitely the kind of place where I could spend a lazy summer afternoon, lying on a blanket, engrossed in a book.

  Sara and I followed one path towards the lake in the center. Along one side of the lake was a large gathering of people, and I assumed this was where the funeral was going to take place.

  At one end, a large table was set up, filled with plenty of food and drink. I spotted Ellie bustling around, and as she caught my eye she gave me a quick wave before getting back to her work.