Ritual of Magic (Academy of the Damned Book 2) Page 2

  Chapter 2

  I stare across the room at the young girl asking me who I am. “Umm…Madison,” I say, lowering my guard a bit. “This is my room.”

  “Oh!” Zoey’s eyes light up. “I’m your new roommate!” She walks up and offers me her hand to shake very properly.

  I oblige, and I am sure the confusion is still clearly written on my face.

  “Roommate?” I repeat.

  I glance around the room and see that she has already made herself at home. There are pink heart-shaped pillows on her bed, along with a few stuffed animals. Posters of some boy band I think I’ve heard of but don’t know any of their songs are tacked up on the wall, and a pile of clothes is draped over her desk chair.

  “How old are you?” I ask

  Zoey purses her lips and pushes her round-rimmed glasses up her nose. “Old enough to be here.”

  I lean into Krista and Ivy. “I thought La Voisin was just for high schoolers?”

  They both nod.

  “Come on, pip-squeak!” Krista, always the brash one, says. “Spill it. Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

  Zoey holds up her chin, which then starts to quiver. I feel my stomach tighten as she suddenly bursts into tears.

  “Good job,” I tell Krista.

  “Oh, look what you’ve done,” Ivy says, pushing past us and taking Zoey in her arms. “There, there. Don’t cry.” She wipes the tears from Zoey’s face and leads her to sit on the bed, pushing a plush alligator and a plush manatee out of the way. “Now, why don’t you tell us how you ended up here?”

  “My name is Zoey Rhee,” she says, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “My dad died a few weeks ago, and I didn’t have any other witch family. My mom died when I was two.”

  “Oh, geez,” Krista mumbles. “Way to make me feel like crap.”

  I nudge her with my elbow and cross the room, then kneel in front of Zoey. “I’m sorry to hear that,” I say. “My dad died when I was little, too.”

  “I didn’t really have anywhere else to go, so Ms. Brewster said I could come to La Voisin early,” Zoey explains. “She gave me a bunch of tests and stuff, all of which I passed. So I’m taking all the first-year classes like all the other new students.”

  “Wow!” I say, ramping up my excitement. “You must be a really good witch, then. You can probably help me. I’m a terrible witch. When I came here, I was two years behind.”

  Zoey laughs. “Wow! You are bad!”

  I nod. “I know. Well, it’s great to have a roommate. I haven’t had one since—” I stop myself. It’s probably not a good idea to talk too much about death since her dad died so recently. “Well, for a long time. This will be fun.”

  “Yeah!” Zoey jumps from her bed and picks up a piece of paper from her desk. “I was going to organize chores for us, like who needs to take out the trash or do the laundry each day, but I didn’t know your class schedule yet, so I couldn’t finish. But what do you think so far?”

  She holds the paper up for me to read, her face begging for approval.

  “It…looks great,” I say.

  “Wow, a chore schedule,” Krista says, and I hope Zoey doesn’t pick up on her sarcasm. “You must be a real treat to live with.”

  I shoot Krista a dagger look and then turn to Zoey. “This will help. I don’t think I took the trash out once over the summer. I didn’t really think about it.”

  “Yeah, I noticed,” Zoey says, putting the paper back on her desk. “I took it out first thing. It was brimming over.”

  “Thanks,” I say, and I feel my face blush as Krista and Ivy make grossed-out faces at me. “Oh, did you do something to the mirror in my closet? I couldn’t come through earlier.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Zoey says, crossing the room and opening the closet. “I didn’t want just anyone coming through, so I put a lock on it.” She runs her fingers over the mirror, drawing a symbol I’m not familiar with. “There. You should be able to travel through it again. But you really shouldn’t have unlocked mirrors in your room. Anyone with a mental image of your room could just walk right in.”

  “Really?” I ask her, suddenly feeling vulnerable and hugging my arms around myself.

  “Yeah,” she says, as though I should have known. “You really are a bad witch.”

  “I wasn’t raised in a witch family,” I say. “My mom was a third-generation mundane.”

