B*witch

by Paige McKenzie

  Had the movement finally reached Sorrow Point, Washington?

  3

  TECHNOMANCER

  Do not dismiss the old ways in search of disposable magic. Trust your power.

  (FROM THE GOOD BOOK OF MAGIC AND MENTALISM BY CALLIXTA CROWE)

  Even though it was only Day One, Binx already approved of her first-period English class. The room had even better Wi-Fi than the detention room, and she had no problem piggybacking. Also, the teacher, Mr. Dalrymple, seemed super out of it during his lecture on Romantic poetry. He alternated between long, moody pauses and lots of wild gesturing out the window (at the trees? at the delivery trucks? at the blue-gray Puget Sound in the distance?) while talking about unrequited love and the ephemeral nature of life. But all this was just fine because it made him pretty much oblivious to Binx’s nonstop under-the-desk typing and texting.

  Of course, she could fool the best of them, oblivious or not; she had mastered the art. She was a technomancer (aka cyber-witch), which meant that she could use magic to enhance and accelerate all computer tech. For example, her phone and laptop automatically interfaced code with spells (like when she’d ordered her virtual genie/assistant Uxie to make her a bagel earlier). She’d developed this specialized form of magic by combining the information in C-Squared’s—aka Callixta Crowe’s—witchcraft book with her own considerable cyber skills.

  Binx was good at the little details, too. For this class, she’d chosen a seat in the back row, far corner. Her yellow pleated miniskirt perfectly camouflaged the Pikachu case. She worked the tiny phone keyboard on her lap, her gaze fixed on Mr. Dalrymple; but whenever the teacher had one of his drama moments (“Love is my religion!” “His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might!”), she allowed herself a quick peek at the screen to take in data.

  Which she did now, since Mr. D. was busy emoting about immortality or Grecian urns or whatever.

  Still no response from the Triad of Evil. Grrrr.

  Binx had texted Mira (and Aysha, too) about a dozen times—before homeroom, during homeroom, en route to English, during English. But they hadn’t responded. Nothing. Nada. Had they blocked her again? She’d thought about texting Div, but… well, Div was scary. Especially with that familiar of hers, an albino Brazilian rainbow boa that sometimes traveled with her thanks to an advanced invisibility spell. (Binx did not like the way the snake looked at her.)

  They had to have written the shadow message and then used a spell to make it magically appear in Greta’s pocket. Maybe it was in retaliation after the little incident at Starbucks last week? It had been so fun watching the expressions on Mira’s and Aysha’s faces when they realized their iced mocha fraps had been switched out for a powerful burping potion she’d whipped up. But maybe it wasn’t worth it, after all, if the consequence was the pretend-shadow note and Greta (and Ridley) getting all freaked out and paranoid.

  “She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die!” Mr. Dalrymple exclaimed, shaking a fist at the outside world (or maybe at the scruffy pigeon on the windowsill?). Another drama moment… Binx took the opportunity to check on the status of her other project, i.e., her password-capture algorithm, which she’d supercharged with a special spell. She needed the password to the Sorrow Point School District server to gather intel on the girl with the dorky purple eye shadow and see if she might be one of them.

  And if she was a witch, then what? On the one hand, yeah, it would be awesome to outnumber Div’s coven and dominate in the group spell department. (Binx knew Greta felt the same way, although not because she wanted power for its own sake, but because she disapproved of Div’s kind of magic.) On the other hand, a new member would alter the balance. Would Purple Eye Shadow Girl be a positive or a negative?

  “Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips!” Mr. D. cried out.

  Binx had the password. Sweet. A few more keystrokes, and ten seconds later, she was in the school district server. More keystrokes led her to the list of new students along with their ID photos.

  Gotcha! The girl was a third of the way down the list. In the grainy photo, her eyes were averted, and her smile seemed strained:

  IRIS EVANGELINE GOODING

  SOPHOMORE

  112 SYCAMORE STREET, SORROW POINT, WA

  And here were Iris’s transcripts from her previous school in New York City. There were tons of medical records and other records, too. There was also something called an Individualized Education Program; apparently, she received accommodations like extra time on tests because of her generalized anxiety disorder and other special needs.

