Chapter Text
The Bambino’s Curse Prophecy
By NAL Burnham
Chapter 1 - The Day Before
Adam woke up early, before the sun rose and before his phone alarm went off. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and blearily reached across to pick up his phone. He checked the time with a groan and turned his alarm off and put it back onto his bedside table. Forcing himself out of bed, he stumbled out of his room and into the bathroom. Having turned the water in the shower on, to warm up, he took his long brown hair out of the scrunchy he used to sleep in, brushed it and got undressed. He was careful not to look in the mirror as he did so. He got into the shower to get clean, and to shave. Each pass of the razor was painful for him, even under the hot water, even with the shave oil he used. Feeling over his face, he was dismayed to still feel stubble there and reluctantly picked up the razor once more. He repeated this again until he was satisfied. Once finished, he got dried, dressed and put his hair back up using a hair tie. He moved, significantly more awake, back into his room to get changed into his school clothes. He chose a pair of blue jeans, a simple black t-shirt and a large gray hoodie. Once ready, he set off with his schoolbag down the creaking stairs for breakfast.
His mother Susan, was already at the stove making pancakes. She wore a pink and white checkered apron over her suit skirt and business shirt. Susan was petite, barely 5 feet tall with long brown hair similar to Adam’s. Adam definitely took after her, he was also quite short and very petite, not at all like his father who stood over six feet tall and was very broad shouldered. Adam’s father had lighter colored hair that was mostly disappearing. His father was sitting at the dining table with a cup of coffee and a scowl on his face as he read the morning paper. There was nothing unusual about that, he always seemed to be scowling at the paper in the mornings. Sometimes Adam wondered why he bothered to read it if it was always going to upset him. Then again, it was very easy for them to get upset at the newspaper. The news always seemed to be bad for people like them. Adam poured himself a glass of orange juice from the fridge before he sat down in his place opposite his dad.
Adam looked at the cover of his father’s newspaper, the Capalis Times, as he sipped his orange juice.
THE RED CLAW RESPONSIBLE FOR OKLAHOMA HOSPITAL ATTACK
He did not find that unsurprising. The lycanthrope terrorist group ‘The Red Claw’ had been stepping up their attacks across the United States in the past year, ever since President Briscola had been elected on a platform of “Make America Safe Again”. Eight years of peace, eight years of progress were flushed straight to the abyss. Bigots now felt emboldened to be publicly bigoted. They had a rallying point, a figurehead. Briscola’s rallies before he was elected saw the worst of humanity coming to see a man echo their hatred, stoke their fears. There was a photograph on the front page of the paper of body bags in the car park, with a very damaged hospital in the background. The subtitle read ‘106 dead, 210 injured in attack’. The violent retaliation against Briscola’s laws would do nothing but ramp up the oppression. Nobody knew if he actually believed the things he was saying, or the laws he was making. His public appearances made him seem barely functional. But he had found a supporter base and he was going to give his supporter base what they wanted in order to increase his popularity.
He read the article lower on the same page. President Briscola signs into effect Executive Order 13769. ‘Protecting the Nation from Foreign Magical Terrorist Entry into the United States’ . It prevented entry from any country that had positive internal relations with magicals, and there were a lot of them. No more visitors from Australia, any Scandinavian country, Japan, Canada. Canada was the worst one. Living in Capalis, Washington meant that the family used to often go into Vancouver for holidays and vice versa. Now Briscola had already begun construction on the ‘Wall’ to protect America from Canadian magical terrorists. It was ridiculous, everybody knew it wouldn’t work. But the more Capalis said his three-word-slogan, the more his supporters chanted it, the more any opposition to it would be shouted down. The most the general public saw was the surface, the chant and the three-word slogan. But it was the subtle message underneath that spread unchecked. That magicals were dangerous. That magicals were all terrorists.
Adam’s mother brought their plates of pancakes over to the table and gently admonished her husband to put down his paper.
“Adam, did you finish your assignment on the Salem Witch Trials?” she asked her son.
“Yeah mom,” he answered. “Approved answers and everything.”
This answer caused a deepened scowl to crease his father’s forehead, but his mother just smiled and nodded.
“Did you see that they’re blaming Hurricane Tabitha on a coven?” his father asked, before eating a portion of imitation syrup covered pancake.
This caused his mother’s expression to match his father’s.
