Wolshire

Chapter 28

Casper

Brooklyn's

I flicked the wand again, working on my form.

"That was actually really good," Brooklyn complimented me.

"Really?"

"Yeah, Harry Potter. You're getting better. Now, try putting some magic into it." She was sitting in her lawn chair watching.

I closed my eyes and swung the wand again. Hearing an explosion, I reopened my eyes and saw a singed tree trunk. I gasped and held up my arms in triumph.

Brooklyn stood up, "Huh."

"Wasn't that awesome!"

"Vittorio's main attacks use lightning, and so do yours."

"Is that bad?"

"No." She put her hand on the burned wood and pressed her fingers into the cinder."

"Okay, Miss Wizard. Do you want to tell me what you're thinking?"

"It just takes a lot of magic power to form lightning so easily."

"So, you're saying I'm better than you?"

"Not nearly." She sat back down. "Okay, do it without the wand now."

I shook my head, "How? It took a week to do that!"

"Well, if you don't want to, I could just attack you until instinct takes over."

"No, I like this more."

She waved me on, "Then do it."

I moved my hands around my head randomly, "Is there, like, a movement?"

"Nope, just hold out your hand and say whatever pops into your head."

"That makes no sense," I adjusted my footing and took a deep breath.

"Well, you are making lightning come out of your hand with the sheer force of mind."

I strangely agreed with her and pointed my right hand at the tree. "Et non occideris me!" Lightning crashed into the tree and made a bright explosion. The tree cracked and slowly collapsed. I stumbled back and watched the tree fall over.

"Did you just yell 'don't kill me?'"

"Is that what that meant? I just sort of screamed."

She laughed at me. "Okay, let's fix this tree. You've already used the levitation spell, so help me lift the trunk so I can fuse them together."

"Subvolo." I strained to lift the weight of the tree, and it slowly tilted upwards with some help from Brooklyn.

"Okay, lower it down now." She put her hands close to the tree and the two parts grew together again.

"Wow," I mumbled. I couldn't see where it had split. It was like nothing had ever happened.

Later

I spun my pencil around in my hand, not trying at all to focus on my homework. I kept glancing at the spell book next to me, and I couldn't keep my mind off trying something new. I reached towards it but yanked my hand away. My phone started ringing, and I jumped for it, hoping it was Victoria, and held it to my ear.

"Casper!" It was Jacob.

"Hey," I tried not to sound too disappointed.

"I heard you've been having fun doing your witchy stuff."

"Oh, yeah. I've saved a tree."

"And a little family of songbirds along with it," he mocked me. "Anyways, Casper, the full moon is in a few days and-" He trailed off.