Spellcaster (30 page)

The blackboard shook against the wall, and then gray dust—a mix of pulverized blackboard and chalk—
poofed
out of the fissure, like the exhaust on a train. As easily as if someone were tearing a piece of loose leaf in half, the blackboard ripped in two—without the ripping noise. Without
any
noise. It was eerily quiet—because I’d deemed it so. I broke out into a cold sweat, my long hair plastered to the back of my neck.
What the hell did you do?

I got my answer. With a final cloud of dust, the trembling blackboard plummeted onto the floor, shattering into pieces that scattered loudly across the hardwood surface, the jagged slate cutting deep gashes in the thick, shiny lacquer.
That
made noise—a loud crashing commotion that jolted the classroom out of their collective stupor. A few students yelped in shock at the commotion. Some guys cheered. Mr. Agneta jumped up on his desk chair, crouching like someone who’d just seen a mouse.

And I just stared ahead, at the disastrous, destructive result of the second spell I’d pulled off that day. A spell I deliberately cast because I wanted to teach Mr. Agneta a lesson.

Barely two hours into your day and you’re already crossing the line Randi warned you about. Get it in check, Connor.

I gaped at the front of the classroom in awe, my hands gripping the black, navy and green plaid of my skirt. The wall was pockmarked with embedded struts, which hung limply from the crumbling plaster behind the blackboard. I remembered how Brendan had managed to jerry-rig a fix for the broken library chair with some Scotch tape.
We’re going to need a bigger roll of tape.
Mr. Agneta gawked at the destroyed pile of slate before turning to the class, red-faced.

“I barely— I didn’t even— I hardly touched it!” he stammered, and I heard a few students snort. Mr. Agneta narrowed his little lizard eyes as he scanned the classroom, looking for the culprit and finding Paul Cuevas hiding a smile—badly—behind his math textbook.

“You.” Mr. Agneta pointed at Paul, whose shoulders shook as he fully buried his head in his math textbook, roaring with laughter.

“Stop laughing,” he ordered petulantly, stamping his feet on the floor like a toddler having a tantrum. “Go down to Principal Casey and tell her what’s happened. The rest of you put your books away.” He held up a stack of photocopied papers and smirked. “Pop quiz time.”

Jenn chattered excitedly on the way to English class about the pulverized blackboard, wondering aloud if some of the more litigious parents would try to sue Vince A over possibly hazardous school conditions.

“I mean, what if someone were standing there writing on the board—”

“Mr. Agneta was,” I reminded her, guilt churning in my stomach. I didn’t particularly like my teacher—he started picking on me as soon as it became clear I was going to ace his class—but what if the board had broken more quickly, and fallen
on
him? What if I had accidentally broken
him
in half? I’d crossed a line, all because I felt like teaching him a lesson.

“A student, I mean,” Jenn prattled on as we arrived at English. Brendan strode into class a few minutes after I had settled in my chair—on time for once in his high school career. As soon as he sat down in his desk, he turned around to face me, an amused look on his face.

“Is it true Agneta broke the chalkboard?” Brendan asked, the very picture of schadenfreude as he folded his arms on the back of his desk chair, smirking.

“That’s the public story,” I replied quietly, resting forward on my forearms.

Brendan raised one arched black eyebrow and leaned closer to me.

“What do you mean, public story?”

I pulled Brendan closer, and whispered in his ear, “I only meant to break the compass so he’d stop screeching the chalk on the board, but this whole witchy power boost thing is a lot stronger than I thought.”

I sat back in my chair with a guilty look on my face—a look that turned to surprise when I saw Brendan was biting his lower lip, trying to fight back his amusement.

He lost the fight—Brendan buried his face in his folded arms, the messy top of his head shaking as he roared with laughter.

“Wait, wait,” he said after a moment, lifting his head to look at me. “How did you do this without anyone noticing?”

“I just whispered a quick spell,” I hissed under my breath. “That’s it!”

“That’s all it took?” he asked, impressed. “That’s awesome.”

