Book of Shadows Volume 2: Rising: Book of Shadows

By Michael Beaulieu

16-year-old witches Emma, Lia and Shar barely survived a life-threatening assault by zealot bullies who targeted Lia and Shar for being a lesbian couple.  Their wounds aren't even healed when the police start interrogating them. The bullies' parents want them arrested for manslaughter.  Meanwhile, Emma has an otherworldly visit with her grandmothers and learns that witch hunters have been hired to kill her, Lia and Shar.  How can the girls dodge the police and hunters?  Magick, of course, must be the answer! But the girls know all too well that spells can't solve everything and sometimes have costly side-effects. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Beaulieu
• Release date: Sep 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386439998

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PROLOGUE

publication: THE LOWELL GAZETTE

date: 9/10/16

headline: LOWELL CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL SHOOTING

by Jason Cavalon

Please note that the following story contains language that may be offensive to some readers.

Yesterday the first Catholic high school shooting reported in U.S. history transpired at Noah’s Catholic High School in Lowell, Massachusetts. Located at 122 Saval Street, the school had 487 students enrolled at the time of the shooting. Today, tragically, this number is down to 481.

An announcement came over the intercom at 7:58 AM, just after first period started, when juniors and Lowell residents Emma McGlinchey-Beaulieu, 16, Lia Weaver, 16, and Sharan Patel, 16, had just opened their French textbooks. The person who spoke was Ken Debarge, 16, also a junior. Several school staff have stated that he began his announcement by informing the school that Troy Culour, 16, had died that morning. He allegedly claimed that Tim Anderson, 16, a junior, had attacked the two of them the night before, breaking Culour’s ribs, and that one of the broken ribs had pierced his heart. According to Noah’s Catholic principal Anthony Leary, Debarge then stated that Tim and his sister Amy, 16, were to report to the office with the three bitches he attacked us to protect, Emma and her dyke friends Lia and Shar. He further stated that no one would be leaving the school, the doors of which they’d chained shut, until they were dead. If they didn’t come to the office, Debarge stated that they would start shooting randoms, they being Debarge, Harvey Dean, 16, also a junior, and Troy Culour’s twin sisters Andrea and Ella, 17, both seniors from Noah’s Catholic.

Bravely, all five of the individuals called to the office by Debarge went to face their would-be attackers within the ten minute time frame they gave them, not wanting other students to die. According to Lia Weaver, who spoke to police with McGlinchey-Beaulieu’s mother Mallory, 36, acting as her attorney, the Andersons had been the first to face the shooters. Weaver stated that they must have been shot by the assailants just outside the office after emerging from the school’s Northern stairwell. When McGlinchey-Beaulieu, Weaver and Patel emerged from the Southern stairwell – down the hall from the office – the Andersons appeared to be dead or severely wounded on the floor. Weaver stated that her and her friends saw Harvey Dean further shoot Tim Anderson in the abdomen and Amy Anderson in the head as the girls began walking down the hall. Rather than simply surrendering, the three girls decided to fight, armed with a Glockenspiel model pistol that classmate Randall Harrelson, 16, handed to McGlinchey-Beaulieu as the three girls were leaving the classroom to go face their would be assailants. Details about what exactly transpired between the three girls and the shooters are still unknown, but Debarge, Dean and both Culour sisters are now deceased. As for the girls, Mallory McGlinchey-Beaulieu has informed the Gazette exclusively that her daughter was shot three times while Patel was shot twice and both required surgery lasting over three hours. Weaver was the only individual involved in the incident who was not physically injured.

While it’s yet to be determined if Anderson in fact attacked Ken Debarge and Troy Culour the night before, Sandra Culour, mother of Troy, has told the Gazette that her son was treated for multiple broken ribs. She further stated that he died from a cardiac event caused by this. She also stated that both her son and DeBarge had informed her and her husband, Patrick Culour, that Tim Anderson was their attacker and had assaulted them with a metal baseball bat. (Debarge was also treated for broken ribs.) She would not go into further detail, but it is believed that Debarge, Dean and the Culour sisters left the hospital immediately following Troy’s death. From there, it is alleged that they went to the Culour residence where they broke into Patrick Culour’s gun cabinet and heavily armed themselves then headed directly to the school. According to principal Leary, when they entered the school through the main entrance they came to the office and instructed him and Sister Mary Hall to get on their knees then used plastic zip ties to secure their hands behind their backs before Debarge made the announcement.

