Welcome to Wimbly's, page 1
part #1 of Misfit Magic Series
CONTENTS
Dedication
Chapter One - Oh, What Wonderful Watkins
Chapter Two - It's a Hard Knock Life
Chapter Three - Surprise!
Chapter Four - Pop Quiz in Potsdam
Chapter Five - Goodbye Ryley, Hello Wimbly's
Chapter Six - Straight to the Principal
Chapter Seven - A Solitary Night & Busy Morning
Chapter Eight - Ms. Velvet's First Lesson
Chapter Nine - Arcana 101
Chapter Ten - Not Just Any Ordinary Librarian
Chapter Eleven - A Turning Point
Chapter Twelve - Hatching Plans & Stoking Rumors
Chapter Thirteen - Secrets, Studies, & a Dryad for Spice
Chapter Fourteen - What Goes Around...
Chapter Fifteen - Hello, Old Friend
Chapter Sixteen - The Esteemed Roderick Shellhouse
Chapter Seventeen - So Close, Yet So Far
Chapter Eighteen - The South Door
Chapter Nineteen - The Witch Queen of the West
Chapter Twenty - Gathering Storms
Chapter Twenty-One - Snowball Fight!
Chapter Twenty-Two - A Different Kind of Test
Chapter Twenty-Three - Rising Suspicions
Chapter Twenty-Four - The East Door
Chapter Twenty-Five - An Unexpected Guest
Chapter Twenty-Six - A Final Clue
Chapter Twenty-Seven - A Little Help from an Old Friend
Chapter Twenty-Eight - The Flight North
Chapter Twenty-Nine - It Begins
Chapter Thirty - Revelations
Chapter Thirty-One - It Ends
Chapter Thirty-Two - The Fall of Wimbly's
Thank you to everyone who has supported me on this journey. Writing a book isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon, and I couldn’t do it without the support of my friends and family.
CHAPTER ONE
Oh, What Wonderful Watkins
Quinn’s third family came first by bent manila folder, second by five-minute call, and third by long and quiet drive to the edge of Tupper Lake. Sighing, he slid out the squeaky sedan’s worn leather seat, his fingers dancing over its web of cracks like a spider angling for a fly. His caseworker shut the car door behind him, gently rocking the tired car. A crisp breeze whistled through Quinn’s hair. A sky so blue it could have made sapphires jealous yawned over rolling hills blanketed by trees, their leaves tinged with autumn’s rusty colors.
His caseworker shivered, clutching the puffy down vest hanging over his sloping shoulders.
“You should zip up, Tony,” Quinn said with a wide grin. “You’ll catch your death out here.”
“I lost the stupid zipper and it’s busted now.” He sighed and adjusted the pack slung over his shoulder. “Welcome to your new home, Quinn. Ready to meet your foster parents? I know you’ll like them. They’re very nice.”
“I guess so.” Quinn buried his hands in his pockets and pointed his chin down the drive. “Lead the way.”
Meeting his first foster parents had terrified him. Being introduced to his second ones made him a little nervous. Now that he’d be on his third foster family, he couldn’t care less what they thought about him.
Tony kneeled, resting hands with hairy knuckles on Quinn’s shoulders. Quinn smiled. The caseworker wasn’t a bad man. Not many who worked in his line were. Still, Quinn could tell the job drained him, wore Tony out like a weight he could never shrug off. The man’s eyelids drooped into deep lines along his temples, and his bush of curly hair thinned more each time they met. But despite his stress and troubles, Tony smiled and flashed a front tooth that angled just slightly the wrong way.
“You’re gonna be okay,” he said. “Will you behave for me? You really need to be good with these people. They’re nice, just like I know you’re nice.”
Quinn shrugged and glared into Tony’s eyes. “The first two weren’t my fault. You know that.”
“I know, I know. But I can only do so much, and despite what you might think, I really do care about what happens to you. There are rules. You break too many and I can’t keep you out of harm forever. This is your third strike, your last chance. A boy as bright as you can’t end up in youth detention. It’ll ruin you, Quinn, and we both know it.” He stood, and his double-knotted hiking boots squeaked with each step he took over the cracked drive. “C’mon. They’re waiting.”
