Wildseed Witch (Book 1)

Dumas Marti Dumas

Description

A fun middle-grade contemporary fantasy with an all-BIPOC cast, about a social-media-loving tween who gets sent to an ultra-private witch campHasani's post-seventh-grade summer to-do list is pretty simple: get a bigger following for her makeup YouTube channel and figure out how to get her parents back together. What she does NOT expect is that an emotional outburst will spark a latent magical ability in her. Or that the magic will be strong enough to attract the attention of witches. Or that before she can say #BlackGirlMagic, she'll be shipped off on a scholarship to a fancy finishing school for talented young ladies. Les Belles Demoiselles is a literal charm school. Here, generations of young ladies from old-money witch families have learned to harness their magic, and alumnae grow to become some of the most powerful women across industries, including politicians, philanthropists, CEOs, entrepreneurs-and yes, even social media influencers. Needless to say, admission to the school is highly coveted, very exclusive . . . and Hasani sticks out like a weed in a rose bouquet. While the other girls have always known they were destined to be witches, Hasani is a Wildseed--a stray witch from a family of non-witches, with no background knowledge, no way to control her magic, and a lot to catch up on. "Wildseed" may be an insult that the other girls throw at her, but Wildseeds are more powerful than they know. And Hasani will learn that there are ways to use magic and thrive that can never be taught in a classroom.

Informations

• Publié par: ABRAMS BOOKS
• Date de parution: 10 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781647003692
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

