Spells and Sorcery

Chapter One

You have magic.

One sentence, three words, four syllables. Enough to change my life forever.

(And I'm not talking about the whole spells and sorcery thing.)

The day before my fifteenth birthday was so painfully normal, I probably wouldn't have noticed even if something were amiss. My kindergarten teacher used to say I was a little old woman in a little kid's body. Ten years later, I was still more Golden Girl than Party Girl. Between the Advanced Placement, dual enrollment, and honors courses jam-packed into my schedule, it was enough just to get through each day without adding more complications.

"The northeastern colonies were settled less out of economic necessity and trade, and more for those seeking religious freedom. But as the population grew, more secular colonists began to settle amongst them, increasing the rift between the two communities. It should come to no surprise the majority of those accused during the Salem Witch Trials were the more wealthy, secular colonists."

I jotted down a note about the cause and effect. Mills had mentioned there would be an essay test soon, and I wanted to be ready. Plus, being the uber-nerd I was, I actually liked seeing the narrative unfold as each event directly impacted another. It was one of the reasons history was my favorite subject.

Mills was one of those guys who'd been teaching the same subject the same way for thirty years, and enjoyed every day of it. Unlike the rest of the school, which had moved on to whiteboards and overhead projectors, Mills hand wrote a section of his bulleted history of the United States every morning on the chalkboard, which stretched over three of the classroom walls.

"Many of the women accused of being witches were actually widows of means, meaning they had more economic power than the men." Mills paused to chuckle. "But most of the hysteria ended when someone accused the Massachusetts governor's wife of being a witch."

I snorted, and glanced around to see if anyone else was laughing, but they all wore the same glazed-over expressions. As usual, I was the only one paying attention in our last-period history class. Our schedule rotated each day so as to give a different class the post-lunch doldrums. To boot, it was Monday, so the attentiveness was already in the toilet.

Mills must've caught my snort, or he knew I was the only one actually awake, because he asked, "Lexie, can you explain about how the end of Puritanism resulted in the Salem Witch Trials?"

I looked down at my notes and flipped back a page to read what I'd written down. "Because of the rise of trade, and the shift of power from religious leaders to the merchant class, it created a power vacuum. The witch trials were a backlash of the change toward more secular holdings of power."

He praised me and I kept a smile to myself as he moved on, quizzing another student who was much less prepared than I was. But that student was saved from answering any more questions, as the bell rang. Groaning and rubbing their faces, my classmates woke from their stupor and began talking about their plans for the afternoon—jobs, sports, and whether the nearby Gulf of Mexico would be tame enough for some stand-up paddle boarding.

My little high school fit the Florida beach town I'd grown up in. I'd known most of those in the sophomore class since kindergarten, though I wouldn't call any of them my good friends and we didn't really hang out. Then again, most of the school was nose-deep in trying to survive honors and college-level classes, while maintaining jobs, volunteer hours, and extracurricular activities in the hopes we could all get big fat scholarships at the colleges of our dreams.

I stopped at my locker to grab my things, and crouched down to the bottom level to work the lock. In the eight weeks we'd already been in school, I still hadn't figured out how to get it open on the first try.