  None of this told Binx whether or not Iris Evangeline Gooding was a witch, though.

  No matter. At least they knew who the girl was now. Binx opened an app quickly that would magically download the files to an untraceable off-site server. She also sent a group text to Greta and Ridley with Iris’s name, grade, and home address along with the message:

  Our Fluffy Bunnelby with the eye shadow. You’re welcome. (And yes, Greta, that’s a Pokémon reference.)

  They didn’t text back. Of course. Ridley was too obsessed with rules to text in class, and Greta’s phone was probably buried in her vegetarian backpack under bags of herbs. They also refused to engage in hexting (hexing via text), which Binx did with Mira and Aysha regularly. (Last weekend, Binx had hexted them by making their outfits smell. They had hexted back by causing her to start doing jumping jacks where she happened to be standing, which was the movie theater downtown.) The Iris girl wasn’t a priority, anyway. The real priority was making the Triad confess to their latest crime.

  Because it was one thing for the two covens to argue, disagree, throw shade, spell-block, hext, or perform more serious pranks. (Although Binx had maybe crossed a line when she’d pretended to kidnap Aysha’s familiar, Nicodemus, an Alaskan noble companion dog, for like five minutes; even though she didn’t have a familiar of her own, she was aware that witches and their animals had crazy-strong bonds.) It was another thing altogether to impersonate the Antima and issue threats. That was unacceptable, and they knew it.

  Binx’s phone vibrated—not with an incoming text but an enchanted security alert she’d recently installed to warn her about hackers, intruders, and other potential dangers. Had the school district bureaucrats detected her unauthorized access? But that seemed unlikely, since their system was older than dirt. Still, she logged out of their server, just to be safe. She also went off-line in case her piggybacking had tripped any alarms—again, not possible, but it was always smart to be ultra-cautious.

  Was the danger of a non-virtual nature, then? She casually put the phone facedown on her lap and glanced around.

  Her desk neighbor seemed to be watching her; she didn’t know his name. He wasn’t spying on her, was he? He was probably just admiring her pink hair (it had been cyan last spring, and ice blue before that, and rainbow before that) and her super-kawaii good looks, right?

  Binx knew how to handle boys. She went back online, pulled up an Instagram photo, and slanted the screen in his direction. It was a Crabby Cat meme that said: R U BOREDS 2?

  Her desk neighbor blushed and smiled. Too easy.

  Binx made a Crabby Cat face at him, which caused more blushing and smiling, then she picked up a pen and pretended to pay attention—now Mr. Dalrymple was pontificating about the concept of the sublime, which was the power to provoke ecstasy through art.

  Her phone vibrated again—another warning? It wasn’t re: the desk neighbor, though; he was listening intently to Mr. D. jibber-jabbering about the sublime.

  Binx scanned the rest of the classroom. No one was looking in her direction; everything seemed normal and calm and boringly business-as-usual. She waited a minute, then two, then three. The warning didn’t repeat.

  Probably a glitch, Binx thought with a shrug. The security-alert enchantment was brand-new; she’d recently started using it on the recommendation of her online friend ShadowKnight, who was a technomancer, too, the only boy witch Binx knew personally. S
he quickly disabled the enchantment (so it wouldn’t keep false-alarming). She would ask him for advice re: debugging the next time they communicated.

  Although… she hadn’t heard from him in days, despite her leaving him a bunch of (encrypted) messages. Last week, he’d said something about his parents almost learning about his witch identity (which he’d kept from them since discovering it himself at age twelve… apparently, they were super anti-magic). Was he okay? Had he gone even deeper underground to avoid their scrutiny? It was bad enough having annoying parents (Binx could so relate); but it would be terrible to have parents who were not down with the witch thing and might kick their kid out of the house or whatever. (Binx’s mom and dad didn’t know about her being a witch, and she planned to keep it that way. Not that they’d disown her, but she didn’t like confiding in them about anything because of their general obtuseness.)