“That’s ridiculous! Why, there hasn’t been a storm like that brought forth since… 1588!” she exclaimed, then pointed at Adam.
“Uh..” he paused, trying to recall the date. “The storm that sunk the Spanish Armada?”
“Good boy,” she congratulated him, before continuing. “And that took seven covens working together.”
“And look how England repays us now. It was all well and good to support us while the pope was persecuting us, but now the island is full of bigots.” his father ranted. “And we’re not much better! You’d almost think that the first amendment didn’t exist, you can’t even form a coven now days. But they were happy enough to have us help out in Vietnam.”
“...And that won’t be fixed while the Supreme Court refuses to accept us as people, and that won’t change while the religious right controls the government.” his mother continued calmly. Then she looked at her watch, “Oh shoot! I’m going to be late. If only I could ride my broom, I’d have more time. Traffic is going to be terrible.”
She hurried up to give Adam and his father a kiss on the foreheads before collecting her backpack, handbag and keys.
“At least you have a pro magic employer,” his father said. “Won’t be long until they pass some law to prevent us from working.”
Adam’s mother looked sad for a moment, before she plastered a fake smile on her face with a quick nod, “Love you both. Adam, make sure you do the breakfast dishes for me? I’ll see you later.” She said as she headed out the door.
Adam’s father scowled again, and spat, “Witches work.”
“I don’t mind dad,” Adam said, trying to placate him. “I quite enjoy doing them.”
“And we do need all the money we can get while we can get it,” he grumbled, more to himself than Adam. He slid his empty plate towards his son as he stood up. “Make sure to lock the door when you leave.”
“Yes dad,” Adam answered, picking up the plates and cutlery from the table.
His father Anton worked for a demolition company, the only work he could get without non magical qualifications. The Fairness in trade law prevented magicals from using magic to provide an advantage in work, either manufacture or service. Magic produced items couldn’t be sold publicly, although there was quite a black market trade in magic items. His mother, though, had a job as a lawyer. Granny Playfer seemed to know the way America was headed and made sure to send her daughter to a normal university to get a normal education, rather than the traditional witch’s schools.
Anton did not say goodbye as he left and Adam quickly got to work doing the dishes, drying them and putting them away. Soon he was shouldering his school bag and heading out the door, making sure to lock it on his way out. It was seven o’clock and school was a twenty minute walk away, so without any delays; he reassured himself, he should make it in time. Time to get past the usual picket line at least. Their signs were colorful and large. Most wore hoodies or sweaters to protect them against the cold, some of these had the websites ‘godhateswitches.com’ or ‘godhatesfaries.com’ written on the front. Some had American flags wrapped around their waists (upside down of course) but they were of a diverse age. There was no helping the children, indoctrinated into the cult of hatred at a young age and brought along by their parents. Teens (who should probably have been in school, although were likely homeschooled in this class of vitriol), women, men, old men and women were all present. There was one constant that often amused Adam: they were all white. He kept his head down as he walked and made it in good time to a place within sight of Henry McCleary High School. The Graceway Baptist Church were in their usual position on the footpath in front of the school. It wasn’t a real picket line of course, not like in the old days before unions were abolished. They weren’t allowed to impede traffic, but the police did absolutely nothing about them standing outside the school with their signs.
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
“God Hates Fairies.”
“Burn the Witches!”
“Muzzle the Beasts”
Adam snorted at the ‘God hates fairies’ one. It was hard to tell whether their god hated gay people or fae people. Well, their god apparently hated both of them, but which one was the sign referring to? It didn’t help that fae almost always tended to be bisexual, maybe the sign was just saving on ink? Adam couldn’t really understand it though. On one hand they proclaim that god hates… But then he heard that they also stated that their god was ‘all loving’. He’s obviously not all loving if he hates though, is he?
He tightened the straps on his bag and rounded his shoulders. Every high school aged magical in Capalis had to go to Henry McCleary High, they hadn’t been allowed to go to a normal high school since before Adam was born. He was just about to start his march into school when he was almost knocked to the ground.
“Oh, shit. Sorry,” came a deep voice from above him. It was one of the werewolf students. “I’m tired as all hell. Full moon last night, y’know?” The werewolf’s hair was messy and slightly long and he hadn’t shaved. He definitely looked tired though, the bags under his eyes were dark and he appeared to have dressed in the dark, with his t-shirt on inside out and back to front.
