There was a time when people shared spells openly and freely. Unfortunately, new laws made it illegal to share spell books of dangerous magic with anyone outside of your family. Everyone knew simple spells for things like tying your shoes, but anything, like controlling the weather or talking to animals, was kept private. That"s how family grimoires started.

My family didn"t have a grimoire. We had a few pages of simple magic here and there, but nothing significant. Like I said, serious magic cost serious money, money that my family never had. That"s why dad and I did things the old fashioned way. We couldn"t afford spells to teleport or fly, so we had a car. We couldn"t afford spells to grow food, so my dad had a job, two jobs actually. We couldn"t afford a spell to cure addictions, so we had to put mom in rehab. That didn"t work. Magic made life simple and easy for those who could afford the right spell. We couldn"t afford it, so dad tried to teach me we didn"t need magic to live a good life.

His message didn"t sink in until after I turned 11.

It was a few days after my birthday, and I was playing with my new pet rabbit, Mr.Nickles. He was my first pet ever. Up until then, dad and I couldn"t afford to feed more than two mouths. Mr.Nickles was a magic rabbit with lucky feet; my dad spent a month"s worth of paychecks to get me. Dad told me not to let him out of his cage by myself, but I loved petting his silk white fur.

Dad still wasn"t home from work, and I thought as long as I kept all the doors and windows shut, Mr.Nickles couldn"t run away. I didn"t realize lucky feet weren"t his only magic. By the time my father made it home, I had lost my rabbit. I knew he had to be somewhere inside the house, but I couldn"t find him anywhere. Dad tried to help me find him, but we both came up short.

After a few days of turning the house upside down, I finally asked if we could use a spell to find Mr.Nickles. Dad didn"t know any spells to find lost pets. He said, " if we look hard enough, I"m sure we"ll find him," but we never did. I knew Mr.Nickles was still in the house. I used carrots to set up traps in my bedroom, the living room, and kitchen, and every day I"d check them and find the carrots were gone. I was tired of coming up short. I didn"t have enough money to buy a spell, and dad didn"t know one, so I figured I"d try to make my own.

I looked online to find magic words and used spells that I already knew to fill in the gaps. It took a few hours before I had anything I thought could work, but I had something. I waited until dad went to bed so I wouldn"t be interrupted, and then in the middle of the night, I performed my first self crafted spell. All I wanted to do was find Mr.Nickles. That night I found out why ordinary people never wrote their own spells. New magic was dangerous and unpredictable. Spells were like complex formulas. Sure, spellbooks dumbed things down enough for kids to use, but coming up with something original wasn"t safe for an 11-year-old boy to do on a school night. I said the words, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up with dad standing over me.

I felt weird. I wasn"t hurt, but something was off. Dad helped me off the floor and to my feet, and that"s when it all became clear. I was covered in white fur. I had rabbit feet and long ears. I still had my thumbs, but somehow I only had four fingers on each hand. I turned myself into a sort of hybrid rabbit creature. I was mortified, and dad should have been p.i.s.sed, but he was distraught.

I forgot about Mr.Nickles; I wanted to go back to normal. Unfortunately, because I came up with the spell that changed me, there was no reversal spell. Even if we had the money to pay a professional magician to undo my transformation, it would have been near impossible. I was stuck as a hybrid for the rest of my life or until I came up with a reversal for myself.

Dad wouldn"t let me out of the house for almost a month while we tried to undo my mistake. Honestly, I didn"t want to be seen, but eventually, we started getting phone calls from my school. If I missed any more days, my dad would have been fined for every day until my return. There was nothing we could do in the time that we had, so when the school bus came the next morning, I reluctantly got on it.

As you"d expect, I was the center of attention from the moment I stepped foot on the bus. Magical creatures weren"t anything new, but my school had very few. On top of that, I wasn"t a satyr, an elf, or anything reasonable. I"m pretty sure I was the first half rabbit the town, and quite possibly the world, had ever seen. Kids could be meanly spirited at times, but I think during that bus ride, everyone was too taken by surprise to be d.i.c.kish.

The other kids and their opinions, while they mattered to me, were not the primary concern. When we made it to school, the princ.i.p.al was waiting for me. Ms. Harper wanted to discuss how my grades fell during my long absence, but when she saw me, my fur, my tail, and long ears, I"m sure my cla.s.ses must have become a minor talking point. She walked me from the bus to her office, and along the way, everyone inside the building got to witness the spectacle. On the bright side, no one recognized me unless I spoke or outright told them who I was, but that didn"t stop them from talking. With my oversized ears, I heard every word spoken about me as I walked by.

At the time, I was only concerned with my reputation and how everyone saw me. I was oblivious to the main issue. Ms. Harper and I spoke at length about my transformation, and throughout the conversation, I was honest at every turn. I was too young, or maybe too naive to realize my dad could have gotten in serious trouble. Magic was easy enough for kids to use, but children weren"t allowed to use advanced spells on they"re own. There was too much potential danger to chance the possibility of kids being careless. Anyone can use a knife or a lighter, but you wouldn"t let children go around starting fires or cutting things down on their own. Advanced magic was the same way. With that in mind, my transformation was less than ok. I told Ms. Harper, I did it to myself, but that didn"t stop her from believing my dad was negligent in allowing me to conduct a self-crafted spell.

It wasn"t until Ms. Harper called my dad to come to my school that I began to understand. We were both in trouble. I started to backtrack, attempting to cover our a.s.ses, but it was too late. Ms. Harper wouldn"t listen to another word until my dad arrived.

My dad had to speak with Ms. Harper and a couple of police officers. During their discussion, I was put out of the room to wait in the hallway. I could hear through the wood door, and nothing said was comforting. I should have been in my English cla.s.s. I would have killed to be sitting at my desk reading some dead poet"s early work, but I couldn"t leave.

It might have been my fur, but I was sweating like crazy from some kind of overwhelming heat. I couldn"t steer my attention away from my dad"s attempts at salvaging the situation.