Black Girl Magic

Chapter 17

The next morning all thoughts of romance had left my head. Training had gotten a complete makeover, and none of the elders showed any mercy. I found myself wondering where my sweet grandma from that morning went.

When I first went to breakfast, she and Aunt Kia were gushing over me, asking me all the details of the date and what we did and talked about. Now I swear the devil himself was possessing my granny. She didn't yell, but the disdain in her voice when she spoke to you made you feel so bad that you considered killing yourself for being such a failure.

The morning was brutal, and all of us were tired. The meditating wasn't nearly as peaceful as we tried to protect and manifest our powers with our minds. Ms. Eleanora was in her full element, able to be her absolute bitchy self and insult us for all our worth whenever we made a mistake on our chants. "You guys are making it easy for Naamah with this weak-willed effort you are putting forward. You must want her to win." And Mr. Saint-Claire had her back every step of the way. "You guys are pathetic to think this is what we are hanging our future on. I can't believe it."

Armand and I kept glancing at each other but couldn't talk, which was probably for the best. I had a few words for him about his grandfather. But surprisingly, every insult seemed to spur us on further. Everyone had been told about what happened between Armand, me, and his evil ass mother. Everyone seemed to realize the real threat that she was. They were all scared, but at the same time, they wanted to fight. It was odd. We were finally beginning to work in sync, depending on each other, helping where another was weak and improving where one was strong. And despite the shit-talking from the elders, we could tell they were proud.

However, when the afternoon hit and my individual training came into play, I wasn't nearly as successful.

"Kaveri! You are not focusing. Stop being a lovestruck teenager and pay attention."

My grandmother yelled this at me after failing to pull on my powers for the fifth time. It would come out for a brief second, but then it was gone again in an instant. It was also exhausting. I was standing, panting, sweating, trying to find the same energy I had when I fought Naamah. But whatever was in me those two nights had disappeared.

Again and again, my grandmother tried to bring it out of me; the yelling, the insults, the threats, but nothing worked.

About an hour in, when grandma gave me a break, I was sitting in the kitchen when the others came in. Armand came straight to me and sat next to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and gently kissing the side of my head. Serena gave me the dirtiest look imaginable and sat as far away as possible from us.

Siena came and sat on my other side and whispered, "Ignore her. She'll get over it soon as she finds the next guy she can chase. She just jealous you stole the good-looking one from under her." Armand snorted and covered it with a cough, and I swear she knew it was about her because she gave him the same dirty look if looks could kill.

Sasha, ignoring her sister's attitude, said, "I feel for you, Kaveri, but if it helps, our grandma cusses us out regularly for the fuck of it. At least this is for a purpose."
Everyone laughed, and I said, "Yea, but I know why she's yelling. Lives are on the line, and the one thing I can do to help I can't even pull out of me." Aaron said, "That's because you've only had to do it when you were scared or angry. Those emotions aren't something just flipped with a switch when you are normally happy."

We all looked at him, and he froze, where he was about to take a huge bite out of an apple. He sighed, rolled his eyes, and said, "Think of it this way, it's like a light switch; just because it's not turned on, you still know the electricity is there, but you only turn on the light when you need it, right?" You have to start thinking of the energy behind the switch and how to make it flow. So, think of just the electricity itself. Think of it being entirely out, but suddenly you want to make it shine brighter and brighter. Stop limiting yourself to just the switch, be the electricity and control it that way; you can make it as strong or weak as you like."