Things started to come between us when we where about twelve years old. George suddenly started hanging around with a strange group of kids, some of which where a lot older than us. I tried following what they where doing, but they where… just… weird. They started talking about people, and girls mostly, and not in the normal way. It was sorta… I just didn’t understand. I still don’t understand.

One night I was spending the night over with George, actually, I think it was the last night I spent with him. Anyways, bunch of his new friends came over, so we snuck out, and went down to the creek. The creek was just a drainage ditch thingy at the end of the street. It went by a park and some places and the trees there where good at hiding us from sight at night. One of George’s new friends started telling everyone what to do. Dividing us into groups and such. I was the rear watch. So basically, I watched the street we came up to make sure no cops came by and pass along to everyone the signal to get down if I spotted anyone. Of course I didn’t see anything. I never saw anything.

We lived in a little nothing of a suburb, filled with little nothing kids, doing little nothing pranks. About the worse thing that ever had happened was a house getting papered. There was a string of mailbox bashings for a while, but the cops started passing through a little more often, or they just got bored with it, either way, they stopped, and the cops went away. So there I was, laying in a bush, watching for cops that weren’t scheduled to come around for another 30 minutes, we’d timed their route. I heard a couple of the kids yelling off in the distance. I couldn’t make it out, and it sounded like they where happy. I guess they found the bike they where looking for. One of the group had supposedly had a bad run in with some bully at school, or after school, or that weekend or something. I’m not sure. I didn’t go to the same school as them, at least, I hadn’t for a couple years. My family had moved, again. But that’s a different story. Well, I was just laying in the leaves, the sounds where getting louder and before I knew it George was grabbing my arm, I nearly jumped out of my skin when he did too because I completely didn’t hear him, just the others going off to some where else. The group had split up and went about creating alibis or whatever. George dragged me back to his room, He was about a foot shorter than me, but could run like you couldn’t believe, at least he did that night. I don’t know if adrenalin was giving his feet wings or what, but he was literally pulling me along. I stumbled along with him only barely managing to keep my feet underneath me. Something about all this scared me. BAD. I heard the sirens about the time we where crawling in the window. George had this serious look on his face. And a slight grin. That look seriously creeped me out. We didn’t say anything once we where safe inside his room and the screen was on his window. We just stuffed ourselves into the bunk beds and tried to look like we had been there sleeping all night.

I don’t think his parents had any clue we where out that night. I never found out exactly what happened. If I brought up that night he’d just get this glazed over look on his face and say he couldn’t talk about it. The secrecy had damaged our friendship. Well, that and the distance, I suppose it was already dieing after we moved. But then that night happened. His parent said that I was a bad influence on him a little latter. That sorta ended it between us. They had blamed me for the changes he was going through. I blamed his new friends. They said they didn’t know what I was talking about and that I should just call my parents and leave and not come by there again. George came over once after that day, but we had a fight over nothing. And that was it. I didn’t see him again until just now.

“That’s horrible… And is he still there?” I looked over her shoulder and checked. I saw him chatting with some people who might have been those same friends he was with years ago. I never knew them as well so I couldn’t be sure. They certainly looked like the same sorta trouble.

“Ya, he’s still there.” I told her.

“So, why don’t you go over there and say hello?” she asked.

“What? I can’t do that! He’s with a bunch of his friends!”

“Listen, I can’t make you talk to him, but it’s obvious you have some unresolved issued with him, otherwise you wouldn’t be sitting here telling you’re date all of this.” She was a psychology buff, forensic psychology to be exact. She’d read a bunch of books about it. Was going to major in something like that in college, she was sure. She thought she could become a profiler or something and help solve crimes. I thought that was an odd dream to have.

But, she was probably right, about me that is. And to top it off, Sheila had been understanding and patient with me, but we’d passed casual conversation a couple minutes ago, and where now heading into creepy obsessive weirdo territory. I didn’t want to loose her. This was our second date, and she seemed interesting. Not to mention that she had worn the tightest little top that showed off her…. Anyways...

“No, that’s ok. I think I just needed to tell someone that. I’d been carrying that around for a while… I… I’m better now.” I tried to change the subject, “So, how about you? How was your day?”

“Well I didn’t run into any old childhood friends walking in here.” We both chuckled a little at that, a painful little chuckle.

****

“Oh my god! I can’t believe it!”

“What?” Sheila asked me as I stared in disbelief. Just two rows up from us in the theater was George.

“George, He’s right there!”

“What? You’re joking!” She turned and looked, “Is that him, third from the end?”

“No, that’s one of his friends though. He’s the one on the end.”

“They look like a rough group.” And they did. There was a lot of metal and black leather in that group. A far cry from the classical music listening little dweeb I knew in grade school. Six years can really change a person, I thought.

His hair was longer, and darker. His clothes where baggier and his belt had metal studs in it. He also had a piercing in his lip. I also must have gawked at him too long because one of his friends noticed me and nudged him. His eyes locked on me for about half a second before I managed to turn around. My heart kicked into over drive. All those feelings of loss and anger came back to me. I tried to watch the advertisements flash across the screen and but I just wanted to go up to him and… no, I just wanted him to go away. I was past that part of my life. I kept telling myself that as I waited for the movie to start up. I prayed to what ever god might be listening to just make this all go away so I could get on with my date. No one must have been listening, or caring, because he was suddenly standing right next to me. “Hey, are you Vick?”

“Um… yes?” I responded, trying to sound like I didn’t know who he was.

“Wow, Vick, how long has it been, five, almost six years?” I just stared, like a deer at headlights.

Finally after a nudge or two from Sheila I spoke up. “Ya, something like that.” I tried to keep a grip on my emotions, not wanting to do anything that wouldn’t be good on a date. Or in any society not under frontier justice.

“So, who’s this?” he asked pointing at Sheila.

“Sheila, we’re, umm... kinda on a date…” I said back.

“Oh, I see, no problem… but hey, my friends and I where planning on going to a club after the movie, would you two like to join us?”

“Oh, umm… I don’t know…” I really didn’t want to, I had thoughts of a nice night of necking on the couch to a CD of slow make out music I had burned.

Sheila spoke up in the meantime saying, “Sure! We’ll see you after the movie” as if on cue the lights dimmed.

With a “Sure thing” he headed back to his seat. All I could do as the first set of commercials started was to give Sheila a disapproving look. In turn, she gave me one of her ‘I’m right and nothing you can say will get me down’ looks.