  “Ouch,” Zoey says. “That must have been tough.”

  I nod. “Well, I’m here now, and I’m getting better.” I can’t believe I’m having to defend myself against a little kid. “How old are you? Like twelve?”

  Zoey pushes her glasses up her nose again. “Thirteen!”

  “Nice!” I say, offering her a high five.

  She hesitates and then pats my hand instead of slapping it. I’m only like four years older than her. Can I really be that out of touch with what kids say and do? But when she touches my hand, I feel a wave of emotions come over me. I’ve been able to sense subtle emotions from people before, but this is so strong, it’s like I can literally see them swirling around her.

  Zoey is trying to act confident, like she is ready to be here and can do anything the other students can. But she’s also nervous and begging for attention and approval. There is sadness, too, that she is trying to bury. Her dad’s death is like a gaping wound she insists is just a scratch.

  I rub my hand and try to shake the emotions off of me. I have enough feelings of my own to deal with without trying to carry her burdens as well.

  “I know it’s late,” I say, “but why don’t we head down to the kitchen and see if we can find some leftover dessert. There has to be some ice cream or something in the freezer.”

  “We can do that?” Zoey asks, then bites her lower lip.

  “Sure,” I say, even though I have no idea. I typically just eat at mealtimes, if even then. I’ve been so busy with trying to catch up, it’s not uncommon for me to miss a meal and then starve until the next one.

  “Yay!” She bounds to the door and out into the hallway.

  “Shh!” I say, my finger to my lips. “It’s pretty late, so we need to be quiet.”

  “Okay,” she stage-whispers back to me. But she still takes the lead, practically skipping down the hall to the stairs.

  “Well, you are going to have your hands full this semester,” Ivy says as she walks next to me. She then puts her hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn.

  “Tell me about it. It’ll be fun, though, having a roommate who doesn’t hate me and isn’t a ghost.”

  “A semester without solving riddles and murders?” Krista says. “You’re going to get way too much studying done this year.”

  “I know, right?” I say. “Crazy. That’s probably why Ms. Brewster assigned Zoey to be my roommate. She had to find some way to distract me from my work.”

  “And keep you up late eating ice cream,” Ivy says. “But I need my beauty sleep. See you all tomorrow.”

  “I better turn in, too,” Krista says.

  “Later,” I tell them as they both leave for the stairway on their floor.

  Zoey and I continue down to the first floor. She seems to already have a pretty good handle on the layout of the house. She makes her way straight to the kitchen without having to look to me for directions.

  “Did Ms. Brewster give you a tour earlier?” I ask her.

  “No,” Zoey says. “But I can smell food and stuff coming from this direction.”

  I pause, then jog to catch up with her. “You’re an air witch?” I say to her. “I am, too!”

  “I know,” Zoey says as we enter the kitchen and she flips on the wall switch to light up the room. “I could tell as soon as you walked in.”

  I go over to the large industrial-sized refrigerator and pull out a pint of cookie dough ice cream. “You could?”

  “Mm-hmm,” she mumbles as she uses her air powers to open and close a few cabinets that are too high for her to reach as she looks for bowls.

  I go
through the drawers looking for spoons. When she brings me the bowls, I dip us out each a couple of small scoops of ice cream and then put the pint back in the freezer. We then sit on a couple of barstools at the counter and dig in.

  “So…” I start after a couple of minutes. “Are you, like, a witch prodigy or something? I can’t seem to do even a fraction of the things you can. I can’t sense other witches.”

  She shrugs and sucks on her spoon, and I wonder if I’ve made her even more self-conscious.

  “Sorry,” I say. “But you are just...so cool. So powerful! I wish I could tell when other witches are around.”

  “Really?” she asks, her face brightening. “Maybe I could help you.”

  “That would be great.” I smile as I take my last bite of ice cream, and I mean it. I mean, yeah, it might be a little embarrassing to be tutored by the thirteen-year-old, but I’ll take help where I can find it. And, who knows? Maybe Zoey and I were brought together for a reason.

