Witchlet found andersen.., p.1
Witchlet Found: Andersen Grimm Academy of Elites Book 1, page 1
Witchlet Found
ANDERSEN GRIMM ACADEMY OF ELITES
BOOK ONE
L.E. PARIN
Copyright © 2021 by L.E. Parin
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
To my better half. Thank you for being you.
She just wants a place to belong…
Seventeen-year old Jane wants to finish up her senior year and be as invisible as possible—she’s even been working on a spell to literally do so! When a fellow supernatural orphan that was also raised human joins the academy and becomes the target of bullies, it’s deja vu for Jane. Forget being invisible! It’s time for Jane to show her bullies who’s really the strongest witch in the academy.
He just wants her…
Werewolf Gray first knew the truth about Jane two years ago. Chasing the optimistic witch away was the only option to avoid activating a curse meant for only the two of them. When an unwanted surprise joins the academy, he’s shocked to find out that he’s only known a half-truth his entire life. Now, nothing will stand in his way to claim the other half of his soul. Well, nothing except Jane.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
Afterword
About the Author
Also by L.E. Parin
One
TWO YEARS AGO
I took a deep breath as I stared up at the gates in front of me. Some would say that the black wrought iron gates reaching over two stories high were ominous—maybe frightening. Some might say they were practically yelling at me to turn back and run the other way, because little girls like me would be eaten inside. The gates weren’t meant to keep people away; they were meant to keep monsters in.
I let out my breath, filled with excited glee. Psh. That’s what some people would say, but not me! Was I an optimist? You bet! Was that glass ever half-empty? Nope! In fact, it was never even empty—it was just on it’s way to getting full.
My backpack was light, which some would say was depressing since all my worldly positions were in it. But me? A light backpack meant I could travel easily. In fact, it was so easy that I had hitchhiked my way across California and Oregon to finally reach the Andersen Grimm Academy of Elites in Mirage, WA. The city was perfectly named since it didn’t show up on any normal map.
Again, some (like every nice person that gave me a ride over the past two days) would say that hitchhiking was probably a dangerous idea, but it did get me here, didn’t it? My latest set of foster parents sure weren’t planning on lifting a finger to help me, but that was fine since after a lifetime of mostly not having anyone to help me, I was used to it. When you don’t expect much, you end up with more than you expect.
Besides, my little journey was much more exciting than if my foster parents gathered the energy to drive or book me a flight. I got to meet so many new people, and only one of them had tried to kidnap me.
I had so many foster siblings ask me how I could be so perky with my life sucking the way it did, but frankly, when you’ve been at the bottom for as long as you could remember, finding happiness in things others took for granted was actually quite easy.
Go hungry for a day? Then you knew that the next meal you'd get would taste delicious no matter what unidentifiable ingredients were in it. Maybe if I were dark and gloomy I’d fit in better in the many foster homes I’d flitted through, but that wasn’t me.
I had lived in more run-down trailers than I had fingers and toes. Almost all of my foster parents would look at me like I was a little bit of unwanted sunshine that wandered into their dark and gloomy lives. Cue the metaphorical sunblock and sunglasses for them.
They hated me and my upbeat cheerfulness. Some of them tried to destroy me, but it’s like something always stopped them. I’d get slapped for smiling, and something would fall and hit them on the head. It’s like I had a guardian angel following me.
Or ghost. That’s what my foster families would inevitably decide before I got sent somewhere else.
Until last week. With my latest foster family, I left them before being asked to thanks to Principal Hawthorne’s help. I had been sent to her office for being late for the third time that week.
My latest foster parents’ favorite hobbies involved alcohol and passing out so getting me to school wasn’t easy for them. Having me walk to school was easiest, but I was still working out the timing. I thought I had left early enough, but as the bell rang while I was still outside the building, I realized I’d have to try harder the next day. Even though it had rained all that week, there was a break in the weather when I walked, so I didn’t end up soaked in class. I hadn’t take into account the little seconds avoiding puddles would cost me.
“Jane Fridag, I presume?” Principal Hawthorne was an elderly lady that looked way past her expiration date. She sat behind a clutter-free desk, and the black portion of her dress that I could see looked pressed and wrinkle-free. Her silver hair was tied back perfectly in a bun without a single hair where it shouldn’t be. It was the first time I had been sent to her office, which was a record for me. Usually, I was in the office for some kind of offense within the first week of entering a new school. I had made it to week two!
“Actually, my last name is pronounced ‘Friday’, like the day of the week,” I corrected cheerfully. People pronounced my last name incorrectly all the time. I was used to it. I sat in one of the wooden chairs in front of the desk without being asked to since this was routine for me.
