Student Bodies (16 page)

I watched closely as the old woman stepped over the white sand circle. She hobbled up to my mother and then she poked the end of her cane in Mom's chest.

And amazingly, Mom didn't even flinch.

“I should never have let you go all those years ago,” the Maven said bitterly. “I should never have let you begin a romantic involvement with Stephen Richardson. You were always wilful and you fought me tooth and nail on every decision that I made. Now you come to me at this late hour to warn of a cataclysm and you expect me to simply drop everything and muster this sacred coven.”

Mom maintained a calm demeanour and looked down at the end of the Maven's cane. She exhaled slowly and then gazed into the old woman's eyes. “I expect the witches of this coven to be prepared for whatever Adriel throws at them. I take no joy at coming here tonight; you and I have our differences and I'm ready to set mine aside for the greater good. We have to make preparations.”

So
that's
where I got my rebellious streak from. Gauging from the anger in the Maven's voice, she once had to deal with the same kinds of frustrations that my mother has when dealing with me. And for a brief moment, it was like looking into my future. Mom was rebellious enough to leave the coven. She'd chosen love over duty – an impossible choice at the best of times. She'd severed her relationship with her teacher, the one person who'd connected with my mother on a spiritual level. Their relationship had been destroyed as a result and I shuddered as I considered whether I was looking at an image of my relationship with Mom one day.

Maybe I was rebellious and wilful. But don't all teenagers go through the same thing? It's not like I disagreed with Mom on every decision that she made, but she'd been pushing me to end my relationship with Marcus. She worried about how my life would change should something terrible happen to him. Maybe she was right, but what about my happiness? Didn't I have a right to be happy? Could I find happiness now that I'd taken my father's place?

The questions kept on coming and I gave my head a shake because at the heart of the matter was this: lives were at stake. My happiness would have to take a back seat whether I liked it or not.

The Maven retreated to her sandstone dais. She placed both hands on her cane and her eyes panned over the three of us. Betty relaxed again and lowered her hackles and I studied the old woman's face for a clue about what her decision would be.

And it was a decision that I didn't see coming.

“Shadowcull, step forward,” she said in voice full of resolve. I took one step ahead and Mom placed her hand on my shoulder to stop me.

“This is a seminal moment in your life, Julie,” she whispered. “Walk up to the dais and kneel before the Blessed Maven, because what's about to happen is a sacred act.”

I turned my head toward Mom and I could see a flash of pride on her face. Her eyes began to well up with tears, glinting in the light of the chamber. She squeezed my shoulder firmly and said, “Go now.”

My stomach fluttered nervously as I approached the old woman. Her spirit flared up with magical energy and my body suddenly became bathed in unnatural light as I dropped to one knee and looked up at the Maven.

The deep furrow of wrinkles around her eyes stretched down her hollow cheeks and around her thin lips. Amid those wrinkles was a pair of eyes that burned with an intensity that belied the frail, feeble look of the old woman. She stretched out her arm and placed a withered, twisted hand that was covered with liver spots on my head. She whispered in the ancient tongue of our kind and then her magic flowed through me as her hand gently brushed the side of my face until it stopped underneath my chin.

“Look upon me, Shadowcull,” the Maven as she gently lifted my chin. “If Adriel has indeed returned and if this conspiracy is true, then she will need a massive quantity of malicious energy to fuel her dark spell. I command you to seek out the source of malice that fuels the black mage. You must remember to be wary of the enemy's presence for she will guard her wellspring of power at all costs.”

The Maven's hand dropped limply to her side. She exhaled slowly as the unnatural light emanating from her body diminished until it was gone; so I stood up and gazed down at my Shadowcull's band. I'd been tasked with bringing the source of malice to the Maven. I spun around on my heels to see my mother avoiding my gaze and the look on her face told me everything I needed to know – at some point in the next twenty-four hours, I was fairly certain that I'd be in the throes of a duel with a powerful black mage. And if my father was unable to defeat Adriel, then I would have to find a way.

Even if it killed me.

