The Truth Spell (Werewolf High Book 1)

by Anita Oh

  The Truth Spell: Werewolf High Book 1

  © Anita Oh 2015

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, places or events, is purely coincidental.

  This book, in whole or in part, may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

  To my sisters. Thank you for your support, both financial and otherwise. This book would not have been possible without you.

  Especially Kathryn, because you know lots of stuff.

  Although I am always watching as your back grows smaller in the distance,

  I hope that some day I can catch up to you

  Table of Contents

  The Truth Spell: Werewolf High Book 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Werewolf High #2: The Tiny Curse

  Chapter 1

  As soon as I stepped onto the grounds of Amaris High, I realized I’d made a huge mistake. The kind of mistake it was hard to come back from.

  Maybe it was just the late afternoon light, but everything seemed gilded, magnificent in a way I wasn’t used to. An immaculate lawn stretched out in front of me, divided by a tree-lined path that led up to a building that looked more like some sort of gothic fortress than a school. The lawn was greener than any grass I’d seen in my life, and the sky above was extra blue. I wondered if super rich people had access to colors outside the hexadecimal range. Everything looked too bright, surreal. They’d sent me brochures when they’d offered me the scholarship, of course, but no amount of glossy pictures could capture the atmosphere – an atmosphere that distinctly said, “Not for girls like you.”

  There was hardly anyone around, not on the lawn, or the path, or milling around on the school steps. I’d been practically alone on the train as well, to the point where I’d wondered if I had gotten the dates wrong. I’d double-checked the paperwork and made sure I hadn’t messed up with time zones or anything, but I hadn’t.

  Well, I was fairly sure I hadn’t. I’d been traveling for so long that I’d lost all sense of time. Amaris was so exclusive that nobody knew the actual location – “for the safety of our students and the peace of mind of their families,” the brochure had said. Which made sense, considering the type of people who sent their kids to a school like this, but also made it a bitch to get to. I’d been zigzagging back and forth all over the place until I wasn’t even sure I was on the same planet anymore. There’d been an option in the brochure to get a direct flight, but they’d obviously made a typo with the price, because for that amount my family could’ve eaten roast dinners every night for a year.

  But even the direct flights had only gone as far as a train station “at an undisclosed location,” from which a train then traveled underground to the school, so it didn’t explain why nobody was around. I hovered by the entrance to the train platform, tightening my grip on my battered old suitcase and willing myself not to just turn around and run all the way home, back to my family.

  “Um, are you okay?”

  A rosy-cheeked girl with dark curly hair popped out from between the trees. Her big blue eyes were filled with concern as she looked earnestly into my face. She was so cute and sweet-looking that I felt like a gangle monster, too tall and plain, all knees and elbows and thick-rimmed glasses, freckles and ginger hair.

  “You’re Lucy O’Connor, right?” she asked.

  Before I could answer, she grabbed my suitcase, took me by the arm and started leading me up the path to the school.

  “I figured you must be,” she said. “My roommate was listed as Lucy O’Connor, so I’ve been waiting for you, and you’re the first person I’ve seen that I didn’t already know, and that was the last train. I almost thought you weren’t coming!”

  She grinned at me and I couldn’t help but grin back. I was so relieved to meet someone nice right off the bat. I hadn’t had much time for friends in the past few years, but I was hoping that could change now that I was at boarding school and away from my responsibilities.

  “I’m glad you came, though! They organize roomies alphabetically here and I’m right in the middle – Hannah Morgan – which has always put me with either Olivia Montague, who is nice enough but says creepy things in her sleep, or Britt Pendlebury, who is just… wow. She’s just so… wow, I am glad you’re my roomie. High school is going to kick the butt of middle school. This campus is much nicer than the middle school’s, too, and hopefully the teachers will be. Our old biology teacher was such a pervert. I hope we have someone good this year.”

  The main school was set on a slight crest, so as we made our way up the path toward it, I could see over the school grounds. There were a few smaller buildings close to the main school, arranged in an aesthetically pleasing way like a quaint tiny village, but most of the grounds seemed covered by gardens, right back to where the forest began. The gardens were divided into two concentric circles, the outer with red flowers, then a larger middle section that was all green. As more of the grounds came into view, I noticed there was also a small square garden of yellow flowers and golden trees set back close to the forest. It seemed an odd arrangement to me, but then I wasn’t exactly a horticulturalist.

  Hannah had stopped chatting, and I noticed she was struggling a bit with my bag. I shook my head at myself and tried to take it back off her but she just laughed at me.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “But what do you have in here? Bricks?”

  We were almost at the school, so it didn’t seem the right time to explain to her that I was actually dirt poor and needed to subsidize my family’s income doing online computer repairs so we didn’t all starve to death.

  “Just some work from home,” I told her. “I can go drop it in our room.”