“Awesome for everyone else, maybe. Me, not so much,” I corrected him, keeping my voice low as Kristin slid into her seat in the next row, sneering at me with her usual Orange Face of Death. I rolled my eyes and turned back to Brendan. “That spell went horribly wrong.”

“I get that you’re a little unnerved because it was more powerful than you expected, but I gotta be honest—I’m relieved that you took out the blackboard in Agneta’s class,” Brendan murmured before reaching to brush my bangs off my face. “It makes me feel a lot better about tonight.”

“That’s a good way to look at it,” I admitted. “Still, I’m a little freaked out.”

“
You’re
freaked out? I’m the one who has to make sure I don’t piss you off in the next twenty-four hours,” Brendan said in mock-seriousness. I kicked the back of his desk with my shoe, causing it to skid forward a bit.

“Be careful, you might send me flying into the front of the room and I’ll end up taking out another blackboard,” Brendan warned, scrunching up his face and wagging a finger at me before turning around in his desk. Mr. Emerson had just walked into the classroom a bit late—and clearly, word of the math class debacle had reached him. He gingerly tiptoed in, making a wide arc around the blackboard, staring at it like it might turn into a bear and take a bite out of him. Although, with me sitting in the classroom, that wasn’t entirely out of the question. Mr. Emerson stared at the board, sizing it up the way a boxer would an opponent, before quickly stepping before it and grabbing the wooden shelf where the eraser and bits of chalk sat. He jerked his hand back and forth as if he were trying to shake it loose—but it didn’t budge. Finally his shoulders relaxed, seemingly satisfied that the blackboard wasn’t going to come crashing down the way it had in math class.

“Now that we’ve assessed the structural stability of the classroom, let’s dive into the stability of your grade-point averages. I’ve got your Dante essays for you,” Mr. Emerson said, taking a stack of papers from his briefcase and handing them out.

“Good work, Miss Connor,” he said, giving me my paper with a big red A circled on it. Mr. Emerson paused in front of Brendan’s desk, lightly whacking him on the head with a rolled-up paper.

“Salinger.” Mr. Emerson addressed Brendan coldly before smiling begrudgingly. “Not quite the life-changing work of art you promised me, but close,” he said, dropping the essay on Brendan’s desk. It uncoiled, showing a big A-minus written in red. The rest of the class passed uneventfully—but then again, I didn’t raise my hand or even attempt to speak. I liked Mr. Emerson—the last thing I wanted was to inadvertently cause this chalkboard to crumble or turn him into a dinosaur.

“Hey, Emma,” Cisco called, leaning over his desk to talk to me when class was over. “Can I grab your math homework? I didn’t do it and I bet Agneta’s going to collect it today since he broke the blackboard.”

“Sure thing,” I said, digging in my bag to pull out my math notebook. “He gave us a pop quiz, so get ready for that,” I added, handing him my notebook.

“I’ll put it back in your locker after school,” Cisco promised. “You guys coming to the caf?”

“I have some chemistry stuff to work on with Angelique,” I lied glibly. Cisco pursed his lips thoughtfully, tilting his head as he studied me.

“What could you possibly have to work on? We’re finished with the last lab—we just had some reading last night.”

“Yeah, I mean, I didn’t do the reading,” I stammered.

“We went to a late movie at the Angelika,” Brendan said smoothly. He was getting a lot better at this lying thing, but Cisco wasn’t buying it. His cocoa-colored eyes were filled with distrust, darting back and forth between me and Brendan.

“Okay, what’s going on with you guys?”

“Nothing.” I shrugged nonchalantly.

“I just— Something’s up,” he said, and Brendan and I feigned innocence.

“Why would you say that?” I asked, smiling beatifically as Brendan fidgeted uncomfortably, his stamina for lying exhausted.

Cisco bit the inside of his cheek as he studied us, then let out a resigned sigh. “No reason,” he said brusquely, stuffing my notebook into his messenger bag before standing up. “Thanks for the homework, Em.”

Brendan and I followed Cisco out of the classroom. When we hit the cafeteria, Brendan tucked his fingers under my chin, tilting my head up for a brief, but sweet kiss.

