In Shadows of Magic

by Alison F. Prince

  Brianna stepped off the stage and was mauled by her twin sister. Mandy hugged her and jumped up and down. "That was amazing!"

  More hugs and compliments followed from Logan, Renee, Maeve, Charlotte, Gavin, Brent, Kerri, Emily, Liz, and Alise.

  The next band started, and they were fabulous, but Brianna wasn't worried about the competition. As far as she was concerned they had already won.

  One reborn stood back, patiently waiting his turn. Jared wrapped her in his arms and kissed her, his mouth tasting hers, their tongues intertwined. Their lips separated, but he still held her close. Brianna looked up at him. The world around them seemed to dissipate. All she could see was his smoky eyes, gazing into hers with acute admiration.

  "You were incredible up there." Jared's gaze was transfixed on hers. A montage of memory snippets flashed in Brianna's mind—their first dance at Brent's party, riding the Ferris wheel at the fair, their arms wrapped around each other on the deck of the yacht, their magic bricks melding together in Supertopia, their time spent partying with the members of Red Rapture, and lots and lots of kisses. She could feel how soft her lips felt to him, and how her touch rose goose bumps on his flesh.

  "Wow, what a rush! Did you do that on purpose?" Brianna asked.

  Jared nodded. "I love you."

  Hearing those words was as exhilarating as running on the wind. All of her worries disappeared. Her heart somersaulted, twirled, and then took off in flight. "I love you," she said.

  When they kissed again, it was pure magic.

  ****

  Everything was perfect. Brianna couldn’t have imagined a better night. After the Battle of the Bands, Brianna, Mandy, Maeve and Renee headed back to the McKinney residence for another slumber party. The girls indulged in midnight ice cream sundaes, then stayed up for hours chatting and giggling. Before the sun rose, the witches sat in a circle in the backyard. Together, they cast a new spell that Renee had discovered. It was meant to send positive energy into the universe to promote peace for all of mankind. “It won’t help much,” Renee explained, “The positive energy we expel will clash with the negative. Evil will seek to destroy our efforts for love and harmony. It’s an endless battle, but we must do our part.”

  The sun was already high in the sky when the girls finally went back inside and shimmied into their sleeping bags.

  Brianna lay wrapped up in her blankets with a smile on her face. With wonderful thoughts of Jared on her mind, Brianna drifted into sleep. She gazed into his smoky blue eyes as they gradually darkened. From slate to lead to charcoal-gray to black.

  His facial features slowly transformed. Licinia's onyx eyes glared, her brows furrowed in a harsh line. Her pretty features were marred by hatred. Blood red lips began to move but the words didn’t make sense at first. She strained to hear them, but then like the crescendo of an orchestra they suddenly became clear

  Brianna jolted upright, Licinia’s words a staccato endless echo inside her mind.

  "I told you I'd be back."

  About the Author

  Alison F. Prince is a school psychologist in northern New Jersey. In Shadows of Magic is her debut novel.

  Also from Astraea Press:

  Chapter One

  Home Is Where the Heart Is

  I don’t remember dying.

  “Stand back. Clear!”

  Nothing. A feeling of floating, weightlessness.

  “Oh, please, please, baby.” My mother’s voice, sounding uncharacteristically hysterical.

  “Clear!”

  A spreading, burning under my ribcage. Followed by a surging river of heat to my heart. It stutters, rumbling like a kettledrum inside my ribs, and up into my skull.

  “Come on, Mia.” My father, unglued.

  The steady ‘beep-beep-beep’ of a monitor and the whooshing of a respirator. My chest rises up and down without my permission, a puppet to the machine. A rushing sound, like water filling a vacuum, clogs my ears. My new heart, my-new-heart, accelerates, beating so fast it feels as if it will take flight from my newly stapled sternum.

  A dull, muted pain aches through my chest, which will, no doubt, intensify when the drugs wear off.

  “Too fast.”

  The monitor screams, wails like a kid’s tantrum.

  Two choked sobs. Mom… and Beth.

  Beth is here, how wonderful. I try to move my fingers, to tell her I’m okay. Don’t cry.

  My brain says lift, but all I get is—

  “Her fingers twitched. I saw them.” Beth’s voice, relieved and oh-so scared.

  My heart thrums, finally steady and even. It feels strange, too far back in my chest. Like an ill-fitting shirt. I raise my hands to try to scratch it, adjust it.

  “Mia? Mia, can you hear me? We’re all here, darling. Dad and Beth, and Claire is outside.”

  I feel the tube down my throat, choking me. I suck in for air, but my chest rises on its own, interfering with my breathing. I feel like I’m suffocating, despite the oxygen shoved up my nostrils.

  “She’s trying to breathe on her own. We need to adjust the respirator. Easy, Mia.” Dr. Starzel, my own personal medical savior.

  Two unfamiliar, whispering, conspiratorial voices, “I can’t believe they found a donor, just in time.”

  “The report said it was a homeless girl. She was murdered.”

