Autumn Storm (The Witchling #2)(4)

With a deep breath, Autumn opened her eyes. Her own reflection returned: the heart-shaped face, wet blond curls and dark blue eyes.

Relieved, she dressed and sat down on the bed to start reading the orientation information. She flipped through the different folders and tables of contents, waiting for something else familiar to catch her attention.

Laws of Light.

Her finger paused over the file. She double tapped it open. There were three, and they were simple.





One, do no harm to others.

Two, help those who need it, no matter how undeserving they may be.

Three, it is better to let evil win than to commit evil.





Troubled, her gaze lingered on the third rule before she returned to the master directory of files. The name of the final file The Trial also caught her attention.





Every student of Light must pass a personalized trial geared towards their weakness in order to ensure that the student is meant for the path of Light. The trial is meant to challenge the student and to offer a temptation for them to leave the Light for personal reasons. Each trial is unique and developed by nature itself.





This should’ve meant something to her; she felt it. But what? Frustrated, Autumn started from the first file and began reading about her new school. A few minutes before six, she walked down the stairs to the dining room. Jenna and Tanya were there, along with Adam and two other students. Adam smiled at her.

Autumn sat beside him, comforted by his friendly, open features. The first course – salad and soup – was already on the table.

“Save room for the pie,” he advised. “I’ve gained twenty pounds since getting here.”

Autumn look at him skeptically. He was thinner than the stair railing.

“Tomorrow morning, I can show you around campus,” he offered as they ate.

“Us, too?” Jenna asked with a grin.

Adam flushed again. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

“The forest is scary,” Tanya said. “I’ve never been in a forest before.”

“I grew up in Idaho,” Autumn said. I think. Troubled, she fell silent. She struggled to figure out what parts of her world were real and why she couldn’t remember everything or why no one remembered her when she knew them.

When the huckleberry pie appeared before her, she wanted to cry. She’d guessed the flavor with the same confidence she’d guessed the path to the school earlier. She ate a little then pushed it away.

Something was wrong here. In Boise, it had been the girl in the mirror. Here, there was a whole lot more that didn’t make sense.

“Too full?” Adam asked.

“Yeah,” she replied.

Amber appeared a few minutes later to take her, Jenna and Tanya down the hallway again. They spent the evening reviewing the information and campus rules. Some were familiar; others were not. Autumn listened, growing more agitated as the night wore on.

When she returned to her room, her head was spinning with all she’d learned. None of it surprised her, though. Jenna and Tanya were terrified by the thought of magick being real. Autumn found it intriguing.

Her closet door was open. Autumn frowned and gazed into it, her eyes catching on a sticky note on the inside of the door.

LOVE your clothes. Borrowed a sweater! Love, Dawn

What kind of person took a complete stranger’s sweater? She didn’t have much to start off with. Her closet was barren compared to Dawn’s.

With a shake of her head, Autumn closed the closet door and went to the bathroom. She closed her eyes as she turned on the light, cringing at the idea the dark-haired girl might be there. Peeking through her eyelashes, she was relieved to see her own reflection.

Autumn opened her medicine cabinet and pulled out one of the bottles of pills. She’d begun to lower her dosage of painkillers, not wanting to be dependent on anything but her mind to control the pain. Halving the huge tablets led to strange dreams when she was used to not dreaming at all. She took her pills and climbed into bed.

As she drifted to sleep, a dream unlike any she’d had before slipped into her mind. It was filled with disjointed scenes of the forest, of night, of falling.

Of death.





Chapter Two





Summer was falling. As hard as he struggled, he couldn’t reach her. Pinned to the top of the cliff, he was helpless. Her scream ceased suddenly, leaving him in silence. Alone.

Decker wrenched awake with a gasp, his heart pounding hard. Though haunted by that night, he’d never dreamt about it before.

Wiping his face, he oriented himself in his dorm room at the private school in Washington where he’d transferred after Summer’s death. No part of him wanted anything to do with the boarding school in Priest Lake. His clock read three in the morning. The amount of valium he took should’ve knocked him out for the weekend but instead, lasted two hours. Every night, it was harder to force himself into sleep.

Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, Decker sighed. The body next to him shifted, and he glanced over his shoulder.

Bodies. Two women tonight. He remembered them vaguely. His gaze swept over them. The women he brought home with him always slept so deep and long after he wore them out. Sex took him away from the voices in his head, from his memories of Summer, from the pain. It was a temporary release that never lasted long enough, which was where the drugs came in: valium for what sleep it gave him and meth to keep him awake during class. Temporary fixes. It’s all his life consisted of anymore.