Ritual of Magic (Academy of the Damned Book 2)

by Veronica Shade

  “It’s nice to live in a place where people don’t fear us,” I say, tongue-in-cheek. “We’re practically celebrities.”

  Jaxon scoffs. “They only think it’s funny because they don’t think we really exist,” he says, and I have to give him that. “The tourists think witch history is some big joke. While the city—the mayor and city planners and so forth—just see us as a way to bring in money.”

  I can’t tell if he’s right or just cynical. I suppose he could be both.

  “Have any of the La Voisin witches tried to reach out to the local community?” I ask.

  Jaxon looks at me like I’ve grown a third head. “After what happened at the witch trials?” he asks incredulously. “We don’t have a death wish.”

  “I know,” I say, sort of frustrated.

  I know about the Salem witch trials—we just spent a lot of time talking about them—but that was a long time ago. Things change. Not all people today are as closed-minded as they were back then. There are many witches who are married to mundanes and even mortals. It must be safe to trust some humans with our secret. If the modern village of Salem knew that witches really exist, perhaps we could come to some sort of accord.

  I want to say all this to Jaxon, but he’s gone silent. His brow furrowed, his lips in a straight line. His arms are crossed as he walks down the road, kicking a pebble much harder than necessary to move it along.

  I’m not exactly sure why he came with me if he is only going to brood the whole time. To me, this little trip to town is fascinating. I’ve never been here before. I don’t have an opinion one way or another about the village, or the people, or the way the village presents itself today. I’d like the opportunity to learn for myself and make my own decisions.

  We come to the end of the street and approach the shopping district. The street here is wider and there are no lawns. Instead, quaint shops align on each side, all with large windows to display their wares and canvas awnings hanging over the sidewalks to protect people window shopping.

  The first shop we pass smells decadent. A chocolate shop called Sinister Sweets. I can see most of the shop from the window without going inside, and in the middle of the main room is a large cauldron that appears to be stirring the chocolate gently boiling within all on its own. There are chocolates on display in the windows shaped in all manner of stereotypical witchcraft emblems: pointy hats, cats, broomsticks.

  “I don’t suppose any witches actually have shops here,” I say. “That cauldron is just mechanical, right?”

  Jaxon nods. “One of the many offensive ways the town chooses to exploit us for its own gain.”

  “But if we could make a cauldron that really did stir itself,” I say, “the people would love it. They would probably stay in the chocolate shop all day trying to figure out how the mechanism works. Think of how much chocolate they would buy.”

  “I don’t think a dinky little chocolate shop is worth getting burned at the stake over,” Jaxon says. He moves on down the street, and I follow him.

  “They never burned witches in America,” I say with an annoyed sigh. I miss the more enlightened conversation I had with Mr. Hamilton already. “They did that in the Old World, along with anyone they thought was a heretic.”

  “They just hadn’t gotten around to burning us yet,” Jaxon says as we look at a shop that has blankets and throw pillows for sale, each one hand-embroidered with the name of the town and the city’s logo of the witch on her broom. “Salem’s witch hysteria didn’t last very long. Only a season. If it had gone on any longer, the death toll would’ve been much higher, and much more gruesome.”

  Everything about this town seems to rub Jaxon the wrong way. Maybe I’d get lucky and he’d give up and go home. At this rate, I would have been better coming on my own.

  At the same time, however, I know he has a point. What would people do if they ran into a real witch in Salem? I shudder to imagine. I don’t really want to be alone here…just in case. But he is totally harshing my buzz! This town is awesome! The smell in the air, the old architecture, and I can’t help but love it. The town library or archives probably has tons of history books that have nothing to do with witches.

