White Magic

By Julie Affleck

Fifteen year old Lily has a secret, has kept it hidden for as long as she can remember.
What teenager wants to be shunned for daring to be different? And wanting to become a witch is as different as it gets.
She is obsessed with witches. While other little girls dream of being princesses, that has never crossed Lily’s mind. Her only dream is becoming a witch.
She has her own spell book, none of witch - oops, none of which actually work, but it's her very own, and she's spent years building it up. She's tried to give up on her dream time after time, but it's impossible. It's part of who she is.
Lily's friends end up in the hospital, one after another, deathly sick. While Lily’s dream comes true and she’s gifted with powerful magic, is it worth the price she may be forced to pay?
White Magic fights Dark Magic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Julie Affleck
• Release date: Jul 7, 2015

Julie Affleck

Julie Affleck lives on a small island in Canada called Prince Edward Island. There she raises her four children while desperately searching for time to write!She loves reading kids books to her children. Her favorites are any Robert Munsch books and the Pinkalicious series.She will always find time for Patti Larsen, Nora Roberts, Karen Robards, Dean Koontz, and Stephen King.

Book preview

Chapter 1

I am a witch

With powers so neat.

Hold on to your hat!

For I won’t be beat.

With potions and spells

To recite with pride,

To finish my homework

Good ---

Stupid, stupid words. I can just get this spell to rhyme, Lily thought, tapping the pen on the notebook, no more homework. And no more stupid detentions from Ms. Crankypants.

Lily, get out here for dinner. Right now! Don’t make me call you a third time...

She rolled her eyes. If only she had a power. Any power. She’d wrinkle her nose and be wherever she wanted to be. She’d wave her hand and she’d be rich. She’d say a spell and be drop dead gorgeous.

But no. Nothing. No power in sight. She was not a witch.

Just a plain old boring human being. Bleck.

Lily, I’m warning you.

I’m coming! she hollered to her mother, dropping the pen on the scribbler and dashing to the dining room before her mother could get seriously upset. Ain’t no spell strong enough to calm that woman down when she gets riled.

Dinner--a chicken and stir fry rice with way too much broccoli and not enough carrots, in Lily’s opinion--was already on the table. Paige, her nine-year-old sister, was scarfing hers down.

What’s for dessert? Lily asked, guessing why Paige’s food was disappearing without a grumble.

Banana splits, Paige said.

That is so gross, Lily moaned. Don’t talk with your mouth full. We are not having see-food.

Paige swallowed, ducking a glance at her mother. Sorry. Mom bought caramel and chocolate sauce. I’m putting strawberry jam on mine too. I can’t wait.

Obviously, Lily thought, eyeing the empty plate.

Paige Heather was younger by six years. Their deadbeat dad had disappeared right after she had been born, leaving their mother, Olivia, to single-handedly raise them. Lily thought her mom was pretty cool. For a mom.

But Paige? Nope. Not cool in the least. Absolutely one hundred per cent annoying. Loser with a capital L.

If there was a spell for a toad, Lily would use it on her sister in a heartbeat without looking back.

Well, most of the time. She could be a decent younger sister. Occasionally. Maybe not decent, but a little less annoying. If she stayed out of her stuff. She shouldn’t be that hard on her.

Do I have to wait all day for Led to finish before I can have my dessert? Paige asked.

Don’t call me that, toad face, Lily warned, pointing her fork at Paige. Yup. Definitely annoying.

Why not? Paige taunted back. Your name is Lily Dawn, so your initials are L.D. What’s wrong with Led, Led?

If I could turn you into a troll, I would, Lily threatened. You already look like one. She sniffed the air, wrinkling her nose in mock disgust. And you smell like one too. What do you know. It worked.

I always knew you were a witch.

