Chapter Sixteen
More than anything, Lily wanted to believe that whatever magic was infecting the school had to be Chrysanthemum’s fault. While she might not literally be the demon Lily had (regrettably) accused her of being, if anyone in school was going to cast violent spells, it had to be her, or so Lily told herself. Except someone else had cast a hex recently, and it wasn’t Chrysanthemum. And considering Lily didn’t really know how to cast a hex, the possibility that the week’s unfortunate events were due to her spell couldn’t be ignored. Especially not when Lily considered where the magic was manifesting—first in choir, a class Chrysanthemum took, then during Chrysanthemum’s lunch period (which was, unfortunately, also Lily’s lunch period).
The only thing Lily couldn’t account for was the timing; she’d cast her hex Wednesday night, but nothing had happened until Monday.
Nothing you noticed, her conscience clarified.
Most of the school might not be able to remember lunch trays flying of their own volition, but they had no trouble remembering a food fight, so this topic dominated Tuesday afternoon’s gossip. Nothing like it had happened as far back as anyone could recall; the last Thornhaven High scandal had been two years ago when a couple of seniors had been caught spiking the hot chocolate at the school’s annual Halloween bonfires.
The excited conversations provided plenty of cover for Lily’s distracted and anxious state of mind, but she had no choice other than to focus now. The student council meeting was after school today, and as president, it was her responsibility to run it.
Bitterness ruined what should have been excitement as Lily headed into the classroom where they were meeting, but it was better than anxiety. After three years of serving on the student council, first as a regular member, then as treasurer, and last year as vice president, Lily had thought being elected council president would earn her some of kind of respect from her parents. Instead, they’d barely acknowledged the news. Lily wasn’t entirely sure they’d been aware of what they were congratulating her for at the time.
But it was fine. Whatever. She’d accomplished it, and without using any magic to help herself get elected. She could be proud. And once she’d led their school to their most exciting year ever, she could be even more so.
Just as long as exciting had everything to do with pulling off a spectacular bonfire celebration and nothing to do with magical chaos.
The rest of the student council arrived as Lily was putting her nervous energy to use, moving desks into a loose discussion circle. Their chatter died down as they helped, but as soon as everyone was seated, the same conversations she’d been overhearing all afternoon picked up.
“Can we please focus?”
Lily asked.
“We have actual things we’re supposed to accomplish. I have an agenda.”
She also was sick of hearing about the cafeteria incident and stressed enough as it was, but that was beside the point.
“The bonfire event is next month, and it’s our job to plan it.”
“You think there’ll be another food fight at the bonfires?”
a student named Hunter asked with a laugh.
Lily narrowed her eyes at him.
“There had better not be. The first thing we need to do …”
Her voice was drowned out by a few people laughing in response to Hunter’s comment. Naturally that encouraged him to run with the scenario until no one was paying attention to Lily again.
It was the story of her life.
“I heard something weird happened to the choir yesterday, too,”
said another student.
“Is that true?”
Lily clenched her teeth. Some of the normies were sensitive enough to magic that they’d remembered something weird had happened, and that, combined with conversations they must have overheard among the witches, was creating all sorts of vague stories. Lily was only surprised she hadn’t heard anyone connect the two events before.
“Talk about it afterward.”
She tried not to raise her voice. Nothing said you’d lost control over a situation like raising your voice—a lesson she’d been completely unable to put into practice with Chrysanthemum.
Lily took a couple of deep breaths. It felt like the room was spinning around her, and why not? They weren’t a full month into the school year, and everything else was already spinning out of her control.
“Don’t forget the frogs in biology class,”
Evan muttered.
“I heard they twitched,”
one girl said.
“Is it true someone fainted?”
Hunter asked.
Lily lowered her head in despair and turned to Evan.
“What happened?”
He kept his voice low, since they were the only two witches on the council, but it hardly mattered since the others were all shouting rumors back and forth.
“They didn’t twitch. They started moving, almost like they were dancing.”
Something that might have been panic forced an unsteady laugh from Lily’s lips.
“Aren’t they supposed to be dead?”
“Long dead. Embalmed.”