She gave me a dry look as if I were pulling her leg. I really wasn’t. The nun who found me abandoned at the church had little imaginative flare and plenty of terrible handwriting. I was found on a Friday so she gave me that last name. Unfortunately, her “y” looked like a “g.” Sure, I could have just gone with the correct pronunciation, but I didn’t have much, which meant I wasn’t going to lose what little bit I did have—even if it was a badly spelled, uncreative name—without a fight.
Instead of responding, she just narrowed her eyes as if something had suddenly caught her interest. I looked behind me to see if I could see what caught her eye, because there certainly wasn’t anything interesting about me. All I saw was a perfectly ordered brown bookcase that matched the other perfectly ordered things in her office. The only thing that was remotely out of place was me in my mismatched and ill-fitting clothes. At least my socks matched if you were color-blind.
We sat there for a few heartbeats in awkward silence. While Principal Hawthorne inspected me through thick lenses surrounded with black cat-eye frames, I looked around the room, curious to see if I could find anything out of order. I was growing more and more impressed with her tidiness before she finally broke the silence. Her tone was overly suspicious when she asked, “What are you?”
I perked up in my chair. “Well, some say I’m an optimist—”
“No.” She whipped off her glasses as if that could help her see me better. Her eyes seemed much larger without them. They were sharp and untouched by age as if they belonged to someone younger than the heavily wrinkled, silver-haired octogenarian (nonagenarian?) sitting before me. I furrowed my brows when I could have sworn I saw a red glint in her now hazel eyes. That was odd.
Her voice deepened slightly as she asked again, “What are you?”
“Umm…a Scorpio?” I offered with a bright, yet confused smile.
She looked at me some more with her intense gaze, and I had to admit that I was getting uncomfortable. A large bang behind me made me jump. I turned around to see a heavy book on the floor. I put my happy smile back in place. “That was weird.”
It really wasn’t. Stuff like that happened around me a lot.
A look of shock and amazement appeared on her face before she groaned and covered her ancient face with both hands. “Why me?”
I sat there in confusion, working harder to keep the smile on my face as I watched as alternating looks of disbelief and annoyance flashed over her face. She composed herself, and I sat up straighter, my smile still firmly in place.
“You don’t know,” she said flatly. She shook her head and muttered to herself, “The pathetic, little foster child does not know.”
Um, ouch. Another loud bang behind me made me jump.
<
“I’m not doing anything?” I pointed out hesitantly as a question instead of a statement. Did she want me to stop smiling?
She let out a sigh and reached into her desk to pull out a form. “I’m going to guess witch. Nothing worse than an uncontrolled witch with a minor protection spell,” she mumbled as I gaped at her. Did she just call me a curse word?
“I don’t understand,” I began before she interrupted me.
“No. You wouldn’t, you little clueless, foundling witchlet,” she grumbled as she wrote furiously on a form. “I’m getting you out of here before you tear my school apart.”
My jaw dropped. I lifted my hands to placate her. “I promise you, I’m a model student, and I would never even think of tearing your school apart.” Calling myself a model student might have been pushing it, but the rest was true. I was a weakling and terrible in PE; I couldn’t tear anything apart! I later surmised that I had been going hysterical. After all, I had been convinced I was about to be expelled without knowing why.
Principal Hawthorne stared at me before her eyes glowed red, and her nails elongated into black claws. Claws! Freaking claws! I let out a little yelp as I tipped back in my chair and toppled to the ground. Sounds of things crashing all around me made me cover my head as I tried to curl into an awkward fetal position while still half in the chair. I breathed rapidly as I looked at the mess around me.
I glanced back to the now normal-looking Principal Hawthorne. She scratched something out and wrote like she was stabbing the paper. “Change that to major protection spell,” she muttered. “Some days, I can’t believe I left Hell for this job.” She was rapidly writing and filling out the form as if things falling from her bookshelves was normal. I gave her a strange look. Her last job must have been really bad.
She glanced up and said dryly, “Like I said, little witchlet, you are going to attend an academy for people like us. Expect your invitation tomorrow. You are dismissed for the day. Do not set foot back in my school.”
“Okay. Do you need help fixing—” I asked breathlessly as I hopped to my feet, still trying to process her words while lifting the chair back into place.
“Get. Out.”
“I’m gone,” I said, scrambling to the door. Wait a second. She had said “people like us.” That meant, I had a place I belonged! Gratitude filled me, and I turned around to add, “Thank you so much for helping me find—”
“Out!”
