title: Girl vs. Ghost (Misdirected Magic, Book 1)
author:  Kate McMurry 
description: CHAPTER ONE<br><br>Isabel Lindley surreptitiously pressed the backlight button on her watch. Its digital display gleamed like a mini beacon in the dimness of her candlelit bedroom. Seventeen minutes and fifteen seconds past nine o'clock at night. Precisely two minutes and seven seconds since the last time she'd checked. <br><br>&quot;Isabel!&quot; Her best friend, Tripp Macauley, paused in the midst of an incomprehensible chant. The hood of her royal-blue wizard's robe obscured her face, but her tone made it clear she was frowning. &quot;You're not focusing.&quot;<br><br>The two of them were seated tailor fashion at opposite edges of a six-foot-diameter circle Tripp had created by pouring a thick trail of table salt--which was going to be a major hassle to vacuum up. Isabel tipped forward a notch to give her aching backside a moment's relief from the hardness of the uncarpeted floor. <br><br>&quot;Yes, I am.&quot; Sort of. <br><br>&quot;No, you're not,&quot; Tripp said. &quot;Whenever your attention wanders, it breaks the energetic field binding us together.&quot;<br><br>&quot;I don't understand how I can make or break anything when I know nothing about casting spells.&quot; And in spite of Tripp's elaborate pretensions to witchy wisdom, Isabel didn't think her friend was much better. <br><br>&quot;You don't need to know anything,&quot; Tripp said. &quot;All you have to do is be my amplifier.&quot;<br><br>A fancy job title for waving the candle Tripp had given her every time Tripp waved hers. &quot;All right. Sorry.&quot;<br><br>Isabel sighed. Normally, nothing her quirky friend dragged her into bothered her. On the contrary, over the past seven years of their friendship, Isabel had found quite a few of Tripp's endless string of hobbies a lot of fun. So much so that Isabel had kept on with more than a few of them long after Tripp had moved on. <br><br>That definitely wasn't going to happen this time, though. Something occurred when she helped Tripp perform witchcraft that Isabel couldn't explain and couldn't shake--an eerie impression of being watched that was seriously creeping her out.<br><br>On Thursday, during the first of three repetitions of Tripp's spell on consecutive nights--which Tripp had proclaimed was crucial to insure the spell's success--Isabel had written off the experience as the result of too much caffeine. And when Isabel had kept uneasily glancing over her shoulder throughout the Friday-night spell session, she'd decided she was stressed out from a pop quiz in Advanced Placement Biology on what was barely the fourth day of the new school year. <br><br>But there was nothing she could blame her jitters on tonight. It was Saturday, so she hadn't had classes, and she'd had plenty of rest with no need for caffeine. Even so, the spooky sensation was so relentless, it was shredding her nerves.<br><br>Isabel scanned her bedroom as she continued to absently follow Tripp's lead in their candle dance. She could easily see under the twin-sized, platform bed to her left. Its coverlet was a hand-made quilt--a relic of Tripp's patchwork phase in the seventh grade--that came no farther than the upper edge of the birch frame. Nothing could hide under there.<br><br>Isabel's gaze skipped over laminated posters of classic horror movies and various systems of the human anatomy that hung on her walls and settled on the doors in her room. All three, the one to the living room, her en suite bathroom, and her closet, were shut. The blinds over the double windows facing her were closed, too, but it wouldn't have mattered if they were open. The condo where she and her divorced mother lived was on the tenth floor of a high-rise building in Alexandria, Virginia, and there were no other tall buildings nearby. There was no possibility anyone could be spying on her. None. <br><br>But the crawling on her skin refused to stop.<br><br>***<br><br>For the third night in a row, he hung like a spider from the ceiling of the shadowy bedroom of two teenage girls. They'd perched themselves on either side of a circle outlined on a hardwood floor with what appeared to be white sand, and the one shrouded like the Grim Reaper recited gibberish from a three-ring binder haloed by black mist. <br><br>Each time her friend, a blonde in jeans and a black T shirt with the slogan, &quot;I heart zombies,&quot; swirled her candle in tandem with the Reaper's, a weird light-show began. Wisps of back-lit purple smoke trickled from the blonde's belly; a thick, red smoke-light surged from the Reaper's midsection, and a churning, black cloud billowed from the binder. The black light wrapped itself around the other two colors and merged them at the center of the circle into a dark-red fountain--whose spray was aimed directly at him.