The minute she accidentally vaporized her math teacher, Ellen Grand knew that she about to be in major trouble.
Not the type of trouble in which she would be called to Mrs. Flemmings' office (although she was sure that would most certainly happen), but a much more frightening and dangerous kind which, she feared, she had very little control over.
The incident of the vaporization of Ms. Corey had come about very innocently, at least in Ellen's mind. She and Mandy Griggs had been working rather diligently on the problems that their teacher had assigned, however, the rest of their class had felt that eight-fifteen on a Tuesday morning was the perfect time for a rousing game of "let's see how many people we can fit on top of one desk." After many failed threats to call Mrs. Flemmings, their parents, and the superintendent, Ms. Corey had nearly pulled out all of her short brown hair and angrily added twenty more math problems to their assignment list, as well as a test for the next day.
"That's so unfair!" Ellen had cried, holding up her paper. "Ms. Corey, Mandy and I have been doing our work." Their teacher, still fuming, shrugged stiffly and told them to thank their classmates.
"Ugh," Ellen mumbled softly to Mandy, "I really wish Ms. Corey would just disappear."
It is obvious what ensued.
The classroom went deathly quiet as Ellen stared in horror at her teacher, who was now no more than a pile of dust on the floor. For what felt like years, all the students were frozen, transfixed on the remains of Ms. Corey, when finally Andrea Stills broke the silence.
"Ellen..." she whispered, "what on Earth did you just do?"
"I...I..." she could barely speak, but even if she had been able to there was no way she would have been able to come up with an explanation for this.
"Um, happy Halloween, everyone!" Ellen heard Mandy shout from behind her. "This was...uh...a trick! Ms. Corey is fine, but we really had you guys believing that Ellen has magical powers, huh?" Mandy elbowed Ellen in the ribs.
"Oh, uh, yes! Gotcha!" she tried her best to put on a joking face and pointed at Andrea. "You should've seen your face!" The class laughed along with Ellen and Mandy uneasily. The two were worried they would have to come up with something new when, luckily for them, the lunch bell rang.
"Um, cool trick guys," Brandon Harrow said, never taking his eyes off of the dusty pile that was Ms. Corey as he left the room. The rest of the class shuffled out in the same fashion, until it was just Mandy and Ellen left.
"Okay, please tell me you were telling the truth and that was just a Halloween prank," Ellen said as soon as their classmates were out of earshot.
"Ha ha, very funny," Mandy rolled her eyes and walked over to inspect the dust. "This was one of your weirder tricks, Ellen, but I'll admit it was pretty believable." She looked up. "How did you even do this?"
"I don't know!" she exclaimed. "That's the problem, I didn't do it on purpose!"
"Oh, come on, don't try and fool me." Mandy said. "We've been friends for six years, I know when you're...hey, what are you looking at?"
Ellen's face had gone white and she was staring past Mandy, directly at the blackboard. Mandy turned and gasped.
A large, swirling white cloud of smoke had appeared in the room, growing larger and larger by the second. It turned and swished, whistling loudly like the wind.
"WHAT IS THAT?" Ellen shouted over the noise.
"HOW SHOULD I KNOW?" Mandy screamed back. "I'VE BEEN HERE STARING AT IT FOR AS LONG AS YOU-"
POP!
The two girls jumped backwards, their hands over their ears, and their eyes widened in astonishment. In the place of the cloud, a tall, crooked woman in a long black cloak had appeared. She smiled at Ellen and Mandy, but there was a strange look in her eye, and something told Ellen that things were about to get a lot more complicated.