  Or maybe ShadowKnight’s parents had found out about his activism group? He’d mentioned to Binx that he was part of a new, top secret political movement. He hadn’t said much about it, just that they called themselves Libertas and that they were working to try to get the anti-witchcraft law, 6-129, overturned and replaced by an anti-witch-discrimination law. Which would be amaaaazing.

  Lately Binx had been wondering if she should maybe join Libertas; 6-129 was vile. She could use her technomancing talents to help bring an end to it and protect the rights of witches. Also, maybe the Libertas people had ideas about how to make the Antima go away?

  But… nah… Binx wasn’t big on groups. It was hard enough being part of a coven and having to follow Greta’s “rules,” like “Stop hexting Mira and Aysha in public!” and “No magical bagels at school!”

  Still, she reminded herself to try to reach ShadowKnight again.

  4

  A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

  Magic in others is not always obvious.

  (FROM THE GOOD BOOK OF MAGIC AND MENTALISM BY CALLIXTA CROWE)

  By the time the second-period bell rang, Ridley was in her seat and all ready for class. A mint-green notebook labeled US HISTORY was open to the first page with the spine carefully pressed flat. She loved new notebooks—the clean fields of white, the faint blue horizontal lines. She always opted for the narrow college ruling versus the wide ruling; it looked cooler and, of course, more collegiate.

  She picked up her mechanical pencil (because she didn’t like making mistakes in indelible ink) and wrote the date at the top of the page. The first day of her second year at Sorrow Point High. Her first day freshman year had been way less… distressing. Sure, it had been emotionally challenging in its own way—a new city, a new school, a new life—but there was a different (and less anti-witch) US president back then, and the Antima movement didn’t exist yet, at least not openly, and Ridley had felt relatively safe practicing the craft in secret on her own. And soon after, she’d met Greta and Binx, and they’d been able to practice the craft together… still in secret, but together.

  But this first day of school was different. Greta’s account of the two guys wearing Antima shoulder patches had been jarring. Ridley had never seen Antima members in Sorrow Point.

  And despite Binx’s occasional rebellious flouting of the law (as in this morning’s bagel incident), their coven had (knock on wood) never gotten caught. Neither had Div’s. They had all managed to pass as regular old non-magical humans.

  Until now. That disturbing shadow message. Was it just another Triad prank, as Binx had suggested? Or were the Antima onto Greta? To their whole coven? And if so, what were the Antima going to do with the information? Report them? Torment the girls with more threats? Show up at their houses in the middle of the night and spray-paint hateful words on their doors? Attack them (and then would the police look the other way, like they had in Texas)?

  Callixta’s descendant had suggested that the Antima hated witches because they hated powerful women. But did they hate girls like Ridley even more because she was Black and also trans? Or did the Antima hate all witches equally? (In the last presidential election, the other candidate—a Black lesbian—had almost defeated David Ingraham, creating a ripple effect of increased racism and prejudice against the LGBTQIA community.)

  Not for the first time, Ridley wondered if she should just give up witchcraft. It wasn’t worth it if it might bring more pain and hardship to her family; they’d already been through so much. Too much. Plus, there was her future to think about, especially college. (She’d been dreaming about the Columbia-Juilliard double-degree program since forever, and it probably didn’t accept applicants who were known witches.)

  But if she gave up witchcraft, it would really, really complicate her life. Not that her life wasn’t already complicated, but still.

  Quandary, Ridley wrote in her notebook. Dilemma. Conundrum. Predicament. Catch-22.

  “Good morning, everyone!”

  Ridley erased her word salad and turned her attention to the front of the room. But wait… where was Ms. Hua? The person standing at the blackboard had a buzz cut and retro rhinestone glasses and was not Ms. Hua.

  “I’m Ms. O’Shea,” she announced to the class. She picked up a piece of chalk and wrote on the blackboard: O’SHEA. “I’m filling in for Ms. Hua while she’s on maternity leave for the next few months. In the meantime, I’ll be taking you on the awesome journey that is the birth and evolution of our country. I’ll also be assigning weekly quizzes and short papers, so you’ll have that to look forward to!” She grinned and gave a thumbs-up.

  Ridley sat up. A sub who isn’t going to just show movies? Fantastic!

