Shifter Falls Academy: Year Two Page 8

  “Where was the key?” I asked.

  “The key was the easy part,” he said. “It was simply on top of the library door frame.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I am.”

  That seemed so insane to me. I wasn’t sure whether I was more bothered that someone shoved an enchanted key on top of a door frame or the fact that no one had cleaned up there in twenty years to find it. How much dust had accumulated in that time?

  “What is it you want me to do?”

  “I want you to unlock the book,” he said.

  “Can’t you do that yourself?”

  He looked at me like I was an idiot, and he shook his head.

  “Charlotte, after all of our classes together, you still display such a lack of understanding of basic magic. It’s abhorrent, really.”

  I frowned, but bit my tongue.

  I didn’t need to piss him off more.

  “I’ll hold the book and you unlock it. Step aside, and when the book opens, Brandy will come out.”

  Something struck me: something Fiona had said. She mentioned that there were fairytale creatures and monsters in the book, and that there were things we didn’t want coming out.

  “Randy?”

  “Charlotte, we’re still on campus, and I’m still your teacher. Mr. Harper is perfectly appropriate.”

  Whatever.

  “Mr. Harper, won’t other things come out of the book?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? Because-“

  “The only thing in the book is my sister, Charlotte. Now open it.”

  He grabbed the book and held it to his chest. I picked up the key and stared at it for a second before moving over to him. Then I held it out, slipped it into the lock, and turned the key.

  At first, nothing happened at all, but then the entire room seemed to spin. The book burst open and wind started flowing from it. I was knocked to my feet, and the key fell to the floor. I scurried to get it as Mr. Harper held the book open.

  A loud thump sounded, followed by a second one.

  “The book, Charlotte! Lock the book!”

  I grabbed the key and hurried back to where he was still holding it open. He slammed the book shut, but it took all of his strength, and I slipped the key back in and locked it as quickly as I could. He wasn’t looking at me, so I shoved the key in my pocket.

  Who knew?

  Maybe it would make a good bargaining chip later.

  I still had my robes on and I felt for my wand. It wasn’t there. Mr. Harper must have grabbed it when he took me. Either that, or it had fallen out, which was an idea that made me worried and nervous.

  I didn’t have time to wonder too long, though, because I finally looked to see what had come out of the book.

  I looked to see what had captured Mr. Harper’s total attention.

  A woman stood in front of him who looked exactly like him. She was the same size and build, but she had long, flowing blonde hair, and she was wearing what looked like a queen’s gown.

  “Brother!” She said, and she reached for Mr. Harper.

  She pulled him close.

  “I thought I’d lost you,” he said.

  “You brought me out of the book,” she looked at him. Then she looked around the attic and smiled. It was a dark sort of smile, though: the kind of smile that made me wildly uncomfortable.

  There was more going on here than Mr. Harper knew about. I didn’t know what his sister was like before she went into the book, but now she looked like she was more than ready to destroy Shifter Falls.

  There had been too bumps, though: two things that had come out of the book, and I looked to see what the other thing was. I was still standing off to the side, and no one had seemed to notice me, but oh, I noticed the creature she’d brought with her.

  It was tall: wolf-like. It wasn’t quite human or wolf, though. It wasn’t like an ordinary shifter. The thing must have been seven feet tall and it smelled absolutely horrible. It had drool pouring from its mouth, and that was dripping onto the attic floorboards.

  It was gross, and if I wasn’t trying to blend into the shadows, I might have actually thrown up from the stench.

  Slowly, I started inching toward the door. There was no way for me to grab Abby and get her out of the attic, but I could run for help. Professor Wild’s office wasn’t too far away, and if I could escape, and if I could get to him, then I knew he’d understand what needed to be done.

  Crazy or not, he was a powerful magic user, and I knew I could count on him.

  “Yes,” Randy said to his sister. “I brought you back where it all started.”

  “I see,” she said, looking around. “And you thought I’d…like this?”

  It was the first time that Randy seemed to realize that his sister might be a little different. It must be strange to see your siblings after so much time, but I had the feeling that the Brandy he said goodbye to all of those years ago was very different from the Brandy he saw now.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” he said, trying to gain his composure. Some of his confidence seemed to have dissipated, though. “I know you didn’t mean to get trapped in a book.”

  She laughed loudly, haughtily, and shook her head.

  “Stupid boy,” she said. “You always were an idiot, Randy.”

  She held her hand out and snapped her fingers as she whispered an incantation. A small blue fireball appeared in her hand, and she bounced it back and forth from one hand to the other.

  “The problem with people like you, Randy, is that you never see more than meets the eye. You never ask the hard questions. You thought I’d vanished, but you never asked yourself why I might want to vanish, or why I might need to, or that I’d done the entire thing on purpose.”

  Realization seemed to dawn on his face, and for the first time, he seemed to grasp the idea that perhaps his darling sister had entered the book on purpose.

  Well, that was no good.

  Why the hell would anyone want to go into an enchanted or haunted book?

