Harriet Roswell and the School of Witchcraft

Chapter 14

The spell-casting room was circular, they sat in chairs, the teacher stood on the other side of the room holding a piece of chalk. There was no technology in the room. Phones were banned and off. The teacher, Mrs MacDougal, wore a pointed hat and a velvety green dress.

"Who here has ever cast a spell before?" Mrs MacDougal asked in that thick lush accent, and Harriet sure wished she had cast a spell before. Olivia, with a dog in her lap raised her hand, and several others raised theirs.

"Fantastic, and who here has seen any success from it?" Mrs MacDougal asked. Two hands raised.

"Whats your name?" She points.

"Allison, everyone calls me Alley though" said Alley a goth girl.

"What was the spell you cast? And what method did you use, if you don't mind sharing?"

"I offered blood to the dark lord over a pentagram asking only that my Father stop driving his dangerous motorcycle?"

"And did he?"

"The next day when he was hit by a bus."

"Oh my goodness" Mrs MacDougal said wide eyed as she took a step back "when did that happen."

"Last year."

"Okay... did you get counselling for it?"

"Nope, don't need it,"

"And yet here I am" Mrs MacDougal said pulling out a tablet "signing you up anyway."

Alley's phone pinged and she picked it up and gasped "you bitch."

"Indeed. Phone off please. Who else had their hand up? What's your name?"

"Olivia."

"And what was your spell?"

"It was a love a spell, I wanted to meet a really cute girl at this school, who'd be interested in me" she pursed her glossed lips, and they smacked as she spoke again "and it sure has worked."

"And how did you cast it?"

"I gave a cupcake to the god of Ero's."

"And how did you do that?"

"Alter."

"Very good. These are both slightly more complex spells than we're ready to learn today. Today we will be learning about our elements, our own elemental types that infuse us with energy, and what energy type we should use to cast spells. In our second lesson we will be putting our energy types to use by trying to create our first spell using a sigil." Mrs MacDougal said pulling down a chalk board to reveal the days of the month, with the horoscopes written beneath it, twice with slightly different dates, after each date was an elemental sign.

"The thing about horoscopes is they're not always accurate. I find for about 80% of my classes they're born on a date, they've got their element, and their good to go. However some people tend to lean on their neighbours horoscopes. They'll have the one element on the date they were born, and then, occasionally lean on their neighbours. To begin you must decide what horoscope you belong to. The one with twelve symbols, or the one with 13?" Mrs MacDougal picks up a bunch of printed paper and hands it the boy closest to her.

"Pass these along please. Coming along on a sheet of paper is a description of all the horoscopes, and a photocopy of the board. You will want to keep this in your notebook. It will be your homework to find out what energy is yours. If you were born in a different country or have strong links you may want to research that countries horoscopes or equivalents, and take that into account. If you do please write a brief description of how you've chosen your horoscope. Several years running I have had water signs decide they were fire just because they seemed to think they were supposed to be choosing what element they thought was coolest. I do not mind if you realise your energy is different but please children, be honest with yourself."