The Gazette will continue to follow the story as more information is made available.

CHAPTER ONE

It’s been four days since Lia, Shar and I were shot; Shar and I are still in the pediatric wing at Greater Lowell Hospital. Turns out they don’t send you home the same day as your surgery when it’s for gunshot wounds. Our friend January revealed that she was a fairy after saving the day on what they’re calling the Noah’s Catholic Shooting. (Guess they really racked their brains coming up with that one.) Lia was shot the worst of us and I’m reasonably certain that she would’ve died if January hadn’t healed her. She hasn’t told her mother, Juliana, about that, though. I don’t blame her. Shar and I getting shot was shocking enough for Juliana, who’s known us since the three of us became friends when we were seven. Why tell her she was shot, too, and upset her more?

January has been visiting every day, often with Pete. They’re officially dating and I’m so happy for them. To that end, neither of them are virgins anymore. January told me they’ve been fucking like rabbits. I believe she meant a lot, not that they’re doing it in the position that bunnies hump in. Although, obviously, if that is how they’re doing it, why should anybody care? I believe people should do anything they want sexually, so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. Unless, of course, the person wants to be hurt. Like those Wall Street clowns who get away with insider trading and feel the need to be punished by girls who are young enough to be their daughters. As for me, yup, I’m still a virgin. I mean, I’m in no condition pour sexe avec mes trois bullet wounds.

Unfortunately, January hasn’t been able to heal Shar or I because healing Lia seriously drained her proverbial batteries and she guesstimates that it takes a good week or two for them to recuperate, based on how weak she’s still feeling; she said it’s like having a bad case of the flu. Lia was the first person she ever healed. Shar and I are doing just fine though. Lia and Juliana keep bringing us the magickal healing tea, which they’re actually spelling together, if you can believe that, and it’s working wonders. The area where the bones in the middle of my hand were blown out by the bullet piercing it are actually growing back, which my Dad says is impossible every time he looks at it. I don’t see how that’s different from a broken leg healing, but I guess they’re not supposed to grow back and heal when there’s a two inch hole in the middle. Last night I just threw caution to the wind and said, It’s witchcraft. He gave me a look that told me he wasn’t sure if I was serious or not and that he didn’t want to know if I was. Not because he believes in witchcraft but because he’d have to view me as delusional if he actually thought I did. So, I didn’t say anything else. I have told my mother that I’m a Wiccan like my Great Grandmother Ruth though! Of course, I’d already told her I had premonitions like Ruth more times than I can count, but not that I was an actual witch.

How can you be sure? she asked.

Because I’ve been praying to a God and Goddess and I’ve done magick and it worked, I said.

Like what kind of magic? she asked.

Give me that newspaper, I said, referring to the Lowell Gazette issue with our faces on the cover under the word VICTIMS. She picked it up and handed it to me, so I said the disappearance spell – the one we did to get rid of the blood when we cut our hands and formed the coven – and, voila, the paper disappeared.

Well..., she said. That’s it. Two seconds later she turned on the TV. Guess her Catholic self prefers to be in denial, like she was, and probably still is, about my premonitions. She can’t attribute a disappearing newspaper to seizures though.

Prior to when I told her, my mother had never heard anything about us being witches. You see, there was some sort of divine intervention and everyone who was at the school the day of the shooting – except Lia, Shar, January and Pete – has no idea that Ken called us witches when he demanded we go to the office. Instead, they heard Ken say that Troy Culour had died that morning from injuries caused when Tim Anderson attacked them the night before. That Tim and his sister Amy were to come to the office along with the three bitches Tim attacked them to protect, Emma and her dyke friends Lia and Shar, or he, his friend Harvey and Troy’s sisters, Andrea and Ella, were going to start shooting randoms.

The only mention of witches was when Ken’s father held a press conference a couple days after the shooting to state that Ken had finally died from his burn wounds. Then he apologized for what Ken had done, stating that he’d recently been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Apparently, he’d stopped taking his medication, and he thought he was seeing demons and witches everywhere and that must be why he snapped.

