Page 54 of Elmwood Inclusive Magic Academy

I back away from her, almost hitting one of the classroom’s long wooden benches. “How could youdothat to me? It’smypower, my witchcraft, you had no right to take it from me!”

“Little one, we didn’t…”

Tears well up in my eyes, but I blink them back. “You never trusted me with anything!”

“Maggie,” Astrid says, more firmly. Her raven familiar squawks from her perch atop the skull. “Stop. We didn’t bind your powers.”

“Well, then, who did?” I ask, angrily.

My head is spinning. I can tell I’m running out of fumes.

“I could barely light a candle a few months ago, and now I can perform advanced healing magic…”

“Advanced?” Astrid furrows her brow. Then she shakes her head. “No, little one, I know who bound your magic.”

“Whothen?”

My mother looks at me with a familiar expression. One I’ve seen on her face a thousand times before. I hate it when she looks at me like that. With a tender, painful sadness that can’t be fully expressed in words.

Her voice is like the last leaf of autumn, falling gently to the ground.

“It was…you, Maggie.”

“I…what?”

“You were so scared after those other children hurt you.”

She steps closer to me, but I turn away, hand covering my mouth.

She continues. “You were scared of your own power, your own magic. You bound it up inside yourself. We couldn’t stop you. We might have hurt you, you were so small, and powerful, even then.”

I can’t believe it, but…I know she’s right. I wish with all my heart that she was wrong, but…I know she’s right.

“Lydia was hoping that the school would help to unbind your magic. And it clearly did, something must have happened to…”

I can’t bear to hear her voice.

“I’m going to my room,” I tell her, flatly. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Without looking at her, I cross to the door. She doesn’t try to stop me.

I swallow, my hand on the brass doorknob. “But you need to know…I’m staying. I’m an adult, and you can’t make me leave Elmwood Academy.”

THE AMULET AND THE GEM

Maggie

It’s properly dark now. I wave a hand to light the candles on my altar and collapse into bed. I want to cry but I just feel…hollow inside. I reach out for Pan but he’s nowhere to be found.

How much time did I waste without my magic? I could have been so powerful…

I could have belonged somewhere, somewhere like here.

Why did my moms keep me away from the magical world for so long? Was it really because they wanted to keep me safe? From what? Or was it because I bound up my magic, they didn’t want me to somehow hurt myself? But then why would they let me come here after all?

My head is spinning and I can feel a headache brewing in my temples. I take some mint leaves from a jar on my altar and chew them. The sharp, sweet taste is grounding and I feel better.

The door opens. Pan enters first.