 

CHAPTER 17

 

We raced home as quickly as my mother's car would carry us. It was nearly 11 o'clock and in the last few hours I'd discovered a plot to kill a bunch of students from my high school and probably every single white witch in the city. I'd learned that my mother had been apprentice to the Maven of the Wheatland Coven and there was bad blood between them over Mom's decision to leave – all in the name of loving my father. And I was to do battle with a black mage who was hundreds of years old, a mage that my father had been unable to defeat.

Things were spinning out of control and I chuckled to myself as Mom pulled her car into the driveway. Outside the snow was falling slowly, the night sky filled with fat, puffy snowflakes that landed gently on the sidewalk leading up to the front door of my house.

Mom shut the engine off and reached into her purse. She pulled out a box that was wrapped in white paper along with a thin ribbon tied into a bow. “Here,” she said, handing it to me. “I'd meant to give you this earlier, but it's been kind of insane since we had our little blow-up.”

I arched my eyebrows and took the small box, giving it a tiny shake beside my ear. “What is it?” I asked, completely surprised by her gesture.

“Open it up,” she replied.

And so I did. I tore off the ribbon and ripped open the wrapping paper. It was a white box and inside was a new smartphone.

“Oh my God, thanks Mom,” I said as I ripped open the end of the cardboard box and pulled out the Styrofoam packaging. “It would have taken me forever to save up enough to get a new one… I'm sorry about what happened.”

She nodded and said, “I'm sorry too. Luckily, my spell didn't destroy the sim card. Once you turn it on, I'm sure you'll have messages from Marcus waiting for you.”

I pressed the tiny button and the shining white phone came to life. The screen lit up, bathing the interior of the car in white light and within seconds the screen was filled with familiar apps.

Mom was right – there were messages waiting for me from Marcus. And also from Twyla Standingready.

Betty poked her head in between the front seats. “A lovely device – are we going to spend the rest of the evening inside this car? Because I need to go.”

“Sorry, Betty,” Mom muttered as she opened the door and stepped out into the cold. I climbed out the passenger side and opened the back door for Betty. The giant dog jumped out and tore around the side of the house leaving a cloud of kicked-up snow in her wake. Mom lowered the sentinel spells protecting the house with a wave of her hand. I resisted the urge to reply to the messages from Marcus and Twyla out of respect for my mother's gesture as I followed her up the steps and back into the house. After our encounter with the Maven, I was finally starting to understand why Mom had been such a harsh teacher all my life and why she and I butted heads more times than I care to remember. I was my mother's daughter and she had a lifetime of regret over choices that she'd made and people that were hurt in the process.

Maybe I needed to grow up a bit and cut her some slack.

I hung up my coat as Mom locked the door. I could hear Betty scratching at the back door so I padded into the kitchen and let her in. The Great Dane tromped into the kitchen and promptly gave its massive body a series of shakes sending flecks of snow flying off in all directions. Mom took a seat at the kitchen table and slumped over, resting her head on her forearms. She let out a loud sigh and said, “I'm tired, Julie. I'm also embarrassed because you've learned that even your mother has a past.”

I sat down next to her and draped an arm over her shoulder as Betty padded over and nestled her large head against my ribs.

“I will protect your daughter when the time comes,” Betty rumbled. “My powers are diminished because it is winter, but I can still pack a punch if need be. In the meantime, Julie needs to prepare for action and you must ready things for what is coming.”

Mom rested her chin on her forearms and stared blankly at nothing in particular. “It looks like we'll all be fighting for our lives come tomorrow night.”

I gave my mother an uneasy look. “I've been charged with finding the source of malice and all I'm running on a hunch, Mom. Do you remember when we were at McDonald's and you asked me about that boy, about Willard Schubert?”

“Yes, what about him?”

