Ritual of Magic (Academy of the Damned Book 2)

by Veronica Shade

  I look up at the statue. “I don’t know what to do for you. How to help you. I don’t even know what you are.”

  I sigh and shove the paper into my pocket. I raise my phone and take several pictures to compare with the pictures I took of him before.

  My hands are still shaking. The last time I was here, I touched the statue’s hand and had a strange vision of the statue as a living, breathing human. In the vision, he’d been with a friend, another human, having a conversation.

  I wet my lips with my tongue and step closer to the statue. I hesitate, of course; I have no idea what is about to happen. I don’t even know what happened before. Was it a vision? A dream? My mind simply going crazy? But all I can do is try again. Try to understand what’s going on. What the statute is. What it’s trying to tell me.

  I reach out my hand and lightly touch the tips of his fingers.

  Nothing happens.

  Of course.

  Nothing ever goes the way I think or hope it will. I place my hand palm down onto his.

  Still nothing.

  I grunt and grip his hand tightly. But there’s no vision. Not even a spark or a feeling or a sense of magic.

  I drop my hand and growl beneath my breath. “If you want me to help you,” I say to the statue like the lunatic I am, “I need more. I need guidance. I need to know what you are.”

  He doesn’t respond. I sit on the other pedestal, the empty one, and open the pictures on my phone. I find the ones I took of the statue before and compare them to the ones I took just now.

  My hands shake so hard I can barely see straight. I can’t be seeing this right. I take a deep breath to still myself and stare again.

  I wasn’t wrong.

  There’s not just a slight difference between the two images, but a dramatic one. Even taking into account the difference in the lighting and my position, his face is completely different. The angle of his head, the position of his mouth, even his eyebrows are lower in the second picture. In the first one, he has a clear dimple. But in the one I just took, it’s gone. This could not have been done by someone simply moving the statute. No one could have changed the appearance of stone.

  I look up at the statue. “You moved,” I say. I stand up and stomp over to him. I turn my phone around to show him the pictures. “You moved! I have evidence!”

  I then flip to the picture of the bleeding hand and hold that one up where he could see if his eyes were real. “One of your friends, when her hand was broken, she started to bleed. Who are you? What are you?”

  I gulp as I try to steady myself. As I dare to ask the question that has been building in my mind for a long time but I didn’t dare speak out loud.

  “Are you alive?”

  Chapter 11

  I’m beyond frustrated. There’s definitely something going on with the statues. I know that there is at least a possibility that they are alive in some form. What I don’t know is if they can move freely, if they are choosing to stay still while I am looking at them, or if there’s some sort of enchantment that allows them to only move when I’m not watching.

  Are they humans trapped in stone?

  Are they statues brought to life?

  Are they completely unknown creatures to me?

  There are still creatures in this world I am unfamiliar with. I didn’t know selkies existed before I was attacked by them in the pool. Krista said the selkies were some kind of fae. I don’t know why it didn’t register with me at the time, but that means that fae—I guess that means some kind of fairy—exist.

  Humans, witches, fae… What else is out there?

  Moving statues, perhaps?

  They’re more than they seem—of that much I’m certain. And the stone man in the grotto seems to trust me, considering he’s left me several messages to help with my research. He was possibly working with Giselle, too. Yet he still hasn’t revealed himself to me fully. Is that his choice? Is he still testing me out? Trying to decide if I am trustworthy? Or is there more to it than that?

  Perhaps he can only move in the light of the full moon. Fanciful, yes, but it would make some sense. I check my calendar and see that the next full moon isn’t until next week. I make a note to visit the statue when the moon is at its peak that night so I can find out the truth or rule out that possibility.

  My eyes fall on the empty nameplate below the grotto man. If the statues are some kind of living creatures, why do some of them have the names of real people who once existed, while others don’t?

  I don’t know if he will help me, but there is only one man I can think of who might be able to answer these questions.

  “What can I help you with today, Miss Whitaker?” Mr. Hamilton, the school librarian, asks as I enter the library. He always seems glad to see me and more than willing to help, even if the research he does for me seems a little lacking.

  “Yes,” I say. “I am doing research on the statues for history class.”

  “The statues?” he asks, the smile slipping from his face as his eyebrows pull together. “What statues?”

  My mouth nearly drops open. Is he playing stupid? What other statutes could I be talking about?

  “You know, all the statues here around the school?”

  “Of course,” Mr. Hamilton says, giving me a placating smile. “I mean, which one? There are so many. Where do you want to start? Is there a specific statue you are interested in? Or simply the statues in general?”

  “Oh,” I say with some relief. I guess I must be the one who looks stupid. I start to say I want to know more about the grotto man, but I stop myself. If no one knows he is hidden there, I want to keep that secret a little while longer. “A little of both, I guess. I’d like to know where they came from. Who made them? Why? And if they are based on real people, why were those people chosen as subjects? What happened to the people?”