****

The movie was as good as everyone had been saying. If you haven’t seen it yet, I really recommend you get to it before it leaves the theater. That scene with the people, and they had to do that thing, and there was that thing, and everyone was trying to stop them, and then just when you think it’s over and they’ve won, that one guy shows up and it’s all like, whoa and… oops, I don’t want to ruin the ending for you. But I must say, it was just awesome. So I was actually feeling good again by the time my heart stopped and George’s hand touched my shoulder causing a chill to ran down my spine. “So, you still coming with us?”

“Ya.. but, I’m going to have to call my parents first.” There was general disproval, but I knew what I needed to do. I was sure my parents wouldn’t mind me staying out a little late, as long as I told them first. I preferred to stay on their good side, I found that I could get away with a lot more when I was on their good side.

After calling and leaving a message for my parents I asked Sheila if she needed to call her parents too, she just huffed and rolled her eyes at me. She was a little mad at me, I could tell. I decided I was going to have to be extra nice to her the rest of the night. I wanted to make a good impression on her, I don’t think it was working.

The club we followed them to was in a part of town I’d never been in before… I hadn’t been lots of places before. But the name of the place sounded familiar. I seemed to remember people at school talking about it. So, I guessed it was ok. We filtered into the queue and waited for a few moments before the I realized I had a problem. They weren’t letting anyone under 18 inside, and they were checking IDs. I froze, Sheila gave me a ‘you are so clueless’ look. She pulled out an ID and they waved her in. I stared in disbelief. She gave me one last ‘huff’ and turned and walked in. I didn’t hear the yelling being directed at me until she was out of sight. She hadn’t even looked back for me. My hear sinking, I walked back to my car and sat there. I Couldn’t make myself turn it on for over thirty minutes. I just sat there thinking… Hoping she’d come back. Wondering why she had a fake ID… We where only juniors in high school, but none of them where even looked a funny. I was still only 17. George I knew for a fact was still 16. He was let in, I wasn’t. I didn’t get it.

I was alone. This certainly wasn’t what I had planned for tonight. My parents where going to be out tonight, so I figured we would go back there. Maybe listen to some music, and all that implied. Now, I was alone in the silence of my car.

****

That next Monday, I went back to school without hearing anything back from Sheila. I saw her in the halls, and she pretended not to see me. I let her. I was late to home room, having decided to take a walk around the school, avoiding behind the art building where there was always a crowd of students smoking. Smoking what I didn’t want to know. I Strolled around the seldom used parts of the campus, still needing to calm down. And if I cried I didn’t want anyone to see me. I felt like I was lower than dirt… and I looked like I felt that way too. I headed back in when I felt like my eye’s where in a stable and dry state. But to be safe I kept my head down and didn’t look at anyone.

I didn’t go hang out with my normal group of friends at lunch that day either. I just couldn’t face them. They’d all ask me how my date went. They’d laugh. I felt so stupid to think that that I could date someone like her. I WAS just as clueless as Sheila had implied with that look. Luckily when I showed up again at lunch the next day, they either already knew what had happened, or didn’t care. Either way, they left me alone about it.

I tried my best to forget about her and what she had done to me. I’d done a good job too if I say so myself. So, when I saw Jessica take a fall while walking past a group of laughing jerks while carrying her tray, I stepped up.

“What happened?” I asked as I knelt next to her and helped her gather things. At least the things that weren’t her spilled food which was now thoroughly smeared across her and the floor. I picked up the tray for her.

“Oh you don’t need to do that. I just tripped. Please, I’m alright.” But I could tell she wasn’t.

“Look, you go clean yourself up, I’ll take care of your tray,” I said back, with a hint of, ‘and I won’t take no for an answer’ yet smiling so she wasn’t irrationally offended. I’d found girls would do that on occasion.

Grudgingly she left and headed for the bathroom. I went off for the tray return when I noticed a conspicuous sound of laughter around me. I had figured out what would happen when the foot came out to trip me. I only stumbled a little but I flipped the tray backwards, letting the food spill off and onto the owner of the foot. There was still enough spaghetti on it to make a bit of a mess.

“You fucker! Watch what you’re doing!” the now very pissed student yelled.

“Get a life.” I called back and resumed walking away, no longer caring about the tray.

“Who do you think you are you little fuck!” he said as he pushed me from behind. I hadn’t noticed him standing up, but apparently he had. And he still had spaghetti in his hair. I tried not to laugh at him.

“Look, we all had some laughs, The floor seems to be unusually slippery here. And I wouldn’t want you to fall too. You might get hurt.” I said as a bit of a dare. Hoping he wouldn’t take me up on it.

He didn’t need to, a teacher wondered up saying, “What’s going on here?” like they always say.

I quickly responded, “Jessica tripped spilling her tray, I went to help her but the floor was slippery from all the spaghetti sauce on it, and I slipped too. It’s all just an accident. Right Han?” I asked the pile of muscle standing next to me. Not completely stupid, he went along with what I said. He didn’t want to get in trouble for fighting, he had a game this weekend. The teacher looked at us suspiciously but nothing had ACTUALY happened, so he let us go, telling me to be more careful and to get someone to clean up the mess.

And so, I dragged myself through the rest of that week. Jessica didn’t talk to me like I’d hoped. But at least I’d helped her out. ****

“Hey, Victor, what you doing tonight?”

“Huh? What?” I responded to the unexpected question.

“Well, George invited me out with him and the guys again tonight. And we felt bad about leaving you hanging like that last week so, we thought we’d make it up with you by doing something with you tonight.” Sheila told me looking genuinely sorry.

I didn’t know what to say, the audacity of it. After she left me like that. She could have come back out, we could have done something else. But NO, she’d walked right in with out a care. I could NEVER forgive her for leaving me like that. “Sure! What time are we heading out? where will I be meeting you guys?” I said cheerily. Did I mention how hot she was?

****

And so, that night I was sitting in my car, in a dark parking lot, waiting for people I didn’t trust and was fairly mad at, to pick me up and go out for a good time.

Finally though, two cars pulled up. Sheila and George got out of one of the cars and told me to get in.

“Where are we going tonight? Sheila was a little vague.” I asked them as I walked towards their car.

“Oh, you’ll see.” Sheila said with a grin. George muffled a laugh, as I got into the back seat of his car.

I was a little nervous, but George used to be a friend… and Sheila and I where kinda dating… still… maybe…

It didn’t take long to get to were we were going… an abandoned building. I didn’t say anything though, everyone else seemed to know what they where doing. So I just followed them in. We walked in a little ways and I started to hear music, faintly. A little farther and it was now actually audible. We where at a couple of heavy metal doors on the ground. One of George’s friends, the big one that scared me the most, pulled one of the doors open and we where hit by a deafening rush of music. Everyone climbed in, so I followed.

