Page 43 of When Storms Awaken

“You think maybe you were spelled, too? To not be able to access your full powers?” Tess asked.

“I’m not sure. All I know is that I feel that well of magic much easier now than I did before, as if it’s right at the tips of my fingers. It feels like it’s an extension of me, I wouldn’t even have to try that hard to control it anymore.” Her eyes were transfixed on the page open in my lap. “In the dream, I also created a vortex. I’m not positive, but I think Iama Stormshade. I’m not sure what that means for me, if the Stormshades were hunted into extinction…”

“Have you told Nik any of this yet?” Tess asked.

“No, I wanted to tell you first.” I smiled, nudging her with my shoulder.

“I am honored,” Tess replied, holding a hand to her chest and wiping away fake tears. “There’s one thing I still don’t get…if you found the book in a dream, how is it here,now?”

“That’s a good question.” I bit my lip, deep in thought. “My dreams have always felt real, but I’ve never taken anything with me out of a dream before. I didn’t feel like I had control of the dream, it felt as if the dream had control of me, if that makes sense. All I know is that when Jake woke me up this morning, I had been holding the book in my dream. Then there it was, buried beneath my pillow.”

“That’s incredible. Have you looked at any of the other spells?” she asked.

“No, not yet. The way Nik explained it is that simple spells don’t require you tospeakthem, it’s the special spells, the ones that are more powerful, that require that. Those are the spells found in the grimoire. Every family’s book is different, containing different spells passed down from their family and the generations before. Who knows what this book might contain that maybe Nik hasn’t even seen before,” I answered.

“Well, let’s take a look!” Tess squeezed in closer to me so she could look over my shoulder without the book snapping shut again, resting her chin on my shoulder. She was sure to keep both her hands firmly planted on the floor.

I opened to the first page, and it appeared to be instructions on creating a potion, it wasn’t clear what that potion might be. A picture of a sparrow and a sprig of thyme were sketched into the narrow margin, little notes and scribbles covering the page.

The next page appeared to be some type of love spell, but this one was written entirely in Latin. The spells were a combination of English and Latin, some I understood, others I didn’t. As we flipped through, more and more spells appeared to be written in Latin, and we weren’t able to decipher what they meant.

Each page contained handwritten notes scribbled across them from my ancestors, and I wondered who in my family had this book in their possession before me. Who had written these notes? Where was that room located in the real world? Or was it not in our world at all…but in the witch realm, Istmere?

Tess and I flipped through the grimoire, eager to see if there were any other spells we might be able to understand. The grimoire was thick and had to be a few hundred pages long. When we reached the end Tess turned to me, our heads spinning.

“So, now you just have to learn Latin?” Tess asked on a breathless laugh.

“I guess so,” I mused, “but I don’t remember knowing the spell to open the book before, it slipped into my head on its own. As if it was a deeply buried memory. I wonder if the same thing would happen the longer I try to decipher these spells.”

“Well, what are we waiting for, let’s see what you can do!” Tess put some space between us and looked at me expectantly. She wanted me to show her what I’d learned since we last tried magic together, and I’d burned the carpet and broken the sheetrock.

I dipped into the well of magic in my core, and much easier than before I conjured a ball of flame in the palm of my hand. The flames licked at my skin without ever touching it. Tess stared with wide eyes as I threw the ball of flame from one hand to the other, juggling it effortlessly.

“Dude. That is so cool.”

“Nik says every witch has some basic control over the elements because our magic is tied to the earth. What makes a Nightshade special is that they can also shapeshift. A Stormshade is unique because they can control the elements a step further,creatingstorms. In the dream, I swear the vortex I created became a well of energy all its own. That I was able to pull on that energy, too, not only the magic that I have intrinsically.”

“Maybe that’s why everyone thinks the Stormshades are dangerous? Because if they can pull energy from the storms they’ve created…they would be endlessly powerful. They wouldn’t tire, and their magic wouldn’t need to be replenished before they tapped into it again. Sounds like a recipe for a crazy powerful witch to me.”

My eyes snapped up to Tess. “I think you’re a genius.”

“It’s not every day I getthatcompliment.” Tess laughed, throwing her pin straight brown hair over her shoulder.

That isexactlywhat it felt like in my dream. As if the vortex I had created had also created a separate energy for me to use as fuel. Was that why the Nightshades were pitted against the Stormshades? Were they jealous of their power, eager to steal it for themselves? Nightshades were powerful, but at some point, their magic would deplete and need to be replenished. Were the Stormshades abusing their power, or was there more to the story than Nik was letting on?

“This is all I’ve tried,” I told Tess as I extinguished the flame in my palm.

“What about another element? Can you hold anything else in the palm of your hand?” she asked. I hadn’t tried yet, but I imagine it would be the same principle as conjuring the flame. The other elements seemed less dangerous than fire in comparison.

I opened my palm again, face up, and focused instead on the cool trickle of water instead of the sizzling heat of flame. I pictured that the water would sit in the palm of my hand, never touching my skin or getting me wet. As easily as I had summoned flame, a spherical ball of water now hovered against my palm. I pictured it breaking off into two, then three, then four, and watched as the spheres multiplied. They formed a line of whirling water spheres, lined up in the palm of my hand.

“That looked easy enough.” Tess laughed with a shrug. When I had tried any new magic before, I had to focus much harder to use my energy to do my bidding. This felt as easy as breathing.

Had the awakening spell truly unlocked something inside me? I focused on the water and imagined it suddenly getting cold, and turning to ice. As soon as I dipped into that well of magic in my core the spheres of water stopped rotating and froze in place. They became four glistening icicles hovering in the air.

“Ok…I wish I could do that.”

I laughed as I pulled the magic back and the icicles disappeared into thin air. I swept my hand to the right and imagined the pages of the grimoire flipping open at my will, and sure enough the pages began to turn rapidly.

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