Page 4 of Witchlore
“Um, yeah, sure.” The new guy looks between us, completely confused, but I let him walk ahead of me into the rickety old lift. There’s no way I’m climbing into a potential death trap with Carl Lord. I wait until Carl has pulled the brass grille across them both and the lift has jerked upward before stomping up the stone steps. It’s a spiral sandstone staircase with classrooms and small department libraries on every floor, but of course, the room designated as a student common room, with a grubby kitchenette and a temperamental microwave, is on the top floor.
With each step, I think of the reasons I shouldn’t have come back. It’s strange having everyone know my business when, fortwo years, hardly anyone knew my name. I was just the shapeshifter. Now they all know who my girlfriend was and about my “fragile” mental health (Counselor Cooper’s term, not mine).
“I’m not ashamed,” Elizabeth says, her fingers tangling with mine as we lie on her bed. Her mum is out at work. I fiddle with her ring, a beautiful opal that, whenever I touch it, sends magical sparks down my spine. “I’m just not ready to come out to everyone yet.”
Counselor Cooper says flashbacks are normal, but I think there’s nothing normal about living in two moments simultaneously, especially when one of them leaves you feeling like you are drowning on air. I bend over at the waist on the fifth floor and put my hands on my knees, forcing myself to breathe deeply. I close my eyes and try not to see the moment she died. It’s like trying not to blink. There she is, golden hair spread out around her, coughing up blood as the spell out of her ring dims down to nothing.Don’t leave me, Orla.
It’s an ironic set of last words, really. After all, she was the one leaving me.
I climb the last flight of stairs and push open the door to the common room, which makes it sound fancier and more austere than it is. It’s the useless top floor of the building, all exposed crumbling brick and precarious hanging light bulbs. There are tables spread out with various pieces of secondhand furniture around them, all of them wonky and uncomfortable and smelling of must. The threadbare velvet sofas by the giant floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over Manchester are considered the best seats, having the most stuffing left in them.
Since it’s the first day back at college, it’s busier than usual,with newly matriculated first-years all reading through their welcome packs, second- and third-years marking their territory, and fourth-years looking world-weary. Carl’s already lounging across one of the best sofas as if he owns it, twisting his fingers in a sharp cutting motion so that his pink tourmaline ring glows and his hair changes from black to blue and back again. His mates are laughing appreciatively. I don’t look at him, but I feel his eyes, the eyes of everyone on me. It was like this the last time I shifted; I’ve only done it twice since starting college, so it’s still a novelty. Even when I wear the same boots, the same coat, presenting a uniform for people to navigate, their eyes still pillage me, seeking out all the ways I am different. I find a grotty table in a dark corner that has a chair with the seat nearly worn through and avoid looking at anyone at all. It doesn’t stop the whispers.
“Didn’t even go to the funeral…”
“Do you think they were really sleeping together?”
“I didn’t know they were lesbians…”
I sigh heavily and pull out my headphones again. I don’t turn any music on, I just enjoy the way they muffle the theories and questions buzzing around me. Part of me wants to tell everyone that I didn’t go to the funeral because I was banned by Elizabeth’s parents. Her mum threatened to curse me to hell and back and looked like she’d sell her soul for the power to do it. As for the sleeping-together stuff, well, that’s no one’s business.
I pull my summer work for my spellcrafting class out of my bag and look down at the various hand positions on the paper. I can get on fine in my lore classes, they’re all essay based and are my highest marks, but witchcraft is an absolute nightmare. I try my hardest to pick modules that are all written coursework, history, and theory courses, but everyone enrolled on the Witchloreand Witchcraft degree is required to take at least one practical craft course a term. This term, it’s Twelfth-Century Witchcraft, and the tutor will probably despair of me as much as every other craft tutor I’ve ever had.
Taking a deep breath, knowing it will come to nothing, I move my hands in the correct motion, telling myself over and over what my parents and every shifter teacher I’ve ever had has told me since I was about five years old:Shapeshifters don’t need rings. Use your shifting power, direct it to your hands, craft the spell.…It’s supposed to be easy, innate, lifting off my skin like mist, traveling through my fingers just like it does for my parents, beautiful and terrible all at once. Nothing happens. What should bring light and magic out of me is just weird hand movements, like I’m doing a daft shadow puppet theater. I can see some girls at another table looking at me and smirking. It’s been two years and I’m still the weird shapeshifter who can’t control their powers. At least one thing is the same about this year.
“Hi again.”
Someone sits down beside me. I look up. It’s the new guy. He’s smiling at me. Again. I slowly remove my headphones and stare at him.
“It’s Orla, right?”
“I go by Lando.” I cover my work with my arms. I don’t want him to see how I’m still practicing first-year transitions. He frowns.
“I thought it was Orla.” He looks over his shoulder toward the group all lounging on the sofas. They’re competing, moving their hands rapidly, racing to be the first one to cast a small breeze to make wind chimes sing. Carl laughs when it glows pink, a corresponding color to his ring, proving it’s him. I lookat the new guy. I can’t understand why he’s over here instead of over there.
“That was a nickname my friend gave me last year.”
I can hear her voice in my ear.Don’t leave me, Orla.
“Shapeshifters change their names every time they shift gender?” His voice is eager and not at all scornful, but I don’t owe him an answer. Some witches are like this at first, approaching a shapeshifter with excitement, but it always curdles and I don’t want to be the odd thing in the window of the curiosity shop that new people stare at.
“I don’t change gender.” I glare at him. This particular glare has always been enough to push everyone away. I can imagine exactly what he’ll say to the others when he swans back over to the sofas.Crazy shapeshifters, no wonder they’re so messed up in the head.He doesn’t move.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I shouldn’t have… that was crappy of me.”
Literally no one at this school has ever said that to me. His apology leaves me speechless. He sticks out his hand with the ring on.
“I’m Bastian,” he says. “He/him.”
I don’t take it. I don’t like touching witches’ rings anymore, not after Elizabeth.
“Orlando,” I say. Everyone knows my pronouns.
“You’re a shapeshifter and your parents named youOrlando?” He sounds amused. “Is that an homage or a dig?”
“And you’re a witch named after one of the classic pieces of German fantasy literature so I think you can shut up,” I snap. I think this will surely be enough to send him running, but he smiles slowly.
“Most people think it’s short for Sebastian.” He fiddles with his ring.
