Chapter 2
2
S HADY HALLOW WAS AN IDYLLIC town. It wasn’t a big city by any means—especially in comparison to New Amsterdam, our closest neighbor—but it wasn’t small either, in area or population. That said, the council had made it a point for Shady Hallow to continue to exude the quintessential picturesque small-town atmosphere, with sidewalks in residential areas to increase walkability and trees planted in beds all over to provide shade and aesthetics. They employed sprites to keep the flora healthy and witches to spell the streets clean. There were bike and broom lanes on all the major thoroughfares, full-moon parks for werewolves, night shopping for vampires, and robust support for paranormal-owned small businesses.
I wasn’t so naive as to think that Shady Hallow didn’t have its problems. But on the surface it was seemingly perfect—a place that anyone would want to live in, human or otherwise. So it bothered me that my parents had even contemplated moving us from my childhood home over something as silly as a new school.
Other than being able to attend with Al, one of the best aspects of Central Shady Hallow High was that it was in biking distance, and it was a fairly easy route through a few neighborhoods to get there. Within fifteen minutes I was skidding my bike to a stop at the corner of Maple and Fourth, where Al was already waiting for me. They had their arms crossed over their chest and were tapping the toe of their chunky black boots against the concrete sidewalk, their backpack and two large iced coffees at their feet. They were annoyed, but even in their irritation they were strikingly gorgeous. Their beautiful brown skin gleamed with warm bronze undertones in the morning sun. Their curly black hair was braided close over one ear and tumbled down to their shoulder on the other side, the loose coils framing their angular face. A beauty mark sat underneath their full bottom lip, which was currently pushed into a frustrated pout. They somehow were intimidatingly stunning while also exuding a cottagecore witchy vibe that was comforting and cozy.
Well, most of the time.
Right then they were angry.
“Where have you been?” they said, dropping their arms. The sleeves of their flowy purple blouse fluttered in the slight breeze. “I’ve been waiting forever.”
“Sorry,” I muttered as I hopped off my bike. My shirt was stuck to my skin with sweat, especially the area beneath my backpack. My carefully styled hair hung limp across my forehead, and my fingers ached from where I had clutched the handlebars. “I biked as fast as I could.”
“Ma dropped me off, like, fifteen minutes ago. Which, convincing her to drop me off here instead of at the actual school building was a feat in and of itself, but it was even more difficult when you weren’t here yet.” They pulled their phone from their pocket, and their fingers flew over the screen. “Okay. I’ve sent a text to tell her that you’ve finally arrived. You know, I’ve been waiting here on the street corner like some kind of illegal traveling potion-peddler.” They threw up their hands in apparent frustration. “And it’s so embarrassing since Ma had to drive me, while Amy used a teleportation charm to zap to the front door of her school. Mom went with her but didn’t even have to bolster it. I can’t even ride a broom.”
I winced. Al’s younger sister, Amy, was a superiorly gifted witch and was four years younger. Amy was capable of spells and charms and other witchery way beyond her age level, surpassing what Al was able to do. Despite Al being supportive of their sister, it was still a deep sore spot.
“And to make matters even worse,” Al continued, “the Lopez brothers drove by and offered me a ride. And I said no, because I was waiting on your slow self. The Lopez brothers! The hottest werewolf trio in the entire school. No, in the entire town . And lowly sophomore me turned them down .”
I snapped my head up from where I’d been studying the cracks in the pavement. The sun shone through the branches of a large tree nearby, dappling the ground in splotches of shade that did little to dispel the rising heat of late summer. “You talked to Mateo?”
“Of course that’s what you’re worried about. And no, I talked to Danny, and maybe if you’d been here, we could’ve said yes, and then you could’ve squeezed into the back seat with Mateo. Sparks might have flown, Cam! But no, you—” They cut themself off as they finally looked at me— really looked at me.
They narrowed their eyes. “Okay. What happened?”
I shrugged and kept my expression as impassive as possible. “My mom caught me leaving.”
Their gaze zeroed in on my Hexes shirt, and they winced. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“It looks cute, though.” They waved their hand over me. “Your whole outfit is working.”
“Thanks. There was effort involved. You look great too.”
Al swished their ruffled black skirt, the hem bouncing right above their knees. Purple-and-black-striped tights covered their legs, and their ankle boots completed the ensemble. “Thank you. There was effort here as well. But I made it on time.”
I rolled my eyes. “I would’ve been here, but my mom wanted to talk to me. It’s fine. I’m here now. Let’s go so we’re not late.”