  “I just want to find the library or the historical society or something,” I say. “It’s also nice just to enjoy the fall weather, isn’t it?” I take a deep breath, closing my eyes as I open my arms wide, and a gentle breeze rushes past us carrying orange, yellow, and red fallen leaves with it. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Beautiful?” Jaxon says. “Nothing about Salem is beautiful. It’s all fake. I bet even those leaves are fake,” he says with a scoff, even though the leaves are clearly real. “This town was built to attract tourists, nothing more.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “This is Salem Village. There’s so much history here. Look at all of the old buildings and stuff.”

  “It’s a sanitized version of what really happened here,” he says.

  He takes my hand, and I start, but I catch myself and don’t pull away. I know he means nothing by it and just wants to show me something. So I let him lead me by the hand to wherever he wants to take me.

  We pass a low wall, crudely made of stone and concrete, the top of which is embedded with sharp crystals. The wall only comes up to about my chest, but I would not be able to climb over it without hurting myself. I look over the wall and see that it’s an old cemetery.

  “This isn’t the official city cemetery,” Jaxon says. “We don’t know where the graves are of the women who were executed as witches during the hysteria. We believe they were tossed into a common grave for criminals, lost to time. But these are the graves of their families.”

  We turn the corner, and Jaxon pushes open a rusty gate that is starting to fall off of its hinges.

  “This cemetery isn’t part of the ghost or witch tours that people host at night,” Jaxon goes on. “That cemetery is near the church. And that’s where the upstanding families—the families of the accusers, of the judges, of the murderers—are buried. That cemetery gets all the attention and all the care. This cemetery is where the less desirables were buried, hopefully to be forgotten.”

  I look around and feel a shiver creep down my spine. I rub my arms to warm myself. The cemetery is terribly dilapidated. The headstones are all covered in moss and cracked or tipping over. The grass is overgrown. There’s no telling when it was last mowed or the leaves raked.

  “Perhaps we should take care of the cemetery,” I say.

  “These aren’t our people,” Jaxon says. “The women they executed weren’t witches. And neither were their families. These people had nothing to do with witchcraft. They were outcasts in their own society. Look at what humans did. They killed their own people, and their families were banished just because they thought they were witches. Imagine what they would do to people who actually are. They don’t even tend the graves of their own people. Why should we care for humans when they care so little for their own kind, much less care anything for us? They might have killed their own, but they were trying to kill us.”

  I hear something like a whisper and turn my head, but I don’t see anything. Then I hear the whispering again and look the other way. Again, nothing’s there.

  “What is it?” Jaxon asks.

  “Nothing,” I mutter.

  If there are ghosts here, I shouldn’t be able to hear them. Ms. Brewster teaches that we don’t have psychic abilities. I don’t want Jaxon to think I’m hearing something or feeling a presence…even though I am.

  Jaxon turns to go back out the rusty gate, and out of the corner of my eye, I see a girl in a long white dress with long blonde hair step behind a large oak tree. When I turn to get a better look, she’s gone. But I know what I saw.

  The whispering grows more intense. As I step toward the gate, it feels like I’m walking through a rosebush, with the brambles and thorns grabbing at my hair, my clothes, my hands, my cheeks, trying to pull me back in to get me to stay, to hear what they have to s
ay.

  If Jaxon weren’t here, I would listen. I’ll have to return to this place later on my own.

  I’m sorry, I say to the voices silently. I will return.

  But when I step through the gate, the sensation and the whispering ceases. I run my hands over my face and down my arms, as though trying to wipe away a spiderweb.

  “Gives you the heebie-jeebies, doesn’t it?” Jaxon asks.

  “Something like that.” I step gratefully onto the sidewalk. Jaxon steps ahead of me, leading the way again. “I know you don’t feel anything for the women who were executed for witchcraft since they were actually humans, but we do have a sort of kinship with them. They were not part of us, but they suffered just the same. Worse, actually. The real witches got away. Humans died in their place.”

  Jaxon shrugs. “Nothing we can do about it now. If they were lucky, maybe Hecate took some pity on them.”

  I have nothing to say to that. I know spirits exist—ghosts like Giselle, ghosts that reside in the cemetery—but what happens next, when they do finally cross over, I have no idea.

