Pitch

Six years into life with my curse, it was a miracle I hadn’t died. Along with turning myself into a 5-foot-tall, half-rabbit half-breed, I had given myself incredible bad luck. I could make a house cave in on itself just by standing somewhere too long. It was one of many odd changes that came from unsuccessfully using magic to find my lost rabbit.

Though, if I ever had any good luck at all, I must have spent it finding my closest and only friends in the world, B. James, and Wesson. Our junior class was two weeks out from summer break. All the end-of-the-year testing was out of the way, so everyone was waiting for the school year to come to a close. That Friday afternoon, I walked BJ home. Despite my being close to Wes and BJ both, they never liked one another. Each day, I had to consciously decide who to hang out with. BJ won that afternoon because Wes had a meeting with the school principal.

Taking the bus home would have been faster, but walking gave BJ more time to work out new spells with me.

“So there’s this summer internship I read about,” BJ said as we walked under branches while leaves crumbled under our footsteps.

“What kind of internship?” I asked.

We stopped walking so she could take her spell book out of her bag. The pages of her handmade spiral held weight and took time to flip through.

“For magicians. I thought you might like to apply for it with me,” she added.

“You want me to be a magician?”

“You created a working transformation spell when you were 11.”

I laughed at her, calling it a “working spell.”

“Yeah, and I’ve been trying to undo it ever since,” I said, unamused.

We took a lot of back roads that afternoon that eventually spat us out into the Dead Woods, our town’s biggest forest. According to what we learned in history class, settlers gave it the name “Dread Woods” after Marwick Dread, the person who built the first house in that area. Only recently did the new name become popular, all thanks to the rise of common spells. To avoid causing damage, magicians in the early days of human magic practiced their spells in the woods. A lot of people died there, and eventually “Dread” became “Dead”. However, it continued to be a beautiful place, as long as we had a clear sense of direction.

“I could help you,” BJ said.

“I don’t want to be a magician,” I told her.

“But I do.”

I took a few steps back. Considering some of the stuff in her book didn’t need words to activate, I didn’t want to stand too close. As she flipped through the pages, there was a danger similar to hiding a grenade at a kid’s birthday party. Pages glowed and faded as her hands turned them over. I wasn’t sure how she carried something like that around without constantly hurting herself.

“Then you should do it... alone,” I said and crossed my arms.

As I leaned against a tree, she came near, and I knew to expect puppy dog eyes. That’s what people do when they want something.

“I need you.”

I asked, “Why me?” but she turned away.

“I need your spell,” I thought she said, but I couldn’t make out her words for sure, and with my big ears, that meant she was quiet.

“What?” I asked.

“I need your spell.”

I stood up straight.

“The spell that gave me fur all over my body? The spell that made my feet too big to wear shoes and ears long enough to hear my dad if he jacks off at night? You want to be a rabbit too?”

“I have to submit a working spell to be considered.”

“Then use one of yours,” I said.

“None of mine work.”

“What about the one you used to change your hair color?”

“It blinds anyone who sees me cast it.”

“Then use my spell without me. You don’t need me for this. I wrote the words in some book, and I can give it to you later.”

I wanted to get off the subject. Those who had known me for a considerable amount of time knew the length of my struggle to find a cure for my curse. After years of turning over stones to no avail, of course, I gave up hope.

“It wouldn’t be right to take credit for your work,” BJ told me.

“But, it’s alright to strong-arm your friend into working our entire summer break?” I didn’t mean to sound nearly as argumentative or sarcastic as I must have at that moment, but it came out that way.

“There’s a chance we won’t even get it,” she said, pleading with me at that point.

“If I say yes, will you leave me out of whatever spell you’re about to do?”

“But I had something special planned for today.”

“That’s my price.”

B James and her family moved from Japan to our town a few years after my curse. Her parents were professional magicians, so I did my best to get in their circle. BJ’s fascination with my half-breed form made my work easier. My ability to create spells at a young age impressed her. Transforming myself was an accident, but she never seemed to care. BJ wanted to make new magic like her parents, and I suppose she thought I could help.

