School Spirits

chapter 9




The rest of the day passed uneventfully. I guess after you’ve beaten someone up with a dodgeball and flirted with a monster, most anything else will seem pretty tame.

I wasn’t quite ready for another run-in with Dex, so rather than take the bus home, I decided to walk. It was a few miles, and by the time I got home, my calves ached, but the walk gave me time to think. What kind of Prodigium was Dex? Warlock seemed like the most reasonable explanation—I hadn’t spotted a bloodstone on him, and without one of those, vampires become barbecue in the sunlight—and there hadn’t been that weird animal smell that seemed to cling to shape-shifters. Wings were pretty conspicuous, so unless he was hiding them underneath that peacoat, I didn’t think he was Fae. But I’d been around lots of witches and warlocks, and I’d always been able to sense their power once I got within a few feet of them. I’d never had to touch one to feel their magic.

As I unlocked the front door, I tried to think of who I could ask about this. I knew I should tell Mom, but I’d never had trouble identifying a Prodigium before, and it wasn’t something I was ready to own up to. Besides, this was meant to be my case. My chance to prove myself.

I wondered what Finley would say if she were here. Probably something like, “Stab him with silver and see if it kills him.”

So that left me with only one option.

The house was quiet and dark when I stepped into the foyer, and Mom’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Still, I found myself walking softly as I made my way to the third bedroom. I hadn’t been in there since we’d moved in, and when I opened the door, it was like being punched in the stomach.

Finley’s things were in here. By which I meant her pillow and a photograph she’d had stuck to the mirror in our bedroom. It showed us when I was around six, Finn eight or nine. We were in the training yard, two little redheaded girls with our arms around each other’s shoulders. It was a sweet picture (if you ignored the fact that I was holding a miniature crossbow and Finn’s fingers were wrapped around the hilt of a sword), and I wished I remembered the day it had been taken.

There was also her belt, the one I’d found that night, slung around one of the bedposts. I wanted to go over to it, to hold it in my hands. Instead, I walked past the bed and over to the mirror that hung on the wall. It was, as usual, covered with a heavy piece of canvas. When I pulled it back, Torin was there, hip propped against the bed behind me.

He was examining his fingernails, bored, but when he realized I was there, his face brightened. “Hullo, Isolde. Pleasant day at school?”

“Not really,” I told him. “But I needed to ask you something.”

Torin folded his arms. “I’m not in much of a prophecy- spouting mood today, to be honest.”

“I don’t need to know the future. I need to know… I don’t know, the present, I guess. I met this boy today, and he’s…I don’t know, he’s something.”

“Something as in he is handsome and you fancy him, or something as in he’s one of my kind?”

Scowling, I replied, “He’s Prodigium. I think. I don’t know He felt strange when I touched him.”

The second the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Torin’s sly grin only intensified that regret.

“This is why I told Aislinn she should have more blokes around. A boy touches you, and you mistake hormones for magic.”

I wanted to shake the frame, but I crossed my arms, mimicking his pose. “It wasn’t hormones. It was magic. Or some kind of power. But not like any power I’ve felt before. It’s…I don’t know, really weak.”

Finally, the grin slipped and Torin managed to look a little serious. “Weaker than mine?”

Even trapped in the mirror, Torin radiated power, and I nodded. “Yeah. I can usually pick up on a Prodigium within a few feet. But this guy, I didn’t get it until he shook my hand. Could he just be…like, a really, really bad warlock?” But then I shook my head. “No, wait. He had asthma. If he were a warlock, he would’ve cured that.” One of the benefits to being a magical being was that they almost never get sick.

Torin gave an elegant shrug. “Perhaps he’s faking it. And something could be diluting his power. A counterspell or a binding charm. Did he seem odd?”

I thought back to Dex, to his weird, formal way of talking, and strangely old-fashioned, if stylish, outfit. “Yeah, but I’m not sure that’s magic.”

“If you find out where he lives, I can always slip into his mirror, find out for certain,” Torin offered. “It would be, as you like to say, a gigantic pain in my backside, but I could try.”

Torin moved pretty easily through the mirrors in our house because his original mirror was housed here. Getting into mirrors in other locations was tough for him, but I’d seen him do it before. And I’m not going to lie, the idea of sending Torin to check up on Dex was tempting. What if Dex was something dangerous? Okay, so maybe an asthmatic guy rocking a cravat didn’t seem all the threatening, but what did I know? And I was here to investigate supernatural shenanigans.

