Page 33 of Practically Witches

Well, now staring at a wall makes sense. Although, it occurs to me that I don’t know him very well. I don’t know why he all of a sudden likes me, why he’s brought me here, why there’s a wall in his house that slides open to reveal a stone staircase that seems to descend into darkness. He walks in, turns, and looks at me again. “You coming?”

I look around him to see if I can see anything below. “It’s dark.”

“They’re motion lights. As we walk down, they’ll come on.” I look again and he smiles. “I would never hurt you, RJ.”

“I know that.” I wave my hand and chuckle, snort too. “Of course.” I follow behind him, holding onto his shirt as I tiptoe down the stairs. “You’re not a serial killer or a syphoner, are you?”

Not that I expect him to tell the truth if he is, but I wait anyway.

“No.” He stops after we’ve made a slight curve and turns on the step to look at me. Right now, we’re about the same height. I can see every fleck of gold in his brown eyes, and can smell the woodsiness of his cologne. It’s all very heady.

His gaze lowers and he looks at my mouth. I know he’s going to kiss me. I want that kiss more than I want anything in my life. I lean in, and he looks at me. “I’m sorry, RJ. I didn’t bring you here for this…”

I nod. Of course he didn’t. I’m not his type. Although I’m going to need him to stop sending me messages that make me think he mightwantto kiss me.“No worries.”

I walk past him because I can’t keep standing on the step feeling like an idiot, gazing at him with all that want and need and desire unrequited. It’s more humiliating than I can almost stand and if I wasn’t here to try to figure out how to help Aimee, I would probably leave.

When I get to the bottom of the steps he’s close and he reaches around me to flick on a light. The upstairs was impressive, decorated professionally and with a spare-no-expense kind of budget. But the basement is populated with game consoles, a jukebox, three big-screen TVs hungside by side by side and some theater seating in front of them, some stand-up arcade games, a pool table, and a foosball table.

“Damn, I forgot to bring money for tokens.” I look over my shoulder at him and he smiles as I walk around the room, exploring, touching the cool, smooth wood of the pool table, pressing buttons on the arcade games, flipping the little men around on the foosball table.

He smiles. “No tokens necessary. Maybe we can come back and play after this mess is all straightened out.”

I don’t want to get my hopes up. But my hopes have other ideas.

He holds out his hand and I slide my palm over his. He laces our fingers together as he leads me to another door. It has a push button device on it and he inputs some numbers into the keypad and the door makes a whooshing sound as it opens.

“It’s like a vacuum seal.” He smiles and we walk inside together. It’s another giant area, but it’s painted stark white and there are about twenty or twenty-five bookcases along the wall, each covered with glass and lit by a pendant light that hangs over the top.

Each case has a series of books sitting next to one another. On the shelf that he opens, one is leather and two are canvas. He pulls out another shelf from near the middle of the case and picks up a leather-bound book, flips it open and nods, then hands it to me.

It’s heavy. Smells old. Pages crackle when I turn them. “Wow.” He waves me to a table that is old and ornate and probably the table where some English king planned his wars in medieval times or celebrated his victories in his great hall after. The table has a couple of more modern chairs on each side.

When he pulls out a chair and smiles, I sit and he leans over my shoulder with one hand on the table the other on the back of my chair. “This book is a history of the Institute.”

On the first page, there is a hand-drawn picture of the Institute’s two center buildings.

The second page is written in Latin and I flip past it because I don’t have a good enough command of the language that I can translate without staring at the words for a while. I don’t want to embarrass myself.

Each page is a mixture of English and Latin and I read through some of the English parts.The Institute for the Arts and Sciences of Magic was established in the year 1824.I probably learned that in some class somewhere.It was necessary at the time to provide education and history to those with power and ability.

It goes on for pages and pages and pages about the history of the Institute. And then in 1964 the Institute burned entirely to the ground. “In 1979, after the fire destroyed the original Institute and depleted the stored magic inside, the Institute was rebuilt. At this time, there was a dedication brick built into the foundation of the last building built which is the middle building on the left side.” He reads the words over my shoulder.

“Left side as we look at it?” I look at Zane because this is important. I don’t know why, but that dedication is important.

“I don’t know.” He shrugs.“But maybe if we find out and we findit, we’ll be able to figure out if it’s involved and why.” I like that we’re on the same page about it. “I know where to find a picture of the nine first families.”

“How can they be the first families if they’reour parents?”

“They’re the first families at this version of the Institute.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know all the details, but what I know is that when the Institute burned, the magic from the original first families infused in the buildings that protected the witches inside burned up with it.”

“So, this version of the Institute is protected with the magic of our families?”

He nods. “I think so.” He flips through the book, holding his spot with the fingers of his left hand while his right turns a few more pages “Bradbury, Steros, Hadley, Deville, Strain, Dupree, Tempest, Murick, and Foster are the first families. There’s a picture at the Institute.” He’s not reading. It’s apparently common knowledge.

I stare at the book as he continues reading right up until he closes the book and looks at me. “You can borrow the book if you want.”

“Oh, no.” I donotwant to be responsible for this thing. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” But maybe he has information on some other shelf in here, since the size of this place rivals that of the Institute’s library. “Do you have any books here on syphoners?”

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