  “Well, I see you two have met,” Ms. Brewster says as she enters the kitchen.

  Zoey and I both jump up from our seats.

  “Ms. Brewster!” I say. “I’m sorry. It was my idea—”

  She raises her hand to silence me and then smiles. “What better way for two new friends to bond than over a stolen late-night snack?”

  “Madison is really nice,” Zoey says. “Thanks for making her my roommate.”

  “Well, I wish I could say that I put you together for more reasons than Madison’s room had an extra bed,” Ms. Brewster says, “but I’m glad it worked out.”

  “Yeah!” Zoey says. “Good thing. Madison needs a lot of help.”

  My cheeks warm, and Ms. Brewster chuckles.

  “You should have seen her six months ago,” Ms. Brewster says. “She didn’t even know potions were real.”

  “What?” Zoey shrieks and then busts out laughing.

  “Heh,” I say. “Yeah. Dumb old me.”

  “But you have come such a long way,” Ms. Brewster says to placate me. “You should be proud, dear.”

  “I am,” I say. “It’s been a lot of hard work.”

  Ms. Brewster nods and then looks back at Zoey. “Ms. Rhee, why don’t you toddle back up to your room. It’s quite late.”

  “Okay,” Zoey says. “What about Madison?”

  “She will be up shortly.”

  “Okay. See ya’, Madison.”

  “Bye,” I say and prepare myself for a chastising from Ms. Brewster about sneaking into the kitchen so late.

  “May I take a seat?” she asks, motioning to Zoey’s vacant barstool.

  “Uh, yeah, of course,” I say, and we both sit.

  “I’m glad you and Zoey hit it off,” she says. “She’s had a difficult time of late.”

  “She told me her dad passed,” I say. “But she didn’t go into detail. I’m sure it’s painful for her.”

  “Indeed,” she says as she puts our plates and bowls together and then floats them across the room to the sink. I’ve never seen anyone else capable of using magic with such ease. “We don’t normally admit pupils so young, but I don’t see as how I had a choice. There’s nothing worse for a young witch than to be lost among the mortals.”

  “I’m sure her parents would be grateful for your help,” I say. “I don’t know where I’d be if you had turned me away.” I did have my mortal best friend, Julieta. Her parents would have taken me in with no problem. But after what happened with Beau, I just couldn’t stay in Turkey Hollow.

  “Be proud,” Ms. Brewster says. “You have exceeded my wildest expectations.”

  “You had wild expectations for me?” I ask, surprised.

  “Not at all,” Ms. Brewster says, “which is all the more reason why I’m so impressed.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “Wow, that was so mean.”

  “I can be humorous when the occasion calls for it,” she says, then clears her throat and sits straight-laced again. “I am glad how things have worked out for you. I believe you are quite a boon for us here at La Voisin. And for witch culture altogether. The way you were able to pull your friends together to create that potion last semester says a lot about your potential.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “I still can’t believe I was the only person to figure out the last ingredient.”

  “It was clever thinking,” Ms. Brewster says. “And how you found out who killed Giselle. That…” She lets out a deep sigh. “I can’t believe that one of our very own did something so dastardly.”

  She’s talking about how the former air witch mentor, Ms. Boucher, killed Giselle. After I told Ms. Brewster what happened, we agreed it was for the best to keep the fact that a teacher was the killer a secret from the rest of the students. It would just scare them.

  We also thought it best to keep the news that witches can kill by causing devastating accidents between ourselves as well. The last thing we need is a bunch of witches running around testing out this “cool” new power and getting each other killed.

  My friends Ivy, Krista, and Jaxon all know the truth, but I know I can trust them. Though, I never did find out how to help the statues like Giselle wanted me to. I don’t even know what help they need. What can a statue need from me?

  I rub my head. I had been excited for the fall semester to start. But now, all the stress and problems from last year seem to be rushing back to me.

  “Madison?” Ms. Brewster asks, placing her hand on mine.

  I hadn’t heard her calling my name, and I start as I feel warmth and concern flow from her hand into mine.