Not quite, Lily clarified, ignoring the fact that Paige meant it as an insult. I want to be a witch. It is my dream to be a witch. And it was. She’d started off with Bewitched, the 1960s television show she’d found on the Deja View network when she’d turned three and tried using the remote to find Sesame Street. Over the years, she’d moved on to Sabrina the Teenage Witch, I Dream of Jeannie, and every show about witches she could get her hands on. Her all-time favorite witches were on Charmed. Phoebe, Piper, Pru, and Paige--the Halliwell sisters.

She didn’t enjoy television programs that portrayed witches as evil. It drove her crazy to think of magic in any sort of negative way. Weird. She knew how weird she was, but that was how she felt.

Of course there were going to be immoral and corrupt witches. But Lily figured witches were, for the most part, inherently good. Like the witch she wanted to be. The only reason she’d have anything to do with wicked witches would be to vanquish them.

White magic. Not black magic. That’s what she was all about.

She knew her fixation was a little weird. Okay, a lot weird. What other fifteen-year-old girl was more interested in spells than boys? Not that she wasn’t into boys. She liked boys, but she didn’t necessarily like their reaction to her witch obsession. At all.

Remembering the first time her obsession had been exposed still gave her indigestion.

Two years ago, at the school dance with her best friend Abby, and a group of other kids from school. She shuddered, remembering everyone’s reaction.

Chrissy’s coy and sweet giggle when Jake had asked her to dance. I’m not dancing with anyone tonight, she had told him, batting her long eyelashes and twirling her natural honey blond hair around her finger. All the boys oohed and aahed all over her. She pretended to be sweet, but underneath she was just – ugh.

Brian nudged Jake in the ribs. I told you, he said with a smirk. She won’t dance with anyone.

I’ll dance with you, Delaney said.

Lily’s mouth dropped. Oh, the nerve Delaney had! I wish I had half her confidence, Lily thought to herself, wondering if she would ever be able to talk to boys without stuttering and stammering.

And without even thinking about what she was doing, running on pure instinct, Lily followed where her heart led. To a spell.

"To be confident and sure

As sure as can be.

Just like Delaney

Nothing bothers me."

Nothing wrong with that, right? One whisper in a room full of giggling pre-teens with loud music echoing and bouncing off the gym walls and ceilings? Who could hear her little mumblings?

Except at that exact moment the DJ took a break between songs and everyone lowered their voices. Everyone, that is, except Lily.

The entire group of kids, her friends, stared at her.

What did you say? Chrissy asked, narrowing her eyes.

Lily felt her face burning up.

Yeah, what are you, a poet? Brian asked.

Delaney gasped. Did you just say a spell? You’re always watching those witchy shows! Did you say a spell about me? Eeeeeewwwww! She made a big show of shaking herself all over.

Lily’s mouth froze, unfortunately, while it was still open. Why did she have to be so weird?

Chrissy giggled. You did a spell? Are you crazy or something? Did you seriously think it would work? Are you kidding me? I can’t believe this! Hey, Kelly, did you hear that?

Kelly walked over holding Josh’s hand, and behind them casually strolled Josh’s best friend. Sam. Sam, whom Lily had a crush on forever and would never have enough courage to ask him to dance.

Chrissy told them all about her episode, exaggerating every little detail, and the entire group laughed. No, not the entire group. Not Abby. She never laughed at Lily or made fun of her obsession with witches. If it wasn’t for Abby, she didn’t know how she’d ever be able to face anyone ever again.

Never had Lily ever felt so isolated, so out of touch with her friends, and she knew she wasn’t like them, would never fit in.

Abby smoothed things over with everyone, told them they were the losers for thinking it was a spell, and that Lily was wondering out loud, and had been reading a poetry book before the dance. Therefore, she had been reciting a poem, not a spell.

Since then, Lily learned to be careful not to let people in on what was now a secret obsession, although her family--her sister and mother--and Abby, knew she still had an obsession with witches.

When Paige tried to annoy her sister by insinuating that Lily was a witch, Lily took it as a compliment, instead of being insulted. Which, of course, drove Paige bonkers. She was usually smarter with her insults, careful to stay away from everything witchy.

