It was hard to go to class with so much on my mind but I went anyways. This was my last week before I had to leave forever and I didn't want it to end on a sour note. Unfortunately that looked like something that wasn't in my power to avoid. I'd started a whole round of rumors by pulling Harvey out of the men's locker room and showing up to class in gym clothes and no sneakers hadn't done me any favors either. I'd even been assigned a detention for engaging in improper conduct for a lady.
I was in too poor a mood to concentrate properly on the lecture. Though, given how off it was from the witch history of the American Revolution maybe that was just as well. On top of the rumors, it was deeply disappointing that my summoning had failed. I could always try again but pessimistically I wondered if it wouldn't end just as poorly as the first attempt. Perhaps ordering a familiar from the catalog was the best way after all, no matter how much it rankled. It felt like giving up, like admitting the Weird Sisters were right to say I wasn't witch enough to have a familiar.
Ill thoughts weren't the only thing guaranteeing my F on the upcoming quiz. Heaven, but it sure was difficult to sit still with that energy still inside me. I hadn't conserved much but what was left was still enough to do great things, I was sure. Channeling it in general was such a rush even in comparison to channeling normal magic that it was hard to resist letting it loose to run wild. Casting it on myself had felt even better, like I could swim across the whole ocean so long as I kept it coiling through my veins. But I couldn't. I wasn't controlled enough to use it with so many people nearby and be sure no one would notice. I just had to sit still, keep in the special magic, and do my best to listen to my history teacher's atrociously boring and inaccurate lesson.
With firm determination I kept myself planted and mostly inconspicuous straight into math class. Boy was it difficult though, and I'd already been reprimanded three times for tapping my pencil or foot. I could already tell there was no way I was going to stick around after school for my detention.
I didn't want to skip it, not really. Black marks piling up on my record would push me towards the Path of Night, and I wanted my choice to be a free one. I didn't think I'd back out, but I wanted the option to if I decided at the last second that Harvey and an ordinary life among mortals was more important to me than magic. But it looked like one black mark would be unavoidable. I just didn't have it in me to sit in a classroom doing lines for an extra hour. I wasn't even sure I'd make it through my normal classes if I didn't find some way to cool myself down.
'Maybe I could channel just a little bit at a time?' I didn't think a teensy little portion would be enough to make my skin glow, and I needed it. My skin was sweaty and my bones were aching like I had a fever from the effort I was putting in not to use the energy. Just a sliver of it coursing through my body would be enough to put me to rights, I was sure of it.
With careful meditation and a complete tune-out from what the teacher was saying, I began to open the tap by the tiniest amount I could manage.
"Hey Sabrina, what's up with you? Class is over, you know." The words from my friend Susie were heard but distantly, and not fully registered while I was in the midst of my trial. The hand she put on my shoulder was something else entirely.
Startled by the sudden contact I jumped in my seat, spilling out onto the floor as I was startled again by the sudden eruption of energy as I lost my grip on the new magic. It was the sort of ridiculously awful display of clumsiness that would have gotten me labeled as a klutz for the rest of high school if most of the class hadn't left their chairs as well. And they were spooked for good reason, my magic causing chaos wherever it went like I'd unleashed a bomb.
Even the most rebellious jocks were following procedure, ducking under their desks and covering their heads to protect from any more explosions. And it certainly did look like an explosion had occurred, though hopefully no one would figure out of what type. My unleashed heavy-magic had swept out, smashing lightbulbs and windows with equal fervor. It wasn't just our classroom either but the whole school if the screaming I was hearing was any clue. The fact that it only affected glass was the only good point.
"Sabrina, get under your desk!" hissed Susie.
"Right, on it." With shaking arms I crawled and did just that.
'I'm in so much trouble.'
I wasn't being labeled a klutz and at least so far I hadn't been labeled a witch, but I could hardly imagine the punishments Aunt Zelda would give me for this. Actually, this was so much worse than anything I'd done in middle school that my aunts might not be who I should be wary of. This time I might have gone so far that the Church of Night might get involved. And some of their punishments could be absolutely… medieval. Some so terrible that I wasn't sure anything less than a full witch could live through them.
'I can't let anyone know.' Truth was respected in the Church of Night, as was knowledge. It would mean a harsher charge if I was caught instead of confessing, but I wasn't sure I had a choice. I couldn't be certain I'd survive even the comparatively lighter punishments, not with how many in the church viewed me as a mongrel to be put down even when I was young and innocent. Letting Harvey know about my magic was bad enough but nearly outing myself to an entire school of mortals was such an incredible breach of secrecy that they might send me straight off to a special part of Hell.
