The Reluctant Witch: Year One

By Kristen S. Walker

A young witch who just wants to be invisible. A beautiful mermaid who doesn’t belong. A secret relationship that threatens the entire academy.

Brie only agreed to try the witch academy to make her mother happy. She assumed she would learn Water magic. But when the students were assigned to their Elemental classes, she ended up in Earth. The list of reasons for her to leave the school keeps growing—her roommate is a bully, she doesn’t understand her classes, and everyone judges her for her infamous family name.

Then a beautiful mermaid named Gabriella catches her eye at the beach. Merfolk aren’t allowed in Santa Cruz because they’re dangerous killers, but Gabriella is friendly and kind. She agrees to show Water magic to Brie as long as she keeps their meetings a secret.

Brie lies to everyone about Gabriella, even when her Fae mentor asks her to investigate merfolk. But when the secret relationship strains her friendships, tanks her grades, and threatens her position at the academy, Brie learns that love comes at a high price.

She must choose between her first love and her magical school—or lose everything.

The Reluctant Witch is the first book in a YA urban fantasy academy series. It features the daughter of Rosa from the Fae of Calaveras trilogy, but it takes place twenty years after the original series and does not require prior reading. If you like teen witches, magical schools, and introverts who have to overcome their wish to be left alone, you’ll enjoy Kristen S. Walker’s latest novel.

Buy today!

Rated PG-13 for mild profanity and sexual references.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kristen S. Walker
• Release date: Oct 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005590734

Kristen S. Walker

Fantasy author Kristen S. Walker dreams of being a pirate mermaid who can talk to sharks, but she settles for writing stories for teens and adults. She's proudly bisexual, Wiccan, a liberal feminist, and lives in northern California with her family and two rescued pets. To find out more about her stories, please visit kristenwalker.net.

Book preview

1

Ileaned my head against the window frame to catch every glimpse I could of the coastline. I was crammed into the back seat of our blue VW Beetle with my overstuffed backpack and art portfolio. I only had a tiny curved window to see out the side. The lack of legroom didn’t really bother me, because I was short, but this tiny view was getting me down.

My two moms took up the front seats. Mama Rosa’s familiar, a bearded dragon named Kitten, was sunning herself on the dashboard. They were chattering on about the start of the school year, but I had tuned them out hours ago.

It was a long drive from our home in Madrone, a little town in Calaveras County, crossing the state of California to the coast. But now we’d finally hit Santa Cruz, and I could see the one thing I’d come here for: the beaches of Monterey Bay. The road curved along the cliffs, so I had the perfect view.

The water glinted in the September sunlight, and the waves gently rolled up to the beach. It was a calm day, but a few surfers were sitting on their boards while they waited for the next swell. The salty air came through the window and whipped my red hair around my head.

I couldn’t wait to be out there with them. My board was strapped to the top of the car, and my wetsuit was in the suitcase in the trunk. Maybe I could convince my parents to just drop me off here for a few hours. They’d enjoy the first day of school orientation more than I would.

Only juniors drove to witch school because we didn’t have any magic yet, but I was glad to stay on the ground. All the older students would fly in on their brooms over the weekend. Classes didn’t start until Tuesday, after the equinox, but juniors also had to get there early. Which is why I was stuck in this car on a beautiful Thursday afternoon.

Most kids would probably be excited to go to a witch school. Magic users only made up a quarter of the population, and for most kinds of magic, you had to be born with it. The highest ranked were faeriekin—part human, part Fae, a blending of two worlds. The other races were collectively called magikin, which covered everything from dwarves to pooka. Humans technically had two choices for gaining magic. Vampires were more powerful, but there were some nasty side effects to being undead, like consuming blood, and their numbers had dwindled in the last two centuries. But make a pact with a Fae, and you could become a witch—the bottom rung of the magic community.

I’d been against the idea for years. Mama Rosa was a witch, and she could do some cool things with her powers. I was just tired of people comparing me to her. Or worse, to her mother, Granny, who had been stripped of her powers for illegal magic. With such a well-known witch family, I could feel the weight of expectations the moment that people heard my name.

My real dream was an art school, and I didn’t need magic for that. I could have finished out my last two years of high school in my old school back home. People still flinched at the name McAddams there, but I’d developed a prickly persona where I kept my head down and avoided everyone. I just had to build up my portfolio and graduate.

But Mama Ashleigh, who was a faeriekin but didn’t use her magic, finally talked me into giving witch school a chance. She pointed out that the first degree in magic was the same as a high school diploma. If I didn’t like it, I could switch to art in college.