  Why would they want to throw themselves into a place where things were evil or bad or wicked?

  It didn’t make any sense to someone who didn’t know her, but then again, maybe she was the type of person who wanted that. Maybe Shifter Falls just hadn’t been enough for her. Maybe she wanted a place where she could be more powerful than she was here.

  “Ah, I see you understand now,” she said to her brother.

  I inched closer to the attic door that led to the staircase that would lead me to safety, or to help. One of the two. That was what I really needed more than anything. I was just a little shifter cat. I couldn’t exactly battle an evil witch or her wolf minion.

  No matter how badly I might want to fight them, there was no chance of me being able to do that, so I couldn’t even try.

  I mean, what was I going to do?

  Meow at them?

  I might be clever, and I might be determined, but that kind of behavior could only get you so far before you needed more. In some cases, brute strength was required, and not for the first time, I wished that Kenneth was with me. I should have invited him to study with me and help me practice. Maybe then, I wouldn’t be totally alone. If I had reached out and asked, he probably would have helped me.

  Maybe then I wouldn’t have gotten kidnapped by a freak.

  I inched a little bit closer, and then a little closer still. The wolf and Brandy both seemed entirely occupied. They were busy dealing with Randy’s decision to bring them back, and both of them seemed wildly terrified at the idea.

  “We’re going back,” Brandy said to her brother. “We are not staying here. I didn’t ask for you to bring us back.”

  “But I thought-“

  Brandy cut him off with a slap to the face, and I openly flinched at the sound. I’d never been exactly good with dealing with violence.

  Another step.

  Then another.

  “Little brother,” Brandy said. “You didn’t
think. That’s the entire problem. I never liked Shifter Falls, and you knew that. You spent all of your time trying to convince me that it was this wonderful, lovely place, but it’s not. It’s torture, and it’s hell, and you knew it.”

  She bounced that little blue energy ball back and forth in her hands, and then she threw it at her brother. It entered through his chest and out his back, and then it returned back to her hands. It left a clean, gaping hole in the center of Mr. Harper’s body, and he stared at it, stunned, before he fell to the ground in a pile.

  That time, the gasp I made was out loud, and both Brandy and her wolf heard me.

  No problem.

  I was at the door, so I flung it open and practically leapt down the stairs. I wasn’t about to be stopped that time.

  “Get her!” I heard Brandy yell, but I was almost at the bottom of the stairs. I reached for the hidden button to move the painting, stepped through, and closed the door again. Then I shifted instantly into my cat form and took off running.

  Okay, so maybe some of the practice actually was paying off.

  I ran as fast as I could. I could hear them scurrying down the stairs behind me. The wolf’s paws pounded against the wood, and I reached the end of the hallway just as he and Brandy burst through the painting together.

  They instantly spotted me and started running, but I had one small advantage: I knew the ins and outs of the school.

  Oh, sure, Brandy had been a student here a million years ago, but she didn’t know Shifter Falls Academy like I did.

  And one thing was for sure: I couldn’t let her get the key to the book.

  I didn’t know why she wanted back inside or what havoc she had been wreaking in that other world, but it was going to end today. There wasn’t going to be any more of her mischief happening.

  No way.

  No how.

  No thank you.

  I ran directly toward the headmaster’s office. Brandy and the wolf were chasing me, and I knew I only had seconds – not minutes – before they caught up. I needed to find a secret way to get there, or at least a way that wasn’t commonly used. The school had been remodeled many times in the past years, so I was certain there were rooms and hallways Brandy didn’t know about.

  Just as I was about to freak out and start to panic, I felt myself being lifted out of the air and pulled into a room. The door closed silently, and I looked up to see none other than Sebastian Wild.

  Only, he wasn’t in his human form.

  He was in his cat form.

  He’d grabbed me and hauled me into an empty classroom, and he pulled me back into a corner where Brandy and the wolf wouldn’t be able to see or hear us. We were silent as we waited for them to pass.

  Then he looked at me.

  I expected him to shift so he could speak to me, but he didn’t. Instead, he meowed at me, and I was shocked to discover that I could understand his words completely. I’d never been around another cat shifter while in our cat forms, so I hadn’t realized that this was something shifters could do.

  Could all shifters communicate with one another like this?

  Could every cat speak to every other cat?

  “What are they?” He asked.

  “They’re from the enchanted book,” I told him. “Randy Harper let them out. It’s his sister, and she killed him. They want back into the book, but I have the key.”

  Had.

  Suddenly, my heart plummets as I realize I left the key in the pile of clothing at the bottom of the attic stairs. Okay, so maybe I’m not as good at being a shifter as I thought.

  To my shock, though, Professor Wild is just staring at me. His kitty-cat whiskers bounce just a little as he turns his head at me.

  “You can understand me.”

  “Of course, I can. Can’t all cats understand other cats?”

  He shook his head.

  “No, Charlie. No, they can’t.”

  He seemed to want to say something else, but he didn’t. Not at first. Instead, we were silent as we heard Brandy and the wolf running up and down the hall again.

