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The sun dips toward the west, and my fingers and toes start to chill. I make my way to the dining hall. Bree is right about one thing, the food at Riptivik is delicious. It’s Tuesday, and if I were at home, it would mean taco night with Chelsea.
I imagine that I fill my plate with two bean and cheese tacos plus gobs of guacamole, salsa, and lime infused tortilla chips instead of the slop that looks like cooked cottage cheese.
Audra and Winnie are already at our table with Dewey, who also has a piece of pie.
“Flavor of the month: banana cream,” he says when he sees me eyeing it.
I already had a slice, thanks to Yassi.
As the others join us, we talk about everything except the Sweetheart Dance. I suppose the fright caused by the violence that broke out and learning Honey was taken by the demon snatchers, followed by the assembly keeps everyone mum.
It leaves me feeling uneasy and once more, helpless. I try to interject a few times, but the conversation repeatedly shifts away from the dance disaster.
Audra asks us if we think she should cut her hair (it’s long and dark with caramel-colored ends). “It’s a unanimous no,” Yassi says without waiting for the rest of us to answer.
Winnie (along with the rest of the school) complains about Derrington. “I vote we stage a protest. Two hundred pages of reading in one night is ridiculous.”
“It’s a unanimous yes,” Yassi says, again not waiting for anyone else to answer.
Sadie goes on and on about Peter (she’s in love with a vampire).
“I vote you two make it official,” I tell her.
Speaking of official, I scan the dining hall for JJ, but since the fateful night last month, he’s been on that mysterious errand. I haven’t been able to talk to him about the kiss and obviously, we haven’t kissed again. I’ve never kissed a boy caught between two curses, and I’ve never kissed anyone like I did with JJ. Something between a frustrated and contented sigh escapes.
This catches Yassi’s attention and she lifts one crescent eyebrow. I steal the last bite of Dewey’s pie.
Back at the dorm, I dig into homework, which has only gotten worse, despite the tumult on campus. When I’m well into a complicated, multistep arithmetic problem, someone wraps lightly on my door.
I jolt, wondering if it’s JJ to resume our mind-walls and windows lessons for seminal seminar.
Yassi doesn’t wait for me to answer and struggles to let herself in with an armful of books.
“Explain why Elchinot’s algorithm is mandatory learning?” I ask, shaking my textbook with frustration.
Yassi makes room on the end of my bed and says, “If you ever need to measure the radius of sun spheres relative to topographical landmarks during a lunar eclipse, well, only if it’s the third one of the year, during years ending in odd numbers of course, then it’ll come in handy.”
“Seriously?” I ask.
“No, I just made that up.”
I toss a balled-up piece of paper at her. “What’s up? Don’t you have a boyfriend to study with tonight?” I say, referring to her and Wyatt’s flourishing romance.
“I wanted to study with my best friend for a change.”
“Oh. Cool,” I say with a shrug, returning to my problem. I have to erase half the page because I made an operations error. I grumble.
A few minutes later Yassi says, “Maija, has something been on your mind lately?”
“Have the Whispering Willows been blabbing?” I ask. “Or have you been poking around in my head?” That’s the only problem with being friends with Yassi; she has the habit of overseeing my thoughts.
She snorts. “No and no. I just had the sense that something’s up, well, since the Sweetheart Dance.”
In her defense, it was only a week ago, so she hasn’t been a neglectful friend and it’s true that I have been preoccupied with...things. “Yeah. I guess I’ve been preoccupied with everything about that night.”
“There was a lot of, um, energy. It was the night of a blood moon.”
“The energy was—” I shake my head because I have no words to describe the anger and fear as students were attacked never mind the face-off with Storch. “I wouldn’t have been able to do a thing if it weren’t for our time spent practicing magic in secret.”
“It was that and your quick thinking, courage, and compassion. You were a hero and I hate to say it, JJ too.”
They don’t exactly get along. That said, he doesn’t really get along with anyone. Including me most of the time. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, JJ Thorne is moody, mysterious, and maddening.
“But everyone’s acting like none of it happened.”
“Maija, everyone is scared. A demon-wraith took honey. She’s probably one now. We were all trapped in the tent and then attacked by our fellow students. Then people in cloaks appeared.”
