Hex Hall

I sighed and lay down on the lounge, which now had moss creeping up one side. I closed my eyes.



"Sophia Alice Mercer, a freak among freaks," I mumbled.



"Pardon?"



I opened my eyes to see a figure hovering above me. The sun was directly behind her, turning her into a black shadow, but the shape of her hair made Mrs. Casnoff easily identifiable.



"Am I in trouble?" I asked without getting up.



It was probably a hallucination brought on by the heat, but I was pretty sure I saw her smile as she leaned down to place a hand under my shoulder and maneuver me into a sitting position.



"According to Mr. Cross, you have cellar duty for the rest of the semester, so yes, I would say you are in a great deal of trouble. But that is Ms. Vanderlyden's concern, not mine."



She looked down at my hot-pink lounge, and her mouth twisted into a little pucker of disgust. She placed her hand on the back of the chair and my spell fell away in a shower of pink sparkles until my lounge became a perfectly respectable light blue love seat covered in big pink cabbage roses.



"Better," she said crisply, sitting down beside me.



"Now, Sophia, would you care to tell me why you're here by the pond instead of reporting to your next class?"



"I'm experiencing some teenage angst, Mrs. Casnoff," I answered. "I need to, like, write in my journal or something."



She snorted delicately. "Sarcasm is an unattractive quality in young ladies, Sophia. Now, I'm not here to indulge whatever pity party you have decided to hold for yourself, so I would prefer it if you told me the truth."



I looked over at her, perfectly turned out in her ivory wool suit (again with the wool in the heat! What was wrong with these people?), and sighed.



My own mom, who was super cool, barely got me. What help could this fading steel magnolia with her shellacked hair be?



But then I just shrugged and spilled it. "I don't know anything about being a witch. Everyone else here grew up in this world, and I didn't, and that sucks."



Her mouth did that puckering thing, and I thought she was about to bust me for saying "sucks," but instead she said, "Mr. Cross told me that you didn't know your father is the current head of the Council."



"Yeah."



She picked a small piece of lint off her suit and said, "I'm hardly privy to your father's reasons for doing things, but I'm sure he had a reason for keeping his position from you. And besides, your presence here is very . . .



sensitive, Sophia."



"What's that supposed to mean?"



She didn't answer for a long time; instead she stared out at the lake.



Finally she turned to me and covered my hand with hers. Despite the heat, her skin felt cool and dry, slightly papery, and as I looked into her face, I realized that she was older than I'd originally thought, with tons of fine lines radiating from her eyes.



"Follow me to my office, Sophia. There are some things we need to discuss."



CHAPTER 13



Her office was on the first floor, off the sitting room with the spindly chairs. I noticed as we walked through this time that the spindly chairs had been replaced with prettier, much sturdier-looking wingback chairs, and the vaguely moldy-looking couches had been reupholstered in a cheery white-and-yellow-stripe fabric.



"When did you get new furniture?" I asked.



She glanced over her shoulder. "We didn't. It's a perception spell."



"Excuse me?"



"One of Jessica Prentiss's ideas. The furnishings of the house reflect the beholder's mind. That way we can gauge your comfort level with the school by what you see."



"So I imagined the gross furniture?"



"In a way, yes."



"What about the outside of the house? No offense, or anything, but it still looks pretty rank."



Mrs. Casnoff gave a low laugh. "No, the spell is only used in the public rooms of the house: the lounge areas, the classrooms, and so forth.



Hecate must maintain some of its brooding air, don't you think?"



I turned in the doorway of Mrs. Casnoff's office and looked again at the sitting room. Now I could see the way the couches, chairs, even the curtains shimmered and wavered slightly, like heat rising off a road.



Weird.



I'd thought Mrs. Casnoff would have the biggest, grandest room in the house. You know, something filled with ancient books, with heavy oak furniture and floor-to-ceiling windows.



Instead she led me into a small windowless room. It smelled strongly of her lavender perfume, and another stronger, bitter smell. After a moment I realized it was tea. A small electric kettle was bubbling away on the edge of the desk, which wasn't the wooden monstrosity I'd imagined, but simply a small table.



There were books, but they were stacked in vertical rows around three of the four walls. I tried to make out the titles on the spines, but those that weren't too faded to read were in languages I didn't know.



The only thing in Mrs. Casnoff's office that was even remotely like I'd expected was her chair. It was less of a chair, really, and more like a throne: a tall, heavy chair covered in purple velvet.



The chair on the other side of the desk was lower by a good five inches, and as I sat in it, I immediately felt about six years old.



Which, I guessed, was the point.



"Tea?" she asked after primly arranging herself on her purple throne.



"Sure."



A few more moments passed in silence as she poured me a cup of thick red tea. Without asking, she added milk and sugar.



I took a sip. It tasted exactly like the tea my mom made for me on rainy winter days: days we'd spent curled up on the couch, reading or talking. The familiar taste was comforting, and I felt myself relax slightly.



Which, again, had probably been the point.



I looked up at her. "How did you--"



Mrs. Casnoff just waved her hand. "I'm a witch, Sophia."