  Mr. Hamilton nodded. “I’m afraid it’s not as interesting as you seem to be hoping.” He walks around the circulation desk and down the main aisle, then turns left down an aisle that seems to see little use. “You are a year three student, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, you should have studied this in your year one history class,” he says, handing me a book.

  I recognize the book. It’s the year one history textbook. But I don’t remember reading anything about the statues in it at the time.

  “Well, my classes for years one and two were a bit accelerated. Maybe the lessons over the statues were simply skipped for time.”

  Mr. Hamilton nods. “That’s possible. It’s not very interesting or important.”

  He opens the book to a page near the back and hands it to me. There’s little more than a page written about the statues there.

  “The statues were conceived of and built by a former student,” Mr. Hamilton explains, summarizing the words on the page. “He was an earth witch, of course. Quite gifted in manipulating stone. Sort of like how some humans can look at a block of marble and see something beautiful hidden inside that simply must be excavated with a hammer and chisel. Martin Rathbone had that artistic gift, but he used his powers, rather than man-made tools, to reveal the statue within.”

  “So, that’s it?” I say. “He was just a gifted artist?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Mr. Hamilton says. “I told you it wasn’t a very interesting story. That’s why we simply don’t have much written on it. He was a bit eccentric. Prolific. After all, no human artist ever made as many statues in their lives as Martin was able to in his. But using magic is a much faster means of excavating stone then a hammer and chisel. Plus, he didn’t need to spend a lot of money to procure his raw materials. He could simply summon a stone and have it pop up out of the earth anywhere he wanted. He didn’t have to order expensive marble from another place or have an elaborate workshop or require of patrons to support him. The world was his canvas. He could stand right there in the yard, summon a stone, and manipulate the rock with his hands and his mind to bring his vision to life.”
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  I run my fingers over the page of the book. The story it tells is similar, though with less flowery language. The man was an artist. There’s not much more to say about it, I suppose.

  “Well, if someone has the drive to create, and there are no limits of money or time or space, then I suppose it makes sense that a person could create many pieces in their lifetime,” I say.

  Mr. Hamilton nods.

  “So,” I pry, “have the statues been moved?”

  “Moved?” Mr. Hamilton repeats.

  I nod. “When I first arrived, the other students wouldn’t buzz me in the main gate, so I tried to access the school grounds through the hedgerow. When I was in there, I saw statues. I was just wondering if they were always there or if they were put there later.”

  Mr. Hamilton frowns and thinks for a minute before replying. “They must be terribly heavy.”

  “But another earth witch could probably move them easily,” I suggest.

  “It’s possible, I suppose,” he says, his voice softer and less jubilant than before. “But I don’t see a reason why. I don’t know of them being moved, but anything is possible. Maybe some of the earth witches do so for fun.”

  I pursue another line of questioning. “Why did Martin choose the subject that he did? They are all real people, aren’t they? Isn’t that sort of odd?”

  “I don’t know that it’s odd,” Mr. Hamilton says as he wanders back down the aisle toward one of the windows of the library that faces the lawn. There is a statue very close by that we both look at. “The people he based his sculptures on are people you can read about here in the library. Most of them were founding fathers and mothers of the coven here in New England. I suppose it would be like a human sculptor making statues of people they admired, such as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, or Alexander Hamilton.”

  That certainly makes sense. “I read about one of the women the statues were based on,” I say. “She didn’t seem like anything special other than she was a witch who existed in olden times. I don’t suppose she did anything that you are aware of.”

  Mr. Hamilton walks over to another section of the library, biographies. I’ve been here before. This is where I found the biography of one of the women in question.

  “Not every witch who has ever lived in New England or even every witch who has attended La Voisin Academy is worthy of a biography,” Mr. Hamilton says. “But for those who were, you’ll find them here. Feel free to check out and read as many as you like. Though the language is a bit archaic, which can be difficult to read. And as you said, the stories are not always very interesting.”

  I run my fingers along the spines of the old books. “Yes, I know what you mean. I’ve looked at them before. But maybe they deserve a second look.”

  “Look as long as you’d like,” he says. “I should get back to my station.”

  I give him a nod, and he wanders off. It seems like a long shot, but I can’t help but feel there is an answer here somewhere. It can’t be a coincidence that the statues are both alive and named after people who once lived in this area or attended La Voisin Academy.

  I run my fingers over the books again. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and listen to that little voice inside that will hopefully tell me which book I need.

  I raise my arm as high as I can, reaching a shelf above me, and I walk slowly down the aisle, letting my fingers brush the spine of every single book. Dust collects beneath my fingers. No one has disturbed these books in ages. It’s a little sad. People go to such an effort to write these books for posterity, but what’s the point if no one reads them? And back then, even printing books was an arduous process.

  I reach the end of the row without feeling anything unique among the books. None of them stood out to me. I lower my arm to the shelf that is at eye level and try again. Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I let my fingers brush over the books as I walk down the aisle, begging for the little voice inside me, my powers, my spirit guide, whatever is the source of my power, to guide me toward what I need.

