The Skinwalker's Apprentice (3 page)

She gathered her wits and shouted, “
RESORGO
,” as the snake tightened his grip.

Tiny sparks flew from the mouse’s fur, and he looked, for a moment, as if he were beginning to be dislodged. But alas, the snake’s hold on him was too strong, and Margo was left with only one more option.

She gulped, hoping she didn’t cause the mouse to explode as she attempted the final spell. “
INCRESCO
,” she said, wincing, as she pointed her wand inside the tank

The mouse shuddered, and then suddenly one of its ears balloned to a size bigger than its entire head. The other ear grew to match the first, and then with a sound like a spring being compressed and suddenly released, the creature’s belly shot out, the rest of his body following suit until the mouse was the size of a large house cat. The snake had been pressed against the sides of the tank, hissing furiously and flailing the end of its tail in dispair. Margo had saved the mouse. The Priestess’s gaze snapped back into focus,  and she looked at Margo proudly. It was only the first of many lessons, as
Margo began to spend five, six, sometimes seven hours of her day practicing magic. Some days The Priestess worked her to the bone, making her conjure and enchant over and over again until her voice was raspy and her fingers were numb. Other days Margo would sit in silence and watch The Priestess brew potions masterfully, her wand swirling above the cast iron cauldron as she poured ingredients and chanted spells.

The Priestess was as brilliant as she was kind. She was strict but taught her lessons patiently, and she encouraged Margo even as she made mistakes. She was, Margo thought, the best teacher she’d ever had. But she was also extremely curious. She sometimes spoke, it seemed to Margo, to herself. Whenever she did this, she looked startled, with her pale eyes wide open. Margo had never seen her relax or even sit. She always stood up straight, as if invisible marionette strings controlled her every move. Once Margo had thought she’d seen, briefly, small stitch marks on the sides of The Priestess’s face but they were gone the next moment, and Margo was unsure whether she’d imagined them. When it came time for meals, The Priestess would always have them in her chambers, with the door shut. She never brought food in with her from the kitchen, which made Margo wonder if she ate at all. When she spoke a spell or enchantment, her usually gentle voice boomed with the force of a thousand baritones. Margo worried the villagers could hear them, but she was sure the purpose of the enchanted forest was to protect them from any busybody eyes or ears. She was right, of course. Had The Priestess not put an enchantment spell on her house, villagers would have seen explosions of purple, black, and green high above the trees. Margo was not sure why her teacher was so strange, but she supposed that it was just the way powerful witches behaved.

New York, New York

October 5, 1984

It had been an hour and a half since the senior prank that Emerald and her friends had planned had gone horribly wrong. Emerald’s butt hurt from sitting in the hard wooden chair in her principal’s office. In ten more minutes it would officially be the longest lecture he had ever given her. Usually Emerald got in trouble for trivial things; she had never damaged anything of Principal Grossman’s or worse, hurt anyone. Poor Sheryl had to be taken to the hospital for whiplash and was most likely in shock. Emerald had never remembered feeling so bad about anything she did wrong. She had never meant to destroy the principal’s brand new car or hurt his kind old secretary. Worst of all, her Aunt Nora was on her way to the school, and a tag team berating was sure to follow. They were completely alone in the school building. The odor of skunk and pig had become so overwhelming, students had begun to get sick, and everyone else had to be sent home.

“You could be expelled for this,” said Principal Grossman angrily.

How is he still sweating?
thought Emerald to herself. It was about negative twelve degrees in his office. He must have been so mad he’d given himself a fever. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“I really am sorry. Things really got out of hand.”

Emerald’s face was red with shame. She could be a lot of things, but she wasn’t a bad person. She was a little rebellious and plenty mischievous sure, but somewhere, deep down inside, she did mean well.

“We’ll see how sorry you are once your Aunt Nora gets here,” said Principal Grossman with a satisfied smile.

Emerald sank further into her chair. She was, predictably, alone. Although Seneka and Jackson had volunteered to join Emerald, taking full responsibility for their part in the scheme, Emerald had told Principal Grossman that her friends were only innocent bystanders. Seneka had almost punched her when she said this, but it was what the Principal wanted to hear.

Without another word he had yelled at Emerald, “GET TO MY OFFICE! YOU KNOW THE WAY!”

The entire school had erupted in applause. Emerald was humiliated.

“Some birthday,” she muttered to herself as she walked through the double doors, her face steaming.

Seneka did manage to fling a wad of mud at Missy’s back as she followed closely behind Principal Grossman and Emerald, still complaining. Missy had spun around and given Seneka eyes like daggers; Missy didn’t feel quite so comfortable picking on Seneka since Seneka had no problem being just as venomous as she was.

“That should’ve been a brick,” muttered Seneka under her breath, as Mr. Grossman shut the door, leaving a seething Missy outside with the rest of the school.