  Being a witch, having my eyes open to the occult, knowing things that most humans don’t know, still doesn’t answer the greatest questions of life for me.

  What happens when we die?

  I didn’t notice, but at some point, we left the sidewalk and are now walking through a wooded area. I shudder and wrap my arms around me.

  “Where are we going now?” I ask.

  “We’re already there,” Jaxon says.

  I look around, but all I see is a large tree in the middle of a clearing. I gasp as I see several bodies hanging from it. Most of them are women in Puritan garb, but the bodies change. I see black folk dressed as slaves, men and women.

  “What…what is this place?” I place my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.

  “It’s the old hangin’ tree,” Jaxon says. “Another thing you won’t see on the official city tours.”

  I turn around and vomit. Jaxon runs to my side and rubs my back.

  “Hey,” he says. “What’s wrong?”

  “I…I can see them,” I say. “The witches…the slaves…”

  “What?” He rights himself and looks at the tree. “Madison, they’re long gone. It must just be your imagination getting the best of you. Come on.”

  He grips my shoulder to pull me to standing, but I push him away. I’m too dizzy to move.

  “I just…need a moment.”

  I can hear the whispering again, the voices of the departed. But I don’t focus on them. I concentrate on my breathing instead and, slowly, my stomach calms. I stand up and walk out of the forest, holding Jaxon’s hand tightly.

  “I’m sorry,” Jaxon says when we are back at the safety of the sidewalk. “I should have warned you, I guess. You seem to find all of this so kitschy and charming, I didn’t think you would be so moved by a stupid old tree.”

  A sharp breeze blows, causing me to take a step back.

  “It’s not a stupid tree,” I say. “You know people were killed there. It’s important. There’s stories there.”

  “Yeah, but they are long dead,” Jaxon says. “You didn’t really see anything. You just got worked up…right?”

  I rub my hand over my mouth to make sure I don’t have any spit or vomit on it. “Yeah…”

  “How did you know lynching took place, though? You freaked out before I even told you it was a hanging tree,” Jaxon asks. “Most people only know about Salem’s history with witches, not slavery.”

  I shrug and clear my throat as I walk down the sidewalk back toward town. “America has a lot of bad history. As painful as it is, none of it should be forgotten.”

  “Well, I’m sorry I upset you so much,” Jaxon says as he trots up beside me. “I just wanted you to take all this more seriously.”

  “No one is taking this more seriously than I am,” I say. “If anything, you aren’t taking me seriously. I believe there’s more to the statues and Salem’s history than I can find in the La Voisin library. I need to find another source of information.”

  “Fine, fine,” Jaxon says, holding up his hands in surrender. “You’re right. I’m sorry. If you want to find the library, then we should find someone who can tell us where it is.”

  We’re back on Main Street with all the shops, and the strong smell of sage stops me in my tracks. I look up and see we are in front of what looks like a psychic’s shop. The window has a glowing sign of a hand with an eye in it. Fortunes Told, it says. Ritual of Magic Metaphysical Memorabilia the main sign says. There are crystals and dream catchers and candles in the display window. I reach out and gently lay my fingers on the glass, and a light current of electricity buzzes through me.

  Jaxon realizes I’ve stopped and comes back to me. “Oh no,” he says with a groan as he looks at the glowing sign. “Any shop but that one.”

  “Why?” I ask. “Have you been here before?”

  “No,” he says. “But I’ve been to other shops like it. They’re all the same. Tarot cards, crystals, essential oils. Hardly any of it real, and even if it is, the woman running it won’t have any idea what she’s talking about. People who think they are most in tune with the metaphysical world are actually the worst. They think they have it all figured out when they really know nothing.”

  “I’d like to see for myself,” I say, pushing the door open and stepping inside.

  As soon as I step through the door, bells ring, and I gasp. The smells and other sensations overwhelm me. I feel like I just took off a dark pair of sunglasses and see the world in all its vibrant colors for the very first time.