“I think he might be this wellspring of malice the Blessed Maven was talking about. There's been an orchestrated campaign of harassment against this kid – at school, on Facebook, basically everywhere. You know that stuff we showed you? And it was planned by Travis Butler and Mike Olsen. Now Travis is dead and Mike's mind is wrecked – the common denominator is Willard Schubert – you even told me that loneliness is crippling. That it can lead to envy and then to hatred, a perfect breeding ground for malice under the right circumstances. Willard is the missing piece of the puzzle and I need to find him and bring him to the Blessed Maven. Just… please tell me that no harm will come to him. I don't trust that old cow, not even for a second.”

Mom spun around and shot me an angry glare. “You take that back, Julie Richardson. The Maven is a cranky, miserable old woman, but you'll not find a witch with a kinder heart. I know it's hard to believe, but the Maven will lay down her life to save you – to save anyone. She will protect Willard. If he is the fuel for Adriel's magic, then I suspect she's going to try to put him to sleep until all of this blows over. It will have to be one hell of a sleeping potion and we'd better hope that kid doesn't know magic because all those clouds of energy we saw hovering over the C-Train station and the McDonald's? That's his malice taken physical form. It's all very clear now.”

I blinked. “So, how do I get a distrustful teenage boy who has faced bullying on an epic scale to trust me?”

Mom shook her head. “I don't know, sweetheart, but you've got to find him fast.”

“What are you going to do, Mom?”

Her eyes moved over to look at the basement door. She let out another weary sigh and said, “I'm going to prepare a bunch of magic potions. I'm going to find my old Pentacle and speak a bunch of protective spells into the stitching. Come tomorrow night, I'll need as much protection as I can muster. And I'm going to stitch new spells into your Shadowcull's cloak. At some point I'll manage to catch a few winks of sleep.”

“You're leaving me to find Willard on my own…? Um, wow.”

She nodded. “It's your task, Julie. As much as I want to go with you, the Blessed Maven charged you with finding Willard. Drink the potion. Stick to the shadows and if you get in too deep, wait for backup. Got it?”

“I got it,” I said, literally beaming from the inside out. For the first time in my life, Mom was stepping back. She was giving me her blessing to act on my own and my heart soared, despite the fear that was churning away in the pit of my stomach.

“And Julie?” said Mom as she took my hand. Her lips arched into a warm smile and I noticed her eyes beginning to well up with tears.

“Yeah?”

“Answer your text messages from Marcus. He'll be worried about you.”

 

Betty followed me up to my bedroom. I threw on a clean T-shirt and my Iron Maiden sweatshirt and then hopped onto my bed, my new phone in hand. My head was still spinning after meeting with the Maven and a sense of dread washed over me when I considered the dangers we all faced in the hours ahead. I'd overcome my fears in my duel with the Witchfinder General, but that was because I had skin in the game. Mom's soul was on the line and I was willing to lay down my life to save her. But all of it had been a little bit unreal at the time. I was also dealing with a spiritual entity and not a black mage.

And I'd let Marcus tag along for the ride. I'd watched him bear the full brunt of a death curse and the consequences of his involvement in my magical life never really registered until now. Christ, Marcus had sat in front of me inside the triage tent after we gave our statements to the police about Travis Butler's death. He'd been visibly shaken, and because I just happen to attract bad juju like flies to honey, Marcus was always going to be at risk. He would always face the prospect of a violent death at the hands of rogue mages like Adriel or any other number of supernatural cataclysms, no matter what he said.

But I was a Shadowcull now. As much as I adored Marcus with all my heart, he wasn't a witch. Anyone with even a fragment of magical skill could squash him like a bug better than any asshole bully at Crescent Ridge High School. It was time for Marcus and I to have a heart-to-heart talk and it was everything I could do to stop myself from busting out bawling as I gripped my phone in my right hand. My heart didn't want to end things, but my head was screaming at me to set Marcus free. I was a witch. I had responsibilities. I had people to protect and Marcus was number one on that list. The only problem was that my heart wasn't ready to let him go.

I pressed the text app and read through Marcus's messages.

HawkingFan: You there? Just wanted to check in.

Thirty minutes later another message:

HawkingFan: OK it's like 10pm. Whatever is going down I hope that you're safe.