Spellcaster Academy: Episodes 1-4 (Spellcaster Academy Omnibus)

by Jenetta Penner

  Spellcaster Academy

  Episodes 1-4

  Jenetta Penner

  Contents

  Title Page

  Magical Realism, Episode 1

  Dedication

  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

  Episode 2: The Dark Curse

  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

  Fire & Lightning, Episode 3

  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

  The Shadow Pack: Episode 4

  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

  Other Books by Jenetta Penner

  Spellcaster Academy: Episodes 1-4

  Copyright © 2020 Jenetta Penner

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events and locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 9798623050168

  Printed in the USA

  First printing 2020

  Hair on cover by Trisste-stock.deviantArt.com

  Magical Realism, Episode 1

  Jenetta Penner

  Let the magic of life guide your journey.

  Chapter 1

  The windshield wipers waved over the front glass, throwing sheets of water over the sides of the cab.

  “I’m sorry, miss.” The driver’s thick unibrow furrowed with a sympathetic dip. “But I don’t know exactly where your address is. I’ve never been to this part of town.” He shook his head, and the pained expression on his face made his guilt obvious, but he wasn’t going to do anything about it. “Your best bet is to search on foot. Maybe there are a couple of hidden apartment buildings behind these shops on the street.”

  I threw my head back against the tan, fraying backseat upholstery. I’d have pulled out my phone to recheck the address, but it was dead.

  Instead, I unfolded the piece of white paper still clutched in my hand and scrawled with a barely legible address.

  Olivia Spinner

  1212 Southpaw Street 121b

  Los Angeles, CA

  Aunt Olivia had sent the information last week. There was no return address on the envelope. Just this letter with a few details like my aunt’s name, an invitation to come live with her, the address, and a plane ticket. No phone number, no email.

  Before then, I didn’t even know I had an aunt named Olivia Spinner. Apparently, she was a great-aunt on my mom’s side. Grandma never mentioned her, but since she was my dad’s mother and both of my parents, Charlette and Liam Barrows, died in a car accident when I was an infant, Grandma may not have known she existed. For seventeen years it was just the two of us—no other family.

  I didn’t have much of a choice but to say yes. If I didn’t come, I’d have ended up in foster care for a year. And then what? I’d be on my own anyway. I didn’t even have friends back home to fall back on for a while. I used to, but when grandma got sick a year ago, I took online homeschool so I could stay home. After that, all the friends I thought I had kind of dwindled away.

  I didn’t actually blame them, though. Most seventeen-year-olds have better things to do than stay cooped up in an old, drafty house. It’s not as if any of them wanted to come over and hang out. I just became the weird kid who could never go out, and they eventually stopped texting. They were never that close to me anyway since I had always been the weird kid with the ghost-white hair.

  “In this rain?” I protested, peering outside at the rare downpour in this part of the country. “Can’t we just circle the block one more time?” It wasn’t quite dark yet, but I knew it would be soon, and the last thing I wanted to do was wander around the streets once the sun set.

  “We’ve done that ten times.” The man pursed his lips in thought. “I can take you back to the airport. Or maybe you have someplace else I can drop you off?”

  I had no place else. I was a thousand miles from home.

  I peeked at the meter and knew that wasn’t possible for more reasons than the unfortunate fact I had nowhere else to go but my mysterious Aunt Olivia’s. I didn’t have a credit card and only had the cash in my pocket. And it was just enough to cover the fee already. This guy wasn’t getting a tip.

  “I’m sorry,” the driver said again when I didn’t answer.

  A growl rumbled in my throat, and I threw my last twenty bucks over the seat at the middle-aged, balding man. Without even a thanks, he pocketed the money as I heaved a blue gym bag strap over my neck and shoulder. Inside were a few changes of clothes, toiletries, an old photo of my parents and my favorite book, The Hobbit, with the inscription from my mom in the front.

  Let the magic of life guide your journey.

  Ugh . . . the journey I was on right now was seeming less and less magical by the second.

  Nine, the extent of my inheritance and nothing but a scraggly old black cat, peered at me with huge, nearly glowing topaz eyes from inside his carrier on the seat beside me. He blinked slowly as if he didn’t have a care in the world. The cat didn’t even seem to mind the entire plane ride out here. But I was a different story. Realizing my fate, I felt a lump the size of an apple rapidly forming in my throat, and my eyes burned with salty tears.

  Think positive, Josy. Think positive. Grandma’s daily mantra to me rolled through my mind.

  “Come on, buddy, we can do this,” I muttered under my breath to the cat while wiggling the latch on his crate to ensure it was secure. My roiling stomach contradicted the words, but even so, I tucked my long white hair under my sweatshirt hood, grasped the handle of Nine’s carrier, took a breath of courage and flung open the cab door to a torrential downpour. No one would notice my tears there.