  “They’ll find us soon,” he said. “We have to stop them first. She can’t go back in the book. That book was never meant to be used by anyone other than very powerful witches who understand what’s inside.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  I wanted to know if he was going to kill them, or claw their eyes out, or what he was going to do. He looked at me carefully, as though he wasn’t quite sure whether he should tell me.

  “Charlie, there comes a point when bravery and wisdom meet, and you have to understand how to balance the two.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that whatever happens next, promise me you won’t be scared.”

  I looked at him carefully. Maybe he wasn’t really my dad. Maybe he was. Maybe he was just a lonely guy who had lost his family, but no matter who he was, he was helping me now, and he was going to do whatever it took to keep Shifter Falls Academy safe.

  “Tell me what you need me to do,” I said.

  “We need to lock them in place. I know the enchantment, but I can’t do it when I’m in my shifter form.”

  “So…can you shift back?” I asked.

  “No, Charlie. Someone has to keep them at bay while the enchantment is performed. You’re a brave kitty, but you’re not strong enough to do that.”

  My heart sunk.

  So he was right.

  I wasn’t big enough or strong enough or wild enough for this.

  “I need you to do the enchantment,” he said.

  My jaw dropped and I just stared at him for a very long time. An enchantment? Me? Sebastian Wild wanted me to do an enchantment?

  There was a part of me that was thrilled at the idea that he wanted me to be the one to help him out right now, but there was a different part of me that felt like this was crazy.

  “I can’t do an enchantment,” I told him.

  I could barely even do magic.

  My wand was gone, and I had lost the key, and I was in my kitten form.

  “You can do it,” he said. “I’ll teach you.” He looked toward the door, and I knew we didn’t have much time. Whatever Brandy wanted to do, she was going to do it fast. She and her minion wanted to get back to fairytale land, and there was a part of me that thought we probably should just lock them back in.

  “Why can’t we just put them in the book?” I asked him.

  It was the wrong time to be asking questions, but I needed to know.

  “If they go back in to a world they don’t belong in, they’ll break the stories. Magic is a delicate force, Charlie. They weren’t supposed to be in there in the first place. That book was a carefully guarded gift from Enchanted Academy. We need to trap Brandy and the wolf, and we’ll give the book back. The headmistress at Enchanted Academy will be very happy to have it back. Trust me.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  I didn’t know Sebastian very well, but I did trust him. Maybe I shouldn’t, but there was no time to doubt myself or him.

  “Here’s the enchantment,” he said to me, and he started whispering. The words seemed to swirl around in my head, but I memorized them quickly.

  “Do I need to shift back?” I asked him.

  “No,” he said. “The enchantment works no matter what form you’re in. Come on, now. We have to get close.”

  Chapter 11

  We stepped into the hallway, and I realized this was it.

  This was the pinnacle of my second year at Shifter Falls Academy.

  No matter what else happened for the rest of this semester or the next one, I’d always remember when Sebastian Wild and I had to fight a crazy witch and her wolf.

  We sat in the hallway on his orders, and we waited. We could hear them prowling around, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before they found us. I guess Sebastian got tired of waiting, though, because he let out a really long, really high-pitched meow.

  That did it.

 
The wolf and Brandy came tearing around the corner.

  “Now!” He said, and I started whispering the magic spell. As I did, I was completely shocked to see Sebastian transform yet again. He was no longer just a little cat shifter. Slowly, he grew larger and larger until he was essentially a giant version of himself. He looked like a tabby cat lion hybrid, and I had to force myself to finish the incantation as he shifted.

  Brandy and the wolf seemed to be caught by surprise as well, but she tossed her head back and shook it. Her dark curls bounced wildly.

  “Not today,” she said. She shifted into a bear that was identical to her brother’s. I wondered if they had been twins, back when he was alive. Then she dove forward and threw her body at Sebastian, and the two of them began to fight. The wolf didn’t seem to know what to do, so instead of throwing himself into the fight, he just howled loudly.

  He was going to wake the entire school, I realized, but maybe that was a good thing. Nobody really lived in the main castle except for a few teachers, but we could always use backup.

  I finished the spell, but it didn’t seem to work. Sebastian and Brandy were still howling and growling, rolling around on the floor.

  “Again, Charlie!” Sebastian called to me. “Again!”

  Crap.

  Okay, I whispered the spell again. This time, I used all of my energy, all of my hope, and all of my bravery. I threw everything I had into getting all of the words right, and I hoped that they were enough.

  I just didn’t know if they were enough.

  Somehow, though, something felt different this time.

  This time, I whispered the words as hard as I could because Sebastian was counting on me. The headmaster was screeching and growling and fighting, and the wolf seemed to be slowly losing his mind as he watched Brandy start to lose him.

  Then, out of nowhere, Brandy started growling loudly. I could tell that she was yelling her own spells and incantations, and that was when I realized that we were completely outmanned and outgunned.

  We were just two cats. Yeah, he was a huge cat, but I wasn’t, and my spell didn’t seem to be working.