Mystic Invisible

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1

Growing Pains

Monte’s pulse thumped an encouraging beat, drumming from his chest to his fingertips as he hesitated at the threshold. The sun beat down on his mop of golden ringlets, its intense power a fiery blaze against his neck. What are you waiting for? Just go in. Norms of different ages and sizes bustled past him into the cool comfort of the supermarket, quite oblivious to the fact that he resembled a gimpy pelican hovering pointlessly in the doorframe. I’ll be grounded for a year if the International Mystic Bureau finds out what I’m about to do. The sliding glass doors stalled on either side of him, groaning with his indecision as he stepped away from the entrance. But you’re moving in a few days. This might be your last chance.

A group of teenagers scampered past him, the effects of the heat apparent in their rosy cheeks. Monte recognized a couple of them from the Norm high school up the street. And from the park. And the beach. He shrunk against the store window, his breath catching in his throat as a girl with bright blonde hair and thick eyeliner brought up the rear. His pulse quickened, his resolve thickening. A little peek inside a Norm store never hurt anyone. He craned his neck after the eyeliner girl. It was now or never.

He took a deep breath and slipped into the supermarket. A current of conditioned air greeted his face, carrying with it hints of cinnamon, sweet pastries, and other baked goods. He squinted, the store dim after the glare of outside. A Norm woman marched toward him, her arms packed with bulging paper grocery bags. Oh great, now you’ve done it.

“Excuse me, young man,” the Norm woman panted. A bunch of celery poked from one of her bags. Its bushy top bobbed up and down with her stiff stride.

Monte scurried out of her way, forcing a smile as she passed. His heart pounded along with the beeps and drone of the cash registers, his back sticky with sweat. He spotted Eyeliner’s blonde hair near the produce section—a beacon amongst the general chaos. She joined the rest of the teens as they filtered toward an empty checkout stand, bound together like a cluster of grapes.

Monte inched toward them, careful to keep a casual distance. He was a Mystic, after all, and they mustn’t suspect anything extraordinary. His kind rarely mixed with the non-magical Norms when it came to grocery stores. Turnip Sap, Toadflax, and Nettle Dust were hardly part of the Norm vernacular, and the International Mystic Bureau worked hard to keep it that way.

The group stopped near a shelf lined with candy. They joked amongst each other, their excitement almost tangible as they surveyed the sweets. “Hey, you!” someone shouted toward Monte. It was Eyeliner.

Monte froze. Is she talking to me?

Eyeliner waved.

Monte cleared his throat. “Hey.” His voice cracked.

“Get over here, you dork.” Eyeliner bounded toward him.

Monte gasped. He leaned back, bracing himself, prepared to run if needed. But Eyeliner brushed past him, leaping at a tall, hunky kid with a letterman jacket knotted at his waist.

“Hey, you spaz,” the letterman kid said. He gave Eyeliner a playful shove.

Monte shrunk toward the produce section, his ears as hot as jalapeño peppers. She wasn’t talking to you, moron.

“You sure the stuff’s in?” Letterman asked Eyeliner. “It’s barely even September.”

“Yup,” Eyeliner said as the pair returned to the group. “I saw them stocking it all last night.” She grabbed a pack of bubble gum from the candy shelves. “This way.” She strutted toward the back of the store, motioning for the others to follow.

I might as well be invisible. Monte moseyed after them, his pulse finally slowing. Norms really do have weak magic radars.

Eyeliner led them around a corner, stopping abruptly. She spun around, a smug grin pasted on her face. “See?”

“Awesome!” A scrawny girl, who looked more like someone’s kid sister than a member of the high school pack, traipsed down the aisle. She grinned, her smile wired-up in braces.

“Oh, please.” Another girl flipped her shiny blue braids around her as she sauntered away from the group. She folded her arms across her chest, batting her ridiculously long, mascaraed eyelashes in disapproval.

“You guys seriously still like this stuff? It’s so babyish!”

“Well . . .” Eyeliner looked down at her feet, her shoulders slumping.

“Some of it’s kinda fun.” She fiddled with her pack of gum.

“Ah, lighten up, you killjoy.” Letterman flashed a crooked grin at Blue Braids as the pack spread through the aisle.

Monte pretended to fumble with a packet of toothpicks at the endcap, peering at the group as they sniffed out their treasures. He smirked, suddenly realizing what all the hype was about. The aisle, adorned in an abundance of orange, black, and purple décor, was a Halloween paradise. Plastic wands, tin cauldrons, and pointed, cylindrical hats with round brims lined the wall in a variety of makes. What’s this supposed to be? Monte snatched one of the hats and shoved it over his head. He flicked the flimsy cauldrons with his fingernails. Not even a mild potion would last inside these pieces of garbage. And this . . . He rolled a plastic wand across his palms. This one takes the cake, he laughed to himself. Such blasphemy.

