Published: 
Author: Rhonda Hopkins
Publisher: Killer Ink Press
ISBN-10: ‎ 
ISBN-13: ‎ 
Cover Designer: Bridgette O’Hare at Dark Unicorn Designs
Genres: Paranormal Cozy Mystery, Young Adult
Tags: Young Adult, Small-town, Quirky Characters, Unique Familiars, Family, Magic, Witches, Shifters, Ghosts, Visions, Psychic, Halloween, Holiday, Teen Romance

Chapter 1

“I know it was a slow news week, but you guys did a great job coming up with some fascinating human interest stories.” Doug Hampton, our faculty advisor for the school newspaper, stood and stretched his six-foot runner’s body before running a hand through thick, wavy brown hair. A smile formed on his lips and shone through his electric blue eyes. “Get out of here and enjoy the weekend. Just don’t go into a sugar coma from all the Halloween candy. I’ll need you all fresh next week for the homecoming festivities.”

Chairs scooted away from tables, making a screeching sound as those in my journalism class got ready to leave for the three-day weekend. Whispering Pines made a big production of Halloween during its October festival. Even more momentous in years like this one, where Halloween actually fell on the weekend. The school district even planned an in-service day for teachers and gave students Friday off. 

Packing up my bag, I watched as several female students gathered around the man’s desk. “Do you think Doug ever wishes he was older so teen girls didn’t flock around him so much?”

Mr. Hampton allowed his journalism students to call him by his first name. He wanted to make it a real world experience in whatever ways he could. 

Jorge Sanchez laughed beside me. “Yeah. Like that’s a hardship. We should all have such troubles.”

My hand slapped against my chest as my eyes widened in mock horror. “What? My cousin isn’t enough for you?”

His smile faded, and his skin paled a little. “Uh… umm… Charley—that’s not what I meant.”

Breaking out into laughter, I patted his back. “Just messin’ with you. Don’t worry, I won’t say a thing to Danu.” 

He breathed a sigh of relief before slinging his bag over his shoulder. “I’ll see you around this weekend.”

“Sure thing.You and Danu are hanging out today, right? I don’t need to give her a ride home?” 

“Yeah, I’ve got her. See ya!” 

I followed him out the door, through the teens filling the hallway, and around the corner to my institutional gray locker where my best friend, Grace Sullivan, waited. 

“You are not going to believe this!” Grace’s blonde ponytail swayed as she bounced on her toes. “I aced the trig test!” She shoved her arms in the air and did a victory dance. 

“That’s awesome!” I hugged her. “I knew you could do it!”

“Daniel really helped me. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without him.” Her smile faded and she sighed. “I need to ride with you today though, if that’s okay. He texted and said something came up and he’d see me later.”

“No problem.” I opened my locker and started switching out my books when what she said actually hit my brain. I turned to face her. “Wait. What do you mean, Daniel helped you? I didn’t even know he took that class when he was in school and, from what I’ve heard, his grades weren’t all that stellar.”

She blew out a breath. “Yeah. It’s a whole issue. You know, he always acted differently around his loser friends. He did the same with his grades, always saying how horrible they were when they were actually good. He’s really smart.” She shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, not like Dee smart, but smart,” she said, mentioning my genius-level younger sister.

I nodded, letting it sink in. There was so much I didn’t really know about Daniel Baxter, my besties’ boyfriend. It was really sad he had to hide so much of himself to deal with an abusive father and the so-called friends he hung out with. But I knew he’d been trying hard to put the town’s bad-boy reputation behind him the last few months. It just wasn’t easy. 

“I’m glad he could help you understand it.” I found the lone book I needed for the weekend and slammed the locker. It was the only way to get it to stay closed, and I kept forgetting to report it to the office. 

I’d had more free time this week with Grace hanging out with Daniel and Jackson’s football practices running longer. With homecoming next week, the coach was pushing the team hard. Not to mention they were only two games away from making the playoffs. So with the extra alone time, I’d managed to get all but my environmental science homework done already.

“I’m glad for the company. I’ve missed hanging out with you as much.” I threw the backpack over my shoulder without moving my hair out of the way first. “Ow.” I gently tugged it loose. “Why didn’t I put it in a ponytail?”

“Because Jackson loves your long, wavy auburn hair down.” She gave me a goofy, love-sick look before elbowing me. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

I grinned, thinking about my long-time friend who had recently become my boyfriend. “He likes me no matter how I wear my hair.”

Grace rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. He’s the perfect boyfriend.”

“He’s the perfect boyfriend for me.” I dug the keys from my pocket as we made our way to the doors. 

The temperature had finally cooled down, but we still had some days that popped up in the eighties in East Texas. Today was one of those days. 

The Piney Woods surrounded our small town of Whispering Pines on two sides, so we stayed a few degrees cooler than some of the other towns nearby. And today had turned out to be a beautiful fall day.

“We don’t have to get Dee from school today. Mom’s picking her up since she has a meeting nearby. Want to stop and get ice cream?” I hit the button to unlock my black Kia Soul. It had a red stripe across the sides and made it look a little sporty-ish.

“Sure. I’m always up for ice cream.” Grace opened the door and started to slide into the seat but stopped, her wide eyes looking past me, her mouth agape. “What on earth…” 

I followed her gaze and fell back against the car as a small brown owl barely missed slamming into my face. It swooped around my head and I twisted around to follow its trajectory. Slightly horrified, I watched as it turned back toward me.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” I heard in my head. 

“What the…”

The owl slowed down as much as it could. “Stay still. Please stay still. I’m not so good at this, yet.” The high-pitched voice echoed in my mind.