“Uh, no problem,” Adam replied, taking the offered hand to help him up.
“Jason,” the werewolf said and Adam replied with his own name.
“Wanna run the gauntlet together?” Jason asked.
Adam answered with a smile, “Sure.”
Together, eyes straight ahead and bodies stiff, they walked past the baptist protesters and through the steel school gates. An area off to one side held a faerie glade, where the fae folk could ‘pop’ out of the ways and into the school yard. Since the ley lines were severed by cold iron back in the forties, ley lines could only be used inside the state and never internationally. Adam had heard rumors that new lines had been created, lines that the government didn’t know about, but that seemed to be the extent, just rumors. The fae folk looked mostly like androgynous humans, tall and skinny with long straight hair. Their tell-tale feature were slightly pointed ears. Some of the older fae folk wore more traditional garb of silk shirts, slacks and dresses. The younger ones at school wore a diverse mixture from jeans and band shirts to goth or preppy to punk or letterman. They embraced the human sub-cultures in clothing, hilariously swapping around every single day. One day a fae might turn up to school in all black lace and silk, white face, black lipstick and (fake) silver jewelry; the next day they would attend dressed in a letterman jacket and jeans. Even more amusing was that those with good mimicry would swap accents as well: One day they would speak like a valley girl, the next like a Texan cowboy. While they respected gendered clothing expectations in school (they didn’t really care about the concept otherwise), their voices would change day after day. A valley girl accent matched with a cowboy outfit? Not out of the question for a fae.
As he proceeded inside the school, Jason said, “Seeya.”
Adam remained at the entrance, waiting for his best friend Ally Wildes. She was a witch, a descendant of one the witches executed at Salem just as Adam was also descended from the family of Bridget Bishop nee Magnus, the first witch executed. While Adam didn’t seem to fit in at all, for no reason he could figure, Ally also didn’t fit in and both were outcasts in the school. For her, the reason was all too clear. She was an out lesbian. You’d think with all of the persecution that magicals received at the hands of the normals, the magical community would be more accepting. No, they made that exception for the fae as it was entirely in their nature. Gay people though, while not as heavily as at the hands of the religious normals, were still persecuted by other witches and warlocks. They were accepted by the fae but among human magicals there was always the snide suggestion that they had fae blood or that they spent too much time around the fae. The magical community was extremely socially segregated. Witches and warlocks only hung around with other witches and warlocks, fae with fae and lycanthropes with other lycanthropes (although they often only hung around in their own ‘packs’ as well, separate but under the lycanthrope umbrella. Adam didn’t care about Ally being gay, they found solace in their shared isolation.
Adam flinched from what felt like a pinch on his backside and spun around. Nobody was behind him, but laughter from the tree on the other side of the front path from the glade alerted him to the situation.
“Gotcha again Adam!” called his friend. She was shorter than him and had curly brown hair and a thin face. Today she was dressed in black jeans and a red flannel over a black singlet, sleeves rolled up. Having turned sixteen earlier in the year and come into her witch's powers, she was able to perform some small bits of magic. Such as making him feel pinches on his backside.
Adam sighed, “You know your ancestor was executed for doing exactly that to some puritanical normals, right?”
“Really?” Ally grinned and added cheekily, “I’m such a shit witch, I should at least know about my family. But my mom stopped teaching me anything after I came out. What’s your excuse for being a shit warlock?”
Adam rolled his eyes, “I’ll be damned if I know. I still can’t feel the magic. Maybe my parents adopted me from normals?”
“We both know you wouldn’t be able to get past the wards into your house if that was the case,” Ally replied, the same reply she had for every time he answered that question that way.
“Yeah yeah,” dismissed Adam morosely as they walked inside to their lockers.
They were both midway through pulling their books out when Ally slapped Adam’s arm with a whispered, “Look.”
Adam twisted his head around to see Becca Good, the most popular girl in school walking down the hallway. To Adam’s mind she was the most gorgeous girl he had ever seen, everything he ever wanted. She had long blond hair and a perfectly proportioned face, she was slim and toned without a blemish on her skin. Her skin was tanned enough to look natural without being over the top and her makeup was always flawless. She was always wearing very fashionable clothes. She was also extremely smart, keeping a steady 4.0 grade point average.