It was over an hour before word came down from above and the school went off lockdown. Words were tossed around like CIA, FBI, the National Guard. None of them raised my spirits. I didn't think any of them would be capable of bypassing the coven's protections or discovering I was the perpetrator but it was an ill omen so soon before my dark baptism.
Between the glass strewn everywhere and everyone's rattled nerves, it didn't take long after the lockdown ended for Principal Hawthorne to send everyone home. The one upside of my not-so-little explosion was that it looked like I was off the hook for detention. Not that that was anywhere near enough to put me in a good mood.
The hour I'd spent huddled underneath my desk was more than enough time to think of all the ways it could have gone so much worse. All I'd done was release the energy by losing my grip on it, but that was a lucky thing compared to some alternatives. When I was startled by Susie all it would have taken was a brief fearful whim to send the magic coursing out like flames to devour everything around me that might have threatened me. Or perhaps instead a shield of air pressing outwards, crushing walls and people with equal ease. Compared to that, broken lightbulbs and a few cuts on people too close to the windows was nothing.
Hilda and Zelda were very tense when I came home, though each displayed their nerves in different ways. Aunt Hilda had three dozen cookies baked and a plate of brownies on the way, while Zelda had gone through two packs of cigarettes since I left home this morning. Even with witch constitutions it couldn't be good for their health.
My aunts were only very minimally and reluctantly connected to the mortal world to honor my half-mortal status. Normally that avoidance of contamination was something that Zelda at least took pride in, but today they were on tenterhooks waiting for more information. Bad omens and a distinct scent of cinnamon had struck them right around the time I'd let my magic slip and they'd been stuck in ignorance about what caused it ever since. Even scrying had failed to net them answers as my little magical explosion had apparently cracked the more sensitive crystals and mirrors in the house. Salem at least had thought to turn on the radio, but it seemed the government was only putting out just enough information to make people nervous and patriotic rather than truly inform them. This meant that it was unfortunately up to me to fill in the blanks without incriminating myself.
At the end of my off the cuff explanation, Hilda asked, "E.M.P? What's that?"
"A bomb that breaks electronics, I think." Hopefully she wouldn't ask for specifics. I wasn't entirely sure what EMP even stood for, despite Harvey talking my ear off a few times about the Soviets making them. I was reasonably smart and good at several of my classes, but science wasn't one of them. It was hard to take the subject seriously when scientists refused to accept so much of the truth about the world around them. I might've given them a few points for so many of them choosing not to blindly follow the False God if they didn't also reject the existence of the Dark Lord and everything else their feeble eyes failed to see in front of them.
"You're sure it wasn't magic?" asked Zelda piercingly.
"What? No! Of course not. It's a school, not the Vatican. Why would any witch bother to blow it up?" I had to quash my sympathy for Salem when I saw him wince at my comeback. For the sake of keeping myself off the rack I would distract my aunts with his youthful misdeeds as a magical terrorist a thousand times.
"You're acting awfully suspicious," said Zelda, her eyes narrowing. "If I didn't know better I'd think you were behind this."
"I didn't do it!" I protested, trying to keep sweat and any other obvious give-aways under wraps. Not an easy feat against Zelda's intense presence.
After pausing long enough to raise my stress levels nearly to the breaking point she said, "Of course you didn't. You don't have nearly enough power for something like this. It sounds more like the work of a coven. Well, a small one at least."
"A rogue coven," gasped Hilda. "Do you think Father Blackwood knows about this?"
"If not, I'm sure he will soon," said Zelda. She took a musing sip of tea before continuing, "But I'm sure it will be dealt with shortly. Given that it was just an annoyingly disruptive spell rather than anything purposeful it was likely a group of young witches at the academy running amok. A good whipping will put them back on the right path."
I shivered at the way she spoke of whips with such fondness, my back tying up in knots at the thought of what I was in for if I was found out. Yes, the telling the truth was thoroughly out of the question. This was a secret I'd have to keep to the grave. I couldn't tell them about my newfound powers either or I'd risk them figuring out how out of control I was with them. Maybe Zelda would go easier on me out of love for her niece, but in the Church of Night love could take unusual paths. Best not to bet on mercy when I could keep her in ignorance instead.
It was a shame that I wouldn't be able to lean on my aunts to help me with this new wrinkle in my heritage. I had no clue why I had it or how to control it and those were both things I had to find answers to before I ever dared use it again. And I would discover those answers. Witch records went back far longer than most mortal ones. Either in the family library or the academy's library once I was able to join, there had to be something written about it.
I was so wound up that it took hours for me to fall asleep. But I didn't stay asleep for long. A pulling call tugged me from my dream and onto my feet before I was even close to fully awake. The gibbous moon shined as I walked outside barefoot in my nightgown.
