Witchling Summoned

WITHCHERLY-CHALLENGED

It's not like I'm a fish out of water or anything, because I am a real witch. Well, witch in training, of course. Or, witchling, as we are called.

And even though I am sitting here in night school, retaking Potions & Lotions 201, it doesn't mean I'm a loser. It just means that I'm, well, witcherly-challenged. Or so I've been told by teachers and classmates alike:

Jade, you are flat-out potion-challenged.

Jade, that spoon hasn't moved one iota. Levitation is a challenge for you, is it not?

Jade, repeat that spell six more times please. By the bones, I swear you are spell-challenged.

And on it goes...

Jade McIntire twisted a cord of jet-black hair around a finger and tugged. She always did that particular thing-tug at her hair-to get her brain back on track when daydreaming. But could she help it? One look out the window at the almost-full moon hanging golden and round in the very dark sky, and one glance at the clock hands on the wall-which incidentally were about to point straight up midnight any second-and who could blame her?

I just talk to myself to figure out crap. And in her life, she'd had a lot of crap to figure out. What with her mother dying, and her grandmother disappearing, and her father never making an appearance-not even once-yes, a lot of crap to wade through.

Talking to herself was her gift, of sorts-if one could call it that. Potions and spells, not so much. She worked things out by talking aloud, and usually if she pondered things long enough the solution came to her. Those close to her were used to it. Mostly they just ignored her. Often she told strangers she was simply talking to the cat. Except sometimes, there wasn't a cat, which only complicated matters and made her look foolish.

However....

She wished she possessed gifts in other areas, like conjuring, or communicating with spirits, or simply doing plain magic. She was halfway decent at human anatomy, and she had a really solid handle on botany and plants, but creating chants and conjuring spells using anatomy and botany, or bloody horrors both!-well, she definitely fell short there.

She had so wanted to graduate and experience total and complete Witchdom. Seeing that she was adopted into the Clan, was even more reason to strive hard to reach the goal.

But that goal was unlikely to happen. She was on the verge of failure.

Here she was, retaking this test, because she had already flunked Potions & Lotions 201. Not once, but twice. She'd barely squeaked by P&L 101, so this was not unexpected. And witchlings who flunked out of a WWU class only had three chances to make it right.

This was her third chance.

And on All Hallows' Eve, of all days. Why am I here? I should be out doing witcherly things. Like I used to do with Gran...

Doomed. I'll never be a real witch. Let alone a High Witch.

She wasn't even sure if she wanted to be a High Witch. Of course, if she didn't pass this darn class with the exam she was about to take, her future days as an official, certified and credentialed witch, would definitely be over before they began. Witchling she would remain, now and forevermore. Sad. And unheard of in the Clan.

Leave it to her to be the first.

A horrid thought struck her. Would they even allow her to keep the title of witchling?

Would she have to-oh the universe forbid-leave the Clan? That frightened her more than she wanted to admit. The Clan had been her family, and the University her home, for over two years now.