Testing: A 13 Covens Magical World Adventure (YA)

By Cassandra, Hayley Lawson and Michael Anderle

It's just a friendly deck of cards, right?

Hardly.

Jessica wasn’t prepared for the testing which she’ll face, all she wanted to do was play cards and in ignorance, challenging times occurs for her. However, the cards aren't ready to give up easily...

And neither is Jessica.

Laws will be broken. Groundings will happen. Lessons will be learned.

Life as a teenage witch gets trickier every day.

The life of a familiar just might be worse tomorrow, than it is today.

Jessica comes from Witch Royalty, and plenty of enemies want her dead before she gets a chance to learn anything about her past. Click the button to find out how one young woman learns, makes mistakes, and juggles life with opportunities that challenge her future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
• Release date: Jun 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781642029970

Book preview

Team

Chapter One

Jessica sat at her desk, her history book open before her despite the fact that she could hardly say she was actually taking it in. Although she had good intentions to read the chapter that had been assigned for homework, all she had managed to do thus far was stare at the same paragraph for nearly half an hour. Her mind wandered in every direction that had nothing to do with school. Or at least not mundane school, that was.

She supposed on the plus side, even if she never managed to actually read the whole chapter, she at least wouldn’t wind up in detention anymore—something that felt weird to think about considering that only two weeks prior, she had never been given detention before in her life.

It was incredible how much had changed in barely two weeks. Jessica practically felt like a different person—and in some ways, she supposed she was.

Anyway, as far as detentions went, thanks to her newly acquired mastery of performing convincing spells, she no longer had to worry about actually serving any that teachers threw her way. Not to mention that her popularity at had skyrocketed due to the rumors about her being a skilled hypnotist. There were even students willing to pay her to get them out of their detentions. While she had yet to take any of them up on their offers, she knew it would be tempting, especially if she was ever pressed for cash.

Detentions aside though, Jessica knew she had many responsibilities to accept in the very near future. First and foremost was likely not landing herself in detention in the first place, despite having the ability to easily get out of them.

She had a strict agenda to follow, and the top priority was to complete mundane high school, preferably with honors, so that she could officially start her first year at the Academy of Advanced Witchcraft.

A smile came to her face just thinking about it. The school had been so awesome when Chad took her to visit. She couldn’t wait to start.

Still struggling to stay focused on her homework for the time being, however, she swiveled in her chair. Her familiar, Frank the imp, lounged in her bed and watched television. Keeping Up with the Kardashians was his show of choice, and it was what he currently watched.

Jessica shook her head and exhaled a small laugh. You really love this show, don’t you?

I’m not the only one, judging from the fact that it always seems to be on.

I guess you have a point there. Before long, Jessica found herself reeled in by the Kardashian drama. She tilted her head, stared at the screen, and wondered if Kim really had butt implants.

But who in their right mind would get butt implants? She laughed at the thought, curious as to whether there was a spell for that kind of thing.

What were the odds that the Kardashians were witches too? It certainly would explain their success.

Her mind wandered again and Jessica marveled about how much magic was out there that she had yet to discover. The possibilities seemed endless, especially when she thought back to the magic shop she had visited with her Grandma Ethel. She still could hardly wrap her mind around how much stuff had been in that place.

As a matter of fact, she still hadn’t even taken a closer look at what she had bought from that place.

She swiveled in her chair again and this time, turned toward the closet where her jacket hung.

Her homework felt far too tedious to bother with, and Frank was so thoroughly absorbed by the Kardashians, and Jessica decided there was no time like the present to take a closer look at the deck of cards she’d purchased from Christa, her economics classmate who also happened to be an undercover witch.

She crossed the room quickly to the closet, where she dug in her jacket pocket and pulled out the deck of cards. They felt heavy in her hand and mysterious somehow. Like they filled her hands with a magical tingle—but surely she only imagined that.

Once she’d pushed her school books aside, Jessica sat at her desk and carefully removed the deck from its box. She then spread the cards across the surface and noticed there were also a pair of dice inside the box—one black with white dots and one red with white dots. Unlike any dice she had seen before, these were bigger and had fourteen sides. Each of the sides had numbers written on them, going from one to thirteen. The fourteenth side, however, featured a depiction of water.

Engrossed in the cards and the dice, Jessica jumped when Frank broke out in a loud laugh. She looked over her shoulder but he was still looking at the TV. Shaking her head, she turned back and refocused.