I scowled. Being manipulated has always been one of my least favorite things. Right up there with snakes. And Britney Spears.



"So you know a spell that makes tea taste like . . . tea?"



Mrs. Casnoff took a sip from her cup, and I got the impression she was trying to hold back a laugh. "Actually, it's a little more than that." She gestured to the kettle. "Open it."



I leaned forward and did just that.



It was empty.



"Your favorite drink is your mother's Irish breakfast tea. Had it been lemonade, you would have found that in your cup. Had it been hot chocolate, you would have had that. It's a basic comfort spell that's very useful for putting people at ease. As you were before your naturally suspicious nature kicked in."



Wow. She was good. I had never even attempted an all-purpose spell before.



But not like I was going to let her know I was impressed.



"What if my favorite drink had been beer? Would you have given me a frosty mug of that?"



She lifted her shoulders in something that was far too elegant to be called a shrug. "There, I may have been somewhat stymied."



Pulling a leather portfolio out of a stack of folders on her desk, she settled back into her throne.



"Tell me, Sophia," Mrs. Casnoff said, "what exactly do you know about your family?"



She was leaning back in her chair, one ankle crossed over the other, looking as casual as was possible for her.



"Not much," I said warily. "My mom's from Tennessee, and both her parents died in a car accident when she was twenty--"



"That is not the side of your family I was referring to," Mrs. Casnoff said. "What do you know of your father's people?"



Now she wasn't even trying to disguise her eagerness. I suddenly felt like something very important depended on my next answer.



"All I know is that my father is a warlock named James Atherton.



Mom met him in England, and he said he grew up there, but she wasn't sure if that was true."



With a sigh, Mrs. Casnoff put down her cup and began rummaging through the leather portfolio. She slid her glasses down from their usual spot on top of her head as she muttered, "Let's see, I just saw . . . Ah yes, here it is."



She reached into the portfolio, then suddenly stopped and looked up at me.



"Sophia, it is imperative that what we discuss in this room remains in this room. Your father asked me to share this with you when I thought the time was appropriate, and I feel that time has come."



I just nodded. I mean, what can you say to a speech like that?



Apparently that worked for her, and she handed me a black-and-white picture. A young woman stared back at me. She looked maybe a few years older than me, and from the style of her clothes, I could guess that the picture had been taken some time in the 1960s. Her dress was dark, and it fluttered around her calves as though a gentle breeze had just caught it. Her hair was light, probably blond or red.



Just behind her, I could make out the front porch of Hecate Hall. The shutters had been white back then.



She was smiling, but the smile looked tight, forced.



Her eyes. Large, widely spaced, and very light.



And very familiar.



The only other eyes I'd even seen like that had been my father's, in the only picture I had of him.



"Who--" My voice broke a little. "Who is this?"



I looked up at Mrs. Casnoff to find her watching me closely. "That," she said, pouring herself another cup of tea, "is your grandmother, Lucy Barrow Atherton."



My grandmother. For the longest moment I felt like I couldn't breathe.



I just stared at the face, trying desperately to find myself in it.



I couldn't find anything. Her cheekbones were sharp and high, and my face is slightly rounded. Her nose was too long to resemble mine, and her lips too thin.



I looked into her face, which despite the smile, looked so sad.



"She was here?" I asked.



Mrs. Casnoff placed her glasses on top of her head and nodded. "Lucy actually grew up here at Hecate, back before it was Hecate, of course. I believe that picture was taken shortly after your father was born."



"Did you . . . did you know her?"



Mrs. Casnoff shook her head. "I'm afraid that was before my time. But most Prodigium know of her, of course. Her story was a very unique one."



For sixteen years I had wondered who I really was, where I came from. And here was the answer right in front of me. "Why?"



"I told you the story of the origins of Prodigium your first day here.



Do you remember?"



It was like two weeks ago, I thought. Of course I remember. But I decided to store the sarcasm, and said, "Right. Angels. War with God."



"Yes. However, in your case, your family did not gain its powers until 1939, when your great-grandmother Alice was sixteen."



"I thought you had to be born a witch. Mom said that only vampires start out as human."



Mrs. Casnoff nodded. "Usually that is the case. However, there is always the odd human who attempts to change their fate. They find a spell book or a special incantation, some way to imbue themselves with the divine, the mystical. Very few survive the process. Your great-grandmother was one of the few."



Not knowing what to say, I took a long drink of my tea. It was cold, and the sugar had settled at the bottom, making it syrupy.



"How?" I finally asked.



Mrs. Casnoff sighed. "There, I am sadly at a loss. If Alice ever spoke in depth to anyone about her experiences, it was never recorded. I only know what I've picked up here and there. Apparently, she had gotten mixed up with a particularly nasty witch who was attempting to enhance her own powers through the aid of black magic, magic that has been outlawed by the Council since the seventeenth century. No one is exactly sure how Alice was involved with this woman--a Mrs. Thorne, I believe her name was--or even if she knew what the woman was. Somehow the spell that was meant for Mrs. Thorne transformed Alice instead."