The Magic at the End of the World (Do You Remember, Book 5)

Wednesday, January 31, 2001

Five days have passed since Christina's funeral. At this point, it seems like the rest of society has gone back to normal, as if Christina had never existed in the first place. I really shouldn’t be surprised by this, knowing that this normal society doesn’t care about disabled people at all, not if people like Lucas Harrison and JoLee Griffin existed. Those two had caused so much trouble that most people are beginning to reconsider helping the disabled people living in Charleston. (I will not mention Raymond Olsen, whose mother had died because of him, for that same reason.) So many people had died during this month, it’s a small wonder that President George W. Bush hasn’t declared a state of emergency for the state of South Carolina.

And that’s embarrassing. For the people of Charleston, that is.

Now, here’s what happened next:

At the monthly meeting, Joanna explained to us that now that we were in the tenth grade, many more things were expected from us. Such as, we would have to study magic before and after school and we would have to host our club meetings under her supervision. Plus, we would also have to do our special tasks, which includes helping other people who are often isolated from everyone else in the school or from society, which was one of the main reasons why Christina’s death happened. Plus, we all learned that people that tended to self-isolate or were peer-isolated often fell victim to drug use, bullies, and even sex crimes. (Which was what had happened to Jimmy.)

After that meeting was over, I said to Chelsea, "Has anyone from the Hispanic community been harrassing you lately?"

"I wouldn’t say no, and I can’t say yes," said Chelsea. "Declan's grandparents are accusing me of defamation, even if the evidence of Declan's crimes was on the table in front of them."

I nodded in agreement, knowing that Christina's family believed that the Caesar family had been hiding things that they didn't want anyone else to find out, such as the identity of Jacob's birth family. As such, I'm sure thst the Brewer family should be suing the Caesar family for Christina's death soon.

Yet I said to Chelsea, "The truth will come out. The world will know what kind of people that the Caesar family truly are, and they'll be humiliated. But anything that happens to them might come back to bite you in the butt."

"I'm not scared of them," said Chelsea. "You really think they're going to hurt me? I've already been outed as Anthony Roberts daughter, which already drew the ire of many people here, so how much more trouble am I going to get myself into?"

"I wouldn't be too confident if I were you," said Jacob. "The Caesar family is quite powerful, and they won't hesitate to destroy you for daring to speak about Declan being a criminal. Declan has always been the favorite grandson of Alberto and Carmen Hernandez; let me fix that. He's their only grandson, and they will crush you for saying that he's the bad guy."

"To be honest though, I could care less of what they can do to me," said Chelsea. "I've already had a bunch of Hispanic people call me bad names because I was a bastard, so whatever they say to me I can say back to them and repeat it in at least five different languages. I'll be fine."

"If you say so," said Jacob. I could tell that Jacob was worried about Chelsea, seeing as Chelsea appeared to be more White than Black. But Jacob had already dealt with how the Cesar family had rejected him shortly after his parents died.

Which was why Jacob had been kicked out of the family home and was homeless until Joanna rescued him.

Claire came to me and said, "I heard what Jacob told Chelsea, and to be honest, it disturbs me. It's like Jacob knows something about the Caesar family that you and I both don't, and we researched Declan Caesar when we were looking through those old school files last year."