  “For heaven’s sake! She may be able to hear you. One more word and I’ll have both of your babbling traps fired.” My father chastises the women, whom I guess to be nurses by the soft squeaks of their retreating shoes.

  I have a murder victim’s heart? Worry tickles the back of my brain. How did they find a donor? How — I’m struck with pain so blinding, I feel my brain shrivel inward. Like a cowering child. And hear nothing.

  The weightless returns.

  I feel the burning rush of something shoot into my IV. It’s liquid fire.

  I trace its path up my arm, into my brain, addling it. But relief is the trade-off. The pain backs off.

  Thump-thump. Thump-thump. It is the only sound I hear, for what seems a very long time.

  Soft voices break through the darkness again. I have no idea how long it has been since I was last conscious.

  A warm hand holds mine, gently rubbing my fingers. It’s Beth, I can tell by the feel of her nails. They’re manicured, rounded and smooth. I can smell her, too. Lilacs.

  Her guiding voice cuts through the fog inside my head. “…for when women are the advisers, the lords of creation don't take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole.”

  She’s reading my favorite book. Little Women. The sole reason I came to know her. She’s a descendent of Louisa May Alcott, and our mutual obsession brought us together.

  It’s so Beth, to know exactly what I need, how to reach me. I love her like a sister. She’s my confidant, more so than my well-meaning, driven, type-A mother, Dr. Templeton. Who’s much better at doctoring than she is at mothering.

  I open my eyes. Blurred, stark images spear my eyeballs, shooting daggers into my head.

  “Beth.” I lick my lips, which feel cracked and brittle like hard tack candy. Hard tack candy? Where did that come from?

  “I have a migraine. A heart transplant can’t be enough. I have to feel like my head’s imploding too.” My voice is rough, just a whisper.

  Beth’s dark chocolate eyes widen in happiness. “Oh, Mia. You’re awake.”

  Her hands fly up to cover her mouth, like a kid who’s been surprised with a present. She is childlike, so trusting and sweet. That’s one reason I love her.

  “I have to page your mother, she’s doing her rounds. She waited a long time. I told her I’d sit with you. ”

  She stands to get the nurse, but I squeeze her hand. “Bethy, don’t leave me, okay?”

  “Never, my love. Oh, and here…” She presses a n
otebook into my hand. “I thought you might need it.”

  I squint, blinking my dry eyes. There is a letter wedged inside it. No doubt, a rejection from a short story I just submitted. I smile anyway.

  Beth knows me too well. Knows I will scribble away my pain onto those pages.

  I make a face.

  Her eyes dart to the letter. “You are quite the storyteller — no matter what those rejection letters say. Now let me go page your mother. She will be cross if I don’t.”

  Suddenly, I’m afraid.

  My mouth waters with fear.

  I hold Beth’s hand too long, waiting till the last possible second to release it. I’m alone, with all the monitors and lights. And this new heart. It’s like a foreign presence and an uncomfortable silence, like sitting with a stranger.

  I feel its strong beats, so much more powerful than my own, damaged heart. That felt at the end like it had only enough power to support a baby bird, not an eighteen-year-old girl. Woman — whatever I am now.

  I couldn’t walk anymore. The slightest exertion, going up and down steps, would leave me useless and breathless. And then I was crawling up the steps. Not in front of my parents or friends. Only when I was alone, so as not to alarm anyone. Then, into the wheelchair I went. I had nightmares of dying in it; its leg straps coming to life and binding me to it forever. Fusing us together, as one. Rage burns my cheeks. I sneer at my old wheelchair, sitting by the bed, taunting me. I kick out at it, tumbling it over with a metallic crash.

  A lightning bolt of pain shoots down my chest and I wince.

  I sit still, as goose bumps sprout all over my arms. I’m rarely angry. My mom used to call me the calmest baby on earth.

  Now, hot, fast anger, like I’ve never ever felt, lights up my brain. I gasp for breath — at the cruelty of my situation. Why me? I grab a mirror from the bedside table, and yank down my hospital gown.

  A red, raised, stapled incision cuts down my chest, separating my breasts like a long zipper. I picture Dr. Starzel with a pair of pliers, unzipping it to reveal my new, beating heart.

  My heart chokes my throat and tears spring up and cut down my face, which is flushed red.

  The monitors go wild. I feel the heart hammering against my ribcage like it recognizes its in the wrong body.

  The door crashes open and Beth, Mom, nurses, and my best friend Claire all rush to the bedside.

  “Oh, Mia, you’re awake. Calm down, dear. Everything is fine,” Mom says, in her best doctor voice.

  But everything isn’t fine. Whispers fill my head. They’re thick and heavy, like verbal spider webs, clotting up my thoughts. There isn’t enough room for my brain.

  I can’t make out what the voices are saying. The sounds are muffled, like words muttered underwater.

  I watch horror spread across the faces surrounding my bed like the wave at a football game.

  The room shrinks to a pinprick, and the weightlessness returns.