“See you after practice?”

I nodded, and he gently squeezed my chin. “Okay. We’ll take it from there,” he said softly, kissing me gently on the forehead. I shut my eyes as his lips touched me, burning their imprint into my skin. I fought the urge to grab him, to bury my face in his neck and breathe him in. I wanted to confess everything and let him come with me tonight. It would be
so
easy to let Brendan take care of Megan, to step back so he could play the hero role that came so naturally to him. I wanted to wrap my arms around him, to feel every inch of him—but that felt too much like saying goodbye. And that would let him know that I was lying to him—that wherever Megan wanted me to go, I was going to go alone, no matter what I’d promised. So instead, I just nodded and gave him a bright smile, trying to ignore Cisco’s suspicious looks.

But when I was on the staircase, headed down to the basement lab—I stopped short, gripping the banister. For better or for worse, the next time I saw Brendan, this would be over. I was suddenly so grateful for our impromptu—but oh-so-passionate—embrace before class.
What if that was our last kiss?
What if that’s the last time you’ll ever see him—and you lied to him? Oh, shut up, Emma, stop being so melodramatic. You’ll kiss him again. You’re not going to die tonight. Just possibly get seriously injured. What if that’s the last time you’ll ever see him with your face looking the way it does?

My morose thoughts tumbled through my brain like a drunken gymnast. I glumly slid into my seat next to Angelique in the empty lab, and she eyed me curiously.

“This might seem like a stupid question, what with everything that’s going on, but what’s bothering you? Specifically, right now I mean?” she asked, frowning a bit as she studied me.

“I just said goodbye to Brendan,” I admitted glumly, picking at a gouge in the black top of the lab table. I looked up, and Angelique’s eyes were wide.

“Goodbye? As in, forever?” she asked, and I shook my head vehemently.

“No, not like that,” I corrected her quickly. “For the day—remember, I’m lying to him? Telling him he’s coming tonight?”

“Right. Good.” Angelique smiled in relief, and I was a little taken aback. Our entire friendship, she’d regarded Brendan as a splinter under her skin—something annoying to be picked at, studied and eventually discarded. Their newfound alliance—however tenuous it was—would take some getting used to.

“I hope he forgives me,” I whispered, mulling over my deception. Angelique just barked out a short laugh.

“What?” I asked innocently.

“That boy would forgive you if you accidentally stabbed him with a samurai sword.”

“Key word is
accidentally.
This time, I’m deliberately deceiving him,” I argued.

“Okay, you have a point,” Angelique admitted. “Still, it’s better this way, you know,” she added wisely, and I sighed.

“Seriously, Emma. Brendan has a white-knight syndrome about you, and you know it,” she said. I was surprised that, alliance or not, her eyes didn’t roll from the sheer pressure of discussing Brendan without sarcasm. “He’d get himself killed—and Megan’s just psycho enough to exploit that. I’m sure she thinks he’s coming.”

“You’re probably right,” I agreed, taking my lunch out of my bag. I’d taken a cue from my friend and packed a lunch—but Angelique turned up her nose at my apple and bagel, slathered with crunchy peanut butter.

“Seriously, Emma? I’m amazed you don’t have a juice box.” Angelique insulted my lunch as she pulled out a Tupperware container containing some kind of fancy marinated grilled chicken. “All you eat are Pop-Tarts, sandwiches and pizza. I know seven-year-old boys with more advanced culinary palettes.”

“You know seven-year-old boys? Pervert.” I raised an eyebrow as I took a big bite of my bagel.
My delicious, crunchy, totally awesome bagel, thankyouverymuch.

“You know what I mean,” she said, rolling her eyes. But when I told her about the two spells I’d pulled off that morning, I expected Angelique’s eyes to jump out of her face and bitchslap me across the cheek.

“Emma, are you crazy? What did Randi warn you about?” she huffed in frustration, running her hands through her streaked black hair.

“I couldn’t help it!” I said defensively. “The first spell was an accident, anyway, so technically it doesn’t count. Besides, now I know to be careful.”