Spell Book & Scandal

Chapter Five

Even though I told Mom there's no point for me to write spells, the way Miah asked me about my work is niggling at the back of my mind, that and the flyer I saw in the library, so when I get upstairs, I pull my spell notebook out from under the pile of crap on my desk, and I flip through some of my feeble attempts.

Mom claims she drafts her spells in pencil, but I've only ever seen her writing the finished products when she's ready to add them to the family spell book. The book is filled with her confident handwriting and various colors of ink, depending on the type of spell. The one time I tried using the feather pen Mom and Dad bought me one year for my birthday to write one of my finished spells in the family book, the pen caught fire and disintegrated in a puff of smoke and ashes before I had a chance to finish the spell. I haven't tried to scribe in the family spell book since.

Instead, I jot down my notes and ideas in a battered black and white composition book that I keep in my room. I don't have any of my old attempts at spells; after the feather pen incident, I got so mad that I threw all my old notebooks into the trash, and by the time I started to regret getting rid of everything, the garbage had already been picked up and it was too late. So now this one notebook, not even half-full, is all I have to show for fifteen years of trying to learn how to scribe.

It's pathetic, really, but then again, everything about me feels pathetic these days, from my attempt at differentiating myself from my family to my spectacular face plant when Miah dropped me off that afternoon.

Miah. My skin prickles just thinking about him, and a lump of excitement starts to build in my stomach. I have to have some good spells to show him tonight, or he'll never ask me out again. Even though I'm not entirely sure it's a date, I don't want to blow my one chance with him by being Shelby the pathetic scribe, and I begin to flip through my spells aimlessly. It's hard to see why they didn't work, since I can barely muster up enough magic to test them out, but it seems like nothing I've ever written has done exactly what I wanted it to do.

There's the spell from Mom's birthday that left the ceiling scorched, and my lips move as I read the spell again. It should have made her birthday cake light up with teeny tiny little fireworks, but instead, it created a fireball that shot straight up into the air before it collided with the ceiling and Christina was able to douse it. I frown, wondering idly what would have happened if we'd tried the spell outside.

Flipping the pages in the notebook, I sigh. None of these spells are worth showing to Jeremiah, and given what he said in the car, he's interested in me because he thinks I'm the scribe who's been writing the awesome spells Christina is performing. I don't actually know who's scribing for her; I've assumed that Mom might be doing it, but nobody has told me, and it's not like I'm going to ask. Absentmindedly, I pick up a green colored pencil and begin tracing a leaf in the margin of my notebook. The leaf turns into a vine, curling down the page like something out of a fairy tale, and I write the words, "once upon a time" at the top of the page.

Feeling silly, I bite the tip of the pencil. What kind of spell would be called "Once Upon a Time"? Setting the green pencil down, my hand reaches automatically for a pink pencil, and I find myself writing the words, "to conjure fairy tale love, speak these words under a full moon."

My tongue pokes against my teeth as I write, and even though I feel silly, I jot down the words that come to mind. "Amor Amo Eros now, bring me true love, I don't care how. Eros Amo Amor my friends, I dream of love that never ends." I end the last line with a little heart, and for a moment, the page shimmers with pink and green sparks, but nothing else happens.

I glance at the calendar hanging on the wall behind my desk. The moon will be full in three days, but I don't exactly know how I can test the spell. Even though I'd like nothing more than for Miah to fall for me, I don't know if I could stand it if the spell backfired in some explosive way the way my magic usually does. But even without testing it, the spell sounds pretty, and I'm kind of proud of it; even if it doesn't work, at least I found the right words for the rhyme.

Even if it doesn't work... I think to myself, and then I slam my notebook shut and reach into my backpack, searching for the flyer I stole from the library. It's crumpled in the bottom of my bag, and the corner is damp from when I dumped my bag into the street, but I smooth the paper and read the want ad again. I glance at my notebook, and then back at the flyer. Even if the spell doesn't work, it sounds right, and I bet I could find people at school who'd pay good money for a love spell like that one. My fingers begin twitching, and before I can stop myself, I've picked up my colored pencils again, and I'm filling the pages of my notebook with corny rhymes that I pull out of thin air, words that promise love, good grades, and all kinds of other random things.

One spell in particular makes my pulse speed up as I write it, and I read it back to myself with a smile. It's a spell for sneaking out of the house, and I decide right then and there that I'm going to test it tonight. If I get out and meet Miah without getting in trouble, I'll take that as my sign that I should start selling these spells to normies. The lump of excitement in my stomach bursts into a thousand butterflies, and I'm grinning from ear to ear as I hop up and start digging in my closet for something to wear.

I'm not going to wear pink tonight; oh, no. If Jeremiah wants a new scribe, then I need to show him exactly how magical I can be.