Shadows & Spells

KELLY

I’d made it through my first weekend as a newly single woman in the city.

I might have felt more accomplished if I’d done it solo, but I knew I’d leaned heavily on my friends, wine, and running laps on the school’s indoor track to pull through.

Whenever I felt a pang in my heart, either from loneliness or something that reminded me of Chad, I’d call a friend or reach for my trusty old friend in the fridge and pour myself a glass.

Now, on a cloudy Tuesday morning, I’d wrapped up my classes for the day, and the world didn’t seem as bleak as it had five days ago.

Chuck and I had plans to meet for coffee and review each other’s literature sections in about half an hour at the library.

As I strolled across the campus, I took a deep breath of the winter air. Snow was on its way. I could smell it—maybe a day away?

Before my family decided that I clearly lacked any magical abilities, we’d thought I might have a knack for elemental magic.

But I’d failed at that too.

At least the coven had been kind about it.

Stories from less than a hundred years ago told of non-magical children being cast out. Just sent off into the wilderness with some food, some money, and a “Good luck.”

It was harsh, but history had never been kind to witches, both within our own circles and from the outside world.

I found myself wondering, not for the first time, what I’d be doing right now if I’d shown any magical abilities.

A Tuesday morning in December? Probably prepping something from my magical specialty for the upcoming solstice, or maybe I’d have started my own business by now, selling some kind of product.

Body scrubs seemed to be popular these days. Maybe a poultice made from the minerals in our local river? Oh God, that sounds so hippie. I cringed inwardly.

I was walking through the main square of the campus, chuckling to myself about potential names for my imaginary poultice, when I saw them.

Sitting together across the courtyard on one of the stone benches. Chad and his microbiology study partner.

My imagination hadn’t done her justice. She was wearing medical scrubs and still looked like the most exotic creature on earth.

Medical scrubs, hell, she could wear a week-old dirty laundry and still look sexy.

She laughed at something Chad said, and then I turned my attention to him.

This jerk.

He ran his hand through his long hair and looked at her in a way I knew all too well. Those dimples, the crooked grin, the raised eyebrow. He was pulling out all the Chad moves.

This…jerk.

Watching them, him, my sadness at being replaced began to morph into the anger of betrayal. This asshole cheated on me.

Maybe not physically, but from what I could see, definitely emotionally. After I’d supported him, his dreams—hell, I’d financially supported him for eight months at one point.

And this was the result?

My breath quickened with adrenaline and anger, emotions my body wasn’t used to. I was usually the calm one. The giver. But this? Him?

This was enough to shatter my usually calm exterior. Giving only led to pain and heartache. Seeing him made me think, No more.

Anger exploded in my chest and behind my eyes, and I thought about marching across the hundred meters to confront him, not to beg for him back, as I’d initially thought I would.

But to let him know that, yeah, I might have been a pushover, but I could change. He, on the other hand, would always be a piece of shit.

Instead, I stood frozen with internal rage. I wanted to scream. I’d never felt such anger or fury.

I wanted revenge on this bastard. Or at the very least, to see tears of regret in those green eyes.

I watched them flirt like some stalker. He placed his hand on her knee tenderly, and it felt like my brain exploded.

I literally saw red, then something twitched around my eye, and several things happened all at once.

Suddenly panicked, I covered my eye with my hand and dropped to my knees as a bolt of lightning flashed and thunder boomed above the campus.

Students in the courtyard let out a collective gasp of fear and surprise, and I jerked upright in sudden, searing pain.

My body felt like it was on fire, my lungs felt electrified, my fingers and toes tingled, the hair on my arms and neck stood on end. Had I just been struck by lightning?

I kept my hand over my eye, both eyes squeezed shut. I was afraid I’d burst a blood vessel.

What the hell is happening? Why isn’t anyone helping me?

I felt like I was on fire, and no one was stopping to help.

I’d felt that lightning down to my bones, in my bones. I’d definitely just been struck by lightning. I had to have been.

It had passed through me and out my toes, into the stone beneath. I felt that lightning as if it were now part of me, coursing through my veins in tiny electric tendrils.

Around the courtyard, students hurried to the nearest buildings. No one seemed panicked. It was just typical Seattle weather, if a bit sudden.

No one stopped for the woman on the ground. No one seemed to notice she was on fire.

The pain subsided and I relaxed. No, I wasn’t on fire or burned. The initial burst of pain was now just a dull throb.

With the pain in my chest and back easing, raindrops began to fall. As the lightning and thunder had signaled, the rain was now here.

“Shh, quiet, quiet, quiet,” I whispered to myself, trying to calm my breathing.

I removed my hand from my eye, keeping it closed, and tilted my face up to the rain, letting it mix with the tears of anger and pain that had fallen in the last minute.

My heart rate slowed and my breathing followed suit. “Quiet, quiet, quiet,” I repeated. The rain continued its patter but now seemed as calm as I wanted to be.

I opened my eyes to see the usual gray clouds that hung around the city during the fall months.

Not the kind I would expect lightning from, but stranger things had happened.

I looked over at the spot where Chad and his “partner” had been sitting, but the courtyard was now empty, except for a few people with umbrellas.

I stood still in the icy rain, feeling like a madwoman.

What the hell just happened? My heart rate and breathing had returned to normal, but I still felt shaky, as if I’d been physically rattled.

I ran my hands through my hair, pressing it against my neck, and tried to steady my breathing.

I felt different, significantly so. It was as if something in my mind had shifted. I wasn’t a new person, but I felt like I had more weight on my shoulders now.