If you two don’t stop arguing, Olivia told her daughters, bringing Lily back to the present, neither one of you will be getting anything for dessert and the only splits you’ll be getting will be to your room.

Not my fault your daughter is so uncivilized, Lily muttered through a mouthful of rice.

Olivia’s eyebrows rose, disappearing beneath her bangs.

Sorry, Lily said, not meaning it in the least.

Fine, I accept your apology, Paige said, glaring at her sister, but her sulking didn’t last. Hey, Mom, don’t forget you said you would take Missy and me to the movies this weekend.

Olivia glanced at Lily.

Ugh, she groaned to herself. I am not taking screaming, bratty nine-year-olds anywhere this weekend. But she knew that look in her mother’s eyes.

She cleared her throat. Sorry. I already have plans.

I promised your sister I’d take her if she got over eighty per cent on her math test, Olivia said. It’s possible I’ll have to work late again. Not just possible, but highly probable. I’d really appreciate it if you could take the girls for me.

You’re always working late, Paige whined. And I told you Lily would say no. she never wants to do anything with me anymore. Her eyes filled with tears.

Olivia frowned. Since Mr. Clyde took over the company, he’s been very particular with who does certain jobs. I do feel he’s being extra hard on me lately for some reason. I’ll have to talk with him about working so much overtime.

But Mom, you’re not making me break my plans just to take Paige out, are you? I have to work too. I don’t want to babysit in my only free time. Come on, between school, and work, and Church, how much time is left? Where is my book of spells? Lily thought angrily. I need a disappearing sister potion.

I’m sure we can work something out. Let’s not borrow trouble. Are you ready for your banana splits? I know I am.

A banana split Lily would definitely enjoy, but she was a little disappointed that dessert was all the excitement she had in her life.

* * *

Chapter 2

Lily tapped her fingers on her desk. Her teacher, Ms. Gunther, glared at her. Well, Lily guessed she was glaring at her. But Ms. Gunther, with every last strand of hair in a bun tight enough to stretch the skin on her face, always looked grumpy.

Twenty minutes to sit and wait. Then freedom. Freedom from the drudgery of smelly classrooms and crowded hallways. For a limited amount of time. Eighteen hours, to be exact. Minus time to sleep. Okay, now she was just getting weird. Besides, she was actually doing math in her head.

She almost groaned. Counting her out-of-school time was the best she could come up with to think about? She was going to grab her head and squeeze any school-related thoughts out.

When would this class be over? What, did the frigging clock freeze already?

Back to what was important. She would soon be free to do whatever she wanted.

She glanced at the desk next to her, where Abby Linders, her best-friend-since-forever, bent over her test, pencil clenched in her hand. Why she’d worry, Lily didn’t know. Abby was brilliant in every subject, but stressed as much as she studied, which was a lot. Lily studied as much as Abby did. But never did as well as Abby.

Hurry up and ring, bell, Lily moaned to herself. If she could only snap her fingers and time was at her command. Or every test was aced without ever having to crack open a book. Now that would be sick.

There. Much better. Think about magic, not school.

Magic.

What an exquisite word. Magic.

She scrunched her forehead in a frown. It really wasn’t fair. All the years she’d spent studying the different forms of magic online, books from different libraries and bookstores. Searching for charms and crystals and amulets on every site she could find on the internet. Writing spells until her fingers cramped and she couldn’t hold the pen. Buying ingredients for potions. Strange what you could find on the Internet. Hours spent googling for spells and ingredients without tiring.

And what did she get in return? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not a thing.

At three years old, yes, that long ago, she’d made the decision to become a witch. Her barbies and her dolls could all do magic. Over the years, she’d outgrown her dolls, but not the obsession. At eleven years old, she’d started her own spell book. A binder full of lined pages quickly filled with notes.