What I saw in side, was like something out of a movie. I don’t know, since I’d never actually been anyplace like it. There where lights, strobes and coloured. A huge stack of speakers. And the crowd. There had to be over 500 people in the room that looked like it could hold about half that uncomfortably. All jumping and dancing banging into each other, I felt more out of place then than I had ever in my life. How had I let her talk me into coming here? I didn’t belong here. And two weeks ago I’d have said Sheila didn’t either.

Talking was out of the question. In even the quietest parts of the room you had to yell to be heard. They pushed their way into the crowd in front of me. I tried to follow, but I couldn’t see a thing, and the lights where disorienting. I was lost almost immediately. I kept pushing through, weaving through the swirling masses of bodies until I reached a wall. I curled up and slid to the ground in the nook caused by a structural beam in the cold concrete wall. I scanned the crowd, looking for anyone that looked familiar, but I could bearly even make out faces on the swirling mass of colour. I couldn’t get back to my car. I wasn’t sure where we were. I didn’t even know how to get out of this basement, let alone if I could even open the heavy metal doors We’d come through. I’d gotten in over my head here. I don’t know what I had been thinking. This was all a horrible idea. I put my head between my knees and cried. I don’t know how long I sat there. Every once in a while someone would half step on or stumble over me, and I would curl up even tighter. The pulsing music, excelling more in amplitude then in definition, driving out all other stimulus. I felt the pounding on my skin. My eyes, shut tight, still felt the pulsing of the strobe lights. I could taste the heavy scent of sweat and smoke in the air. I just wanted out of there. They would find me eventually. I knew that would be smarter than wandering around aimlessly through the crowd of dancers.

I was lost in my head and in the thumping music when it suddenly all stopped… I pulled my head out and peeked around to see what I had missed… _Everyone_ was looking at me. And not in a good way. Like they all knew I didn’t belong there. Slowly I pulled my self to my feet. The lighting was all totally bright white, but some how that was scarier than if it had been totally dark. At least then I would have hope of hiding in the darkness. But this light… It made me feel like I could see everything. Like I could count every hair on their heads, or pore on their face. Every single person in the room looking at me. Their eyes, piercing through me. Holding me in place. The sweat rolling down their faces. Those smiles they where, where not a happy expression. It made them look like they where crazy, or hungry. Their smile was like having a large cat bear it’s teeth at you. Ant they where all gazing at me. I wanted to leave… to be anywhere but there. I just wanted to disappear. I couldn’t see the exit from here. All I could see was the rows and rows of people looking at me. It was all for only a moment. Then, I screamed as they rushed towards me. The already packed mob becoming more dense as it piled on top of me. Grabbing at me, pulling at me. I felt people nails scratching at me. Trying to pull me apart. Then a pair of hands pulled me upright. Sitting me back up and shaking me…

“Wake up, wake up! Son… please…” it was my dad… I was in my room. In my bed. My dad was holding me. He looked worried… I remembered I was screaming… It must have been a dream… I was only having a nightmare. I remembered my screams, it must have woke him up.

“Oh god… that was awful…”

“I know son. Don’t worry… it’s over.”

I laid my head against his shoulder and hugged him. Glad I was at home. And suddenly very tired. “Dad, what time is it?”

“It’s late, honey,” my mother said from the other side of the bed. “Don’t worry, just go to bed, tomorrow we’ll talk if you want… just go back to sleep for now.” I already had my eyes closed and as soon as she finished speaking I was back asleep. I was infinitely glad that I didn’t have any more dreams that night.

****

Next morning I lounged around in my bed longer than usual. I still remembered my nightmare from last night. It was weird. I wondered what it meant, if dreams ever meant anything. I finally steeled on the it probably just being about last Saturday and how bad that trip to the club went. And my anger at Sheila and George of course.

I caught the smell of bacon, or sausage or some other fatty pig part drifting into my room and decided it would be a good idea to go investigate.

I wandered into the kitchen and mom was indeed cooking sausage, dad was sitting at the table drinking coffee and reading the paper. I gave my mother a hug as she stirred some pancake batter then went down to join my father at the table.

“So, are you feeling better today?” my dad said looking at me over his paper.

“Ya, I’m sorry for waking you up last night. I feel really silly about it now.”

“It’s ok, we all have nightmares some time.” My mother said soothingly as she poured some batter.

“Ya, so, are you sure you’re ok. Nothing you want to talk about?” My dad said giving my the eye of parental inquiry.

“No, dad, it was just a bad dream. Nothing you need to worry about.” I responded. I briefly thought I might have screamed out something coherent last light, something I wouldn’t want them to know about. But I didn’t really have anything in that dream that would incriminate me so I figured I would live.

Dad nodded and went back to his paper, mom brought me a plate with the first of the pancakes on it and a couple sausages.

I’d already finished two pancakes and all the sausages when I realized something. “What day is it?”

“Sunday, why?” my dad.

“Didn’t I go out last night? I don’t remember. All I remember was the night mare. And… I spent yesterday getting ready to go out with Shiela! But… if… what…” I felt the blood drain from my face and the room grew cold. Goose bumps prickled up my arms. “dad? What…”

“You went out but they stood you up. Don’t you remember? You came back and went straight to your room. You must have gone straight to sleep.” He said confidently.

“No… I don’t remember that at all. I remember sitting in the car waiting, and they where late showing up, but I never drove back. I’m sure about this. But if that was a dream, what happened last night?”

“Heather, I thought you said he wouldn’t suspect a thing.” My dad called to my mother.

“He shouldn’t have. The false memories must not have held.” My mother said back.

“What do we do then?” dad

“Hold on a second, I’ll see if I can fix things.” My mother flipped one more pancake in the stack she had and walked back to the table setting it in front of my dad. She pulled a chair up next to mine and put her hands in her lap and closed her eyes. All this time I was too confused to do anything besides wonder what they where talking about, and what was going on with my head. You don’t hear these things at the breakfast table every day. I wasn’t sure what was going on, and figured they where going to explain things to me.

I watched them in wonder as my mother began to mumble something under her breath and my dad just looked worried at me. I started to feel some kinda pressure on my head. It was a similar feeling to trying to recall the sine of some odd angle, except I wasn’t trying to remember anything. As it grew I realized it was some how coming from my mother. She doing something to me. “Mom?”

“Um, yes honey?”

“What’s going on?” I asked her in a shaky voice. I was starting to get worried.

My dad spoke up, “What’s wrong? Why isn’t it working?”