The Norms never got it completely right—the whole magic thing. Yet he wasn’t surprised. Mystics had lived alongside the non-magical Norms for centuries, their powers safely concealed within a well-maintained motherboard of magic. Every Mystic was educated from birth; Monte knew full well that the Norms were quite ignorant to their enchanted counterparts. He tossed the toy wand aside. The entire aisle was stockpiled with pretend magic items—all things that fueled the Norms’ already strange obsession with what they called “witches” and “wizards.” Unlike his parents, and most Mystics for that matter, Monte found the Norms’ idea of magic quite amusing.

“I’m getting this one.” Letterman grabbed a wand from a large bin at the other end of the aisle. “I gave my old one to my little brother for trick-or-treating last year.”

“Fine. But don’t think that’ll make you more powerful,” Eyeliner teased, rolling her eyes.

“There’s only one way to find out!” Letterman lunged at her, playfully.

Eyeliner squealed as he spun her around, the plastic wand clenched between his teeth.

“Would you two knock it off?” Blue Braids chastised. “You’re gonna get us kicked out.”

Letterman joined Eyeliner in more eye rolling. “C’mon then.” He twitched his wand at Blue Braids. “Let’s go.”

The pack trotted toward the front of the store, their arms full of new trinkets. Monte stuttered backward, nearly upsetting a display of Styrofoam pumpkins as the scrawny girl with braces bumped into him.

“Hey man, lose the hat,” she said with a laugh. “You ain’t no witch!”

“Uh . . .” Monte yanked the hat from his head.

“Psh.” Blue Braids c****d an eyebrow at him as she passed. “Seriously, so immature.”

Touchy, Monte thought, ambling after them. He plucked a tangerine from a nearby fruit barrel and tossed it between his hands.

Eyeliner and Letterman clacked their wands together, already engaged in a fake duel. If they only knew, Monte mused, training his eyes on the ignorant group as they paid for their loot. A tall girl with long black hair skirted around them, her brows pinched together like she was deep in thought.

“Tag the Hag at the park, then?” Letterman asked, nearly stumbling over the dark-haired girl as she weaved past them. He threw her a quizzical look before turning to face the rest of the group.

Something burned inside Monte’s chest. A fleeting and unfamiliar heat.

“Really, guys?” Blue Braids whined. “I don’t like that game. You know what people say about it.”

Monte gulped, his fingers tingling.

“What?” Eyeliner asked. “That it’s a mockery of the witches of old?” she snorted.

It was Blue Braids’s turn to look at her feet.

Monte leaned forward. Tag the Hag? Another warm wave rushed through him.

“Don’t come then, if you’re too chicken,” the scrawny girl teased as the group headed for the exit.

“Fine,” Blue Braids huffed, marching after them.

Monte scooted in several paces behind the pack. Tag the Hag. At the park. With the Norms. The thoughts circuited through his head. He swallowed again, the residual warmth in his chest diminishing to a gentle thrum. It wasn’t until they reached the park that he realized he still had the tangerine, clutched tightly in his hand. Oh no. Monte, you dimwit! His eyes darted from the tangerine to the Norm teens and back again. Spying on Norms . . . and now shoplifting. Way to go, he thought, half expecting to see the Norm police appear. Now he really could get in trouble. Double in trouble. He hunched behind a patchy hedge of shrubs. I’ll sneak the tangerine back in a minute, he resolved. But first, Tag the Hag.

He watched through a hole in the bramble as Eyeliner and the others chose a large grassy spot for their game. The beachside park hosted a handful of picnic tables, plenty of mature trees, and several quaint paths that trailed to the shore below. Not much has changed, he told himself, remembering how his parents used to bring him here as a child. It had been one of their favorite haunts, a little oasis tucked away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Salem, Massachusetts. The park was often swarming with Norm vacationers. But not today. Everyone’s probably at the city center for Salem Heritage Days, Monte thought, remembering what time of year it was. The past week’s heat wave was tripping him up. It felt more like July than September.

He rubbed his thumbs over the bumpy pores of the tangerine, hardly eager to return to the monotony of the hotel room, his temporary home. His parents were probably signing closing papers for the sale of their house right about now. Sadness filled him at the thought of his childhood home, no longer his.

He crouched lower as the group turned his way. Blue Braids sat perched on a nearby bench, her hands knitted together. She scowled and wrinkled her mouth, her lipstick as pink as everyone else’s faces. “You guys!” she whined. “It’s like a million degrees out here. Can we at least move this nonsense indoors?”

The scrawny girl clucked like a chicken. Blue Braids stuck her tongue out at her.

“Well, we can’t go to my place.” Letterman tossed his pretend wand into the air and caught it again. “My parents are home.”

Blue Braids frowned.

“What?” Letterman wiped at his sweaty hairline. “You know how my old man is about Tag the Hag.”