  I jerk away instinctually. “Sorry,” I say. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Of course,” she says, getting up from her barstool. “I just wanted to say that I’m glad you are here. It was wrong of me to doubt your abilities based on your lineage. We are all—in a way—family. And I’m sorry I didn’t welcome you with open arms the way I should have. I’ll try to do better in the future.”

  I feel my eyes start to water at the genuine kindness I feel from her. I’ve spent the last several months so angry at Mama. Well, I’m not always angry. I know addiction is a disease. But sometimes I just get so mad I want to punch something. Then I feel sad. And a lot of regret.

  “Th-th-thanks,” I manage to say. “That means a lot. I should get to bed.” I get up and head to the door, rubbing my hand.

  “Of course,” Ms. Brewster says. “You want to be well rested for the first day of fall classes tomorrow.”

  I nod and rush down the hall and up the stairs. I stop before I reach my floor, though. I don’t want to go into my room and have Zoey see me crying. I take a few calming breaths and count to ten before continuing to the next floor.

  As I reach for the doorknob, I hear whimpering from inside the room. I open it quietly and see Zoey sitting on her bed. Her back is to me, but I can see from her shaking shoulders that she’s crying.

  “Zoey?” I say softly. “Are you okay?”

  She looks at me, her face wet and her eyes rimmed red. “I miss my dad.”

  I go to her and take her in my arms. I know that nothing I say can help, so I just hold her until she falls asleep.

  If only soothing her would prove to be my biggest challenge this semester. But things were about to get so much worse.

  Chapter 3

  When I wake up, the sun is shining and the birds are singing, so I wrongfully assume it’s going to be a good day.

  As I stretch, I see Zoey is still sound asleep next to me. I slip out of the bed and check the time. Still over an hour until first class. Thankfully, we didn’t oversleep.

  I look out the window and see several people out on the lawn, talking, tossing a frisbee, just enjoying the perfect autumn day. There’s not a cloud in the sky. I crack open the window and take a deep breath.

  It’s going to be a great day and a great semester. I can feel it!

  The noises from outside fill our room, and Zoey groans and rolls over.

  “Wake up, sleepyhead
,” I say. “First day of school!”

  “Five more minutes,” she grumbles as she pulls a blanket over her face.

  I shake my head with a sigh. Oh well. At least I’ll be first in the bathroom.

  I take a quick shower and then use my air powers to perfectly blow-dry my hair. It’s one of the few skills I mastered even before I came to La Voisin. It served me well as a cheerleader back in my mundane life. Other girls were always envious of how my hair was always perfectly fluffy no matter how humid the weather.

  “Just good genes,” I would say, which was partly true. I did get my witchcraft skills from my great-grandmother, the last witch in our family until I came along.

  When I come out of the bathroom, Zoey is dressed and getting her bag put together. She blushes and then looks away. I have a feeling she’s embarrassed about last night. I figure it’s best not to make a big deal about it so she’ll feel comfortable coming to me in the future.

  “I don’t suppose we have any classes together,” I say as I get my own books and other supplies together.

  “I don’t know,” she says, handing me her schedule. “All first-year classes, so unless you’re still behind…”

  I take the schedule and look it over. Her first-year schedule is much lighter than mine was. But I was trying to take first and second-year classes at the same time to get caught up for year three. It was so tough, no one thought I could do it—even me, most days.

  “No,” I say. “I’ve had all these.”

  My gaze falls on a new teacher name I don’t recognize. Ms. Samantha Laurent. She must have replaced Ms. Boucher.

  I shudder a bit at the thought. I really adored Ms. Boucher. She seemed so nice, and she really encouraged me in my air powers and in my studies. I still can’t believe she was responsible for Giselle’s death. It just didn’t seem to be her character. She sure had me fooled. Is concealing one’s true personality or true intentions a power advanced witches have?

  “But we should see each other after classes to work on our air powers together,” I tell her, handing back the schedule. “Looks like Ms. Laurent will be the air witch mentor this year.”