Quinn’s new home was a solitary box with a wide, covered patio. Paint peeled from the house’s lifeless siding like an old snakeskin while its narrow windows watched him with unblinking eyes. Like most other homes in Tupper Lake, it’s heyday passed long ago.
He hated that town. It might have been a nice place once, but time had abandoned it years before he first came there, and now it was a place people passed on the road to better things.
They reached the patio. Tony pressed the rusted doorbell, and it rang a tired tune. Tony rocked on his heels and nudged Quinn’s shoulder.
Quinn swatted him away. “I think you’re more nervous than I am.”
“Just remember your manners. Oliver and Patty Watkins are nice people but they really do appreciate kids with good manners. I can’t stress that enough.”
“Really? Seems like you’re stressing it just fine. I get it, they’re nice.”
Quinn decided then that the Watkins must not be very nice. The door unlocked with a loud click. Quinn swallowed. It creaked open, and a man appeared behind the mesh screen. Tony stepped back to avoid being smacked in the face as Oliver Watkins stepped onto the patio.
Oliver was a pencil of a man with a scarred jaw and a forehead too large for his hair to hide. He greeted Tony with a handshake, ignoring the caseworker’s mumbling apology about being in the way, and turned to Quinn.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Lynch.” Oliver extended a hand. “And welcome home. I just know you’ll love it here.”
“You can call me Quinn. And I hope I do.” He shook Oliver’s hand. The man had a strong grip. Too strong. Quinn flinched and wriggled free of Oliver’s bear trap of a hand and flexed his throbbing fingers.
Behind the man, a woman jiggled through the doorway, nearly knocking Tony over for a second time as she bounded onto the patio. “Is this Quinn?” Her eyes beamed and her hands clapped. “Oh, he’s such a charming young man!”
Ms. Watkins must have been eating her husband’s meals. She curled her dark hair and plastered it with hairspray into little plastic waves while her makeup could make a doll cringe. Her efforts at beauty ended at the neck, though, because the worn grey sweat suit that clung around her wrists and waist defied any attempt at looking decent.
Quinn forced his lips into a smile. Mirroring his own smile, she squatted and pinched his cheek with her caterpillar fingers. “Hello, Quinn.”
“Nice—nice to meet you,” he said.
Tony nodded approvingly.
“Wonderful to meet you too,” she cooed. “My name is Patty. You’re going to have a marvelous time here. I’m certain of it. We take very special care of the blessed little boys and girls who come under our roof. You’ll see.”
Even though her breath reeked of butterscotch, and her honey-coated words landed sweetly on his ears, her hard eyes turned his stomach. Oliver cleared his throat and squeezed his wife’s shoulder. “Let’s get inside. It’s chilly for this time of August and I don’t want you catching a cold.”
Patty tittered and stood, brushing her hands against her sweater. “Ollie, don’t be silly. You know I’ve got more than enough padding to keep me warm.”
Quinn snorted, the laugh ripping through his nose. He smiled at them, blinking. Maybe they weren’t so bad. At least Patty had a sense of humor about her size.
Oliver glared, his jaw set. Patty pursed her lips and shook her head just enough for Quinn to see. “I’ve got enough padding because my sweater keeps me wonderfully warm. Please, come in.”
Oliver and Patty walked inside. Tony flashed Quinn pleading eyes.
Sorry, Quinn mouthed.
Be nice, he answered.
Quinn followed Tony into the Watkins’ home. It smelled of pine cleaner mixed with cheap lavender incense, both of which couldn’t hide the musty scent seeping from every panel and floorboard in the house. They walked into the living room, and Quinn took a seat on a croaking plaid couch.
Tony pulled Quinn’s case file from his satchel. He thumbed through it until he found a few papers from the State of New York that summarized Quinn’s life in neat, soulless letters along with an official release form for his new foster parents.
Oliver whipped a pen from his pocket and clicked the cap. He snatched the file from Tony like it would lead him to a pot of gold and signed with a quick and eager hand.
Tony cleared his throat, halfway reaching for the bundle. “Usually we go over the papers first.”