And that was that. I was now here at this wonderfully frightening academy for others like me! I hadn't realized I wasn’t normal, but I guess my foster families had been telling me that all my life. I just figured they didn’t like how upbeat and optimistic I was. I didn’t realize that I was actually a supernatural being. I mean, who knew that supernatural stuff was real?
Anyway, back to the gate that I was currently stuck at. My life with others like me was just on the other side, and I couldn’t wait to start! “Hello!”
Nothing.
But that was okay, because that was only my first try. This gate wasn’t going to stop me from finding my new home. Besides, the morning sun was shining brightly above without a cloud in the sky. It was practically cheering me on with its sunny cheer.
“Jane Fridag here!” I called out. I added after a few seconds, “The new student!” I wondered if I should yell out and add that I was a witch.
Considering that this gate was at the end of a very long winding road through a dense forest with trees so high that I could barely see the tops, I doubted that there would be any non-academy people around to hide our supernatural secret from. Even though no one specifically told me to keep it a secret, it seemed like a no-brainer.
I blew out a frustrated breath and turned around in a circle, taking in the ridiculously tall trees around me before settling my attention back to the current problem. I put my hands on my hips and nodded as if coming up with some answer.
Okay. I so had this.
I stared at the closed gates that were stopping me from getting to where I belonged. I grabbed onto two pickets, planning to somehow squeeze through the narrow gap. It wasn’t my best idea. Fine, it wasn’t even a good idea but desperate measures and all that.
As soon as I touched the left gate though, the pair slowly swung open. I was so surprised that I was dragged a few inches before I had the good sense to let go.
I passed through the open gates with a huge smile on my face and continued on my way up the long driveway. My legs were exhausted from all the walking, but I didn’t care. I ran, laughter bubbling after me as I raced toward my future. The building up ahead looked like some kind of haunted castle, but I loved it anyway. I had no fear of this place. There was only room for hope and excitement, and I ignored my aching feet and exhaustion.
I stopped at a pair of wrought iron doors that each looked as wide as I was tall. I was giddy, trembling in anticipation. This was it. My new life would start as soon as I passed through these dark and massive doors. My chest heaved as my lungs tried to remind me that they existed and shouldn’t be ignored. Tentatively, I touched the doors, pushing through to enter a huge quadrangle.
I wanted to shout, “Here I am!” Instead, I stared at all the other students hanging around and enjoying the weekend as I wandered aimlessly, soaking up everything I could. My eyes widened as I saw a boy juggling small fireballs. Not to be undone, his friend started juggling snowballs that manifested out of thin air. Three boys were throwing a frisbee. When one of the boys missed the catch, he transformed into a wolf, raced after it, and caught it in mid-air. A surprised gasp escaped my lips. It quickly changed into delighted laughter as I watched him easily transform back and do a victory dance.
I walked backward as my eyes found a trio of gorgeous girls holding hands in a circle. They were chanting something, and it looked like the ground under them was glowing. Entranced, it only occurred to me that I wasn’t watching where I was going until I bumped into something solid.
My cheeks flushed as I turned around to face the back of a boy. “I’m sorry! I can be such a klutz sometimes,” I said with a small smile, even though he couldn’t see me. He stiffened, and my smile wobbled. I couldn’t have hurt him, could I? I mean, it was just a light bump.
I looked around as the temperature seemed to drop. The sun cheering me on even seemed a bit less sunny. The quadrangle quieted as other students’ attentions turned to us. I took a step back, uneasy in what was happening.
The boy slowly turned around, and my smile brightened. His stunning, emerald green eyes were outlined by incredibly thick lashes, and those gorgeous eyes were entirely focused on me! His honey-gold hair was short on the sides and longer on top. I longed to run my fingers through it. The rest of his features worked together to make me blush, and as crazy as it sounded, I wanted to test the softness of his lips with my own.
Wow. Here, in my new life, this gorgeous boy was going to be mine, and I would study to be an incredible witch and finally figure out my place in this world. Thanks to that little bit of instinct that had kept me safe my entire life, I knew that I would be safe with whomever this boy was. I had never even thought of having a boyfriend before, but now this boy made that statement belong to the past! This guy was it!
“Hi! I’m Jane Fridag,” I chirped happily as I extended out a hand to shake. I wanted to soak up any information I could on my future guy.
He stared at me, slightly narrowing his eyes before flicking his gaze to my outstretched hand. A few people coughed, and I was well aware that we were still in the center of everyone’s attention. I had to fight to keep my smile on my face, because it was starting to get awkward.