This time, she looked at each of the cards more closely. The first thirteen, she recognized, each represented one of the thirteen covens. In their top corners was a number written in black ranging from one to thirteen, and the corresponding coven picture was at the center.

After the thirteenth card, though, the pattern became noticeably different. Jessica counted and realized that that next thirteen featured demon depictions, some of which she recognized and others that she was grateful not to.

Although they were only pictures, a cold chill ran down her spine as she looked at them. Some of the demons were positively hideous. Granted, she was convinced there probably was no such thing as a cute demon, to begin with. Still, one with the appearance of a two-headed dog, the Medusa-looking woman with snake hair, one with its face ripped open and had an extra mouth, and the stick-like man hiding amongst a set of trees were all particularly terrifying.

Jessica squirmed in her seat at even the thought of running into any of them. They made the overgrown lizard-like demons and the Aqueil she’d tracked all seem like cuddly teddy bears.

The numbers on the demon cards, she noticed, were red, which suggested that they corresponded with the red die.

As she continued to examine them, one stood out for her. She stared at it and noted its familiarity—not because it looked like a demon she had faced before, but because it looked like an imp.

Frank, to be precise, albeit, an evil version of him.

She picked the card up, studied it more closely, and glanced at her familiar, who had fallen asleep.

Jessica pouted for a moment and then set the card down so she could examine the rest.

The next thirteen cards took a little longer for her to interpret. As she glanced through them and read their complicated text, she realized that spells and potion ingredients were written on them.

A prickle of excitement went through her.

When she reached the last card, however, she was surprised to find it blank. Confused, she flipped it over. On the back, it read, Do you want to learn about the thirteen covens?

She blinked in surprise and felt like the card had actually talked to her. She grinned. Heck yeah! she said out loud, placed the card back on her desk, and tried to work out what to do next. Written beneath the question was a set of instructions. The first line instructed her to roll the dice.

Jessica picked the dice up obediently, rattled them in her hand for a couple of seconds, and gently tossed them onto the desktop. The black die landed on two and the red on seven. Intuitively, she reached for the second coven card and the seventh demon card. She was already vaguely familiar with the second coven—Earth. Chad had reviewed the covens with her and even made her a cheat-sheet until she memorized them.

The seventh demon card, however, was more of a mystery to her. It featured the tall, skinny stick-like man hiding in a set of trees. Jessica studied it and her skin suddenly felt like it crawled.

What is so terrifying about this stick man? She tried to will herself to not be afraid.

Unfortunately, right that moment, something tapped at her window.

She jumped and leapt straight up from her seat. Her head snapped toward the window, where she saw a tree branch brush against the glass, pushed by the wind.

Jessica released a slow chuckle and felt ridiculous for scaring so easily.

It was late, she was tired, and she had clearly let her imagination get the better of her. She turned back toward the cards.

I think this needs to wait for later, she decided. When I’m not so tired that a stupid tree branch scares me.

With that, she began to pack away the cards and the dice. Once she returned them all to the box, she approached her bed and shook her head. Frank was snoring at this point, looking far too comfortable for his own good.

Jessica, on the other hand, couldn’t help thinking about how badly the blasted imp needed his own bed. For a little guy, he took up far too much space. Plus, he was messy. Every night, it seemed she found popcorn kernels or potato chip crumbs all over the sheets and comforter.

However, she had been so rude to him when they first met that she couldn’t find it in herself to tell him to scram and find somewhere else to sleep. After all, she had nearly killed him a few times and had given him an ugly bald spot on his head, so the least she could do was let him have a comfortable place to sleep.

Still, she was sure having his own bed would be nice.

She climbed carefully into bed, fluffed, her pillow, and tried not to disturb him.

Maybe I can get him a doll bed. Jessica snickered to herself. She could already envision his reaction. She hadn’t known Frank long, but she was sure he would complain at first, only to later end up loving his own little bed.

Curling onto her side and closing her eyes, Jessica decided to look for doll beds on Amazon the next day so that she could order him one.

Each time she felt herself drift off to sleep, the branch blew in the wind and tapped her window to reawaken her. But eventually—thanks to Frank’s snores—she was able to tune it out and fall into a rather peaceful sleep.