On the bike ride over, what my mom had said about Al’s and my friendship had percolated in my brain. I shouldn’t have let my mom get into my head, but I was on edge. And I couldn’t help but think about the possibility that the new school could end up splitting Al and me apart.
I shouldn’t dwell on it. Al was my best friend. And if they did decide to ditch me at some point in the future for new witch friends, well, I’d resign myself to being the lonely, weird kid for the rest of my high school career. Maybe things would change once I went to college. I would’ve loved to talk with Aiden about that, but…
“No.”
Al’s voice brought me back to the present and out of my spiraling thoughts.
“No? What do you mean, no? We’re not skipping the first day, Al.”
“I mean no .” They picked up one of the coffees and shoved it into my hand. “You’re not brushing this off. You agreed to a themed school year about embracing our futures and ourselves. You pinky swore.”
“And?”
“And that means being truthful about our feelings! I know you have perfected your impressive resting bitch face, but I can tell how much whatever she said bothers you. Okay? You don’t have to pretend. Especially not with me.”
Puffing my cheeks, I blew out a breath. I pushed my bike forward with one hand, balancing the coffee with the other. We took a right at the corner, and the entrance to the new high school gleamed in the distance. It was only a block away, which meant I didn’t have to be introspective for long. Al fell in step beside me.
“Fine. She doesn’t like that we’re friends, and she wants me to find new ones this year.”
Al squinted. “Is that all? She’s been like that for as long as I can remember.”
“Well, it was particularly pointed this morning.” I didn’t mention the other piece about Al leaving me behind. That wasn’t first-day-of-school conversation.
“Ugh. Well. I’m sorry. That sucks.” Al kicked a pinecone out of our path. It rolled, bits of the scales spinning off, until it settled on the grass. “But I’ll be your friend until we’re both in the ground.”
I pulled my gaze from the uneven concrete and met their warm brown eyes. “I know.”
“Good.”
Of course, the moment was ruined when the tire of my bike jarred into a raised section of the sidewalk. The handlebar slipped from my sweaty grip and fell to the side, the pedals jamming into my leg. I yelped, dropped my coffee, and barely kept myself from tripping. The coffee hit the ground, the plastic lid doing nothing to stop the explosion of ice and liquid from splattering across my shoes and the legs of my jeans.
I stared down in horror.
Al winced in sympathy. After a pause in which I contemplated turning around and heading home, Al stooped down and inspected the mess. They stood. “I have a spell for that,” they said, gesturing to my stained jeans.
“Um… it’s okay,” I said, trying to brush off the mess.
“No, really. I can do it. I’m sure.”
I hedged. Al’s magic wasn’t… the most stable. But it wasn’t powerful, either, so it wasn’t like they could make things much worse. “Okay. Sure.”
They smiled as they rubbed their hands together. “Okay, hold still.” They held their spread fingers over the splashes of coffee on the fabric and narrowed their eyes. Al muttered a string of words, and the air shimmered. And that was all.
After a moment Al dropped their arms.
“Damn it!”
Secretly relieved, I patted their shoulder as they straightened. “Thanks for trying.”
“Ugh. I should be able to do that. I just—”
“Hey, it’s okay. Maybe I’ll start a new fashion trend. We’ll call it the splatter look.”
Al raised an eyebrow, then laughed, the tension breaking. “Dork.”
“What?” I said as we continued toward the school. “I’m serious. It will be all the rage.” I nudged them with my elbow.
They returned the gesture, knocking into me with their shoulder. “Glad you’ve cheered up, buttercup. It is the first day of our sophomore year, which is going to be epic.”
“I think our definitions of epic are wildly different,” I said as we approached the front entrance. But they were right; the small moment of levity had brightened my mood.
They snorted in amusement. “Let’s plan to hang out together after school one day this week.”
I was immediately on board. “Sure. How about tonight?”
“Oh, I can’t tonight. Monthly coven meeting.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I really should practice my spells. Especially if we’re going to start having homework this week. Thursday?”
I grimaced. “Since Aiden left, Dad has mandated family movie night on Thursdays.”
Al made a face. “Really?”
“I know. Mom doesn’t even pretend to watch—just scrolls on her phone. And it’s always some movie from the late ’80s or early ’90s. Most of them are cringe.”
“At least he’s trying?” they said, voice going high at the end.
“I guess.”
“Wednesday, then.”
“Wednesday sounds good. Not only is it pizza day, but it is also the name of my favorite Addams Family character.”
