August 4, Tuesday
Sorry I haven't been keeping up with this diary. I've been too busy learning everything I can about magic. But then Grandma gave me these special crystals that you attach to a pen, and they record your actual memories as you write about them, so I had to try them out now that I have some special news...
My witch's kit came in! I wish I could open it right now, but Mom's on high alert. I've been running around the house waiting for my kit the last three days, and she's been suspicious. She actually asked Leo, Dad's familiar animal, to follow me around--even though she says he's a "dangerous magical leopard" and "should be put down before he eats someone."
Honestly, does she really think Leo's some wild animal or something? He's as smart as any human, and he's literally bonded to Dad's mind. Even if he wanted to eat people, he would see in Dad's thoughts that eating people would get him in serious trouble, and then he would forget about the whole eating-people thing.
Either way, Mom must be really desperate to ask for his help. What does she think I'm going to do, join a cult or something? Tons of perfectly decent people practice magic. Grandma and Grandpa make a living doing it. Even Dad practiced magic before he got married.
Is it so bad if I want to do the same thing?
***
Between the pristine yard and sprawling forest, a faint shimmer hovered in the air--the estate barrier. It was one of the few magics Mom didn't mind. She said it kept out the dangerous magical creatures living in the woods, but Grandma assured me it was only for the monsters that hunted at night. Nothing dangerous should be out during the day. But what if she was wrong, just this once? Learning magic wasn't worth dying.
Adjusting the briefcase-sized witch's kit under my arm, I stopped at the edge of the yard. If Mom caught me leaving the estate, I was screwed. The barrier was nearly invisible, but she knew I could smell magic. Pretending I'd accidentally wandered through it would only get me into more trouble.
I glanced over my shoulder, up the hill at my grandparents' Victorian mansion. Faint yoga music drifted through an open window. Mom had just started her routine, which gave me about half an hour before she checked up on me. If I was going to do this, I didn't have time to hesitate.
But what if there was a monster out there, hungering for human flesh?
Ugh, I wished I could check out my kit in my bedroom, but half the things in it were oozing magic. Leo would smell them in an instant and report me to my parents. If I unpacked my kit in Grandma's lab, all her potion ingredients might mask the scent, but I would come out reeking of magic. My best bet at staying out of trouble would be to go into the woods, check out the stuff in my kit, and hurry back before Mom could realize I was missing.
"Let's hope Grandma's right about the monsters," I muttered, stepping through the barrier. Magic buzzed over my skin, and its metallic scent was so overwhelming that I coughed.
On the other side of the barrier, everything felt different. A million new scents swarmed around me, from floral magic to earthy trees to something musty that could've been an animal or some kind of fungus. I shivered as a bird called nearby. It could've been a normal sparrow, or it could've been an honest-to-goodness phoenix. There was no way to tell.
Water burbled in a stream nearby. That particular stream ran through the yard and into the forest, so if I stayed near it, I would have no trouble finding my way back home.
Moving into the trees, I drew closer to the stream. Thorns scraped my legs and caught on my shorts. I would've worn jeans, but it was sweltering. Mossy stones lined the stream. As slippery as they were, I appreciated the relief from thorns when I walked on them.
Something rustled in a nearby bush, and I stiffened. I shouldn't worry. Grandma knew her magical creatures. If she said monsters only came out at night, then they only came out at night.
What if it was a pixie or some other magical creature? Mom said they were just as bad as monsters. No, she might have her reasons to hate magic, but that didn't mean all magical creatures were dangerous. Leo wasn't dangerous. Neither were Jack or Starling, my grandparents' familiars.
Shaking my head, I started moving again. Damp leaves squished under my hiking boots. I kept an eye out for any dry, thorn-free spot where I could unpack my kit.
After a while, I spotted a fallen tree across the stream. Clovers surrounded it in place of thorns. Hopping from stone to stone, I crossed the stream and plopped down next to the tree. I was so eager to check out my witch's kit that it nearly fell open in my lap.
New magic books and gleaming artifacts stared up at me from inside the kit. Just looking at them sent a thrill through me. All summer, Grandma had been teaching me spells, potion recipes, and magical creature anatomy. But I'd never actually done magic (except for the memory crystal I use when I'm writing in my diary, which doesn't really count because... well, it just doesn't count).
Learning magic from books was--according to Mom--a crime worthy of a serious grounding. Using magic, on the other hand, was a crime worthy of surgery. When I figured out as a kid that I had inherent gifts (magic I could do without any artifacts or potions) she flipped out. It didn't matter that my gifts were harmless. After all, no one killed anyone by smelling magic or hiding in shadow.
She'd still taken me to a dozen doctors in the hope that they could "cure" me of my magic. In the end, she'd resigned herself to the fact that it just wasn't possible, but she made it clear that if I ever did magic on purpose, I might as well pack up my bags and leave because I wouldn't be part of her family anymore.
Part of me wished I could go back to before I discovered my inherent gifts, when I was just Mom's perfect little girl. But another part of me, the louder part, was furious that she'd tried to take away my natural gifts. She was still trying to take them away.
It was why when I was a kid, she exiled Leo to the yard like a common house cat because I enjoyed the smell of his magic. It was why she'd forbidden me from seeing my best friend in middle school because we figured out her parents were practicing witches. It was why this summer, she banned me from Grandma's potion lab and Grandpa's magizoology study.
If she thought keeping me away from magic was that easy, she was sorely mistaken. I scanned the artifacts in my witch's kit. There was a glamour glass (gold monocle for seeing through illusions); a scrying glass (obsidian plate for seeing far-off places); a self-heating, collapsible cauldron; and my personal favorite--a wand. It looked like nothing more than a silver-plated stick, but my fingers trembled as I touched it.
According to Grandma, it was the best wand on the market--silverwood, treated with phoenix feather potion and forged in flames as hot as a dragon's breath. Its high quality made it smell even better than the natural magic all around me. Closing my eyes, I savored the smoky scent.
I flicked my forehead. There wasn't any time for smelling magic. Hand trembling, I picked up the wand. It buzzed like a living thing. The buzzing spread up my arm, across my shoulder, all the way down to my waist. My waist? Crap.
Tossing the wand back in the trunk, I unclipped a satellite phone from my belt. Mom made me wear it at all times because service was terrible around here. It was probably the only reason she ever let me leave my bedroom, much less the house.
She launched into interrogation mode as soon as I answered the call.
"Where are you?"
"Hello to you too." I massaged my temples. Why had I let myself get caught up in the magic smell? I should've been done checking out my kit and on my way home already. "I'm on a walk."
"Inside the estate barrier?"
I sighed. "Of course, inside the barrier."
"And if I sent Leo out, would he find you inside the barrier?"
"Yeah." If I ran really fast.
"We'll see." She hung up.
Great, I didn't even have time to look through the spellbook or try out the glamour glass. I slammed the trunk shut. Then again, waiting to use my witch's kit was better than being locked in my room until I turned eighteen next month. Maybe I could make it to the house before Leo found me. He didn't have wings or super speed or anything.
Of course, leopards were plenty fast on their own.
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