I suspect that Ken’s father is the one who saw Tim the night he attacked Ken and Troy, but it would seem unlikely that he witnessed the actual attack. Unless he did and the Goddess made him forget it. I suppose that’s highly possible.

A reporter asked Ken’s father what he thought about gay people, if Ken’s hatred toward them was something he’d learned at home. His father said, No, Ken was attending classes for his confirmation at CCD and had a teacher we now know to be a radical, who preached hatred and intolerance, and who has since been excommunicated by the Catholic church. He added that the teacher was one bad apple, that the Catholic church preaches tolerance and was disgusted by his son’s behavior and should not be held accountable for it. Of course, I disagree with that, since their priests or bishops or whoever are the ones who hired the CCD teacher in the first place. Also, fuck this tolerance bullshit. All that means is that you begrudgingly put up with people you dislike. What people need is acceptance and empathy. You should actually like your fellow man, not just put up with him. The Catholic Church has come a long way in their views about homosexuals though, so I think tolerance was just a word Ken’s father used to describe their stance, although if he was in touch with them enough to know that they excommunicated the CCD teacher, and that they wanted it to be known that they were disgusted" by what Ken had done, maybe tolerance is a word they fed him.

On a related note, Ken’s father surprised the hell out of everyone when he stated that Ken and Troy were secretly in love and that they were struggling with the fact that they were something they were told to hate. Something his father only learned about from reading Ken’s journal, which he’s since turned over to the FBI.

You’d think I’d get some sort of satisfaction about us being right about Ken and Troy being lovers, as January first suggested, but I don’t. No, hearing his father talk actually made me forgive Ken. I just hope that he and Troy, wherever they may be, have forgiven Lia, Shar and me. As for Tim, I think what he did, attacking them with those vines, clearly using black magick, is pretty unforgivable, even if he probably didn’t intend to kill Troy.

Speaking of Tim, nobody knows where he is. I am absolutely certain that he was alive in that drawer in the morgue, and his body went missing, so I have little doubt that, somehow, he is alive somewhere. As for how he can be alive after receiving several fatal gunshot wounds and losing that much blood, your guess is as good as mine. (The police have officially stated that someone might have stolen the body to desecrate it.) I asked January if vampires are real and she said she doesn’t believe so, although there are some people who hunt and kill fairies to steal their power, and some fairies call them vampires, but they’re not immortal so far as she knows. Also, she’s seen a couple of them die, one being a hunter who attacked her who put her in a situation where it was kill or be killed.

I asked January if she was born a fairy, or if fairies are even born, and she told me how she came to be one. She’d snuck out of her house one night to go meet a few friends for a movie – the last Hunger Games movie – and when it was over they went to McDonald’s. Around 11:30 they were done eating and she had to use the restroom, so she said bye to her friends. They all lived in the opposite direction, so none of them were walking home with her. She had about a half mile to walk home and when she was about halfway she sensed that someone was following her. It scared her and she started walking faster then the person following her began walking faster, so she started running and screaming and they started running after her. She tried to call 911 from her phone but her hands were shaking and she dropped it. When she reached the end of the block she literally ran into someone and begged them to help her. It was a guy. He looked about 40 and was scruffy with long hair. She was so scared she threw her arms around him – that’s when she noticed he smelled like pee – and then she felt a sharp pain in her right side. Meanwhile, the person who was chasing her caught up. It was a woman, just a scrawny thing, and she and the guy immediately started laughing like they’d just heard the funniest joke in the world. That’s when she felt the guy pull the knife out of her and realized she’d been stabbed. Then he stabbed her a second time – just below the belly button – as the woman grabbed her purse. Her and the guy ran off with it and she was left standing there bleeding like crazy. She said please God then she passed out. Well, the God and Goddess heard her and they sent her to what is actually called the fairy department where one of the other Goddesses, Hannashurie, turned her into a fairy. She told her she could accept her death and go into paradise or she could go back to earth and continue living her life but that she’d be a fairy. She’d look like a normal person when she wasn’t a little fairy with wings, but that from time to time she’d be called on to help people.