She walked past them with a sort of smile that was somewhere between warm and cheerful and a smirk that displayed the surety that she was so much better than everybody else around her. The teachers all loved her and so did all of the student body. All the boys wanted her and almost all of the girls wanted to be her. Except Ally. She really wanted her.
Adam looked at his friend, following Becca’s backside with her wistful eyes. “You need to stop doing this to yourself. I’ve got more of a shot at getting into her pants than you do, and you know the chances of that.”
Ally groaned, a sound of intense frustration and eternal longing, “I know. Don’t you think I know that? But still. What I wouldn’t give to show her that I’m better than any of the guys around here.”
Adam didn’t even bother protesting. He knew how the guys at school behaved and he couldn’t stand it. Sometimes he felt that he was more like Ally than any of the other guys. Their misogynistic attitudes were disgusting and they jokes they told each other in the locker room? So amazingly degrading and ignorant that he often wondered how they got girlfriends with their attitudes.
“Come on,” Adam said with a sigh. “Time to get to home room, then I’ve only got to get through Sympathetic Magic, Alchemy and Xenobiology before lunch.”
Ally bumped into him with her shoulder and a cheeky grin and a laugh, “You could always join me in potions.”
I wish , Adam thought to himself as he waved and began walking. Potions was as likely to work for him as alchemy, but at least he would have a friend in the class.
Adam walked into his homeroom just as the bell rang. Miss Mycroft was already behind her desk, the middle-aged brown haired teacher of witch’s weather magic. She was a very no-nonsense sort of teacher, lately quite often grumpy. This was probably because she used to also be the witch’s flying instructor before the government banned the flying of brooms through the FAA and teaching flying for her was not just a job, it was a passion.
Adam sat down in his seat next to John Overtree, the Quinault werewolf, as he had been every day so far this year.
John greeted him with a relaxed, “Hey.” The same as he had every other day. It didn’t matter that the previous night was a full-moon, he always seemed to have the same amount of energy no matter the moon cycle, that is to say; enough to keep him going at his own pace.
He only shared one other class with John; Xenobiology, as most of his classes were warlock specific studies. They sat together in that class as well, but didn’t spend any time together outside of that. Adam thought him a very relaxed guy, never stressing about the current restrictions much. Miss Mycroft took roll and read out the announcements for the day, which Adam didn’t pay any attention to. He was too busy psyching himself up for his first class. One of his worst classes. Sympathetic magic.
Warlocks were able to perform what could loosely be described as Hermetic Magic. The three pillars of Hermetic Magic were alchemy, astrology and theurgy. Warlocks could apply their magic to other things, however, and the most important of those was sympathetic magic. Sympathetic magic was the art of using a warlock’s magic to form a link between one item and another, with more closely related items providing a better link. With enough magic however, a link could be formed between something as simple as a doll and a person. Especially if the person was nearby. The magic required to do serious harm to a person through a poppet though, was immense. Pin pricks could be done with a lot of effort, less effort if the warlock had some of the victim’s hair of course. Witches definitely had the advantage there though, they could cause pin pricks and pinches with little effort and without the use of a simulacrum.
Miss Mycroft dismissed the class at the bell and they all made their way to their respective rooms. His homeroom was the closest to Sympathetic Magic 201 and Adam was the first one in the door. He took his customary seat down the back. In Sympathetic Magic 101, the previous year, he sat at the front. For all of the good it did him. Everybody around him was learning the magic and he… just couldn’t. In his second year of high school, he chose to sit down in the back and hope that the teacher wouldn’t call him up. Thankfully Mr Davis must have spoken to his previous teacher, as Adam hadn’t been called to the front of the class to give a demonstration yet. The others filed into the classroom not long after he had sat down and it wasn’t long before Mr Davis entered. The classroom became instantly quiet as soon as he entered the room, he was well known to call up students who continued to talk to demonstrate some sympathetic principle or other. He was a middle-aged man, dark hair already gone to silver on the sides with the classic van-dyke style mustache that was so common amongst warlocks of a certain age.
He listened to the lecture on the law of contagion, dutifully wrote down how two items that had once been in contact with each other will retain that connection until broken. He watched the teacher’s demonstration, where he picked petals from a flower. He even tried to do it when presented with his own flower. But just like every other time, he could not feel the magic. He had heard the description of how to feel the magic a thousand times, from teachers, counselors and his own relatives. It was not there. Even the simplest exercises; picturing himself with an ‘aura’ of magic surrounding him did nothing. Reaching out to the aura did nothing. There was nothing there. Endless nights he had laid in bed trying to grasp the magic outside of him. Endless nights he had cried himself to sleep. But in class, he still tried.