So I’d made a deal with her: I would go to a witch school and try the magic life for a limited time. But I wanted to pick the location—definitely not the Calaveras Witch Academy, where Mama Rosa taught herbalism—and if it was too awful, I could transfer back.

And now here I was in Santa Cruz. It was beautiful with green trees everywhere, even at the end of summer when most of the state was brown and dried out from the sun. The coastal redwoods were smaller than the giant sequoia from back home, but they were still impressive. This place was familiar in some ways but just different enough that it felt like an escape.

A dark shape in the water caught my eye. Something bobbed up between the kelp beds and I thought it turned toward me. I pressed closer to the glass, trying to get a better look. Was someone out there?

Did you find a sea otter, Bridget? Mama Rosa said, glancing at me in the rearview mirror.

I shook my head. It looked too big to be a sea otter or even a seal. I checked the nearby surfers, but they didn’t seem to notice.

It was unmistakable. A girl’s face looked up at me from the water. A cold shiver passed over me. Mermaids usually avoided anywhere with humans, but they could be hostile. If mermaids were in Santa Cruz, it wasn’t as peaceful as the school’s brochures promised.

Mama Rosa saw me shiver and reached for the window controls. Are you cold? Let me close the windows.

The girl slipped back beneath the waves with the flicker of a purple tail. I watched for another glimpse, but she was gone without a trace. I knew what I saw, though.

I’m fine, I muttered, slumping back in the seat.

We turned off the coast and drove up into the hills of Soquel, another town next to Santa Cruz. Within minutes, we were surrounded by trees again, and the road became even more narrow and winding. The school didn’t come into view until we were right at the entrance.

An old-fashioned wrought-iron gate blocked the road at the front and a tall brick wall surrounded the campus. Signs warned people away. We were stopped by a guard and all three of us had to show our IDs before we could drive in.

All the security wasn’t to protect the students—it was to protect the population from the witches-in-training. Ever since the Witchgate, an incident where Granny had almost destroyed our hometown by tearing open the Veil, people didn’t trust humans with magic. In the upheavals since then, magikin had gained many freedoms, but witches had lost more. The campus might call itself a school, but it looked like a prison.

Why had I ever agreed to come here?

I looked up at the girls’ dormitory building with narrowed eyes. It wasn’t bad; it just wasn’t what I’d expected from a magical school for witches. I must have missed the dorms when we took the campus tour. The main building was brick and very blocky in a mid-century style, but it was across a stone bridge. In the low alley underneath the bridge, there were murals painted by students, showing everything from anime characters to the obligatory Starry Night homage. There was an obnoxious number of unicorns. Most of it was rough and amateurish, but maybe that was all you could expect from a school that only offered, like, one art class.

Santa Cruz Witch Academy prided itself on being different from most witch schools. Besides general ed and magical subjects, they had non-magical activities. My moms insisted that it would be just like going to a regular high school with things like art class, swim team, and dances. Except all the teachers—and students—were witches.

Mama Rosa set my suitcase down on the bridge and looked over the railing. On her shoulder, Kitten peered down, too. Oh, look at that, Bridget, she said. There’s some art!

I rolled my eyes and walked faster, gripping my luggage. I didn’t know what annoyed me more: the condescending way that she pointed out the murals, or that she used my first name. Bridget sounded like a perky cheerleader’s name. I’d told her a hundred times to call me Brie, but she always seemed to forget.

Mama Ashleigh’s long faeriekin legs made it easy for her to catch up with me. Don’t judge it too harshly yet, she murmured over the stack of boxes she carried. Remember, you promised to try it.

What’s the minimum time? Could I transfer at the end of the semester if it’s bad enough?

Mama Ashleigh frowned. I think you should give it at least a year. It would be hard to switch in the middle.

So, I’d have to come up with a really good reason. Maybe I could blow myself up in a Potions class, but I’d have to be careful not to end up in the hospital.

Mama Rosa came running up behind us, breathing hard. Like me, she was short even for a human. Wait for me, you two! I’ve got to see our baby girl go into her new room for the first time.

Ugh, did she just call me baby girl here? Never mind, I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole. This was so embarrassing.

Inside the dorms, there was a large common area with comfortable-looking couches and a large flat-screen television. A kitchenette on the side had a snack table, a distilled-water cooler, and a counter with hot coffee and tea. Unicorns were everywhere, like it was designed for five-year-olds instead of upper high school students.

An older blonde girl met us at the door, brandishing a clipboard. She wore the university version of the uniform and had a squirrel familiar on her shoulder, so she must know what she was doing. Welcome to the Unicorn Building! I’m your RA, Hailey, and I’ve got the room assignments. What’s your name?