But I couldn’t get over the feeling that sending my pet warlock into a dude’s mirror to spy on him was…well, icky. Especially when he was one of the few people at school who’d been nice to me today. So I shook my head. “No, let’s not go that far. I’ll work it out on my own.”

“As you like,” Torin said, going back to studying his cuticles. “But the offer stands.”

I leaned back on the bed, bracing my arms on the footboard. In the mirror, it looked like we were standing practically on top of each other. “You just want me to owe you a favor.”

“There is but one favor you can do for me, Isolde, and that is to release me from this prison.”

The words sent a shiver through me. “That’s never going to happen.”

He glanced up, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, so now it’s you with the gift of prophecy, is it? I know what I’ve seen. You are my key and my salvation.”

Without answering, I got up and went to cover the mirror. His voice sounded muffled behind the canvas as he called, “Remember, a favor for a favor, Isolde. I can be very useful.”

He could be. He had been. But his visions never came when we most needed them, and from everything Mom had told me, Torin had a way of twisting words and promises so that he got more than you were willing to give, and always gave you less than you wanted.

In other words, it wasn’t worth it.

Sighing, I opened the door and walked into the hallway.

“What are you doing?”

I jumped as Mom’s voice rang out in the quiet house. She was standing just inside the front door, frowning. “Isolde?” she asked, her body stiff.

I froze, a million lies rushing to my lips. But Mom always saw through those, and all lying did was piss her off. “I was talking to Torin.”

“About what?”

“Just my day at school.” That wasn’t technically a lie, but Mom still frowned.

“Well, why don’t you tell me about your day.” Her expression hardened. “Specifically the part where you hurt some boy in your P.E. class?”

Ugh. So that’s why she was so pissed. “It was an accident,” I said for what felt like the millionth time that day, but Mom gave a frustrated sigh as she tossed her bag onto the hall table. “Damn it, Izzy, I told you, keeping a low profile is an essential part of every job.”

“I was trying!”

“And breaking someone’s arm by second period? That was your attempt at trying?”

“It was only a dislocated shoulder,” I muttered, sounding sullen even to my own ears. “And he was a jerk who purposely hurt this girl I think can help me with the ghost thing.”

Mom gave a frustrated sigh, but then what I had said dawned. “What does that mean?”

Briefly, I told her about the Paranormal Management Society and Romy. As soon as I said the words “teenage ghost hunters,” she sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Damn it. You know if there is a legitimate haunting happening here, they’ll probably end up making things worse. Those types of kids always do.”

“Yeah,” I said, going to sit next to her. “But it’s some- thing. If nothing else, maybe they’ll have information. Either about Mr. Snyder himself, or who could be haunting the school. Save me the hassle of going to the library.”

Mom looked up, and something very close to a smile flickered on her face. “So you’d actually go to a library instead of plugging everything into the Google?”

Now I smiled. “Mom, it’s just Google. And yeah, you always said books were the best for research. Even the Internet can’t know everything.”

“I know I said that; I’m just surprised you listened.”

“I do that sometimes,” I told her, and she reached out and patted my knee. Then, clearing her throat, she rose to her feet and headed for the door.

“Well, it’s a start,” she said, her voice slightly gruff. “Probably won’t lead to much, but better than nothing. Now, come on. I don’t like you spending too much time in here.”

Swallowing my disappointment, I stood up, too. I had always been proud of my mom. So she’d never bake cookies, or sew a Halloween costume, but she could fight monsters. She was tough and smart, and maybe she didn’t read bedtime stories, but she had taught me to defend myself against the things that lurked under beds.

But in that moment, I didn’t want a smart, tough mother who kicked supernatural ass. I wanted to sit on the couch with her and tell her about my crappy day. And maybe about Dex, leaving out the possible magical powers part.

I wanted to tell her that I missed Finley, too.

Instead, I followed her out the door and said, “So, I… I guess I’ll go do homework now.”

“Right,” Mom said with a brusque nod. “And I’ll go, uh, clean up the kitchen. See you at six for dinner?”

“Sure,” I said, turning to jog up the stairs.

When I was halfway up, Mom called, “Izzy?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m…you’re doing good work,” she said haltingly. “Other than the dislocated shoulder.”

It wasn’t exactly “Oh, Izzy, I am so proud of you, and I was wrong to ever give you such lame job.”

But I’d take it.