“Adam,” Mr.Davis said as Adam passed his desk after the class had ended, trailing behind all of the other students towards the exit.
“Yes Sir?” Adam stopped.
“I know it’s hard for you boy, to be in this class and have such difficulty. But trust me when I tell you, you’re just a ‘late bloomer’. There have been other boys like you. One day soon it will just ‘click’ and you’ll have all of this advanced theoretical knowledge behind you to put into practice. It’s better to stay in this class than to re-do last year’s.” Mr.Davis said, with a look of sympathy.
Adam nodded morosely, something about what Mr.Davis had said rubbed him the wrong way and left him feeling even worse than he did before. He had already been told that he was a ‘late bloomer’ a hundred times. He continued walking towards his next class though, hurrying to ensure that he wasn’t late. Alchemy 201 was just as bad as Sympathetic Magic. He at least managed half marks in that class though, as half of the grade was based upon the process and the other half on the finished product.
He arrived just before the teacher, elderly Mr.Warrens, who was always notoriously late for his classes even though his office was just next door. His apprentice, the lab assistant, Andrew had already finished getting out all of the ingredients and set them on the benches in front of each seat. He found his place down the back of the classroom and pulled out his notebook, a pen and his textbook. Mr.Warrens began his lecture as he was walking in the door, without even looking at the class.
“Today, young warlocks, we will continue to work on the process for turning copper into tin! As you remember from last week, Azimuth’s solution did not produce the required results; but if you turn to page twenty eight of chapter ten, you will see the next step that was attempted with some quite interesting results.”
Adam turned to the required chapter and then to the required page and began reading in his head as the teacher read aloud. Once the teacher finished the first paragraph, he called on Adam to stand up and read. Mr.Warrens, like Mr.Davis not yet called on Adam to demonstrate the practical aspects of the class but without fail would call upon him to do some of the reading. Adam didn’t mind too much, it was a small price to pay to not be embarrassed in front of his peers. The class continued with the practical following the theory. Mr.Warrens was so impressed with Adam’s mixing of Hask’s solvent that he took the solution to the front of the class to demonstrate how to activate it. He may have thought that he was doing Adam a favor when he did this, but to Adam it felt like this was just highlighting his inadequacies for the rest of the class. Still, he received full marks for the procedural with an asterisk, denoting that he could not demonstrate the finished product due to the teacher using it in his demonstration. A pass overall, which was very rare in any of his warlock classes.
Adam’s next class was Xenobiology, a class he usually looked forward to. Much more than the warlock classes at least. It was one of the few mixed classes he had and included a mixture of witches, warlocks, lycanthropes and fae. He took his seat next to John, who greeted him with a ‘Hey.’ The Xenobiology teacher Mx.Vestrisson was the only dwarf John had ever met, although they had studied dwarf biology earlier in the year. It was during that portion of their lesson plan that they had learned why Mx.Vestrisson used the prefix Mx. Dwarves had no concept of gender, there were no ‘men’ dwarves or ‘women’ dwarves. There were just… dwarves. And not many of them at all. Not anymore. When the surface dwellers pushed the dragons back underground in the first world war, the dragons had invaded the dwarf cities. Many dwarves had been slaughtered by the dragons and the few remaining had fled up to the surface before the ways had been closed. Mx.Vestrisson always looked tired, always looked worn, despite being only two hundred and fifty years old (which as they found out, was actually just early adulthood for a dwarf). Mx.Vestrisson’s lesson focussed on witches and the many different hypotheses on why they come into their power on their sixteenth birthday when all other ‘races’ seemed to have no age based restrictions upon their magic. When it came down to it, Adam (and most of the other students) would have been content to just say “because magic” and move onto something more interesting, like dragons.
When the bell eventually rang for lunch, Adam was up out of his seat quicker than most in the classroom. He made his way quickly to the cafeteria where he skipped the lycanthrope and fae queues and lined up behind the three other witches and warlocks who had beat him there. Soon he collected his cardboard tray, with an unappetising selection of ‘mystery meat’ in ‘mystery sauce’, a bread roll filled with so much sugar that it was likely manufactured fifty years earlier, a carton of chocolate milk that had likely gone past its expiry and an apple with or without insect inside. The lycanthropes and fae didn’t have it much better, likely being served rancid or freezer burnt meat and wilted or rotting greens respectively.
