Prom Queen ｡ Michael Langdon

21 - THE LOST ONES

     Neon light burned against the night, bathing Carrietta Tabitha Moore in a sickenly sweet rainbow of technicolour. The heat was murky and thick, causing sweat to bead along her arms, down between her shoulder blades. But the witch didn't mind the heat, didn't mind the sweat, for it reminded her of a certain hellish boy with the face of an angel.

     Screams ricocheted off the vintage theme park rides on Santa Cruz's Boardwalk, mixing with the crash of the ocean and the joyful chaos of a Saturday night. The Giant Dipper rollercoaster arched over the horizon like a beast made from wood and metal and people blurred at the edges of rogue witch's mind.

     "Tabby," Antonia Grey called out as the world transformed into a dripping and spinning mess of colour. Carrie Moore didn't go by her birth name anymore, not after trading Los Angeles for Santa Cruz, she only answered now to Tabitha. And Tabitha's favourite ride at the rickety, oceanside amusement park was the Looff Carousel—first constructed in 1911, with gleamy and colourful hand-crafted horses that bopped and bucked along to carnival tunes. Tabby craned her neck, focusing her eyes on Antonia as the world continued to spin in an addictive whirl that made her dizzy and craving for more, always more.

     Antonia was a Vietnamese witch that had been adopted by Americans when she was two. Now, she was nineteen and milled around on beaches in oddly-matched bikinis and chipped nail polish, with hair that shifted colour like the wind. At the moment her bobbed hair was a soft baby blue as she waved at Tabitha from the popcorn and sand littered ground, flocked by two other teenagers. Antonia was an empath—she could sense and feel other people's feelings—but her power hadn't completely developed yet. So, for now, Antonia Grey was practically a human mood ring with hair and eyes that changed colour sometimes to mimic other's emotions.

     "We're gonna get ice cream," Mina Daneford bellowed happily, unapologetically boisterous, voice and body. The teenager had a glossy mane of dark hair that spilled over her round curves and wide doe-eyes that sucked in every person she met, making her rather compelling and extremely enchanting.

     "And corn dogs," Tobias Tellman added with a wolfish grin. Tobias was the youngest at seventeen, though he was the tallest and had run away from a three-story house in Portland. He had a wave of hair that framed his earnest face, and his giant and sharp-toothed grin was the only menacing thing about the boy who liked puttering around in garden beds and breathing life into flowers and herbs.

     The teenagers made a motley coven of four, which was fitting seeing as each one represented an element. Tabitha was fire, something that had become a permanent fixture in her dreams since the prom. Antonia was water, skin always smelling of salt from the ocean. Mina was air, a beautiful and powerful gale that could knock you off your feet. And Tobias was earth, dirt always trapped under his fingernails and petals in his hair. And each was a lost kid in one way or another, finding a new family and magic on the golden-white sand of Santa Cruz. Tabitha wasn't sure she even believed God was on her side anymore, but she certainly believed someone with unearthly powers had brought the coven together.

     She waved a hand toward her coven before they rushed off, blending into the crowd like phantoms. Wanting more speed, wanting more wind to tear at her now tanned skin, Tabitha closed her eyes and saw the carousel in her mind, a giant spinning top of colour and little blubs aglow with colour against the balmy night. Her pulse soared as the carousel picked up speed rather dangerously, the bulbs flickering and shuddering as other riders screamed and clutched at the poles as they spun faster and faster.

     Speed picked at her hair, creating miniature whips that lashed at her face and throat and she threw her head back with a wicked laugh. A laugh so stark against the crying and the screaming from the others around her. The ride operator was trying his best to slow the ride, but his efforts were useless, for Tabitha had full control on the carousel and she wanted to fly.