Black Mist: Seedling

3. Mournful. Melancholy. Morose.

The past 48 hours had taken its toll on Rose. She was exhausted, uncomfortable, and battered. She had been so eager to get into a magic class, only to find that History of Magic was really just another history class all about memorizing dates. Even though her grandmother Betty had taught history, Rose had no appreciation for the subject herself. Maybe because Grandma Betty had called her a freak and tossed her aside when the magic started blooming. Or maybe it was just incredibly boring. Either way, she found herself somewhat disheartened at the start of that class. In fact, all of her classes were pretty lame so far.

Rose finished the first assignment--matching major historical figures to their correct civilization--in five minutes. While her classmates struggled over material she had learned in elementary school, she looked over her schedule, tucked into the brochure she had received at yesterday's dinner. She had this same teacher two more times today. Ugh. Triple boring.

And she was enrolled in two classes that terrified her just from the names: AP biology and algebra 2. Rose had never taken a first algebra, so she certainly didn't feel ready for a second. And AP, she knew, meant college-level. They clearly had not seen her transcripts. Rose doubted whether she would survive at Whitman.

The room had gone suddenly quiet. Rose looked up, alarmed. Mr. Bennett was staring at her like he was waiting for an answer. He was going to have to wait an awfully long time; Rose still had not been able to produce a word. Just like when her mom went crazy--the sheriff couldn't get a word out of Rose, and she spent almost a year in her grandparents house before she started talking again. It was like her throat was blocked by some unseen force.

"H-hm."

Rose tipped her head to the side to show she didn't know what the teacher wanted.

"Please come match Hippocrates to his correct civilization, Rose," Mr. Bennett said, clearly repeating himself.

A pit of nervousness settled in Rose's stomach. She stood tentatively and walked on shaky legs toward the front. Mr. Bennett handed her a slick blue whiteboard marker that smelled vaguely like gasoline. Rose stepped to the board and wrote out the simple answer, Greece. The other students began whispering and giggling, and Rose felt herself going red. She checked the question, her answer. It was correct. What had she done wrong?

Seeing her discomfort, Mr. Bennet reassured her, "You're correct, Rose. Here at Whitman, we use magic to write the answers on the board."

With two deep breaths, Rose wiped the board clean with one of the spells she learned from Marie, then made the marker rewrite the answer. The class fell silent. Now what? As she trudged back to her desk, head down, Rose heard a chorus of comments.

"She didn't speak."

So?

"How did she do that?"

"She didn't speak to do magic!"

"Freak."

Rose wished she could be invisible. She made a note to look for a way to do that tonight at the library. Mr. Bennett redirected the students to question six, and Rose glanced up gratefully, catching her teacher's smile and nod.

I'm one of those kids, she thought as she walked to her next class, who thinks that lunch is her favorite subject in school. Lord help me.

««•»»

Alastair stayed twenty paces ahead of the rest of his class--even Maggie, who wandered away with her phone in hand--on the way to Advanced Potions and Poultices, his fifth period class and first magic practicum of the day. He had spent three of the last four classes watching Sarah snuggle up to Mason, imagining just how close they may have gotten in private if they were this gropey in public. The thought of it sickened him, but he couldn't force his mind to go anywhere else. It was a rather inauspicious start to his school year. In fact, he couldn't really recall a single thing from a single class. But P-n-P was a subject he needed to do well in. He refocused his mind as he entered the class, setting his books in the front so he wouldn't have to see Sarah's rejection, just feel it.