He sat down at his usual seat and watched the cafeteria fill up while he waited for Ally. Everybody had their usual seats, all sitting apart from each other. The lycanthropes had the tables in the back corner, separated into the different sub-species. The fae had their tables in the front corner, giving Adam no indication how or if they separated themselves further. The witches and warlocks had the middle, mostly separated into witch tables and warlock tables, but a few of the more popular students sat together. As did the least popular for that matter. Adam and Ally broke the system just like the popular kids did, but not because of the confidence that they all seemed to have, or the innate sense of superiority. Quite the opposite actually, because they were each universally shunned.
Sometimes at night, when he wished to be lifted from his position as an outcast, he felt guilty. He knew that when his warlock powers came in, that his exile would end. He would be welcomed back into the population by the other warlocks. In fact, he would likely become one of the popular crowd owing to his lineage. But Ally was stuck where she was. It was too late to put herself back into the closet. She was forever marked. He felt ashamed for wanting that for himself, when he knew that to get it would be to leave Allison behind. He watched Becca Good stride into the cafeteria, taking a seat next to her boyfriend James Locke. One of Becca’s friends, or sycophants, collected her meal for her from the serving ladies. She picked at the food, just like the rest of the students, and that simple fact made Adam feel better. Because no matter how much more superior Becca thought herself and how perfect everybody else viewed her, she still had to eat the same crap as everyone else. James Locke caught Adam looking at his girlfriend and realizing that he likely had a smirk on his face, Adam looked straight back down at his own food before James could single him out. This was why, moments later, Allison Wyldes was able to approach their table with her tray without him noticing.
Ally sat down next to Adam, likely so that she could look at Becca while she ate.
“Do you think that they use our failed transformation projects to make this… Food ?” Ally asked, letting the slop drip from her spoon back into her tray. Some of the off-white sauce slopped out onto the table.
Ally pointed at the offending splotch, “See! It’s even trying to escape from my spoon.” She mock-whispered, “I think it’s still alive.”
Adam chuckled, “It doesn’t want to be eaten as much as we don’t want to eat it, I think.”
She brought the spoon to her mouth and tentatively touched her tongue to the sauce. She brought her tongue back into her mouth and sat with a thoughtful expression for a moment.
“It’s bland at least, if it tasted of something it would probably be worse.” she pondered.
Adam munched on his bread roll, he wasn’t as brave as his friend, not brave enough to try the unknown at least.
“How were your morning classes?” he asked.
Ally paused with the spoon half lifted, a smile lit up her face, “Awesome!” She replied, “I finally managed to summon some wind! Blew the teacher’s wig right off her head, it was hilarious!”
Adam looked at her in shock, “Miss Mycroft wears a wig?”
Ally laughed, “No, not Miss Mycroft today. We had that old crone as a sub, Mrs Borgus.”
Adam smiled, she had a reputation of walking down the hallways talking to herself about “witches today”, complaining about every failing that the younger generation seemed to have in her mind. She especially didn’t like Allison.
“Wait,” said Adam. “Miss Mycroft was in homeroom today, why didn’t you have her?”
Ally shrugged, “No idea. Would have preferred her, but I think Mrs Borgus’ comments that I’d ‘never get it’ were enough to push me over the edge.”
“Got anything on after school today?” Adam asked, hoping that she wouldn’t. They’d often walk together most of the way home after school when they were both free.
“Potions club today,” she said. “But nothing tomorrow, Coven History club has been canceled.”
Adam nodded and smiled, but internally sighed. He’d have to walk by himself.
“I think it’s chicken,” Allison said, chewing on a mouthful of mystery meat. “It tastes like chicken at least. It could be anything.”
“I don’t know how you can eat this shit,” Adam said, with a hint of incredulity.
“I like to sleep and I have a mother that won’t cook for me,” she said, almost spitting out the word mother. “I’ll eat whatever I can get.”
Adam put his arm around Ally and hugged her to him, “I’ll see if mom will cook extra tomorrow morning and bring some in for you. And if she won’t then I’ll make something after dad leaves for work.”