  She shook her head. “No time, the welcome ceremony is about to start. I’m surprised the porters didn’t take it with the rest of your luggage, though.”

  I could only shrug in reply. That was all my luggage, and I hadn’t seen any porters – they’d probably taken one look at my old bag and figured it wasn’t worth it.

  We climbed the steps to the main entrance, the imposing stone building looming over us. I stopped in my tracks as we entered the massive foyer, feeling a little dizzy. Everything was marble and mahogany, polished so shiny that the glare could blind you. A chandelier hung low in the middle, so sparkly it may have been made of diamonds – I’d never seen an actual diamond before, so I couldn’t be sure. Two grand staircases curved around the walls on either side, covered in thick white carpet and edged with banisters of gold. I tried to calculate in my head how many roast dinners the stuff in that foyer could buy for my family, but my brain just kept coming up with an error message. Error $$$: this school is ridiculous – that was what my brain said.

  “It’s through here,” said Hannah, nudging me toward a set of mahogany doors between the staircases like it was all perfectly normal.

  She led me thr
ough the doors and down a set of stone steps into a large paved courtyard. The school bordered three sides of the courtyard, with more stone steps along the back, completing the square. The back steps led down to a marble terrace, the centerpiece of which was a large tiered fountain with cupids shooting arrows that squirted water around it. Beyond that were more gardens. In the middle of the courtyard was a raised garden bed with pretty little seats set around the edges. There had been a quad at my old school, but it had been concreted, with some broken picnic tables and a few struggling plants. It was kind of the same thing.

  There was a podium set up at the far side of the garden bed, and the back half of the courtyard was currently filled with rows of seats facing the podium. It was immediately obvious why I hadn’t seen many other students out on the grounds. They were all gathered here. They milled about in small groups, the low buzz of their chatter filling the courtyard. Hannah led me around the side of the courtyard, to some empty seats near the back.

  “So, where did you go before?” Hannah asked, stowing my suitcase under our seats and sitting down.

  I shrugged. “Just my local school. Nowhere special.”

  A look of understanding flickered over her face, and I knew it had clicked for her that I wasn’t a rich kid.

  “Well, it’s probably not too different,” she said. “I mean, I assume. I’ve been at Amaris since kindergarten, so I can’t really compare, but high school is high school, right? I mean, I hear the library here is way better than the one we had in middle school, and a lot of the teachers aren’t permanent staff, they’re experts who get flown in specially. I heard one of the math teachers won a Nobel Prize, but these things get talked up, you know.”

  I was fairly sure none of the teachers at Greenville High had ever won anything. Maybe the ring toss at the county fair.

  In the pause in our conversation, I overheard two girls in front of us chatting. They both had long, shiny hair and very white teeth.

  “I cannot believe I missed Fashion Week,” said the blonde one, flicking her hair over her shoulder and almost taking my eye out.

  “I know, it’s like you may as well not even exist,” said the brunette. “Still, your new nose is such an improvement, and I’m sure the Alps were lovely.”

  I snorted. What had I gotten myself into? Alps and Fashion Week and new noses? Were these people even real? Looking around, everything just seemed so clean – the buildings and gardens, the people, everything. Not that things in normal life were dirty, just that things at Amaris were unnaturally clean, like the way you’d scrub a crime scene so a new family could move into the murder house. It made me a bit uncomfortable.

  “And the social structure is fairly simple to understand,” Hannah continued.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Social structure?”

  My middle school hadn’t had any sort of social structure that I’d been aware of. Maybe antisocial structure. But then, I had kept to myself a lot, so maybe I was just oblivious.

  “Like social groups, cliques, divisions? Here we mainly only have two, Red and Green.”

  I screwed up my face in thought. That actually sounded kind of familiar.

  “I read something about that in the brochure. Study packages?” I’d kind of skimmed over it. It wasn’t relevant to me when I was on a scholarship. I wasn’t exactly in a position to pay for any add-ons.

  Hannah nodded. “Right. So the basic package is Red. Basic dorms, basic food, basic services, and so on. That’s what you and I have. The step up from that is the Green package. Better dorms, better food, better services. Everything is better, which makes them think they are better, and so it creates the divide that is the basis of our social structure here.” She shrugged. She didn’t seem that bothered by it, just stating facts.

  “Wowsers,” I said. “I thought once you got to the super rich level, there wasn’t anything past that.” I didn’t want to offend Hannah by saying it, but I thought it was maybe the dumbest thing I ever heard. Rather than worrying about how rich they were, they should be rolling around in their wads of cash, and eating Kobe beef and stuff.

  Hannah laughed. “It’s practically the only thing people around here think about.”

  I thought she was going to say something else, but she was cut off by the screech of feedback from a microphone. Everyone who was standing around chatting hurried to find seats as a hulking bald man took his place at the podium.