Curiosity got the best of Monte. He was familiar with a few Norm games, but Tag the Hag wasn’t one of them. His older brother, Garrick, thought they were downright shameful, especially since the sting of the Witch Hunts still resonated even hundreds of years later for the Mystics of Salem. But Monte disagreed. It was more fun to award the non-mysticals points for their recreational creativity than to scoff.

“All right, everyone!” Eyeliner barked through a large wad of gum, her wand clutched in her hand. “No need to go over the rules. Unless you’re a softy and you need special rules.” She raised her eyebrows at Blue Braids and then scowled. She swooshed her wand through the air. “Now get lost before I get ya!” she said, shoving Letterman. He laughed, stumbling across the grass with his own plastic wand as the rest of the pack dispersed around him.

“Double toil! Double trouble . . .” Eyeliner raised her wand above her head, whimsical and completely silly.

The teenagers erupted into organized madness. Strings of incantations, spells, and jumbled curses shot across the grassy lot as everyone tried to capture as many opponents as possible. Letterman tottered by the hedge, gripping his wand, pursued by Eyeliner.

“Abra-doo-da!” She laughed, thrusting her wand in his direction.

Letterman stuttered to a stop, poised in a comical attack stance. “Sha-zam!” he countered, a goofy grin spread across his face.

Eyeliner retaliated, brandishing her wand in a flutter of swirls around her head.

Nice one, Monte chuckled to himself. He wished he was old enough to carry a wand of his own—a genuine Mystic wand—so that he could give these Norms a taste of real magic. But he still had a few months before he turned fifteen-and-a-half, which was the official wand carrying age.

“I caught you! I caught you!” The scrawny girl appeared from behind a picnic table. She rushed at Letterman and shrieked with laughter, making Monte think she really was someone’s little sister.

“Whatever,” Letterman answered. “That was a stunning spell, not a capturing one, anyway. Dork.”

Monte lowered himself to his stomach as the group backed closer to the hedge. The coarse grass was hardly soothing against his sweaty skin. Not even the briny breeze from the ocean below was a comfort against the throttling humidity.

“I’m not a dork!”

Monte flinched. Something stirred inside his chest—a deep, warm grumble. Sweat salted his forehead as a peculiar energy buoyed around his heart. He held his breath, trying not to gasp.

“Whoa!” he heard one of the pack yell. “Hey man, cut it out!”

Monte’s insides buzzed as the foreign power moved through his body, the warmth escalating. What’s happening to me? He peered through the shrubs where the Norms, several yards away, had halted their game.

“I didn’t do anything!” Letterman demanded. “It just flew out of my hands.”

“Just because you’re a whiner and you’re losing the game doesn’t mean you have to start chucking things at us!” Blue Braids jumped to her feet, her eyes big and round.

“Oh, come off it. You’re not even playing!” Letterman said through deep breaths.

Blue Braids flicked her glossy hair behind her. “I told you this was a bad idea. We should get out of here before—” She screamed as a stick hurtled past her head. “Who did that?”

Monte pressed his stomach further into the grass, his insides quivering. The strange warmth branched from his chest to his temples. He swallowed hard as the power begged to release.

“Maybe we should stop playing—hey?” Eyeliner’s gum tumbled from her mouth as her wand was yanked into the air by an unseen force.

The power in Monte’s chest pulsated. He dug his fingernails into the tangerine’s skin.

“Watch out!” the scrawny girl squealed as her stick flew out of her hand.

Monte sunk his teeth into the tangerine, muffling a scream. He sucked in the citrus juices, his breath hot and steamy as the energy inside his chest threatened to give birth to something not unlike a hornet’s nest. The Norms scattered across the grass, down the road, and away from the park, their exclamations of terror dense in the muggy air.

Finally, after several deep breaths, the strange vibrations ceased. An oppressive silence blanketed the now-empty park as the power diffused from Monte’s body. He rose to his feet and stared at the mutilated tangerine. Chills skirted up his spine despite the heat of the day. He launched the decimated piece of fruit as far as he could and then dashed away, back to the hotel.

“You all right, young sir?” The front desk host c****d his head as Monte thudded into the lobby.

Can’t . . . talk . . . now. The thought perspired from Monte as he padded past the desk, barely making eye contact with the bewildered clerk. He thudded up the stairs, silently grumbling at his dad for not booking a room on the main floor. He sludged down the hallway and teetered to a stop in front of their door, hoping that his family was still out as he jammed the plastic keycard into the handle.

To his great relief, the room was deserted.

The freshly laundered bed welcomed Monte as he collapsed face first onto the pillows. An odd sensation seeped through his sweaty skin as his mind battled the muddled events of the afternoon. He was trounced with confusion, shock, and an emptiness that shook his bones. But strangest of all, he felt a longing for more.