Evan turned a little green.
“Something is very not right.”
“Okay, right. No, wrong. Yes.”
Lily took a few more deep breaths, but the room was spinning faster. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the desk in front of her.
Could she have been responsible for this? How could she have been responsible for this? This felt dark and scary, even terrifying.
“The Society will do something about it,”
Lily said, as much to herself as to Evan. Not at all as reassured by this as she’d like, she turned her attention back to the rest of the room.
“Enough! Please, let’s get to work before something else strange happens, okay?”
That finally got everyone’s attention. But while the other student council members quieted, it was as if the school itself took her words as a challenge. A disturbing noise emanated from the walls. Half rumble, half groan, it raised the hairs on Lily’s arms, and not only hers, judging from the expressions around her.
Fresh chaos broke out, and from around the doorway, directly opposite where Lily sat, something black began to seep over the wall. Lily gasped. At first, the blackness reminded her of fissures, as though the wall were cracking, but it was too silent and smooth for that. Sinuous almost. It was more like ink, Lily decided, like an invisible hand was drawing on the wall.
“Look at that,”
she whispered to Evan.
“Look at what?”
She swallowed through what was definitely panic, no mistaking it this time.
“Those lines. The blackness.”
Evan shook his head.
“I don’t see anything.”
Lily would have sworn her heart missed a beat. No, that couldn’t be right. Evan was a witch. If the normies couldn’t see those marks, that would be one thing. But if Evan couldn’t … What did that mean? Was this proof that this really was her fault?
“Is this whole building going to collapse or what?”
Hunter asked. The humor in his voice had vanished as he glanced around at the walls, one hand clutching his backpack in case he had to run for his life.
“Meeting adjourned.”
Lily slammed her chair back. Losing control of the meeting was no longer her biggest problem.
A couple of the more industrious student council members suggested rescheduling somewhere off school grounds, and under normal circumstances, Lily would have appreciated their sense of responsibility. At the moment, though, she couldn’t think straight enough for that. She exchanged some mindless words about the topic, then escaped with everyone else into the hallway.
The black lines followed her.
Lily didn’t notice until she exited the stairwell, and she shrieked with surprise. Luckily no one else was in the immediate vicinity to hear her, and she darted down the hallway, unable to leave the building fast enough. The closest door was up ahead. Her heart thudded in her ears.
The lines moved as quickly as she did. They never quite reached her, but Lily could see them from the corners of her eyes. They flowed like water and hummed like her pulse. Or maybe this was all her imagination. Stress catching up to her—a hallucination. She’d never heard of magic behaving this way.
Wetting her lips, she fumbled for the door before throwing it open.
The lines didn’t follow her outside. The blackness stopped several feet from the door, and before it swung closed behind her, she could see the lines retreating. The walls cleared until the school was the same as it had always been.
Lily stared in disbelief, barely aware of the chilly wind on her neck.
It wasn’t until she heard an engine revving in the parking lot that she snapped back to herself, and then only barely. Her hands didn’t stop shaking even after she got in her car.
She didn’t know how she was going to force herself back into school tomorrow morning, but if there was a chance she was responsible, she had no choice. If her hex had created this mess, she had to do something.
But had it?
The signs of foul magic hadn’t been aimed at Chrysanthemum. So what if it hadn’t been her? But then, why had she seen the blackness and not Evan?
Lily stuck one of her trembling fingers in her mouth and bit lightly without realizing what she was doing.
Evan wasn’t the most powerful witch. Maybe he wasn’t strong enough to see the lines? Surely that was as likely as him not seeing them because he hadn’t caused them to appear.
That meant the first thing Lily needed to do was discover whether the lines were visible to other witches, and if so, who. Step two was observing how the magic reacted tomorrow, because she was certain there would be more tomorrow. Did it target Chrysanthemum again? Herself? Some random biology students? Step three … that would depend on one and two.
It wasn’t much of a plan, but any plan made Lily feel better, a little more in control. She finally caught herself chewing on her finger and yanked it from her lips.
“Step zero point five,”
she said aloud, starting the car.
“Strengthen my wards tonight.”