  But I reach the end of the row, and once again, nothing stood out to me.

  I hunch over, determined not to give up on this method until I have touched all of the books. I walk, repeating the same process as before. I’m almost at the end of the row when I hear the sound of the book hitting the floor behind me, causing me to jump.

  I turn around and see one of the books I had touched has indeed fallen to the floor.

  After a quick look around to make sure no one else is here, playing some kind of prank, I pick up the book and realize it’s so old that there’s no name for the book on the cover or the spine.

  Opening it, I see the book is about a former witch. A black woman named Gabrielle Freeman. I don’t recognize her name off the top of my head, nor do I recognize her face. I’m not sure I have come across her statue specifically. I don’t know what this book, or this woman, can teach me about the statues, but the book has to have jumped out at me—literally—for a reason.

  “Found one you like?” Mr. Hamilton asks me as I approach the circulation desk.

  “I guess,” I say. “This one seems to stand out for some reason.”

  Mr. Hamilton looks at the book and raises an eyebrow. I’m sure he doesn’t see anything that would make the book special. I don’t either. But what else can I say?

  “Well, enjoy your reading,” he says, handing the book back to me.

  I thank him and put the book in my bag, then head up to my room to read. If there’s anything these pages have to tell me about the statue, I might not want to discover it in public. As far as I know, the statues have only ever spoken to me, and maybe Giselle, but she’s dead.

  I’m the only person still alive who has noticed that they move…and bleed. Or at least I think I am.

  Though why would the statues want to communicate with me, and only me? When it comes to witches, I’m certainly nothing special. Below average, in fact. The child of three generations of mundane women. Ms. Brewster is one of the most powerful witches I have ever met. Not that I’ve met many witches, but she’s the head of the coven, the head of the school, the head of…everything. If the statue has something to say, why wouldn’t they reveal themselves to her?

  In my room, I sit on the bed to flip through the book. There’s a woodcut image of the woman on the first page. I don’t know how accurate it is, but she appears to have a broad nose and large eyes. The edges of her lips curl up in a solemn smile. Her hair is hidden under a turban that ties around her head, and she has large hoop earrings in each ear. I imagine they’re gold, which would’ve been very expensive I should think. But since the picture is black and white, I have no way of knowing if they were gold or silver or some other material.

  I see once again that her name was Gabriel. I’ve never heard that name used for a woman before, but it seems to suit her. A name she would wear proudly. And with her last name being Freeman, I have to assume she wasn’t a slave. Had she come to America as a free woman, or had she escaped? I find that I’m actually excited to read the book as I turn to the first page.

  Gabriel Freeman had come to America as an indentured servant to a lady who settled in Boston. But after she made contact with the local coven, they helped her leave her situation and moved her to the village so she could be around more witches. She worked as a washer woman, taking in laundry from most of the village’s wealthy families. She was a water witch, so that must’ve made her work easier.

  As I’m reading along, my mind wanders. Sadly, I have to admit the book is rather boring. I don’t see anything that makes her particularly special. She lived, she married, she had children, she worked. I can’t help but wonder why this book jumped out to me...until my eyes land on a familiar word.

  Salem.

  The woman was a resident of Salem, Massachusetts!

  I nearly jump to my feet as I think about the Salem witch trials. What a strange connection. Why is a biography about a witch who lived in Salem in a library in
Danvers?

  Unfortunately, the book doesn’t help me make a connection. It continues on about her life and her family in Salem Village. But there’s no mention of Danvers, La Voisin, or anything else familiar to me.

  I sigh as I set the book aside. It’s given me something to think about, but I’m not sure which direction my thoughts should turn.

  I go to my desk and retrieve Giselle’s notebook. I flip through the pages, trying to find a sketch of the statue of Gabriel Freeman. Giselle seems to have been collecting images of the statues and information about each one, but compared to how many statues there are on campus, she didn’t get very far.

  As I’m flipping through, a loose paper falls out and lands on the floor. It’s folded in half, so I pick it up and unfold it. It appears to be a photocopy of the book cover. Not the book I just picked up about the life of Gabriel Freeman, but a different book. A much larger book. What is most strange, however, is that the book appears to be written in runic language.

  Other than in Giselle’s notebook and in the notes I have received from the statue, I have never seen this runic writing anywhere. But Giselle found a whole book? What happened to it? How did she find it? And why does she only have a photocopy of the cover?

  Where is this book?

  I grunt under my breath. The words on the book are surprisingly easy for me to understand, at least. This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, though; I haven’t applied myself to studying the language as much as I should. I was so busy over the summer with my regular studies and catching up that I had forgotten I needed to try to learn more about this language to understand whatever Giselle was working on.

  But whatever I learned before must’ve stuck with me because as I’m looking at the book cover, I can read it as clearly and easily as if I’m reading English.

  A True and Accurate History of Salem Village.