Hannah Jayne: Under a Spell

In my freshman year that had seemed like sound advice. By senior year I knew it was a crock of shit.

“I really appreciate you both coming out here,” Lowe said, his pale eyes moving from my face to Will’s. “And Ms. Lawson, I understand that you are a Mercy High, uh, alumna, is that correct?”

I shook my head quickly, then cleared my throat. “That is correct, sir.”

Lowe and Will both broke out into smiles. “You can call me Edward, Ms. Lawson. You’re not in any trouble here.”

I felt a hot blush warm my cheeks and the smile dropped from Edward’s face.

“Well, not in here. But out there”—his eyes flashed to the halls behind us and he shook his head—“I’m not so sure.”

I suddenly snapped into information-gathering mode and pulled my notebook and pen from my shoulder bag. Every cop seemed to have his own black leather flip-open notebook—Alex kept his in his back pocket—and I knew professionally, I would need my own. I couldn’t exactly find the model the cops used, but found that my Target stand-in with the glittery, big-eyed unicorn on the front cover still got the job done.

“Do you have any additional information you can give us, Edward? Anything at all about either of the missing students or any suspicions about your current class?”

Edward blinked at me blankly and Will put a soft hand on my knee. “What she means is, is there anything we should know before going out there?”

Edward shuffled some papers on his desk before handing one each to Will and me. “You’ll be teaching English Two, Ms. Lawson, and Mr. Sherman—”

“Will, please.”

“Will, thank you. You’ll be teaching American History.”

I let out a yip that was half nerves, half amusement. “He’s teaching American History?” I jerked a thumb toward Will. “He’s English.”

“With all due respect, love, we English have a pretty good working knowledge of what’s happened here in the States. We did own you and all.”

Edward cleared his throat and we both snapped back to attention, caught bickering in the principal’s office.

“You’ll each be teaching four classes a day with two free prep periods. You don’t start until after lunch today. The lessons are already prepared for you and left in each of your rooms. You have free rein of the building for your investigation.” Lowe pulled two keys from his top desk drawer and handed one to each of us. “But of course, you’ll keep your true intentions for being here from the student body. The girls were quite stirred up when the uniformed men were on campus. I don’t know what kind of CSI -type havoc they’d wreak if they knew two undercover FBI investigators were here as well.”

Lowe grinned and I smiled back, impressed. FBI investigators, huh? I made a mental note to thank Sampson for giving us a decent cover; the last time I went to investigate some supernatural bumps at a house in the Marina, Sampson told the lady I was an exterminator and I wound up with a tetanus shot and a vague certainty that her demon spider had laid a dozen eggs in my left nostril.

Lowe shrugged, his slim shoulders hugging his ears. “I wish I could give you some more information, some direction about the girls or the administration. Everyone here is like a family. I can’t imagine . . .”

“So, I believe our—FBI boss, Pete Sampson—told you what we’re investigating?”

“Of course.” Lowe nodded. “The possibility of a coven.”

“Yes.” I nodded back, flipping over my notebook in a bid to look uber FBI-like. “Do you know which students are a part of it?”

Edward swung his head and stiffened. “If there even is a coven. All the girls have been pretty tight lipped about their clubs and activities off campus. But I’ve heard the murmurs in the halls.”

“We met three girls earlier. Kayleigh—”

“Finleigh and Fallon,” Lowe finished. “They’re like the three Musketeers.”

“Yes. Are they—is Fallon perhaps part of the murmuring? She seems sort of . . .” I let my words trail off, hopeful that Edward would get the message without me having to say that the pubescent bombshell seemed a bit witchy.

“Fallon? No. She’s a star student here. Very friendly and helpful. Heads up the blood drive every year.”

I shifted in my seat. Nina was in charge of the blood drive at the office, but it was less a good-citizen thing, more of a lunch-truck thing.

I instinctively didn’t trust Fallon. And I swore to myself it had nothing to do with her perfect curves or the lascivious way she rolled her tongue over her bottom lip while hanging on Will’s every accented word.

“Fallon helps out a lot of students—especially new ones. High school can be pretty intimidating—especially here.”

Didn’t I know it.

Lowe turned us out into the hallway and my heart was thudding. Our footsteps echoed through the deserted corridor and I couldn’t help thinking about the green mile, a prisoner walking toward their death.

“Brings back a lot of memories, huh?” Will said. “Bet you were rollicking around here with your pigtails and your high-heeled shoes.”

I felt my upper lip curl. “I was going to high school, not a fantasy porn shoot. And my memories weren’t all good. I’m pretty sure if there’s witchcraft around here, it’s going to be right out in the open.”

“Why would you think that?”

I got a flash of my fifteen-year-old self, dwarfed by a backpack and a headgear, being Ping-Ponged between the popular girls as I tried to make my way to my locker.

“Just a gut thought.”

I pulled the file Sampson had given me from my shoulder bag as we walked the hall in silence.

“Here,” I whispered. “This is Cathy Ledwith’s class schedule. These two are Alyssa Rand’s from the last two years. Anything significant?”

“Yes. Absolutely. American teens are sadly behind in math. Look at this—juniors. Geometry One. A shame.”

I glared at Will, but kept the fact that Geometry One and I had shared more than a few tearful years together a secret. “No. I meant any crossover classes or teachers.”

He scanned the sheets. “They both took art with Mr. Fieldheart in 6B. Both third period last year, Alyssa second period this year. Both took Honors English in their junior year, both with the teacher you’re replacing.”

“Okay, okay, that gives us something to go on.” Will handed me back the pages. “What, exactly, does it give us to go on?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet. Let’s go upstairs and check out room 6B.”

We climbed the stairs and peered into classroom 6B, where a ring of girls sitting at easels turned to glare at us and no one adamantly jumped up and tried to turn us into toads.

“So much for your walk-around-and-stare-at-things plan.”

“I have other plans.”

“And they are . . . ?”

Saved by the bell.

Break time at Mercy High was a flurry of plaid skirts and high-pitched chatter, everyone stuffed shoulder to shoulder in the lunchroom as the weather outside rolled from an almost-blue to a definite, angry-looking gray.

Will branched off on his own and I paced the cafeteria aisle, infinitely glad that I could cross my arms in front of my chest rather than have to balance a tray while working to keep my eyes locked forward, away from the bullies of my youth. I kept my head slightly cocked, hoping to hear incriminating words pop from the multitude of conversations about clothes, nails, and this week’s pop star du jour, but conversations faded the closer I got, only to start up again as I passed. At the back of the cafeteria, I spotted a girl, sitting at a table full of students who had left an empty ring around her, a solid indicator that she was alone.