Full Moon High: First Year of Magic

By Kat Parrish

About Full Moon High

Laine Blackwood was just another California girl until her father shared a family secret with her; she's a witch, heir to a supernatural tradition going back many generations and growing more powerful every year. What her father didn't tell Laine is that buried deep in their family history are some very dark deeds that have put them at odds with four equally powerful families or that her arrival in his hometown of Stony Point, Washington will create an alliance that defies previous generations and paves the way for a community to heal. But first…she needs to pass her class in Alchemy 101.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Truer words were never spoken.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Katherine Tomlinson
• Release date: Dec 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215804742

Book preview

Chapter 1: Family Secrets

It’s such a cliché to say you hate your parents when you’re a teenager. Most of the time you don’t even mean it, you’re just venting, exaggerating for effect. What you really mean is that you wish your parents would quit giving you a hard time about what you wear, who you hang out with, the amount of popular culture you consume, and generally leave you alone to live your life because you’re old enough to know what you’re doing.

I’ve never had any real complaints about my parents. They’re good people and they love me and as far as I can tell from talking to my friends, that means I won the parent lottery. My parents are still together, while all of my friends are on their second or third stepdad or mom, and aside from them being the recipients of extra presents on holidays and birthdays, that kind of sucks.

And my life didn’t suck. So, when my father abruptly moved us from Los Angeles to his small hometown of Stony Point, Washington (population 6,384), I didn’t go full-on drama queen. For one thing, it was a plot twist in his life and not something he’d been planning to spring on us without warning.

For another, I knew even with me and both my parents working, we’d been struggling in L.A. The two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment we rented cost almost three thousand dollars a month and in the hot months—and face it, they were all hot—the electric bill could hit four figures as well. And then there was car insurance and the phones and cable service and food and....

It all added up to a monthly nut just slightly less than our combined family income. Any money leftover went into our emergency kitty, but even with a tiny cushion, we never quite caught up on our bills and we always carried a high credit card balance.

When my uncle died and left my father his house the same month an opening appeared on the faculty of his old high school, my father considered it a sign from the universe. We packed up our California life and moved to the Pacific Northwest so fast it made my head spin.

I got it, though. A job that paid more money and a free house? It was a no-brainer. And it’s not like I would be stuck in Stony Point forever. I was almost eighteen. After I reached that magic number, I could leave any time I wanted.

***

My father hadn’t been close to his brother, for reasons he’d never really explained, but my mother reacted to my father’s decision to move as if it was the worst thing that had happened to the family since a tree fell on the family car during an earthquake.

You got away once, she said to my father when she thought I wasn’t listening. If you go back, you’ll die there.

I thought she was being kind of melodramatic but she’s Russian-American and all my maternal relatives are divas.

It’ll be different this time, he said. With Ned out of the picture I’ll be head of the family.

All these years, she said, living like fugitives because you didn’t want anyone to find you. All those years of scrimping and saving and just scraping by. For nothing?

Dad probably would have said more, but he saw me out of the corner of his eye and abruptly changed the subject.

Hey Lainie, can I interest you in a fro-yo run?

My dad knows I love frozen yogurt.

Mom looked over at me, her face so blank it scared me.

Sure, I said, wondering if the trip to Menchies was a pretext for my father to get me alone so he could explain some things.

Your usual? he said to Mom and after a while she finally nodded.

With extra sprinkles, she said grudgingly.

Goes without saying, my dad said.

So, Dad, I began as soon as we got into the car. Why’s Mom so upset?

Your mother’s a big city girl and Stony Point is a small town, he said. Usually my father is pretty honest with me, but for some reason, he was lying now and he’s a terrible liar. I knew my mother’s complaint wasn’t just about downsizing, but something told me not to press him on the matter. I changed the topic.

Tell me about the new school, I said. Wixsted Academy. It sounds snooty.

I still can’t get used to calling it that. Back when I went there, we called it Full Moon High.

Why?

It was a public school named after one of the town’s founders—Fenton Morehouse Harrison High. F. M. H. Full Moon High.

That sounded like a stretch to me, but whatever.

The school district sold the place to the Wixsted Family in 1980 and it’s been a private school ever since.

I’d heard my father mention the Wixsted family over the years and got the impression he didn’t like them very much. I guess he’d decided bygones were bygones if he’d accepted the teaching position at a school they owned.

What about the public schools? I asked, trying to sound casual. I was wondering if there was any possibility he and mom would let me go to public school where I wouldn’t have to be the daughter of the history teacher and under constant scrutiny from both students and faculty.

There’s only one, he said. Stony Point High. You wouldn’t like it there. They don’t offer French classes and... he gave me a conspiratorial grin, the cafeteria sucks.

When I didn’t smile back, he added, Seriously Laine, the school’s not that highly rated.

That was the kiss of death as far as my father was concerned, so there went my chance to experience normal high school life.

I was so annoyed, I pumped extra caramel sauce on my bowl of vanilla yogurt when usually I just get a little squirt.

Still, I was trying to keep an open mind. The Wixsted Academy uniforms weren’t completely awful, and I was used to wearing a uniform to school. I preferred it, in fact. I had friends in public school who were going broke buying fast fashion to stay on-trend. I didn’t have that kind of discretionary income and anyway, I preferred thrifting and buying on Etsy to keep my carbon footprint down.

When I announced I was moving, and would be leaving within a month, most of my friends at school acted like I was headed off to a developing country without getting my cholera shot. My friend Delia, who’d been born in Seattle, had driven through Stony Point once and had nothing good to say about it. Most of her criticism had to do with the weather. It rains a lot there, Laine. Like a whole lot. Like rot your fingers off amounts of rain.

I have an umbrella, Delia.

It’s not cool to carry an umbrella in the Pacific Northwest, she said. You’ll look like a tourist. You’ll need to get a raincoat with a hood.

Mikayla, who’s a social media influencer and considers that a valid career choice, was even more vehement in her disapproval. I give you a month before you start wearing lumberjack plaid shirts and puffer coats, she predicted.

It’s August, I said. "Probably a little too hot