Aside from being able to turn small and fly, the powers Hannashurie gave January are healing (herself and others), teleportation (up to around 1000 feet), invisibility, and the power to burst into flames and to hurl balls of fire. She was also given psychic powers, like the abilities to sense when people are in danger and read minds. She said she really is 16 – she was 13 when she was stabbed – and will age but only until she’s about 25 then she’ll stay that way forever unless someone destroys her head or cuts it off. Hannashurie told her these things and speaks to her from time to time. After she told me her story, I wondered if Tim might have gone to the fairy department, but I highly doubt that someone who killed someone – even if by accident – would get sent back as a fairy. January did say that males can be fairies, too, though.

We – Lia, Shar and I – were the first people January was asked to protect. We’re also the only people who know what happened to her the day of the accident. Everyone thinks she just snuck out of the house and went to a movie. You see, after she agreed to be a fairy, Hannashurie returned her to where she was lying on the street, where she felt like she’d just woken up from a nap, the stab wounds gone. (Her purse and phone were long gone, too, but that was obviously a small price to pay.) Then she just got up and walked the rest of the way home where everyone was waiting up for her and she was grounded for a month.

At first she just tried making friends with us by sitting with us at lunch and sitting near us in classes we had in common, but she didn't feel like she was getting to know us quickly enough. So, she used her psychic abilities and learned that we were witches. She didn't know how to get us to open up about that and Hannashurie told her we would need her soon. So, when she sensed that I was distressed in the restroom that day she went and hid in the stall. I didn't see her feet under it because she was in fairy mode, hovering with her wings. She intended to come out and talk to me alone, but then Lia and Shar showed up and she didn't know what to do, so she just burst in on us. She figured that catching us in a spell would bring us closer. Of course, it didn't really help much, instead making us weary that she'd want to join our coven. That's when she basically invited herself to the party and sleep over. Then, well, she sensed that I wanted to jill that night, so she brought up the game, since she wanted to get off anyway after making out with Pete all night. Once again, she thought doing so might bring us closer. I suppose it did, even though it was a little weird.

You'd think all of that would make me think of her as a manipulative bitch, but I don't. On the contrary, I think it's sweet, especially since she wound up saving our lives. She deeply regrets not being able to help us sooner on the day of the shooting but she was scared and didn't know what to do, as they don't really train fairies to deal with school shootings. Of course, I told her not to worry about that, that she showed up when we needed her most and saved our lives and that's all that counts as far as I am concerned. I feel like she truly is my guardian angel and now understand why my Great Grandmother said that she's a gift.

Lia has been at the hospital almost constantly, but she's here for Shar more than me and that's fine. I understand that they're in love and all that jazz. Besides they do spend plenty of time talking with me. It’s kind of like having a sleepover here, except that you’re in pain and your parents are there. It's been so nice having January here when Lia and Shar are having alone time. Not that you can do much in a hospital. Shar’s parents know that they’re a couple now though. They figured it out when they heard that they were called the two dykes on the news. I suppose Shar could have told them that she and Lia are both lesbians but that they’re not a couple, but I doubt her parents would have bought it. Fortunately, they’re so relieved that Shar didn’t die from getting shot that she and Lia being together isn’t something they’re worried about. They don’t even glare when Shar and Lia hold hands in front of them.

I haven't said anything to my parents about Tim. (Thank Goddess she dropped the word girlfriend when she revised what everyone heard that day.) What would I say, that I got obsessed with a senior I had this one extraordinary, secret date with? They'd be pissed that I went out with a senior. They'd also be livid that I didn't tell them about it. Besides, what would I say now? Oh, don't sweat it, Ken and company killed him? If I said that, should I also add that I saw him alive in the morgue? Yeah, that would make them wicked happy. They'd probably stick me in a chastity belt just in case he's somehow still alive. Maybe my mother is on her way to accepting that I’m a witch, but she’s not prepared to hear about my zombie boyfriend, I can tell you that much for sure. That said, I’m not actually calling him my boyfriend anymore. Not after how I saw him attack Ken and Troy with those vines. That was black magick and I want nothing to do with it.

I should also mention that our involvement with the shootings - even though we were the victims and saved innocent people - has gotten us kicked out of Noah’s Catholic. Maybe a nun saw us use witchcraft and somehow her memory wasn't wiped by the Goddess? Who knows? So, yay, we'll now be going to public high school after all. They were able to get us all - meaning January and Pete, too - into Greenmont High in Dracut. This is because Pete added us to their waiting list, moved us to the top, and told their computer system they had five new openings. I guess it isn't as well-respected as Westford or