At twelve years old, with research done on the internet, in secret without anyone knowing, not her family, not even Abby, she chose one of her own spells and decided she was going to make a potion. She put everything she had into it, everything, and believed, truly believed, the magic would work. She’d done the research, gotten the right ingredients – there was absolutely no reason to fail.

The spell had been for doing her homework. No surprise. A short poem. Never mind it had taken longer for her to find rhyming words than it would have taken her to do the actual homework. She hadn’t spent as much time on the spell as she had on the potion, so if it didn’t work, she could easily spend a few minutes tweaking a word here and there. Not a big deal.

Right. Spell hadn’t worked, tweaking hadn’t helped, and she was rewarded with a detention for not having her homework finished.

Wash she disheartened? Oh yeah. Did it stop her? Nope. Now came the potion. The potion she was convinced would be her new forte.

This potion was for beauty. She wanted it all. She was tired of being plain old Lily with blah brown hair and blue eyes. The only thing she had in common with a model was height. Models had great figures and she had practically nothing in the chest area, probably because she’d always been scrawny. Especially in the chest area.

So much of her time taken up with finding the perfect potion for what she wanted, the perfect ingredients. The concoction that was intended to make her look like a model, instead tasted like something had died and come back to life and died again–that bad!

She looked in the mirror – nothing. Plain old familiar Lily. Oh, she’d been so disappointed. Devastated. Heartbroken. She’d really trusted that it was going to succeed.

All her witchy things went into a cardboard box and Lily dumped that box in the basement. She was so finished with that crap. No more witchiness, magic, spells, nothing. Over it.

The banishment lasted all of two days. During the entire time, she swore she could hear them, Jeannie, Piper, Phoebe, Sabrina, all her witches, calling out to her, We miss you! Where are you? There was no denying them any longer. They were all a part of her. This was who she was. Down the stairs she trudged to lug all of her things up to her room again.

She couldn’t refute who she was: a witch-wanna-be. That’s all she knew how to be.

While other little girls dreamed of being a princess, Lily had dreamed of being a witch. Every Halloween, no one was surprised at her costume. Not since kindergarten. The year before that, when Lily was four years old, her mother had dressed her up as Cinderella. Lily had stayed home and passed out treats, absolutely refusing to go trick-or-treating door-to-door dressed as–ugh—a princess. She wanted a long pointy hat, a black dress, and a broomstick. Never mind the long pointy nose, green skin, or warts, she wanted none of that, but she needed the hat, the broom, the potions and spells. She needed the magic.

Every year after that she got her way. Her mother had given in. Ten years later, Lily felt the same way. Okay, minus the costume on Halloween. But magic? If anything, the obsession only grew stronger with time. If she could only cast a spell, the world would be a much better place. Well, her world, anyway.

Not that she was only interested in herself. She wasn’t that selfish. She could get rid of all the bad guys. Turn them all good with the snap of her fingers. Cure every disease, heal everyone. No smog. No pollution. The hero she’d be!

Oh, to be a witch. Too bad practice didn’t make perfect. She’d kept trying for years, refusing to give up on her dreams. Waiting, waiting for the day the magic embraced her. Her book of spells sat on her nightstand, and rarely a week went by when something would pop into her head and she would write it in her book. None of the spells worked, but hey, she wasn’t hurting anybody by trying.

Abby sighed, dropped her pencil on the desk, and leaned back in her chair. With a scrape of her chair, loud enough in the hushed room for everyone to turn and stare, she rose, taking the test to the teacher’s desk, her long red curls bouncing. Settling in her seat again, she stole a glance at Lily, crossed her bright green eyes and stuck out her tongue.

Lily snorted, covering the noise with a fake cough. She ducked down in her seat when Ms. Gunther glared. Do not give me a detention, she thought. Please! I don’t want to be here any longer!

Thirty seconds to escape unnoticed.

Riiiiiiiiiiing!

Finally!

Lily leaped out of her seat. Let’s go. She grabbed Abby’s arm, hardly allowing her friend to get on her feet before dragging her