The Stranded (Mystic Albion, #1) by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0000000000000
Published: 2022-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three: York, England, Now

Helen had used magic.

Helen had used magic on Adrian.

Janet wasn’t sure why she hadn’t figured it out earlier. Adrian was a horrible person. No girl in her right mind would go anywhere near him, not even if they were desperate for cash. He wasn’t a bad boy so much as a downright psychotic boy, the sort of monster who would hurt or humiliate his girlfriend one moment and then expect her to be kind and loving the next. And yet, watching him spasm on the ground ... she swallowed hard, her feelings a tangled mess. Adrian had deserved it. He’d deserved every bit of the agony and humiliation handed to him and yet, part of her feared what it portended. She wasn’t sure why.

She shivered as she made her way up the corridor. The school was quietening now, everyone heading home or out onto the concrete playing fields or wherever they went after school. Janet didn’t relax. Helen had never struck her as a very nice person, and now she seemed to be talking to Annabelle, to someone Janet knew to be a user and abuser and a general pain in the backside. Had they gotten close? Or was it sheer bad luck she’d sat next to Helen? There was no assigned seating, not in the bigger classrooms. They could have wound up together quite by accident.

Be honest, she told herself. You’re not uneasy because a molesting rapist got what he deserved. You’re uneasy because of how it happened.

She shivered, again. She understood bullying, be it physical or emotional. She understood mistreatment, be it a parent striking their child or a big boy picking on someone smaller than him. She understood ... she knew, at least in theory, she could match anyone in the school, even if practically it was pretty much impossible. But magic? Steve had been right. It was an outside context problem. It was something the vast majority of people couldn’t understand, let alone match. It was ...

We all laughed when Hagrid gave Dudley a pig’s tail, she reflected. But when we grew older, we started to realise it wasn’t funny at all.

The thought left her conflicted, almost scared of the world she’d embraced. Adrian had deserved everything he’d got and more besides. And yet, she would almost have been happier if Richard – or someone – had walked up to Adrian and beaten him bloody with fists and fists alone, rather than a shadowy threat Adrian could neither comprehend nor fight. She remembered reading about the old witches with Richard, studying stories from the days of witch-hunts and witch-burnings before the magic had faded out of everyone’s awareness. She thought she understood, now, the fear that had driven the hunts. Magic wasn’t just unfair. It was incomprehensible.

She scowled, telling herself not to be silly. Adrian really had deserved it. And yet ...

The doorway to the computer lab was open, revealing row upon row of cheap computers, outdated printers and other pieces of

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