The next twenty minutes seemed like the longest of Emerald’s life as they both sat there in silence waiting for Nora to arrive. Finally the phone rang.

“Hello … yes? Oh, I see. This really is an urgent matter. I insist … I see. Well, if that’s what you want, sure, but you should know … SHE CAN’T BE TRUSTED … of course … of course. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean … of course. Very well. Goodbye.”

A flustered Principal hung the phone up and looked at Emerald bitterly.

“Well, it seems your Aunt Nora cannot bring herself to leave work and has asked me to send you home with whatever punishment I see fit.” He smiled deviously. “Let’s see,” he tapped his chin as he looked up at his ceiling fan. Emerald knew he was thinking of the cruelest punishment he could.

Don’t suspend me, don’t suspend me, please, don’t suspend me
, chanted Emerald in her head. If she was suspended, she would probably miss too much of her schoolwork to make up, which meant she wouldn’t graduate. Emerald’s grades were good enough, but her behavior up until that point had her passing by the skin of her teeth. If just one thing went wrong, she’d miss her chance to graduate and would have to go to summer school, which also meant she’d miss her final summer with her friends, who were all going off to college without her.

Anything but that
, she wished silently. There was nothing on the planet that could be worse than spending her entire summer under Mr. Grossman’s watch, and nothing more humiliating than not graduating.

“First, you will be required to clean up the mess you made, tomorrow first thing in the morning.”

She knew that one was coming and didn’t mind it. It wouldn’t be the first Saturday she spent at school as punishment. And as for the smell, she could just enchant her nose at home. Simple.

“Secondly, you will work AFTER school helping Sheryl with her filing or typing or whatever she needs help with. You owe it to her after what you put her through.”

A total drag but also not too bad. Sheryl was the complete opposite of Principal Grossman, and if Emerald could help right the wrong she’d done that afternoon in any way, it would be by helping her.

“And since you seem to have a problem with tardiness—let’s see, you’ve been late eleven of the fifteen days of school so far?—you will be on probation for your attendance. If you are late just ONE more time this year … ”

No,
thought Emerald, her pulse quickening.
Don’t … say … those … words.

“You will be required to complete summer school.”

Emerald heard the words come out in slow motion and watched as sweat dripped from Principal Grossman’s lip and fall with an echoing thud on his desk. Emerald felt the wind being knocked out of her as a cruel smile spread across her principal’s face. She swallowed hard.

“Isn’t that a little extreme, Principal Grossman? It’s only October. What if I’m sick?”

“Should’ve thought of that before your little prank,” he smiled contently.

She knew he was doing it to get under her skin now. Principal Grossman had had it out for Emerald since she was a freshman. He had tried to institute a ban on dying hair ‘unnatural’ colors the second he spotted her, but one phone call from Aunt Nora had set him straight.

“Can I go now?” she seethed.

“Hmmm.” Principal Grossman thought for an exaggerated amount of time before hissing, “Yes,” his eyes like two slits.

Emerald got up and walked as calmly as she could out of his office. Out in the hall, she pinched her nose: the smell really was that bad. She walked out of the double door, thinking to herself that her last year of high school was shaping up to be her worst. She had no idea how right she was.

It was close to seventy degrees in New York City, despite the vibrant red and gold of the leaves. A light breeze whipped between the buildings, and had it not been for the foul mood she was in, Emerald would have enjoyed being out in the fresh air. Instead, all she could do was scowl and notice how dirty the city was. She could almost taste the grit between her teeth as she thought of the awful mess she was in; it made her stomach churn. 

She decided she was going to avoid going home for as long as she could. She was already in the biggest trouble of her sixteen years on earth; might as well milk it. She sat on a bench in Washington Square Park, her headphones snug on her ears. Moments before she had opened the package Seneka had given her for her birthday: a white and burgundy jersey top with the number 84 on it, and a brand new mix tape. When she popped the mix tape into her Walkman and pressed play, ‘Happy Birthday’ by Altered Images blared through the small cushioned headphones. Despite the lousy day she’d been having, a small grin crept across Emerald’s face. Seneka always knew how to make her feel better. Exchanging mix tapes was a tradition of theirs; every few weeks they’d make new ones and spend hours at Seneka’s house or the park just listening in silence, dissecting every song late into the night. Music was Emerald’s drug of choice. When she listened to it, it seeped into her bones, and consumed every last part of her. It was the one thing, aside from her friends, that made her feel like she was understood.

Emerald stopped the tape when out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flailing hand and then an oversized pair of pink glasses beneath a mess of red hair; Olive Pickleton.

Olive was the kind of girl so hopeless she gave secondhand embarrassment to anyone within a ten-foot radius. Emerald gave Olive a thin smile and friendly wave as the gawky girl rushed towards her, nearly knocking her own glasses off her face.