Ethel Libbons paced her bedroom and listened carefully.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, she heard the television in Jessica’s room turn off. Peering down the hall, she no longer saw light shining through the bottom crack of her granddaughter’s door. The sounds of the imp’s snoring confirmed that they both had finally fallen asleep.

Moving quietly and stealthily, Ethel picked up the pair of boots in front of her closet. She then tiptoed down the dark hall and made her way down the stairs.

A part of her felt ridiculous, creeping out of the house like a sneaky teenager at her age. Another part of her, however, couldn’t help but find the whole thing a little funny and damned exciting.

Shoo! Shoo! she hissed at her cats, a few of whom were up and wandered the house at night, as usual. Through the darkness, she spotted Grace’s bright eyes staring at her from the living room couch. And you hush up too. I don’t even wanna hear it.

Grace, her familiar, gave her a knowing look as she swished her tail but thankfully, kept quiet.

Ethel already knew that if she got caught, she would never hear the end of it. Yet, in the moment, it all felt worth risking anyway.

That damn Maximus. How did he always manage to bring out this side of her? Why did that man still have such a hold on her after all these years? It didn’t make sense.

Asshole, Ethel swore when she thought about Maximus despite knowing deep down that she didn’t really mean it.

Still, it was preposterous that after all these years, all it took was one letter from him and she was sneaking around at night, exactly like the good old days.

While she wanted nothing more than to be angry, she simply couldn’t succeed in whipping the silly grin off her face.

She cast a muffling spell over the front door so that it wouldn’t creak when she opened it, darted out of the house, locked up behind her, and sprinted on her old legs straight to her car. Her movements were as rapid as she would have made as a teenager, afraid her parents would glance out the window at any moment.

Her eyes creaked open to see the sunlight shining through the window. With a sigh, Jessica sat up in bed, yawned, and stretched. A glance to her side confirmed that she had the bed to herself again. Frank had disappeared but that wasn’t unusual, though. The imp had a habit of vanishing while she was asleep. She always wondered where he went off to and wanted to ask him to take her with him one day, but she always forgot to do so.

Jessica swung her bare feet out of the bed and onto the carpet, then stretched again before she made her way downstairs. It wasn’t until she had reached the last step that she noticed how unnaturally quiet the house was.

Grandma? she called once she reached the dining room. Grandma!

She stood there with a hand on her hip and wondered why everyone had apparently left her in the middle of the night without notice. Frank, she could understand. But Grandma Ethel? It wasn’t like the old lady to leave without giving her a heads-up first.

After a short moment, she jogged back up the stairs and went down the opposite side of the hall toward Ethel’s room. The door was cracked opened but she knocked first anyway. When she received no response, she pushed it open and poked her head in.

What the hell, Grandma? she muttered. The room was empty.

Where had the old woman disappeared to so early?

Baffled, Jessica went back downstairs. She would obviously have to fend for herself for breakfast, which was rather disappointing since she’d hoped Ethel would make pancakes.

As she made her way grumpily to the kitchen, the downstairs bathroom door swung open and Ethel emerged.

Jessica’s heart nearly leapt to her throat, for with the exception of the cats, she had been convinced she was alone.

Grandma! Goodness, you scared the crap out of me. Where have you been?

Ethel glanced toward the bathroom as if the answer to the question was obvious.

She shook her head, unconvinced. No way you were in there the whole time. Otherwise, how come you didn’t answer me? She eyed her grandmother and noted her attire—an all-black ensemble finished off with black boots. Her long gray hair that usually hung down in a braid was tied back—and far less gray. She noted how much younger than normal her grandmother looked.

You can’t prove anything, the old lady said stubbornly and marched off to the kitchen.

Oh yeah? Jessica followed her. Well, you still didn’t answer me when I called you.

I didn’t hear you calling. Ethel shrugged. Are you hungry? she asked, clearly trying to change the subject.

She stared at her for a moment longer, knowing her grandmother was hiding something. Much like anyone else, Ethel had a hard time looking someone in the eyes when she was lying. Currently, she had her back turned toward her granddaughter and ran water needlessly from the kitchen tap.

Yeah, sure. Pancakes would be nice, Jessica said and wondered what the woman was up to. But since Ethel wouldn’t talk, she knew she had to take a different approach. That’s an interesting outfit you have on, Grandma. What’s the special occasion? A burglary?