“They’re the Marauders. Dewey was right about there being a campus secret society. And I was wrong about Bobby.” I tell her all about how he revealed his identity.
Her mouth hangs open and then she claps her hand over it. “That’s intense, but it makes sense. I thought he was a mage, but he must be a fallen angel.”
I nod.
She takes a deep breath and her lips soften into a smile. “At least JJ isn’t the bad guy. You guys make a good team. I saw you there, standing back to back, casting spells.”
That’s the thing, he’s a curse maker. He’s definitely a bad guy—if he used his magic in that way.
“You guys left the dance for a little while didn’t you?”
“Supernatural mind-reading abilities or not, I can’t hide anything from you, can I?”
“Oh, girl, you better tell me everything,” she says, leaning in and eager for more.
I tell her about going to the chapel, chatting, and then our kiss before everything went wrong. I leave out the part about him sharing a memory about Bobby’s dad and the private things he told me.
She leaps from my bed. “I knew it. I knew it all along.”
“Knew what?”
“That you and JJ were meant to be.”
“The truth is I don’t know how I feel about it. Any of it, really. In fact, I feel confused and helpless.”
“No, you are powerful. I think that’s why it might seem like people are keeping their distance. You were on fire.”
“I was just—” Wandless, I make a lazy flourish with my hand in the air.
The lightbulb in my desk lamp pops and explodes.
“Oops.”
Yassi’s mouth had dropped before. Now her eyes widen. “Did you just perform wandless magic?”
“No, I think it’s a bad circuit. You know, these old buildings.” I laugh it off.
“Maija, before when I said you were on fire, I meant it literally, your magic is fiery. I daresay more powerful than most students at Riptivik. It probably has something to do with your talent...and the fact that you can do magic without a wand.”
I don’t want to make a big deal of it.
“I know you don’t want to make a deal of it,” she says, repeating my thoughts back to me almost verbatim.
“I really need to get better about using mind-walls,” I mutter.
“Yes, you do and honing your spellcasting skills. Maija, this is huge.” She grips my hands and then jolts back.
“Did I do something? Did I hurt you? See? That’s what I meant. I feel helpless.”
“No, you didn’t hurt me. I just realized that you are no ordinary witch.” Her vision goes cloudy for a moment, as if she’s seeing a thought or memory.
“Yeah, about that. I was talking to Bree, and she mentioned the word brixta.”
Yassi’s head snaps in my direction and her eyes come into focus. “Do you believe you’re a brixta?” she asks in awe.
“I don’t know what a brixta is,” I say, tossing my hands up in the air.
“It’s an ancient Gibberish word for witch. Well, a certain classification. A revolutionary would be the most direct translation. A changemaker. The word itself has power. It’s the kind of magic that comes from within, but also that can be summoned. Like from the stars. That’s where astral magic originates anyway.”
I shiver. I pull an old Riptivik sweatshirt I spotted in the lost and found over my head. Okay, it was in the boys’ dorm when I went to see if JJ was there. I thought maybe it was his, not that he’d ever wear anything as common as a sweatshirt, but I bet he’d look cute in it.
Yassi bursts into laughter.
I narrow my eyes. “Yassi, out of my head.”
“Sorry, sorry,” she says, pulling herself together.
“Anyway, I was chilly. I think the heat is broken again.”
“No, they just fixed it,” she says, looking me over carefully and perhaps seeing my ambivalence—about magic, not my choice of clothing or the heat. “Maija, your talent is rare. You need to learn to understand and access it...and believe in it.”
“How?” I ask, still uncertain.
“My mother taught us the ABCs. First, align, then believe, and then connect. So align with your magic. Get quiet. Feel what it’s like. Know, without a doubt, that it’s there for you, and then connect with it. Like you would a friend—like us talking right now.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It’s only as difficult as you make it.”
“As difficult as these arithmetic equations,” I mutter, sighing and smoothing a new page in my notebook.
Yassi laughs. “It’s about empowerment,” she says, turning the page in her book and bringing pen to paper.
My gaze floats over my textbook, not quite focusing as my thoughts drift. Then I get an idea. A dangerous, rebellious, and revolutionary idea.