“I think he’s blocking me!” my mother responded to my dad and finally relaxing with a deep breath.

“You can’t do it then?” my dad

“I can, but I’d have to break his shield first. Not that I couldn’t do that. It’s just the fact that there’s a shield there at all that I’m worried about.” My mom.

“You don’t think…” my dad.

“I think so… I kept pressing, hoping that he was just an unusually resistant… but there’s a shield there. I can see it now… I don’t know why I didn’t see it earlier. Maybe I just wasn’t looking.” My mom said shamefully.

“Damn!” my dad said violently

“What are you two talking about?” I asked futily, as they weren’t really listening to me.

“What do we do now?” my dad inquired.

“I think I need to tell him…” mom.

“NO! What about…” my dad said but was cut off.

“Al, he needs to know. That was what we agreed. It’s obvious he’s one of my own now. I can see it. I can feel it. I need to take him.”

“One of you? What do you mean? Take me? Take me where?” I asked once again to no response. It was like I wasn’t even there.

“Do what ever you need to… but nothing more. You know how I feel about this.” He said visibly irritated.

“Yes, and I’ll keep that in mind. For now, I think you should leave us alone.” Mom to dad.

He nodded back to her and stood up, scuffled my hair a little and said, “I love you son, be good. And mind your mother.” then turned and walked out of the room. A moment later I heard the front door open and close. Then, my mother started.

“Son, there are some things that we need to talk about.” I was already confused and scared. Now I was terrified. “Are you done eating, because I think it would be best if we had this talk somewhere a little more comfortable.” I couldn’t eat anything, my stomach felt like it was doing back flips. I was actually worried I’d loose what I had already eaten, so I just nodded that I was through. She got up and led be from the table.

We walked into the front room. You know, that room in the front of the house that you don’t actually live in, you just make it look nice for when people come over. I thought it was odd, but I kept silent as she sat me down in a surprisingly comfy chair.

“Son, There are some things we haven’t told you, but now… you are ready to hear.” There was a long pause as she paced and tried to gather her thoughts. The delay was driving me nuts. I needed to hear what she was going to say and I wished she’d just spit it out.

“Mom, just tell me. I’m sure whatever it is can’t be THAT bad. So, please, just spit it out already, you’re driving me nuts.” I said with a little humor in my voice, hoping to lighten her mood a little.

“I’m sorry, this is really important. And I’d stopped up worrying about this last year. I mean, after you’d turned 16, and I checked everything, and you looked like, I mean…”

“Mom, please, just say it!” I said, seriously.

“You’re a witch, err, a wizard, or magician. Or whatever. I’m sorry,” she said almost in tears.

“What? No… how? What do you mean?”

“It’s genetic. I have it, your father doesn’t, that’s why I sent him off. Now I have some things to tell you,” she began.

“You’re serious… aren’t you…” I said, though she just nodded and kept going.

“This is something that’s been in my family going back as far as anyone can remember.” That was a long time too. I remembered the genealogy project I did in 8th grade. We had to do a family tree. Dad’s only went back to his grandparents, but mother had hers all the way back to the English civil war. From there she said she could get more but she’d have to call relatives in England.

“Honey, are you ok?” she asked pulling me out of my daydream.

“Yes, umm.. go on?”

“Well, I had thought that you hadn’t inherited it. Children of mixed couples are only likely to inherit the gift it’s not a sure thing. And male children are even less. Only very few of all people with the gift are male, and most of those are too weak to ever discover it. But your shielding while I was probing you and you’re dispelling my earlier spell on you, all show that you are defiantly of learnable talent.”

“What does that mean?” I said confused once again… still… as always…. whatever. I was so confused…

“It means that you will be able to learn and perform magic.”

“Magic? As in…” I started.

“no, probably not what you’re thinking of. No chanting and waving your hands like an idiot. And certainly not like anything you’d see magicians or illusionists do on stage. But some of the things you might have heard aren’t far from the truth. But that’s for latter. For now, it’s enough to say that these things are possible.

“As I was saying before, it’s not certain that children of mixed couples have gifted children, and that male children are even less likely. So, when you reached your 16th birthday, and when I checked you, you still hadn’t developed the gift, I thought you where in the clear. It’s generally thought that if a child hasn’t shown any sign of the gift by 16 that they never will. So it’s usually on 16th birthdays that we tell the children about this… about magic. If they don’t have the gift, it’s hoped that by not telling them that might grow up with a normal life without any of the… complications, that come with knowing about magic. Children growing up anticipating the learning of magic, might be devastated when they aren’t gifted, and it can ruin a life. Or , when one child is gifted and the other is not, things can get tricky. All this is why there are strict guidelines as to how we raise our children. We’ve achieved a fairly good success rate at raising unknowing children.”

“And if there was a problem you could just do what you tried to do to me. Erase their memory.” I butted in.

“That’s not usually an accepted practice.” She continued. “The problems with frequent use of that spell are numerous, but, yes, that is an option.

“Anyways, now that we know you are gifted, there are some things we need to do. First, I need to be absolutely sure you are gifted. So,” she placed a penny on the coffee table between us. “Please, concentrate on this penny as hard as you can. Don’t try to do anything to it. Just sense it, REALLY look at it.”

I did as she said, but it was a little odd. It was just a penny. It had a normal looking patina and looked about as ordinary as could be. I felt a little silly until I relaxed a little, then it happened, all of a sudden a wash of… something, came over the table. I screamed and jumped out of the chair and tried to deflect away the… water, air, whatever, that had been coming at me so quickly. But when I looked, there was nothing there. Well, the penny was still there, but what ever had flowed at me was gone… I realized I was panting and tried to slow down my breathing and heart beat and to relax. I sat back in the chair still shaking a little.

“Ok, I guess it’s safe to say that you saw that.” My mother said jokingly.

“What was that?!?!” I demanded.

“That, was magic, pure, unfiltered, unorganized. I just sent a small wave of it across the table to see if you’re notice it. Most un gifted people when told to watch the penny will say they saw the penny move, or change colours or something like that. This is better because they aren’t looking for what actually happens. Though I’ve never heard of anyone reacting to it like you did.”

“I thought it was a flood or a water main breaking or something” I said thought mom looked a little puzzled at that.

“Well, you’ll get used to it.” She said actually laughing now. “Now, we need to see about getting you enrolled in classes.”

“Classes?” me.

“Of course, how else did you think you where going to learn to use your gift?”

“I don’t know. I guess, I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“So, if you’ll just come with me, I need to make some calls. We can see if there are any classes in our area. Then what their schedules are.”

