Hex Hall (3 page)

And suddenly those yelow eyes were on me.

It gave another howl, and before I even had time to think, it charged.

I
heard the man and woman cry out a warning as I franticaly racked my brain for some sort of throatrepairing spel, which I was clearly about to need. Of course the only words I actualy managed to yel at the werewolf as he ran at me were,

"BAD DOG!"

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of blue light on my left. Suddenly, the werewolf seemed to smack into an invisible wal just inches in front of me. Giving a pitiful bark, he slumped to the ground. His fur and skin began to ripple and flow until he was a normal boy in khakis and a blue blazer, whimpering pitifuly. His parents got to him just as Mom ran to me, dragging my trunk behind her.

"Oh my God!" she breathed. "Sweetie, are you okay?"

"Fine," I said, brushing grass off my skilt.

"You know," someone said off to my left, "I usualy find a blocking spel to be a lot more effective than yeling 'Bad dog,' but maybe that's just me."

I turned. Leaning against a tree, his colar unbuttoned and tie loose, was a smirking guy. His Hecate blazer was hanging limply in the crook of his elbow.

"You
are
a witch, aren't you?" he continued. He pushed himself off the tree and ran a hand through his black curly hair. As he walked closer, I noticed that he was slender almost to the point of skinny, and that he was several inches taler than me. "Maybe in the future," he said, "you could endeavor not to suck so badly at it."

And with that, he sauntered off.

Between nearly being attacked by Justin the Dogface Boy, and having some strange guy who was not
that
hot tel me I sucked at witchcraft, I was now thoroughly pissed.

I checked to see if Mom was watching, but she was asking Justin's parents something that sounded like, "Was he going to bite her?!"

"So I'm a bad witch, huh?" I said under my breath as I focused on the boy's retreating back.

I raised my hands and thought up the nastiest spel I possibly could--one involving pus and bad breath and severe genital dysfunctions.

And nothing happened.

There was no sensation of water rushing up to my fingers, no quickening heartbeat, no hair standing on end.

I was just standing there like an idiot, pointing al of my fingers at him.

The heck? I'd never had trouble doing a spel before.

And then I heard a voice that sounded like a magnolia dragged through molasses say, "That's enough, my dear."

I turned toward the front porch, where an older woman in a navy suit stood between the scary ferns. She was smiling, but it was one of those creepy dol smiles. She pointed one long finger at me.

"We do not use our powers against other Prodigium here, no matter how provoked we may be," she said, her voice soft, smoky, musical. In fact, if the house could have talked, I'd have expected it to sound exactly like this woman.

"May I add, Archer," the woman continued, turning to the dark-haired boy, "that while this young lady is new to Hecate, you know better than to attack another student."

He snorted. "So I should have let him eat her?"

"Magic is not the solution for everything," she replied.

"Archer?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. Hey, you might be able to take away my magical powers, but the power of sarcasm was stil at my disposal. "Is your last name Newport or Vanderbilt?

Maybe folowed by some numbers? Ooh!" I said, widening my eyes,

"or maybe even Esquire!"

I'd hoped to hurt his feelings or, at the very least, make him angry, but he just kept smiling at me. "Actualy, it's Archer
Cross
, and I'm the first one. Now what about you?" He squinted. "Let's see

. . . brown hair, freckles, whole girl-next-door vibe going on . . .

Alie? Lacie? Definitely something cutesy ending in
ie
."

You know those times when your mouth moves but no sound actualy comes out? Yeah, that's pretty much what happened.

And then, of course, my mom took that opportunity to end her conversation with Justin's parents and cal out, "Sophie! Wait up."

"I knew it." Archer laughed. "See you, Soph
ie
," he caled over his shoulder as he disappeared into the house.

I turned my attention back to the woman. She was around fifty, with dark blond hair that had been twisted, teased, and probably threatened into a complicated updo. From her practicaly regal bearing and her suit in Hecate Hal's signature royal blue, I assumed she was the school's headmistress, Mrs. Anastasia Casnoff.

I didn't have to look at the brochure to remember that. A name like
AnastasiaCasnoff
tends to stick with you.

The blond woman was in fact the awesomely named leader of Hecate Hal. My mom shook her hand. "Grace Mercer. And this is Sophia."

"
Soh-fee-yuh
," Mrs. Casnoff said in her Southern lilt, turning my relatively simple name into something that sounded like an exotic appetizer at a Chinese restaurant.

"I go by Sophie," I said quickly, hoping to avoid being known forever as Sohfeeyuh.

"Now, y'al are not originaly from this area, am I correct?"

Mrs. Casnoff continued as we walked toward the school.

"No," Mom answered, switching my duffel bag to her other shoulder, the trunk stil between us. "My mother is from Tennessee, but Georgia is one of the few states we haven't lived in. We've moved around quite a bit."

Quite a bit
is something of an understatement.

Nineteen states over the course of my sixteen years. The longest we've ever stayed anywhere was Indiana, when I was eight.

That was four years. The shortest we ever lived anywhere was Montana three years ago. That was two weeks.

"I see," Mrs. Casnoff said. "And what do you do, Mrs.

Mercer?"

"Ms."
Mom said automaticaly, and just a little too loudly.

She bit her lower lip and tucked an imaginary piece of hair behind her ear. "I'm a teacher. Religious studies. Mostly mythology and folklore."

I trailed behind them as we ascended the imposing front steps and entered Hecate Hal.

It was blessedly cool, meaning that they apparently had some sort of air-conditioning spel going on. It also smeled like al old houses, that weird scent that's a combination of furniture polish, old wood, and the musty smel of aged paper, like in a library.

I'd wondered if the smushed-together houses would be as obvious on the inside as they had been on the outside, but al the wals were covered in the same fugly burgundy walpaper, making it impossible to see where the wood ended and the stucco began.

