Witch Hunt
Disclaimer: I own nothing but Dan and Summer
AN: This is my first fic. Not entirely sure where it's going yet, so I'm up for suggestions.
Chapter One
"Remind me again why we transferred to this place?" I whispered to Dan.
The rest of the class carried on their snobby conversations around us. It was crazy. We'd been there for months, a whole semester, and still no one talked to us voluntarily. I swear we don't look like freaks or anything, but it was as if Dan and I were invisible. We just didn't register on the Spenser radar.
"Because there are others. Dad told us that there's a group of them in Ipswich, about our age, and it stands to reason that power leads to wealth, leads to snobby brat school." Dan whispered back.
"It's freakin' ridiculous. Who says they aren't at some other waste of money academy?"
"No one says. But we have to start looking somewhere. And anyway, you helped convince the lawyers to send us here, don't lay this on me."
Yeah, that's right, lawyers. No parents any more. They died during the summer, mountaineering in Peru. Needless to say, our summer vacation sucked. I was actually kind of looking forward to starting school. New place, new faces. There's only so many pitying faces you can take, and there certainly aren't any here. No one knows, because no one seems to care. When I moved in, my roommate asked me where I was from (New York City), why I'd transferred to Spenser (cue some lie about ivy league) and whether I was dating Dan (NO! He's my brother). She looked Dan over as he stood in the doorway waiting for me – same brown hair as me, though his was a lot shorter, same grey eyes, but obviously he wasn't hot enough, or wearing the right shoes or something, because she didn't even say hi when she brushed past him. Since then all she'd done was tell me to keep my half of the room tidy.
The teacher coughed loudly from the front of the class and the hum of conversation died.
"Good morning class. I trust you all had a refreshing Christmas break. I also trust that you all managed to read the first 3 chapters of The Shining?"
At any normal school, this would have been met by groans or sniggers, but not Spenser. Freaks. They're either brainy scholarship students who work their butts off, or their parents make generous 'donations' to the academy to ensure that their lazy asses don't get kicked out.
Tuning out (which wasn't hard) I stared at the faces around me, wondering if any of them were other witches.
Oh, yeah, sorry. Witches. That's what we were looking for. That's what Dan and I are. It's a hereditary thing. Dad was, so we are. The oldest in the family, male or female, always cops it. They're usually pretty lonely, but due to some mystical cockup Dan and I both scored the Power. We are twins, so it's kind of understandable I guess. We started getting our powers when we were fifteen, so Dad sat us down and told us what he knew. Which wasn't much. He said there were other families of witches, though the handing down of power happened differently for different lines. It was always the oldest, but sometimes only girls, or only boys, could receive the Power. Sometimes they didn't get any power until their parent died, sometimes it happened on a birthday, sometimes during a traumatic event. Dad said that there were individual families like ours, but that he also knew of groups – one in Ipswich, another somewhere in England and another in Japan. Unfortunately, he wasn't more specific, and at the time we didn't ask.
Seeing as the latter two were a bit too distant, Dan and I had decided over summer to find our Ipswich brethren. We wanted to know more, and thought it would be cool to join a group. Or a coven, or whatever a bunch of witches is called. Hence the nightmare of Spenser, when we could have gotten into college just fine from our school in New York. Luckily, the lawyers were pretty blasé about the whole thing, and Dad had left enough money. We turned 18 a week after Mom and Dad died (Happy Birthday!), so we didn't have to contend with legal guardians, thank god.
But yes, we were looking for other witches. There didn't seem to be too many candidates in the class. Quite honestly, there didn't seem to be too many candidates in the whole school. We'd quietly checked out all the goth looking kids (not that there were many), but being the real world, it was entirely probable that a witch wouldn't dress in black, own a cat and ride a broomstick to school. We certainly didn't.
The face I was staring came suddenly into focus as the blonde boy across the room raised an eyebrow at me. Caught staring. How embarrassing. Still, looking away would only make it worse, so I raised an eyebrow in return. Reid Garwin. Arrogant ass. He tapped his fingers on his bottom lip and wiggled his eyebrows a bit more. I was about to turn my stare into a glare when the teacher interrupted.
"Summer Jones!" Shit. I turned quickly to look at him.
"Yes sir?"
"I was merely musing as to whether you were paying any attention at all, and wondering whether you would care to comment on the paragraph of description on the top of page 5?"
The witch hunting would have to wait.