Page 1 of Spelled By Truth and Tresses

CHAPTER 1

Darkness was coming. I could feel it, singed deep into my veins, as if something inside of me was calling to it.

I hooked my arms around my legs, pressing my forehead against my knees, then quaked back a sob. The wooden boards of the bed groaned as I shifted position, the moonlight outside of the window illuminating the room.

A twinge of magic coursed through me when I lifted my gaze to my onyx backpack sitting on my white dresser, the ornate carvings on the side panels cast in shadow. The sensation tingled under my skin, as if my return to Ghost Rose Academy—a college for the magically gifted—was bringing even darker powers to the surface.

I wasn’t unaccustomed to magic. Being a half-siren meant I could do things most couldn’t. But it was my hair that was special. According to my mother—who possessed no magical abilities—I should have grown my hair as long as possible; in her studies of sirens and the occult, she found the longer the hair of a siren, the more power they wielded. That was why she never let me cut it.

In fact, she didn’t allow me to do a lot of things. She was jealous that she didn’t have any magic to speak of and she hated that my powers were passed down from my dad.

I brought my hands up to my long, golden tresses, then tangled my fingers into the silky strands. As I clamped my eyes shut I tugged on my locks, as I wished, more than anything, that I was free.

Being one of the rare descendants of the original sirens ensured I would forever be under my mother’s thumb, locked away in this house for good. If it wasn’t for my father’s advocation, I wouldn’t have ever been allowed to leave. But I did. He pushed for me to attend the academy, stating that I needed to learn how to harness my powers.

Since his death six months ago, I was surprised my mother was allowing me to return and finish my final year. The academy was the only freedom I had from the leash of this locked room.

I cast my gaze to the window, looking toward the midnight sky looming through the crack in my gray drapes. Tomorrow, I would return to Ghost Rose Academy, but I did not know what I would do after that.

If I was to believe my mother, then my existence would be paved to remain hidden in the shadows of society. That I was to remain here with her, although my father wanted so much more for me.

I leaned back against the headboard, then closed my eyes, falling into the tumbling abyss of slumber.

Something was haunting me, lingering on the fringes of my dreams. As I fell deeper, they warped into nightmares.

I landed in an empty room, inside the crumbling tower that had haunted my nightmares for months. I knew it well. The abandoned fortress of stone and cobwebs was a part of the campus of the academy, but few ventured there.

Melted black candles sat in the middle of the large, circular room, and a burned, herbal smell hung in the air; accompanied by mildew.

Everything about the place was repellent, yet there was something so beautifully macabre about the decay of it all. The tower was broken, just like the souls that hovered inside.

Thick wooden doors embedded into the walls of the circular room, groaned as I paced around the symbols painted on their scarred surfaces. Skeletal leaves—dragged in through the shattered arched window—crunched under my black boots.

My voice echoed through the vast expanse, carrying up the long walls leading to additional rooms, only reachable by the decrepit spiral staircase. An eerie silence greeted my call.

A pale, dove gray filtered through the shards of glass, casting light onto blood splatters still visible from the slaughter that happened here years ago. I stared at the wall, my eyes glazing over the crimson that decorated the ancient stones, like a macabre, abstract painting.

The hairs on the back of my neck prick, an icy, frigid touch caressing my bare arms and throat. I shuddered, as a shiver snakes down my spine, and turned my head to see a figure on the stairs, cloaked in darkness.

I could not see the glimmer of his gaze, but he was visible in every recurring dream. It was always the same man, his face always masked in shadows.

I shuddered as an icy breeze slithered down my spine. Curiosity coiled in my guts, begging me to disobey. I paced forward, the desire to see the face that lurked in the shadows impossible to resist. As I neared him—before I could see his face—he slipped away, as always.

The frostbitten air that had come to Crimson Leaf with the arrival of fall, swirled through the window. An icy draft caressed my legs and arms, as I realized even in my dreams I was wearing my pajama shorts and strapped shirt.

I wrapped my arms around my body, then walked to the window. Just outside, dead leaves coated the area, hidden beneath frost resembling iced body bags, unmarked graves littered the grounds. Something terrible had happened there. I could feel it in my bones.

I peeled back my eyelids, revealing the soft morning light as it filtered through the curtains. My heart slammed against my ribs as I struggled to differentiate between the nightmare and reality. As I tried to move my body, my eyes remained fixed on the roof of my four-post-bed.

Paralysis rooted me under the covers, and as I parted my lips, the scream was nothing but a gust of forced air leaving my lips.

Not again. Not again.

Insomnia had plagued me since I was a child. But sleep paralysis was a new foe, one that had haunted me since my dad’s death. Shadows formed in my peripheral vision, getting closer as the hallucinations that came with the paralysis heightened my anxiety. My heart thumped faster, sweat beading on my forehead. I clamped my eyes shut, barely able to catch my breath, when I finally moved my index finger. Desperately, I sought the touch through my fingertips, attempting to scrape my nails against the soft bedding, slowly breaking the hold on me.

Thoughts of being stuck in this state forever weaved its way through my mind, and reminding myself that this was the anxiety talking didn’t help.

Please. Please move.

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