Wiccan Wishes

Chapter One: Which Witch

“Miss Greene, can you explain mitosis to me please?”

It was a cloudy August day in Georgia, meaning both hot and humid.

“Miss Greene are you even paying attention?”

I was staring out the window considering whether I could get away with reading during my biology lesson or not when a book slammed onto my desk causing me to jump and look up at the balding man in front of me. The man's neck was red, his facial features tight, both indicating he was really put out with me, as my great aunt would say.

“What?”

“Explain mitosis.”

“Ah, um, mitosis is,” My brilliance shining through with each syllable I uttered, “ uh, the process where a cell divides, um, into two daughter cells; each has the same number of, er, chromosomes as the mother cell?”

“Very good Miss Greene but might I suggest, for the purpose of restricting our time together to a purely academic nature rather than disciplinary one, you PAY ATTENTION while I teach.”

I scoffed but forced myself to fake attention. The rest of biology dragged on with Mr. Lehman checking on me constantly to see if I was paying attention making reading an impossibility while he continued to bore us with the process of meiosis and the differences between it and mitosis. At the end of the lesson while the others were packing up preparing to head off to their next class and I was writing down our homework assignment (draw a concept sketch of both meiosis and mitosis, write a five hundred word response describing the differences as explained in class, and reading the next section in the book) Lehman approached me again.

“Miss Greene, I am terribly sorry you find my class to be lackluster, but I would ask that you commit to being present both physically and mentally as to prevent disruptions in the future.”

“Well, maybe if you weren’t such a-”

“Rose! There you are,” my sister panted, “Sorry, Mr. Lehman, but can I borrow my sister? I think she grabbed my Health homework instead of her own.”

Mr. Lehman eyed me with distaste but nodded at Alina’s request. I waited until his back was turned to flip him off.

“Rose, cut it out!” My twin hissed in a scandalized whisper, “What do you think you are doing, picking fights with teachers? You know how Rosemary hates it when you cause trouble.”

“Look, that guy had it coming he picked on me because he knew I wasn’t paying attention, and then harassed me about it for the rest of class.”

“Well, maybe you ought to pay attention if you don’t want to be harassed. This is my next class. I’ll see you at lunch alright?”

“Whatever,” I barked peevishly.

“And please try not to get into anymore fights with teachers or anyone else for that matter.”

“I don’t pick fights with others, I teach people not to mess with me,” I snapped.

“That’s the attitude I was looking for,” Alina replied dryly.

I headed towards my art class where we are supposed to be learning fauvism, but the art teacher, a grungy old hippy, had been absent leaving us with a substitute teacher who couldn’t even pronounce fauvism, let alone discuss it properly. I opened my bag looking for the book detailing the art of potion making that my great aunt had given me to read. It was like a tattered old recipe book, only rather than cookies and cupcakes, you made intoxicating love serums or deadly draughts that are easily disguised from human eyes. I promised my great aunt Rosemary I would have it finished before the next witching lesson which was every Wednesday; it was Monday and I was only half way through. I found the book at the bottom of my shabby messenger bag as I walked into the art room. I looked up to find a seat only to notice the new substitute, and he was not what I was expecting. He was young. He was gorgeous. He was a werewolf.