****

“YES!! He jumped straight out of his chair… thought he was getting sprayed with water… YES!! And he screamed too… you should have heard him…” mother said laughing into the phone.

“Mom, I’m standing right here!” I protested. She was embarrassing me though I didn’t know what I was embarrassed about.

“So, anyways, I need to get victor into classes now and I was wondering if you knew of any… oh really? Ok… sure… I’ll see you there… Sure thing… good bye.” She hung up the phone and turned to me. Ok, YOU need to get dressed, the meeting is going to be at Becky’s house and it starts in 30 min. She said, when she drops off her daughter, she’d tell everyone to expect us, though we might be getting there late. But I’d rather not be late if I could help it.”

“aw, mom! Do I HAVE to?” I whined. I’d already lost one day of my weekend, this was my last day to myself before going back to school, and it was soon to be usurped by classes.

“YES, you HAVE to… this is no different that the Sunday school that most parents make their children attend. You’ve gotten off lightly so far if you ask me.” I’d never been to Sunday school, and I couldn’t remember the last time our family went to church. My dad seemed to hate going more than I did whenever the topic was brought up. They had said they wanted to give me SOME kinda religious base, and I liked to think I was at least as religious as the next kid my age, but as far as normal Christian teachings, I was seriously deficient.

So, knowing I was beaten, I went up to my room, and 10 minutes later I was showered and dressed and ready for school… on a Sunday… I think I’m going to be sick….

****

Walking to the car I stared at my car also in the driveway. I thought it shouldn’t be there, since I had never drove it home. I thought about asking my mother about it. but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know. That ‘dream’ last night had scared me. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what really happened.

The ride there I sat in silence, thinking. What was I? My mother told me I was a mage. That I could do magic. But magic wasn’t real, was it? What did think about all this? What did it mean for me if it WAS real? What is magic? How does it work? Where did it come from? Why me? Does anyone else have this gift? What else about the world isn’t as I’ve been told? Magic brought up ideas of elves and leprechauns. Witches are either those beautiful girls on TV and in movies or the traditional evil and ugly looking. Is that what the girls in the class I was going to were going to look like? I thought of the ugliest girls in my school. They where pretty weird people. But I didn’t think they where actual witches. But what if they where all those super ultra pretty ones? I’d never fit in. they’d all be into themselves and dating jocks. Eep… and they would know magic… if I did something to piss them off, it wouldn’t just be their boyfriends beating me up, they’d turn me into a toad or something. I was shaking visibly by the time the car stopped

****

I was still nervous as we stepped up to the house and rang the bell. I felt sick. I wanted to sit down. In the car. Go home, back to a nice normal sane life. And one where I didn’t have to go to school on Sundays.

“Hello?” said the woman answering the door.

“Are you Becky?” my mother asked. “I was told you where teaching classes here?” I saw something flash back and forth between them. It was just there for a moment. It looked, well, not like anything, but there was something there. And I think they both saw it too.

“Oh, yes, is your daughter is starting classes with me today?” she asked. She’d looked at me. Shit, I knew people sometimes mistook me for being a girl. My hair was a little long, and I had sorta a baby face, that is, I wasn’t shaving or anything yet, and I still looked, well, young.

“Oh, no, my son is. This is him.” Mom said putting an arm around me.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” she said like people always do when I correct them. “Of course you are. I just have never taught a boy before.” She explained, yet she had an unexplained note of awe in her voice. I decided to ignore it since it didn’t really help much. I had hoped I wouldn’t be the only boy there. “If you’ll come in, you’re right on time, and you can even meet the other girls and their mothers.

We did, and I was kinda surprised that the house looked so normal. It looked like a normal house. Except for the dozen or so girls sitting around the floor chatting, but even they looked normal. Nothing was how I’d expected. We walked in and their chatter slowed to a stop as they looked at us.

“Excuse me, but we have a new student to day. So, if everyone would like to introduce yourselves.”

My mother went first and introduced me. So I didn’t have to say anything. I didn’t know if I could either, at least, not without throwing up all over everyone. Did I mention I was nervous? Everyone else went and introduced themselves, I don’t remember too many of the mother’s names, the only way I know any of the girls names is because I’ve been in class with them for so long now.

Anyways, the introductions ended and the general talking started up again. The mothers all pulled themselves into another room to talk, the girls stayed sitting on the carpet and whispered amongst themselves until one of them called over to me, “You know we don’t bite.”

I had moved into the corner of the room and was just standing there, hoping they wouldn’t notice me, or that someone would tell me what to do. I guess they where telling me to sit with them, I looked around to find a place on the crowded floor. They scooted around and cleared a place for me, pretty much in the center. NOT the place I wanted to be. Never the less I sat there, looked around. And counted 7 girls, all about my age. And most of them not bad looking either.

“Happy birthday,” Amy said to me.

“Huh?” I smartly responded.

“When was your birthday, just this last week, right?” she continued.

“No, it’s not until late summer.” I replied.

“Oh,” “huh,” “Then what are you doing here?”

“I honestly don’t know. I just… last night… and then this morning…” I gave a heavy sigh and tried to order what I was saying in my head. “things have been really confusing…”

“You know why you’re here, right?” Julia said, sounding concerned

“yea… I guess… but… umm… I guess no… I mean, I know my mother says I’m a mage or something, but, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be learning.” I finally got out.

Everyone seemed to relax a little at that. “So, when did you find out… that you’re gifted I mean.” Stephanie asked.

“Just this morning.” There where a few gasps of sympathy. “My mother was trying to do something with my memory, I don’t know what about, and I’m not sure I want to know. Well anyways, she was trying to do something and couldn’t, I stopped her or something. She said something about my being shielded or something. Then she told me to look at a penny on the table and wave of water or something came at me… then she took me here. And I’m not sure what to expect anymore. Things have been really hectic and confusing this morning.”

“so, you like, only found out everything this morning?” Michele asked.

“Ya, about an hour ago… though I don’t think I know EVERYTHING.” I said and put my head on my knees.

Everyone seemed to feel sorry for me. I got a few hugs and rubs on the back.

“So, what do you think of it, magic. Kinda mind blowing, isn’t it?” Amy asked.

“I’m not sure. I haven’t really seen that much, so I don’t know what to think. I’m not even sure why I’m here.”

“True, you’ve only known magic EXISTS for about an hour, you couldn’t have been exposed to much.”

“no, not at all, except that wave thingy.. and I thought I saw something when my mother greeted Becky at the door.”