Oliver’s lips bent in a practiced smile. He twisted beyond Tony’s reach like the caseworker was a filthy puppy begging for a table scrap. “It’s all the same, don’t worry. We’ve done this before.”
Quinn buried his hands into his lap and scanned his new home while Tony handed Quinn’s life to another master. While Quinn surveyed the room, he noticed a staircase opposite the couch. A boy leaned against the top step, a dark silhouette that teased only the barest details from his body. He leaned against the wall like a lazy statue, and Quinn knew the strange boy watched him even though he couldn’t see his eyes. Tony chatted with Oliver and Patty for a few more minutes, and for each and every passing second, the
Quinn hated Tupper Lake. He had a feeling he really wouldn’t like the Watkins family, either.
CHAPTER TWO
It's a Hard Knock Life
Quinn missed Tony terribly. Watching his caseworker leave the Watkins’ home in his ratty sedan marked the beginning of Quinn’s miserable life with his third miserable foster family. One awful chore after another dripped from Oliver’s lips like poison. The man woke Quinn before sunrise and hovered over him until the sky turned into one great black bruise around the moon’s eye. Oliver’s wife put all the good things she had to say on a fork and ate them and instead peppered Quinn with an endless buffet of leftover insults and snide remarks. But neither of them compared to their son, Ryley Watkins.
“How’s it going, Quinn?” the boy asked.
Quinn swallowed, his fingers trembling on the tragically scarred school desk in the corner of his shoebox of a bedroom. He stared out his single cloudy windowpane at the gold and red leaves carpeting the early autumn landscape and prayed that when he turned around, Ryley Watkins would poof out of existence, or better yet, never have existed in the first place.
But of course Ryley would be there when he turned around. For a heartbeat, Quinn considered jumping through the glass. He couldn’t. For one, he’d hurt himself. For another, Oliver would punish him. And Tony said he had no more chances. If he wanted to survive, he’d have to accept the Watkins and all the gleeful evil they showered on him.
“What do you want, Ryley?” Quinn asked.
Ryley rested his forearms on Quinn’s shoulders. His breath toyed with Quinn’s hair and tickled his ear. “Did you finish my homework like I asked?”
Quinn slowly nodded. “And you promise not to blame me, right?”
Ryley’s chuckle washed over his neck. “I promise, don’t worry.”
Relief rushed from Quinn’s lips, carried on a sigh. He slouched and smiled at the desk face. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Not yet, at least.”
Quinn spun around. Ryley grinned. Quinn’s foster brother parted his hair with mathematical precision, and his eyes glittered with a hunger that would always want more than their share. His skin was taught over his pointed jaw, and his cheeks were sun-kissed from days spent making trouble while Quinn picked up the slack.
“Why?” Quinn lurched from his chair, his pulse racing. “What did I do? You promised. I—I can’t get in trouble. Please, Ryley. I didn’t do anything. Not a single thing.”
Ryley rushed him. He grabbed Quinn’s neck and squeezed so hard Quinn’s pulse throbbed against his fingertips. “Keep it that way. Know your place, orphan boy, and you won’t get in any trouble.”
He laughed and let go. With a wink he sauntered into the hall and whistled a tune that made Quinn’s skin crawl. Quinn rubbed his throat and glared at the empty doorway. Ryley had something planned. He always had something planned.
Quinn finished Ryley’s homework but hadn’t touched his own. He propped his elbows on the desk and buried his face against his palms, listening to his hot breaths wash over his cheeks. Ryley had demanded Quinn handle each and every subject, quiz, and paper Patty assigned them. At first, Quinn chalked it up to Ryley being just as lazy and mean as his parents. It turned out, though, that while Quinn did Ryley’s schoolwork, Ryley studied something else entirely.
Ryley would lock himself inside his room early each afternoon, his desk lamp bleeding light from the crack beneath his bedroom door until stars twinkled and the moon shone high over Tupper Lake. And even though the Watkins rained praise and attention on their son, they still believed children should live simple lives and as such should never have a TV or toys or games distracting them while inside their rooms.