  “Headmistress Wu is probably at the Asia campus this semester,” said Hannah. “She divides her time up between all the campuses. That’s Assistant Head Noel, he’s really nice.”

  “Welcome to another year at Amaris,” he said in a booming voice once everyone had settled. “As always, it is an honor to have such bright and sparkling minds in my care.” He smiled down benevolently at us. “It is a new year, a new chapter in our lives, filled with new possibilities. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle famously said that once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. I would urge each of you, in this new chapter, to strive for the impossible, for only when testing your limits can you find what you are capable of – only when reaching for the impossible can you find the truths that you hold inside your hearts.”

  Assistant Head Noel had clearly never tried to feed a family of five on twenty dollars a week, or he wouldn’t talk so fancy about the impossible, I thought. I let my attention wander to the other staff members, who were seated at the base of the garden bed, facing the students. There weren’t that many of them, I assumed because of what Hannah had said about most of them flying in specially for classes. The one on the end looked barely older than some of the students. He had a hipster beard and his suit was worn, but in that purposeful way, like it cost even more for looking crappy. He had the same glasses as me, but I’d bet his weren’t inherited from his grandpa, I bet they were some expensive designer label. Beside him was a woman with blond hair pulled back in a tight bun, then an overweight man with small eyes and sweat stains under his arms.

  “That’s Mr. Corbett,” Hannah whispered with a groan, noticing where I was looking. “Remember I was saying about the pervert biology teacher from middle school? Looks like he transferred.”

  I wrinkled my nose, but before I could reply, there was a sharp change in the air. I glanced around, wondering what had caused it.

  Assistant Head Noel was still talking, but nobody was listening to him – everyone had their heads craned up to the sky. I could hear an engine, I realized. It grew louder and louder. A helicopter. The day was fading fast, and I squinted into the sun as I turned to watch it circle the school, then land in the gardens behind the fountain.

  I looked at Hannah in question.

  “There’s a third package,” she said. “It’s not in the brochure. It’s not something you can buy.”

  The helicopter engine cut out and all the students jostled to get closer to look. Because we were seated near the back, I could already see quite clearly.

  The water danced in the fountain, and between beams of refracted light, they appeared.

  There were four of them. Even in silhouette they were impressive – the girl with long, straight hair and just the right amount of curves; the boys tall and broad-shouldered. They emitted charisma like a beacon, confident and untouchable. One of the boys turned to another and his eyes flashed in the sunlight.

  “What are they?” I whispered, trying to blink the sun out of my eyes.

  “They’re Golden,” said Hannah. “Their lives are golden, everything about them is golden.”

  The shortest boy moved to the side, into the shade, as he spoke quietly to the girl. He had slicked-back blond hair and cheekbones sharp enough to cut. The girl said something, and he laughed. It sounded mean, somehow, derisive. I shivered.

  “That’s Nikolai Volkov,” Hannah said, covering her mouth with her hand as though people were trying to listen to our conversation. “His family basically owns Europe and like half of South America. Some people say they run
the Russian mafia. Other people say they run all the mafias… mafii? And apparently he’s heir to like six different thrones. But I don’t know how true any of that is.”

  As Hannah spoke, the glare of the light began to fade, just a little.

  “And you probably recognize the Wilde twins,” Hannah continued as the girl became visible. “Especially Althea Wilde. Her face has been everywhere lately. She missed half of last semester because she was off modeling and doing special people things, but I mean, it’s not as if any teacher would ever fail her.”

  I shook my head. I had definitely never seen that girl before. She was the kind of beautiful that was so striking, you didn’t forget. Her long black hair tumbled over her shoulders, so dark in contrast to her pale skin. There was an opulence about her, somehow, even though she was dressed simply in a yellow sundress and ankle boots – just something that emanated from her that all these other girls lacked, despite their riches. She didn’t look haughty, but rather she seemed as if she’d stepped out of a mist, been fashioned from seafoam and moonlight and stardust.

  “They’re Wildes as in W Corp Wilde, so between them they’re going to inherit basically the whole planet. Their father owns the business world and their mother’s family is like the most aristocratic family ever.”

  Her brother had the same dark hair and pale skin, same ethereal beauty, but there was an edge to it, a wildness. Rather than moonlight, he seemed formed from a supernova, from the chaos of total destruction, and I could well believe that if you got too close to him, you’d be pulled in; you’d collapse on yourself.

  He said something quietly to his sister and began to turn away, toward the school grounds, but as he did, our eyes caught. Although it was only for a moment, it felt like forever, as if time stopped around us. A thousand things seemed to happen in that moment, and nothing at all. I could feel him weighing me up, judging me, and I wanted to prove myself worthy to him, to this strange boy. His eyes were lit with a secret light – not a glow or a reflection, but something that came from deep within, and, in that moment, all I wanted was to understand that light.