“Oh, those are nothing. Watch this,” Rebecca said as she looked up at the mantle above the fireplace. A stream of waves of what ever that stuff is swirled around and with a tiny flash a candle on the mantle was lit. Another flash and it was out again.

“Wow… how’d you do that?” I asked.

“Practice. LOTS of practice. But Mom will get into that latter. First days are never really that serious. A lot of getting to know each other sorts of things, especially for the parents.” Rebecca explained.

“So what do we do until they get done?” I asked

“Mostly just talk, for most of us this is the only chance we get to see each other.”

“Ya, Amy and I go to the same school, but we’re different years, so we don’t really talk” Julia said.

“I think I’ve seen you two around my school thought, don’t you both go to Goddard?” I asked. They certainly weren’t in my list of possible witches. They weren’t ugly, but not traditionally beautiful. And where over all… sorta normal.

“Ya, we’re kinda the exception. Everyone’s always telling us how lucky we are to know someone else in our school. The two of us hang out a lot, but our mund friends are there, so we can’t really let hair down like we can here. But ya, if you think you’d like to hange with us some time…”

“Sure I guess…” I wasn’t sure what to say. When two decently good looking girls ask me to spend time with them, I’d have cut off an arm to get that much attention. “What about the rest of you?”

“Lisa and Michele go to the nieghboring schools, but different crowds and grades and everything. Rebecca is home schooled. That’s why she’s so far ahead of everyone else.”

“I am NOT! I just practice more.”

Ya, but none of US have the TIME to practice more.” Lisa countered.

“So, what kinda stuff are you guys learning?” I tried to break up the conversation a little.

“Mostly a lot of control drills. Memorizing all the different forms.” Amy chimed in.

“Then memorizing lines and what each line does.”

“We’re starting to learn how to assemble strings into things that actually do stuff.” Rachel said proudly.

“So what kinda stuff can you do?” I asked. I’d been wondering that since I first found out magic was real.

“Anything within reason. I’m not sure exactly what the boundaries are, but there are stories of people… well, you’ve probably heard of Merlin, right? Well, he’s pretty much the Da Vinci of magic. There’s stuff in his books that people STILL can’t figure out how he did them.”

“You didn’t really answer my question.”

“I know, and we can’t.” “What kinda things are you expecting?”

“I don’t know, curses, turning me-people into toads.” I said nervously.

They all laughed. “Don’t worry, we like you.” “Ya as long as you don’t start hitting on us all during class.” They laughed again. And I decided that was a good idea.

“So, how does this class work?” I said covering my embarrassment.

“We just go around and practice things. She might do a little one on one while everyone else works on something else together, or might lecture a little, but it’s usually a group thing. Everyone helping each other out.”

“Sounds better than school” I said.

“It’s worse. Most of this stuff is pretty hard to draw out, and when it is it never makes any sense until after you have the thing sorted out.”

“Sounds like regular school to me?” I said and they all smiled and laughed a little.

“Oh, that reminds me! In chem class last week, we where going over…” that broke the group back up into general gossip. I sat there listening but not really taking any of it in.

****

A tap on the shoulder broke me away from my examination of the ceiling fan.

So, how are you liking your first day at Hogwarts?” I looked over and Stephanie had pulled up beside me without my noticing.

“What?” I said cleverly.

“You know, like those books, the ones that are so popular now… you ever read them?” she asked.

“Ya, actually I have,” I said shamefully, I didn’t think people my age read those books, they where kinda kiddy stuff.

“I never made it past the first book, I just couldn’t help laughing at what they thought magic was like. I guess I just started them too late, Amy over there is really into them, read them all. But she had started them before she found out about all this.” Amy had apparently heard her name and was wondering what was being said about her. She was giving us a look, Stephanie gave a smile back, then Amy gave us this big cheesy grin and waved at us.

“So, how long ago did you move here?” Stephanie asked turning back to me.

“At the beginning of the school year… how’d you know?” I wondered.

“Just a guess, first days are mostly introductions, getting to know each other. Checking out the new kid and all that. But even then, this is going on a little long. They must not have known your mother very well.”

“Ya, I guess, she’s been busy with work since we moved. Her company transferred her here. She really liked her work, and it almost caused some big problems with my dad’s job, but they figured something out. It was a really big opportunity for my mother and she just couldn’t let it by.

“Wow,”

“Ya, she’s really into her work.”

“No, I mean that she works at all. All of our mothers are more of the stay at home types. What about your father?”

“He’s a with a bio tech company. Or maybe it’s computers… I’m not really sure. But it’s something along those lines. He’s really smart.” I’d visited his company before, it always just looked like a normal office with cubicles and everything, and no way to tell what they actually did.

“Cool… You usually hang out with those card game playing geeks, right?”

“Ya…” I said suddenly realizing how stupid I was.

“Doesn’t it feel kinda silly now doesn’t it. I mean, with the name of the game and all.”

“Ya, but I guess a lot of things are going to feel silly now, like the laws of thermodynamics, the conservation of matter and energy…”

“Not really, it’s one of the basic tenants of magic, that it takes just as much energy to do something with magic as it does without. You try holding a 50 pound weight in the air and see how tired you get. Sure there are tricks to make things easier, but those are all just like tools, and tools make any job easier”

“Umm.. sure I guess” I said confused about everything again.

“Oh, don’t worry, we’ll be going over all this stuff. And it all makes sense, sorta, once you see it in action.” She finally instructed.

“What’s going on over here?” Elisabeth said as she sat down next to us.

“I was just telling him about all the guys you have slept with in the past month” Stephanie said mockingly.

“Don’t listen to her, she’s just jellous” Elisabeth instructed me, then the two of them rolled back in laughter. Once they where upright again, “So, how about you? You seeing anyone?” I couldn’t tell if she was hitting on me or just playing with me.

“No.. I was seeing Sheila, but…”

“Sheila? SHEILA Sheila?”

“Ya, you know her?” I asked

“Never heard of her.” Stephanie said.

“What she means is, we don’t like her and her friends.” Elisabeth explained.

“Well, we’re not going out anymore, so it doesn’t really matter.” I said, hoping they didn’t think less of me for having dated her.

“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Truthfully, I’m not really sure… I mean last night… with the… and the… I really don’t know…” I gave up.

****

A few more min of talking about school, teachers, fellow students and what they all were doing, and Becky walked back in, alone this time, we’d heard our parents all leave together just a minute ago.