PUBLISHER S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4197-5561-3 eISBN 9781647003692
Text 2022 Marti Dumas
this page : image courtesy Pavel Talashov/Shutterstock.com
Book design by Hana Anouk Nakamura and Deena Fleming
Published in 2022 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact [e-mail] or the address below.
Amulet Books is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
ABRAMS The Art of Books 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007 abramsbooks.com
To all the people who have ever loved me-know that I have felt it and needed the strength of it, and know that I love you, too
CHAPTER ONE
TINGLE AND BLUSH
The first time I did magic was the third day of summer vacation. I hadn t seen my dad in forever, and everyone I hang out with had already left town. But I didn t mind. With everybody gone, I had time to make more videos for my YouTube channel, MakeupontheCheapCheap. At that point, I had only one video- a dollar store makeup haul I did over spring break-but my channel was already up to 18 subscribers anyway, and, thanks to my favorite YouTuber, AnyaDo0dle, I had a plan to make it to 100 before school started.
Don t get me wrong. I got inspiration from lots of YouTubers. Nobody did contouring better than JeffServesFace, and I wouldn t have known anything about eye shadow at all if it weren t for TheRealCorinaSparkles, but AnyaDo0dle, a goddess among mere mortals, had posted a video called Love Them and They Will Come: 6 Ways to Grow Your Channel, and you better believe I took notes. Lots of notes. The checklist I made out of them filled up most of my whiteboard.
Camera, Stand, and Lighting
Backdrop
Edit Intro
Plan Your Content
Post Daily
Love Your Subscribers
The main ones I had left to do were Post Daily and Love Your Subscribers, which was kind of the same thing. AnyaDo0dle said loving your subscribers meant three things: make promises, keep promises, and show them the real you.
I was always the real me, so that part was easy. I d already made my first promise, too: posting a new video every day all summer. Now all I had to do was keep it.
Filming and editing a video every day would be a lot of work, but I was actually excited for it. I had already recorded myself doing a $3 Lavender Look for Summer and Makeup Removal Hacks So Your Mom Won t Freak out about Her Sheets, and even though it took a long time to get an hour of video down to seven minutes, cutting stuff out and speeding stuff up was weirdly satisfying, like the moment when you finally get the piece of popcorn out of your teeth. I had a plan and, even if the plan didn t work, at least it kept me from thinking about the suitcase staring at me from the corner.
It was just a regular suitcase. My suitcase. The one I packed the last time my dad was supposed to come pick me up. He didn t show, just like he hadn t the three times before. My mom said he was going through some things and that I should be patient. I shoved the suitcase in a corner and left it there to remind me how mad at him I was.
But when he finally did show up in his new car, I wasn t as mad as I thought I would be, so I clicked Publish on my first summer video, grabbed the suitcase that I had never unpacked, and hopped into the car.
It was a convertible, but the way it got quiet but kept driving meant it was also electric, like my mom s.
You got an electric car? I said, adjusting the air to blow on my face. Mom would be so excited when she found out.
A hybrid plug-in, my dad said. Best of both worlds.
Then he pulled a latch and pressed a button and the top went down. It would have been cool, too, if it weren t so hot. New Orleans in the summer is no joke, but I was too excited to be mad about the heat. My mom was going to freak over this car. It was basically the exact one she had been dreaming up for forever. She loved having the sun on her, even in the summer.
I didn t know they made cars like this, I said.
They don t. It s custom, my dad winked. I know a guy.
Yeah, right, I smiled, pulling out my phone to check my You-Tube. This was the part of the car ride when, if my dad wasn t grilling me about whether Mom had made any friends, we would settle into quiet. His new house was across town. Plenty of time for quiet. Except my dad wasn t quiet.
YouTube, huh? he said, glancing at my phone as he slowed to stop at a red light.
That s when I noticed him smiling. Big. Really big. Too big. I tried to ignore it, but once I thought about it, I realized he had been smiling like that the whole time. Weird.
Yeah, I said, refreshing my profile page. Still 18 followers, but the video view minutes were up by three. I smiled to myself.
Sandy is big on social media, too.
Who s Sandy? I said, refreshing the page again. The video view minutes were up by four. Someone was watching my video right at that very moment. If I could have, I would have reached through the Internet and hugged them. I hoped they left a comment so I could tell them so. I had already favorited the perfect GIF.
Sandy is my good friend. YouTube s not her big one, though. Her big one is Instagram. Look her up. Sandyandfree83. He was still smiling with all his teeth. I hadn t seen him in more than a month, and it was like he had spent that whole time turning into a cartoon version of himself. Everything he said sounded extra.
I refreshed the page one more time-seven minutes, they had totally watched the whole video-before opening IG. I never posted on Instagram, but my friends were always posting funny animal pictures that I loved, especially the ones with puppies wearing hats or puppies that looked like a box of fried chicken. When Sandyandfree83 s page loaded, I blinked and turned the phone so my dad could see.
Her? I asked.
Yep! my dad said, smiling even bigger, if that was possible. That s my Sandy.
When my dad said friend, I was expecting somebody parent-ish. Sandy did not look like a parent. She had curly blondish hair and 374,000 followers, about one for every shot of her in a bikini or making a kissy face at the camera.
Her?? I asked again, showing a picture of Sandyandfree83 tossing her hat into a sea breeze. He must have said the wrong one.
My dad nodded. It s a play on words. Sandy loves the beach. I can t wait for you to meet her. The two of you have a lot in common. You ll like her.
I stopped on a pic of Sandy wearing a bikini on a mountain instead of on a beach. Bikini was the common denominator here, not sand, but whatever. What could the two of us possibly have in common?
She ll be at the house when we get there.
Why? I asked.
Well, Hasani, sweetheart, that s something I ve been meaning to tell you. Sandy lives there, now.
That s when I felt it-the magic.
It was this weird, tingly feeling somewhere between blushing and your foot falling asleep. I didn t know what was happening. I just knew that under no circumstances did I want to go to my dad s house anymore. Then the tingle spread from my chest up to my face, and the St. Claude Avenue Bridge went up.
There aren t any boats coming, someone shouted from the car behind us, but at the time I didn t think anything about it, because the stupid St. Claude bridge was always going up and at least this time I wanted it to. At least this time the bridge was helping me instead of making me late.
Is that why you didn t come get me last time? You were helping Sandy move in? I didn t look up at him. I just kept scrolling through Sandy s feed. Apparently, she had also had a bikinis-in-wild-flowers phase.
No, sweetheart. Sandy and I were out of town. We went on a little trip to Nevada.
The car engine went silent. Cars piled up behind us, blocking us in. I didn t bother to ask him about why he hadn t shown up the week before that or the week before that. I knew. He had been too busy hanging out with Sandy to come see me. The tingling in my skin turned into buzzing. When he d finally shown up, I hadn t even told him I was mad. I d even let him put the stupid top down on his stupid new car. It was summer in New Orleans! That was basically a death sentence. Now we were stuck on a bridge with the sun beating down on us and I was sweating, but I didn t care, because being stuck on that bridge was better than whatever was on the other side of it, especially if that something was Sandy and free.
You didn t get this car for Mom?
He made a weird face. Your mom wouldn t want this car. She said the wind drag would ruin the mileage and defeat the purpose of getting a hybrid in the first place. Sandy likes to ride with the top down. I thought you would, too.
So, you re just quitting? I said. My skin was buzzing so badly I thought I must be getting a sunburn, and I never get burned.
What are you talking about, Hasani?
On Mom. You said y all were trying to work it out.
We were, he said. It just didn t work.
My teeth clenched. The bridge operator climbed out of her booth with a radio in her hand. There were vines growing up through some of the grates. The vines didn t seem too weird, because in New Orleans everything is always growing over with something.
I was baking but refused to ask my father to clos