Mama Rosa grabbed Hailey’s free hand and shook it warmly. So nice to meet you, Hailey. I’m sure you’ll do a great job with all these girls. She draped her hands on my shoulders. We’ve got a challenge for you, a hyphenated situation. This is Bridget Quinn-McAddams. She might be under Q or M, depending on how they listed her last names.

Amusement flickered behind Hailey’s polite smile and her squirrel chirped. My mom wasn’t the first overbearing parent she’d met. Thanks, she said, glancing down at her list. Her squirrel tilted its head as if it was looking, too. Ah, yes, I see you here. The only girl under Q. She grinned up at me. You’ll be on the third floor, Bridget, in room 302. It’s a nice one, right on the corner.

It’s Brie, I said automatically.

Hailey nodded and made a note on her clipboard. She handed me a key with the room number on a little tag. Okay, Brie. This will let you into your room for now—since you don’t have any magic for the locks yet. Your roommate is already here.

Mama Rosa grinned at Mama Ashleigh. Magic locks! Doesn’t that take you back to Crowther? Although I’m sure they’re more advanced now.

I tried not to gag as they launched into some anecdote from their teenage years. It seemed like my moms never missed a chance to remind people that they were high school sweethearts. These days, there were no schools that could take both a human witch and a faeriekin. Crowther Private Academy, their alma mater, had become a school just for magikin, and witches had to go to these restrictive boarding schools. Just one more thing that changed since Witchgate.

I gripped the key and shifted my backpack. Great, thanks, I said to Hailey, interrupting my parents. I’ll go check it out. Wanna put down all this heavy stuff.

I looked around and found the stairs. From the signs on the wall, I could see that we were already on the second floor, because we’d entered from the bridge. With my backpack over one shoulder and my art portfolio in my other hand, I marched up to the third floor.

Mama Rosa and Mama Ashleigh stopped in the middle of their story and followed, carrying the rest of my belongings. The dorm rooms were small and already furnished, so we couldn’t bring too many things. My parents still insisted on packing a ton of stuff. Extra bedding, a beanbag chair, desk organizers and cutesy decorations—everything from the back-to-school sale they’d hit a few weeks ago. I planned on sending at least half the junk back home with them.

I walked down the hallway, dreading every step. The numbers were on unicorn-shaped plaques. 302 was at one end of the building—a corner room, just like Hailey promised. It was nice to know I’d be a little isolated, but I was nervous about meeting my roommate. Supposedly the school assigned our rooms based on some kind of compatibility, but that was no guarantee. She could be a monster—figuratively. Real monsters went to magikin schools, but I’d probably get along with them. They understood what it was like to be different.

The door was open. I stopped awkwardly outside and rapped on the frame. Hello? I’m, um, assigned to this room.

A gorgeous girl with curled strawberry-blonde hair came to the doorway and my stomach did a somersault. Oh, no, why did she have to be pretty? One problem—her eyes narrowed as she looked me up and down. Everything about her was perfectly put together, from her millennial pink designer clothes to the matching color of her manicured nails. The kind of hot girl I couldn’t stop staring at but never got the courage to talk to.

I think there’s been a mistake, she said coldly. I requested one of my friends to room with me.

Mama Rosa pointed at the number on the door. Nope, 302. This is the room. She pushed past the snooty girl and dropped my suitcase on the floor. Kitten climbed down from her shoulder and started exploring. You already took the bottom bunk? That’s not gonna work. Bridget will fall out of bed if she sleeps on top.

The girl had a purple bedspread on the bottom bed, purple curtains on the window, a blue-and-purple rug, and matching school supplies on a desk. Either the girl really liked purple, or she’d picked everything to match the official school colors. I also noticed that while the corner room was a little bigger than the others, she’d already taken up more than half the space.

Mama! I protested. I haven’t fallen out of bed since I was seven. But I didn’t follow her into the room. The girl was standing there in the doorway, glaring at me like it was my fault I was there instead of one of her friends.

The girl sighed and brushed her hair back over her shoulder. Her hair was such a nicer shade of red than mine. I’ll go ask about the mix-up. Don’t unpack your things yet. She swept into the hallway, neatly avoiding me and Mama Ashleigh.

I caught the flash of her miniskirt as her hips swished and felt my face grow hot. Biting my tongue, I yanked my gaze away.

Mama Ashleigh watched the other girl leave with a frown. Maybe we should wait a few minutes to see what happens.

Mama Rosa shook her head. They said that they want students to mingle. You can’t request your friends as roommates.

