Page 2 of Spirit Witch

Present Day

I stoodin line behind the other witches and wizards at Westwood with no coven affiliation, waiting to get inside Assembly Hall G.A feeling of foreboding filled me as it had every time I attended these so-called testing sessions with Miss Stolbright.It was like something was trying to get my attention, but I just couldn’t figure it out.

The Council of Covens had approved her starting this group, so I supposed it was all right.

Why else would witches and wizards of such renown go for something like this?

Mabe thought it was an old-fashioned witch hunt, the kind they used to do in the human world whenever our kind got a little too loud for them.I couldn’t blame her.

Trust issues abounded in our clique.But until Headmistress Armstrong said otherwise, all undeclareds had to meet for whatever tests Stolbright came up with week after week in the large room.It was boring, embarrassing, and downright uncomfortable.

Stolbright was supposed to act in an advisory capacity, and I hated thinking ill of others, but the woman was demented or masochistic or some combo of the two.She seemed to actively hate all the students.Me included.I don’t know what I ever did to earn her hatred.After all, it was she who’d brought me to Westwood.

I didn’t really recall much about my life among the normals.Normals,ha, that was just another word for humans, though there was nothingnormalabout my life in that world.

At least, not from what I could remember.

I’d been orphaned at birth and had bounced around a couple of foster homes and orphanages.It was the same sad story as many supernaturals who didn’t know what they were before they inherited their gifts.

Only thing was, I couldn’t recall very many specifics about my life before Westwood.It was like I suddenly woke up one day and all my memories were buried under a thick cloud of what the fuck.Anyway, I came into my powers late, or so I’d been told.But instead of creating snow showers in summer or high tide at the wrong time, my gifts were a little bit different.

I was not an elemental witch, hence the whole Stolbright testing brigade.It was something I found daunting at Westwood, since the school prided itself on having such a vast group of elementals within its hallowed halls.My roommates were among some of the most powerful elemental witches the academy had ever seen.

Sadly, that just was not me.

My magic came on strong and fast, and it packed a bit of a punch.Like a huge punch.Explosive, even.Of course, I did not know what it was at the time.Just figured I was some sort of freak when I woke up in the hospital bed, feeling as if my heart had been ripped out of my chest and my body had been run over by a Mack truck.I didn’t know how I ended up there, but I remember who it was who explained things to me.

Leanna Stolbright.

The stern-faced, blonde-haired witch found people like me.That was her job.To sniff out folks who were living among normals with potentially dangerous magic.I later learned she was a sort of magical talent scout, always looking for new recruits to bring back to the academy.

Stolbright was not an elemental witch either, which might be why she hated them.The magical world was a secret, and it was her job to ensure witches and wizards who, like me, did not know what they were, caused as little harm as possible in the world.

Anyway, she was the one who came to get me.

I had just come to in that tiny emergency room cubicle when I first saw the serious, blonde woman.Apparently, the police had brought me in after I passed out in a grocery store.They’d been looking for me ever since I had accidentally blown up a shed belonging to my last foster family.Living off the grid was not easy for a teenager, but I’d somehow been doing it for a little bit by the time Stolbright caught up to me.

She’d magicked the police to let me go, and explained that I was not a normal human, but a witch.It was also the reason the doctors could find nothing wrong with me.It seemed I had used too much of my magical stores at once, causing a disturbance in the preternatural world and upsetting my equilibrium.

I didn’t want to believe her at first.

Who would?

But there was so much in my messed up life I couldn’t explain.The things I’d seen were enough to convince anyone they were crazy.

One of my foster families had sent me to a child psychologist who explained my fits and hysterics as night terrors.He would have been terrified too if he had fades jumping out at him at every turn.

Fucker.

Of course, it all got worse the minute I turned twenty.Stolbright explained that too.She said some witches came into their powers rather suddenly at the cusp of adulthood.She then offered to take me to Westwood so I could explore the witchy side of myself and stop my frequent fainting spells.

I remembered little about my life, but I did remember fainting.Like, a lot.

“There is nothing for you here, Enid Morrigan.But if you come with me to Westwood Academy, you can learn to control your magic before you use it all up.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Yes.Using all your magical stores would kill the magic inside you.It could render you dead.”

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