All around me were things I'd only read about in books. To my left, a blue-haired faerie with indigo wings was sobbing as she clung to her winged parents, whose feet hovered an inch or two above the ground. As I watched, crystalline tears fell not from the girl's eyes, but from her wings, leaving her toes dangling over a puddle of royal blue.
We walked into the shade of the huge old trees--meaning the heat diminished by maybe half a degree. Just as we neared the front steps, an unearthly howl echoed in the thick air.
Mom and I whirled around to see this . . . thing growling at two rather frustrated-looking adults. They didn't look scared; just vaguely annoyed.
A werewolf.
No matter how many times you read about werewolves, seeing one right in front of you is a whole new experience.
For one thing, it didn't really look much like a wolf. Or a person. It was more like a really big wild dog standing on hind legs. Its fur was short and light brown, and even from a distance I could see the yellow of its eyes.
It was also a lot smaller than I'd thought one would be. In fact, it wasn't nearly as tall as the man it was growling at.
"Stop it, Justin," the man spat. The woman, whose hair, I noticed, was the same light brown as the werewolf's, put a hand on his arm.
"Sweetie," she said in a soft voice with a hint of a Southern accent, "listen to your father. This is just silly."
For a second the werewolf, er, Justin, paused, his head cocked to the side, making him look less like a throatripping-out beastie and more like a cocker spaniel.
The thought made me giggle.
And suddenly those yellow eyes were on me.
It gave another howl, and before I even had time to think, it charged.
I heard the man and woman cry out a warning as I frantically racked my brain for some sort of throatrepairing spell, which I was clearly about to need. Of course the only words I actually managed to yell at the werewolf as he ran at me were, "BAD DOG!"
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of blue light on my left. Suddenly, the werewolf seemed to smack into an invisible wall just inches in front of me. Giving a pitiful bark, he slumped to the ground. His fur and skin began to ripple and flow until he was a normal boy in khakis and a blue blazer, whimpering pitifully. His parents got to him just as Mom ran to me, dragging my trunk behind her.
"Oh my God!" she breathed. "Sweetie, are you okay?"
"Fine," I said, brushing grass off my skilt.
"You know," someone said off to my left, "I usually find a blocking spell to be a lot more effective than yelling 'Bad dog,' but maybe that's just me."
I turned. Leaning against a tree, his collar unbuttoned and tie loose, was a smirking guy. His Hecate blazer was hanging limply in the crook of his elbow.
"You are a witch, aren't you?" he continued. He pushed himself off the tree and ran a hand through his black curly hair. As he walked closer, I noticed that he was slender almost to the point of skinny, and that he was several inches taller than me. "Maybe in the future," he said, "you could endeavor not to suck so badly at it."
And with that, he sauntered off.
Between nearly being attacked by Justin the Dogface Boy, and having some strange guy who was not that hot tell me I sucked at witchcraft, I was now thoroughly pissed.
I checked to see if Mom was watching, but she was asking Justin's parents something that sounded like, "Was he going to bite her?!"
"So I'm a bad witch, huh?" I said under my breath as I focused on the boy's retreating back.
I raised my hands and thought up the nastiest spell I possibly could--
one involving pus and bad breath and severe genital dysfunctions.
And nothing happened.
There was no sensation of water rushing up to my fingers, no quickening heartbeat, no hair standing on end.
I was just standing there like an idiot, pointing all of my fingers at him.
The heck? I'd never had trouble doing a spell before.
And then I heard a voice that sounded like a magnolia dragged through molasses say, "That's enough, my dear."
I turned toward the front porch, where an older woman in a navy suit stood between the scary ferns. She was smiling, but it was one of those creepy doll smiles. She pointed one long finger at me.
"We do not use our powers against other Prodigium here, no matter how provoked we may be," she said, her voice soft, smoky, musical. In fact, if the house could have talked, I'd have expected it to sound exactly like this woman.
"May I add, Archer," the woman continued, turning to the dark-haired boy, "that while this young lady is new to Hecate, you know better than to attack another student."
He snorted. "So I should have let him eat her?"
"Magic is not the solution for everything," she replied.
"Archer?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. Hey, you might be able to take away my magical powers, but the power of sarcasm was still at my disposal. "Is your last name Newport or Vanderbilt? Maybe followed by some numbers? Ooh!" I said, widening my eyes, "or maybe even Esquire!"
I'd hoped to hurt his feelings or, at the very least, make him angry, but he just kept smiling at me. "Actually, it's Archer Cross, and I'm the first one.
Now what about you?" He squinted. "Let's see . . . brown hair, freckles, whole girl-next-door vibe going on . . . Allie? Lacie? Definitely something cutesy ending in ie."
You know those times when your mouth moves but no sound actually comes out? Yeah, that's pretty much what happened. And then, of course, my mom took that opportunity to end her conversation with Justin's parents and call out, "Sophie! Wait up."
"I knew it." Archer laughed. "See you, Sophie," he called over his shoulder as he disappeared into the house.
I turned my attention back to the woman. She was around fifty, with dark blond hair that had been twisted, teased, and probably threatened into a complicated updo. From her practically regal bearing and her suit in Hecate
Hall's signature royal blue, I assumed she was the school's headmistress, Mrs. Anastasia Casnoff. I didn't have to look at the brochure to remember that. A name like AnastasiaCasnoff tends to stick with you.
The blond woman was in fact the awesomely named leader of Hecate
Hall. My mom shook her hand. "Grace Mercer. And this is Sophia."
" Soh-fee-yuh," Mrs. Casnoff said in her Southern lilt, turning my relatively simple name into something that sounded like an exotic appetizer at a Chinese restaurant.
"I go by Sophie," I said quickly, hoping to avoid being known forever as Sohfeeyuh.
"Now, y'all are not originally from this area, am I correct?" Mrs.
Casnoff continued as we walked toward the school.