  No sooner had the door slammed shut, leaving Nine and me on the sidewalk, did the vehicle speed off, nearly splashing a puddle over us. I stepped b
ack just in time to avoid the drenching, but it didn’t matter. Rain pelted my gray sweatshirt, soaking through almost immediately. My eyes flooded with their own moisture, and part of me wanted to collapse right there on the ground. How could this be my life?

  Nine meowed, and I shook off my feelings of self-pity. The cat was going to get soaked too from the air holes in his crate. Quickly, I wiped the tears blurring my vision and scanned the building numbers. 1220, 1216 . . . “We must be close, Nine. I think it’s this way.” I pointed to my left and a minuscule glimmer of hope lit in my chest.

  A pitiful meow echoed from the carrier, and I glanced down to see the metal-slatted door somehow falling open. That was locked! I even checked!

  I gasped in horror as Nine leaped from the opening and landed on the ground.

  “No, no, no, no!” This can’t be happening! “Nine! Get back inside here!”

  But of course, he didn’t listen—not that a cat would anyway, but there was zero chance of him doing so on a strange street in the pouring rain. As expected, the cat bolted down the sidewalk in the opposite direction from where I’d wanted to go.

  On instinct, I dashed after him, gym bag flopping over my shoulder and cat crate in hand. The few people on the street stared at the ridiculous scene that probably played out like some bit in a comedy movie where they want the viewer to feel sorry for the main character before something funny happens. Except I wasn’t laughing. My life was falling apart—more than it already had.

  None of those people even tried to help the crazy girl chasing a cat in the rain.

  “Nine!” I screamed, knowing full well doing so was never going to do any good. But I still had him in my sights.

  Half a block later, a streak of soaked black fur, running legs, and a tail zipped around the corner of a brick building. Drenched and still clutching all my worldly possessions, I rounded the same corner to follow.

  Once there, I whipped my head around, searching. No cat. “Nine! Here kitty, kitty, kitty.”

  The alleyway was slightly sheltered from the rain, and ahead of me, there was a small shop tucked into the dead end. A large window displaying items like an old bike and some knick-knacks I assumed were antiques stood next to the frosted glass door. The door was swinging shut as if someone had just gone inside. A sickly yellow light on the building’s roof illuminated the darkening alley, and a neon sign spelling the word CLOSED blinked on and off erratically. Above the large window was a crooked, wooden sign. I would have expected it to say something like ANTIQUES, but instead, it read JUNK.

  What kind of lousy marketing strategy was that? Calling your store “junk.” But then again, it was at the end of an alley where no one could find it. Maybe they were just being honest.

  “Nine,” I called, pulling my attention away from the weird store. But he was nowhere to be seen. Since the rain had settled to a sprinkle, I pulled my hood off my head and peered around a gross, overflowing trash can. Please be a cat and not a gigantic rodent. But there was neither.

  I exhaled an audible breath, filled with exhaustion and frustration. “Nine,” I pleaded again, knowing it was likely useless. My cat was gone. The only friend I had left in this world was gone, just like everything else.

  The neon sign blinked on and off in its irregular rhythm, producing several hissing and popping sounds from inside the window. I closed my eyes for a brief second and then for whatever reason took the twenty or so steps to the store entrance. Maybe the door was open when Nine ran into the alley, and he dashed inside to get dry.

  I was sure it wasn’t true, but what did I have to lose by checking? It’s not like I had anyplace else to go.

  With a shaking hand, I rubbed my wet hair plastered against my face and forehead. About three feet from the stoop, I peered at the JUNK sign again. What I saw was incredibly odd and completely ridiculous. The shop’s address carved into the wood.

  1212 Southpaw Street 121b.

  Chapter 2

  I pushed open the frosted glass and metal door and eyed a little brass bell chiming above my head. The JUNK sign outside didn’t lie. Inside the shop were shelves loaded with junk: junk on the floor, junk in baskets, junk on shelves. Mostly kitschy figurines, but lots of jars filled with nails, piles of stacked dishes and some furniture scattered about. It would’ve taken days to dig through all those yard-sale rejects to find anything of value.

  To my left were a glass counter and an old-fashioned metal cash register with big push buttons. The drawer likely dinged when you opened the till.

  Lots of junk. But no cat and no employee. And no Olivia Spinner.

  “Hello?”

  Beyond the register was an opening that looked like it went into a back room. On the wall above the opening was nailed a sign stating, “No customers beyond this point.”