“So, you girls done gossiping?” there was laughter at that. “Well, as you all know by now, we’ve got a new student, so, we’re going to be reviewing the basics today, you girls can all help me get him up to speed so he can understand what the rest of you girls are doing, even if he isn’t capable of it himself yet. Ok, so, first a demonstration. This… can you see this ok?” I nodded uncertain of exactly what I was seeing. “This is an element. The element Beith to be exact. These are strung together in different ways to form strings, strings aren’t always linier as the name might imply though. But they generally look something like this.” A bunch more of the little things appeared, and moved together, they kinda poped and they where one with the first one, the waves of each new one flowing amongst the rest. It looked infinitely complex, and I was unsure what was really going on. “Ok, now this is a string, they can do some simple things, but most of the real work is done when you put a bunch of these bad boys together, like so,” and elements swirled into strings and as soon as a string was done it joined up with the other, again and again this happened until I became lost in the complexity and the patterns in it. “ and here we… are!” and suddenly I could see it. I mean, it kinda collapsed into its self and became a visible thing. Where there hadn’t been anything, there was now a dove, it flew right out from thin air where the… the what ever was being formed. Every one clapped a little in cheer. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. “I took this one slow, so that you would understand things a little better, I know it seems like a lot, but it gets easier the more you practice it. For now, we’ll start you on notation. It’s really not any harder than reading English. She said pulling out a little chalk board from a shelf of books next to her. They looked like regular books, but after the magic I had just seen, I was seriously doubting it. I was doubting everything.

“Now, this,” she said drawing what I thought was a rune, on the chalkboard, “is an Beith, that same element I showed you earlier. Then there’s Luis, Fearn, Sail, and Nion. These are the first 5 elements you’ll learn” she said drawing the indicated ‘letters.’ “These are followed by one of five of these other characters, they indicate the direction that this element goes. I think you’re probably quite confused by now. So, we’ll demonstrate with a little game. I’ll write a string on the board, and we’ll go around the circle each person forming one element and placing it correctly. Any questions?”

“Umm… yes.. I.. umm.. how do you form an element?”

****

We went around the circle like that for half an hour or so. I started to recognize the elements. I also could see how the directional character worked, I was a little confused for a while until I realized that it was a relative direction not an absolute direction. Kinda like left and right instead of north and south. This also explained why there was only 5 directions and not six. You can’t go back to where you came from. I also figured out that many strings had the same endings. Kinda like suffixes or something. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain and whatever I try to liken it to is not going to be completely accurate. But language works fairly well. There really are a lot of similarities. You can even pronounce the strings, but it sounds really garbled and stupid.

I eventually got to try putting in my own elements. Becky would form an element and I’d match it and she’d correct me a little and I’d join it up to the others. I can’t really say how I did it. It was sorta like moving a limb that I hadn’t known was there. And like moving a limb that hadn’t been used before, I started getting sore. After only a half dozen elements I was really hurting. The girls went on without me for another couple strings then Becky decided we could move on to the next lesson.

“Ok, by now, you know that this is a string, made up of elements all facing in certain directions. The next step is taking those strings and forming them together into some thing that we can actually work with. That’s what these symbols tell us, they are shorter strings with special notation to tell us where to place the next string. If it just comes at the end though, they aren’t always said. This is where most of the problems come in and what takes the longest to get the hang of. Amy, do you think you’re ready for this yet?” she grimaced and shook her head a little. “Amy was the newest, she’s still not feeling up to joining in on this game.” She explained. “But the rest of you girls, I trust you’re all warmed up, so lets begin. we’ll start with…” she turned to the books behind her once again and looked for a book. She pulled out one of the ones I could have sworn was just a regular book, but when she opened it, it had string after string all across the pages. “ok, Julia, won’t you start us off…”

The game was similar to the last one, but this time instead of just pulling together elements, each girl was having to form whole lines her self. Becky was staying out of it and just turned the pages and filled in when one of the girls got stuck. Usually to an exasperated, ‘I KNEW that.’ Or the like. Things where going fast, and I could kinda get a feel for who was better at this. Rebecca for instance would form hers almost right where it needed to be, and quickly get it implemented into the.. thing they where forming. Lisa on the other hand would form her string and sorta nudge it around trying to figure out where it went and how to get it there. I even caught her doing a few hand gestures along with it. It looked kinda humorous. Like she was staring into nothingness and stirring an invisible tea cup.

But though I could see what they where doing, I could also see why Amy dropped out of it. They where forming more elements in each string than I had in the entire last game. I couldn’t imagine how painful it would be trying to form that much and that quickly, and moving those huge strings into place, the elements where tiring enough for me. All I could do is watch as they formed string after string. They went faster and faster, it seemed to form a rhythm that kept pulling me in. I could feel the movement and the energy. It was better than that Baptist church my mother had brought me to. I heard Amy start to kinda hum out the symbols on the page. I heard what she was doing and it made sense I guess, so I joined in. I was also trying to remember what all the symbols where and this seemed like good practice.

After a couple birds where formed and smashed into the window before disappearing back into nothingness, they stopped and rested. They where ALL looking tired, and even a little sweaty.

Then Becky spoke up. “I think that will be all for today. Next week, we’ll be going over the first set of practice strings. You and Amy should read up on those, not to mention memorizing all 15 elements. Everyone else, I know it’s review, but you where all a little slow today, you could use the practice.”

I still wasn’t sure what was going on. It was like gym class and English class rolled into one. And I even had home work. Wait, what are the practice strings? I wondered, so I asked.

“Ask your mother, she’ll show you what you need. The girls all stood up and gathered their stuff, the gossiping started again. We all wandered out to the front porch to wait to get picked up, apparently students driving themselves just wasn’t done.

I didn’t have much to say in the group. They didn’t talk about the class we just had. At least any of the specifics of it. And I still wasn’t sure enough of what I had seen to feel comfortable voicing an opinion. Regardless, it wasn’t long until my mother was there to pick me up.

****

“So, how was your first day?” my mother asked as we got into the car.

“Ok” the neurons that had been formed to respond to questions about school shot back automatically.

“You don’t mind being in a class of all girls do you? I asked about finding a class with other boys, but I they didn’t know of any within 200 miles of here. And I didn’t think you’d be happy driving that far every weekend to a class that MIGHT have one other boy in it.” I shook my head at her. “I thought not, so how where the girls, did they treat you ok?”

“I was a little nervous being around them at first. But now I can see they’re ok. Two of them even go to my school.”

“Wow, that’s really something. Only one of the girls in my classes when I was still taking them was ever in my class. She was 3 years younger than me, so we didn’t talk much.” She reminisced. “Other than the students, did you have fun with the classes? You getting settled into everything?”

“Ya, I guess. I still don’t know what any of this means. I mean. I was really confused this morning when you drove me there, but, now… I guess, I understand a bit of what I was seeing.”