'What am I doing.'
The pull was strong but I'd been trained against such things. I knew better than to walk into woods during the witching hour. During the day it was just simple creatures that prowled the ancient forest but during the night there were plenty of darker spirits that came out to play; some native to the reason and others the product of witches whose summonings had gone terribly awry. But still I walked. There was a strange certainty in me that whatever this was, it was an opportunity I didn't want to waste.
The woods parted to a clearing, moon shining again on my skin. And oh but it did shine, my recently magic-blessed skin luminous in the dark, outdoing even my pure-white nightgown. But my nigh supernaturally good complexion didn't draw my eye for long. Instead I followed the call to the clearing's center, the eldritch call a strange mix of confident and pleading as I came ever closer.
'...master. partner. life-giver.'
The words that came to my mind weren't mine. Weren't even words at all. But I understood them just enough to understand what it meant when I found a fist-sized acorn in the clearing, a single root testing its way into the ground.
"Familiar." It wasn't what I expected. I'd never heard of having a plant for a familiar, hadn't even thought it was possible. But it was clear there was something supernatural about the giant acorn and perhaps oddness was to be expected from using a summoning spell so different from European traditions. Regardless, after thinking I was a failure of a witch that wasn't able to summon a familiar I was in no position to turn it down.
"I accept thee, and with this blood twice-forge our bond." I summoned a witch blade on my fingertip. It was small and flickering, nothing like the elegant sword that Zelda could conjure, but it was enough for my current purposes. I sliced a shallow line down my palm and held my bleeding hand to the seed to complete the contract.
I fell to my knees as the drip of blood became a drain. Somehow the seed was vacuuming my vital essence out of me in a flood, but I couldn't pull away. Tendrils that I hoped were magic and not physical vines crept under my skin up to my elbow, keeping me from releasing the seed. Not that it much resembled a seed any longer. My blood had evoked a drastic transformation. Roots grew thick, delving beneath the earth, even as a green shoot strove for the starry sky above. Weeks worth of growth occurred in seconds as it drained energy both physical and magical from my body.
My skin turned blue, lips gasping for breath as my lungs refused to work. My heart fluttered and I wondered if this was the end. Then as its third leaf unfolded it stopped.
I collapsed to the ground, barely able to keep myself conscious let alone crawl away from the demon tree. I must've been mistaken about it being a familiar. Instead it had to be one of the living trees that populated old forests, devouring unwary travelers that slept beneath their boughs.
Or maybe not. Because the call had shifted. It wasn't guilt that the foot-tall tree sent towards me, but a feeling that felt vaguely akin to gratitude or at least contented happiness. And along with that was the somewhat more useful emanation of mana. It was subtle, and nothing compared to the heavy currents I felt when watching one of the coven's cooperative annual spells, but it was attuned to me. I sucked it up easily, greedily, the tiny trickle a welcome balm to my bone-dry stores. Hardly a fitting recompense for such a serious left of my life force, but intriguing.
'Is this your power?' Not as immediately useful as some familiars' abilities to protect their master, spy on rivals, or gather rare potion ingredients, but it had potential. So long as it started growing with sunlight from here on instead of blood then my current exhaustion was a small price to pay for what it offered. While I was near my familiar I'd be able to practice my spellcraft longer without growing tired. Highly useful since as a half-witch it normally only took a few spells (of which more than half often failed) to tire me out. The dark baptism was supposed to make my magic stronger but even then I doubted I'd have as much endurance as a full-blooded witch. But with this, maybe I'd be able to close the gap a little.
An annoying thought occurred to me as I stared at the roots now snaked into the ground. "I should have planted you in a pot."
A mobile familiar, even if I had to cart it around myself, would have been far preferable. At the very least I wouldn't have had to walk far out into the woods to gain the use of its abilities. But there was nothing for it now.
For all that I longed for a less stationary familiar, I was inclined to follow its example for a time and lay still. The woods were dark and deep and full of secrets. Dangerous to cross at night in the best of circumstances and right now I was too weak to cast even the most fragile protection charm. A human path or road would provide some measure of shelter from pests, but I was far from those as well. Even a simple wisp could beguile me into the depths of the forest.
'Better to stay here.' It went against my instincts and teachings to stay out in the open during the wee hours of the night, but it was still a better option than wandering through the forest and drawing every monster within along behind me. And with the tree nearby, I could rest and let its aura slowly refill my depleted mana.
The ground beneath the tree wasn't so poor a resting spot as I expected. The ground was soft and fertile, grass and moss cushioning my head as I lay back and gazed at the stars above. Even after the moon set, my eyes and ears and body entire took in the night. I felt awake and asleep at the same time, consciousness melding with the universe with each slow breath.