  The ringing I heard wasn’t just bells to announce customers, but tuning forks at a frequency meant to open the third eye. I’m not sure how I know that. The sage and patchouli fill my nose and then my lungs, helping me to breathe deeply and clearly.

  I take a step forward, and it’s like I’m falling, falling into…myself. I can’t explain it. I reach out, and it’s like I grab my own hand. It’s me…the voice. The one inside me, the one that Ms. Brewster says I need to reach out to, connect with. She’s as real as I am, standing right here. I grab her hand, and she jerks me forward.

  “Hello!” a cheerful voice calls out.

  I open my eyes, which I hadn’t even realized until now were closed. Everything seems normal. I’m standing on solid ground, Jaxon beside me. He doesn’t seem to have noticed anything weird happening to me.

  A pretty young woman with long brown hair and a smile on her face steps forward.

  “Welcome to my shop,” she says. “I’m Gillian. I’m so glad to meet you.”

  Chapter 14

  I stare around at the shop in wonder. “What is this place?”

  Jaxon scoffs. “Just another shop to get glass beads and pictures of cats,” he says as he looks at a painting of a cat with wings sitting on the edge of a desk.

  “Sure,” Gillian says with a smile, not letting Jaxon get to her. “I have a little something for everyone. Most tourists just want something to remember their trip to Salem by. I have orgonite pyramids made from stones I collected around the village. People seem to like those. I also have some oracle cards based on the men and women who were accused of witchcraft here. Those are quite popular as well. But for you…” She looks at me and pauses, something knowing in her eyes. “You’re looking for something quite special, aren’t you?”

  Special, I think to myself. That’s putting it mildly.

  There’s certainly something unique about this shop, and I think there’s something special about Gillian as well. I can sense some discomfort coming from her when she looks at Jaxon. He is outwardly antagonistic toward her, but her discomfort seems to go deeper than that.

  She’s not just being polite to him because he is a rude customer. Whenever he turns away, her smile falters and her lips move silently, as though she is saying a protection spell. But if she were a witch, Jaxon would know her. Maybe she is one of those people who thinks she is a witc
h but really isn’t, like the woman I watch on YouTube. She is a believer, but misguided by so many falsehoods out there.

  Not for the first time, I wish Zoey was here. Her ability to sense magic in others would be useful right now.

  When Gillian looks at me, her eyes light up, like she can sense something in me. If Gillian and I could speak privately, she might be more willing to talk.

  “Hey, Jaxon,” I say. “I’m getting a little thirsty. I don’t know why we just took off without any supplies. Do you think you could go to a convenience store and get me a soda?”

  Jaxon sidles up next to me and keeps his voice low. “We should probably stick together.”

  “I’ll be right here,” I say, giving him a little nod of reassurance. “I just want to look around a bit.”

  Jaxon looks from me to Gillian and back to me again. “What kind of soda?”

  “Sprite would be good.”

  Jaxon gives a slow nod, looking at us both again, but finally he leaves, the little bell above the door jingling as he exits.

  “Well,” Gillian says almost as soon as the door latches, “that is some heavy energy your boyfriend is carrying.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I say quickly. “We’re just friends. Classmates.”

  “Are you here on a field trip?” Gillian asks. She steps behind the counter and begins to pull out some small crystals and a mirror.

  “No,” I say. “We’re local. But I’m kind of new here, so Jaxon was showing me around.”

  “Must not be that local,” Gillian says. “I haven’t seen him around here before either. Where do you go to school?”

  “La Voisin,” I say, and I watch her closely for a reaction.

  Gillian looks at me, but not with shock or fear or anything, which surprises me. But she is watching me closely. Studying me, perhaps? Looking for something?

  “I know the place,” she finally says. “The founders had been in Massachusetts since the Mayflower. Even the current administrators are direct descendants of the oldest Salem residents.”