“Do you have any questions for me? I might be able to help, I was in the same place you are once.” she asked me.

“Well… I guess…” I was unsure what to ask.

“Well, go ahead. You should know you can ask me anything. I can even help you out with anything that’s giving you trouble if you’d like. I’d love to be able to help you on your home work.” My mother was acting odd. I had never seen her like this before. She’d rarely ever even talked to me more than to ask me how school went and even then it was just a quick two line exchange between us. More a formality than anything.

“I guess the first thing I’m wondering is what do I tell my friends?”

“Nothing! You don’t tell them anything. First, it wouldn’t be very good for people to know about us, magic and everything. We’ve worked hard very hard to stay a secret, and I’m sure you can see a few of the many reasons why we’d go through all that trouble.” Ya, I could see that. It was fairly standard stuff in most fantasy worlds. “Second, who’d believe you.” Point there too. And ALSO a standard in fantasy. I was starting to think my life was turning into a fantasy novel. “and third, why would you need to? They wouldn’t understand what you where talking about. If you need proof, try explaining things to your father some time. He’ll just give you that look of his and go back to watching football.”

“Oh ya, how is dad doing? He knows about all this?”

“Yes, though that’s not standard practice, your father is a special case. I wouldn’t expect that any of your classmate’s fathers know.”

“Are guys really that rare, I mean, in the magic thing?”

“I won’t lie to you… Yes, they really are. There probably isn’t more than a handful of them in the world.”

“But, none of the girls seemed that surprised to see me.”

“And they probably won’t. They’ve heard the same things I told you this morning. Just that it’s not very common, They won’t realise HOW uncommon until they get older and go to their first conventions.”

“Conventions? There are conventions for this stuff?”

“Of course there are! We get together every year. There’s a national convention, and a world one.”

“I don’t remember you going to any conventions?”

“You wouldn’t… I haven’t been to any, after you where born and your father and I moved into our own place, we decided to leave all that behind. What with you being a boy and not likely to be gifted and all.”

“I thought you said dad wasn’t gifted?”

“He’s not, but he gave up his friends, and some other stuff. You might not believe it, but your father used to be pretty wild. It took a lot of work to make him into the mild mannered manager you see today.”

“You didn’t… you know… do anything, magic, did you?”

“NO! of course not. That would be horrible. I love your father.” But she gave a small smile. “besides, I have other ways to make him do what I want.” And I had a good idea of what they where, and they weren’t things I wanted to hear about.

I thought about things a little longer then remembered something. “Mom, they told me to ask you about my home work.”

“Yes, what did they tell you?”

“Something about the first set of practice strings.”

“Wow, so, did you learn all your elements?” she asked

I looked down. My mother had never taken an interest in my education before. She’d never needed to. But now I felt stupid, it was like telling your mother you didn’t know your multiplication tables. It was something I thought I’d have out grown, like wearing pajamas with feet on them.

“Well, don’t worry, we’ll take it slow. Hey, why don’t you show me some of what you know?”

“What? how, where, what?”

Just put it here, in the car, lets see… where to start, I guess, lets see the elements. Beith…”I formed it as best as I could remember. They where fairly easy shapes, and somehow the rune reminded me of the element. So if I could remember what the rune looked like, I could usually remember what the element was like.

My mother was actually ok about the whole thing too. She went through them one at a time, and if I got hung up, she’d show me, or give me a clue. She had a bunch of stupid little sayings to help me remember them. It was silly, but they actually worked. By the time we got home I thought I had at least half the elements down cold, and was fairly certain about the rest. The directional markers were easy with all her tips.

As we got out of the car she informed me that she had a surprise for me inside, so I followed her into the house and into the kitchen.

“Here!” she said with pride and handed me her old cook book. The big red one that she always pulled out around the holidays when she had to cook for relatives. You know the type, a binder with a book in it and lots of loose pages and stains, and notes and stuff?

“oh… umm… ok, I guess…” I didn’t know what was so special about a cook book.

“I’d hoped I’d be able to share this with a daughter some day… like… like my mother shared it with me.”

“You mean…, grandma was… gifted to?”

“Of course, and her mother too. Just like her mother before her.” Mom said matter of factly.

“So, what’s with the cook book?”

“It’s a family tradition. No one ever looks in cook books, especially not nosy little bothers. Oh my, and your uncle tom, I don’t know how many times I caught him reading my diary... but my cook book, he never touched it.” she pulled out a wrapped package, it even had a bow on it. “This is a big day… I don’t know if you realize how happy I am for you…” I thought I saw a tear forming in her eyes as she gave me a hug. When we broke the hug, pulled the bow and wrapping off… it was a cook book, the same kind as the one she had, just without all the extra additions.

I wasn’t quite sure how to respond, or what this meant. “umm.. thanks mom… but does this mean I’m going to have to learn to look too?”

She just gave me a warning look, like, ‘if you keep this up you will.’ “Here, look at this, what do you see?” she said pulling her cook book in front of me and opening it to one of her hand written recipes. But this page, of course, wasn’t a recipe. It was all in runes. The same things that they where working on in class a few min ago. I even thought I recognized some of the strings.

“OH wow! How… why didn’t I ever see this before?”

“Because I didn’t want you to see. And you didn’t know to look. And you didn’t know what to look for. Here, you can look through it if you want. Feel free to look but don’t try anything without asking me first. I know that doesn’t mean much now, but when you start getting used to all this, you’re going to want to try new things. Just ask me first and I’ll explain to you anything in that book.”

“Wow, really? Like… What’s this?” I said flipping through her book to a random page. “What about this one? What’s this one mean?”

“THAT one is your homework. The first set of strings you need to memorize. They don’t do anything alone, but once you know all of these, then I’ll show you some fun things to do with them. For now, I need to get dinner ready, and you can sit here, and copy them into your book.” She said opening my cookbook to a blank page in the back.

“Aww, mom!” I complained, but I had kinda expected it. There were a lot strings to copy. I didn’t understand any of them, but I copied them all into my cook book just the same.

****

Dinner that night was stressed. Something was bothering my dad, I’m not sure what, but he was clearly having problems. I finished my dinner quickly and quietly went back up to my room to work on my home work. Normal homework. I had a math assignment. Somehow it seemed queer to be working on trig after writing out runes and then being quizzed on them by my mother for almost an hour.

Everything had happened so fast. Just yesterday I was a normal high school student, going to school, and going on dates, and doing my homework like everyone else. Now, I’m… what? a witch? A wizard?

Whatever I am, I had a lot of homework to do.