Shift

THREE.2

Dawn slunk in more slowly than Kayden ever could have imagined.

Her eyes hurt. She had stayed up all night, peering through the darkness, her hand clamped onto the rugged edges of the crucifix. After what had happened, she hadn't dared to fall asleep.

Pinkish sunlight peeked in through the gap between her shade and the windowsill, and Kayden stiffly turned her head to glance at her iHome. It read 6:17.

Good enough, she thought.

It took some concentration since her muscles were tight, but she managed to get out of bed without disturbing Lexi. Kayden put the cross back on her nightstand and made her way downstairs, cautiously flipping on lights as she went. Every moment she expected someone to leap at her from the shadows.

By the time she arrived at the empty kitchen, her racing heart had finally slowed to a more normal rhythm. Kayden rubbed her face; she already knew how the day would play out. First she would tell her mom what had happened. Then, after a lovely shouting match, the police would get involved. Kayden was not looking forward to the ensuing interrogations, but she had no choice. She couldn't let some mental case break into her room night after night.

Her stomach growled angrily and, as if guided by some invisible force, she found herself in front of an open pantry with an old box of pancake mix in her hand. Her stomach twinged as she stared at the worn yellow cardboard. Her father used to make pancakes on Sunday mornings. She hadn't eaten any since he had moved out.

In an instant, she made up her mind. She reached into the fridge, grabbing the additional ingredients, and laid them out on the counter. Kayden didn't cook much, but making the pancakes was almost therapeutic. For thirty minutes, she forgot about the boy and her exhaustion and her friends who had barely sent her a single text all summer. Instead, she focused on reading the box, cracking eggs, and snacking on semi-sweet chocolate chips. When she finally sat down at the kitchen table with a stack of pancakes, her mind was almost entirely filled with soft memories of her as a child, when her chin barely surpassed the height of the kitchen table.

And then she heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

"Morning, Kay!"

The voice was bright, cheery, and much too loud for a Saturday morning. Kayden slipped her hands into her tangled brown hair. "Not so loud, Lexi." She glanced over to the clock blinking on the microwave. "It's barely seven. What are you doing up?"

Lexi strolled into view. Kayden couldn't believe she still looked attractive this early in the morning. "I usually get up around this time," Lexi said, leaning against a kitchen chair with a grin. Her blond hair was tied up in a messy bun, stray tendrils brushing against her cheek. "And I smelled pancakes."

"Help yourself," Kayden said.

Lexi made her way around the kitchen like a modern-day Disney movie princess. She whistled a tune under her breath, cleaned up Kayden's mess with a wet paper towel, and got herself pancakes all at the same time. Kayden was surprised that woodland creatures didn't materialize through the kitchen window to help her.

Lexi sat down at the table and reached for a napkin. "You know, I never knew you took Latin. That's pretty cool."

"I guess," Kayden said, tapping her fork on her plate. "My guidance counselor said it would help me with my SATs, but we'll see how that goes." She glanced up at her cousin. "How did you know I took Latin?"

Lexi cut her pancake into perfect little squares. "Your textbook was on the floor; I almost stepped on it when I got out of bed."

Kayden frowned. "Really?" She could have sworn she had given the textbook back to her teacher at the end of the year. If she hadn't, the school would charge her a fine, claiming that she had stolen the rental. Great, she thought. Some more fuel for my inevitable argument with Mom today. Pushing her chair back, she said, "Be right back."

"Mmh," Lexi mumbled, her mouth full.

Kayden went up the stairs two at a time. Now that the sun was up, her need for caution had vanished; it was amazing how sunlight could give her such a sense of security. However, she still felt uneasy when she spotted the cross on her side table.

"Lexi," she muttered, noticing that the bed had been made. The comforter was smoothed and the pillows perfectly plumped; it looked like a hotel room. But instead of an elaborately folded towel set atop of the comforter, she spied a book. It was bound in dark navy cloth and devoid of any other markings.

Kayden frowned. Her Latin textbook had been colorful and vibrant, trying to disguise the fact that the subject was anything but. This book looked like it had been plucked from the furthermost recesses of her local library, off the dusty shelves where the biographies and histories lived for years without seeing sunlight.

Kayden picked up the volume and flipped to the inside cover, expecting to see the paper library pocket or even a barcode. Instead, she was greeted with words written in beautiful calligraphy:

The Booke of Advanced Magick

Under that, written in an elegant, but more modern, hand was:

Property of Silas Joseph Merg

Kayden squinted, her green eyes re-reading the title. Magick? Silas? She thought of the boy who had snuck into her room, remembering the book that he had held in his hands. Was this his book? Was "Silas" his name?

Wow, she thought, flipping towards the center, he must be taking this wizard thing pretty far if he has a fake spell book.

As she skimmed through the book, she realized Lexi had been right about one thing: this was a Latin book. Every thin and delicate page was filled with the ancient writing that Kayden instantly recognized from her studies. But there were also pages containing long lists of ingredients, strange symbols, and intricate diagrams.

She paused on a page that had nothing but words and tried to read them silently. But as she scanned the print, the text blurred. Her eyes began to sting and she could feel the blood pulsing through her skull, pressing against her forehead and leaving a steady headache in its place. But she didn't want to draw her eyes away. The words were so enticing and elegant and powerful...

She gasped and, with a surprising amount of effort, slammed the book shut. Her headache vanished instantly. "What is going on?" she muttered, pressing her fingertips against her chest; she could feel her heart fluttering unevenly under her skin.

She shook her head. It can't be real. It can't.

And yet she couldn't stop herself from staring at the book. Taking a breath, Kayden climbed onto her bed. She rested her finger on the cover, running it against the rough fabric. So far so good. And then she opened the book, flipping to a random page. As she leaned over the text, the words glinted, shifting and churning under her gaze. Her head began to pound.

"It can't be," she whispered, and yet a part of her, just a sliver, marveled at the book and the way her body reacted to it. What if the boy was telling the truth? she thought. What if he really is a wizard?

It seemed too fantastical—everything in her brain was telling her that it couldn't be—and yet staring at the book, at the glimmering ink with her head throbbing, it all felt possible. Crazy and weird and unbelievable, but possible.

But if he really is a wizard... Her stomach churned. He promised to come back. And now that I have his spell book, he's definitely coming back.

Kayden bit the inside of her cheek. Call the police, the reasonable voice in her head commanded, but another part of her kept staring at the book. She carefully flipped through the pages, touching the thin paper and feeling her blood rush through her head.

And that was when she stumbled upon a header written in sloping calligraphy:

Vinculum Iuramenti

"Bonding Oath?" she translated, her finger hovering over the page. She attempted to translate the passage, slowly going word by word through the text. By the time she had gotten the gist of the section, she had a pounding headache, but she was smiling.

Kayden dog-eared the corner of the page and shut the book with a satisfying thump. "He won't even see it coming."