Emerald slapped her hand against her forehead as she watched Olive struggle just to walk in a straight line without losing her glasses or the stack of books that was permanently glued to her arms.

Emerald liked Olive, as she tended to like anyone whom everyone else rejected, and Olive for some reason thought everything Emerald said and did was cool. She was Rosie Gulitz’s best and only friend, and she got picked on just as badly. Olive, however, awkward as she was, wasn’t afraid to stick up for herself and had taken her fair share of black eyes for it. The purple from one such shiner was just beginning to heal, Emerald noticed, as the knock-kneed girl sat beside her.

“What’s shakin’?” asked Olive, scrunching her nose and pushing her giant glasses up with her index finger. She was wearing dark purple overalls, with a striped pink, lavender, and white button up shirt beneath it. She had white ruffled socks and jelly shoes, which matched her overalls perfectly. “How much trouble are you in?” She asked another question in her nasally voice before Emerald could answer the first.

“Uh, I’m just hanging around, and a lot of trouble. Gonna have to stay after school a whole bunch, and I can’t be late for the rest of the year or I’ll have to go to summer school,” sighed Emerald. She wasn’t usually this talkative with Olive, but she hadn’t gotten a chance to tell anyone about her punishment, and she needed an ear.

Olive cringed and put her skinny hand on Emerald’s shoulder. Everyone knew Emerald’s problem with getting anywhere on time. She was toast.

“You know you can count on Olive C. Pickleton for whatever you need,” Olive said nobly, her hand still on Emerald’s shoulder.

“Thanks, Olive, I know. Hey, what does the C stand for?” Emerald always thought it was cruel of Olive’s parents to give her an edible first name, given her last name. She hoped the ‘C’ didn’t stand for celery.

“Clementine,” said Olive sourly as Emerald nodded.

“It’s not so bad. I think clementines are delicious,” teased Emerald playfully.

“My parents think it’s charming,” said Olive, stretching the word ‘charming’ out into what she imagined was a posh British accent. “They have no idea what I deal with at school.”

“Don’t sweat it, Olive. It’s your senior year, and soon you’ll be off at college and away from Missy and her band of moronic clones. You’ll probably be Missy’s boss one day,” said Emerald her voice trailing off as she looked away.
And I’ll probably be your cleaning lady,
she thought to herself sadly.

“You mean it’s
our
senior year, right?” Olive asked as she nudged Emerald.

Emerald gave Olive a sideways smile and got up from the park bench.

“I gotta go, see you around,” said Emerald as she turned and walked away unceremoniously. She could feel Olive trying to figure out what the matter was, and she wasn’t in the mood.

“See you tomorrow! If you want, you can sit with us at lunch. I don’t mind,” yelled Olive after her, scrunching her nose to keep her glasses from falling off.

Emerald pressed play on her Walkman and The Smiths’ ‘What Difference Does it Make?’ began playing. She realized she had forgotten her wallet that morning in the rush to get to school on time to set up the senior prank.

“Crap,” she muttered, and decided to take her chances going home. If she hurried, she could avoid Aunt Nora all together. It was Friday, Nora’s grocery-shopping day, and she was usually gone until at least five in the evening. Emerald made her way across the park, past the lampposts and towards West 4th. She turned left onto Cornelia Street and then onto Bleecker Street. She had to restrain herself from going into Murray’s Cheese Shop and stuffing her face; she had to get her wallet and get out before Nora came home. As she approached her house, an eggplant-colored townhouse on Morton Street and Hudson, Talk Talk’s ‘It’s my Life’ started on her mix tape.

“Yeah, and my life is about come to an end if Nora is home,” she said to herself as the song bounced in her ears. She pressed the stop button and braced herself to walk inside.

Nora had become Emerald’s legal guardian when she was only five years old. Nora ran the ‘Kipp Boarding House’, the last piece of property left from her family’s inheritance. Emerald and Nora lived there along with a rotating cast of boarders, making life at home anything but boring for Emerald, but also really annoying. She couldn’t even use her magic in her own home unless she was locked in her bedroom. Nora, like the rest of Emerald’s family, was also a witch, though she rarely used her powers, at least not that Emerald knew of. Nora was the only other witch Emerald knew. They were the last of their kind; something Emerald had grown up knowing, and something that made her feel utterly alone.

Emerald pushed her front door open carefully, as if there were such a thing; everything in the boarding house was heavy and ancient and creaked to high heaven. Their cat, Cashmere, pounced onto the staircase banister, little white socks at the end of her feet. Emerald still couldn’t believe Aunt Nora had to put miniature socks on the spoiled feline. Cashmere was so finicky she couldn’t bring herself to touch the floor with her bare paws. Emerald rolled her eyes and hissed at Cashmere, but the cat just stared back at her blankly. She always looked as if she was about to fall asleep of boredom.