  The door opened and closed, and a girl rushed in. “I’m sorry, I got lost!” she apologized breathlessly to Ms. O’Shea. “I didn’t know that 232 and 232R were in different parts of the building.”

  “No worries. Welcome, have a seat.”

  The girl pushed a strand of honey-blond hair out of her eyes and glanced around the room. Her gaze landed on the empty seat across from Ridley’s. She hurried down the aisle, shrugged off her pink suede backpack, and sat down.

  “Did I miss anything?” she whispered to Ridley.

  Ridley shook her head.

  “Oh, whew!”

  The girl smiled at Ridley. Ridley smiled back. Was she new? Ridley didn’t recognize her.

  Ms. O’Shea began taking attendance, calling out names from a clipboard. Halfway down the list, she said, “Penelope Hart?”

  The girl raised her hand in the air. “Here! Present!”

  Penelope. The name made Ridley think about the brave and clever heroine in The Odyssey by Homer. She’d read the ancient Greek epic at her old school back in Cleveland.

  Penelope, Ridley scribbled in her notebook, then erased it. She brushed away all the rubber crumbs.

  “Ridley? Ridley Stone? Are you here?”

  Several kids had turned around in their seats and were staring and pointing at her. Oops.

  “Yes, hi! I’m here!” Ridley said, rainbow-waving. Her mind had been on The Odyssey. Or maybe on Penelope.

  After attendance came the distribution of the syllabus (was the plural syllabuses or syllabi?). As Ms. O’Shea handed them out, Ridley became aware that Penelope was trying to get her attention.

  “Psst!”

  Penelope slanted her notebook toward Ridley. On a blank page, she’d written:

  I love your name! Were you named after Ridley Scott the director?

  So Penelope liked movies; they had that in common.

  I wish! I loved Alien and Alien Covenant.

  Yeah, and don’t forget Blade Runner!

  How can anyone forget Blade Runner? Wait, did you mean the original or the new one?

  The original. The new one had a different director, right?

  Right! I think his name was

  Footsteps. Red Dr. Martens with purple shoelaces… Ms. O’Shea was walking down the aisle toward them. “Here you go,” she said, handing a syllabus to Ridley.

  “Thank you, Ms. O’Shea!”

  Rid
ley quickly slid the syllabus over her notebook. She realized that her heart was racing. Was it because she’d almost gotten caught writing back and forth with Penelope? Or was it because of Penelope, who was cute and nice and also a cinephile? Ridley made a mental note to ask her if she’d seen The Matrix, which was pretty much the best movie in the history of movies, in her humble opinion (plus it had been made by two of her heroes, Lilly and Lana Wachowski, both trans women).

  Ridley forced herself to focus on the syllabus. Her lips moved silently as she read over the list of topics:

  The European Colonization of the Americas

  The Colonies

  The War for Independence

  A New Nation

  Federalism and Slavery

  The Civil War

  Reconstruction and Jim Crow

  The Birth of the 20th Century

  She read over the syllabus again, then picked up her pencil and circled pre-Civil War history (which she’d always wanted to learn more about) and also circled federalism and scribbled in the margin: What other countries in the world have a government based on federalism?

  She noticed Penelope noticing her marking up the syllabus, and smiling. Ridley smiled back and shrugged.

  The rest of the period seemed to fly by as Ms. O’Shea read from a dog-eared paperback called The People’s History of the United States. Once in a while, Ridley paused in her diligent note-taking to glance over at Penelope. Penelope was not taking notes; instead, she was doodling… eyes? Yeah, definitely eyes. Eyes with curly lashes, eyes with dark, dramatic wings, eyes encircled with tiny moons and stars. What was her obsession with eyes? Whatever the case, she was a really good artist.

  When the bell rang, Ridley hastily finished her sentence (“C. Columbus and his crew were responsible for enslavement and genocide…”), closed her notebook, and put it in her backpack along with her syllabus and mechanical pencil. Her phone, which was tucked away in an inner pocket on silent, glowed faintly and indicated that she had three new texts from Binx. Were they updates about the “fluffy bunny” from this morning and/or the shadow message?