I gulped, but remained motionless. Ever since my new ability to hear and speak to animals had shown up, surprise encounters had bombarded me.

The creature slowly floated on widespread wings and landed on my shoulder. “Whew! I didn’t know if I could do it.” The female voice sounded young. “I’m so glad I found you, Charley.” She rubbed her head against the side of mine. 

“Uh. Hi.” It sounded more like a question. I tilted my head so I could see her from the corner of my eye. “Who are you?” Just as I asked, I felt a tug near the center of my magic. I’d felt the same with my bat familiar, Barnabas. “Huh. Are you—”

“I’m your familiar. My name is Beatrix. But that’s so old-fashioned. Everyone calls me Trixie. I like that much better. Don’t you?” The owl bobbed and weaved her head as she rambled on. “Oh. Who is that? She doesn’t look like you. So she’s not your sister, is she?” One wing lifted and pointed at Grace, nearly causing the little thing to fall off my shoulder. 

My hand flew up to steady her. “Wait.” 

Even though I’d learned I could communicate telepathically with animals, I spoke out loud so Grace could hear me. Thank goodness my best friend knew of my witchy abilities. This would have been hard to explain otherwise. “You’re my familiar? How is that possible? I already have one.”

She nodded sagely. “Oh. I know. Barnabas. We haven’t met yet, but I was told about him. I hope he likes me. Do you think he will? We need to work together to keep you safe.”

“Wait,” I said again. “You need to keep me safe? Safe from what?” I looked up to see Grace’s eyes widen at my words.

“Umm… I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. They didn’t tell me not to. But oh gee. I hope I didn’t mess up. I didn’t really get a lot of information before they told me to find you.” Her emerald green eyes looked like they might pop out of her head. “You’re my first witch. I don’t want to get in trouble.”

Grace’s hand hit the top of the car. “What did she say? Why does she need to keep you safe?” She turned in a circle, looking around the parking lot as if an attack was imminent.

I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Okay. Apparently, we need more info.” I closed my eyes and silently called to Barnabas, my bat familiar. “Hey big guy. I need you. Like now.”

“Of course you do. I just got settled in for a nap.” A huge sigh followed. “Can’t it wait?”

“No, it can’t wait!” 

“Ow! We’ve talked about this. There’s no need whatsoever to scream in my head.” 

“Fine. But you better be at the house when I get there with my new familiar.” I opened the car door. 

“Your what!?!” The deep voice boomed in my head.

“Ack! Hey, I thought we weren’t yelling?” I rubbed my temple where a headache loomed. 

Barnabas muttered something that sounded like, “That must have been what I felt.”

“What do you mean, what you felt?” 

“We’ll talk when you get here.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Do you want to fly or ride with us?” I asked Trixie, pointing to the SUV’s interior. 

“Yay! I’ll ride. I’ve never ridden in a car before. I haven’t done a lot of things before. Actually, I only left my parent’s nest about six weeks ago.” Trixie flew inside and landed on the center console. “Then I got called up for the familiar training. You know… not a lot of owls get to do that. I was really lucky.”

I could hardly keep up with the small owl’s chatter, but she seemed really proud of her familiar calling. “Um, congrats.” My voice lifted at the end of the sentence. I was so confused. But the little owl thanked me effusively. “So you finished training? I would have thought it would have taken longer.”

“Well, not exactly. They needed me here, so Barnabas is supposed to train me. They said he’s been around a long time. Guess he’s pretty old, right? Is he nice? I hope he’s nice.”

Oh geez. Barnabas was going to eat her alive. “Well, he’s a good per… uh… bat. But he can take a little getting used to. He’s a little gruff sometimes, but I think you’ll like him.”

“Eventually,” I thought to myself.

My friend slid into her seat and buckled her belt. She turned sideways a little, leaning away from the creature now walking back and forth between our seats. “Charley, you’re going to have to give me something here. What’s going on?”

Starting the car, I sat for a minute, trying to get my bearings. I had two familiars now. I’d never heard of that happening before. Ever. But turning seventeen this weekend, I suppose there were witchy things I didn’t know about yet. Oh, who was I kidding? There was a lot I didn’t know.

Grace continued to ask questions out loud while Trixie chattered in my head. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I held up my hand. “Both of you. Please stop.” I rubbed my forehead. “I’m getting a headache.”

Blessed silence filled the car.

“Okay. Grace, this is Beatrix, but she thinks that’s old-fashioned. So she likes to be called Trixie. Trixie, my best friend, Grace.” Making my way onto the street, I said, “I think ice cream will have to wait.”

“Yeah. No problem.” Grace reached out hesitantly to touch Trixie’s head with her finger. When the young owl leaned toward her, she stroked the feathers. “Wow. The color of her eyes matches yours.”

“What?”

When Trixie turned to face me, I took a quick glance and saw the dark emerald green of her eyes. “That’s so cool.”

I had been a little bummed when Barnabas’s eyes had been golden instead of green like mine. All the other familiars in our house had the same color eyes as their witches.

“So, what’s this about danger?” Grace asked.

“Apparently, I have need of two familiars. Not sure why, except that someone thinks I need more protection. Trixie doesn’t know what from. Or she’s afraid she messed up by saying too much and just isn’t telling me now.”

“I really don’t know.” The young owl insisted. 

“Trixie says she really doesn’t know. She’s still very young and had barely started familiar training when they sent her here.” Knowing my best friend, I shook my head. “I don’t know anything else. Maybe Barnabas can figure it out.” Recalling Barnabas’s reaction, I shrugged. “He didn’t seem to know anything about Trixie either, though. Let’s get home and see what he has to say.”