Page 5 of Spelling Disaster

The book spine burns my fingers and yet I’m physically unable to put it down. The silver letters along the front glisten in the low light and the air around me quickens and moves like breath from a body. An invisible wind blows and I feel the force of it in my bones, hear it howling in my ears.

There’s no looking away.

This is something special. What’s it doing here?

I’ve never seen it before, and I’m willing to bet it’s not on any inventory list, either. I also know better than to touch things like this. Know better than to let myself be swayed by any kind of unnatural magic and this is nothing if not unnatural. Books don’t show up out of nowhere and drop out of thin air. I know better.

Mom made sure I did.

I should drop the thing where I stand but—

I’m curious about it and how the thing found itself on the stacks. Too curious, even. Pushing past theoogiesensations rolling off the book in waves, giving into the need inside of me, I press it to my chest and sneak around to a corner of the library where I won’t be disturbed to scrutinize it. To take a closer look. Especially when I stop and hold the book in front of me only to have it open up to a page at random, on its own.

The shock is nearly enough to have me drop it.

What the hell is this thing?

I glance left and right and once I’m sure I’m alone, I flip back to the page.

My heart freezes in my chest.

It’s about the ceremony, the one taking place today. For me. For my birthday celebration. Here are the answers I’ve been wanting that Mom has been so wholly unwilling to give me beyond advice to be grateful.

To say silent thanks because magic like mine does not come along often.

I shift my finger along the page and read the words silently to myself. Odder still that they’re in plain English and easily legible.

At the age of twenty-one, the witch will lose her childhood magic and ascend into the caste of Clerics.

This is the pinnacle of the learned for the coven.

Only those with the power can ascend to the caste of Clerics and only the chosen one may amplify said power with the help of the coven. The loss of childhood magic is a test of dedication and, should the witch be willing, be replaced by magic infinitely greater.

Changed.

The shadows press in closer around me and my heart thuds out a vicious beat. Having to lose my childhood magic isn’t anything new to me. It’s the one thing about today Mom has told me about, in preparation.

But what is this about the caste of Clerics?

Mom has only ever said good things about the Clerics before, about how I should be proud to be the one chosen to ascend. It’s why she’s been training me with such dedication. Hours and hours of spellcasting and bookwork. Hours more in which she claimed she had to put me through my paces for my own good.

Everything I’ve learned about witchcraft until this point has come from the path my mother set me on. For all I know, the Clerics are the keepers of the words and nothing more.

Yet this book, wherever it came from, hints at something else.

Something darker and inescapable. My fingers stick to the page and I’m unable to pull them away even when I want to stop. This, I think to myself. This book somehow has all the answers I’ve been looking for.

I skim the page.

The caste of Clerics is sacred, and such the duty of the one chosen to ascend. Power unmeasured. On the day of birth at twenty-one years, the witch—

I purse my lips in disappointment. The text gives me no further details to go on and yet I can’t stop reading and no matter what I say to myself, I can’t look away.

All along, a part of me suspected there was more going on with my birthday today, but nothing Mom has told me led me to believe the Clerics would be involved.

Or that joining them would be anything but a good thing.

What does it really mean to be a part of their group? Is today more than just an initiation? Is giving up my magic the equivalent of a hazing ritual to join their special club?

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