It didn’t really matter to me. The only person I knew at the school was my best friend, Damian, and he was in the boys’ dorms. But if this snobby girl was gonna resent me for the school’s rules, I didn’t want to be here. Her hotness would wear off because of her rotten personality, but until I could quash my attraction to her, I didn’t need to be distracted.

The snobby girl came back into the room, leading Hailey. It has to be a mix-up, she said. With the amount of money that my father donates to this school, I’m sure he’d want to know that I’m comfortable here.

Hailey pointed to her clipboard and the squirrel on her shoulder chittered with annoyance. I don’t make the room assignments; I just hand them out. It says right here that 302 is assigned to Bridget Quinn-McAddams and Samantha Blackburn.

Blackburn? Her rich daddy must be Josiah Blackburn—the CEO of Castr, an up-and-coming magitek company in Silicon Valley. That explained the entitled routine. I cleared my throat. Maybe we could change the room assignments, though? I could just switch with her friend. I don’t mind trading rooms so everyone’s happy.

Samantha leaned closer to look at the clipboard. Yes, that’s a great idea. I requested Diana Carter or Kelsey Patton. Which rooms are they in?

Hmm. Hailey skimmed the list. Ah, I see what happened. Diana and Kelsey are in 310 together, on the other side of the dorms. All three of you girls must have requested each other, but there’s only two beds per room. Someone had to be the odd one out.

That’s not fair! Samantha flipped her hair over her shoulder again.

Mama Ashleigh switched into counselor mode. I’m sorry, dear, but those are the rules.

Mama Rosa kneeled down and scratched Kitten on her scaly head. It’s okay. I’m sure you and Bridget will become fast friends. She’s a good roommate, very clean and quiet.

Hailey nodded and left the room like the matter was settled, and my parents started unpacking my things with friendly chatter. Samantha threw me a sidelong glare as she left the room. We would not get along at all.

Which was fine. I only needed one friend, and that was Damian. Hopefully, the rich bitch would ignore me, and I could stay out of her way while I got over the little crush. It was all part of my plan to get through this school with as little human interaction as possible.

2

My parents unpacked everything, squeezing all the stuff they’d brought into the tiny space. The trickiest part was finding a place for my surfboard because I couldn’t just leave it on top of the Beetle. The closet was out of the question, since it was barely big enough for all of Samantha’s clothes—some of which still had the tags attached. Mama Ashleigh raised her eyebrows at the prices and warned us not to touch anything.

In the end, Mama Rosa leaned the surfboard, still in its case, up against the wall behind the bedroom door. I’d have to warn Samantha not to open the door all the way, or it would knock down the board. If it slid even a few inches to the right, it would crash down on top of my dresser. With everything so close together, that could cascade into a domino effect and knock over most of the other furniture.

I helped half-heartedly, but I was more interested in snooping around for clues about my new roommate. Everything in the room looked totally new and unused. There were no mementos, not even a picture of her rich father or a cheerleading trophy. Either this girl had no personality, or she hid it behind her designer lifestyle. I was curious about getting to know her better, but that was the wrong impulse. I quashed any desire to get closer to Samantha.

Once we’d unloaded everything from the car, Mama Rosa handed me the keys.

You can use it to get around, at least until you get the hang of flying, she said with a wink.

I tried to hide my relief at not having to fly for transportation. Even though the beetle was technically my car, I didn’t know they’d be leaving it with me for the school year. How will you guys get home?

Mama Rosa grinned. I can still ride a broom, and your other mama can hop on the back. She nudged Mama Ashleigh. And we’ll take a shortcut to see your godfather.

I sighed. By shortcut, she meant the Gates to the Otherworld. Most people couldn’t cross through the Veil except on special days when it was thin, but Mama Rosa had special privileges as the gatekeeper to the Gate back home. And by my godfather, she meant the tricksy Fae who was her patron—the magical being who gave her powers for her oath. He was always changing his name and appearance, but since a certain movie franchise made the Norse gods popular several years ago, he’d been going by Loki.

At least I wasn’t going along for the visit. Loki liked to tease everyone, so he could be very tiresome. Getting away from his constant jokes was one more perk for living away from home.

I could have managed without them at that point, but they insisted on tagging along as I went through all the first day registration checklist. First, I had to take a picture for my student ID, which they printed on the spot and handed to me still warm. We picked up several school uniforms in my size, white blouses and plaid skirts in blue and purple. They marked me as a student so people would keep an eye on me if I ever tried to do magic off-campus. Then I was fitted with a magitek bracelet. Once I had powers, it would let me use the magic locks to enter all school buildings, but it also tracked my location. Big Brother was watching.

Mama Rosa pulled out her camera, winding the film that