“Thanks Addi,” she said softly, leaning her forehead against his. “You’d make a perfect witch.” She stiffened under him when she realized what she had said.
Adam chuckled though, “It’s okay.” He reassured her, “I don’t take offense. I’d probably make a better witch than a warlock.” He self-depreciated.
“Oh Adam,” she tried to console him. “You’ll get there. It’s your sixteenth birthday tomorrow, remember? Witches get their power then, I doubt you’ll go much longer before you get the hang of yours.”
He smiled a wan smile, “Yeah. Not much longer, I’m sure.”
Someone bumped into his back just then, knocking his head into hers painfully. Laughter echoed around them.
They heard James Locke say, “Careful Harmony. If you get too close to the dyke witches table, you’ll catch the gay.”
Harmony Jacobs was a pretty red-haired witch and a friend (sycophant) of Becca’s, she must have been on her way back to their table after dumping all of their trays. The sycophants seemed to take it in turns to trash everybody’s trays each day. Becca and the popular warlocks never dumped the trays.
Harmony mock gasped, putting her hands to her cheeks and everything.
One of the popular warlocks said, “Don’t worry Harmony, I’ve got something here that’ll make sure you haven’t caught anything.” He grabbed hold of his crotch.
The warlocks at the table laughed and Harmony rushed over to the boy in put-upon thanks and relief.
Ally let out a disgusted sound, “When those bitches act like that, it just reinforces their prehistoric misogynistic bullshit.”
The end of lunch bell rang just then and the two friends got up to trash their trays. Adam had not touched his mystery dish, but had eaten most of the rest. Ally, he noted, had eaten all of hers, except for a small piece of rotten apple.
Adam dragged himself off to the rest of his classes, which did not go any better than the morning ones. Warlock classes all came down to one thing: being able to summon your warlock magic. Without that, there hardly seemed any point in going to school on these days. Tuesday and Thursday at least were ‘normals’ classes. Then he could earn passing marks; in Math and English, Geography and History, Art and Music. None of the classes that could lead to decent jobs in normal society though. Even if they could get into a normal college. Even if they were allowed to. There were no AP classes in a magical’s school.
After school, he didn’t wait around for Allison. He had to get home to start on dinner. As much as his father grumbled about it, his mother’s job meant that she would be home late and when it came to a decision about either late dinner or Adam doing ‘witches work’, it was an easy sacrifice for his father to make. It didn’t mean that he wouldn’t say something about it though. The picket line was still there when he left, but they always seemed a bit less aggressive after school than before school. It must be tiring to be so hateful all day.
He was halfway down an alleyway between two warehouses, a shortcut he often took on the way home from school (or too school when he was running late), when a tall figure stepped out in front of him. Adam stopped short and turned around to head back out when two others stepped out to block the other way.
“What do we have here boys?” Called the figure blocking his way home. Adam easily recognised the voice as belonging to James Locke. Likely the other two were his friends from the popular table. “Is it a civvy or a witch?”
Adam tensed. Neither were insults he hadn’t heard before. The suggestion that he was a ‘normal’, a ‘civvy’ always stung, but for some reason the suggestion that he was a witch never seemed to phase him. But the situation was new to him and he knew that he was in trouble. He turned back to face James, who was closer to him.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t know magic, so it could be a civvy.” came a voice from one of the two behind him.
“But it looks like a girl, so it could be a witch!” said another voice from behind.
James laughed. “Well, I guess it’s just a civvy girl then!”
James advanced on him and he backed away until he bumped into the two warlocks behind him, who took hold of his arms and wrenched them behind his back painfully to hold him there.
Adam struggled uselessly as James advanced right up to him. A punch to his stomach knocked the wind out of him and made him double over in pain. James took a hold of Adam’s hair and pulled his head back to force him to look at the bully.
“Don’t ever think that you are good enough to even look at my Becca,” he spat.
Then he punched Adam in the face. Adam’s head was knocked to the side and the two bully’s holding his arms let him go so that he collapsed onto the asphalt. They laughed and congratulated each other as they walked away, leaving Adam lying on the ground.
Adam waited for the pain to abate before he stood, unsteadily, and took his tentative and painful steps back towards home. He wiped the tears from his eyes on his way, which only caused a further flash of pain to shoot through his face.