Just inside the front door, the massive foyer was dominated by a mahogany spiral staircase that twisted up three stories, seemingly supported by nothing. Behind the staircase was a stainedglass window that started at the second-floor landing and soared al the way up to the ceiling. The late-afternoon sun shone through it, filing the foyer with geometric patterns of brightly colored light.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Mrs. Casnoff said with a smile. "It depicts the origin of Prodigium."

The window showed an angry-faced angel standing just inside golden gates. In one hand the angel held a black sword. The other hand was pointing, clearly indicating that the three figures in front of the gates should get the heck out. Only, you know, angelicaly.

The three figures were also angels. They al looked pretty bummed. The angel on the right, a woman with long red hair, even had her face buried in her hands. Around her neck was a heavy golden chain that I realized was actualy a series of smal figures holding hands. The angel on the left was wearing a crown of leaves and looking over his shoulder. And in the middle, the talest angel looked out straight in front of him, his head high and shoulders back.

"It's . . . something," I said at last.

"Do you know the story, Sophie?" Mrs. Casnoff asked.

When I shook my head, she smiled and gestured to the fearsome angel behind the gates. "After the Great War between God and Lucifer, those angels who refused to take sides were cast out of heaven. One group"--she pointed to the tal angel in the middle--

"chose to hide itself away under hils and deep in forests. They became faeries. Another group chose to live among animals and became shapeshifters. And the last chose to intermingle with humans and became witches."

"Wow," I heard Mom say, and I turned to her with a smile.

"Good luck explaining to God that you used to spank one of his heavenly beings."

Mom gave a startled laugh. "Sophie!"

"What? You did. I hope you like hot weather, Mom, that's al I'm saying."

Mom laughed again, even though I could tel she was trying not to.

Mrs. Casnoff frowned before clearing her throat and continuing her tour. "Students at Hecate range in age from twelve to seventeen. Once a student has been sentenced to Hecate, he or she is not released until his or her eighteenth birthday."

"So some kids could be here for, like, six months, and others could be here for six years?" I asked.

"Precisely. The majority of our students are sent here soon after they come into their powers. But there are always exceptions, such as yourself."

"Go me," I muttered.

"What are the classes here like?" Mom asked, shooting me a look.

"The classes at Hecate are modeled after those found at Prentiss, Mayfair, and Gervaudan."

Mom and I both nodded at her like we knew what those words meant. I guess we didn't fool her, because Mrs. Casnoff said,

"The premier boarding schools for witches, faeries, and shapeshifters, respectively. Classes are assigned based on both the student's age and the particular struggles that student was having blending into the human world."

She gave a brittle smile. "The curriculum can be chalenging, but I have no doubt that Sophie wil do very wel."

Never had encouragement sounded so much like a threat.

"The girls' dormitories are located on the third floor," Mrs.

Casnoff said, gesturing up the stairs. "Boys are on the second.

Classes are held here on the first floor as wel as in the surrounding outbuildings." She pointed to the left and right of the staircase where long narrow halways branched off from the foyer. What with the pointing and the blue suit, she brought to mind a flight attendant. I expected her to tel me that in the event of an emergency, my brand-new Hecate blazer could be used as a flotation device.

"Now, are the students separated by . . . um . . ." Mom waved her hand.

Mrs. Casnoff smiled, but I couldn't help but notice that the smile was as tight as her bun.

"By their abilities? No, of course not. One of the founding principles of Hecate is teaching the students how to coexist with every race of Prodigium."

Mrs. Casnoff turned to lead us to the other end of the foyer.

Here, three huge windows soared up to the thirdfloor landing.

Beyond them was the courtyard, where kids were already beginning to gather on stone benches under live oak trees. I say kids. I guess they were al
things,
like me, but you couldn't tel. They just looked like any normal bunch of students. Wel, except for the faeries.

I watched one girl laugh as she offered a tube of lip gloss to another, and something in my chest tightened a little bit.

I felt something cold brush my arm, and I jumped back, startled, as a pale woman in blue swept past me.

"Ah, yes," Mrs. Casnoff said with a smal smile. "Isabele Fortenay, one of our resident spirits. As I'm sure you read, Hecate is home to a number of spirits, al of them the ghosts of Prodigium.

They're quite harmless--completely noncorporeal. That means they're unable to touch you or anything else. They may give you a fright now and then, but that's al they can do."

"Great," I said as I watched Isabele fade into a paneled wal.

As she did, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see another spirit standing at the foot of the stairs.

She was a girl about my age, wearing a bright green cardigan over a short flowered dress. Unlike Isabele, who hadn't seemed to notice me, this girl was staring straight at me. I opened my mouth to ask Mrs. Casnoff who she was, but the headmistress had already turned her attention to someone across the foyer.

"Miss Talbot!" she caled. I was amazed at the way her voice crossed the huge room without sounding even remotely like yeling.

A tiny girl, barely five feet tal, appeared at Mrs. Casnoff's elbow. Her skin was nearly snow white, as was her hair, with the exception of a hot-pink stripe running through her bangs. She had on thick, black-rimmed glasses, and even though she was smiling, I could tel it was just for Mrs. Casnoff's benefit. Her eyes looked totaly bored.

"This is Jennifer Talbot. I believe you'l be rooming with her this semester, Miss Mercer. Jennifer, this is Sohfee-yuh."

"Sophie is fine," I corrected, just as Jennifer said, "Jenna."

Mrs. Casnoff's smile tightened, like there were screws on either side of her mouth. "Gracious. I don't know what it is with children these days, Ms. Mercer. Given perfectly lovely names, and determined to mangle and change them at the first opportunity. In any case, Miss Mercer, Miss Talbot is, like you, a relative newcomer. She only joined us last year."