<br><br>Fortunately, when the murky red light hit him, he felt nothing more than a slight tingling sensation, so he didn't feel threatened by it. <br><br>Until the third round.<br><br>The Reaper suddenly yowled like an angry cat; the red fountain exploded into an orange geyser, and he catapulted toward the floor. <br><br>His shout echoed the Reaper's as he splatted inside the circle, and a shriek from the blonde completed their ear-busting chorus. <br><br>&quot;What the...? How did you get in here?&quot; the blonde demanded.<br><br>He lifted his spinning head to respond, and his accuser scrambled to her feet. <br><br>&quot;Stay back!&quot; She yanked her arms chest high in a fighter's defensive stance, and he wasn't sure if she planned to take off running or use his skull for a soccer ball. <br><br>He was in no shape for a brawl, but even if he had been, the thought of hitting a girl horrified him. He shifted carefully onto his back while raising his hands in surrender to reassure her that he was harmless. <br><br>&quot;What's wrong, Isabel?&quot; her friend asked from the depths of her hood.<br><br>&quot;How can you ask that with a strange guy practically lying in your lap?&quot;<br><br>&quot;What guy? Where?&quot;<br><br>***<br><br>&quot;Are you blind? Him, Tripp, him!&quot; Keeping her fists up, Isabel jabbed an elbow toward the intruder to indicate where he sprawled. What was the matter with Tripp? <br><br>This was one of the worst of the worst-case scenarios they'd trained for at the full-contact, self-defense class Tripp had talked Isabel into taking with her last year. <br><br>Tripp twisted toward the floor lamp behind her and reached up to pull its chain. &quot;Uh, Isabel?&quot; Tripp shoved back her hood with a hand weighed down by gaudy rings. <br><br>&quot;What?&quot; Isabel spared a split-second glance from her vigilant monitoring of the stranger, whom she could see even more clearly in the blaze of light Tripp had introduced into the gloomy room. <br><br>Tripp's makeup-laden face, framed by spiky, green-streaked, black hair, revealed no emotion but confusion. &quot;I don't see anyone.&quot;<br><br>&quot;Of course you do,&quot; Isabel said as she asked herself what she should do next to keep herself safe. And Tripp, too, if she insisted on acting like an easy target.<br><br>Tripp was silent a moment, then said thoughtfully, &quot;I actually did a summoning spell, but I said we were doing a spell to open ourselves to spirit world.&quot;<br><br>Isabel held her focus on the intruder. &quot;What are you talking about?&quot;<br><br>&quot;That's it,&quot; Tripp said with a huge smile. &quot;That has to be what happened. I inadvertently changed the spell's intent by how I presented it.&quot; <br><br>&quot;Tripp! Stop babbling, get up, and start backing toward the door.&quot; <br><br>Fortunately, so far, instead of leaping to attack them, the intruder remained in a passive slump, tracking the verbal volleys between her and Tripp with the lethargic head rolls of a drunk at a tennis match. But it would be terminally stupid to count on his staying in that convenient state indefinitely.<br><br>&quot;Isabel, calm down. This guy may be a home invader, but he's not the kind you think.&quot;
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  #  Unlikely Magic
  
  
  Girl Among Wolves 1
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  A Dark Fantasy
  
  
  Loosely Based on Cinderella
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Lena Mae Hill
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Unlikely Magic
  
  
  Copyright © 2017 Lena Mae Hill
  
  
  First Edition
  
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
  any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
  recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the
  express written permission of the publisher, except in cases of a reviewer
  quoting brief passages in a review.
  
  
  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
  used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
  establishments, and events are entirely coincidental. Use of any copyrighted,
  trademarked, or brand names in this work of fiction does not imply endorsement
  of that brand.
  
  
  Published in the United States by Lena Mae Hill and Speak Now.
  
  
  For more information, please visit
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