Quinn wondered what might keep Ryley up so late in a room so sparse, and so he kept his eye out for any hint of what treasures might hide inside, patiently waiting for the day Ryley forgot to lock the door. A few weeks after Quinn’s first day with the Watkins, it finally happened.
Ryley’s door hung ajar, a crack as wide as Quinn revealing the interior. He crept to the doorframe and peeked inside. Ryley had a desk much like Quinn’s, but instead of textbooks on Algebra and US History, old and dusty tomes piled high on Ryley’s desk. They wore their leather covers like they’d circled the globe on sailboats and passed through many hands, and they bore titles of people and places Quinn had never heard before.
Quinn would have opened one of the books and peered at its ancient pages had footsteps not interrupted his sneaking. He dashed back into his room just in time, and from that day on the mystery of Ryley’s studies teased Quinn’s thoughts until sleep overcame him.
In a weird way, Quinn enjoyed the double schoolwork. The more time Ryley spent in his own room, the more time Quinn had to himself. He loved losing himself in his books, too. Homework was a fortress with walls none of the Watkins could climb. Ryley, Patty, and even Oliver let him be while he worked on the piles of mathematics and geometry lessons that were as numerous as snowflakes in Antarctica.
But most of all, homework was an escape hatch from the life he lived. Nobody believed in him in Tupper Lake. Nobody expected he’d ever amount to anything. Spend enough time buried in books, and one day he’d show them all.
“Ryley!” Patty shouted, jerking Quinn from his studies. “Quinn! Dinnertime!”
Ryley’s footsteps pounded downstairs. Quinn waited for a moment, taking a peaceful second to stare at the bare walls. He thought about putting something on them once, but changing a single piece of the room more to his liking would make that room his, even if it was just the tiniest of part of himself, and he could never accept that. He would never accept that. Sighing, he scooted from his desk and trudged downstairs.
Quinn joined his foster family in the kitchen. They sat around an old oak dining table, none of them caring to wait for Quinn before they started dinner. Patty had picked up fried chicken with potatoes and green beans from the store. The food smelled like rich butter and honey, and they’d been charitable enough to leave a drumstick for Quinn along with the bowl of oatmeal he typically received for dinner. He asked once why he couldn’t eat what they ate. Oliver replied cold as ice that a good meal was earned and he hadn’t earned it. Despite how many chores Quinn did or how perfectly he did them, he never earned what they ate.
Quinn quietly took his seat. He grabbed his drumstick and munched on his dinner with his head down while Patty chatted about her day.
“…I can’t believe it’s finally time, Ollie. We’ve been waiting so long to see how our little man does. To think, all these years are finally going to start paying off. I just don’t understand why they want both of them—”
“Hold on, Hon,” Oliver said. Patty flinched.
Quinn looked up from his meal. She quickly recovered with a smile and sealed her lips, her dark eyes flicking toward him.
“What’s happening?” Quinn asked. “What’re you talking about?”
Ryley grinned, cocking his head. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
Oliver cleared his throat. He propped his elbows on the table and rested his chin on the hammock of his fingers. “You’ve been disappointing me lately, Quinn. You know that?”
Quinn closed his eyes and wished himself away. “How’s that, sir?”
“You haven’t finished your chores, so of course you’ll do double duty tomorrow to make up for the slack. It baffles me how you can be so lazy. Ryley gets his chores done early every day. What’s so hard about finishing a few simple things to show the appreciation for all the blessings we’ve given you?”
Quinn glanced at Ryley, clenching his jaw. The boy had a smear of a smile on his face. It didn’t hurt that Quinn really had finished his chores—and most of Ryley’s to boot. It hurt that no matter how hard he tried, they never let him think for even the blink of an eye or the beat of a heart that Quinn Lynch was part of the Watkins family.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
“Excuse me?” Oliver’s jaw clenched, his eyebrow sliding up his rounded forehead.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“That’s better.” Oliver leaned back, his tongue sliding across his teeth. “Patty says your homework is subpar at best. So that means you’ve got no work ethic or book smarts. How do you think you’ll ever get ahead in life without one or the other? Luck? The world ran out of luck a long time ago.”