Al rolled their eyes playfully and then proceeded to launch into a diatribe about the theater department at their last school and how certain students were always favored for different parts and how they hoped to at least have a line in the school play if the school put one on. I half listened as they rambled. Despite our friend-date plans, my mom’s words ran in an anxious loop.
“Cam,” Al said, grabbing my shoulder. “We’re here.”
Oh. We were.
The district had spared no expense in the construction of the new high school. The front entrance was massive, and it looked more like the museum downtown than it did a school. The concrete gleamed in the morning sun. Two sets of wide stairs led up to tempered glass doors, reinforced of course to handle unexpected bursts of strength from pubescent werewolves, sprites, witches, and the random telekinetic psychic. There was a ramp to the side, near the sign that proclaimed CENTRAL SHADY HALLOW HIGH SCHOOL, HOME OF THE SAINTS. In the morning sun, with the white facade and the huge windows, the whole building was blindingly bright—the only shade offered by a single towering tree thriving off to the right. That was probably why I initially missed the two large aluminum signs that sat on the staircase, sporting a list of rules.
NO GUM
NO SKATEBOARDS
NO HORSEPLAY
NO LOITERING
NO POWERS
The signs weren’t doing a great job, since a kid had just sped by on a skateboard and a girl was sitting on the stairway, blowing a huge pink gum bubble. Another girl stood nearby with an umbrella while a conjured gray cloud hovered over her sprinkling rain. A pair of boys floated past us, the heels of their new sneakers several inches above the ground, and Al sighed wistfully at the display of a strong hovering spell.
I found a metal rack, jammed my bike into one of the slots, and then wound the chain and lock through the spokes of my front tire. A handful of brooms sat upright in the broom spaces, but my bike was the only form of wheeled transportation. Comparatively it would be easy pickings for anyone who chose mayhem that day, as the brooms were undoubtedly protected by anti-theft spells. Best to at least secure it well.
“Are you ready?” Al asked, tossing their hair over their shoulder.
“No. But I also don’t want to be truant. So I guess we have to go in.”
“That’s the spirit!”
As I hitched my bag higher on my shoulders, we dodged the dozens of students who milled about the steps. They were packed into clusters, most of them talking and laughing, while others peered over their shoulders at the rest of the groups. It was an odd mix of students. Some of them I knew from my last year as a freshman at West Shady Hallow High, but there were students I didn’t recognize at all. I guess that’s what happened when the lines were redrawn for the opening of the third high school in the county. Everyone was reassigned and jumbled up, and the cliques had to be reestablished.
The school building itself had been constructed to house a bigger student population. More kids equaled more chaos. The school ecosystem would need to recalibrate and hopefully find equilibrium over the next week while a large number of werewolves, witches, sprites, psychics, and humans figured out how to function within the new, fuller class sizes.
I spied the Lopez brothers off to the side. Danny, the senior; Javi, the junior; and Mateo, the sophomore. They were with a group of kids, presumably other werewolves. Mateo brushed his dark brown hair from his forehead. His muscles flexed beneath his flawless brown skin, and when he smiled at something one of his brothers said, his eyes crinkled. Hanging off Mateo’s arm was a willowy girl with long strawberry-blond hair and a smattering of freckles across her pale cheeks, and she leaned into Mateo’s side as she laughed.
And ugh. This day had started off badly enough. Why did it have to get worse?
I had harbored a crush on Mateo since I’d literally bumped into him in the hallway last year. We had both apologized—his voice had been low and gruff—and then he’d brushed past… and that had been the entirety of the interaction. That was really the sum of all our interactions, except my pathetic mooning whenever we were in the same room, which wasn’t often since he was in all advanced classes. I didn’t really do crushes, but there was just something about him that made my middle squirm in that first-drop-of-a-roller-coaster way.
I didn’t realize I had been staring until the girl caught my eye and nudged Mateo. Mateo whipped around and glared. I startled, tripped on the stairs, and barely caught myself. The girl laughed. Mortified, I kept my head down, not wanting to see Mateo’s expression.
I quickened my pace, and Al grabbed on to my backpack to keep up.
“What the hell was that?” they asked, grinning as we pushed through the front doors. “Did the force of Mateo’s beauty cause you to lose your balance?”
“Shut up,” I groaned. “Let’s just go.”
Al wrapped their arm around my shoulders and jostled me. “Come on, grumpy. Our future awaits.”
Of course it did. The only problem was that the excitement I’d had that morning had dimmed. But that was the thing: no one could stop the future from coming, even if they wanted to—even if they chose to ignore it.