The Last Apothecary

Chapter 6.

The door shut behind me with a click, and turning my head, I found my whole family gathered in the living room, watching my every move. I knew that asking to stay after school was weird for me, not to mention actually having hope of finding my specialty at sixteen, but it was still a little creepy. I wished somebody would just open their mouth and break the awkward tension going on. It was driving me crazy.

"So...." my mom began hesitantly. "How did the meeting go?"

I took a deep breath. This was either going to go really well, or really badly. "Well," I started, taking a few steps toward the couch. "He-"

"Wait! Wait! Wait!" My mom ran towards me, holding up her hands in warning. With a tilt to her head and a wide, expecting look in her eyes, she pointed down to my feet, still wearing my favorite black and white shoes. It was a you-know-the-rules look.

Oh right.

I backed up to the door again, kicking them off and making my way to the couch a second time, sitting closer to my dad than my mom. "Like I was saying, he did it. He figured out my specialty." I said it nonchalantly with a shrug. Maybe making it not sound like a big deal would make them take it differently.

"THEY DID WHAT?" My dad thundered on my left, and I felt a breath escape from me. So much for that plan. "Tell me, what magik did they work on you? Some kind of read your soul spell?" he joked.

"Oh stop it," my mom interrupted. "They most likely had him do some test, and something finally clicked for once."

Her words stung, but I did owe them some kind of answer. "Actually," I butted in, "It was like reading my soul, I guess." I stopped as I saw the weird, disbelieving looks on my family's faces. My sister was only barely beginning to understand the limits of magik, and even she knew something sounded off. "My teacher, Mr. Dekoran, his specialty is really strange. He can take magik out of things, or people, and absorb it himself, or put it in other things. So when he had me stay after, he sort of... pulled my magik out of my body, and compared it with a bunch of different types, and found a match."

"Huh. That's different. So... what is your specialty?" My dad asked, raising a thick eyebrow.

I had had the entire ride home to think of how to explain it, but even so... how do you explain that you have an ancient, never-researched before magik, but you were only going to use it for extra credit? Actually, now that I thought about it, maybe it was better to leave the last part out. "Basically... there used to be these Witches way back in the day that could make potions. Potions that could make people stronger, or heal them, or... anything, I guess. They were called Apothecaries, but they must not have been very common, because eventually that trait went extinct. Or mostly extinct anyways, because when Mr. Dekoran was looking at my magik earlier today, he told me that I'm the last Apothecary, and now he wants to see what kinda stuff I'm able to do, and have me start staying after school. So I'm not a totally useless Witch, but I don't have anything super exciting to help modern society. That's all." I looked around at my parent's stunned faces. I bet they were just expecting me to say that there'd been no luck, once again, after I'd sent that text that I was staying after. With the implication that I'd have to be a 'real Witch' now, I wish I could have delivered.

"That's all?" My mom questioned, seemingly half in shock. "Honey, this is great!" And just like that I was swept up into a hug. "Oh we need to thank this teacher of yours. Finally, you know just what you're good at, and oh, just imagine the kinds of scholarships you could get with that. This is wonderful!"

"You really think they'd give me scholarships for that alone?" I tried to get out with my face being squished in the hug. If that's true, then maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Last time I had looked at the class requirements for archeologists, they were way too expensive for me to expect to pay off in a few years. Not to mention all the interning, on the job training, and actually being hired. I didn't want a magik-based career,