  My heart sank farther into my stomach than I ever thought possible. I could not believe I had been so stupid as to fly all the way out to Los Angeles with no plan other than to meet a mystery aunt I’d never met or even heard of. I placed Nine’s carrier on the ground and pinched at the bridge of my nose in frustration. How am I going to get back home? I didn’t even have anyone to call. No one to notice that I was gone.

  The tears that had stopped in the alleyway began flowing full force again, and I started to sob.

  “My dear, what’s wrong?”

  I jumped at the sound of a lilting female voice and saw a plump woman with a head of tight gray curls. She wore a garish pink and white floral muumuu, and there in her arms was a contented black cat, staring my way with his huge topaz eyes.

  “Nine!” I shouted and the cat flinched, but apparently he was enjoying the woman’s scalp massage too much to leap from her arms.

  “Oh.” The woman eyed my cat and gave him a little scratch under his chin. “Is that his name? He wouldn’t say. A shy little kitty, I guess.”

  I tipped my head in confusion at her pretending Nine could talk. But maybe she was just trying to lighten the mood. There was a blubbering teen in the middle of her shop.

  I snatched the carrier from the ground. “Yes, he got out and ran away. I figured he was gone forever.”

  The lady lifted Nine and held him in the air, then made kind of a weird kissy face at him. “Well, your little guy came to just the right place.” She plopped Nine down onto the counter, and he began to use his pink tongue to bathe his paw as if nothing was wrong. All was apparently good in his world. The woman reached under the counter and pulled out a little blue dish and a bag of cat food.

  “We get a lot of cats in here.” The food made a tinkling sound as she poured a serving into the bowl. “Not so many people.” She studied me for a moment. “You say you followed him here?”

  Nine dove in right away, making little grunting sounds as he nearly inhaled his cat food. Suddenly my stomach rumbled, reminding me that the only food I’d had all day was a measly package of pretzels on the plane.

  “Are you okay, dear?” the woman asked again. “You never said.”

  I figured I had little to lose by being honest. When you’re at the bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up.

  “No. I am most certainly not okay. This morning I hopped a plane from Montana to find my aunt. But she didn’t meet us at the airport, so I came here.” I gestured into the air. “But this is obviously not an apartment, and you don’t really seem to be expecting me or anything.” I yanked the paper from my pocket and opened it. “1212 Southpaw Street 121b—that’s here, and this is where I’m supposed to meet my aunt, Olivia Spinner.”

  The woman’s eye twitched, and a quizzical smile stretched over her lips. “Olivia Spinner?”

  My heart leaped. Did this woman know her? Maybe she was my aunt and was just a little crazy. Given the circumstances, it would have made sense. “You recognize the name?”

  The woman waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Oh, no, no.”

  At her words, my heart sank back into my stomach, while Nine simply continued munching his chow happily.

 
“Olivia Spinner is not a person.” The lady ran her hand along Nine’s back, and he stuck his tail in the air while keeping his face buried in the dish.

  “Not a person?” I held the letter in the air and shook it at her. “Then how did I get this and a plane ticket out here? It’s not like that all happened by magic!”

  The woman’s eyebrow popped up into an arch. Her gaze drifted from me to Nine. “You didn’t have a very easy job getting her here, did you, boy?”

  The muffled meow of a cat with a mouth full of food echoed from the dish.

  The woman eyed me again. “You are lucky that this cat must love you very much.” The woman’s lips formed a flat line before she spoke again. “This location can be incredibly difficult to find if you don’t believe . . . or at least have a suspicion it may be here.”

  “Believe what?” My chest tightened, and I scanned around at the junk everywhere in the shop. Was she talking about this junky store?

  Doing so was probably foolish, but I couldn’t take this ridiculousness anymore. I grabbed Nine from the counter as he growled in protest and grasped the handle of his crate on the floor. I needed to get out of here. The woman was crazy.

  Hands full and with an unwieldy cat anxious to get back to his food bowl, I felt the letter still clutched in my hand flutter to the ground. I just left it.

  I wrenched the shop door open, somehow keeping hold of Nine and the crate, but what I saw stopped me in my tracks.

  Nothing. No alley, no street beyond it. Everything was just gone. Like the world outside never existed.

  Panicked, I whirled on the woman. Nine squirmed from my grasp and leaped to the counter to finish his dinner. “What’s going on?” I demanded.

  The woman breathed a sigh of frustration and laid her chubby hands on the counter’s edge. “I apologize. I’m simply unused to people coming in the shop, not knowing why they are here.”

  My heart thudded against my rib cage, and my legs quivered like the pear-studded orange gelatin Grandma had always made. This had to be a bad dream. “I thought I was here to meet my aunt,” I whispered. At 5’3”, I’d always felt small, but today I felt like a bug to be squashed. Defeated.