Ha, Ethel said as she drew a pan from the kitchen cabinet. You mind your business, girly. And there is nothing wrong with this outfit. Black happens to be a very figure-flattering color. You’ll see once you have some years and real curves on you.

Jessica raised an eyebrow. Figure-flattering, huh? And who are you trying to make your figure flattering for at this time of the morning?

Grandma Ethel turned and waved a wooden spoon in the air. And what makes you think I did this for someone? Perhaps I simply wanted to look good for no reason at all. It’s not a crime.

Hmm. That’s an interesting choice of words.

You know, Ethel said as she retrieved the flour. I’m too old for you to give me the third degree.

And you’re too old to lie like you are, she thought but knew better than to say that out loud.

Now, instead of interrogating me, you need to get ready for tonight.

Jessica sat at the kitchen table while Ethel mixed pancake flour in a large bowl. What’s tonight? she asked.

The old lady grinned. Tonight, my dear, you’ll have your first spell lesson.

Her face lit up. "Awesome! Even though it won’t really be my first spell. She smirked and felt rather satisfied with herself. I already know how to do reversal spells and convincing spells."

Grandma Ethel pursed her lips, unimpressed as she stirred the pancake mix a little too forcefully. Yeah, don’t remind me, she said. "Anyway, this will be your first time to learn a spell the right way."

She grinned and her face flushed slightly at her grandmother’s comment, but she was excited nonetheless.

Chapter Two

"Jessica!"

She jumped when she heard her name bellowed down the hall the second she stepped out of art class. In a flash, Ashley was in front of her, with Sara trailing behind her.

Geez, you scared the crap out of me, she said, turning toward her locker. Her brow furrowed when she noticed the distressed look on Ashley’s face. What’s up?

"I need a huge favor!"

Uh oh. Jessica sighed and looked at Sara for clues. Is this something I’ll regret later?

No! Because we’re friends, and this should be something you’re all for. Especially since we have an extra ticket for you.

She closed her locker once she’d retrieved her physics book. Extra ticket?

"Yes, Ashley said and looped her arm through Jessica’s as they headed to class. Sara fell into step beside them. Remember the concert I told you about?"

Yeah… Her eyes widened. Hold up… You got tickets?

Her friend added a skip to her walk. Yep! Isn’t that awesome?

Yeah… So what’s the problem then? What do you need a favor for?

Because she talked back to her homeroom teacher and landed herself in detention, Sara said and rolled her eyes.

Are you kidding me? Jessica frowned. Why would you do something like that on the night of the concert? Come on, Ashley—

Hey, I said I needed a favor, not a lecture, Ashley cut her off.

Jessica looked at her sideways and suddenly had an inkling about where the conversation was going.

So, Ashley began, you and this hypnosis business… Do you think you can help me out?

She sighed. So that’s it, huh?

Come on! You can do it right?

I… Her voice trailed off. After she had gotten herself out of detention using the convincing spell she’d learnt from her grandmother’s book, she had been somewhat flattered by the air of mystery that surrounded her afterward. She couldn’t deny getting a thrill out of being the talk of the school. And while people had requested her services, there was something different about a friend asking.

The last thing she wanted was for them to start using her for her powers. She now felt that perhaps she should have done more to shut down the rumors rather than enjoy the attention.

Jessica? Ashley said and a hint of uncertainty entered her voice. "You’ll do this for me, right? I mean—I got you a ticket. And I even got Kacey a ticket."

Jessica felt her face flush slightly at the sound of Kacey’s name. They now reached their classroom, and the moment they stepped inside, he was right there and waved at them from across the room.

Okay, she said and tried to ignore the apprehension she felt. After all, she really did want to go to the concert. It would be loads of fun.

Ashley squealed and broke into a victory dance.

Okay—I’ll to need you to never do that dance move ever again. Especially not tonight at the concert, Sara teased.

Shut up, the other girl retorted as they took their seats beside each other.

Seconds later, Eric walked through the door. He nodded at them. Hey, Jessica. Did you hear this genius over here landed herself in detention on tonight of all nights, when we’re supposed to go to the concert?

For your information, Eric, Ashley said crossly, Jessica will take care of that for me.

He took a seat beside her and raised an eyebrow. Oh yeah?

You guys—listen, don’t make a habit out of it. I’m not a parlor-trick, Jessica said and squirmed in her seat.

Ashley swatted her on the arm. Oh, don’t be so sensitive.

Sara leaned