When he got home, he refused to look at his face in a mirror, but instead put his bag away and started working on dinner. His mother had left out the recipe for meatloaf on the bench in the usual spot. He pulled the ingredients out of the fridge and pantry and got to work. Dinner was going into the oven when his father got home.
He took one look at Adam, in the kitchen with his mother’s apron on and spat out, “Witches work.” Before he stomped up stairs to have a shower before dinner. While his father had a shower, Adam went upstairs to do his homework.
An hour later, with breaks taken to baste the meatloaf and turn the vegetables while his father watched television and drank beer, his mother got home.
She popped her head into Adam’s room on the way to getting changed.
“Ten minutes, mom.” he said, without looking up from his English assignment.
“Thank you my darling,” she replied. “You’re the best.”
Adam looked up at her to smile, but this caused her to gasp in alarm.
“What happened to you?” she asked, coming closer to him and tentatively touching his face. An action that caused him to wince in pain.
“Who did this to you?” she demanded.
“Just one of the warlocks at school mom,” he said, shying away. “I made the mistake of looking at Becca Good at lunch.”
“Oh honey,” she said as she gave him a hug. “I’ll mix up a salve after dinner.”
“Thanks mom,” Adam replied, returning her hug. “I’ll get dinner out while you get changed.”
“Thank you, my darling.” she answered.
“Oh, mom?” he asked, before he forgot. “Could you make extra breakfast tomorrow, for me to take to school for Ally?”
“Her mom’s still not..” she began to ask, but didn’t finish as he shook his head to answer her. “Of course, my darling. I’ll make extra.”
“Thanks mom,” Adam said, as she left to get changed.
He finished up the sentence he was writing and headed downstairs to set the table and pull dinner out. Once that was done, and his mom had come down to bring the plates to the table, his father got up from the armchair and joined them.
“What happened to you, boy? Got into a scrap?” he asked after his first few mouthfuls, finally noticing Adam’s injuries.
“Something like that,” Adam replied, hesitant to tell the truth.
His father nodded and said nothing else about the injuries. He did seem pleased though. Adam was half surprised that he didn’t add “Hope you did worse to them.” But his father likely already knew the answer to that.
They were almost finished dinner when his father asked, “How are your warlock classes coming along?”
Adam sighed, “Still nothing dad.”
Anton grunted in reply, “I’ll take you out back and help you practice then. After dinner.”
“Sure dad,” Adam replied resignedly.
“I’ll do the dishes and prepare that salve while you boys do that then,” his mother said, mostly to Adam.
Dinner was soon over and Adam reluctantly followed his father out into the small backyard, his father sat down on one of the outside chairs and gestured for his son to stand in front of him as he cracked another beer. It was a ritual that they had performed almost weekly for the past year. For the next hour Adam tried unsuccessfully to reach the power outside of him as his father repeated instructions heard hundreds of times before. The same instructions that Adam could have repeated back word for word, and added to if he included the instructions from his teachers. Methods had changed since his father had learned, after all.
Once his father had gotten of the instruction (once he had finished his beer, and the spare he had brought out), he released Adam from the torture and they both went back inside. His mom called him to sit down at the dining table so that she could spread the bright purple salve she had mixed up knot his face. It was cold and stung a little bit, but he knew from experience that there would be little evidence of any injury the next day. At least it smelled nice, a mixture of lavender and honey, he thought.
Once she had applied it she asked, “Is Miss Mycroft your homeroom teacher?”
“Yes, why?” Adam asked.
She looked concerned and that made Adam worry.
“Don’t tell anyone, except maybe Ally. She can keep her mouth shut.” His mom began. “I’m representing Miss Mycroft, she was arrested today on charges of Sedition and Intention to use magic to cause harm.”
“What?” Adam exclaimed, shocked and surprised. “Why?”
“I don’t know what the D.A has yet,” his mom answered. “She doesn’t even know why she’s been arrested, she can’t think of a single thing she might have done to make them target her. I’ll likely find out in the next few days.”
This revelation set his mind going, it wasn’t unusual for magicals to disappear for a while; arrested on charges like that and most were convicted in closed courts. His mother would likely be issued with a magical terrorism related suppression order once it reached the court and wouldn’t then be able to say anything about it.
He went to bed that night thinking and worrying about Miss Mycroft, rather than his own lack of magic for a change. It still took him a while to go to sleep.