Well, it was now confirmed that Chad was definitely a lowlife, though that might be an insult to lowlifes.

I glanced down at myself, expecting some kind of visible sign of change, but all I saw was that I was soaked through. There was no way I was going back to my office for those freshman papers. I was done for the day.

With determination, I sprinted the six blocks back to my apartment, the rain dogging my steps.

I bounded up the stairs to my fifth-floor apartment and slammed the door behind me, dripping as if I’d just stepped out of the shower.

Something felt off. My body, my hands, were trembling so much it was as if I’d taken some kind of drug. I lifted my hands to my head and squeezed the water out of my hair.

Damn, my hands were still shaking. Was it the adrenaline from the run? It had to be.

My small purse, which had somehow stayed on my shoulder through all this, buzzed insistently. With trembling hands, I pulled out my phone and answered.

A frantic voice skipped the usual greetings. “What’s wrong? What’s happening?!” Franny demanded.

I took a deep breath before answering, my voice shaky.

“I don’t know, but I swear, I think I was just struck by lightning. I mean, I really feel like I was just used as a human lightning rod!”

“Okay, start from the beginning…”

And so I did, recounting the last twenty minutes, right up until I ran inside.

Franny listened, and for once, didn’t make any of her usual sounds of agreement or disbelief. She was silent when I finished, and for the first time, her silence annoyed me.

“Well, Franny, O wise one? What the hell is happening to me?” My adrenaline and shakiness were now being replaced with disbelief. Whatever this was, it was beyond normal.

She stayed silent for a moment longer.

“I have no clue. You’re sure you’re not physically hurt or changed anywhere?”

I shook my body and jumped on the entryway tiles to feel for anything unusual.

“Nope, besides that initial sharp pain through my chest and back, I feel fine now, and… I can’t see anything obvious.”

I looked over my body. Nothing was singed or mutilated, and my Converse sneakers showed no signs of melted rubber.

“So, maybe this could all be in your head?”

I shook my head. “No, Franny. I thought I was fucking dying, I was in so much pain.

“No way is that something mental, and it was so sudden. I mean, I didn’t actually burn, so spontaneous combustion is out.” I tried to lighten the mood with my comment, but she stayed quiet.

I muttered more to myself than to her, “There’s no way it was all in my head. I might have been royally mindfucked last week, but I’m still sane.”

Franny was still quietly thinking.

“What do you know, Franny?”

“Nothing, Kelly. I don’t really know anything, but I’m just thinking about how little we actually knew about your father before he wandered into Hunter Valley. It’s not much.”

I leaned against the front door and slid to the floor, a small puddle of rainwater forming around me.

My franticness and shaking had subsided somewhat and were now replaced with worry at the mention of my father.

“You think this has to do with Daddy?”

She sighed heavily. “I really don’t know, Kelly. But it sounds like you’re going through some mental health issues. And, well, he wasn’t exactly the picture of sanity all the time.”

Franny and I had never really fought, not about important things.

Curfew times, allowance, household chores. She’d mostly imposed such things, thinking that was what I needed, that was what a parent did, so we’d never really argued.

But when it came to my father, no one was allowed to say a thing against him, and I called her out.

“Bullshit, Francis. That wasn’t him. That was what she did to him, and you know it.”

“No, Kelly Devon Jones, I don’t. No one really knows what happens between a husband and wife behind closed doors.

“You were so young when what you think you saw happened. It might not have been that at all,” she retorted, her voice sharp.

I had no response. I knew what I’d seen, and no one, except maybe the ghost of my father, could change my mind.

“Okay, well, I’m feeling much better now.” Lies.

“Well, good.” She knew it.

I breathed in and out, trying to calm myself after the sudden mention of my parents.

I didn’t want to fight with Franny over something that had happened fifteen years ago. I felt like crap. I didn’t have the energy to fight.

She sensed it, and her voice softened. “See you on Friday in a couple weeks?”

“Yes, I’ll be on the bus arriving at three.”

“I’ll send one of the boys to meet you at the stop.”

I nodded. One of the other families on the commune usually had a teenager who was the appointed chauffeur for anyone too young or old to drive off the commune, and even for the occasional visitor.

There was silence.

“Kel, I don’t know what happened today, but we’ll figure it out, okay? Don’t let that poor excuse for a man be the reason for a quarter-life crisis.”

I laughed for her benefit.

“Quarter-life crisis sounds better than midlife for sure. Twenty-seven never felt so old.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“I know. I’ll see you in a couple weeks,” I replied, then hung up.

I got up, peeling off my drenched clothes until I was down to my underwear. I made my way through the living room, heading straight for the bathroom. I cranked up the shower, letting the water heat up to a steamy temperature.

As the bathroom filled with steam, I took a moment to study my reflection in the mirror. My cheeks were streaked with mascara and still flushed from the workout.

But something else was off. I felt...different.

Was this what breaking up felt like? I’d been pretty lucky in my twenties, only having a few short-term boyfriends before Chad. I’d never really experienced heartbreak.

I mentally ran through the seven stages of grief, figuring I was probably in the anger phase and on the brink of the next one—depression.

Holy shit, was depression a physical feeling? Was anger? That didn’t make any sense.

No, my ex was a jerk. I wasn’t the same pathetic person begging him to stay. That wasn’t going to happen.

Ignoring the now steaming shower, I marched back to my phone in the foyer with a newfound determination.

Bec picked up on the second ring, as reliable as ever. I didn’t wait for her to say hello, my voice filled with a resolute thirst for action.

“Okay, I’m there, and you’re the first person I’m calling. Let’s fuck shit up.”