I appreciated her willingness to overlook how the rest of our school avoided me. However, that might have been easy, considering no one flocked to her lunch table any more than my own. We hadn’t even graduated high school, but BJ had more spells than a person could count. While most of them had adverse effects or didn’t perform as intended, they still had an effect. That was impressive if nothing else.

“Deal, but you have to stick around to watch,” BJ answered.

“In case something goes wrong?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to,” I replied.

We exchanged a mutual grin before she adjusted her glasses and finally flipped around in her book to find the newly crafted spells. We spent most of the afternoon in the woods. BJ wrote a spell for growing plants faster, but it made anything made of wood burst into flames, including all the papers in my backpack. She tried to put out the fires with another spell meant to create rain clouds, but it summoned a swarm of butterflies that flew into the flames. Needless to say, they all died. They died quickly, but at least the fires went out.

By that time, we had spent hours in the woods.

“We should get moving,” I said as I picked our bags off the ground, burnt as they might have been.

“We will never speak of what happened here to anyone, right?”

“Like always,” I said with a chuckle before handing BJ her ruined bag.

We started on our way out of the woods.

“Do your parents know you’re applying for this internship?” I asked.

“Not yet.”

“Don’t you think they should know?”

“I’ll tell them once I,” she started until I cut her off asking, “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” she asked.

There was a sound coming from the bushes ahead of us. It was too big to be a cat, dog, or rabbit.

“Stand back,” I said as I put my arm in front of BJ.

“Is someone there?” I called out into the distance, but no reply was returned.

Only the rustling of the bushes broke the silence as something or someone came near. It was close. There was a momentary pause of nothing but the bugs around us falling silent. Then, whatever it was, lunged out at me.

It was my other friend. He made me fall backward and rip the arm of my button-down shirt as I shouted at him, “Wes!”

Despite his speed, he failed to catch my arm as I fell.

“Sorry, dude,” Wes said with a laugh before he helped me to my feet.

“What are you doing out here?” BJ asked, more annoyed than me, though I was the one with the ripped shirt.

“I need Pitch,” the satyr said.

I met Wesson in my freshman year of high school. Neither of us liked to use spells. To be fair, most fae, because of their natural magic, didn’t need spells as much as humans did. Even I had natural abilities after my transformation, like better hearing and invisibility.

Wes, being a satyr, demonstrated impressive speed and strength, among other abilities. Given enough motivation, he could probably come out on top in a fight against a troll.

“Well, he’s walking me home from school,” BJ said.

“Schools been out for 3 hours now, and you know how to get home,” Wesson remarked.

“You want me to walk by myself?” BJ asked.

“No one walks me home, but we’re the same age,” Wes said sarcastically.

I cut in, “Wes, what did you need my help with?”

“I need your ears,” he said.

“Let me get BJ home, and then I’ll swing by your place.”

Neither of them was even looking at me anymore; they were staring one another down.

“Alright, just make sure ‘Bug Burner’ isn’t with you.”

“You saw that!?” BJ exclaimed.

“I’ll be there, alone,” I said as I held BJ back from Wes.

We took to our separate ways after they exchanged a few aggressive glances I had to step between.

“I don’t know why you hang out with him,” BJ argued.

“Wes is cool,” I said.

“Wes is just short of being a toddler. He doesn’t use magic.”

“Wes uses magic. He doesn’t use spells. Plenty of people don’t use spells. You know I don’t.”

“That’s different; you can’t afford them.”

“That hurt,” I said.

I didn't find her remark painful, but I was offended by her blunt delivery.

“You know what I mean,” she said.

By the time I got BJ home, it wasn’t dark yet, but I still had a walk ahead of me. With it being the weekend, I knew Dad wouldn’t mind my staying out a little long. Regardless, I had to spend some time trekking from one side of town to the other, since I couldn't walk any faster. BJ and her family stayed in West Point while Wes lived down the street from me on Optic Road on the far east side of town.